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The Horus Heresy #Short Story
Tallarn: Witness
After a somewhat unexpected Imperial victory against the Iron Warriors upon the dead wastes of Tallarn, the world's new governor-militant Susada Syn takes to the battlefield. With the wreckage of a million tanks and war machines spread across the planetary surface, Syn and his allies in the Space Marine Legions and Imperial Army survey the carnage, and consider the price that they have paid in blood...
Read it because
We hardly ever get a look at the very end of war. I mean the very end, after everyone has packed up and gone home. Witness gives us a Titans-eye view of the total warped Titans, corroded tanks, and a sea of twisted metal. And this scene couldn't be more moving.
7 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 16, 2015
1 person is currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
John French
154 books298 followersJohn French is a writer and freelance game designer from Nottingham, England. His novels include the Ahriman series from Black Library, and The Lord of Nightmares trilogy for Fantasy Flight. The rest of his work can be seen scattered through a number of other books, including the New York Times bestselling anthology Age of Darkness. When he is not thinking of ways that dark and corrupting beings could destroy reality and space, John enjoys talking about why it would be a good idea... that and drinking good wine.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 22, 2015
Hot damn but that was a DARK short story!
The war for Tallarn is over and the last Titan walks its' surface and looks over what is left. With a cast of Titan Princeps, the new militant-governor and a White Scar, it makes for some grim reading.
And that last line, after seeing the terrible carnage and destruction of an entire world. The cost of victory is sometimes too high to bear.
The war for Tallarn is over and the last Titan walks its' surface and looks over what is left. With a cast of Titan Princeps, the new militant-governor and a White Scar, it makes for some grim reading.
And that last line, after seeing the terrible carnage and destruction of an entire world. The cost of victory is sometimes too high to bear.
May 16, 2024
May 2024 Read using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project Reading Order Omnibus XX Shadows of the Warmaster IV The Dead and the Dying (https://www.heresyomnibus.com/omnibus...) as part of my Oath of Moment to complete the Horus Heresy series and extras.
Wow. This is super short and brutal! Must have felt especially festive on whichever day of the Black Library Advent Calendar this released!
The new Governor-Militant, Susada Syn, returns to their birthworld to oversee its ashes among the carcasses of countless war machines and the hulls of minions of burnt out tanks. They always thought they would die before they returned, not the other way round...
There's some impressively unbeautiful about how stark a picture that French paints of the nightmare of dead sludge, rusted wrecks, and unfathomable dead. This is a world that was instantly murdered by virus bombs and then suffered countless other deaths as the armour of Imperial Army, local volunteers, Imperial Fists, and Iron Hands did all they could to hold back the homicidal focus of Perturabo and the Iron Warriors. It truly hits the grimdark extreme of the pointlessness and awfulness of war with such a frank depiction of this nominal victory.
It's an interesting choice for the opening of the Tallarn anthology and I do appreciate the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project having this at the end.
In many ways this is the 1000 word picture of the Devastation of Tallarn and very much an introduction/ coda for the Tallarn narrative, rather than it's own story, but I do appreciate the perspective, the utterly sexless and as far from Ooh-Ra! as you can get, and that the first/ last look at the corpse is from a Tallarnian perspective.
It's only more perfect that a White Scar, a weapon of the Imperium gets the last word, calling this sight, "Victory". It's almost too on the nose, but it's classic French bleak black humour and taking the nightmare seriously, while understanding the heightened absurdity of the Dark Millennia.
Through the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project and my own additions, I have currently read 46 Horus Heresy novels (inc. 1 repeat and 8 anthologies), 25 novellas (inc. 2 repeats), 137 short stories/ audio dramas (inc. 10+ repeats), as well as the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, all 17 Primarchs novels, 4 Primarchs short stories/ audio dramas, 3 Characters novels, and 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels and 1 short story...this run, as well as writing 1 short story myself.
I couldn't be more appreciative of the phenomenal work of the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project, which has made this ridiculous endeavour all the better and has inspired me to create and collate a collection of Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 documents and checklists (http://tiny.cc/im00yz). There are now too many items to list here, but there is a contents and explainer document here (http://tiny.cc/nj00yz).
Wow. This is super short and brutal! Must have felt especially festive on whichever day of the Black Library Advent Calendar this released!
The new Governor-Militant, Susada Syn, returns to their birthworld to oversee its ashes among the carcasses of countless war machines and the hulls of minions of burnt out tanks. They always thought they would die before they returned, not the other way round...
There's some impressively unbeautiful about how stark a picture that French paints of the nightmare of dead sludge, rusted wrecks, and unfathomable dead. This is a world that was instantly murdered by virus bombs and then suffered countless other deaths as the armour of Imperial Army, local volunteers, Imperial Fists, and Iron Hands did all they could to hold back the homicidal focus of Perturabo and the Iron Warriors. It truly hits the grimdark extreme of the pointlessness and awfulness of war with such a frank depiction of this nominal victory.
It's an interesting choice for the opening of the Tallarn anthology and I do appreciate the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project having this at the end.
In many ways this is the 1000 word picture of the Devastation of Tallarn and very much an introduction/ coda for the Tallarn narrative, rather than it's own story, but I do appreciate the perspective, the utterly sexless and as far from Ooh-Ra! as you can get, and that the first/ last look at the corpse is from a Tallarnian perspective.
It's only more perfect that a White Scar, a weapon of the Imperium gets the last word, calling this sight, "Victory". It's almost too on the nose, but it's classic French bleak black humour and taking the nightmare seriously, while understanding the heightened absurdity of the Dark Millennia.
Through the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project and my own additions, I have currently read 46 Horus Heresy novels (inc. 1 repeat and 8 anthologies), 25 novellas (inc. 2 repeats), 137 short stories/ audio dramas (inc. 10+ repeats), as well as the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, all 17 Primarchs novels, 4 Primarchs short stories/ audio dramas, 3 Characters novels, and 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels and 1 short story...this run, as well as writing 1 short story myself.
I couldn't be more appreciative of the phenomenal work of the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project, which has made this ridiculous endeavour all the better and has inspired me to create and collate a collection of Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 documents and checklists (http://tiny.cc/im00yz). There are now too many items to list here, but there is a contents and explainer document here (http://tiny.cc/nj00yz).
March 7, 2015
Beginning with the first novella Tallarn : Executioner, the story of the Battle of Tallarn has developed into a mini-series of its own within the Horus Heresy, with John French’s micro-short Tallarn : Witness capping everything off. Set in the aftermath of the battle’s conclusion, it sees the new governor of Tallarn surveying the desolate surface of his world from the bridge of a Titan, and considering the cost that the victors have paid for their success.
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/20...
Read the rest of the review at https://trackofwords.wordpress.com/20...
December 15, 2015
Usually I'm all for short stories. I like the way the author need to condense a story to fit on just one or two pages. This was unfortunately not one of the better ones. There's nothing inherently wrong with it and the message is crystal clear. It can be that I don't know the characters or that I would have liked a closer look at the tank graveyard. To really hammer in the loss in human lives and the cost of "victory"
February 18, 2015
Dont know why people do not like that - but in retrospective to Executioner and Ironclad - it is AWESOME! John French - ty for your great stories
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews