Steve Lyons is one of the few Black Library authors to have tackled the Death Korps of Krieg, and he continues his exploration with the typically bleak short story The Strong Among Us. Blackfire Forge has fallen to Chaos, and been besieged by the implacable Death Korps. Ex-forge worker Jarrah mans an Earthshaker cannon on the ramparts, not in service of the invading cultists but simply as a means to stay alive. As the siege drags on and he does what he must to survive, he’s forced to consider whether the Death Korps are really the face of Imperial salvation.
Jarrah, cowed by the brutality of the siege and unwilling to stand up to the invaders, makes for a relatable protagonist who’s caught between the corroding power of Chaos and the faceless, heartless judgement of the Imperium he longs to serve. The stark inevitability of his predicament hangs over everything he goes through, hammered home by the realisation of how little there is – from his perspective – to differentiate the blank-faced masses of the Death Korps from the black-robed cultists. A stark, powerful little vignette, it’s a suitably grim depiction of 40k in microcosm and another example of Lyons’ excellent take on this darkly compelling Imperial Guard regiment.
