Horus Heresy Primarchs #15 by David Annandale
The 15th Primarch novel (novella) takes us to the Death Guard and their Primarch – Mortarion.
From the book:
Once, the Galaspar System suffered under the cruel regime of the Order. Billions of people toiled endlessly to enrich their masters, enduring short lives of poverty, squalor and fear. But Galaspar’s sins did not go unnoticed by the Imperium, and so Death itself sentenced the Order to annihilation.
Mortarion, newly uplifted to commander of the Death Guard, descended upon the world, and with him came a slaughter of untold proportions. The sheer brutality of Mortarion’s campaign left the Imperium appalled. Seeking to understand its horrors, two noble primarchs have come to Galaspar, summoning their brother to account for his actions. But the Pale King brooks no challenge to his methods, for when the scythe falls, it reaps a gruesome toll.
Part of the Primarchs (Horus Heresy) series sees Mortarion justify his methods in the compliance of Galaspar. Starting with Horus & Sanguinius who have come to underestand why Mortarion took such brutal measures and why so much of the population lies dead… being counted by those left.
Mortarion doesn’t justify his actions, but he does explain them; how a precision strike through the planets defences and assaulting a hive with a spaceship was the only way to cut the head off the Order.
Unlike some of the Primarch books this was primarily about Mortarion, and his role in the fighting for compliance – and it is better for it. The reader gets a real sense of how Mortarion think, plans, and acts in the face of a world run by the few, at the cost of the many.
I also loved the descriptions of the organisation of the hive, and fighting within it… this book would not be out of place in the Necromunda hives… albeit without the Noble Houses being defeated by Mortarion and the Death Guard. Who knew that 10,000 years after these events and Imperium would be replicating the very worlds that Mortarion fought to destroy.
A great addition to the series.
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