Nicholas Kaufmann’s debut for Black Library is a Warhammer Horror short story, a tale of loss, loneliness and belonging for an isolated man. Kavel Trake was once a soldier in the militia, until the orks came to Ballard’s Run. Since then, having lost his family, his leg and his purpose, he’s eked out a living as a farmer with little to do but work and drink. When a dying woman stumbles onto his secluded farm and begs him to care for a babe in arms, he finds both a surprising sense of newfound purpose and the beginnings of a dark path.
It starts off brilliantly atmospheric as we’re introduced to Kavel and his unhappy existence out on the fringes, drinking himself to sleep and waiting to die. It’s melancholic and quietly domestic, and even when the child appears and the story starts to find connections with a wider sense of the 40k setting it’s still enjoyably low-key and engaging even if the plot is a little telegraphed. Things lose a bit of impact as the narrative comes into focus and the darkness at its heart changes from implied to in-your-face, and it never really goes beyond mildly creepy in places, but if you’re interested in seeing the ground-level implications of one of 40k’s most sinister themes, it’s worth checking out.
This was released as part of the 2019 Black Library Advent Calendar – click here to see the main Track of Words page for the Advent Calendar, with links to all of the reviews.
