‘The Deacon of Wounds’ – David Annandale (Black Library)

I’ll be honest, I’m not a hundred percent sure what the page count is here as I was reading ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ as part of of the collection ‘Unholy: Tales of Horror and Woe from the Imperium’. I’m going for a hundred and eighteen pages, in this edition, but I don’t trust my math and that’s all I’ll say about that ;o)

I’ve managed to get a few Black Library tales under my belt over the last few months and ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ was a read back in December, one that I’d been looking forward to finally picking up. I couldn’t spring for the hardback, when it first came out, so the ‘Unholy’ collection was a welcome purchase and having already read ‘The Bookkeepers Skull’, I went straight for ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ and… I’m glad that I finally got to spend some time with it.

The planet of Theotokos is dying of thirst. For years, Arch-Deacon Ambrose has done everything in his power to help the people. Charismatic, virtuous, pious, he is as beloved as the corrupt Cardinal Lorenz, who hoards the water reserves beneath the Ecclesiarchal Palace, is feared. When Lorenz dies, Ambrose’s moment has arrived. As good as his intentions are, he is also proud. He will be the saviour Theotokos needs, and bring the relief of water to the suffering. But there is something worse than drought to come. Lorenz’s death unleashes a terrible plague, soon to be known as the Grey Tears. As Ambrose struggles to save Theotokos from the Grey Tears, the unnatural nature of the plague becomes clearer and clearer, and he is driven to more and more extreme measures. He fears malign forces lurk behind the Grey Tears. The truth is worse than his most awful imaginings.

Horror does many things and one of the things that a particular kind of horror story must do is tread the fine line of conveying inevitability while not falling into the trap of coming across as too predictable. Because that’s the thing about horror isn’t it? Sometimes, what’s coming is inevitable, either because of the threat or because our lead has far too much confidence in themselves and the plot needs to teach them a lesson. ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ offers a little bit of both and the good news is that the horror is definitely inevitable, not predictable

What we have here is a slow, gradual descent into madness with the death of the planet and the panic of its citizens feeding off each other and causing events to spiral further. There may be no way out but there is still enough mystery about the plot itself to keep things fresh and interesting. ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ is very much about the journey rather than the destination in that respect. And Arch-Deacon Ambrose proves to be just the lead to take that journey with. Ambrose has enough faith and conviction to make you think that he might just be able to pull it off and save his world. He certainly has all manner of good intentions and well, you know what they say about that… That’s the flip side of his character. Through Ambrose, Annandale shows us that there is a fine line between faith and arrogance; in this setting, that arrogance is pitiful when placed against the powers of the Warp and here comes that word again, the outcome can be fought against for a while but is inevitable.

And that is what Annandale delivers here, the true horror of ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ lying in the fact that no matter what the citizens of the Imperium do, or how strong their faith may be, it is as nothing when the powers of the Warp take a direct interest in affairs. And there is still time, right at the very end, for Ambrose to face the results of that horror on a really personal level, which delivers the final punch to the gut of a tale that takes delight in doing just that.

If I was looking for a Warhammer 40K tale that really encapsulates the horror of living in that blighted universe, ‘The Deacon of Wounds’ would be very high up on the list of contenders. Fans of the setting should definitely read it, fans of horror tinged sci-fi in general could do a lot worse than give this novella a go.