Part 3 - The Finale of The Lion Novella - Horus Heresy

Candleshoes · February 11, 2012

Just wanted you all to know that Part 1 of 3 of Gav Thorpe's Horus Heresy Novella "The Lion", is now out in this month's digital Hammer and Bolter magazine, issue 17 (just go to the Black Library website).

Those without an e-reader can still purchase and download it, and use the free "Adobe Digital Editions" software to keep and read it on your computer, just save it as a E-Pub document after purchasing.

I plan on reading it later tonight and will do a small summary with spoilers for those interested in discussing anything new or interesting brought to light.

*EDIT

Here is a condensed list of the spoiler reviews / other tidbits in the thread so you don't have to search. The review for part 2 will come up here as well.

The Lion Part 1 Reading Notes

- Very similar descriptions of the Lion, his armor, the architecture, his mental state and appearance in Savage weapons. It feels like a continuation of the ADB characterization, but evolved.

- Takes place 82 days after the confrontation with Curze.

- Brings back the seed of doubt Curze plants in the Lion, about angels falling and how long it has been since he walked Caliban, apparently 2 years since last contact

- “Trust was not a natural state for the Primarch…”

- He feels shame for being manipulated by Peturabo for the war machines he had given him.

- “… he would never again accept the simple words of his brothers.”

- Continues the use of the term “Little Brothers” when talking about his marines.

- Corswain is in it, he is now appointed the Primarch’s Seneschal, no longer champion.

- Captain Tragan, the new 9th Order Captain.

- Carries through the use of Orders rather than Companies.

- Continue to call their Primarch “My Leige”.

- Several thousand Death Guard are now supporting the Night Lords in Thramas, apparently persecuting the Iron Hands who are also nearby, the Lion lumps the Iron Hands in with the traitors, as well as the Mechanicus. “Treat all as hostile.”

- The Lion leads a force of 6 Orders to stop them, apparently 30,000 astartes, so 1 Order = 5,000 marines.

- The navigators of the DA believe the warp storms can only mean the Emperor is dead.

- “…all psykers for that matter, caused him pause; he was not well disposed to those who might see him in ways that normal men did not. Only the Emperor did he trust with such knowledge.”

- Nephilla = a beast of Caliban without sight that used the warp to track and hunt

- The Lion uses Corswain as a judge of character, of those around him, the Lion suspects and Cor is the balanced eye. No one is exempt, even senior commanders. Paranoia, but controlled... barely.

- They are on their way to a warzone, when they are chased in the warp, by a phantom ship, a Night Lord cruiser, probably fully corrupted and daemon infested.

- The Lion does not know Nostroman, relies on others to interpret.

- Chaplain Nemiel is also in it, he now has weight in his character, threat and menace. He is very serious.

- 15 DA Terminators with combi weapons and power fists are in it, black clad, they wear the personal emblem of who they are guarding on their chest.

- The DA and NL ship get pulled into a warp anomaly, created by the NL ship, in the aftermath, daemons pour into the DA ship. They cannot be killed with regular means.

- A DA Librarian Asmodeus is labeled an oathbreaker by Nemiel for using his powers to fight back. The Lion orders that all other Librarians on the ship use their powers to fight the threat, Nemiel refuses to allow the Primarch to rescind the Nikae Edict as it was given by the Emperor. “There is no higher authority.”

- The Lion decapitates Nemiel with his bare hands. “My authority is absolute”. Corswain notices a flicker of change in the Lion, a vision of satisfaction at his handiwork, before it passes in a second.

- The Lion orders stand and the Librarians, the navigators, and the Lion himself lead 8 counterattacks on the ship.

So final thoughts: As only part 1 of 3, it is a good start to the next phase of the HH Dark Angels. It really builds upon the groundwork laid out by ADB, which is probably the best thing about this… you wouldn’t be able to tell that Gav wrote his first story after reading this. I am not usually a huge fan of Gav’s work, but this is actually something I tore through in one sitting, which bodes very well… it is NOTHING like Purging of Kallidus, or even Descent of Angels or Fallen Angels. The direction they are taking the HH Dark Angels I think finally found its stride, and I am excited to see where it goes.

