Buried Dagger: Doom of the Death Guard

[Roomsky]

Thoughts on The Buried Dagger

 

Well, here we are: the final numbered entry in the Horus Heresy series. Yes, The Siege of Terra is on the horizon, but this is very much the cherry on top of the long road to get there. This isn’t to say books prior to this one haven’t been moving the necessary actors into their necessary places, but above all, The Buried Dagger feels like the capper to this lengthy journey to Terrabowl M31. Is it successful in this goal? I certainly think so. Is it perfect? Absolutely not.

 

I think this is absolutely Swallow’s best book, and I don’t even dislike his writing. He has a bad habit of drawing things out for far longer than they need to be, and his world building can get very derivative (if not outright non-existent). His world building is much improved here, and while not truly excellent, I got a good feel for the pre-fall Death Guard, even doing a bit of damage control on Vengeful Spirit (Yes, 5 years later and we still need to bend over backwards to justify that :cuss). Of course, I would have liked Wraight to pen this book, but that’s not really a fair criticism of the work itself.

 

Speaking of Vengeful Spirit, I hope the pilot who unceremoniously exploded wasn't Rassuah. She was one of the very few good things about that book.

 

As for poor pacing, he seems to have over-corrected a little.

 

All the ingredients are here, describing the synopsis would probably give a fairer impression than reading it. Mortarion is actually quite consistent, he focuses over-much on his own sentimentality and loathing, which is what leads to both his crises. We don’t, however, really get to see that develop over time, he hates his abhuman dad and that turned him into this curmudgeon by the time we meet him. It reads more like justification than “how we got here.”

 

I really like what Swallow was trying to do with Mortarion’s fall, conceptually even moreso than the old fluff. I always thought “yeah, they were in really really really really bad pain, so he bartered with Nurgle,” was more than a little flimsy. There’s not much compelling, to me, about one-upping a legion infamous for hating Chaos to drop them off the slippery slope. It would be like the White Scars getting stranded in the warp, and then Slaanesh makes them feel really slow until they turn.

 

Instead, Swallow tries to show that Nurgle has been working on Mortarion for his entire life. From a corrupted foster-father to a secret-cultist best friend to replacing Mortarion’s justified object of hatred to the Emperor. While Mortarion isn’t conventionally whittled down by the events in the warp, I got the impression the whittling has been going on ever since he landed on Barbarus. He despairs after Typhon’s open betrayal because he realizes he’s never been in control of anything at all.

 

And that’s hella Nurgle, fam.

 

But, again, execution leaves a bit lacking. Swallow hits the right beats for that story, but the sinew is flimsy. Even accounting for Mortarion’s stubbornness, Typhon acts incredibly suspiciously all story, on top of constant insubordination. There were sections on Barbarus where I was left wondering “oh, we’re doing this now. No build up to that but okay.” Mortarion is very stubborn, and it seems to be used a little too often to justify his willful blindness to reality.

 

Despite that, I honestly really appreciated the pacing of the book, I was hooked the whole way through, but the Knights Errant plot may have stifled the Death Guard stuff just a smidge.

Speaking of which, structural implications aside, I really liked the stuff on Terra, too. I think Swallow is at his very best writing about how the Emperor and Horus cast shadows over the entire conflict, and how Malcador and Erebus have their hands in everything. While the Rubio reveal was a little goofy, I also appreciate the sheer obtuse lengths both sides of the war employ to undermine their opposites. Garro is of course Swallow’s baby, so he comes across well, and I genuinely believe he writes a great Malcador and a more than decent Loken.

 

The most important thing to me, though, is that it recaptured the wonder I had when I started this series. Maybe it’s just nostalgia bait, but between Loken telling Malcador to get bent, the Gray Nights being sequestered, Mortarion finally falling, and the Siege finally starting, it just made me giddy. I quite like this novel, and I quite like it as a capper to the main series. I got what I wanted as Death Guard fan and a Silent War fan, and I think its unfair to compare it to a theoretical book by someone else.

 

If I had to rate it, I’d give it a 7.

[DarkChaplain]

Having just read Lantern's Light, though not The Buried Dagger so far, I think you're correct with how Nurgle had his claws in him all along. The short story is set a year post-discovery, and Mortarion has a nagging voice at the back of his mind almost the entire way, associating it with Typhon's primarily. It certainly appears like he has been manipulated - and riled up against authority and the Emperor in particular - all along.

