What are some BL moments / books that have moved you?

[Lucien Eilam]

Suddenly the static on the vox was gone and a clear voice was layered over the sounds of the dying strike cruiser. ‘Brother-Captain Alaric, we’ve lost the bridge. We’ve set the Rubicon on a final deployment run but control systems are gone so there’s no one to correct if the approach is wrong.’ Alaric recognised the voice of the officer who held the comms helm, a man Alaric couldn’t name. ‘We will hit high atmosphere in six minutes if the engines hold. We’re heading down to your decks now to make sure the hangar doors open.’

 

‘Good work, officer,’ said Alaric as the vox filled back up with static. ‘What’s your name?’

 

‘None of us have names,’ came the faint reply. ‘Deployment in six minutes, brother-captain. The Emperor protects.’

 

‘If I were a proper brother-captain,’ said Alaric as he caught his breath. ‘I would know the prayer we are supposed to say. But I think you all know what we have to do. We do not know what our chances of survival are, so we fight as if they were zero. We do not know what we are facing, so we fight as if it was the dark gods themselves. No one will remember us now and we may never be buried beneath Titan, so we will build our own memorial here. The Chapter might lose us and the Imperium might never know we existed, but the Enemy – the Enemy will know. The Enemy will remember. We will hurt it so badly that it will never forget us until the stars burn out and the Emperor vanquishes it at the end of time. When Chaos is dying, its last thought will be of us. That is our memorial – carved into the heart of Chaos. We cannot lose, Grey Knights. We have already won.’

[Lexington]

"For the Fallen," a little A D-B short the BL put out a year or two ago. Gives the Sad Smiles, it do.

[SteelPaladin]

"the strange demise of titus endor". read it off a link on warseer. it was kinda sweet and sad.

 

bit grimdark too of course.

One of Abnetts very best. Its a shame that it hasn't been printed yet. 

[Wade Garrett]

Actually, it has.

 

Best of the Hammer and Bolter, Volume One.

[SteelPaladin]

Gah! Well, I guess I should pick that up then. 

[Kilofix]

Also I can't wait for when Dorn finds the Emperor and Sanguinus later in HH.

[Inquisitor Kravin]

So, so many to choose from.

 

Mechanicum - not merely the deaths of characters but the death of hope for mankind in that it is doomed to stagnation and ignorance from which will come so much suffering.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

Loken's against Abby impressed me, I thought it was everything an Astartes should be.

 

Then the magic wand came out, and pretty much ruined that.

 

WLK

[Joeyray]

Storm of Iron:

 

 

The last dash of the Jouran 383rd, to destroy every cryo-vault,
knowing full well the Iron Warriors are hot on their heels and there is too much to take out.

Plus the death of Forrix

 

[Phoebus]

The ones that come to mind immediately:

 

“Maggard spat a mouthful of blood into Qruze’s face. Qruze pushed the knife deeper into Maggard’s jaw, plunging it into his opponent’s brain.

Maggard spasmed, his huge bulk thrashing briefly, and when he stopped Qruze was looking into a pair of blank, dead eyes.

Qruze pushed himself from Maggard’s body.

‘Face to face,’ said Qruze, breathing heavily with the exertion of killing Maggard. ‘Not with treachery, from a thousand miles up. Face to face.'

...

He looked at Sindermann and nodded his thanks. The warrior was wounded and exhausted, but there was a calm serenity to him.

‘I remember how it used to be,’ he said. ‘We were brothers on Cthonia. Not just among ourselves, but with our enemies, too. That was what the Emperor saw in us when he came to the hives. We were gangs of killers as existed on a thousand other worlds, but we believed in a code that was more precious than life. That was what he wrought into the Luna Wolves. I thought that even if none of the rest of us remembered, the Warmaster would, because he was the one the Emperor chose to lead us.”

 

Excerpt From: Ben Counter. “Galaxy in Flames.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/ldnZy.l

 

“Temeter hoped they had been quick enough. With luck, they would not have taken any of the virus inside with them. He managed two stumbling steps before he fell, the muscles in his legs singing with agony.

Huron-Fal caught him. ‘I told you to run, you fool.’

