Dark Harvest – Josh Reynolds

An Age of Sigmar novel released under Black Library’s Warhammer Horror imprint, Josh Reynolds’ Dark Harvest is a sinister, atmospheric tale of old gods and lost faith in the grey swamps of Ghyran. Once a warrior priest of Sigmar, now reduced to scraping a living as hired muscle, Harran Blackwood finds his quiet life in Greywater Fastness rocked when he receives a message which stirs up painful memories from his past. Setting out with violence in his heart, Blackwood travels to the squalid town of Wald to seek the message’s sender, but finds a deeper and older darkness lurking in the wilds.

Offering less outright scares and more a sense of creepy atmosphere, there’s an ever-present feeling of encroaching darkness running throughout the book. This part of Ghyran is a land of constant rain and soul-sapping swamps, populated by lethal (and often disgusting) flora and fauna, vicious sylvaneth and sour, distrusting villagers. It’s a perfect backdrop to a slow-burn story about the weight of unhappy history, mortals trying to coexist alongside unfathomable, rage-filled nature, and questions of contrasting faith which hark back to the pantheon of the Old World. The hunter versus hunted nature of Ghyran and the contrast between the light of Sigmar and the bloody terror of the old gods are perfectly suited to the story, but feel almost painfully redolent of old Warhammer.

Reynolds offers a gradual exploration of the setting, the overarching mystery – what the message means, why it was sent and exactly what’s happening in and around Wald – and Blackwood’s place in this world of grim, largely irredeemable characters. They’re all varying shades of awful, some of them (sort of) justifiably so, others…not, while Blackwood himself is bitter, fatalistic, scarred by life and resigned to misery. Seen from his first-person perspective he makes for a strangely relatable protagonist, calmly taking his journey one step at a time despite his misgivings; he knows he’s not really being honest with himself when it comes to the life he’s living, but it’s what keeps him going in light of his painful past. Reynolds’ usual dry wit comes out in Blackwood’s cynical dialogue, often playing him off against the cheeky, tag-along presence of drover Gint, helping to balance the darkness with a little black humour.

If it’s maybe not as out-and-out horror as you might expect, there’s a lot to enjoy in a rare Warhammer story which doesn’t involve Chaos, and in which the antagonists are as much wild forces of nature as anything else. It could have done with digging a bit deeper into Blackwood’s past, which is intriguing but a little nebulous, and a little more in the way of consequences for the fact he’s able to see the (properly creepy) little gheists haunting the swamps of Ghyran, but there’s nevertheless an evocative sense of darkness to the setting, the cast and the overarching narrative. There’s also another Reynolds hallmark, with intriguing little details snuck into dialogue or description which help to build up a picture of the Mortal Realms, just occasional moments which don’t contribute to the plot but add texture and depth to the setting. If you like your Warhammer stories to feel old-school, atmospheric and properly grim, this should be right up your street.

Check out the main Age of Sigmar reviews page on Track of Words.

Click here to buy Dark Harvest (or here for the audiobook).