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Future of the Prince of Crows


b1soul

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Re-read DB's novella Prince of Crows...fun times

 

Sevatar, the titular Prince of Crows, ends up suffering something of an incapacitating brain hemmorhage when engaging in his psychic speed hax

 

 

It was happening again. Was he faster than everyone else, or were they slower? Every enemy he faced betrayed themselves in the subtlest ways. He saw a tension in the joints of their armour – each one a premonition of where their next blow would come from. Sevatar blocked them all with the ease of a soldier seeing every strike coming, lashing back before they could retaliate.

 

It wasn’t happening again; it was worse than ever before. Or… better? Lactic acid burned his muscles and the pressure behind his eyes threatened to break his skull from within, but each beat of his heart made everyone move slower and slower. He took a chainsword against the haft of his spear, and had time to spin, teeth clenched, to ram his glaive through the chest of a tabarded paladin behind him, before turning back to catch the first Dark Angel’s next blow. As he did, he saw the minuscule adjustment in balance signifying the exact angle of his enemy’s next attack. Sevatar impaled him before the move even began, standing face to face with the dying warrior as the chainglaive hewed its way through the other warrior’s innards.

 

Blackness edged across his retinal display. It took several seconds to realise it wasn’t blood in his helm, but a stain physically darkening his eyes. Something popped in his skull, something rupturing with a wet, bursting gush of fluid. His own life signs, scrawled across his eye-lens readout, twitched no differently from the primarch’s jagged fury.

 

He could hear his brothers shouting his name now. They thought he’d been wounded, and he wasn’t sure they were wrong.

 

Trez’s warning scalded its way through his mind’s eye, as if the words were written in fire upon flesh, rather than recalled through memory’s voice.

 

This will probably kill you, Jago.

 

You have the strength for this. But not the control.

 

There’s no going back from this. If you unlock the gift you’ve fought so hard to forget… Some doors cannot be closed.

 

He staggered, down to one knee, using the fall to cleave the legs out from the closest Dark Angel. The warrior cried out, dying a heartbeat later with Sevatar’s glaive through his chestplate.

 

I might be dying, he thought, and started laughing.

 

‘Valzen!’ someone was screaming. ‘Valzen, Sevatar is down! Apothecary!’

 

He turned his head to see Rushal standing above him, a sentinel in absolute black. The Raven swung his meteor hammer, the arc ending in a burst of lethal light as it cracked the helm of yet another Dark Angel.

 

The warrior of the First Legion went down in silence, because everything was silent now. Rushal’s meteor hammer no longer boomed with every impact. Sevatar’s own erratic life signs no longer whined warnings at him. His world wasn’t a chaotic storm of thudding boots, detonating bolt-rounds, and wrenching armour joints. It was, somehow, serene.

 

Sevatar vomited into his helm, forced to choke on his own bile because he couldn’t stop laughing.

 

And then, he was home.

 

 

A few questions for discussion...

 

1. What is his most "current" status?

2. Wouldn't this development prevent him from tapping into his psychic power going forward? It seems that he might need training. Seems it would be very risk for Sev to continue winging it

3. Has any reason ever been provided explaining why the NL librarius seems oblivious to his power? How is he able to hide it from everyone except the old man

4. What would be a fitting end (or non-death fate) for this character in your view?

 

A bit of an off-topic obervation concerning Lion vs. Curze

...but it never stuck in my head that the Lion bested Curze the second time in less than 60 seconds, delivering 11 critical wounds

 

‘Fallen doesn’t mean dead, brother. Have you received word from the apothecarion?’

 

‘I have, and it doesn’t bode well. Who among the Legion has ever treated a wounded primarch before? We’re working blind. The wounds have closed, though not cleanly. Blood loss is severe. Cranial damage and oxygen starvation are still both potentially terminal, or crippling. Haemorrhaging is rampant. Organs I cannot even name are lacerated and severed from vein networks we’ve never seen before. If he were human – if he were even one of us – a single one of his wounds would be enough to see him dead. He’s sustained eleven such lethalities.’

 

The proclamation hung in the air. None of the brothers wished to add to it.

 

‘I saw it happen,’ admitted the second. ‘Even recovering him cost us too many lives. I surrendered most of a company in forcing the Lord of the First Legion back. I regret giving that order, I assure you.’

 

. . .

 

Sevatar had seen Curze fight Corax on the killing fields of the Dropsite Massacre, when the Raven Guard primarch was exhausted by hours of battle and drained by the infecting truth of betrayal. He’d seen his primarch duel the Lion twice – first in the dust of a fortress’s foundations on distant Tsagualsa, and again only weeks before, fighting for less than sixty seconds in the rain of a world that held no value at all.

 

Here, for the first time, his father was locked in a fair fight. No low blows to begin with. No assaulting a weakened or demoralised foe. No attacking from surprise, with the gravity of a devastating ambush.

 

The Lion’s movements were clinical, a ruthless economy of muscle and motion, each thrust and parry executed to perfection without the audacity of dramatic flair. Curze’s jerked-string assault was a flailing of clawed hands, each potential embrace blocking the long blade one moment, and being turned aside by it the next.

For some reason, since first reading, I've always thought that we have no idea how the second fight plays out

 

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1. If I recall correctly the most recent we've seen him is in his audiodrama, where he's in a DA cell, and without giving much away,  

has an opportunity to escape but doesn't take it in the end, instead choosing to 'help', an astropath girl. He then goes willingly with his captors, being transferred somewhere else.