The captain flung off his helmet with a final, agonised gesture of defiance. It was useless now, the virus having moved effortlessly through the breather grille and into his lungs. His hand flailed at the metal flank of the Dreadnought and traced a runnel of dark fluid. Even through the pain, Temeter understood. There was a small fracture in the old warrior’s ceramite casing, not enough to have slowed him on the battlefield, but more than the virus needed to reach inside the Dreadnought’s hull and savage the remnants of flesh inside. ‘You… lied.’

‘Veteran’s prerogative,’ came the reply. ‘We’ll go together then, shall we?’ Huron-Fal asked, embracing Temeter’s body to him, moving swiftly away from the bunker.

It took every last effort from Temeter to nod. Blinded now, he could feel the tissues of his eyes burning and shrivelling in his head, the soft meat of his lips and tongue dissolving.

Huron-Fal’s systems were on the verge of shut-down as he stumbled to a safe distance, skidding to a halt. ‘This death,’ rasped the voder, ‘this death is ours. We choose it. We deny you your victory.’

With a single burning nerve impulse, the mind of the warrior at the heart of the Dreadnought uncoupled the governor controls on his compact fusion generator and let it overload. For a moment there was a tiny star on the battered plains outside the Choral City, marking two more lives lost within a maelstrom of murder.”

 

Excerpt From: James Swallow. “The Flight of the Eisenstein.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/8azZy.l”

 

“Lord,’ the dying centurion speaks.

Angron crouches by his son, ignoring the nosebleed trickling down his lips as the Butcher’s Nails tick, tick, tick in the back of his brain.

‘I am here, Kauragar.’

The World Eater draws in a shivery breath, surely one of his last. His remaining eye seeks his primarch’s face.

‘That wound at your throat,’ Kauragar’s words come with blood bubbling at his lips. ‘That was me.’

Angron touches his own neck. His fingers come away wet, and he smiles for the first time in weeks.

‘You fought well.’ The primarch’s low tones are almost tectonic. ‘All of you did.’

‘Not well enough.’ The centurion bares blood-darkened teeth in a rictus grin. ‘Tell me why, father. Why stand with the Arch-traitor?’

Angron’s smile fades, wiped clean by his son’s ignorance. None of them have ever understood. They were always so convinced that he should have been honoured by being given a Legion, when the life he chose was stolen from him the day the Imperium tore him away from his true brothers and sisters.

‘I do not stand with Horus,’ Angron breathes the confession. ‘I stand against the Emperor. Do you understand, Kauragar? I am free now. Free. Can you not understand that? Why have you all spent these last decades telling me I should feel honoured to live as a slave, when I was so close to dying free?’

Kauragar stares past his primarch, up at the lightening sky. Blood runs from the warrior’s open mouth.

‘Kauragar. Kauragar?’

The centurion exhales – a slow, tired sigh. His chest does not rise again.

Angron closes his dead son’s remaining eye, and rises to his feet. Chains rattle against his armour as he takes up his axes from the ground once more.

Angron. Angron. Angron. His name. A slave’s name.”

 

Excerpt From: Matthew Farrer and Aaron Dembski-Bowden. “Angron.” iBooks. 

 

“Talos,’ he said. ‘My brother.’

‘What is it?’

‘I regret arguing with you before. It is no sin to wish for a life with meaning, or a way to win this war.’

‘We will speak of this later, brother,’ said Talos.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Later.’

Xarl took a single step closer. His head rolled forward in a slow nod, and his body followed in a boneless topple. He collapsed into the prophet’s arms, utterly limp, his armour broadcasting the tuneless whine of a flatline signal.”

 

Excerpt From: Aaron Dembski-Bowden. “Void Stalker.” iBooks. 

 

“Help me.

Heavy cages with thick, iron bars sat on the trailers towed by the ominous black tractors. Dark, spavined shapes lurked behind the bars, chained hand and foot, lashed to bare metal frames in the centre of each cage. Some of the cages were studded with spikes and barbs that pointed inwards. Despite the stink of exhaust wafting from the tractors, Hark could smell the pain. Blood, sweat, faeces, gangrene and the wretched tang of static filled the night air.

The pipes grew louder.

Each cage was attended by dark, silent figures: Special Attachment commissars, servitors, armed guards in black uniforms with curiously full helmets, their visors down, and men and women in dark robes armed with handling poles and electric prods. Pale, grim faces and closed visors followed him as he toiled along the line.

Help me, Hark.

Hark came to a halt. He realised there were tears running down his face. The sadness that had eaten away at him for years had finally broken out, cracking the frozen surface of his emotional reserve. He looked up at the cage in front of him. The inward turned spikes were matted with dried blood.

...

Hark clambered up onto the greasy bed of the trailer. He knelt down in front of the cage, his hands clutching the filthy bars.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.

The thing inside the cage stirred. It was just a sack of meat, rotting and sagging. Heavy shackles pinned its wasted limbs to the cage frame. Hark could see that it had undergone extensive surgery. Sutured scars criss-crossed its dirty scalp and augmetic devices had been implanted in its neck, chest and throat. Its ears had been clipped off with shears and its eyes had been sewn shut. It slumped naked in a pool of its own waste. Open, weeping sores covered the flesh of its torso.

It’s all right.

‘No,’ said Hark. ‘It isn’t.’

This is my life now.

‘This is no life,’ said Hark.

The thing in the cage stirred. The chains holding its cadaverous limbs rattled.

I felt you here.

‘I know. I understand that now.’

I felt you close. All of you. My friends. My old friends. I tried to reach you.

‘I’m afraid you hurt us. We didn’t understand.’

I’m sorry, Hark. I just wanted to help you. Help you to survive.

‘I know.’

...

I just wanted you to hear me. I just wanted to help you. You were so far away, in such danger, but I could feel you. I tried to reach you–

‘You reached us,’ Hark said.”

I only wanted to help you.

‘I know.’

I only wanted you to help me. Help me. Please, Hark, help me. I can’t stand this any more.

The thing inside the cage rattled its chains again. Icicles had formed along the roof bars.

‘I’ll help you,’ Hark whispered, pushing his face against the bars.

The wretched thing that had once been called Agun Soric looked up at him with sewn-up eyes through the bars of the cage.

Hark fired.”

 

Excerpt From: Dan Abnett. “Only in Death.” iBooks. 

[Inquisitor Kravin]

I want to track down that Angron story - it sounds fantastic.

[Marshal Rohr]

It is pretty great. George Washington Angron.

[Viridia]

Quite a few personally. One of them has to be the fate of Cally Samstag when she returns home from the front in Abnett's Titanicus.

 

 

Cally Samstag, her pack slung across her shoulder, walked up to the door of her little hab in Makepole. Nothing felt quite real. The ordinariness of her surroundings seemed extraordinary. She
could smell cooking, and the voices of children playing on the landing.
“Stef?”
The little hab was empty. It didn’t look as if anyone had been there in days. She put her pack down, and took off her jacket. She touched the little gold medal on the chain around her neck and
discovered, to her dismay, that at some point in her adventures, the little wheel of dark gold had broken in half.

She saw the message packet lying beside the door slot. It was an official notice from the Magistratum.
She tore it open.
“With regret, the office of the Magistratum writes to inform you that, during a routine biometric exam in Sink Hollow, Stefan Samstag became agitated, resisted arrest and assaulted a Magistratum officer. The officer was therefore obliged to draw his weapon…”
Cally sat down, the message paper crumpled in her hand, and began to cry.

 

And another would be the murder of Warrant Officer Warrick in Relentless;

 

 

Commander Ward held out his hand to his adjutant, who passed him the stylus and pad. Ward then dismissed him with a nod and turned back to the senior armsman.
“This is the man that the captain brought from the Granicus, is it not? His personal aide?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is a man who took a bullet for the captain earlier today, is it not? On the steps of the cathedral?”
“Yes, he did, sir.”
The commander’s pistol appeared in his hand.
“If he can take a bullet for the captain, Mister Vickers, he can take a bullet for me.”
Warrant’s eyes fluttered open, and the first officer fired a single shot to the head.
Out in the crowd, a figure watching the scene, fighting to get through, suddenly stopped struggling. He disappeared back into the mob.

