Category Archives: Short Stories

QUICK REVIEW: Rise – Ben Counter

Ben Counter’s short story Rise is a modern Black Library tale with an old-school feel, a quest story where the final goal isn’t necessarily what the protagonist thinks it’s going to be. Skanis is a kabalite down amongst the blood and darkness of Commorragh, who commissions a haemonculus to sculpt him into a new form – that of a winged Scourge – so that he can rise above his old life and start again. Waking to an unfamiliar body, he ascends through the myriad dangers of a Commorite spire intending to reach the pinnacle and leap into the unknown, free and complete.

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QUICK REVIEW: Regia Occulta – Dan Abnett

Originally released in audio drama form as part of Thorn and Talon, Dan Abnett’s short story Regia Occulta sees a young Eisenhorn, not long qualified as a full inquisitor, working as a sort of temporary travelling magistrate-slash-investigator. Stranded on the dreary world of Ignix, he braves the weather and the strange electrical storms to investigate a series of killings which at first have all the hallmarks of cult activity. It quickly becomes apparent that the culprit is not a cult after all, but Eisenhorn’s continuing investigation proves dangerous all the same.

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QUICK REVIEW: Of Rats and Cats and Neon Mice – Ariel Lawrence

In Ariel Lawrence’s League of Legends short story Of Rats and Cats and Neon mice, down in the depths of Piltover enforcer Vi is having a tough first day on her new job. Tasked with investigating the killing of a back-alley doctor, despite her new partner’s disapproval Vi heads straight to the scene of the crime, keen to get her gauntlets dirty. Who and what she finds there draws her into an unexpected alliance and a trip down amongst the dirt and the desperate masses to the Heap, for a confrontation with a deadly foe.

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QUICK REVIEW: Flayed – Cavan Scott

Cavan Scott’s short story Flayed, originally published in the Black Library Anthology 2013/14, is a tale of an ordinary Imperial citizen caught in the middle of a conflict between two horrifying foes. As necron Flayed Ones rampage through her township, Alundra races to find her brother and try to escape the carnage. Though grim Space Marines of the Death Spectres intercede on behalf of the Imperium, to Alundra and her brother there’s little to choose between the two forces, and it’s unclear quite why the Death Spectres are there and what they want.

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QUICK REVIEW: Master Imus’ Transgression – Dan Abnett

One of three Inquisition stories originally released as audio dramas (in Thorn and Talon) before the prose versions were made available, Dan Abnett’s Master Imus’ Transgression is a short story in which we see Eisenhorn in his youth, still an interrogator under inquisitor Hapshant. Master Imus, a quiet and honest man dedicated to his life as a book-keeper, comes to Eisenhorn to confess his unwitting involvement in an unusual crime – or a transgression, as he puts it. What seems at first to be a strange, inconsequential confession turns out to reveal something much more sinister beneath.

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QUICK REVIEW: Pestilence – Dan Abnett

Originally published in the 2001 reprint of the Deathwing anthology, Dan Abnett’s short story Pestilence is a slowly-unfurling mystery set to the backdrop of an astonishingly virulent plague wracking Imperial worlds. As Uhlren’s Pox rampages through the Genovingia system, Lemuel Sark – a recollector, tasked with researching long-buried medical knowledge – is one of many sent out to look for a cure. Travelling to an isolated hospice in search of a survivor of a similar contagion – ominously named the Torment – Sark gradually uncovers the horrifying truth of what happened amidst the broken remnants of so many shattered lives.

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QUICK REVIEW: Mercy – Danie Ware

For her first Black Library story, Danie Ware gives us Mercy – a Sisters of Battle short story in which Sister Superior Augusta leads her squad to a distant corner of Ultima Segmentum to investigate an ancient, ruined cathedral. Rumoured to contain an icon of her own Order, the cathedral is a powerful symbol that appeals to Augusta’s faith, but that faith is soon tested when it becomes clear that the Sisters are not alone. Orkish brutality meets fury and discipline as the Sisters fiercely defend the cathedral, while Augusta begins to wonder what the orks are actually doing there.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Tau’va – Andy Smillie

Andy Smillie’s The Tau’va is a very short story that follows on from The Kauyon, this time (briefly) exploring the T’au Empire’s driving philosophy of the Greater Good. Kal’va’s actions (see the previous story) may have been performed with honour, but in seeking personal revenge he put his own desires before the Greater Good. To atone for his selfishness, he is tasked by one of the Ethereals with launching an all-out assault on a greenskin horde, spending his life in order to buy time for others to escape and survive.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Kauyon – Andy Smillie

Andy Smillie’s short story The Kauyon, originally released as an audio drama, takes its name from one of the T’au Empire’s tactical philosophies, otherwise known as the Patient Hunter. A single T’au sniper, Kal’va, stands against an entire armoured column of Imperials, desperate to seek revenge for the deaths of his bonded teammates. In order to survive long enough to succeed, Kal’va must use his wits and the advanced technology of the T’au to manipulate his enemies to exactly where he wants them. As much as his rifle and the drones he commands, patience and planning are his most important weapons.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Principles of Strength – Anthony Reynolds

In League of Legends’ world of Runeterra, the Noxian empire is built on three aspects of strength – vision, might and guile. In his short story The Principles of Strength Anthony Reynolds explores this concept through the relationship between Noxus and one of its vassal states. Alyssa and Oram val-Lokan, scions of the Delverhold, have been sent to meet with Noxus’ ruling Council of Three to negotiate new terms for their alliance. To succeed, they must convince two or more of the Trifarix, but while Oram adopts a blunt, belligerent approach to negotiations, Alyssa sees things rather differently.

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