Currently only available in the Black Library Events Anthology 2019/20, Denny Flowers’ Necromunda short story Salvation’s Crucible is a brief but fiery tale of the Promethium Guild, or Mercator Pyros. Lord Silas Pureburn has sworn to bring the light of the God-Emperor to the settlement of Under Pipe, and has contracted a gang of hive scum as guides and protectors. Not all of the Underhive’s denizens are fans of the guilds though, and standing in Lord Pureburn’s way are the Waylanders gang, who run their own operation providing light and power to Under Pipe, and don’t intend to relinquish their territory without a fight.
Essentially just the build up to a battle and then the fight itself, this is a deceptively simple but still tremendously entertaining story. With events told from two different perspectives – one of the Waylanders, and the leader of the scummers, Ubel – it keeps the reader guessing as to who the main focus of the story is on, but there’s definitely history between the two parties, with the outsider Lord Pureburn caught in the middle. Eerily calm and intense, the guilder is no hapless, helpless fool, however. As a vignette of underhive life, it’s typical of Flowers’ strong, evocative grasp of the Necromunda setting, and provides a great introduction to the idiosyncratic Mercator Pyros. It does feel a bit like the setup to a bigger story (perhaps Flowers’ upcoming novel Fire Made Flesh), but still manages to be darkly satisfying in its own right.
See also: all of my other Denny Flowers reviews and interviews.
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