Deathfire

Deathfire by Nick Kyme is the thirty-second installment in the Horus Heresy series. It follows a group of Salamanders led by Artellus Numeon as they brave the Ruinstorm in order to return Vulkan's body to Nocturne.

As Nick Kyme points out in this novel's afterword, the Heresy series began with a tightly linked trilogy and then expanded into the vast story we know. Recognising that this expansion was dragging at the momentum of the overall plot arc, the High Lords of Black Library decided to begin weaving their novels more closely together, establishing a stronger continuity and mapping out the route to the Siege of Terra. Key to this endeavour is the work of Nick Kyme, who has set about creating a new trilogy within the Heresy, a trilogy that provides continuity by chronicling the fate of the Salamanders within the wider war. This trilogy began in ignominy with Vulkan Lives, which introduced Artellus Numeon and revealed Vulkan's fate after the Dropsite Massacre on Isstvan V, but in Deathfire Kyme's writing lifts as he reveals Numeon's miraculous survival and places him at the head of sixty-six Salamanders attempting a deadly voyage through the Ruinstorm in order to return Vulkan's body to Nocturne.With a heavy focus on faith, Deathfire pits everything from Death Guard to daemons against the Salamanders as they cross the Warp to Nocturne, ending in a climactic battle and a fateful resurrection.

Deathfire is a novel of three parts. The first part is set in Imperium Secundus where Numeon, captured by Word Bearers and rescued by Aeonid Thiel's Red-Marked, comes to believe that Vulkan is not truly dead after his body disappears from its casket and mysteriously reappears in a memorial garden. Gathering a remnant of the Salamanders who have managed to escape Isstvan V and regroup in Ultramar, Numeon leads them on an epic quest to return Vulkan's body to Nocturne in the hope that the magma of Mount Deathfire will resurrect him. Part two takes up the bulk of the book as the Salamanders endure a harrowing journey through the Ruinstorm, plagued by daemons and hunted by Word Bearers and Death Guard. The theme of faith rises to the fore here as Numeon's near obsessive belief in Vulkan's resurrection creates friction among the others, strung along by a series of seemingly miraculous events. Part two is the slowest, and while I appreciate Nick Kyme slowing down to let us get to know his characters he drags the tension out too far, extending one action sequence over nearly a third of the book. However, the twist that Magnus the Red is somehow influencing the events around Vulkan was completely unexpected, and adds another intriguing facet to an already suspenseful series. Kyme's writing is at times vague, but is still a big step up from the monotonously austere Vulkan Lives. Unfortunately, the number of times he uses the phrase 'Vulkan lives' is simply excessive. It drove vulkan lives insane with vulkan lives constant repetition vulkan lives of the vulkan lives vulkan lives vulkan lives.

Deathfire ends satisfyingly enough with a battle on Nocturne itself that sees the end of the Word Bearers and Death Guard and (MAJOR SPOILERS) Numeon sacrificing himself to resurrect Vulkan. The final part seems rushed compared to the middle section and would have benefited from more time, but overall Deathfire is a satisfying read which sits somewhere above the middle of the scale of Heresy novel greatness.

Limited-edition novella review: Scorched Earth 

Every now and then Black Library decide to raise revenue by releasing a Horus Heresy story as a limited-edition novella, printing a small number of copies and charging exorbitantly for each. These novellas are then given a mainstream release years later, finally making them available to the vast majority of fans. Scorched Earth by Nick Kyme was the fifth such novella released, and follows a pair of Salamanders Dropsite Massacre survivors as they search the scarred battlefield for Vulkan. 

I bought my copy of Scorched Earth at the same time I bought Pharos, as proof against it going out of stock, but left it on the shelf until I could get my hands on Deathfire, thinking that a novella about Salamanders searching for their lost primarch would pair well with a novel about Salamanders bringing their primarch's body home. I read it expecting a fluff piece about the aftermath of the Dropsite Massacre. I did not expect it to be what it was: a superbly crafted tale of desperation, fallout and madness.

