The story telling seems to jump around from actual events to annotations and some memoirs. It had a weird flow at times but it didn’t really hinder the tale. We are introduced to a Fenrisian Inquisitor (a female too) in a cold open that has her stopping a demon laced planetary lord. She does this by teleporting in Castian Squad to banish the man suit wearing warp spawn. The first encounter with our protagonists is short lived but still pretty damn cool.
After the action the story leads to a mission aboard a derelict Space Wolf battle barge that needs to be investigated. It appears all hands were lost, but two: a heavily wounded Wolf and the ship navigator that has been possessed. Castian Squad investigates and discovers what happened aboard ship and is then assaulted by warp creatures and eventually the true masters come calling. A swarm of lesser Khorne demons, then some Bloodletters and finally a Bloodthirster assault the Grey Knights. A big fight ensues and the Grey Knights glean where this ship was coming from and where the next mission will lead, Armageddon.
The Grey Knights and Inquisition are clueless to the fact that the forces of Khorne have been assaulting the planet Armageddon for quite a while. There has been no word. Even worse is that the lost Primarch of the 12th Legion stalks the battlefield. Yup we are going to get a look at the titanic battle to end the second war for the planet Armageddon. The Space Wolves come calling and set the stage for the grey Knights to banish Angron and his buddies. Logan Grimnar and his Wolves along with the Imperial Guard regiments will pull back to defend the few remaining hive cities while the Grey Knights do their job. Angron, with the forces of Khorne, will face-off against a contingent of one hundred (and a few more) Grey Knights in a real slobber knocker.
The after math leaves parts of Armageddon in ruins and the civilian population and Imperial Guard regiments in a bit of a pickle. See, nobody outside of a few groups can know of the Grey Knights, the Horus Hersey and the forces of Chaos. The Inquisition usually kills civilian populations who have witnessed this kind of event. They also cull Imperial Guard that have fought the creatures of Chaos to stop any spread of corruption or chaos taint. This is why the Space Wolves pulled back, to keep the guardsmen and civilians from seeing Angron and his buddies. This is to keep everyone safe for being killed, or so they think.
What happens next? Well the inquisition chemically sterilizes the civilian population of Armageddon and ships the entire surviving populace off to another planet to be slave labor. This will keep them quiet and stop keep any spread of corruption or mutation at bay. Then they order all the surviving Imperial Guardsmen to be killed. This will stop the stories, corruption and possible cult activity. Well the Space Wolves get cheesed off at this and this begins a cold war between the Inquisition and the Wolves. Of course this escalates from harsh words to full scale combat.
Sure it all works out in the end (in a most fantastical manner) since both the Space Wolves and Inquisition are still messing around the 40K universe, but it is nuts how this starts and ends. It is also some of the best stuff in this novel. The Grey Knights and their Inquisitor friends are hard to like and cheer for after the Armageddon fight. It also doesn’t hurt to have a really well written Logan Grimnar. His character is great in every scene he is featured.
I went into this novel hoping for Grey Knight awesomesauce. There was some of that. However, the Space Wolf story was just better. It doesn’t ruin the book, but it definitely shifted my perspective. This is still a good read though. Any 40K fan who wants a take on Angron’s invasion of Armageddon and the continued bloody aftermath will not be disappointed.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden delivers another great story.
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