Wolf Mother (Short Story)
Cover art | |
Author | Graham McNeill |
Publisher | Black Library |
Series | Horus Heresy series |
Released | February 2015 |
Collected in | Blades of the Traitor War Without End |
Editions | 2015 ebook ISBN 9781782519249 |
Wolf Mother is a short story written by Graham McNeill. It was released in February 2015 and included in the Blades of the Traitor (Anthology). The short story was released on audio was part of the Blades of Traitor audio collection for "Audio Week," Advent 2015.[2]
Cover Description
Aboard the Molech's Enlightenment, amongst the countless civilian refugees that fled the Warmaster's invasion, a serpent makes its nest. The Chaos cult that brought House Devine to its knees lives on, preying upon the weak and the helpless, and it falls to Alivia Sureka to root out the evil that hides in plain sight. Luckily for her, she has an ally who is more than familiar with such tactics - the lone wolf Knight Errant, Severian.
Story
Alivia Sureka, a Perpetual, is captured in the bowels of a ship carrying refugees from Molech by a sadistic member of the Serpent Cult. Severian appears and kills the cultist, but Alivia angrily berates him for foiling her plan which was to play the victim so she could find where the cult have taken her daughter, whom they have kidnapped. In the room where the cult are keeping their kidnapped children Alivia's daughter Vivyen calms the others by reading to them from a book of old Terran fairy-tales Alivia gave her, but they fall back into despair when one of their number is dragged away to be killed by the cult. Alivia and Severian locate the cult's lair just as all seven remaining children are dragged out to be used as sacrifices in a horrific ritual. Shargali-Shi, head of the cult, gives birth to a daemonic snake while suspended from the ceiling. Alivia and Severian fight their way through a sea of cultists and six corrupted Thalaxii as the snake bites all of the children save Vivyen, causing them to mutate and fuse into a daemonette of Slaanesh. Alivia kills the snake but is unable to stop the daemonette which she allows to possess her. Understanding her plan Severian kills her possessed body after finishing off all the cultists and Thalaxii, driving the daemon out into the suspended form of Shargali-Shi, which cannot contain it and explodes, killing both the cult leader and the daemon. With Vivyen safe, Alivia returns to life.[1]
Sources
- 1 "Wolf Mother" Short Story
- 2 Black Library Blades of the Traitor audio page Access: 12/22/15
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