Urdesh: The Magister and the Martyr

Urdesh #2

by Matthew Farrer

A Warhammer 40,000 novel

Following on from Urdesh: The Serpent and the Saint, the focus is once again on a small handful of Space Marines in the city of Ghereppan on Urdesh. The Iron Snakes must decide for themselves if the cryptic message of Saint Sabbat can be taken for the truth or if the sinister Magister Sek is leading them all into a trap.

READ IT BECAUSE

This intimate story gives us a new perspective on how Space Marines fit into the broader context of an Astra Militarum-led war effort. The actions of a single squad of superhuman warriors can have far-reaching effects on the campaign.

THE STORY

Saint Sabbat has brought a miracle to the war-torn city of Ghereppan, but one battle is not the war. The voice of Magister Sek still haunts the Imperial forces, defying their victory, mocking their faith.

Between the trickery of the Archenemy and the mercurial visions of the Saint, the Space Marines of Damocles Squad must find the truth: is this their one chance for a final victory on Urdesh, or is it a trap that could destroy them all?

Genres: 40k, Science Fiction

382 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 26, 2021

About the author

Matthew Farrer writes mostly for Black Library. He lives in Australia.

Reviews

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review for both books in the series

His voice rose from declamation to a triumphant shout. ‘The Iron Snake is swift of strike and keen of guile. It coils around the staff of the Saint and its hide shines with the light of the Throne, the light that the Archenemy has learned to fear! And so you must listen, listen as the deeds unfold, the deeds of the liberation of Urdesh!

The Forge World of Urdesh, an oceanic planet of volcanic island chains, and one among principal suppliers of material to Imperial forces fighting in the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, is in flames. The smoke of war mingles with that of its many volcanoes; the wreckage of battle litters its forge-cities and chokes its fertile seas. Until the warriors of the Imperium can free Urdesh from the grip of the Anarch and his minions, the future of the entire Sabbat Worlds Crusade will hang in the balance.

‘In my hand do I hold the water of Ithaka. In my hand do I hold the sands of Mars. In my grip do I conjoin flesh and steel. Blood and code, pulse as one.’ He brought his hands together in the sign of the cog, and his voice spoke numbers and cipher-phrases that the Mars-crafted vocoder in his faceplate translated into shrilling bursts of binharic.

Across these ashen battlefields strides Brother-Captain Priad and the warriors of Damocles Squad. They must keep safe one of the Imperium’s greatest weapons: the Beati, the reincarnated Saint Sabbat herself, whose very presence on Urdesh inspires the Imperial armies on to glory. But the enemy has plans for the Saint too, and against the malice of the Anarch and the trickery of the warp, the Iron Snakes may truly need a miracle to prevail…

"‘Something we should know about?’ Anysios asked him as he wedged himself into the position opposite.
‘News from our brother-captain,’ Symeon answered, speaking aloud through his helmet grille rather than through the squad’s close-vox channel. He waited for the hatch to clang shut behind them before he told them the rest.
‘The Saint is on the move.’

Matthew Farrer’s Urdesh: The Serpent and the Saint and Urdesh: The Magister and the Martyr is an action-packed W40K two parts tale, set in the Sabbat World Crusade timeline (755-778.M41) besides and after the events told in Dan Abnett’s Gaunt’s Ghosts The Warmaster and Anarch novels, so it’s not a good starting point at all if you are a newbie about that series, but if you’ve read and enjoyed in the past Tanith 1st, and only, Regiment books, or Brothers of the Snake, and you can find between these pages a few old acquaintances from Titanicus too, you are probably going to have a blast of a read with these two novels too.

It would be interesting to set eyes on her, he thought, this one that they said was the manifestation of the adored Beati herself. Saint Sabbat, the girl whose charisma and zeal had inspired the first conquest of these worlds. Who had, he was told, reincarnated herself on Herodor and struck down the daemonic general Enok Innokenti in single combat.

I’ve read and loved Farrer’s Enforcer: The Shira Calpurnia Omnibus last summer collecting an amazing trilogy of novels focusing on Adeptus Arbites, Ecclesiarchy, Imperial Navy, Navigators, Astropaths and much more, focusing on the backstage of Warhammer 40000 and its setting, so it was great for me to find out, not surprisingly at all, that the author wrote here one of the most intense, brutal, and thrilling Space Marines warfare themed tales, with amazing worldbuilding and characters, in an endless series of memorable fight scenes and twists, with Saint Sabbat reborn and her entourage of Astartes, Astra Militarum, and Titan maniples having their hands full with nearly every antagonist every appeared in the long spanning Sabbat World series of book, ranging from Blood Pact warband, Sons of Sek and Wirewolves, to Gore Mages and Chaos Space Marines fighting the Eternal War against the Imperium of Man since the times of Horus Heresy.