The one “Wow” factor in the story is the fury of the Lion killing Nemiel and what that means for the psyche of the Lion. If he degrades mentally over the course of the Heresy, we may find ourselves with a Mentally Perturbed Lion, destroying Caliban and the “Fallen” for very different reasons than we currently have. I hope this mental play is done subtlety and gradually… where his willpower wins out.

From Gav Thorpe's Blog:

Of the Lion and the Heresy…

Can’t get enough Dark Angels action? Big fan of the Horus Heresy? Desperate to know just what the Lion got up to after his encounter with Konrad Curze in Savage Weapons?

Starting with the next issue of Hammer and Bolter, you can get a preview serialisation of my novella from The Primarchs anthology, The Lion. Not convinced? Here’s what Aaron Dembski-Bowden had to say about it:

I loved The Lion, man.

I just f**king loved it, start to finish. I think it’s the best thing you’ve ever written.

Lots of manlove to you, if I didn’t have a baby on the way already I would want to bear yours,*

Aaron

Of course, Aaron could be going insane, what with his imminent spawning, but the only way to prove him wrong is to read the novella for yourselves. And do you want to wait until June? Really?

From the Black Library website, an extract from Part 2:

Lashing out withan armoured boot, the Lion sent the hound-like beast tumbling down the corridor. Taking half a dozen strides, the primarch brought both of his swords down across its back as it tried to right itself, carving it into three pieces that spattered into gore across the decking.

He stopped for a moment to assess the situation. The flight of stairs down to the main core chamber was only fifty metres ahead, and the passageway was free of enemies. He could hear his company fighting behind him, the retort of bolters echoing up from the stairwell he had just left. Though he knew his little brothers were in a dire situation, he had to focus on his objective: regaining control of the core so that the warp engines and Geller field could be engaged.

The comm buzzed as he stepped forwards, and he heard Corswain’s voice. The seneschal sounded strained, as if speaking through gritted teeth.

‘My liege, the way is clear to the warp core. You must come at once. There is something else here, something we cannot destroy.’ The comm-link hissed for a few seconds. ‘It… It wants to speak with you.’

The Lion Part 2

The novella picks up where we left off, the Lion on his way to his arming chamber, while Corswain organizes a counterattack.

In the arming chamber are hundreds of weapons for the Lion, some made for him, most taken from the cultures he destroyed, the centerpiece of the collection was a short sword that Luther had given him on acceptance into the Order.

Apparently, this was the only affection the Lion allowed himself, the weapons collection.

He recollects when he was a boy on Caliban, insubstantial nephilla (daemons) he was able to kill with his bare hands, what no mortal blade or weapon could harm.

He chooses to wield 2 hand and a half broadswords from his collection, made by an unkown Caliban craftsman. Their names are Hope and Despair. Edged with a type of crystalline compound, the blades would never need sharpening nor would they break. The Lion had found them being used by one of the Order’s Masters as ceremony blades and had traded for them.

“Fight with Pride, Die with Honour.” The Lion says to the wounded.

The Lion sees a triangle of buboes on the corpses of his men, and the symbol “struck a chord with his memory”. He orders his dead to be burned.

When attacked, he does not wait for an enemy to come to him, but always moves forward to meet them. His swords cut through them like butter – the legionnaires bolt shells have no effect. This gives credence to the fact that the retreat called earlier by Corswain was justified and tactically sound, as there was nothing to be bought in a sacrifice.

The Lion moves with 250 men to the main core chamber.

Corswain is protecting Lady Fiana the navigator. It mentions that through sheer weight of numbers and heavy energy weapons like lascannons, they are able to fend Daemons off while she recovers from the strain her eye is causing, from using it like a weapon. They take over 50% casualties in the 2 kilometer walk to the engine section.

A Keeper of Secrets materializes out of the daemons. No weapon Corswain’s team has can harm it, the navigator’s eye not even causing it to break stride. It turns her energy back on her decimating her physical body. It uses Corswain like a puppet controlling him.

This is when, through Corswain, the greater daemon contacts the Lion “It…It wants to speak with you.”

Lion breaks through to the engine room and takes in the scene. The Keeper mentally communicates with the Lion, demanding the violence stop, or Corswain will die.

The Keeper announces that it has come to the Lion before. The Lion is capable of creating a psychic barrier/shield around himself, think power word shield from WOW. He learned how to do it when fighting in the daemon infested northern wilds of Caliban as a child.

“You do not desire power; that much is plain. Your ambition is woefully stunted for one of your abilities. You are happy to let your brothers dwell in the light of your father’s adoration. You even sacrifice your own to stay true to the memory of what once was.”

The Keeper speaks of the Emperor in the present tense, which the Lion confirms to himself that the Emperor yet lives – he wasn’t sure due to the warp storms.

The Lion, while walking in a circle, manages to take advantage of a line of sight moment and attacks the Keeper. He is able to force energy into his weapons and obliterate the Keeper, who makes the comment “Predictable Fool,” before being taken by surprise with the Lion’s powers.

The Invincible Reason translates back into real space. Two days are spent hunting Daemons on the barge.

Fiana the navigator survives, but is now aged crone. She has an audience with the primarch, to tell of a theory that the calm surrounding the area in unnatural. She is dismissed.

The Lion pushes and pushes the ship to get to Perditus, which they reach 8 days later.

The Lion claims that fleet movements were not easy to accomplish through the warp at that time, and that is was this factor alone that they were unable to force a decisive encounter with the Night Lords in Thramas, by the time enough ships could translate to bring sufficient force to bear, the Night Lords would have enough time to flee en masse to escape direct conflict.

As his fleet approaches the Mechanicum station on Perditas, the Death Guard and Iron Hands do not receive his hails. It looks like the 2 fleets are dancing in orbit, neither one of them wanting to commit and potentially be decimated. The Lion brings his power to bear and moves his fleet in-between both of them, announcing all hostilities are to cease.

The Lion already possesses the intelligence that Manus died at Istvaan and that the Death Guard turned. He won’t take chances with either.

The Lion has a conversation with Corsawin, “Whom do you serve?” In it, he brings up the duality for dedication to Primarch and Emperor, some may side with one over the other in this conflict. He begins to speak, then stops, reassuring Corswain to not concern himself with the long view and politics of the earthmovers. “Let the wider burdens sit on my shoulders alone.”

Two Iron Hands captains on world see the arrival of the DA as good fortune to break the siege stalemate in the ground war. They use this as a distraction and commit 90% of their forces in a attack against the death guard. They had to make it past a killing field and took heavy losses.

It is the Death Guard responsible for the inability to communicate. Typhon attempts to buy time for the Death Guard’s true intentions by counter assaulting the Iron Hands on the ground, and holding up the DA in space. Typhon leads the counter assault with 20 terminators.

The Lion transmits a message to every personal com on the planet, cease or die. He stops all in their tracks with his voice.

Both sides retreat from the Dark Angels.

It is confirmed that Typhon had been a librarian, before ceasing and only being recognized as first captain. With Nurgle’s help, he casts a cloak over his terminators, to hide them from the gaze of the DA librarians, and then continued to kill the retreating Iron Hands.

On the bridge of the Lion’s vessel, 4 Librarians combine their power to communicate the Lion’s voice.

The Lion tells Corswain that he warned them (the Death Guard), and let none doubt his authority, that he will destroy the facility they are fighting over.

The Lion tells the ships’ captain to launch torpedoes.

The Lion Part 3

Spoiler-tastic look

We start off the story with Typhon and his cloaked Death Guard terminators (Grave Wardens) tearing through the Iron Hands ground forces, just as the torpedoes that the Lion commanded are bearing down on the planet.

Mastodon troop carriers are being utilized in the assault.

