Spear of Ultramar

The Black Library Novella Series 1 #4

by David Annandale

The Siege of Terra looms, and the fate of the galaxy balances on a razor’s edge. Roboute Guilliman leads the immense fleet of the Ultramarines in a race towards the Throneworld, and such is the power he commands that he could turn the tide of the war in the loyalists’ favour. As determined as Guilliman is to reach Terra, Horus is as resolute in delaying his brother primarch until it is too late. Guilliman’s path through the Ruinstorm crosses through the Charchera system, and here Warsmith Khrossus and a lone company of Iron Warriors have been given a fateful mission. At all costs, they must hold back the Ultramarines. Guilliman foresees the coming ambush, but he has no choice but to plunge into it, and so begins a desperate struggle where the passage of every second could mark the difference between survival or extinction for the Imperium.

Read It Because

For the first time ever, the full truth of why the Ultramarines failed to reach Terra in time for the siege is revealed. Read this novella and discover just how determined the Iron Warriors were to stop the Avenging Son…

Genres: Science Fiction, 40k, Novella, Fiction

125 pages, Paperback

First published November 10, 2018

Reviews

[RatGrrrl · Rating 5 out of 5]

April 2024 Read using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project Reading Order Omnibus XVI Imperium Secondus II Fate's Ashes (https://www.heresyomnibus.com/omnibus...) as part of my Oath of Moment to complete the Horus Heresy series and extras.

How much did I enjoy this? Well, a couple of nights in a row I smashed myself in the face with my tablet that weighs nothing like an eReader multiple times because I refused to sleep and submit to my pathetic fibro hands.

Following the "When will we three meet again?" moment at the end of Ruinstorm, Guilliman and the Ultramarines are Hecking hopped up to harry, harass, and do the darnthest to halt the Warmaster's fleet from getting to Terra before Sanguinius and his Blood Angels. This novella focuses on the wild engagents in the Carchera system as the unstoppable force of the Macraggean fleet meets the immovable object of the Iron Warriors...

If I'm not careful I'm going to lose the reputation I have built up (with myself) as being a gal who enjoys a nice bit of Wick every now and then, but doesn't come to the Horus Heresy looking for action...because this is all action baybee! And I absolutely fuggin' love it!!!

Annandale. Annandale. Annandale! Baybee girl. Sweet darling Annandale, you are on another planet and I can't believe Black Library just let's you just fully go off and do your own thing, and, I know I don't always adore everything you do (but I have decided I need to give the Guilliman and Mortarion Primarchs books another go), but so much of it, including all of this, I am beyond bessoted and truly ardent in my appreciation of your gorgeous madness!

I'll never forget the way out eyes met across the ravaged wastes of Calth. I was being dragged kicking and screaming into the arcologies for an awful time with the Ultramarines, but you reached out a bloody ceramite hand and made me feel Unburdened...

Where was I?

This is everything I want from a tale of Heresy that is focused on action, combat, miliary machinations...it's not about that at all, despite pretty much being wall to wall to ceiling of unreality action. This is a story about hope and honour and survival and sacrifice in the dichotomous* and disasterous nature of grimdark--they can exist in the microcosm, while being consumed and obliterated in the macro.

*I discovered this is actually a real word I thought I made up.

Something I really appreciate from Annandale (and others) is that they write the Iron Warriors in a genuine and sympathetic way. There's no moustache twirling bad guys here. They have a mission and purpose, and they have their own feelings, wants, hopes, and desires, and that makes them so much more interesting than when they are just the metallic baddies with the hazard stripes to show they are dangerous. I actually cared about the Warsmith and found the dynamic between his officers and the Word Bearers, who are also have more to them, to be compelling. Sharing the narrative and the sense of Duty, futility, and weak flame of hope with the Ultramarines truly elevated this story.

Speaking of Word Bearers, the writing around the Chaos Shit™ is truly sublime. Annandale just rocks out with their Octed out.

"The chanting of the Word Bearers swirls around the walls of the chapel. It laps at Khrossus, a foul, maddening tide. The sound has become a visible thing. It flows over the floor of the chamber. It is fluid and mist, and it trembles like flesh, and it has the strength of stone. Colours whisper of dreams, of madness, of burning worlds. The dome of the chamber is blurry. Khrossus looks once, and feels as if he might fall up and through the ceiling, plunging all the way through the Carchera system, and then onwards, out of the materium altogether."