Klenn South had been considered contested until earlier that day, when an armoured column of Urdeshi Militarum had tried to push through to the plaza at its centre and been stopped. Stopped hard. Footholds on the islands were hard to make, and this one was too valuable to lose. General Grawe-Ash had called on the Iron Snakes and the Legio Invicta to make sure that didn’t happen.

Such a shame this extra long tale was split in two, so just be sure buying both books if you ever start reading this or you are going to finish Urdesh: The Serpent and the Saint with your eyes and mind burning from that "To be continued in volume II Urdesh: The Magister and the Martyr" cliffhanger in the end, and already knowing the ending having read aforementioned Gaunt’s Ghosts books in the past, Urdesh novels were scheduled for release years ago but sadly were delayed, almost spoiled the fun for me, but in the end this was just a blast of a read.

+I have him.+
He planted the words directly into Cepheas’ mind, and the pilot nodded without a word and made ready. It was there, the place, as though his vision had left his head and shot down into one precise point in the target zone their orbital auguries had mapped out.
+We hunt.+
‘We hunt,’ Cepheas echoed, and sent them screaming downward.

100% bolter-porn of course, and the Saint is a really overpowered character too, but this companion duology to Abnett’s The Warmaster and Anarch was so well written that I just loved nearly every page of it.

‘Then the design wouldn’t be familiar, sir. It’s particular to my original regiment.’ Milo tilted his hand and the blade flashed in the overhead lights.
‘Ah. Well. I haven’t seen too many of you, it’s true,’ Priad said. ‘Have you had many regimental foundings?’
‘One.’ The man’s voice was flat, indicating the matter was closed. They were both silent for a moment.

And meeting between Brother-Chaptain Priad of Damocles Squad and Gaunt’s Ghosts fan beloved Brin Milo, veteran from Gaunt’s Ghosts series who went through hell before being recruited from the living saint reborn as her equerry, with the genetically bioengineered demigod lowering himself to the level of a mortal soldier and sharing spirit of camaraderie with him, is just the way Salamanders and other more “human” like Space Marine chapters should be written.

The teeth of the chainaxe began to move, and Nautakah bared his own iron teeth in a smile. The pain engine in the base of his skull stirred, winching his nerves tighter until they sang like harp-strings. There was a pressure behind his eyes.His muscles twitched, wanting to run, cut, carve, kill and exult.He did not doubt that that would be delivered into his hands. He had faith.
‘Blood,’ he said, ‘for the Blood God.'

Kudos to Matthew Farrer, one of W40K’s most obscure and underrated authors and, to quote Dan Abnett’s words, Black Library’s secret weapon, who wrote this visceral, compelling and sometimes brutal, page turning read.

Suggested Soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niR9U...

Title: Gabriel's War Cry
Album: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
Artist: Jeremy Soule

[Seth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A perfect conclusion to this two part series. I loved the enemy perspective and became pretty attached to a Khorne Berserker (Nautakah) of all things. The tie ins with the Gaunts Ghosts series were really well done as well.

“Four daggers” anyone?

The Iron Snakes are officially my favorite chapter of Astartes too. Thanks Matt Farrer!

[Fustling Bungus · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was alright, but I'm just not a fan of the writing style where a chapter can consist of as little as two paragraphs. Otherwise it was fine.

[Paul Sparks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much better than the first Urdesh book and with a few Gaunts homages to keep me happy, really enjoyed the narration by Harry Myers

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

IMHO, this was a much better paced book than the first part. The characters are still as interesting and distinctive as possible and the plot was easier to follow. The descriptions were also easier to understand. The writing at the end, the duel, was perfect; absolutely perfect. My only concern with the Black Library writing is that it should include some more clear and jarring moments to the reader that: the Imperium is a dehumanizing dictatorship.

[Skywatcher Adept · Rating 2 out of 5]

Warmaster Macaroth, Iron Snakes chapter, Legio Invicta, Saint Sabbat & Anarch Sek all appear in this book for nothing. Legends created by Dan Abnett feel dull, hollow & flavourless here. The book drags for so long. It has some interesting scenes & concepts here and there but overall the book is a pale shadow of what Abnett did.

