This short story is featured in Inferno! Volume 2, which is out now.
Steve Lyons has written plenty about various Imperial Guard regiments over the years, and with his short story Solace he’s tackled the Mordian Iron Guard in a 40k equivalent of a Wild West tale. Guardsman Maximillian Stürm and the remnants of his squad are lost in the forests of Silva Proxima after a devastating aeldari ambush, wounded and weary, when they stumble upon a backwater village apparently untouched by the xenos. The villagers seem welcoming at first, but Stürm is suspicious of their reasons for living in the forest, how they’ve managed to survive, and what they might be hiding.
The Wild West tropes are in abundance here – the wide-brimmed hat/drooping moustache combo, the swinging wooden saloon doors, the suspicious townspeople – but Lyons weaves them in alongside the usual 40k stylings to good effect. There’s a sense of almost supernatural threat lurking in the background, and the focus is on how the very starched, upright, Emperor-fearing Mordians cope with being entirely out of their comfort zone. It’s a neat, cleverly constructed and thoroughly entertaining little story, which gradually ramps up the tension and the action until it peaks with a smart and satisfying conclusion. As a standalone Imperial Guard story it’s great fun, and nicely characterful.
