'The Abyssal Edge' - Aaron Dembski-Bowden (Black Library)

 

Page Count: 29 Pages.

A short post today because I’ve got a hell of a lot on at work and… Well, the page count for ‘The Abyssal Edge’ is a big hint…

When an archivist uncovers an unthinkable truth, he comes to the attention of the First Captain of the Night Lords, the dreaded ""Prince of Crows"" himself. Terrified yet enrapt, Ulatal listens as Sevatar tells him a tale that cannot exist in any Imperial archive. It is a tale from the world of Zoah, of the moment when Konrad Curze and Magnus the Red almost went to war...

The plan was to have ‘The Abyssal Edge’ on hand for the commute into work but I had a couple of beers last night and an Aaron Dembski-Bowden short story felt like it would complement the drinks nicely. And… So it did.

For someone who you’re led to believe had it all worked out, the Emperor of Mankind really wasn’t much of a father to his sons. While they all had a purpose to fulfil, they were ultimately too human to really get that job done, competing with each other instead of working together. That’s one of the tragedies of the Horus Heresy but it didn’t start there; the cracks in the Primarch’s relationships started to form a long time before that. We know that the World Eaters and Space Wolves came to blows. Now, an almost forgotten confrontation between the Thousand Sons and Night Lords comes to light.

The nature of this confrontation lends a very thoughtful air to the story with both sides having solid reasons for their stance. Dembski-Bowden doesn’t play favourites here, giving equal weight to both Primarchs, and the end result is a tale where I couldn’t figure out who was right and who was wrong, and I loved that sense of ambiguity.

What I really enjoyed though was what was at stake in the actual recounting of the tale itself. An archivist who must find the truth and is faced with two sets of choices. One drives the plot forward but the other… Damn, it’s one hell of a cliffhanger, what a way to end this tale. And in the background, Sevatar, a Night Lord who is clearly enjoying messing with our archivist’s head. There is so much going on here and I was just enthralled by it all. I had to keep reading.

Not a bad read at all then, now I just need to find something else for the commute...



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