For their part, the Ultramarines, and even Guilliman, aren't the shiny, haloed, Greco-Roman fascist ideal propaganda poster* boys I hate them to be (when this isn't shown to be a bad thing), they are struggling and desperate with their formerly shunned Destroyers--those squads who use 'dirty' and extremely dangerous weapons--being one of the main focuses, along with introspection about their arms and use.

*I will never stop banging on about how bad and antithetical to 40K this poster is https://warhammerart.com/shop/warhamm.... The art quality is great, being a work of Imperial propaganda is fine, just having this up in shops without context and selling it as a poster is baaaaaaad.

Beyond grounding the action in fleshed out characters to give it actual weight and tension, Annandale is an absolute maestro at conducting the utter unfathomable and cyclopean scale and scope of the events taking place. The fact that this is done in a way that feels visceral and immediate without losing any of the titanic size and shape of the conflict is a brazen act of brilliance! Now, the last time I watched The Last Jedi, I actually had an OK time, despite all the everything, but the attack on Starkiller Base and the firing of the system-destroying weapon feels weightless compared to seeing Leia and Obi-Wan's reactions to Alderaan or following Luke on the trench run*. This has incredible weight, while taking the scope so much bigger!

*I promise I'm not just a 'the originals are better' purest. The Force Awakens is by far my favourite. The built up and release were at a particular time in my life and meant a lot and I just love it and have no idea how many times I watched an awful cam after seeing it at the cinema. Subjectivity is a thing and liking things, preferably critically, is good, actually, but I digress...

The different nodes of the conflict, the Ultramarines fleet focused on Guilliman's Flagship, Aquila and the boarding torpedo assault on the space station, Hierex and the Destroyers, Aphovos and the Word Bearer's ritual, the Iron Warriors, Vûrtaq and his guttering hope, and Warsmith Khrossus as the thread binding it all together are juggled marvellously.

Look, I don't know what else to say. I can't wait to read it again, especially as the end was such a blur with me fighting off sleep, and you can see just how excited and animated I am by how much I've written here and all the tangents I've gone on because I'm genuinely engaged and interested, especially as this is the last review I have written to catch up with the amount of bigger things that finished yesterday when I had no brain and alreadh read and written ones for shorter things this morning.

I absolutely loved this!

***

I've really got some novella reviews to catch up on and I really have to sleep because I have been so wrapt with this that I have been forcing myself to stay awake and reading resulting in reading carious pages many times and not knowing where I was and smashing my tablet into my face a few times, but I finished it!

This is AMAZING!

I'm not the action and military gal, and this is all action and military with Annandale Chaos epicness and just incrediblle writing. I will be ranting my joy in the future!

Hell yeah!

Through using the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project (www.heresyomnibus.com) and my own choices, I have currently read 32 Horus Heresy novels (including a repeat), 19 novellas (including 2 repeats), 106 short stories/ audio dramas (including 6 repeats), as well as the Macragge's Honour graphic novel, 15 Primarchs novels, 4 Primarchs short stories/ audio dramas, and 2 Warhammer 40K further reading novels and a short story...this run. I can't say enough good about the way the Horus Heresy Omnibus Project suggestions. I'm loving it! Especially after originally reading to the releases and being so frustrated at having to wait so long for a narrative to continue.

[Lewis Salter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great novella that introduces you to the mind of guilliman

[Jack Volante · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robot Girlyman leads his (entire?) legion on their way to save Terra. But... a bunch of Iron Warriors (seemed like three squads) and five Word Bearers manage to trap them into attacking a planet they have taken over.

The story then describes how the trap/battle is split into three prongs.

1) Roboute takes his flagship and three(?) more ships to attack the planet.
2) One company/chapter use boarding torpedoes to disable an orbital platform.
3) Rest of the fleet chase one ship that is an obvious trap when it does a runner behind a planetoid.

I'm surprised the author squeezed so many battles in such a short story. Much props to him. I would have given this a 4* review, but the decision-making, or lack of it, by the 'Codex' Astartes was shocking. As mentioned in point three, the ENTIRE Ultramarine fleet chases ONE IW ship that is running away from them after ambushing the UM fleet with fire-ships the moment they translate. The Iron Warrior ship runs off and disappears behind a rocky planetoid. Not till the last second does the fleet admiral realize it's a trap, but the IW ship manages to detonate ordnance buried within the planet, blowing it up and taking itself and some UM ships with it.

