In the skies above Armageddon, the Black Templars prepare for war, and the Ancients are awakened. Brother Adelard, interred in the Dreadnought Invictus Potens is given the honour of spearheading an assault on an ork-held facility. As he leads his brothers to war, Adelard faces the prospect of a second death in service to the God-Emperor.
When the vessel once known as the pilgrim ship Veritas Diras emerges from the warp after three centuries lost, it falls to Black Templars Castellan Adelard and his sword brothers to board the hulk and discover the fate of its crew and passengers. What they find goes against all that they hold dear and they vow to cleanse the vessel of its monstrous taint and return it to the Emperor’s light – or die in the process.
Sword Brother Brusc of the Black Templars clashes with his superiors and his warriors when he defies orders to abandon an Adepta Sororitas field hospital on Armageddon and instead devotes his forces to defending the sisters and patients who reside there against the depredations of the savage orks.
Fresh from The Ghouls Stars Crusade, High Marshal Helbrecht gathers together as many of his Black Templars as he can and sets out to Armageddon, where Ghazghkhull’s second invasion is underway. Given overall command of the void warfare around the beleaguered world, Helbrecht prepares to bring the battle to the greenskins as they arrive in the Armageddon system.
On the war-torn world of Armageddon, the Season of Fire is abating and the Season of Shadows beginning, and Marshal Brusc of the Black Templars faces a long journey across the ash wastes. But the enemy awaits even in the great and deadly expanse between hives and soon the Black Templars and their human charges find themselves assailed by ork ‘speed freaks’. A deadly chase begins…
Newly raised to the rank of High Marshal of the Black Templars, lord of the Eternal Crusade, Helbrecht has led his brethren into the Ghoul Stars, to wage war on worlds where reality itself is in question and the laws of physics do not apply. As they prepare for a final assault on an alien stronghold, Helbrecht lectures his warriors on the rewards that await them, the glory of battle and eternity at the Emperor’s right hand.