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was annoyed Black Library split this clearly singular, lengthy story into two books (each fairly costly, by the way) but actually on reflection that may've been the right choice. The forced gap between the two gave me some time to let part one of the story sink in, and I think that contributed to me enjoying ‘The Magister and the Martyr’ a bit more and approaching it with even more eagerness. I do suspect that being able to buy them both in one hefty paperback and reading at your own pace is probably going to be the way to go, and I hope that people holding off for that paperback version is the reason that – according to Goodreads – ‘The Serpent and the Saint’ was the book I read in 2021 that was apparently ‘least popular’ (as in least catalogued, least rated, I guess).

At times, it felt like the first book was a selection of very good short stories, all cut together and presented as one story. Very enjoyable, but it didn’t feel too unified. In book 2, everything starts to come together. I want to keep it fairly vague, so I won’t say much about the plot – but this begins with an extremely satisfying ‘fighting back’ montage that works extremely well. I talked at length about how much I like Farrer’s writing style, characterisation, approach to the setting etc in my review of the first volume – all that still applies. Here it really seems he's pulled off the trick of capturing relentless combat across multiple simultaneous fronts without it being repetitive or overwhelming - maybe to the level of Dan's 'Know No Fear' at times.

What do you want? More of the Saint, more Damocles, and some of the other Iron Snake squads who seem to have been in a holding pattern finally get more time in the spotlight. Holofurnace shows up and his reunion with his brothers after so long away is just what you’d hope. There is a truly bloodcurdling and tense fight near the end that I think approaches the excellence of that Abaddon fight in 'Saturnine'. The Saint gets to have a confrontation with a very intimidating antagonist - multiple confrontations, kind of. Actually, I think the Saint makes a lot more impression here than in the first book, where she was rather subdued. Here you understand just why entire armies are willing to follow her without question, even as their bodies pile up. And there is one heck of a body count, it should be said. Farrer is so good at writing battles that make Space Marines feel like invincible godlike warriors that it’s truly a shock when they start dying, and their deaths are always very abrupt. I feel stung and personally insulted each time one of the Iron Snakes dies! And I'm normally a Chaos guy!

I really enjoyed Farrer digging a bit more into the World Eater, Nautakah, in this book – I mean this is the guy who did ‘After Desh’ea’ so you know he did the character justice. I always like a World Eater who is capable of strained, murderous calm at times instead of being a one dimensional screaming berserker 24/7. The novel also reminds us how good Farrer can be at writing about the bizarre schismatic Mechanicum and their traitor counterpoints (see also: ‘The Inheritor King’, ‘Vorax’).

Luckily I still have a copy of Farrer’s Necromunda book 'Junktion' to get through, but I feel kind of sad coming to the end of ‘The Magister and the Martyr’. It will probably be a long time before we get more fiction from this guy, sadly – he just isn’t one of the more prolific Black Library writers. I'd love to see an additional Iron Snakes book from him, but considering how long this one took, I'm not sure it's on the cards. Still, I strongly recommend this as additional reading to anyone who loves the Gaunt's Ghosts novels and doesn't mind the idea of trying an author with a bit of a different writing style from Dan's.

8.5/10

[Atticus Mikla · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10
Let me start by explaining that rating. I will not claim that Magister and the Martyr is a perfect book by any means, BUT it more than deserves a 10/10 rating in my mind. This book still suffers from the shortfalls of its predecessor, with some characters and stories lacking growth or finality, but those points are never central to the story and require the same context the first book does. Despite this, though, the story gives satisfying ends to the four Iron Snakes squads we met in “The Serpent and the Snake”, and everything that book did well in the first installment, this one proceeds to perfect in the sequel. I give it 10/10 not because it lacks faults but because when you get to the conclusion for Damocles, Erasmos, Platonos, and Kalliopi squad you forget that you never got to see a lot of Mazho or Legio Invicta, and while not every Iron-Snake is going to be a Nerovar or an Artarion that is because we are following over 40 space marines into war not a squad of 6 like in Helsreach, but the ones we do see such as Xander, Priad, Symeon and Khiron are there equals in every right not only do we see these brothers interact with each other in more quiet moments to learn about their minds but we see them mesh into their squads to bring fire and fury to the enemy. This book is not perfect but nothing is and I would give this book a 10/10 for the same reason I would give one to Helsreach not because they are the pinnacles of human writing but because when I am finished reading I realize how much of a shame it is that it is over.

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the rare 40k novels where I just couldnt finish it. Had to skim read to actually get through the slog of bolter porn, which was the only real plot-point in the book.

[this_curious_thing · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10. Excellent - highly recommend this duology to fans of 40K. General sci-fi fans may rate this slightly lower.

[Stefan Koepeknie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Need more "Collar of Khorne" in future books.