[Wulfburk]

 

 

 

The most important thing to me, though, is that it recaptured the wonder I had when I started this series. Maybe it’s just nostalgia bait, but between Loken telling Malcador to get bent, the Gray Nights being sequestered, Mortarion finally falling, and the Siege finally starting, it just made me giddy. 

 

 

Totally agree. And i didnt even start reading the series that long ago (started in 2015), i can only imagine what is it like for people that read Loken's arch in 2006, and are now reading his part in the buried dagger (which was amazing).

 

Loken turning back from Malcador and joining Garro had me cheering like in a world cup final almost

[godking]

Finished it yesterday.

 

The book was good but Mortarion is clearly the dumbest and most shortsighted of all the primarchs.

 

Typhon/Typhus/The emperor/Necare played him far to easily.

 

Angron has an excuse that he had a pain engine wired to his brain (and when the nails did'nt bite Angron was fairly intelligent)  Mortarion is just plain stupid for a primarch.

[Noserenda]

Gotta say, i went into this book disinterested in Malcadors lot, keen for the Deathguard and super keen to see more Barbarus stories and so far im definitely feeling the reverse...

I mean im not finished but it seems like any development hinted at in other books of Barbarus or the Deathguard is just being flat ignored, especially with Typhon, wasnt he Terran? 

[Orwell84]

Gotta say, i went into this book disinterested in Malcadors lot, keen for the Deathguard and super keen to see more Barbarus stories and so far im definitely feeling the reverse...

 

I mean im not finished but it seems like any development hinted at in other books of Barbarus or the Deathguard is just being flat ignored, especially with Typhon, wasnt he Terran? 

 

AFAIK, Typhon's always been a Barbaran. I vaguely recall an old White Dwarf article around fifteen years back where Typhon was introduced in detail, and he was described as having some Overlord blood in him. In Flight of the Eisenstein Grulgor addresses him as a fellow son of Barbarus.

[librisrouge]

I'm reading threw this now and I genuinely wish it had been 2 books. I'm loving every moment of the Knights-Errants but every chapter with the Death Guard has been agony to get threw. I find that, perhaps most amongst the primarchs, I just can't sympathize or relate to Mortarion. He comes off as petty, unlikable, short sighted, and as prone to violence as most traitor (and a few loyalist) primarchs are. It grates after a while and I have to read the Mortarion chapters in phases because I just don't care what happens to them (even if I didn't already know.)

[Tymell]

I finished this one today, and it's a tricky one to assess.

 

First and foremost, as suspected it is indeed a 50/50 split between the Knights-Errant and the Death Guard, with each getting 7 chapters. The Death Guard chapters are even called "intervals" rather than actual chapter names/numbers, possibly a tad cheeky in their own book (though it's also possible I've missed some kind of clever meaning there).

 

I won't deny, I didn't like the idea of this when it was a suspicion, and I don't like it now. This is supposed to be the long-awaited Death Guard book, and half of it is devoted to a different story. As I said before this arrived, this split narrative approach can work sometimes, but this is one instance where I really don't think it was needed.

 

However, on a more positive note, I do genuinely enjoy the prose here. Not top tier (ADB, Wraight, Abnett on good form), but honestly enjoyable. It kept me turning the pages, and I never felt like it dragged or got bogged down. The story kept good pace and felt like it had a decent mixture of combat and character introspection.

 

The character work is mixed, and I can echo some of the critiques I've seen from others here. As far as the Death Guard sections go, this is firmly focused on Mortarion and his personality. On the one hand, I do appreciate Swallow's work to flesh out Mortarion and to firmly ground this fall in his own flaws. There's a lot of work, both in flashbacks and the present, to examine why Mortarion is the way he is, and that is what leads to the legion's doom. This does give these parts of the novel a solid sense of focus, with plenty of parallels between the two time periods. One of my favourite instances of this is in the final conflict of each period (Mortarion going to attack Necare, and the Destroyer plaguing the legion): in both instances it is solidly a battle of willpower rather than blades. That is exactly what this novel is going for (again, in the DG parts).

 

On the other hand, this does mean that hardly any other DG characters get much focus, aside from Typhon, and consequently this feels more like the story of Mortarion's fall (taking his legion down with him), rather than the legion's.

 

I also appreciate that the novel doesn't characterise the DG with an endless tirade of plague/decay synonyms. The focus here is on despair and defiance, which I think is a more satisfying and less shallow angle to come at this from than it might have been.

