Warrior Coven In the hallowed ranks of the Ordo Xenos -- Inquisitorial masters of the elite alien hunters known as the Deathwatch -- there exists an ancient and forbidden pact. When Captain Octavius of the Deathwatch and his battle-brothers are called away on a secret mission, he learns of that bargain: in return for advanced intelligence on the forces of Chaos, the Inquisition has agreed to aid the alien race known as the eldar -- but can these enigmatic aliens really be trusted? Dispatched on a mission that should not exist, to fight alongside allies that should be enemies, the Deathwatch must battle against insurmountable odds to achieve their mission and to prevent a great evil being summoned into the galaxy.

(2006)

(cover art: Philip Sibering)

Reviews:

5 STARS! Extremely well done!, August 4, 2006

Reviewer: Detra Fitch (USA); Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews

Captain Octavius did such an exceptional performance on the Herodian IV mission, he had become one of the very few Marines to be given the honor of a permanent secondment to the Deathwatch. The captain assembles a new team of battle brothers for a new mission. Though Octavius has already selected a Blood Ravens librarian named Atreus for the team, he is surprised to learn that the Angels Sanguine librarian, Ashok (from the Herodian IV mission), has been called in my one of the lord inquisitors to join the team as well.

This Deathwatch team is to fulfill an ancient pact that had been made between the Ordo Xenos and the eldar aliens. The Eye of Terror is weeping torrents of Chaos into the galaxy. To the naked eye, it resembles a cloud of red mist leaking out of the nebula. The Marines must enter the eldar craftworld of Ulthwé and assist the aliens in dispatching Lelith, the Wych Queen of Strife, before she can complete a daemonic princess's transmigration. This is much easier said than done, however. The darkling wyches who blade dance and spin with breathtaking precision, the darkling raiders, and vicious warp-beasts are only a few of the many forces in which Lelith commands from her arena throne. Captain Octavius and his battle brothers know full well that Chaos minions are not the only form of treachery they must be wary of.

***** An excellent addition to the Deathwatch series. I do not know which story I believe is the best thus far. I found it very interesting to watch warriors from the enemy side team up with the Marines. As the reader, I got to see the fight from the Eldar Warriors' view point, as well as from the Marines'. I could not help but admire a few of them. I hope to see more of them in future W40K novels. Author CS Goto has outdone himself! *****

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

5 STARS! AT LAST.... One Worth The Wait , May 28, 2006

Reviewer: S. Davis "black library fan"

This is a fantastic book. I really enjoyed the attention to detail that C.S.Goto puts into each and every one of his novels, and this one is no exception. I know almost nothing about the Eldar, and Goto managed to provide enough background information to get those of us who are interested only in the human armies of Warhammer 40,000 up to speed. And, I suspect that my fellow readers who know more about the Eldar than some of us will not feel bogged down with the details. I also enjoy the the fact that Goto does not expose his readers to only the most famous of the Chapters. Yes, Octavious is an Imperial Fist, but that is about it. When was the last time anybody encountered a Red Talon Iron Father? This is just about the only Black Library book that manages to throw a few believable curveballs into the plot...ever. You are going to love the way this book ends when the Deathwatch shows why they are the greatest warriors the Master of Mankind has (with the exception of the Grey Knights, but that is a personal decision, to each their own). This is a sequal that was worth waiting on; I thought it was every bit as good as the first one. Very highly recommended.

Extract:

From pp.7-12:

The two figures moved in utter silence and with incredible speed. They were only suggestions of images, lingering on the edge of visibility like the shadows of a lurking death. They flicked and whirled with motion, flashing like darkness in the deep shade of the dimly lit corridor. Moments of deepest quiet darted out from their movements, as though they were emitting shards of nothingness, covering themselves with a shower of imperceptibility. The total silence in the corridor hissed with unnatural menace, as though it were an aberration, and the dark figures bathed in it like composers in their own symphony.

As the two dark eldar wyches worked, the air between them started to shimmer and liquefy, as though curtains of watery darkness were being drawn across the corridor. Sparks of light from the glowing veins that ran through the mysterious, shimmering substance of the ceiling and floor caught the unearthly ripples like bursts of starlight. As the liquefaction intensified, so the shadowy motion of the wyches was cast into even deeper darkness, silhouetted against the erratically glimmering curtain. They dashed from one side of the corridor to the other, making adjustments to the devices that they had already fitted to the walls, touching their fingers to buttons that did not compress or click but which glittered as the wyches’ flesh approached.

At an unspoken and invisible signal, the two wyches snapped into stillness and then dropped to their knees, bowing their heads towards the warpfield that they had just created in the bowels of the vast Ulthwé craftworld. The rippling field started to pulse with waves, scattering droplets of dark-light over the kneeling figures. The waves rose and gathered momentum, crashing into interference patterns that sizzled with unspeakable power.

