The Emperor confronts the Warmaster Horus aboard his flagship Vengeful Spirit during the Siege of Terra. The Warmaster is wielding the Talon of Horus.

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.Two Girls to a Team: The only female members of the Villain Protagonists ensemble are Gyre and Nefertari. Khayon: Some deaths resonate. They are more charged with emotion than others, and force a ruthless communion between slayer and slain. Few deaths resonate as much as cutting a man’s throat. There is no feeling, and no sound, quite like it. The wet gargles that try so hard to become gasps. The way the throat still aches to work, lungs quivering and straining for breath that cannot come. The ruthless, hateful intimacy of him dying in your arms. The desperate panic in his eyes, as his quivering limbs begin to collapse beneath him. The pleading within that panic, as the brain’s final functions scream that no, no, this cannot be, this is not fair, this cannot be happening. The limp, pathetic fury as he realises it is, and he is helpless to change it. It is done. He is dead. All that remains is for him to die. Blunt "Yes": When Abaddon asks why they're on the Vengeful Spirit, Lheorvine outright states that they're there to steal it. Character Development: It has been explained by BL authors that the named characters often are portrayed different, Depending on the Writer being in full effect. Abaddon however clearly is different from the Horus Heresy series, this due to his voyages through the Warp since Horus defeat.

ABD the author stayed on point with a focused storyline about brotherhood, sense of purpose and portraying the leaderless multiple legion spacemarines as not just being mindless, heretical, blood lust killing machines but a large group of soldiers who were human enough too be more then they felt after the fall of the warmaster Horus at the Battle for Terra. This is a story about the scrap of humanity each Genetically altered spacemarine has and his sense of brotherhood. Honor, duty and self-worth I felt were the focus in this story and the author too me portrayed that well. The story flowed very well and each chapter when finished was cohesive naturally with each following chapter. This story had a strong human element portrayed by the characters and especially Abaddon. The story was so much more then Abbadon and every aspect of the story was very clear. The proper editing was evident with each chapter. Ashur-Kai Qezremah, 'The White Seer' - XV Legion warrior, born of Terra. Sorcerer of the Kha’Sherhan warband and voidseer of the warship Tlaloc. Blatant Lies: Sure, walking through the sorcerous gate is just like teleportation. It's not like you have to fight through scores of daemons and fight a tide on the way...What You Are in the Dark: When Khayon is in his psyker-coma, Telemachon spends long hours standing in his room with a sword and considering whether to kill the sorcerer for the Mind Rape. In the end, he doesn't, although Khayon believes it's more because Telemachon was afraid of Gyre and Nefertari ripping him to shreds if he tried something like this. No Body Left Behind: Khayon kills Eyarik Born-of-Fire, a Space Wolves champion, during the Battle of Prospero by dismantling his body at the genetic level. 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. Abaddon: "The Imperium is ours. We fought for it. We built it with blood and sweat and wrath. We forged it with the worlds we took. The empire is built upon foundations of our brothers' bones...We didn't rebel out of petty spite, Sigismund. We rebelled because our Lord and master played us false. We were useful tools to bring the galaxy to heel, but He would have cleansed us from the Imperium the way He purged the Thunder Legion before us, wiping us all from history like excrement from His golden boots."

The second element of originality is the narrator’s perspective, which largely mirrors that of his Primarch Magnus and that of Ahriman, but without the huge arrogance displayed by both of them, and the catastrophic consequences that this arrogance has had on their sons and brothers. This perspective includes a very human-centred view of what the Warp really is and what all of the daemonic creatures that “live” in the “Sea of Souls” are really made of. The Ragged Knight, a powerful but barely controllable Daemon bound to Iskandar and coming straight from the Crusade against the Albigeois and the sac and burning of Beziers in 1209 was a particularly nice touch. Within this volume, you will also find some interesting and original interpretations on some of the events of the Horus Heresy – the causes of the destruction of Prospero and of the failure to conquer the Imperial Palace being two of the main examples. Also included are a number of “teasers”. One relates to the next volumes of ADB’s trilogy. Iskandar is a prisoner of the Inquisition somewhere near Saturn, but a prisoner who surrendered voluntarily and who presents himself as messenger. Other “teasers” allude to past climatic events when mentioning the Talon of Horus, in particular Horus’ duels against his brother and then against his father, which we might hopefully be able to read about in the Horus Heresy series in the not too distant future. Stepford Smiler: Telemachon. Beneath an exterior of your typical indulgent, contemptuous and self-righteous Emperor's Child, he's Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life and remembers times when his legion was much more.The prose was excellent, it was very well written. My biggest problem is that just... not much happens. 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.

Abaddon: The only way to kill me was to welcome his own death, and he did it the moment the chance arose. The Solar Priest calls itself several ways apart from this - the Avatar, the Astronomican, the Imperious, the Voice and the Ghost among others. Anthropomorphic Personification: The Solar Priest is a personification of the Astronomican's light and appears to Tlaloc's crew as a spindly man in a golden mask. He mentions another aspect of the beacon, called the Warlord, but we don't get to see it.Chaos Space Marines have always been favourites of mine and given the talent of Aaron Dembski-Bowden, not only for writing them but bringing them to life and fleshing them out, I was most eager to read this. The details of what happened in the 10,000 years between the end of the Horus Heresy and the present timeline of the Warhammer 40,000 universe and the activities of the Traitor Legions in that time has always intrigued me, and it's a subject that's quite murky in terms of lore, so this book piqued my interest in giving a bit more illumination to that. In the opening days of the Horus Heresy when the Schism of Mars erupted, open warfare raged across the Red Planet between the forces of the Loyalist Mechanicus and the traitors of the Dark Mechanicus. Malcador the Sigillite, the Regent of Terra, charged the Primarch Rogal Dorn with a mission of vital importance -- to secure the forges of Mars. Dorn informed the Sigillite he would send First Captain Sigismund and four companies of Imperial Fists to carry out the task. The forges of Mondus Occulum and Mondus Gamma produced the bulk of the armour and weapons of the Astartes. He would have them strike there first and when they were in Loyalist hands, the Imperial Fists would push outwards and secure the others.