For Ianthe, war is all too familiar. A former soldier in the Astra Militarum, she now serves Inquisitor Covenant as an agent of the Throne. Her first mission sees her investigating a cult called the Children of Eternity. Falling foul of the local Enforcers, Ianthe soon learns that war in the shadows is seldom straightforward and that the local, angry law-keepers are the least of her troubles.

This audiobook brings together 13 uproarious short stories and one novella, focused on Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium. His stories are celebrated as heroic propaganda pieces, but he’s simply trying to stay alive in a hostile galaxy.

Under almost constant besiegement by the hosts pouring from the Eye of Terror, Cadia acts as a bulwark against tyranny and death. Its fortresses and armies have held back the hordes of Chaos for centuries, but that grim defiance is about to reach its end. As Abaddon's Thirteenth Black Crusade batters Cadia's defences, and armies of the Imperium flock to reinforce this crucial world, a terrible ritual long in the making comes to fruition and the delicate balance of this brutal war shifts.

For a thousand years, the Sabbat Worlds have been lost to the Imperium, claimed by the dread powers of Chaos. Now, a mighty crusade seeks to return the sector to Imperial rule. And at the forefront of that crusade are Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only - better known as Gaunt’s Ghosts. Trapped in the grinding trench warfare of Fortis Binary, the Ghosts find themselves drawn into a conspiracy to assassinate the crusade’s leader, Warmaster Macaroth.

Supreme Grand Master Azrael summons Lazarus and his Fifth Company to honour an old debt on the Knight world of Reis – a planet upon which the warp has set its hungry gaze. But Lazarus is not so sure Reis wants to be saved – its Knights are long lost, its governance is dogged by political strife, and internecine conflict hampers the world’s defence against an ancient evil. ­An evil which, like Lazarus himself, refuses to die.

Cadia licks its wounds in the wake of the Thirteenth Black Crusade. The heretic forces retreat on all fronts. The day is won. But Lord Castellan Creed cannot rest easy. Something tells him the assault was a mere prelude to something greater, something more final. He is right. Out of the Eye of Terror comes Abaddon the Despoiler, at the head of a warhost unmatched in scale since the dread days of the Horus Heresy.

Since the halcyon days of the Great Crusade, these noble rogue trader dynasties have plied the void in the Emperor’s name, answering to whomsoever sits as the king of the Davamir Compact. There has been profit and adventure and abundance in these times… Yet now the galaxy is changed, divided by the birth of the Great Rift. As plans are drawn up for the most immense crusade imaginable, the Emperor’s reborn son demands that the Compact seek a way across the Rift.

The Elysian Drop Troops are famed throughout the Astra Militarum for their rapid deployment tactics, utter fearlessness and expertise at grav-chute assaults. The 158th Elysian are once such regiment, ordered to pacify piratical warbands at large in their native system. But as the campaign commences, disaster strikes, the regiment's inexperienced and arrogant captain the cause. Only through the ingenuity of Sergeant Zachariah is a victory salvaged, but at a terrible cost.

When the elite fighter pilots of the Phantine XX arrive on the beleaguered world of Enothis, they know it is a desperate hour. The forces of Chaos are closing in, and their final push could well wipe out all human life on the planet. Thousands of refugees flee the dark armies, and the infamous Chaos fighter pilot Khrel Kas Obarkon is always hunting the skies for more prey....

Phil Kelly continues his look at the life of Commander Farsight with his first campaign against the full might of the Imperium and shows how the T'au Empire's technological superiority fares against Imperial grit.

Commander O’Shaserra, better known as Shadowsun, is an ice-cold military genius celebrated across the Chalnath Expanse. She is the master of the stealth battlesuit assault and the Kauyon metastrategy – a philosophy of war that emulates the Patient Hunter. But how to lay a trap for the Chaos-worshipping warriors of the Death Guard, whose ancient technology allows their fleet to rip holes in space? And how to deal with their daemonic patrons, who defy the laws of physics and shatter the logical methods that Shadowsun holds so dear?

When his body is hideously damaged in an enemy attack, it looks as though Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor's promising career would be abruptly brought short. Now, encased in a life support sytem that keeps him alive but forever cuts him off from the physical world, Ravenor utilises his formidable mental powers to continue his investigations. Along with his retinue of warriors and assassins, Gideon Ravenor fights to protect an Imperium he can no longer see, hear or feel.

The primarchs, nigh-immortal sons of the Emperor of Mankind, take the stage in a series of short stories showcasing some of their great deeds and hideous acts from across the Great Crusade and the Horus Heresy.

Follow the exploits of Oltyx, who, having finally been granted the throne of the Ithakas Dynasty, now faces far greater threats, from within and without. He soon learns that the lessons of kingship are not quite what he had hoped.

In the hellish sprawl of Imperial Terra, Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Erasmus Crowl serves as a stalwart protector, for even the Throneworld is not immune to the predations of its enemies. In the course of his duty, Crowl becomes embroiled in a dark conspiracy, one that leads all the way to the halls of the Imperial Palace. As he plunges deeper into the shadowy underbelly of the many palace districts, his investigation attracts the attention of hidden forces, and soon he and his acolyte Spinoza are being hunted.