A twenty-minute Shadespire audio drama from David Guymer, A Place of Reflection sets a story about identity, memory and purpose in the Mirrored City, a place of endless twisted reflections and tricks of the mind. Told from the usual Stormcast Eternals perspective it sees Moribus of the Sons of Mallus on the hunt for an elusive foe, focusing his mind by thinking back to the various deaths he’s suffered since his forging.
A tale of the Cadian 101st, what’s left of them at least, Justin D. Hill’s short story The Battle For Markgraaf Hive picks up after the events of Cadia Stands, so beware a few spoilers. Called in to help retake an embattled hive from the heretics besieging its heights, the Cadians make an unorthodox insertion but soon find themselves ground down by waves of devolved enemies. No longer a Whiteshield, Minka fights with all the skill, grit and determination that was bred into her as a Cadian, as her regiment is slowly whittled down around her.
When is a Primarchs story not a primarchs story? How about when it focuses on Malcador the Sigillite, as in LJ Goulding’s audio drama First Lord of the Imperium. It might not directly feature any primarchs, but if anyone knows their secrets it’s Malcador, and when he’s called to the bedside of an old friend to witness her final moments he comforts her with talk of the primarchs’ purpose and the grand plan he and the Emperor hold for mankind. Even under these circumstances, however, is it possible to sift Malcador’s words for the actual truth?
A sequel of sorts to City of Secrets, Nick Horth’s short story The Old Ways once again features Armand Callis and Hanniver Toll, sent by the Order of Azyr out through the marshlands outside Excelsis to settle a dispute between two rival houses. Exploring the dangerous Ulwhyr Forest on the trail of a missing – supposedly murdered – young nobleman, Callis and Toll find themselves tangled up in not just a feud between rivals, but also a conflict between the old and the new.
Nick Kyme’s Horus Heresy story Dreams of Unity shines a bleak light on some forgotten heroes of the Imperium. In the poverty-stricken underbelly of the Imperial Palace, a handful of surviving Thunder Warriors – the tattered remnants of the proto-Astartes legions with whose help the Emperor unified Terra – eke out a brutal existence as gladiators despite their ageing bodies and troubled minds, forever defined by their loyalty to an old notion. As Horus nears the Throneworld, even these abandoned warriors are affected by the approaching conflict.
An unusual tale of a rarely-depicted chapter, Ben Counter’s short audio drama Heart of Decay sees two brothers of the Relictors interrogating a captive warrior of the Death Guard in the hope of learning his secrets. Captain Vidarna and Apothecary Achaon are keen to find out what mission the diseased warrior Urbaar had been undertaking before they interrupted it, but in order to do so they must to expose themselves to his corrupting influence. There may be a high price to pay for the knowledge they seek. Keep reading…
Evoking faint memories of his Mathias Thulmann: Witch Hunter series, CL Werner’s The Witch Takers takes place in the Realm of Chamon with two Sigmarite witch hunters on the trail of something monstrous…and Chaotic. When an ancient tomb is looted and a powerful artefact accidentally unleashed, triggering a series of grisly massacres, witch hunters Esselt and Talorcan hunt for survivors through the sands of Droost as they attempt to destroy whatever relic is causing such carnage. Though their order is feared rather than welcomed by the inhabitants of Droost, they may be the only hope of preventing further massacres.
Hello and welcome to another instalment of Black Library Weekly, my regular look at what’s been happening in the world of Black Library. This week it’s mostly been about the continuing Advent Calendar, with a couple of cool new releases at the weekend. I’m going to go straight into the Advent section this week, as we didn’t get a separate Digital Monday story…
A quiet, measured short story that could only have come from John French, Now Peals Midnight is the calm before the storm, in which Rogal Dorn and the loyal defenders of Terra take a last, deep breath before the Siege of Terra begins. As the ever-present unrest in the Sol system fades away leaving an eerie sense of quiet, Dorn orders the final preparations knowing that Horus is only hours away. Across the breadth of the Imperial Palace, defenders wait…from conscripts huddled in the darkness to Primarchs standing proud on the walls. At last, the wait is almost over.
Josh Reynolds’ 2016 novel Fabius Bile: Primogenitor provided an unexpected injection of variety into Black Library’s 40k output, which is continued with the sequel – Fabius Bile: Clonelord. Picking up a fair amount of time after Primogenitor, we catch up with Chief Apothecary Fabius just as he’s about to set out for a darkened spur of the Webway in search, as always, of knowledge. When his exploration of a long-abandoned Craftworld is interrupted by familiar, if unwelcome, faces he ends up drawn closer to an old brotherhood than he’d really like, and persuaded to risk much…for great reward.