The Spirit of Cogs

The Horusian Wars #Short Story

by John French

A Horusian Wars story

When Tech-Priest Glavius-4-Rho is assigned to awaken an ancient piece of technology, he discovers dark secrets that may change his understanding of the universe.

READ IT BECAUSE
Discover curious characters, a colossal secret and mysteries beyond the bounds of logic in a tale by John French.

THE STORY
Tech-Priest Glavius-4-Rho is in the service of Inquisitor Covenant – but he wasn't always so. Long ago, he was a member of the Martian priesthood assigned to a secret project – awakening a machine beneath the forge world of Zhao-Arkkad. With a pair of odd companions, he discovers the secret of the device… and that it is so immeasurably ancient that it may be haunted by ghosts beyond the logical understanding of any tech-priest.

This story is also available in the anthologies Horusian Wars: Divination and Inferno! Volume 3.

Genres: Science Fiction, 40k

49 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 27, 2020

About the author

John French is a writer and freelance game designer from Nottingham, England. His novels include the Ahriman series from Black Library, and The Lord of Nightmares trilogy for Fantasy Flight. The rest of his work can be seen scattered through a number of other books, including the New York Times bestselling anthology Age of Darkness. When he is not thinking of ways that dark and corrupting beings could destroy reality and space, John enjoys talking about why it would be a good idea... that and drinking good wine.

Reviews

[Alex Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I always come to Black Library stories as fun reads in a setting I adore, I have to give special accolades to this story's attention to detail in its style and composition in setting immersion to the Adeptus Mechanicum's mechanical perspective of the world. Adding to it, that beyond its stylistic choices, it reads like a solid and succint Lovecraftian horror story, gives it bonus marks in what is probably the strongest Short Story set in the 40k universe I've read so far.

[Nessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this read! All characters felt real and unique, the story intriguing, really well written. Left me wishing for more.

[Urgewyrm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a fun story more for the personalization for the disgraced magos than it is for whatever evil chaos beastie the story is actually about.