Billed as “a Kravoth’s Reavers short story” (suggesting there will be more), CL Werner’s Age of Sigmar story Reflections in Steel is a typically vicious, bleak tale of the dangers inherent to walking the Path to Glory. When Kenji’s town is sacked by a bloodthirsty Chaos warband, the young man expects to die alongside his family but finds himself taken as a slave and forced into servitude to his brutal overlords. As the months pass in misery, Kenji’s anger keeps him alive and determined to find the opportunity to strike back. When it arrives, however, he’s already taken his first steps down a new path.
In standard Werner style this focuses on dark, villainous characters, avoiding anything heroic and portraying a man driven to extremity by circumstance and the violence of others. It covers a lot of time, jumping ahead to show key moments of change for Kenji, but while that gives a sense of his progression alongside some savage battles, it doesn’t really help to endear him to the reader. It’s interesting to follow his journey and see him use his anger to fuel his ascent, but after a while it starts to become hard to empathise with him; there’s action aplenty and a bleak sense of inevitable satisfaction, but it doesn’t quite reach the heights of vintage Werner.
This was released as part of the 2019 Black Library Advent Calendar – click here to see the main page for the Advent Calendar, with links to all of the reviews.
Check out the main Age of Sigmar reviews page on Track of Words.
