Adept Pallas Ravachol never dreamed he would be plucked from the Martian forge temples to work upon the secret Kaban Project. But his dream assignment soon turns into a nightmare when he chances upon things he was not meant to…

Writer’s Commentary

I was asked to write this story for Alan Merrett’s compiled Horus Heresy Art Books. My eighth novel, False Gods, hadn’t been out long and was getting some pretty good word of mouth, so once again, I was in a Heresy state of mind (that just sounds evil, but hey…) and looked forward to diving back into that place again. Scanning through the pages of the art books, there were plenty of ideas, stories and events that leapt out at me, but most were too big to be confined to a short story and most touched on events that I knew other folk would want to write about. In other words, most of the things I thought would make great stories were ones that I didn’t feel comfortable ‘stealing’ for myself. So I racked my brains for a story that could slip between the cracks, so to speak. A story that could be read on its own, but which, if you’d read the opening books of the Horus Heresy series, would slot neatly in between and remind the reader that the Horus Heresy didn’t just involve the Luna Wolves. The Mechanicum were the obvious choice for me here and having seen some of John Blanche’s excellent paintings of the messed up Mechanicum dudes, I knew I wanted to write stuff for them…especially Remiare, the Tech-priest assassin. Check it out, you’ll be glad you did. Not only did I love writing this story, but it gave me a real thirst to do more with the Priests of Mars. That later bore fruit in the Horus Heresy novel, Mechanicum…