I'll listen again and check for more. I am also assuming this takes place after the very brief look we get at him in Pharos (where he's just in a cell)

 

2. Maybe, again, I'll check the audiodrama. There are some mentions in there of his powers 'playing up', and the

astropath and DA librarian (I think)

both mention it when talking to or about him.

 

3. He briefly shows the Chief Librarian, Fel Zharost, in their lil confrontation in Child of Night, but then Fel is banished so I don't think the rest of the librarius knows. Between the help from Curze and Trez, and Sev only really using his powers in the middle of battle amongst the atramentar (and presumably away from the Librarius), I think he could've kept it relatively hidden behind the illusion of just being a good fighter

 

4. I'm not sure. Part of me does want him to somehow survive through this all, since he's probably the only one who would have a fraction of a chance of making the Legion a true threat again in 40k, something on par with the others. Part of me wants not to know what happens to him as well, in all truth. 

1. is correct, I've just read it as I'm going through Legacies of Betrayal and War Without End but for the life of me can't recall which one it is in.

 

Update - it was in the the Horus Heresy Quick Reads Subscription from February 2016 - The Long Night by A-D-B and it was excellent.  Also in the Eye of Terror anthology (Book 35).

Don't want to rain on anyones parade, but Sev dies during the Heresy / Scouring. A-D-B's Soul Hunter book has a very specific flashback to Curze in Tsuangala (I know I got that spelling wrong) talking to his favoured about the progress of the ongoing war, and demanding to know where Sev is. He has to be told that Sev died, and almost skirt around the issue that the Night Haunter is clearly losing his mind and has actually forgotten about his death.

 

I really need to dig that book out again and see if there were any other details about his demise.

 

Now I don't know where this would actually put his death in the context of the greater timeline, but it's defiantly before Curze get's taken out. I want to say that it was the Emperor that initiated the execution of Curze during the events of the Heresy, mainly because the only real context of what happens in this time is from Konrad's viewpoint, but it could equally be during the Scouring and could even be intimated by the first High Lords of Terra (or even someone like Dorn). 

Don't want to rain on anyones parade, but Sev dies during the Heresy / Scouring. A-D-B's Soul Hunter book has a very specific flashback to Curze in Tsuangala (I know I got that spelling wrong) talking to his favoured about the progress of the ongoing war, and demanding to know where Sev is. He has to be told that Sev died, and almost skirt around the issue that the Night Haunter is clearly losing his mind and has actually forgotten about his death.

 

I really need to dig that book out again and see if there were any other details about his demise.

 

Now I don't know where this would actually put his death in the context of the greater timeline, but it's defiantly before Curze get's taken out. I want to say that it was the Emperor that initiated the execution of Curze during the events of the Heresy, mainly because the only real context of what happens in this time is from Konrad's viewpoint, but it could equally be during the Scouring and could even be intimated by the first High Lords of Terra (or even someone like Dorn). 

 

That's almost contradicted by Mercutian telling Octavia that Sevatar survived. The point being regardless of whether he survived or not he doesn't take leadership of the VIII Legion after Konrad's death even if he does survive. The Grey Knight theory has been shot down as well.

 

So long as he get's a good death I will not complain. Preferably against Sigismund at least

 

 

 

 

Current fluff is what MRParker said plus, they only ever found sevatars helmet.

So I'll run with assumed dead until the books tell me otherwise

Where did it mention that they only found Sevatar's helmet?

that interests me too

I know the fluff is quite old, and I'm very sure I've read it else I wouldn't have written it down, I want to say lord of night veeery loosely, but it might have been elsewhere

I really, really want Sev to lead a resurgent NL's legion in 40k. he'd have a badass model.

He is dead, he is not a GK, he is not Janus, he is not a loyalist - even A D-B said: he is a bad person!

Imagine Sev leading the Night Lord part of the future Carcharodons alongside Arkhas Fal and his Raven Guard. . .

Could get quite bloody biggrin.png

Dreamer biggrin.png As Fabius explained 'My lady, might I escort you from this harsh realm?'biggrin.png

I think he died in the attack on Terra. Such an extraordinarily cool character though!

No proof yet! Unless it's handled by ADB because apparently he's the only one who makes sure characters stay dead

That sucks 'cause I love to read AD-B, but I really want Sev in 40k sad.png

I'll keep my hopes up until proven otherwise.

I kinda wish that the Lion would turn Sevatar into a Servitor to hand over to Curze....:evil:

 

His reaction would be priceless as Sev is probably the only legionary that Curze has an inkling of love for.

 

Oh but if I had the power to twist the literary knife...

I kinda wish that the Lion would turn Sevatar into a Servitor to hand over to Curze....devil.gif

His reaction would be priceless as Sev is probably the only legionary that Curze has an inkling of love for.

Oh but if I had the power to twist the literary knife...

Well now the Lion has both Sevatar and Curze as his prisoners...reunion time?

As ADB doesn't like Sev (stated that for a couple of times until now) I won't suggest any new stuff written by him about Sev.

 

So who would be able to continue his story, if that should happen? Was he already depicted by someone else?

I kinda wish that the Lion would turn Sevatar into a Servitor to hand over to Curze....devil.gif

His reaction would be priceless as Sev is probably the only legionary that Curze has an inkling of love for.

Oh but if I had the power to twist the literary knife...

Well now the Lion has both Sevatar and Curze as his prisoners...reunion time?

That was my line of thinking...or just show person A that he has Person B and see if they'll capitulate or something.

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