Storm Heralds Reading list:

Book1 Maledicti Venator, Serrati Stellas, Tenebris Resurget, Finis Fide, In Tergum Cultro, Omni Honore, Carpe Posterum, Vacuus Cymba, Noctem Oritur.

Book2 Umbram Ignis, Ancra Mortis, Fame Cimex, Crux Lapis, Saeva Abyssi.

Book3 Captum Ante, Venenum Filios.

Locum Ignotum Chapter 1

999.M41

The bridge rang with the screams of mortal men, the cries and prayers of the fearful and desperate. Everywhere souls cried out in terror, pleading for salvation, for divine intervention but there was no response. Panic and terror swept through all, taking the hearts of men and making them its own.

The source of this calamity was the ship itself, for it was screaming. Bulkheads shrieked as they were bent to the limits of tolerances and servitors chattered in a dull, repetitive litany of woe. The deck heaved with repeated constant motion, rocking it back and forth like it was in a fierce storm. Stone gargoyles fell from the high rafters above; shattering on the deck and making men cower in fear. Across the long naves of the bridge warning claxons rang over and over, pronouncing an imminent Warp breach and calling upon all men to commend their souls to the Emperor. Here and there consoles blew out as feedback overloaded them. Fires arose among the stacked pews, catching on blue tunics and setting men alight as living, screaming candles. This was the Thunderchild, a warship the Storm Herald's Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. This was a proud chariot of war, a valiant and brave ship once held to be lucky by its crew and this was the sound it made as it died.

Yet among that teeming throng of bewildered men stood a pillar of certitude, a lighthouse in a sea of desperation. Clad in blue ceramite and towering over the mortal serfs who were supposed to be managing the Enginarium station. His name was Bylan, the standard bearer of the Third Company, and he was frantically trying to restore some order to the panicked masses. Bylan saw the men running about mindlessly as the ship bucked hard in the Warp's tides and he shouted, "+Stay at your posts!+" His voice was a harsh augmetic rasp, the result of terrible injuries he had sustained as a scout-novice. It was a grinding snarl of mechanical tones but it had no effect on the panicked men.

They sobbed and tried to run, terror of the Warp's embrace rendering them useless. Bylan knew he had to intervene and grabbed a man by the tunic growling, "+Cease your prattling, get back to your post+"

"We're going to die," the man wept, "The Warp will eat our souls!"

Bylan was normally a humble and positive soul but he hadn't made it be a Space Marine without steel and fire too. He leaned in and snarled, "+You shouldn't be afraid of what outside the ship, be afraid of what's in here already+"

The man gulped and nodded and sat back down at his console, trying to restore some semblance of order. Bylan saw the rest of the serfs were on the edge of panic and called, "+Be steadfast men of the Imperium, we are not dead yet. Look to the Captain, he still holds true, trust in him to see us through+"

Eyes slid over to the command dais, where Captain Toran was standing. He cut a dashing figure with his red cloak and augmetic right eye, the double-headed eagle of his Iron Halo framing his short dark hair. The glorious relic blade on his hip was a sight to stir hearts to feats of valour and confidence shone off him like a star. Bylan had more reason than most to idolise the Captain, he had been the one responsible for giving Bylan the augmetic lungs and a second chance to become an Astartes. Bylan held the Captain to be an exemplar of the best virtues of the Storm Heralds; in fact he had been embarrassingly devoted at first. Thankfully time had worn down his rough edges a little but he would still follow that Marine anywhere.

"Stand fast men, the Emperor guides us still, he trusts you to get this ship back under control!" Captain Toran was calling, "Furion tell me what's going on out there."

At the helm Brother Furion was stood, wearing his Mark III armour, he was a giant Marine and a pillar of certainty and integrity. He called out, "We're caught in a Warp Squall, the Thunderchild can't break free!"

From the Ordnance pulpit the Novak, the impudent Company Champion called out, "Can we make an emergency real-space translation?"

From the sensorium Brother Persion, their communication specialist cried, "Negative, we have no Warp-Materium interfaces anywhere nearby. We won't survive the translation without one."

From the weapon pews the bloodthirsty Brother Jediah swore, "Warp hells… literally!"

Captain Toran overrode the looming panic, shouting, "Bylan, raise the Navigator, tell him to get us out of here!"

Bylan hastened to obey, connecting his vox to the distant armoured bubble where the Navigator lay in his trance. The mutant was the product of ancient science, genetically designed to be able to see the Warp's tides and (thanks to the Emperor's great psychic Astronomicon), steer a safe course through them. This was the only way the Imperium of Man could navigate the malevolent, extra-dimensional realm of insanity it dubbed the Warp.

Bylan contacted the Navigator's bubble but all he could hear was screaming. He barked, "+Report, tell me whats happening+"

A man's voice came back, one of the Navigator's attendees, saying, "It's gone, the navigator, he's screaming that the Astronomicon is gone!"

Bylan's hearts leapt up into his mouth and he stammered, "+He's… he's lost sight of the Astronomicon?+"

"No, it's gone," screamed the man, "The Astronomicon has gone out, it's been completely extinguished!"

Bylan's jaw dropped and he couldn't believe it, the Astronomicon was the Emperor's guiding light, the beacon that had sustained humanity for ten thousand years. It was bound to His immortal life force, if it had guttered out then that could well mean the end of everything. Bylan instantly realised that this news would shatter whatever spirit the crew had left, he couldn't let this get out.

