That human view, subjective and limited, is one of the hallmarks of the Horus Heresy series from its earliest stories. Mersadie can’t see everything that is going on. She moves through a vast and terrifying conflict that is made larger, not smaller, because it is seen from the eyes of someone looking up at demigods tearing apart existence.

Arrivals and endings

So here we are, and there is still a little more to tell of the story of the Horus Heresy, not much when compared with what has passed, but a lot when weighed in the balance. If you will indulge me, I have one more note to share, a little personal, but that’s the way of it.

I have lived with the stories of the Horus Heresy for years, written a few of them, talked about them, argued about them, and made the finest friends in the process. There were times when I didn’t think we would finish it, and one of us didn’t make it to see that we did.

All that past creates a force that bears down on this last set of stories with a weight of time and lives lived, of memories and hopes that worked out better than we dared, or remain unlived. And those memories and lives are not just mine or those of the other authors that have told the stories; they are your lives and your memories.

These last few stories matter because we have all come on a journey through years and countless words, and we are here at last, and it was the kind of journey you only get to go on once.

So, when Mersadie talks to Loken for the last time, I have to confess that part of me thinks that she is speaking to the truth that I will miss this great and wonderous beast of a story when it is done.

“‘I am sorry,’ she said, before he could speak. ‘I am sorry, but I doubt anyone will ever know your story.’ She laughed. ‘Maybe for the best – it’s a good tale, but I have always thought that I would struggle to do it justice. Ignace would have been better. It would have looked fine in verse. The making and undoing of a dream by beings greater than men, but weaker than gods.’

She saw him twitch. Blood coughed from his mouth. He spat, shook his head.

‘I have always struggled with poetry,’ he said. He looked at the sword lying on the deck between them.

A heartbeat of time passed. He did not move. The sword lay still on the metal of the gantry.

Mersadie smiled one last time.

‘Thank you, old friend,’ she said.

And let herself fall back into the glow of the plasma conduit.

A howl of rage tore into her mind as a presence like night poured back into her soul.

She fell, and the voices of her past spoke one last time.