Last year, Black Library launched the most ambitious series since The Horus Heresy, charting the early years of the Indomitus Crusade. Avenging Son kicked it off with a look at Primarch Roboute Guilliman and the crusade’s first battles, and later this month you’ll be able to pre-order the next chapter in the story.
The Gate of Bones, written by Andy Clark, focuses on the battle to retake one of the Imperium’s holiest worlds. Here to tell us what to expect is Black Library’s Editorial Warmaster Nick Kyme.
Nick: The opening novel of the Dawn of Fire saga established the phenomenal efforts of Guilliman and the Imperium in launching the Indomitus Crusade, and the first major naval engagements of the fleets. In The Gate of Bones, the perspective shifts towards a major shrine world of the Segmentum Solar, Gathalamor, and the desperate ground war being fought across its sacred soil.A beleaguered Mordian general and a depleted preceptory of Sisters of the Argent Shroud are struggling to hold out against an overwhelming Word Bearers and Iron Warriors force. Their task is vital because Gathalamor is pivotal to Guilliman's plans. As well as its value to the Imperium as a symbol of faith, it is one of the warp nexus worlds that allows egress out of the segmentum, and thus is tactically crucial for the ongoing momentum of the Indomitus Crusade.
It must be secured and made safe.
A relief effort in the form of nothing less than the Adeptus Custodes are sent ahead of a major vanguard of Fleet Primus to try to reinforce the defenders, but also to investigate the veracity of a psychic prognostication presaging an imminent calamity. In doing so, the Custodians uncover the tendrils of a much larger plot that ties to the recent emergence of blackstone and its harnessing as a weapon.
The story leans into one of the major themes of the Dawn of Fire, that of faith. Here in the mud and terror of Gathalamor, we have an Imperial army fighting for survival that must turn to its faith to keep going, to fight on. It deals with very human and inhuman characters, and literally unearths an ancient evil from thousands of years in the Imperium's past, something that harks back to a reign of bloody apostates…
If Avenging Son was about the challenge of launching a crusade of unprecedented size and complexity during a time of utmost peril, then The Gate of Bones is about how do you keep that going across its many battlefronts, in the face of constant pressure, when the darkness feels close enough to touch…
You can pre-order The Gate of Bones towards the end of January, in paperback, ebook, and MP3 audiobook formats. It’s also available as a special edition, limited to just 2,000 copies and packed with extras, including artwork and a bonus short story, available first in this lavish tome.
While you’re waiting for the second instalment in the series, it’s a great time to catch up with Avenging Son or to revisit it if you read it when it was first released. You can download the ebook and audiobook right now on BlackLibrary.com and order the paperback from the Games Workshop webstore.