But it's good to read about why the UM never made it to Terra in time.

[Zare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Warhammer 40k stories are stories of heroes fighting against impossible odds, stories of legendary warriors fighting unimaginable horrors [and sometimes failing], grand epics of humankind's constant struggle among the stars.... and sometimes pure bolter-porn as it is colloquially known. Horus Heresy books (and quality-wise this is also case with newer Warhammer 40k in general) tend to avoid the bolter-porn approach and present very rich HH background, Primarchs and Imperium at its peak. Military actions, while present, are usually given in broad strokes, as actions set in the background of greater undertaking - Great Crusade or actions against Traitor legions. Even when Legions clash on the battlegrounds of Istvaan V battle is broken down to numerous conflicts between champions and veterans of Space Marines legions.

This is the first time I came across Warhammer 40k military conflict described in a similar vein as in Hammers Slammers, Insurrection (Starfire #1) and Crusade (Starfire #2) to name the few well known military SF novels.

Troops deployed are moving to the battlefield with the both air and armored support, direct contact of sole infantry (be it even famed Space Marines) against artillery and heavy tanks has the expected outcome, navy ships get pounded until they can move away from the devastating planetary defenses and space stations are true space castles capable of withstanding anything thrown their way. Boarding torpedoes are a gamble - those that get through need time to organize their surviving forces and move on with boarding actions. In space even the small freighter on a collision course is great threat even to the mighty battleships of the Imperium.

Actions of the small element of Iron Warriors with all the traps, use of terrain to their own advantage and sheer determination to fight to the last man are more than it is required to stop the furious Ultramarines' progress and delay Guilliman's overall progress towards Terra.
I liked Iron Warrior's determinism and ingenuity - their fall to the Chaos was truly a great loss for the loyalists. Although their fall started long before in my opinion - with Perturabo as Legion master and his total attrition approach to war thousands of capable and loyal were lost years before HH. After such terrifying losses it is not surprising that remaining Iron Warriors turned against the Empire (although company fighting the Ultramarines holds Horus in same regard as the Emperor).

Although final result is never brought into question - Ultramarines outnumber the Iron Warriors completely - Guilliman is tested and bloodied. More than anything else he is brought to the verge of destroying the whole world in order to move on towards Terra. Where does one stop with attrocities if he justifies his actions as necessities to achieve set goal(s)? If one fights monsters for too long does the one become the monster in the process?

Excellent story showing that loyalists are not the only ones feeling that time is slipping away - traitors are aware that they are losing the initiative and are pressed into final push to Terra before their momentum is completely lost.

Highly recommended to all fans of Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40k.

[Michael Dodd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set after the events of Ruinstorm, the Ultramarines find their path blocked by the Carchera system, which is defended by a single Grand Company of Iron Warriors. Despite being vastly outnumbered the Iron Warriors are determined to delay Guilliman for as long as they can, so lay a trap that they know the Avenging Son will recognise, but will have no choice but to spring.

It might sound preposterous, so few Iron Warriors being able to genuinely slow down an entire Legion, but Annandale has crafted a sort of reverse Battle of Thermopylae in which the handful of canny Spartans are actually bitter, angry but brilliant Iron Warriors. It requires a certain suspension of disbelief required here and there, but for the most part it’s actually a really cleverly thought-out setup and an interesting opportunity to add a little tension to what could otherwise have been a straightforward slog to the finish line (i.e. Terra).

Read the full review at https://www.trackofwords.com/2018/11/...

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mit The Horus Heresey kenne ich mich noch nicht so gut aus, aber eigentlich liest sich dieses Buch wie eines aus der 40K-Reihe... Wahrscheinlich bin ich noch nicht tief Genre im Fandom drin, um die Unterschiede zu kennen.

Vielleicht hatte ich auch deshalb teilweise ein wenig Mühe, die einzelnen Gruppierungen auseinanderzuhalten. Oft wusste ich nicht mehr, wer nun welcher Armee gehört. Aber Guilliman hat mir sehr gut gefallen, ihm bin ich auch bereits ein paar Mal über den Weg gelaufen und stets hat er mich beeindruckt.

