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Bitter End (Short Story)

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The Bitter End
Bitter-End.jpg
Cover art
Author Sarah Cawkwell
Publisher Black Library
Released 2011
Collected in Treacheries of the Space Marines
There Is Only War
Editions August 2015 e-short
ISBN 9781785723094

Bitter End is a short story by Sarah Cawkwell. It was originally published in Hammer and Bolter 12, and re-published in the anthologies The Best of Hammer and Bolter: Volume One, Treacheries of the Space Marines, and online (under the title Bitter End) in August 2015.

Cover Description

Following the Star Phantoms' attack on the Palace of Thorns, a grievously injured Huron Blackheart survives only through making a pact with a mysterious creature known as the hamadrya. While the hamadrya imbues Huron with its strength and protection, the further from the Maelstrom he travels, the weaker its blessings become. What solution can Huron find for this conundrum, and, more importantly, what price will he have to pay for it?[1]

Plot Summary

Spoiler!
This page contains spoilers for: Bitter End (Short Story)

Even the Tyrant of Badab needs to bargain sometimes; when there is something he wants, but cannot simply take for himself, Lufgt Huron puts aside his hordes of warriors and ships, and relies on his charisma and cunning - neither of which were diminished by the near-destruction of his body. In fact, some among the Red Corsairs whisper that it was such a pact, with the Ruinous Powers, that allowed Huron to survive the catastrophic wounds he suffered at the Fall of Badab.

Such an agreement brings Blackheart to an unnamed Dead World, to negotiate with Dengesha, the leader of the Heterodox, a powerful band of Chaos Sorcerers. Dengesha senses the presence of Huron's Hamadrya (his familiar), and Huron explains that he needs to capture and bind a powerful soul to sustain it for whenever he ventures outside the warp-saturated boundaries of the Maelstrom. He has already located a suitable candidate - Canoness Brigitta of the Order of the Iron Rose - but he needs Dengesha to perform the binding for him. Do this, Huron promises, and the Sororitas' world will be given to the Heterodox, to do with as they please.

The Red Corsairs' attack on the convent is furious and unstoppable. The Sisters of Battle are quickly overwhelmed, and Huron enters the fray only to subdue Brigitta, and bring her to the ritual site.

But when Dengesha performs the ritual, he finds his own soul being bound into the vessel prepared by Huron's Librarians. Helpless, he can only listen as Huron explains that he was the soul identified as perfect for Huron's needs; as for the Heterodox, they have agreed to join the Corsairs, and so the planet will become theirs, and Huron's. Brigitta, her faith unshaken, offers thanks to the Emperor for avoiding Dengesha's fate, before Huron dispatches her with his Claw.

In his headquarters, Huron congratulates Armenneus Valthex, the creator of the vessel which entrapped Dengesha's soul. After the Tyrant is gone, however, Valthex reflects uneasily that he also had to make a bargain to carry out his lord's will, and one day his patron will come to collect.

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