 

However, the characterisation work, while admirable, is not perfect. As others have said, Mortarion lets Typhon get away with just about anything, including some painfully obvious treachery. I know this is supposed to be because of their firm bond, but it still feels jarring coming from one of the most rigid and stringent primarchs.

 

The Knights-Errant parts are definitely enjoyable in their own right...but they still don't feel like they belong here, to me. If they were separate as a novella, I'd put it forward as a culmination of Swallow's work with Garro, and the best he's written in that department. And I know that to some, it doesn't matter. A good book is a good book.

 

But to me, it does matter. This is the Death Guard's book, and yet it isn't, and that aspect -does- noticeably suffer for it. The whole fall could've had so much more power and impact if these were characters we'd grown attached to over the course of the book. It could've really pushed home the horror of their situation, to have to see such horrific things happening to characters we like reading about. I really liked the idea of the infection preventing Mortarion from granting his sons the release of death. It hammers home not only how other-worldly this infection is, but how there is no escape. But again, it feels like it could've been used to so much greater effect.

 

When the Death Guard, now fallen fully to Nurgle, do finally emerge at the Sol System, it doesn't have anything like the impact that it should. It doesn't feel like the end of a brutal journey, it doesn't evoke a mix of horror and relief, instead it feels like an afterthought, because so little of the novel has actually looked at the process that brought the legion there. It's an ending that doesn't feel earned.

 

So...yeah. It's tricky. Looking at this as "the book of the doom of the Death Guard", I don't think this works. I think it makes attempts, and I can appreciate that effort. But I'm also always so painfully aware that this -should- be so much more. But looking at this just as another HH novel, to lead into the Siege, I do think the writing is pretty good and it kept my attention throughout. Any numerical value I try to assign to this feels either too generous or too harsh, depending on how I look at it.

 

So I guess, if anyone's interested enough in my thoughts to have read this far, I'd say: if you want the book about the Death Guard's fall, and especially if you want it to look at the legion itself, this one will not be for you. If you want a decent Horus Heresy novel which happens to include that, or if you want a conclusion to the Knights-Errant arc, this one is probably going to work much better for you.

 

Little bits I liked (spoilered):

Varren's last stand. The daemonic Lord of the Flies faces off against Garro, gloating about how "You cannot kill decay." Then suddenly, a yell: "I will take that bet!" and in leaps the loyalist World Eater with a heavy flamer. Ultimately he fails, but damn if that isn't a cool moment that made me grin.

 

Loken refusing Malcador's offer as one of the founding Grey Knights, and instead going back to stand with Garro and the other Eisenstein survivors, ready to face Horus' forces. So satisfying.

 

Mortarion's initial meeting with Typhon on Barbarus, and his decision to stand with him. For me, this was one of the best character moments in the book, as Mortarion decides to reject Necare and stand with Typhon. Really well done.

 

Skorvall wasn't in it that much, but I loved him for the time he was. It was so refreshing to see a Death Guard character who seems kind of...pleasant? It feels odd to say, but it worked. He wasn't all grimness and bitterness (despite his nickname), and showed real concern for his comrade when the infection hit.

 

Also, info on the Grey Knight line-up for those interested who haven't read it yet (or aren't going to):

Koios = Rubio (Ultramarine)

Satre = Ison (Blood Angel)

Ianius = Arvida (Thousand Son)

Iapto = Severian (Luna Wolf)

Yotun = a Space Wolf, but old name never given. MAYBE Fights the Final Winter from Howl of the Hearthworld? But nothing to indicate that, he's just a Space Wolf psyker who was last seen heading to Terra

Ogen = a Raven Guard, likely Kurthuri, though could also feasibly be Cyvaan from The Crimson King

Epithemius = unknown, but he does say he "never had a true name", which I would take to indicate he's The Nemean from FW Book VI, especially as he's later mentioned in this book (Dark Angel?)

Khyron = unknown, we get nothing beyond him being a "hatchet-eyed legionary carrying a staff, who had been watching them all like a hawk from the very start". If I had to guess, I'd say Fel Zharost, especially as he is also mentioned elsewhere in the book (Night Lord?)

 

Crius = Loken (Luna Wolf, but rejected position)

Edited March 1, 2019 by Tymell

[Fedor]

I agree with a lot of what Tymell and Roomsky have said.

