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.