Yarrick

About the Yarrick series

Before he was the legendary one-armed, eyepatch-wearing Lord Commissar whom entire Space Marine chapters are said to kneel before, Sebastian Yarrick was a newly commissioned officer fresh out of the schola progenium. David Annandale's Yarrick series tells that origin story: Yarrick: Imperial Creed (2013) follows the young Yarrick on his first posting under the tutelage of the hard-line Lord Commissar Rasp, navigating Chaos cults, the fanatical Adepta Sororitas, and Imperial politics well above his rank. Chains of Golgotha (2013), a shorter novella, and Pyres of Armageddon (2015) continue building the legend that would eventually make Yarrick the Imperium's most famous defender of Armageddon against Ork WAAAGH!s -- events referenced constantly across Warhammer 40,000 fiction but, before this series, never actually shown.

Annandale treats Yarrick less as an invincible hero and more as a man being forged by repeated, costly encounters with the worst the Imperium has to offer, which is what makes the later legend feel earned rather than simply asserted.