IA: Corvus Malleus

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T

he origins of the Corvus Malleus actually go back much further than many realize. The Chapter wasn't created during one of the many Foundings, as many Successor Chapters have been, or even during the Second Founding, when the twenty great Astartes Legions were divided into the Parent Chapters and their immediate Successor Chapters; they instead began as part of the culmination of a rather strange series of events.

The Chapter originally started as a Battalion within one of the great Chapters that made up Legion I, later to be known as the Dark Angels. Though named Corvus Malleus (High Gothic for "Raven Hammer") in reference to the combination of speed and force found within their combat doctrines, many within took to calling themselves "The Battalion" (though they surely were not unique amongst Astartes battalions for this). These combat doctrines, as well as the Battalion emblem, would later serve to be the basis for the Ravenwing, though both would be slightly modified, the former to take advantage of lighter and faster vehicles such as Bikes and Land Speeders, and the latter to reflect these changes. (The true role of the Ravenwing would later be focused on hunting down the Fallen, partly due to their ability to swiftly pursue, but also to avenge what had become known as the Lost Battalion, since the Fallen were seen as to blame for their being devoured by the Warp; their armour and heraldry, however would remain relatively unchanged in order to honour their lost Brothers.) They were with the Legion campaigning in the Ultima Segmentum and Eastern Fringe, far from Terra, when the climax of Horus' betrayal began to take shape. The Battalion was at the forefront of many of the battles against the traitorous Legion VIII, also known as the Night Lords, whom Horus himself had sent on a campaign of mayhem and destruction against the loyalist worlds of the Imperium in an attempt to distract (or at the very least, slow) the Dark Angels Legion during his assault on Terra. During this campaign of terror (known as the Thrama Crusade), Legion I ambushed the Night Lords and decimated their fleet, after which the traitorous legion retreated to the Eastern Fringe world of Tsagualsa where the Lion confronted Konrad Curze, Primarch of the Night Lords legion. When the confrontation devolved into an all-out brawl, reinforcements on both sides were called in, and Marines of the Corvus Malleus were some of the first to respond. After both forces withdrew from the planet, the Night Lords fled and attempted to regroup, while the Lion pursued them with his fleet. However, once the Dark Angels fleet managed to catch up with the fleeing traitors, Sevatar, First Captain of the Night Lords (who had taken command of the Legion after Curze fell comatose from wounds inflicted during his fight with Jonson), led a counterattack against the Dark Angels. During this attack, Curze awoke from his coma, and ordered Sevatar to accompany him in boarding the Lion's flagship, the Invincible Reason, so that he could confront him once again, this time to kill him. Marines of The Battalion were instrumental in defending boarding attempts on the Lion's own ship, and were present during the eventual capture of an unconscious Sevatar and his elite Terminators, the Atramentar.

Once they had ended the Night Lords' reign of terror in the region, Lion El'Jonson ordered the Dark Angels to return as swiftly as they could to Terra in order to help defend it from the treacherous Warmaster, but upon arriving discovered that they were too late, and that not only had two of his Brother Primarchs been slain (Sanguinius by Horus' hand, and Horus himself by the hand of the Emperor), but the Emperor himself was nearly killed as well. Knowing that there was nothing further he could do, he returned with his fleet to Caliban to ensure that his home world was still safe from the tyranny of the corrupted Horus and his Chaos masters, only to be fired upon by the planet's defensive batteries upon arrival. Already enraged by the betrayal of his Brother Horus and the other traitorous Primarchs, the Lion responded to this act of betrayal by his own people by ordering constant bombardments of the planet's defenses, and leading a detachment of Space Marines (including Marines from The Battalion's 9th Company) to retake the Tower of Angels, the Order's Fortress-Monastery. The bombardment, combined with the sudden creation of a warp rift (caused when the powers of Chaos saw they had failed after Luther realized what his treachery had forced him to do to his oldest and closest friend), caused Caliban to be torn asunder. When several of the traitorous Dark Angels (later named the Fallen) were pulled (or, as some believe, thrown) into the Warp and scattered across the Galaxy, the remaining loyalist Dark Angels still on the planet's surface were pulled in as well, including the remnants of the 9th Company of the Corvus Malleus. Along with these forces, a few of the Dark Angels ships orbiting the planet were also pulled into the rift, including the Redemption of Souls, the ship upon which was stationed the remainder of The Battalion.

Because the Warp is a separate dimension that exists parallel to real space (the dimension in which the Imperium exists), the normal laws of time and space do not exist; at least, not in the same form they do within real space. Therefore, it is unknown, even to the members of The Battalion itself, exactly how long they remained trapped in warpspace. Indeed, while a relatively short amount of time seemed to have passed to The Battalion, much more time seemed to have passed outside the Warp. This point is still argued to this day, within both the Corvus Malleus and the Dark Angels, though there is a general consensus amongst both chapters that, in real space, roughly eight or nine millennia passed before they re-emerged into the Eastern Fringe, where they had been delayed by the traitorous forces of the Night Lords millennia before during the Horus Heresy. Many believe that the location of their emergence was a result of the forces of Chaos being upset at the role The Battalion played in the failure of Chaos on Caliban, while others believe the same forces were simply toying with The Battalion; still others believe it could be a combination of the two. One thing they all seem to agree on, however, is that the location was chosen specifically to remind the Marines of their failure to arrive in time to save the Emperor during the Heresy.

*This article is a WIP, and as such, is not finished and subject to change.*

[Lord-Captain Cepinari]

Hmm, interesting.

 

Continue.