Leaving the gene-tech where Omegon instructs them the three undercover legionnaires head for a landing pad only to confronted by Commander Agapito, Branne's brother, who figured out there were traitors in the legion. Two characters thought whose little side stories felt unnecessary or built up to nothing were imperial commander Marcus Valerius and former librarian Balsar Kurthuri. He keeps making demands of the apothecary and magos working on the gene-tech that are unreasonable and too much, too quickly, and when Branne confronts him about the rash, overzealous nature of the first batches of Raptors, Corax gets significantly angry and shrugs it all off - instead of listening to the sound advice of his senior staff, he wants to expand the recruitment instead of doing a thorough job, to hit some arbitrary goals he set for his Legion. Still, for all their power and super-human like abilities, the space marines must be brain damaged to make them so blindly loyal to their primarchs. However the Alpha Legion infiltrators who pose as Raven Guard bring a far more interesting level of intrigue.

The story begins approximately 3 months after the Drop Site Massacre, with the unexpected rescue of Corax and the remnants of his Legion (at less than 5% strength) from Istvaan V. Secondly this story seems to labour under the inevitability of the failure of Corax's goal to rebuild his legion, A 40k nut like me who knows the background fluff inside out knows very well the outcome and therefore there's very little surprise. This continues on between them, and Branne says he believes Agapito, but than states in the book, “As he watched Agapito leave, Branne could not shake off a question that he wanted to ask but could not bring himself to voice: why are you lying to me brother? I'd like to thank Gav Thorpe for yet again delivering one of the most entertaining and unusual stories published by the Black Library so far.There is a good amount of exploration into the origins of gene seed and primarch DNA, which just doesn't make compelling reading.

Ani ne tak kvůli tomu, že je výsledek boje o planetu Deliverance prozrazen už v názvu (ono u Horus Heresy se dá tak nějak čekat, že to dopadne špatně), jako spíš, že na mě působila spíš jen jako taková otvíračka věcí příštích. When the experiments start back home on Deliverance, he pushes aside obvious problems within the Raven Guard, especially between Isstvanites and the remainers under Branne, and the odd behavior of some Legionaries, to focus on the creation of new super-soldiers. He plays on us to put the hints together in a suitable way, and the resulting reveals end up more surprising than they otherwise would have been. Otherwise, the book is quite frustrating - while there is the classic hubris meeting nemesis, Corax starts with barely a Legion left and ends with barely a Legion left, with no peak in between.Even Corax in his darker moods and single-minded vision to re-build was not quite what I expected, and I ended up wondering if there should have been another narrator to the story here (probably Omegon? There are some very strong points ranging from the infiltration work of the Alpha Legion through to the internal conflict of Corax and his captains, coupled with the stress of some of his sons surviving the Isstvan Massacre contrasted against those who were never there. Alpharius and Omegon are unfortunately pale shadows of the sinister and frightening creatures from Dan Abnett's "Legion", Alpharius in particular coming across as weak and rather pathetic, not the master of galactic destiny he actually is. They don't know what their mission is and they don't even recognise each other, and at least one of them becomes more sympathetic to the Ravens as he shares death and fear with them.

Corax finally gets his will when the Raven Guard assault the Perfect Fortress of the Emperor's Children in the final chapter, following on from scenes within the same chapter that would have made for a pretty good ending to the book already.With Corax finally released, collecting the novellas and finishing the story arc begun with this novel, I figured it would be best to re-read the old novel in preparation for the new anthology.