Typhon believes the torpedo launch is merely a bluff by the 1st Legion, and that the contents of the Planet and the station (Magellix) are far too precious.

Typhon backs his forces down and contacts the Lion in a very informal manner, “Know now that you intrude upon the business of the Death Guard Legion, and it will go poorly for you.”

The Lion detonates the salvo in the upper atmosphere and grants safe passage for all, back to their vessels. He demands that Typhon and the Iron Hands captain (Midoa) remain with a bodyguard planetside to meet with him. Failure to comply will result in destruction.

The Lion lands, already over 1,000 DA had arrived at the main gate of Magellix, and Typhon and Midoa were awaiting him. Corswain and the Lion and Captain Trajan step out of the stormbird. Behind the 3 come a number of attendants carrying from Caliban banners, crowns, goblets, plaques, shields, and other items.

Behind them came the cabals of Librarians WHO WEAR BLUE ROBES.

Even though the air and environment was hellish and tainted with acridity, the Lion remains helmless and postures that he is a primarch and commands a Legion, not just any legion, the First Legion.

Before any words are spoken, prompter servitors and attendants shout and chant out all of the Lion’s many titles through their address systems.

The Lion is wearing a black enameled suit of armour, with gold and a scarlet cloak (with a 5 meter long train)

Holding the cape were 10 SWORD SHAPED SERVITORS, REPRESENTING AND NAMING THE 10 KNIGHTLY ORDERS OF CALIBAN

He is armed with Adamant, a great sword with ruby encrusted pommels and a gold chased crosspiece.

Attached to his armour were 6 huge arm length cylinders in dusty red leather casing, containing the PROCLAIMATIONS OF CLAIBAN, THE FIRST LAWS DECREED BY THE LION AFTER HIS ACENDENCY TO COMMAND OF THE DARK ANGELS, SWEARING CALIBAN TO THE SERVICE OF THE EMPEROR FOR ETERNITY.

The head of the Mechanicum facility is there and greets the Lion.

The Lion is unsure as to what to say to the two Legion captains, he views them only as an inconvenience, trusting neither one’s loyalty to the throne.

He puts them and their bodyguards under “watch” stating “Do not think for a moment to dishonor me.”

The planet that they are on, Perditus Ultima, was actually where the Lion fought beside and met for the first time, Mortarion of the newly named Death Guard, an affair that ended with neither primarch liking the other.

An “Electoo” – a hidden mark that could be realized into being by pulsed bio electricity –used by some of the more secretive orders on Caliban.

He is lead to a cavernous vault with a warp device, that the Lion claims could sense him in return. A child lays infront of it, hooked up to the machine and acts as a talking meat puppet. The device is called Tulchulcha.

The puppet can hear and is conscious of the Lion’s conversation, it is just an avatar for the intelligence inside the device and speaks back.

The machine used to be a servant of the deadly seas, and is now a servant of the mechanicum.

“You… You are neither open nor closed. You scare me Lion. It was not until you came that I knew what fear was. Your return scares me, Lion.”

***

“Their minds touch upon me. Yours does too, but it is far too heavy to carry. How do you cope with such a burden?”

“My intellect?” said the Lion.

“Your Guilt.”

***

The Lion doesn’t trust himself infront of the Mechanicum representative (Iaxis), to not reveal something inside his own thoughts.

The Lion lashes out as to what purpose this device serves to the Imperium. Iaxis then allows Tulchulcha to give a display.

It is able to translate objects from the warp to realspace without any backlash or graviometric displacement. He takes the 3 of them instantly to one of the ships in orbit and pulls it into the warp, along with every other DA ship… then puts them back into realspace before they are devoured.

***

Corswain and the Lion discuss the two rival Legions, where Cor asks questions out of his own ignorance.

“You are right not to question my judgment, Cor.”

He knows that Typhon is lying and needs to understand the Iron Hands position in this.

