Category Archives: Short Stories

QUICK REVIEW: Dead Drop – Mike Brooks

Mike Brooks’ Necromunda short story Dead Drop continues his impressive run of Black Library stories featuring strong characters with powerful familial bonds. Danner Grimjack and his Road Dogs, a close-knit gang of Orlocks, launch a carefully timed ambush of a rival gang, the Steel Crescents. Their goal is to relieve the Van Saars of what they hope is a valuable piece of cargo, recently arrived on Necromunda through illicit channels, and sell it on for a tidy profit. As ever in the underhive it’s a case of risk versus reward, but the Road Dogs trust each other to get the job done.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Forsaken – Danie Ware

Danie Ware’s third Black Library story featuring the Adepta Sororitas of the Order of the Bloody Rose, Forsaken features a younger version of Sister Augusta as she and her Sisters search for survivors in the darkness of a drifting Ecclesiarchy vessel. When the sepulchral quiet is shattered by alien ambush, Augusta finds herself cut off from her Sisters and lost deep in the bowels of the ship. Faced with endless emptiness stretching away all around, Augusta falls back on her faith to sustain her and drive her on, but what she finds down there in the darkness tests even that.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Fangs of the Rustwood – Evan Dicken

Evan Dicken’s Age of Sigmar short story Fangs of the Rustwood continues his approach of exploring the lesser visited corners of the Mortal Realms, this time featuring the sinister dangers of Chamon’s grot-infested Rustwood. Seeing opportunities for advancement in his future, witch hunter Kantus Vallo escorts a trio of prisoners, each a suspect in a high-profile murder, to face the judgement of his superiors in the Order of Azyr. As the forest’s lethal flora and fauna take their toll, however, he’s forced to free the prisoners and put his trust in them in order to survive and escape the Rustwood.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Empra – Nate Crowley

Nate Crowley’s second Black Library short story, Empra offers a unique take on 40k and a rare perspective on the Imperium. Toa is a Shellmaker, daughter of the chief shaman; she and the tribe her mother oversees toil to forge great shells that they send up to the Body of Empra in return for food and protection from the poisons of their world. When Toa finds an Angel out in the manhills, her world is turned upside down as she learns that everything she had been told – about Empra, his servant Two-Bird and her entire religion – has been a lie.

Continue reading →

QUICK REVIEW: The Iron Promise – Josh Reynolds

Josh Reynolds’ short story The Iron Promise, available from Black Library either as a standalone e-short or within the Warcry anthology, is a tale of twisted honour, oaths and bloodshed in the Age of Sigmar. Vos Stalis, Dominar of the Iron Golems, has been tasked with a dangerous mission, leading a small warband into the Bloodwind Spoil to assess the loyalty of a duardin forgemaster whose tithe to the Iron Golems has dried up. A test of his strength and loyalty as much as the forgemaster’s, it sees Vos venture deep into the forge and confront the danger that lurks within.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Bonegrinder – Josh Reynolds

This story is currently only available within Inferno! Volume 3.

A sequel to 2018’s Death’s Head, Josh Reynolds’ Necromunda short story Bonegrinder continues to follow the exploits of smarter-than-the-usual Goliath ganger Topek Greel. Now a full member of the Steelgate Kings under the watchful leadership of Irontooth Korg, Greel is a dangerous combination of brawn, brains and ambition, and he’s got his sights set on consolidating his position through the manipulation of the Kings’ rival gangs. When Korg brings him along as a second in a parlay with an opposing gang leader, however, it begins to look as though Greel’s ambition might have got the better of him.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Hunger and the Lady – Peter McLean

In Peter McLean’s War for the Rose Throne series, one character of particular interest is Billy the Boy, the young orphan described with considerable understatement in the dramatis personae of Priest of Bones as “a very strange young man”. Featured in Grimdark Magazine Issue 18, the short story Hunger and the Lady offers the first opportunity to explore a little of Billy’s backstory. It’s the tale of an eleven year-old boy scraping a living in the ruins of war-torn Messia as enemy soldiers close in, a story about survival, about enduring hardship, and maybe even the presence of a higher power.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: The Weight of Silver – Steven B. Fischer

This story is currently only available within Inferno! Volume 3.

His second Black Library short story after debuting with The Emperor’s Wrath, Steven B. Fischer’s The Weight of Silver is another Imperial Guard story, this time featuring a young Cadian officer wrestling with questions of confidence and authority. The Cadian 900th are newly arrived on an embattled Imperial world, and newly-promoted Lieutenant Glavia Aerand faces dissent within the ranks of her platoon as well as the dangers posed by the enemy. After her first mission ends in disgrace she questions her abilities and the merit of her rank, and she’ll have to dig deep if she’s to survive and thrive.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: Redemption Through Sacrifice – Justin Woolley

Established sci-fi author Justin Woolley makes his Black Library debut with Redemption Through Sacrifice, a Warhammer 40,000 short story featuring penal legionnaires, filthy heretics and the Inquisition. Ex-sergeant Marcus van Veenan, late of the Talissian 51st, joins thousands of other under-equipped cannon fodder – members of the Second Rapture Penal Legion, the ‘Meat Dogs’ – on Vandicius, tasked with shoring up the Imperial defences against a rampaging heretical cult. The disciplined days of his past in the Imperial Guard are gone, replaced by the chance to earn the Emperor’s forgiveness with his death, but van Veenan’s usefulness to the Imperium isn’t over yet.

Keep reading…

QUICK REVIEW: The Book of Transformations – Matt Keefe

Matt Keefe’s first contribution to the Age of Sigmar setting – and first Black Library short story for some years – The Book of Transformations takes the feel of an old-school Warhammer story and updates it for the Mortal Realms. In the magic-infused streets of a Chamonite city, the alchemist-turned-apothecary Mehrigus practices his art and dreams of greater things. To Mehrigus, the pinnacle of the apothecary’s arts would be to meld art, science and magic and achieve transformation as a cure. Though scorned by the Collegiate Arcane, his obsession continues to deepen, and as plague wracks the city his efforts appear to be rewarded.

Keep reading…