Scorched Earth is essentially the tale of two Salamanders, Ra'stan and Usabius, on a quest to find Vulkan in the aftermath of the Dropsite Massacre. Part of a desperate group of survivors based in a crashed Stormbird, they make regular forays into the traitor-haunted wastes. The novella is full of tense, dark moments as the pair do whatever it takes to fulfill their mission, such as crushing the throat of a delirious Raven Guard to prevent him from giving away their position and encountering a mad World Eater in a canyon made of skulls. Scorched Earth saves its best twist for the end, however, when Ra'stan discovers the cave Vulkan was teleported away from and his psyche collapses, revealing a twist straight from Fight Club that he and Usabius are one and the same, Ra'stan a Librarian who has succumbed to madness and Usabius his former captain who was killed. Scorched Earth is an excellent novella that epitomises the bleakness of post-Massacre Isstvan and makes me long for more fiction set there. Bravo, Nick Kyme.

Mark of Calth

Mark of Calth, edited by Laurie Goulding, is the twenty-fifth installment in the Horus Heresy series. An anthology of seven short stories and one novella it expands the story of the Battle of Calth begun in Know No Fear, taking the Ultramarines and Word Bearers into the darkness of the Underworld War.

The Shards of Erebus is Guy Haley's first contribution to the series. It follows Erebus as he breaks up the anathame that wounded Horus (see False Gods) and hands out the shards as smaller athames to a collection of Word Bearers commanders. The story also cuts to Erebus's time learning Warp teleportation from Akshub on Davin, before ending just prior to the attack on Calth. It is a nice little intro, but nothing of significance.

Calth That Was, a novella-length piece by Graham McNeill, is essentially the sequel to Know No Fear. following Remus Ventanus and his allies as they continue their battle against the Word Bearers. However, the real force behind the action is not Ventanus but Maloq Katho, Dark Apostle to Hol Beloth, whom we quickly learn cares nothing for the outcome of the Underworld War and is instead pursuing his own path to daemonhood. Kartho orchestrates the bombing of several underground civilian centres to provoke the Ultramarines into attacking Foedral Fell, but after leveling Fell's fortress Ventanus realises too late that he has fallen into a trap. Fell and his warriors are already dead, having committed ritual suicide, but then reanimate and attack. The Ultramarines manage to fight their way out, but Ventanus barely returns in time to stop Kartho and Beloth as they attack his base with a virus bomb. Ventanus kills Beloth but Kartho escapes into the Warp just before the bomb goes off, and the day is only saved when Ventanus uses a flying speeder to knock the bomb into the Warp portal Kartho created. This is a neat novella that ties off all the loose ends from Know No Fear but cannot match it for brilliance.

Dark Heart by Anthony Reynolds is the origin story of Dark Apostle Marduk from Reynolds' 40K novels. A rogue legionary with little respect for his superiors, Marduk is uses his Warp talents to mutate a fallen Ultramarine during the orbital battle above Calth, and kills his mentor when he attempts to execute Marduk for such a blasphemous use of his power. Brought before Kor Phaeron, Marduk convinces him of his worth and joins Phaeron's inner circle. Dark Heart is an interesting portrayal of conflict within the Word Bearers with enough twists and turns to hold interest until the end.

The Traveller is David Annandale's first contribution to the Heresy series. It follows a man named Blanchot living in one of Calth's underground refugee communities who begins to hear voices and becomes a messiah for the group, directing their murderous attention towards supposed Chaos collaborators whilst slowly going mad. Eventually Blanchot is the only one left alive, and it is revealed that he became possessed by a daemon during the orbital attack. Having used him to direct the slaughter of thousands of innocents, the daemon moves on to possess an Ultramarine when Blanchot is finally rescued. This is a nasty little tale that perfectly illustrates the dark side of religion in the Warhammer universe.

A Deeper Darkness by Rob Sanders follows Ultramarine 'Honorarius' Hylas Pelion as he fights under Tauro Nicodemus in the Underworld War. Learning of a hidden cave network which the Word Bearers are using as a base Pelion leads a scouting force through submerged tunnels to reach it, but once there they discover their foes turned to stone. They then begin to fall prey to a hideous daemon, the sight of which is so horrifying it petrifies its victims. Pelion ultimately defeats the creature by deliberately cutting his visual feed then using his suit lamps to show the creature its own reflection. The references to the Greek legends of Medusa and the Cretan Labyrinth work well, and A Deeper Darkness succeeds as a chilling footnote in the tale of the Underworld War.