“I thought his Legion rendered inconsequential.” – after the death of Ferrus

Typhon kneels before the Lion and asks for forgiveness. When asked, he openly states that the Warmaster wants the warp device. He states that Horus will not take this matter lightly. He tries to trivialize what the DA are doing fighting the Night Lords in Thramas.

“Treachery does not go unpunished.” – Corswain

The Lion “Your threat is meaningless…what you say is irrelevant, but what you do not say is so loud it deafens me.”

The Lion understands that Mortarion knows nothing of what Typhon is doing, and thus is not beholden to him any longer, he is not the hand that guides him. He invokes Horus’ name, but it is not his will either that sent him to Perditus.

“He destroyed three Legions at Isstvan, but my Dark Angels were not amongst them. Curze, Mortarion, Horus, none of them desire full scale war with my Legion, and for good reason.”

The Iron Hands force was not at Isstvan, they followed Guillman’s muster at Ultramar, and were dispatched directly to take control of the device.

The Lion orders the fleet to assume a bombardment of the planet.

“You suppose too much… I too received Guillman;s summons. I do not concur with his plans, and I would no more trust him with this engine than any servant of Horus. I consider Ultramnar no safer a place for this device than Perditus, and even if Guilliman does not use it for his own purposes, I cannot allow it to fall into the hands of the Emperor’s enemies… Tell my brothers that there is nothing for them here.”

The Lion lets both forces go.

The two ships start to leave the planet, when power signatures increase from the Death Guard ship. The Lion sees the play, and orders Corswain, the Librarians and his guard to the teleporters to stop the DG from stealing the object through sorcery/warp teleportation. It expends Typhon and he needs the device to teleport back.

He reaches the device, moments before the DA start to demolish the DG’s rearguard. Typhon speaks to the device, promising it freedom, but the device knows and has seen the Lion’s return to it, and that it has been waiting a long time. “He seeks to possess me.” With that, he aids Typhon and the DG and teleports (only them) to Terminus Est, saving them from death, but also getting them out of his own way.

The Iron Hands relay the Lion’s message to Guilliman:

“Tell Guilliman I have a reply for him… tell him to wait for me. I am coming.”

Tuchulcha is safely secured in the deepest hold of The Invincible Reason and the station turned to rubble.

The Lion is sitting alone in his chamber, whispering to himself in a one sided conversation. He says that Curze is now his, but to not let the conflict escalate too quickly as to not incur any notice. If Curze sees a change, he may abandon Thramas altogether.

“Guilliman is a misguided fool at best, and a traitorous dog at worst… I would no sooner bend my knee to him than to Horus. Curze has the truth of it, but I was blinded by my anger. It has fallen to me to be the scale upon which history will be balanced. Every event has its counter, every brother his equal. Curze seeks to sap my morale and the strength of my Legion with unending war. Such shall be the duty of the Dark Angels. Yes, they will be ready for the task. There will be no new Emperor, only a lifetime of war. My brothers will bleed each other dry, contesting for eternity until there can be no victor. No, not even him. There is only the Emperor, none is worthy of inheriting that mantle. I will ensure the Legiones Astartes destroy themselves before another matches the power upon Terra. That is true. Faced with the prospect of mutually annihilation, my brothers may come to terms. Horus will be forced to acknowledge the Emperor again, and Guilliman and the others will not usurp their true master.”

A watcher in the dark appears out of the shadows and the Lion begins talking again:

“No, it is too important… even if what you say is true, I cannot return to Caliban yet. Come what may, I have to stop Horus and Guilliman.”

… The Lion did the same, his whisper full of sorrow. “Yes, even if it costs me my Legion.”

Captain Semper · February 11, 2012

Thanks for the heads-up Candleshoes! I'm getting/reading it before the day's out! :lol:

Droma · February 11, 2012

Really wish the black library site would stop denying my debit card....

I'll read this tomorrow when I can use a different payment method lol, until then no spoilers. ;)

Candleshoes · February 11, 2012

Here are my reading notes from the first part of the Novella. Includes all the plot points and the cool details/clarifications.