Denny Flowers makes his Black Library debut with The Hand of Harrow, a snappy, fast-paced Necromunda short story which looks back to some entertaining old lore for inspiration. His reputation as the ninth most dangerous man in the underhive preceding him, Caleb Cursebound takes on what appears, on the surface, to be a low-risk and high-reward job – stealing a family heirloom from the private museum of the elderly Lord Harrow. Concerned that something isn’t quite right, however, Caleb and his ratskin companion Iktomi proceed with caution which proves well-founded as the job starts off well, before spiralling out of hand.
Flowers gets the Necromunda tone spot on; even though most of the story takes place up-hive amongst the spire nobility, there’s still that sense of frontier danger and desperation. Caleb is pithy and irreverent, viewing the nobles and their behaviour with an expectedly cynical eye and his underhive contact – the aptly named Mr Kreep – with resigned suspicion. His relationship with Iktomi isn’t quite that of Kal Jerico and Scabbs but there are similarities, and while this story really only introduces the characters it’s clearly setting things up for further development. As a standalone story it’s clever, entertaining and will appeal to old-school Necromunda fans, but it definitely feels like an appetiser for Flowers’ novella Low Lives.
Click here to buy Inferno! Volume 4, which features this short story.