This short story is featured in Inferno! Volume 2, which is out now.
Miles A Drake’s second Black Library short story (after 2017’s The Flesh Tithe), What Wakes in the Dark is another dark and sinister story of the Death Spectres, set over a hundred years before the Great Rift opened. After receiving an ominous warning foreshadowing darkness and death, Sergeant Achairas joins his forces with those of radical Inquisitor Astolyev to investigate the sudden loss of contact with a secret Inquisitorial outpost. What they find beneath the surface of Thirsis 41-Alpha is worse than anything they could possibly have imagined, as an ancient alien menace comes to wakefulness…and the rest is pretty much history.
It opens with a tantalising, intriguing glimpse of a mystery at the heart of the Death Spectres, but quickly moves away from that and onto a relatively familiar style of story as the oblivious Imperial forces gradually realise just how much trouble they’re in. There’s a fairly heavy focus on action for much of the time, and while Achairas makes for an interesting viewpoint character both Inquisitor Astolyev and the eccentric Magos Explorator Vemek are a little thinly drawn. Nevertheless, while it’s a bit overlong for this style of story, there’s still plenty to enjoy with a suitably sinister tone and some satisfying, atmospheric moments.
