The opening story from 2009’s Tales of Heresy, Dan Abnett’s Blood Games was the first real exploration of the Adeptus Custodes in the Horus Heresy, and set the standard not just for Custodes stories but for Heresy short stories in general. It opens as a veiled cat and mouse story with a dangerous intruder breaching the security of the Imperial Palace, before widening in scope and showing the Custodes in action, enforcing their remit elsewhere on Terra with skill and nerve. Along the way it explores the people, sights and dynamics of regions right across the Throneworld, not to mention the Custodes themselves.
While the nature and behaviour of the Custodes are obviously front and centre, really it’s a story about walls – around places, around people – and the cracks that occur between them, and the people whose task it is to find and either use or seal those cracks. It’s full of trademark Abnett worldbuilding and storytelling, while the main Custodes character – Amon Tauromachian – is as fascinating a short story protagonist as you’re likely to meet. Structurally it’s almost two stories in one, and except for a final-act jump that slightly jars it comes together into a powerful whole that stays in the memory long after it ends. It’s not quite perfect, but it’s close.
Click here to check out Blood Games on Amazon, and support Track of Words while you’re at it. Alternatively you can check it out on Audible, if you’d prefer it in audio.
Click here for the main Horus Heresy page on Track of Words.