Once again this month, Black Library’s Quick Reads eBook series features a reprint of one of my Warhammer 40,000 short stories, and this time it’s “Crimson Night“.
Previously seen in the pages of What Price Victory and later the print-on-demand anthology The Book of Blood, “Crimson Night” was in fact the very first thing I wrote for Black Library waaaay back in 2003, before my Blood Angels, Sisters of Battle and Horus Heresy novels hit the stores.
Rich in iridium deposits, the mining world of Merron is a valuable resource for the Imperium. When a company of Doom Eagles arrives to take over garrison duties from the Flesh Tearers, they find the locals completely traumatised by their contact with these savage warriors. As civil unrest spreads and rumours fly, the Doom Eagles are forced to investigate exactly what manner of evil is preying on the people of Merron.
In many ways, “Crimson Night” was my audition piece for BL, and I wrote it for initial publication in the pages of Games Workshop’s late, lamented short fiction & comics anthology magazine Inferno!; the focal character of the Doom Eagle Brother Tarikus would return in “Relics“, Black Tide and “The Returned“, along with warriors from the Blood Angel successor chapter the Flesh Tearers*.
To read this early work of mine, visit the Black Library website Here, or download an excerpt in Mobi or Epub formats.
* Just FYI; the new cover describes this as ‘A Flesh Tearers Story’; and while they do play an important role, this much more a Doom Eagles tale…