Ansonsten ist es typische Warhammer-Action mit viel Krieg, viel Strategie und einer ganzen Menge Toter. Also genau das, was man erwartet. Nicht mehr, aber auch nicht weniger.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was overall pretty impressed with this novella.

It has a Heresy feel whilst being a predominantly bolter-porn style book.

I'd argue that this is a near perfect length for this sort of thing.

It was entertaining and intriguing and it was pleasant to see Guilliman suffering (in a manner) against regular marines. There was also just about enough depth to the main characters to get a feel for them.

I'd like to see more of this sort of length and in this £3 off-the-shelf format.

[Declan Waters · Rating 3 out of 5]

Horus approaches Terra and the Ultramarines rush to the aid of the Blood Angels & Imperial Fists. Can Guilliman arrive in time to save Terra?

The Spear of Ultramar covers part of this rush, as Horus' allies - The Iron Warriors - place themselves in the way of the Ultramarines to slow them down... giving Horus more time in the Siege of Terra.

Definitely a book for those already invested in the history of the 31st / 41st Millenium and the 'Dark Future' but great fun none-the-less.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly, the plot was fine, and I found the Iron Warrior's strategy for accomplishing their objective(s) interesting... but the writing style is not great. The conversation is sort of... stuttering, at times, that it really breaks up the narrative, and the writing style of the story itself feels very unnatural. I am glad I have read it, but I don't think I'll read it again.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh the feels. Everyone knows that Guilliaman arrived late to Terra and this story shows why, in part. The Iron Warriors mount a suicidal operation to delay and bleed the Ultramarines and I almost found myself rooting for them. The action and characterization are grim and epic; there is no romance. This was a very tense and tragic read. In other words, supremely satisfying.

[Lanfear · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bastante decepcionante, narración confusa, traducción con varias faltas gramaticales, eso sin mencionar que hace quedar a Guilimam a los ultramarines como unos inútiles, que casi te venza una fuerza de los guerreros de hierro superada en número es una verguenza teniendo en cuenta que es una de las peores legiones de todas.

[Gordon Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Following the decision at the end of Ruinstorm to approach Terra - this hones in on the XIIIth’s role in clearing the obstacles Horus has left to slow down any reinforcements - attacking the Charchera system; and the Iron Warriors’ masterful defense

[Marco Antonio · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would have been nicer if the ultramarines werent such Mary Sues even in defeat. We never see them actually losing.

[Jim Brannan · Rating 5 out of 5]

So that's where he was......

Explains where one of the loyal primary were during the beginning of the drive of terra and why he was held up.

[Ben Stimpson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not alot of story , felt like a one page history of an engagement had been stretched to a novella , prose grated for some reason all in all a bit of a disappointment after how stunning ruinstorm was

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am clearly not the target audience for this book.

[Gary Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story to read. With only a hundred pages it's short but we'll worth delving into. David Annandale is a great writer.

[Ulzeta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite fun.

[Danny Saines · Rating 4 out of 5]

For what is, in effect, one main set piece filled with action I enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting. It was engaging and entertaining throughout.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short novella that could have been rushed and pointless but I ended up feeling it was one of the better ‘one shot’ Horus Heresy stories. It's an Annandale-penned Ultramarines story, so it returns to the XIII Legion Destroyer squads from the author's Primarchs novella about Guilliman. Guilliman himself is a major character too, of course.

While the wider story is sold as “here’s why Guilliman was late to the siege”, it really just gives you an account of one of the many battles that delayed him. Annandale’s heavy coating of gloom always strikes me as a really good fit for Warhammer writing, but doesn’t necessarily make him a logical choice for writing about the glory-covered Ultramarines, so it always impresses me how well he makes it work.

7/10

[T R Alexander · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novella is part of the prelude for the 'Siege of Terra' section of the Horus Heresy series and deals with the Ultramarine’s attempt to reach Terra while the Traitors try to delay them. This novella is a bit of a mixed bag, with the space battles at the being my favourite part. Once the action gets to the planet of Carchera, however, it unfortunately seems to become a little lacking. I also think that the overall climax of the story was a little bit of a let-down. Of the characters in the novella, I think the three Iron Warriors characters are the most interesting with their somewhat contrasting personalities.