# HH: Corax by Gav Thorpe



## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

Anyone know whatever its a compilation of the novellas or whatever its a collection of new stories?


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Well that was pretty quick. It's not even October yet and we're already seeing October's HH release. The Horus Heresy has really kicked itself into high gear this year, hopefully the trend will continue next year.



Doelago said:


> Anyone know whatever its a compilation of the novellas or whatever its a collection of new stories?


From Lexicanum:



Lexicanum said:


> Corax is an upcoming anthology, book 40 of The Horus Heresy series. It contains the novellas Weregeld, Soulforge, and Ravenlord and the short stories "The Shadowmasters," "The Value of Fear," and "Raptor."


So it's a collection of all the "LE" Raven Guard stuff, with a new novella titled Weregeld, and the short stories and one audio that have been released for them. A little bit about Weregeld was read by Thorpe at FantasyCon.




It featured Corax being led by Bjorn through an apparently anonymous warzone to where the VI Legion had built a stronghold from two crashed landing ships. The Space Wolves had been crushed by their MANY enemies (including the Alpha Legion, World Eaters and Thousand Sons) and Leman Russ was so badly wounded that he was delirious and babbling about the Wolftime. He made references to having failed in something important... 




LotN


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## randian (Feb 26, 2009)

Wolftime? I thought that happened centuries later.


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Started and finished both Raptor and Weregeld last night and they were both fantastic!

I think that the format of the Raven Guard's story has received a lot of flack for being focused around LE novellas, and I can't disagree that perhaps making them £30-40 each wasn't a great idea, especially considering that once you read Corax you understand that each is essentially one third of a wider novel. The afterword outright confirms it, but I didn't need to read that to see right from the start of Weregeld exactly how much planning had really gone into these novellas, threads from all of them culminate in the finale and ultimately show that Corax is the true second, and final, Raven Guard novel that we thought we'd never get. Deliverance Lost was the first and Corax was the last, together they tell the story of the Raven Guard across the Heresy from the killing fields of Istvaan V to the final moments of the Gauntlet. The old lore tells us the Ravens didn't play a real role at Terra and the series remains true to that, but that doesn't mean their story isn't important or compelling.

As for the story itself, Weregeld was absolutely enthralling. Corax's fate as a haunted shell of his former self is something we've known would be his end, but how he got there has been the focus of his story across the HH series, and it all links to what Gav says is his own flaw in the afterword: Corax does not want to be special. He is a Primarch, a demi-god, a being that can reshape the galaxy, and he doesn't like that. Corax hides his aura of Primarch splendour behind his own shadow cloak in an attempt to make himself more approachable, which you can see in the way his Legionnaires talk to him like none of his brother's men do, how he has more of a brotherly relationship with his commanders than a fatherly one. But Corax ultimately can't change what he is, and both his distaste for his own nature combined with the horrors of the Heresy drive him down a dark path that takes a head in Weregeld (Re: A blood price, an offering one makes to atone for a sin) as Corax attempts to pay his own in the Battle of Yarant. It did lead to an incredibly beautiful scene between Corax and Nasturi Ephreni, probably the person he is closest to in the galaxy, that I fully admit made me tear up. It's a scene you simply have to read for yourself to fully appreciate.

Corax was also a goodbye to the Raven Guard and their supporting cast, we may see some of them again near the very end but their main story is done, which was outlined very nicely in a scene between Commander Branne Nev and Marcus Valerius that really drove home the fact that this story, that has been years in the telling, is coming to a close and we are saying farewell to these well-known characters. The final line of that scene was heartbreaking, which was fitting for the tone of the Heresy; this is not a happy story with a happy ending, which the epilogue reinforces by showing just how this all comes to a close with a quiet final scene that we all knew was coming, but it still hurt to see. Thorpe just knocked it out of the park with Weregeld, which with Soulforge and Ravenlord and Raptor combines to become one of the best entries into the Horus Heresy I think. Corax to me earns a score of *9.4/10*, this is definitely one of the Top 10 of the HH and it's one that everybody should make it a point to pick up.

Also for anyone who found the recent "Leman Russ made it to Terra and then left" issue annoying, Weregeld offers some answers as to how that turned out.




Russ did leave Terra and try to take the battle to Horus and he ended up on Yarant, a world not at all far from Terra, and got his and his Legion's collective asses kicked by the Sons of Horus, World Eaters, Alpha Legion and Thousand Sons. Russ was nearly killed, by what we don't know but it has something to do with an old archeotech axe that one of the Watchpacks (the one that was sent to Horus) recovered and brought to him for an important task that he apparantly failed, and by the end of the battle after the Ravens come in to save them only five of the Great Companies remain. Ogvai Ogvai Helmschrot and Bjorn the Fell-Handed are pretty much the most senior men left alive, and Russ is still comatose.

Russ made a stupid decision, and it nearly got him killed and did get a large part of his Legion killed.




LotN


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

I was against the splitting of this novel way back when Soulforge was released. Of the two novellas I've read, Soulforge felt unconnected to it whole with simple bolterporn. Ravenlord was okay but way too short to make an impact on the revealead betrayal at the end, but I'm shocked to see that they aren't milking his storyline any further. So this is the "No more!"-ending?


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