 

Overall i think it's a good character book for Mortarion and a good conclusion to the knights-errant arc/setting up Loken and Garro for the Siege.

 

For the fall of the Legion and story about the old "stuck in the warp and battling Nurgle's diseases" lore it feels a bit of a misstep with not enough buildup or body horror. That could likely have been fixed by leaving out the Terra stuff, but it wouldn't have worked as well as an overall lead in to the siege without the split narrative. I still have the feeling the HH is missing a Death Guard novel focused on the overall legion.

 

The ending with Mortarion submitting to Nurgle and the Emperor was a very well done scene.

Edited March 1, 2019 by Fedor

[Kilofix]

Maybe with the yet unannounced Mortarian Primarch book will we get an actual DG book

[DarkChaplain]

So it calls Epimetheus "Epithemius" all throughout the novel, then? Seems like a large oversight to just change his name like that, when he's previously appeared and been confirmed as one of the original grand masters, to the point of having his end published in a book from 5+ years ago.

[Tymell]

So it calls Epimetheus "Epithemius" all throughout the novel, then? Seems like a large oversight to just change his name like that, when he's previously appeared and been confirmed as one of the original grand masters, to the point of having his end published in a book from 5+ years ago.

 

It's only mentioned once (outside of the Dramatis Personnae), but yep, it's Epithemius in the book.

[Roomsky]

Maybe with the yet unannounced Mortarian Primarch book will we get an actual DG book

 

In all fairness they're hardly the only Legion to meet that fate. Not saying they should have - Vulkan had no business getting a trilogy while Horus' lieutenant gets largely ignored, - but it is what it is. 

 

My baseless book senses are also tingling and I don't think it's unlikely Wraight could get it.

[Bulwyf]

I'm about 22% into this book according to my Kindle. I got suckered into wasting half of Wolfsbane by reading literally  half the book over Do It All Cawl the most Mary Sue character in 40k instead of what the book was actually supposed to be about.

 

I don't care, at all, about Garro or Grey Knights. Unless Sevatar from Night Lords is in these sections can I skip them without it affecting the ACTUAL story in the Death Guard?

 

If this is another 50/50 book I'm going to be upset. Death Guard has zero point zero HH books about them and it sure feels as if "the DG book" is only 50% of them and 50% some other crap no one cares about.

[Tymell]

I'm about 22% into this book according to my Kindle. I got suckered into wasting half of Wolfsbane by reading literally  half the book over Do It All Cawl the most Mary Sue character in 40k instead of what the book was actually supposed to be about.

 

I don't care, at all, about Garro or Grey Knights. Unless Sevatar from Night Lords is in these sections can I skip them without it affecting the ACTUAL story in the Death Guard?

 

If this is another 50/50 book I'm going to be upset. Death Guard has zero point zero HH books about them and it sure feels as if "the DG book" is only 50% of them and 50% some other crap no one cares about.

 

It is another 50/50 book I'm afraid. But yes, you can skip the KE chapters without it affecting the DG ones.

[DarkChaplain]

 

some other crap no one cares about.

 

I do. As do surprisingly many others, it would seem. For good or ill, you're not actually the arbitrator of what a "book was actually supposed to be about" or the likes, I'm afraid.

 

It sucks if the book isn't for you, of course. I'm still highly skeptical myself, so it's not like I can't empathize. But damn me, that's a massive sodium mine right there.

 

In other news, the audiobook is out. BL audio app only right now, which may mean it'll be on Audible by next Saturday. Our Martyred Lady appeared within half a week, Anarch took a full week, so it's all up in the air. Will hopefully start on it right when it arrives on the platform.

[karden00]

 

 

So it calls Epimetheus "Epithemius" all throughout the novel, then? Seems like a large oversight to just change his name like that, when he's previously appeared and been confirmed as one of the original grand masters, to the point of having his end published in a book from 5+ years ago.

It's only mentioned once (outside of the Dramatis Personnae), but yep, it's Epithemius in the book.

I have more or less no intention of reading this book. The DG have never really interested me. So can someone explain this Epimethius/Epithemius thing to me?

[DarkChaplain]

Epimetheus was one of the founding members of the Grey Knights and originally appeared in CZ Dunn's Pandorax (spoilers for it following).

