I'm re-reading the Horus Heresy, and this is my review of Heralds of the Siege , book 52 in the series. Heralds of the Siege is an anthology, consisting of several short stories, and I'm going to review each one. Dreams of Unity is the fifteenth short story in the book, written by Nick Kyme.
Just when you think the book has is wrapping things up with slow and pensive mood pieces, this short story storms in to shake things up again. It's a good story, although unfortunately the tried-and-true tradition of Warhammer 40,000 stories providing not even a paragraph to catch the reader up on the story so far, I don't think this is suitable for all readers. Of course, we're 52 books into the Horus Heresy and it's probably fair to assume any reader of this book is familiar with the lore, but frankly I have a terrible memory and it took me a while to recall the significance of the Thunder Warriors.
The Thunder Warriors were early genetic experiments, created by the Emperor as a way to kickstart a huge army to unify Terra. One of the "problems" with this experiment was that the Thunder Warriors were deadlier even than the Astartes, and lacked the Astartes' [supposed] tendency toward chivalry and nobility. And they were, as it turns out, meant to be disposable. It's widely believed that the Emperor essentially betrayed, or at least abandoned, them in the end. All of them died near the end of the Unification Wars, at the Battle of Mount Ararat against the Kingdom of Urartu, after Arik Taranis raised his Lightning Banner over the battlefield and declared the Emperor's victory..
This short story is about some of the survivors of the Battle of Mount Ararat. But wait, there were no survivors. All Thunder Warriors are dead! Welp, not these ones.
In the gladiator pits of Radik Clev, Thunder Warrior Kabe is fighting for his life. Another Thunder Warrior, named Dahren Heruk, sees that the fight isn't going well. When Kabe falls, Heruk leaps into the pit himself, kills Kabe's opponent, and then slays Kabe to ensure him an honourable death. Remember that scene, it'll get a callback later to signal the end of the story.
The story is simple, and yet weirdly over-complex. Tarrigata is an astropath-turned-gym-teacher who helps Thunder Warriors learn the Crane kick, or something. One day, Heruk returns to Tarrigata's house only to find it burned down. But why? Maybe because somebody wanted to get rid of Tarrigata, or maybe it's because Tarrigata had a stash of spare organs harvested from dead Thunder Warriors.
Meanwhile, Custodian Tagiomalchian lands on the planet to hunt down an enemy of the Imperium, specifically an Alpha Legion traitor marine. Tagiomalchian attacks the possessed legionary and its cultists, and Heruk, hunting down a bunch of false leads in hopes of finding Tarrigata's killer, stumbles into the scene. The brave Thunder Warrior slays a bunch of cultists, and then goes up against the legionary himself. This is the Heruk's first glimpse of daemonic power, and so his cry "For unity!" takes on a new meaning. No longer is he fighting for unity of the tribes of Terra, now he fights for the unity of mankind.
Using a rad pistol given to him by Tarrigata, Heruk is able to stun the traitor marine long enough to stab him. Heruk falls, himself greatly wounded, but he's done enough damage for Tagiomalchian to behead the Chaos marine.
Ready for the callback? As Heruk lies dying, he asks Tagiomalchian to give him an honourable death. The Custodian agrees, and stabs the Thunder Warrior, whose last words are, of course, "For unity!"
There's still one more story after this one, but this "bookends" the story of Horus Heresy nicely. It ties the war of the Heresy back to the Unification Wars of Terra, closing the latter and beginning the next stage of humanity's fight for survival. That makes it sound like a noble, of course, and it's tough to call the Imperium noble even if it does ostensibly wage war to ensure the continuation of the human race. That's the extra dimension of complexity to Warhammer 40,000. The Imperium is fascist, Chaos is selfish, and there really are a lot of xenos out there who want to destroy human life. What choice has anybody got, at this point? I mean, there are lots of choices of course, and it's a fictional universe so there's endless possibility, but it's also a war game in the end and so the war must continue.
I'd say this story could be a good all-purpose Warhammer 40,000 story, but for its total lack of any kind of introductory material or context. Most Warhammer 40k stories are guilty of this, and it's fair to assume that readers have the background they need to understand the significance of what they're reading. But it also means limited readership, so I wouldn't recommend this story to somebody new to the universe. Then again, why would anybody new to Warhammer 40k start reading at Book 52 in a series?
Even with the assumption that the reader has the required context to understand the plot, I do believe this particular plot is a little convoluted. There are lots of characters, lots of names, lots of locations, heck there's technically a B-plot happening, and this is just a short story. I threw in a lot of names in this blog post to try to convey just how much information there is in this story, but I left out a lot.
I had to read it twice to fully understand how Heruk and Tagiomalchian ended up meeting, and why. I kinda think the story probably could have been a really good novel.
The lore is really cool, though. A diaspora of Thunder Warriors, previously thought to be dead, is genuinely exciting. The way the story correlates the Unification Wars to the Horus Heresy is a really nice touch.
So it's a good story, it's just an advanced one.
All images in this post copyright Games Workshop.