Betrayer

Betrayer by Aaron Dembski-Bowden is the twenty-fourth installment in the Horus Heresy series. It documents the Shadow Crusade, following the World Eaters and Word Bearers legions as they invade the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar.

Betrayer is Aaron Dembski-Bowden's first Heresy novel since The First Heretic and here Argel Tal returns, prosecuting the Shadow Crusade at Lorgar's right hand. This time, however, Tal is not the main character. That distinction goes to Kharn, Captain of the World Eaters Eighth Assault Company and equerry to primarch Angron. Kharn is infamous in the fortieth millenium as an unstoppable Chaos beserker and champion of the Blood God Khorne, but in Betrayer we see him ten thousand years earlier, having turned against the Imperium with the rest of his legion but not yet fallen into blood-soaked madness. In fact, the Kharn Dembski-Bowden writes is the most human of the World Eaters, restrained and clear-thinking when not lost to the Butcher's Nails and concerned by the degeneration of his primarch and legion. His friendship with Argel Tal also serves to humanise both characters, making likeable, complex protagonists out of a butchering marauder and a Chaos champion sharing his soul with a daemon.

Dembski-Bowden also creates a batch of engaging secondary characters for Betrayer, from Lhorke, the Contemptor Dreadnaught who was once Legion Master when the World Eaters were still the War Hounds, to Lotara Sarrin, the fearless commander of the World Eaters' flagship Conqueror who is unafraid to shoot a Space Marine captain in the head for dereliction of duty. Dembski-Bowden is a genius at crafting engaging and, simply put, cool characters; he is to character creation what Dan Abnett is to world-building. The secondary characters in Betrayer help push the action along and deepen the plot, and this is fortunate because if there is one area in which Betrayer falls down, it is plot. It doesn't really have one.

The first half of Betrayer is taken up entirely by the Battle of Armatura, a heavily-defended Ultramarines world. The action is relentless and varied, making this part of the book an absorbing read, but the battle only seems to occur as a way to facilitate a few really cool scenes rather than to serve a larger purpose in the story. Angron emerging from the rubble of a fallen building to brace against a descending Titan leg about to squish Lorgar into paste is an unforgettable moment, but overall the first half of the book contains little plot development. The action slows down somewhat after this to allow us more time with the characters, but by the time the traitors reach Angron's previously unknown homeworld Nuceria little more has happened than Cyrene Valantion's resurrection, Kharn requisitioning Angron's old axe and Erebus manipulating Argel Tal with hints of a prophecy. The climactic battle on Nuceria brings the story to an apocalyptic finale with a duel between primarchs and the transformation of Angron into a daemon prince, but is underscored by the death of a excellent character as Erebus murders Argel Tal to further the Chaos Gods' agenda. As if we didn't hate him enough already.

Overall Betrayer is an excellent read, gripping and pulse-pounding with some of strongest characters ever written for the traitor legions. By the end we are left feeling that a lot of things have happened, but unfortunately there isn't much sense that those things mattered. Betrayer suffers a little bit from middle-of-the-trilogy syndrome, but like The Two Towers or The Empire Strikes Back it remains an excellent story.