[reckoning]

"You dont know the things I dream. No one does, no one ever cared enough to find out." - Perturabo speaking to Fulgrim.

 

Kage's death/deliverance at the end of Annihilation Squad. First BL series I read and is still one of my favorite endings. Id provide the text but the book was lost in a house fire.

 

"Even over the crash of rubble being displaced as Abaddon forced himself free of the collapsed statues, he heard Aximand's words with a terrible clarity. 'Im sorry', said Aximand. And the sword slashed down against Torgaddon's neck.

 

"Fulgrim took a shuddering breath and raised his hands to the heathens, screaming his loss at the sight of his brother so cruelly murdered. 'What have I done?' he howled. 'Throne save me, what have I done?'...'He...he was my brother.' He was, and all he ever did was honour you."

 

"Nerovar dies like no warrior I have ever seen before. Even as I try to kill my way closer to him, I see him gripping the spear in his fists, hauling himself down the weapon, impaling himself deeper on it in an attempt to reach the aliens below."

 

Rynn's World: When Captain Alvez orders Huron Grimm to close the gates behind him, knowing full well he'll die because of it. Then reading about Grimm's survivor's guilt, brief as the passage was.

 

"Malchadiel screamed across the vox and into my mind, a union of sound and pain, as his twin brother came apart in the daemon's claws...'They'll take us up to the stars,' the boy said. Tears ran down his dirty face. 'Wont they?' 'Dont worry, Mal.' a fading voice replied. 'It'll be fine.'

 

 

 

 

[mc warhammer]

"Fulgrim took a shuddering breath and raised his hands to the heathens, screaming his loss at the sight of his brother so cruelly murdered. 'What have I done?' he howled. 'Throne save me, what have I done?'...'He...he was my brother.' He was, and all he ever did was honour you."

 

cut line:

 

"well, sword, nobody is perfect. whoops- except me. i'm feeling better already. ferrus who?"

[Hyaenidae]

'Just give me the Peace.' The warrior sank back to the ground. 'Seventy years of serving the Butcher and his Nails is long enough.'

 

Khârn wished he'd not heard those words. Discomfort danced its tingling way down his backbone.

 

'You served well, Gharte.' Khârn disengaged the seals at the warrior's throat, lifting the helm clear. There wasn't much left of the Sergeant's face. Something must have reflected in Khârn's expression, for Gharte made his devastated face into something like a grin.

 

'That bad, eh?' he asked. His gurgling laughter became another cough.

 

Khârn's reply was solemn obedience. He held the gladius above Gharte's left eye, its point a finger's breadth above the dilated pupil.

 

'Any last words?'

 

"Aye. Piss on Angron's grave when he finally lies dead.'

 

Khârn wished he'd not heard those words, either.

 

- Betrayer, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden -

[Kriegsmacht]

The Fall of Malvolion by Dan Abnett

 

Don't really want to write the whole thing out so here's an awesome scene in a few lines(doesn't compare to the actual story at all):
 

 

Grauss after a moment of hope when the Lamenters Chapter arrive and bring the fight to the Tyranids and then the crushing realizing when he sees something unbelievable. The sight of the Marines being torn apart and shortly after falling BACK from the threat. Eventually all the marines dead 39 minutes after making planetfall. Then after all this he ends up putting his laspistol in his mouth and pulls the trigger

 

[Marshal Rohr]

 

'Just give me the Peace.' The warrior sank back to the ground. 'Seventy years of serving the Butcher and his Nails is long enough.'

 

Khârn wished he'd not heard those words. Discomfort danced its tingling way down his backbone.

 

'You served well, Gharte.' Khârn disengaged the seals at the warrior's throat, lifting the helm clear. There wasn't much left of the Sergeant's face. Something must have reflected in Khârn's expression, for Gharte made his devastated face into something like a grin.

 

'That bad, eh?' he asked. His gurgling laughter became another cough.

 

Khârn's reply was solemn obedience. He held the gladius above Gharte's left eye, its point a finger's breadth above the dilated pupil.

 

'Any last words?'

 

"Aye. Piss on Angron's grave when he finally lies dead.'

 

Khârn wished he'd not heard those words, either.