The Underworld War by Aaron Dembski-Bowden follows Word Bearer sergeant Jerudai Kaurtal on a pilgrimage across the devastated surface of Calth several years after the initial battle. Kaurtal's desire to commemorate the Word Bearers that fell in the surface battle becomes self-destructive as the radiation riddles his body with cancer, but as one of the Gal Vorbak the daemon inside Kaurtal rouses to heal him. Ultimately, however, the daemon abandons Kaurtal to die. The whole sequence is then revealed to be a vision of the future Kaurtal received during a failed attempt to bond with the daemon prior to the Battle of Calth, an attempt which resulted in his ignominious death. The Underworld War is not what you'd expect from its name, but it is an interesting piece regardless.

Athame by John French traces the story of a single athame dagger through history, from its primordial creation through ownership by barbarian killers and dark scholars to its entry into the series as the ritual weapon of a cultist leader in Know No Fear. The journey of the athame and the tales of its successive owners are fascinating, and there are hints throughout of a greater purpose awaiting it in the future. The story ends with the athame in the hands of Oll Persson as he uses it to escape Calth with his band of refugees, leading straight into the final short in the anthology. Athame is a fascinating and unusual take on one of the Heresy's most fascinating and unusual sub-plots.

Unmarked by Dan Abnett picks up the story of Oll Persson and his ragtag band where Know No Fear left off, following them on a journey through time, space and Oll's own past. Using Warp portals cut by the athame to move between locations and following the mysterious winds of the aether, Oll and his band journey through swamps, woods and empty cities on their way towards an unknown goal, pursued by the malevolent daemon M'kar that is destined to join with Maloq Kartho. The story is replete with references to history, from Oll's journey as one of the Argonauts to his fighting in the battles of Verdun and 73 Easting. The conclusion of the story is rather too neat and cliche, but Abnett's writing makes this short so rich and engaging that it doesn't matter. Unmarked is all of Abnett's genius distilled into one short story.

Limited-edition novella review: The Unburdened 

The Horus Heresy series has enjoyed enormous success since its inception, and that success has translated into its launching a new subset of the Warhammer tabletop game. To be clear, a series based on the lore of a tabletop game has inspired a tabletop game based on the lore of the series. The mainstream launch of the Horus Heresy tabletop game was marked with the release of the 'Battle of Calth' starter set, which featured a pair of novellas as well as miniatures and rulebooks. The Honoured by Rob Sanders and The Unburdened by David Annandale are both set during the Underworld War that followed the Battle of Calth, each showing the perspective of one of two mortal enemies, Ultramarine Captain Steloc Aethon and Word Bearers Chaplain Kurtha Sedd. 

Those who have read my review of The Honoured (and if you haven't you should read it first) will know that I was counting on The Unburdened to save this duology. It did, just. 

I'm not a fan of David Annandale's writing (just wait for my review of The Damnation of Pythos) and so I came into this novella with low expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Annandale's Kurtha Sedd is far more complex than the moustache-twirling villain Rob Sanders portrayed him as in The Honoured, full of conflicting convictions and a desperate for vindication. His inner conflict can and does make him seem weak, at least in the eyes of some of his followers, but he still has the charisma and depth to pull off the role of main protagonist. The amount of internal agonising in this novella was a little high for me overall, but thankfully the inner conflict is matched by the outer as the battles from The Honoured play out through the Word Bearers' perspective. The match-up is not exact and there were a few times it took me a while to realise what I was reading, but overall it works and more importantly The Unburdened does a far better job of contextualising the conflict. Sedd's hatred for Aethon is explained (Aethon played in a role in the Word Bearers' humiliation on Monarchia, see The First Heretic), and yet Sedd shies away from killing him until the final realisation that only by symbolically casting off his ties to the past via murdering Aethon can he ascend into the waiting arms of Chaos. This, as we know, is exactly what he does. 

The Unburdened is not a perfect novella; it begins to lose cohesion at the end as Calth's arcologies come tumbling in, but it is an engaging read that succeeds in bringing some clarity to the jerky randomness of The Honoured. Furthermore it is proof that David Annandale can write well when given the proper subject matter, and I hope to see more like this from him in future.         

That's all for now, denizens of the thirtieth millenium. Apologies for the delay in getting this post up, a new job has come my way recently and gobbled up my free time. Check back in a week or two when I return to the Sons of Vulkan, with a review of Nick Kyme's novel Deathfire and novella Scorched Earth. Happy reading.