 

He's a Dark Angel, hiding from both the Grey Knights and Dark Angels involved in the conflict. He has been on Pythos since the Grey Knights arrived to close the Damnation Cache (which was opened in The Damnation of Pythos), and stayed to hold vigil. Things go bad, and in the end Epimetheus is captured by Abaddon, who was gunning for him all along, to take a closer look at the original Grey Knights, and he was supposedly gifted to Fulgrim(?) as a gift to assure his allegiance for the later Black Crusades. So we know he's done for (and see him in a very gruesome scene at the end), but we never really knew his identity beyond his original Legion and some tidbits to speculate on.

 

Now, Epimetheus is an established character and has been since then, and now The Buried Dagger comes along and either changed his name outright, or mislabeled him as an error. This was visible on the Dramatis Personae already (which WHC shared a while back too, with the same spelling), but seems to hold true in the single name drop in the text itself as well, which is a shame. It's simply an inconsistency that's ruffling my feathers in particular.

[Bulwyf]

 

 

some other crap no one cares about.

 

I do. As do surprisingly many others, it would seem. For good or ill, you're not actually the arbitrator of what a "book was actually supposed to be about" or the likes, I'm afraid.

 

It sucks if the book isn't for you, of course. I'm still highly skeptical myself, so it's not like I can't empathize. But damn me, that's a massive sodium mine right there.

 

In other news, the audiobook is out. BL audio app only right now, which may mean it'll be on Audible by next Saturday. Our Martyred Lady appeared within half a week, Anarch took a full week, so it's all up in the air. Will hopefully start on it right when it arrives on the platform.

 

 

I'm fairly certain the vast majority of people who buy a book advertised about Death Guard buy it expecting the novel to, wait for it, actually be only about the Death Guard. Not a 50/50 split of the advertised story and some tacked on drivel no one cares about. I'm sure BL could make yet another Garro book or audio drama for those who want to read about him and the proto GK.

 

When Death Guard has zero novels in the ENTIRE HH series and finally gets one the expectation is for it to be about them. Not literally 50% of the book wasted on something else with no bearing on Death Guard.

[Amun Ra]

It's advertised as being about both Death Guard and the KE though so that's hardly tacked on drivel.

[Tymell]

Honestly, I think both sides of this particular argument have points.

 

On the one hand, I am absolutely in the "This should've been a solely Death Guard novel" camp. They've had so little coverage so far, and this story was a long time coming. I get the disappointment.

 

At the same time, keep in mind that just because you (whoever you may be) don't care about this other storyline, doesn't mean no one does.

[Lord Marshal]

Maybe with the yet unannounced Mortarian Primarch book will we get an actual DG book

 

It will be from the perspective of a bunch of Ultramarines fighting in the same theatre, describing how resilient they are. Mortarion takes a bunch of hits in battle but keeps going, and then has a scene where he rants and raves in the face of the POV Ultramarine Librarian about how they totally didn't need his sorcery to win the battle-bakka and only resilience is important. We find out Morty doesn't like psykers. Who knew. Typhon will probably piss in a lake to poison the enemy's water supply at some point.

Edited March 2, 2019 by Lord Marshal

[Bulwyf]

 

Maybe with the yet unannounced Mortarian Primarch book will we get an actual DG book

 

It will be from the perspective of a bunch of Ultramarines fighting in the same theatre, describing how resilient they are. Mortarion takes a bunch of hits in battle but keeps going, and then has a scene where he rants and raves in the face of the POV Ultramarine Librarian about how they totally didn't need his sorcery to win the battle-bakka and only resilience is important. We find out Morty doesn't like psykers. Who knew. Typhon will probably piss in a lake to poison the enemy's water supply at some point.

 

 

This right here. This is how it feels to finally get a SINGLE Death Guard novel with the most important event in Legion history and having literally half of the book stolen for a random storyline. Unreal.

[Bulwyf]

It's advertised as being about both Death Guard and the KE though so that's hardly tacked on drivel.

 

For as long as Death Guard fans have had to wait just to get a single novel about them anything other Death Guard is tacked on drivel. The Garro/proto GK could have easily been done as a novella, novel or audio drama. Buying a book about Death Guard only to  get half of you wanted let alone paid for is frankly deceitful and misleading.

[Morovir]

Agreed. I would liked to have seen more of

 

Gremus Kalgaro's feud with Typhon. We know that he sent Zurrieq as a spy to the Terminus Est, but it would have been interesting to see greater developments and possibly open conflict about the future of the Legion, with Death Guard loyal to Mortarion or Typhon fighting rather than just the duel between the two at the climax.