 

- Betrayer, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden -

I had forgot about that. So damn good.

[Kilofix]

From Betrayer, I also found it moving how:

 

 

The WE had hammered Butcher's Nails into their head in order to try to 'bond' and understand their 'broken' Primarch. How 'sad' it turned out that they got the short straw when others had like Guilliman. Same for the NL in many ways. 

 

[Operative]

I found the end of "A thousand sons" to be really moving as I was left so frustrated at all the main character's fates and how different things could have been (plus it only added to my list of reasons to hate the Space Wolves )

[ShinyRhino]

The end of The Glorious Tomb, an BL audio drama by Guy haley was fantastic, whether you like Haley's Templars or not.

 

The entirety of Titanicus was amazing.

[Aqui]

It's not strictly Black Library. It came from before that. However, this excerpt from "Space Marine" is still a favourite of mine:

Just then the shape behind the window moved. A door opened; and into the assessment room stepped a giant of a man. A red lens in ormolu casing was clamped over his left eye, and had perhaps replaced the original jelly organ. His other cheek was tattooed with a winged fist in the act of crushing a moon, from which tattooed orange lava dripped like alien blood over his chin down his neck. His grizzled hair was cropped tight, a pad of wire upon a rock-like skull, and implanted in his brow were two shiny steel studs.

Lexandro's heart lurched, and a certain awe invaded him. From devotional vids broadcast by the Ecclesiarchy, and memory of a stained window in a chapel where his mother took him when much younger to drone prayers, he recognised a Space Marine...

A fur-trimmed dark blue cloak embroidered with unfamiliar ikons and sunbursts hung to lap the Marines heavy jack boots, partially concealing a pus-yellow uniform chevroned in azure - a uniform bulging with slabs of muscle. Fanged skulls within potent crosses adorned his knees. The giant was wearing an engraved power sword and a similarly enchased boltgun in a holster of brassed lined with slithery lizard hide.

How could any man be so huge and powerful in the flesh? How could he radiate such ruthless adamantine presence? Lexandro's wilful, wayward, snook-cocking soul was seared for several seconds.

In Necromunda pidgin, with a guttural accent, the giant growled "Test him for me. Fully."

There are three other parts to that story that bear note too, but I'm too tired to recall them from memory (I've read that book so many times I can remember a lot of it word for word). I might do that tomorrow after work

[CoffeeGrunt]

I can't find the Spoilers button I'm afraid. Look out below!

 

Betrayer:

- Guilliman coming in at the end. I felt sorry for him, who'd been just trying to be a good son, then Lorgar and Angron come in to crush everything he's built,

- Plus Argel Tal at the end. Out of nowhere, and a character I liked a fair bit,

- The Ultramarines sergeant leading the defence, managing to hold out until Angron grabs him,

- Hearing the way Khârn thought about Angron, the only failed Primarch, the only one who lacked even the aura of respect all others did. Also Angron returning to Nuceria...

 

Know No Fear:

- The sheer scale of the calamity and measure of the betrayal, ending in the moment Guilliman finally realises just how bad things are,

 

Fear To Tread:

- Sanguinius losing his loyal son who sacrifices himself in place of his Primarch, proceeds to turn his grief into righteous fury to beat down everything Neverborn in the room,

- Space Wolves being slaughtered by the Flesh Tearers,

 

Talons of Horus:

- When you find out the truth behind the Anamnesis. That's a very sad moment that built Iskandar up for me a bit, looking forward to where ADB takes that.

[Kriegsmacht]

Didn't really move me much but it was one of the few times I said something out loud after reading a novel/short story.

It was In the Belly of the Beast by William King which is found in Let the Galaxy Burn

When I started reading it I saw that the main character(or one of them) was Njal. Name was familiar so I looked it up and realized Njal Stormcaller is a Space Wolves Rune Priest. I thought "Oh cool so this is going to be an origin story of Njal".

And then at the end...

He got swallowed up by the Tyranid ship...huh.

That's when I said out loud "Well now. Not the same guy"

Then I went to the next story.

[mc warhammer]

come to think of it, guilliman's meeting room for his brothers in UR was touching.