Somewhere in the maze of corridors behind them, the wyches could hear the metallic trampling of running feet. They presumed that the effete Ulthwé had finally realised what was going on. Pathetic: it was about time. Involuntarily, both of them snarled their upper lips in disgust at their feeble and distant brethren, but they did not move. They had no fear of the eldar guardians – the lightlings. They knew what was about to emerge from the warpgate that they had constructed in front of them, and in comparison the closing eldar were insipid, puny and spineless. Having seen the horrors at the command of the haemonculi, fear took on a whole new meaning, and there was nothing that the Ulthwé could do to perturb the wyches. Despite themselves, the two wyches smiled, letting the dim light spark off their black teeth; knowing that their own superiors would happily exact more terrible suffering on them than their enemies could possibly imagine liberated them for the fight to come. There was always a small chance that they would suffer even if they returned triumphant, but part of their souls rejoiced in this masochistic prospect. The gentrified and pompous eldar had no idea what the gods had cast into their future. They didn’t even know that their gods were dead, the short-sighted fools.

As the footsteps grew louder, so the ripples and waves in the warpfield grew more violent. Refusing to look up, Kroulir and Druqura held their gazes into the polished deck, letting the reflections of the warp dance and flash beneath them, watching the erratic and spectacular patterns gradually resolving themselves into familiar shapes. Fragments of the field splattered out of the gate, spitting icy pain over their backs as they remained bowed in patient deference.

Behind them, the sounds of footfalls suddenly shifted in tone, as though they were no longer muffled by walls or corners in the corridor. It seemed that the eldar guardians had finally reached the two wych-raiders. As if to confirm their calculation, a cloud of tiny projectiles whined past the bowed figures, slicing into their scant, sculpted armour, peppering the devices that they had implanted into the walls, and splashing into the immaterial substance of the warpfield itself. With suitably masterful timing, tendrils of warp started to reach out of the shimmering pool at the same time, questing into the thick, soupy reality of the craftworld passageway. They snaked and grew, reaching and thickening, intertwining and interlacing, oblivious to the hail of shuriken fire that sizzled out from the eldar guardians who were charging down the corridor towards them, behind the bowing wyches.

The running eldar guardians were shouting, sending blasts of sound and psychic noise thundering down the passage. Kroulir could hear the fear in their voices and sense the urgency in their thoughts. As tiny shuriken shards of toxic pain bit into her back she grinned, running the tip of her tongue around the glistening points of her upper teeth. Not long now. She could feel the saliva moistening her mouth in anticipation as she stared fixedly down into the deck, still unmoving.

Finally, the warpfield before the wyches erupted, as though struck from the other side by a tsunami of energy. Waves of sha’iel – warp energy – broke and crashed out of the gate, washing over the two dark eldar wyches like an ocean over rocks, covering them in freezing pulses of agony. Kroulir thrilled. Behind her she could hear the gasps of the eldar guardians and sense them fighting against their own panic – it was humiliating to think that those pathetic lightlings shared anything in common with her.

Another rush of sha’iel flooded out of the gate, swamping the deck with immaterial pools. Then a curdling shriek pierced the icy air. It was a single, tremulous tone, like a tortured soul. But then another joined it, and another, until in an instant there was a chorus of agonising sound seering out of the warpgate, filling the corridor with memories of pain and thoughts of misery. Inchoate yells and screams ricocheted around the corridor, the warcries of the approaching eldar guardians blending into the curdling shrieks that emanated from the warpgate. Kroulir could hear a couple of the Ulthwé stumble. There was a clatter as weapons were dropped, and Kroulir could imagine the guardians clutching at their oversensitive ears like weakling mon’keigh, howling like children. She stole a glance over at Druqura, and saw that the young wych had not moved at all; she remained stooped into a reverential bow, and there was a faint glint from her bowed face as the dark-light of the warp reflected from her eyes and the tips of her pointed teeth.

A sudden rush erupted through the air above the heads of the wyches, but neither of them had to look. They knew what was emerging from the warpgate. They could hear its signature in the way that the screams of the eldar changed, stopping abruptly. Only Quruel, mistress of the beasts, could bring such a shocking silence into the cacophony of battle. The wyches grinned, finally unfolding from their reverential bows and spinning into pirouettes as they unsheathed their blades and turned to face the eldar behind them.

Still dripping with sha’iel from the warpgate, Quruel stood in the centre of the corridor between the wyches and the eldar guardians, her hair a snaking nest of fiery tendrils, with a warpwhip crackling darkly in one hand and a staff-mounted talon spinning in the other. She was flanked on both sides by ungodly, barbed and scaled beasts. They were like small dragons, gnashing and thrashing around Quruel’s legs, spitting fragments of sha’iel like saliva. Their ruddy, rust-red scales seemed to swim and shift over their bodies, twinkling with black stars, as though they were tiny, refractive windows into the immaterium itself. And their eyes burnt like pitch, impossibly deep and soulless. The only parts of them that looked material and real were their green claws, their yellow teeth, and the barbed silver spikes that ran from the crests on their heads to the very tips of their lashing tails. They were horrifyingly real.

(copyright Games Workshop ltd, 2006 -- CS Goto)