Black Library’s 2015 Advent Calendar continues apace, returning to the Age of Sigmar for the fourth short story with Rob Sanders’ By The Horns. It follows Chrysaor The Wanton, a Slaaneshi warlord leading his tribe to glory in the unstable terrain of The Plinth. We watch through his senses (not his eyes…he doesn’t have those) as he and his warband slake their thirsts on weak prey, but when the Stormcasts approach he realises that he may have made a terrible mistake.
Slaanesh is all about sensory overload, so it’s fun to get a story with such focus on a character living in the moment, and how he experiences and reacts to events taking place. There’s plenty of vivid, gory action as Chrysaor orchestrates his atrocities, and there’s a nice level of familiarity for Warhammer fans despite the updated Age of Sigmar setting. It’s an interesting, enjoyable story written to Sanders’ usual high standards, but there’s a slightly strange lack of narrative throughout, and it feels less like a traditional story structure and more like an extended set piece, like you’d see in a micro-short. That’s not necessarily a criticism, as it’s still a solid and well-written story, it’s just perhaps not what you might expect.
Click here to go to the main Black Library Advent Calendar post and see the other reviews.
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