Black Legion: The Talon of Horus d'Aaron Dembski-Bowden

The Talon of Horus
d'Aaron Dembski-Bowden

I can hardly believe it, but I started The Talon of Horus today. The book I’ve been wanting to write since forever.

The rough plan (very, very rough, remember) is to open the Black Legion Series with a trilogy: The Talon of Horus, The Black Legion, and Chaos Ascendant. I’ve been saying it in interviews and on panels for years, and it’s such a rush now it’s finally coming to pass.

The sheer scale of possibility has had me delaying this series a few times, because it’s the story of… everything. It could last for years and years. I originally pitched it as 2-3 novels, but my editors have mentioned that it might work better as a long-running series. “Your ‘Gaunt’s Ghosts‘,” are the words being used.

The scale terrified me, the way it would terrify anyone with at least half an eye towards all the possibilities on the table. It’s the story of the Chaos Marines after the Scouring, from the first years of the Legion Wars in the Eye of Terror, right up to… well, that’s the thing. Right up to wherever I want to take it. It could go anywhere. The story of the Black Legion is the story of the Chaos Marines themselves, the Armies of the Damned, across 10,000 years of spite, sin, and war.

So. Here we go. The story of the last days of the Sons of Horus, driven to extinction by the Traitor Legions, yet reborn from the same bloodlines.

Le plan(?) (très très vague, rappelez vous) est d'ouvrir la série de la Légion Noire sur une trilogie: LeTalon d'Horus, La Légion Noire, et Chaos Ascendant. J'en ai parlé de ça dans les entretiens et sur le tuyau pendant des années, et il y a maintenant une telle précipitation que c'est en train de s'accomplir.

L'ampleur de la possibilité m'a fait retarder cette série plusieurs fois, parce que c'est l'histoire de... tout. ça pourrait durer des années et des années. Je l'ai campé en 2 3 romans, mais mes éditeurs ont mentionné que cela pourrait mieux marcher en tant que longue série. Votre "Fantômes de Gaunt" sont les mots utilisés.

Cet échelle me terrifiait, de la même manière qu'il terrifirait n'importe qui ayant au moins un demi oeil sur toutes les possibilités mis sur table. C'est l'histoire des Marines du Chaos après le Décapage, depuis les premières années des Guerres dans l'Oeil de la Terreur, jusqu'à... eh bien, c'est ça. Il pourrait aller n'importe où je lui dicterai. L'histoire de la Légion Noire est l'histoire des Marines du Chaos eux mêmes, les armées des Damnés, à travers 10 000 années de dépit, péché et guerre.

The main character, at Abaddon's right hand and who will become one of the Black Legion's founders, is Iskandar Khayon - a Thousand Son, though he has many, many, many titles by 999.M41, and hardly anyone knows his real name by then. He was in the Thousand Sons' inner circle of command, and unsuccessfully tried to stop the Rubric

This is what worries me. People think 40K is so small, mostly because of the scale it's presented in (in the books and codices, as much as any fan assumption). Here's my answer to this exact topic, on another forum:

"It's not really a matter of limitation. From the outset, the best opportunity about a Black Legion series is a matter of scale. I don't really care, to be perfectly honest, what happens to the handful of major captains we see in the Sons of Horus, in the HH series. With the ebb and flow of Legion ranks, there are between 100 and 200 captains, commanders, battalion leaders, and several hundred more lieutenants and sergeants, etc. And that's just the Sons of Horus (who, as a related note, are practically annihilated in the Legion Wars inside the Eye of Terror, by the time the Black Legion is founded). Captains, sorcerers, officers and everything else from the other Legions are also part of the Black Legion's founding, because while the Sons of Horus were just the Luna Wolves with a new coat of paint, the Black Legion is categorically not the Sons of Horus with a new colour scheme. The Black Legion is something utterly new to the galaxy, and the Traitor Legions.

As for other Heresy characters, their fates are already famously established, or they may or may not be irrelevant. The Heresy series (sadly) can only show so much. It shows a fraction of the power players within each Legion. Anyone coming into this with linear thinking will find their expectations dashed, I think. Let's say Horus Aximand survives, for example. If I mention him, he might not join the Black Legion at all. If I don't mention him, it doesn't mean he doesn't make it. It means he has nothing to do with the story, or the founding of the Black Legion, or other characters have eclipsed him in importance. And on the flip side, how many captains of the Thousand Sons have we really seen? Or the Emperor's Children? Or even the Sons of Horus? There are hundreds and hundreds - some are minor, some are major, but they're just not quite on the level of the Kharns and Ahrimans. And, of course, Abaddon.

So, naw, it's not about there being any limits set on this. In fact, the opposite is true, as f'rex Dan has already asked which Sons of Horus characters I planned to use, so we didn't kill them off in the Heresy, etc. It's more a matter of scale, that the characters we've seen in the Heresy are 0.01% of the bigger picture. The First Lords of the Black Legion aren't necessarily the last commanders of the Sons of Horus. It'll never be that linear - I'd be doing a huge injustice to the scale of the setting if it played out like that.

Think of it like Troy. All those heroes died in the Trojan War, except for a small handful that went on to their own adventures. Odysseus had his Odyssey. Aeneas went to found the city of Alba Longa with the Latins. A few hundred years later, the last lords of Troy were mostly gone, and the first lords of Rome took their place.

I'm sure there'll be a spoiler or two on the most minor scale, but we already know what happens to every primarch and first captain anyway, so it's hardly life-shattering. As for other characters, it's more a matter of it not being about the same guys that masterminded the Heresy. We already know most of their fates. This is about the Traitor Legions being forced to live in Hell, in the wake of their primarchs abandoning them and evolving to a higher plane of life; and a new breed of Chaos Marine rising from the rubble.

The main character, at Abaddon's right hand and who will become one of the Black Legion's founders, is Iskandar Khayon - a Thousand Son. He was in the Thousand Sons' inner circle of command, and unsuccessfully tried to stop the Rubric. He's not mentioned in the Horus Heresy series (though I could easily have him slipped in already; could've done it myself twice over), but the focused nature of the HH series means about a bajillion major and minor characters are slipping through the cracks. There's room for a lot of flex space, if you get me.

If you have too much crossover, the galaxy becomes too small. It's one of my hugest bugbears. Like how Boba Fett is "the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy". The galaxy is a big, big, big place. I hate that "small neighbourhood" feel of everyone knowing everyone else."

Spoiler:

Well, because you asked so nicely (and as a reward for 5,000 Likes on Facebook), here’s the cover for The Talon of Horus.

Don’t say I never give you anything.

Spoiler: