CL Werner’s fourth Age of Sigmar novel, The Tainted Heart is a tragic tale of two witch hunters – or agents of the Order of Azyr – bound together by conflicting ties of love, loyalty and faith. Amidst the crawling dunes of Droost in the Realm of Chamon, Esselt and Talorcan (previously seen in The Witch Takers) seek to stop an insidious cult of Nurgle from spreading any further. A tragic discovery drives Talorcan to pursue their mission with a personal sense of vengeance in mind, despite Esselt’s warnings, but it soon becomes clear that the pair’s pain is only just beginning.
These are a different kind of witch hunters to the sort Werner has previously depicted back in the World That Was, not least because Esselt and Talorcan’s relationship sets them apart from the almost inhumanly grim figures most people associate with witch hunters. More than that, in context of the Mortal Realms the Order of Azyr feels a little more enlightened and open than the templars of the Old World – still feared, and prepared to take brutal action to see their missions accomplished, but not quite as daunting as, say, Mathias Thulmann was. It’s interesting to see how witch hunters fit into Age of Sigmar, and explore a little of the inner workings of the Order in Chamon, and there’s plenty to enjoy in terms of building up further detail to the Mortal Realms.
There’s also a decent amount of literal exploration, as the story hops around various locations in Chamon and beyond. In fact, the landscape is often the closest thing the book has to an antagonist, as for much of the story Esselt and Talorcan are pursuing nameless foes – specific enemies do appear, but the book is essentially about the testing of the protagonists’ faith, specifically by way of Talorcan’s growing internal conflict. This very personal journey they’re making is very much the focus, which helps make it a character-led story but does perhaps detract from the wider scope of what’s going on. We’re told that the danger threatens the whole realm, but for the most part we don’t get to see what that means beyond the sphere of Esselt and Talorcan.
Told from a god’s eye perspective there’s plenty of opportunity for Werner to tell us about the pain these characters are suffering, but it does sometimes feel like we don’t quite get under their skins or really understand their history. The whole story feels a bit like that, in fact – there’s lots to enjoy, especially in the final third of the book as the tone changes a little and things become ever more desperate, but it never quite reaches the gravitas and impact that it needs, and Werner’s writing even feels just a touch simpler and less developed than usual. The narrative actually gains a little depth in hindsight as some of the plotting comes together later on, and overall it’s still an enjoyable tale that shows a slightly different side to Warhammer fiction, but it perhaps could have done with digging just a little deeper into what really drives these characters beyond the outlines displayed here.
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