The Talon of Horus (Volume 1) (The Black Legion)

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Ezekyle Abaddon, first captain of the Sons of Horus and his Justaerin Terminator elite fought their way through squad after squad of yellow-armoured Imperial Fists Terminators to the command centre of the starship, but they were too late. The Corrupter: Khayon believes Moriana to be this, considering her, rather than Drach'nyen, the first bribe the Chaos Gods offered Abaddon to convince him to take the power they offer. He also vocally expresses his dislike for Moriana's growing influence over Abaddon.

When Khayon is approached by an old comrade of his with word of a dire threat, that the body of Horus has been stolen from its tomb by the Emperor's Children, he finds himself caught up in a quest across the Eye of Terror to find the one person who might be able to put an end to whatever obscene plans the Third Legion has for Horus's corpse, a warrior who has long disappeared into the depths of the Eye in the wake of his father's great failure, Ezekyle Abaddon... Sense Loss Sadness: After Khayon's Mind Rape strips Telemachon of emotions, he mostly stands in one place and stares blankly at the walls when the sorcerer is not nearby, and compels him to be loyal to the man who allows him to feel again.

The Anamnesis - Advanced machine-spirit reigning over the warship Tlaloc, born of Forge Ceres on Sacred Mars. However, we learn some interesting things about the way the warp is. The WH40k universe is redefined to be even more grim and bleak than it already is. (Honestly though, it is getting a ~little~ nihilistic. Is the Astartes vs Cthulhu story that far away? :) ) And there are a lot of really neat little character moments that I enjoyed very much. Khayon also claims that this is Abbadon's underlying purpose - to break the control the Chaos Gods have over the lives of mortals, so they can forge their own path. Given what his true purpose is though... At some point, late in the Great Crusade, the Imperial Fists served alongside the brutal World Eaters Legion for a significant amount of time. During these campaigns, Sigismund became a close comrade of Assault Captain Kharn, Equerry of Primarch Angron.

Heroic Sacrifice: Mekhari remembers enough to stand in Horus' clone's way and protect his erstwhile friend from dying. Not Me This Time: The Inquisition attempts to pin a load of aliases and crimes on Khayon whilst he is in their custody. It should be noted that he doesn't deny committing acts of mass genocide but that he mildly resents being accused of things he didn't do. This claw has killed two primarchs, it wounded the Emperor unto death. I would have spared him the taste of your life a well, if you could have only seen what I have seen..."After only a few hours' worth of fighting both Mondus Occulum and Mondus Gamma were burning, and vast swathes of machinery and manufactorum capacity had been destroyed. The loss of such irreplaceable technology and knowledge would be felt by the Imperium for millennia to come. Like comets launching from the surface of Mars, the Imperial transports fled into the heavens. Astartes and Imperial Army vessels jostled in the sky in their haste to depart the crimson world. But the mission was successful and the Loyalist Astartes had secured a large number of the new marks of Power Armour in preparation for the oncoming campaign against Terra by the Traitor Legions of Horus. Mirror Character: Despite his hatred of Ahriman for destroying and enslaving his legion, Khayon acts in a similar way by binding Telemachon to him and removing all his ability to feel. Abbadon calls him out on this, and Khayon is self-aware enough to realize that not only would Ahriman point out the hypocrisy, but that the most galling thing is that Ahriman would be right. Khayon does reverse the process despite being aware Telemachon may try to murder him. We will spend our lives fighting to secure this Imperium, and then I fear we will spend the rest of our days fighting to keep it intact... In the far future, there will be only war." Told from the perspective of Iskandar Khayon, a former Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons, both as the events happened as he relates them to Imperial captors, the picture you get as the book opens is a bleak one; the Horus Heresy has become all but an apocryphal myth. Horus is long dead, the remaining Primarchs of the Traitor Legions have ascended to Daemonhood and left the concerns of their sons behind, and what's left of the Traitor Legions have devolved in fractious warbands fighting amongst themselves for territory and resources. The Long War to cast down the False Emperor has been forgotten. Trapped in the roiling depths of the Eye of Terror, the only thing that matters to the Traitor Legions anymore is survival. In ADB's previous series, Night Lords, First Claw meets Falkus Kibre and the remains of the Justaerin, noting that they reek of corruption and possession. In The Talon of Horus we find out how it happened.

A third original element is the fight around Horus’ body, the demise of his Legion, once the most powerful of all. The attempt of the Emperor’s Children to gain supremacy and resurrect him, thanks to the skills of the infamous Fabius, makes up the core of the narrative of this first volume of the trilogy. Khayon: Screaming marred the duel, throaty wrathful roars that I didn't realize, until I ran out of breath, were rising from my throat. All serenity and meditative thought was lost, replaced by a red focus. I advanced on Ulrech, laying my entire weight into every blow.Khayon: He burned with life...and I realised then just how it was that Sigismund still lived after all this time. He had survived for a thousand years because he refused to die. He hated us too much to sleep in his grave with his duty undone. Ezekyle Abaddon - XVI Legion warrior, born of Cthonia. Former First Captain of the Sons of Horus, former High Chieftain of the Justaerin. Commander of the warship Vengeful Spirit. As audiobook the performance is superb - probably the best I have heard for the fantasy/sci-fi genre. The narrator really understands the characters and manages to give them each distinctive voices. So often I find the narration on these types of novels actually hurts the story. Not so here - I am very happy I listened to this as opposed to reading it.