Thankfully at that moment a scuffle at the hatch drew eyes away, seeing three new figures entering the bridge. They rode the bucking deck with expert grace, not troubled at all by its heaving swells. The first was the black-clad visage of Chaplain Wrethan, his skull mask projecting a terrifying aura. The second bore the white armour of the Apothecarion; it was Memnos a sage and unflappable healer. The third was new to this company, a young Librarian named Arvael on his first campaign. He boasted strange armour, festooned with eldritch marks and many scrolls hung from his belt. His head was framed by a Psychic hood and one shoulder pad was the image of a horned skull, bisected by a plunging knife. His face was youthful in form yet bore an aged expression, like he had seen too much and been forced into grim, hard decisions.

The trio marched up to the dais and Wrethan shouted, "What's going on?!"

Toran called back, "We're caught in a Warp squall!"

Arvael spoke up, "This is no mere Warp Storm, the Ether screams with change. I can see it cracking apart, spilling into real-space; it is growing even as we speak. The dark powers howl their triumph for all to hear, their victory is at hand. Rifts are forming everywhere, across every Segmentum all in the same second. The galaxy splits apart and nothing will ever be the same!"

Cried and wails of dread greeted that pronouncement, the serf's hearts breaking at the dire news. Chaplain Wrethan heard their distress and stomped forward and raised his voice loudly, shouting, "Hear me, sons of the Imperium. Darkness looms and death calls but that is nothing new to us. For ten thousand years the Warp had thrown everything it has at us, all the misery and horror it can conceive. But despite all that, despite all the woe and death, humanity is still here! The human spirit is greater than anything the Warp can conjurer up, it has never broken and it will not break now. Stand to your duties and be stout of heart, we shall yet triumph over this!"

Ragged cheers arose and men sat back down at their consoles, doing their best to ignore the shivering tremors running through the deck. Bylan breathed a sigh of relief and he heard Memnos turn to Arvael and say, "I know you're new here but around the rank and file, keep news like that to yourself."

Bylan was suddenly distracted by a serf who was shouting into a vox horn, he bent down and said, "+What now?+"

The serf replied, "Honourable Ajax is on the vox, he demands to know what we're playing at up here."

Bylan had no time to deal with an upset Dreadnought and said, "+Tell him the situation is in hand, we are dealing with it+"

The serf's face at the prospect of telling that to the oldest living Storm Herald but at that moment the ship bucked hard. The deck reared beneath them and men spilled out of their posts as the artificial gravity tilted forty-five degrees. The whole length of the Thunderchild shrieked as the ship was wracked by surging Warp tides and Machine Spirits wailed in Binaric at the harsh treatment.

Apothecary Memnos held onto a console and yelled, "We can't take another one like that!"

Bylan knew it was true and heard Toran shout, "We'll have to risk an emergency translation."

Persion called out, "We won't survive translation in these conditions."

"We're out of options," Toran snarled, "Ready the drives, prepare to…"

"Wait!" Arvael suddenly shouted, "There's a calm spot off the port bow, I can see a dead zone in the tides."

Eyes narrowed at that the Librarian's pronouncement, everybody wondering if they could trust the word of a Psyker but Toran reacted instantly shouting, "Hard-a-port, bring us about!"

The Thunderchild heaved about, moving in the thrashing insanity of the Warp. There was no such thing as true direction here but still she moved, seeking the calm area. Inside her bridge Bylan clung on for dear life as the ship vibrated hard and the thrashing grew worse and worse. It seemed like the whole ship would break apart from the violence and that death breathed down their necks. Suddenly there was an almighty crash and the whole ship rung like a bell. A searing bright light emerged from nowhere and illuminated every rivet and joint in the hull, making everybody squint. There was the strangest sensation of being squeezed and flung down an infinite well simultaneously and reality itself seemed to blink. It was unlike anything Bylan had ever felt before, not even teleportation was this strange.

Suddenly silence fell and the ship went utterly still making everybody blinked in confusion. Persion looked about called out, "Did we translate?"

"Maybe," Toran replied, "Perhaps we ran into a bail-shaft and got spat out of the warp."

However Arvael declared, "No, we are not in real space, but we are not in the warp either."

Apothecary Memnos scowled and asked, "How is that possible?"

Arvael declared, "The universe hides many secrets, many concealed places. I think we've just stumbled upon one."

Persion was peering at a surveyor screen and said, "Captain, auspex can't pick up anything out there, nothing at all."

Bylan queried, "+You're saying there are no planets ?+"

"I'm saying there's no universe out there," Persion replied, "No gravity waves, no solar winds, no background radiation. Even the chronometers have stopped."

Bylan saw Arvael close his eyes for a moment and a shiver ran down his spine as he wondered what the Psyker was doing. Then the Librarian opened his eyes and said, "Captain, I suggest you open the Occulus."

Toran looked puzzled but relayed the order then the great armoured louvres at the far end of the bridge ran back. Bylan craned his neck to see out but was shocked by what he saw. Beyond the armourglass space was twisted and bent, curved into strange arcs that ran away before the Thunderchild's prow.

It resembled an immense tunnel, one whose walls glowed slightly with a faint golden light. The tunnel bulged and shrank in strange ways, without rhyme or reason, creating a bewildering vision of an organic structure. There was not a straight line to be seen anywhere and nothing was symmetrical or regular. It looked almost like it had been grown or was a natural feature rather than anything manufactured or artificial. It was mesmerising and hypnotic in its swells, drawing the eye off into infinity.

Bylan couldn't believe his eyes and said, "+Where are we?+"

Arvael spoke up to say, "We are between the Materium and the Warp, caught in a veil laid between the two. A hyperdimensional construct of non-Euclidian geometries. We are quite literally nowhere."