A sequel to Blades of Damocles and a companion piece to the various Farsight stories, Phil Kelly’s short story The Battle of Blackthunder Mesa tells a tale of the fundamental differences between the T’au and Imperial ways of war. On the embattled world of Dal’yth Prime, the T’au forces are being pushed back by endless numbers of Imperial tanks, but Commander Bravestorm is determined to strike a telling blow before withdrawing. With a new weapon at his disposal – the Onager Gauntlet – he has a tool to do just that, but its use seems to go against the T’au’s very ethos.
It’s a story which benefits from the reader having a reasonable familiarity with T’au background, terminology and character archetypes, and which has a greater resonance when considered as a direct follow-on from Blades of Damocles. Without that it maybe feels a little unclear as to exactly what’s going on and what the implications are, but with a bit of background knowledge it opens up into an interesting (albeit relatively brief) exploration of how the Fire Caste think, as well as an entertaining and unusual set-piece. It’s probably not for everyone, but existing T’au fans should find plenty of interest here.
This was originally released in the Black Library Events Anthology 2017/18 and then as part of the 2018 Black Library Advent Calendar – click here to see the main page for the Advent Calendar, with links to all of the reviews.
Hm… I thought its a sequel to the ‘Farsight: Crisis of Faith’ novel. Or prequel)
I assume it’s linked somehow, but I haven’t read the novel so I couldn’t say for certain. It’s definitely a sequel to Blades of Damocles though!