Black Book - Insurrection (PUBLISHED)

[simison]

*here lie, and maybe "slain by their own loyalty"?

 

"slain by loyalty"? 

[bluntblade]

"By loyalty" seems a bit... kinda trite, for a Primarch

[simison]

"By loyalty" seems a bit... kinda trite, for a Primarch

 

How so? I actually think your version is a bit too wordy compared to the original shorter phrase. It feels more like an ancient speaking.

[bluntblade]

Well, my feelings on it aren't that strong.

[simison]

The Raid of Mena-goth would feature prominently in Imperial propaganda as evidence that the Traitors were wholly consumed by their ambitions to the point they were willing to expose humanity to the slaughter of xenos. This would continue for a decade in the information war between the Imperium and the false Imperium, until it was quietly discarded by the Loyalists. That would not be enough to prevent controversy down the road. 

 

As for the Fire Keepers' desire for retribution, they would be denied. Hours after successful extraction from Mena-goth, orders arrived straight from the Warmaster. The entire Fire Keepers' were to make straight for the Sol System. Although originally intended to rally for the Loyalist counter-assault against the Traitors, the Fire Keepers would end up playing a critical role in the Mechanicum Civil War.

[bluntblade]

I suggest *the predations of xenos

[simison]

The Raid of Mena-goth

 

Niklaas, Lord of the Tenth Legion, had always been a controversial figure among his brothers. His harsh treatment of his Librarians and his unending distrust in the powers of Warp had affected even his relationship with the Emperor. Yet, for all his critics said of him, Niklaas had proven himself as a level-headed warlord, an unsurpassed master of siegecraft and second only to Daer'dd in the forge. Responsible for many of the Imperium's finest redoubts, Niklaas possessed unparalleled knowledge of the Imperium's defenses, rendering him an invaluable asset in the incoming civil war. 

 

Records show that Icarion made several subtle overtures to the Witch Breaker, but it would come to naught. Whether this was due to Niklaas' loyalty to the Imperium or to his distrust of Icarion as a psyker, it remains unknown. As such, Niklaas and the Fire Keepers would be marked for destruction on the Day of Revelation.

 

The task of eliminating Niklaas and the Fire Keepers fell to the Jade General and the Warriors of Peace. At first glance, the two Primarchs seemed to be natural allies. Both possessed an inherent distrust of the Warp and advocated for extreme solutions in order to contain the perceived threat. Where Niklaas severely limited his librarians, the Jade General sought to unlock the secrets of the Soulless gene and cultivate it among humanity. Both prided themselves on their methodical approach of war, whether it be the Fire Keepers' meticulous fortifications or the Warriors of Peace's precision in martial arts. However, it never came to pass. Simple differences in personality led to bickering between the two brothers even as they acknowledged and respected each other's talents. Avoiding the love between Alexandros and Icarion and the hatred between Hectarion and Raktra, the relationship between Niklaas and the Jade General meandered between extremes.

 

When the Jade General received his mission, it was with his characteristic stoicism that he accepted. Given the size difference between the X^th Legion and his own XVII^th, he quickly deduced his only hope of victory was a precision strike against Niklaas and his command staff. If the Jade General could successfully eliminate Niklaas, it would deprive the Imperium of its last remaining master of siegecraft and behead the Tenth. Annihilation of the Fire Keepers would then be dealt with at a later date. 

 

The timing of events was in the Jade General's favour. The Fire Keepers were engaged in a purgation campaign on the border of Segmenta Solar and Tempestus. Although well within the Imperium's borders, it was only recently that a new system had been discovered, hidden in the Sanguenay nebula. Rogue traders attempted to survey the system and soon met hostility on several planets. A more primitive branch of the Eldar had laid claim to the system and were willing to defend their home to the death. 

 

Although a lengthy campaign due to guerilla warfare, these Eldar could not hold against the might of a Legion were it not for reinforcements. The armies of the Craftworld designated as 'Biel-Tan' by its xenos population attacked a few days after the Fire Keepers had successfully cleansed the first planet. Lightning raids inflicted casualties and slowed the Fire Keepers' progress as they clashed on the second occupied planet. It was on Icarion's recommendation that the Warmaster deploy the Warriors of Peace to aid their fiery kin, the Soulless a potent weapon against the Eldar's witchcraft. 

 

The Warmaster agreed, unintentionally dooming the Fire Keepers to suffer during the Day of Revelation. It would be on Mena-goth II the two Legions would clash. When the Jade General's personal fleet, the 3,484^th Expeditionary Fleet, arrived in the system, communications were established to ascertain the situation. Unaware that he was providing precious intelligence to a foe, Niklaas acceded. The bulk of the Fire Keepers were sprawled across the planet, while a core reserve force defended their primary fortress and ad hoc starport. Even so divided, this placed well over 30,000 Legionaries mere minutes away from their liege lord, in addition to auxiliary forces and titan support. 

 

Although the easiest solution would be an orbital bombardment on the Legion's command center, it was rendered impossible by three factors. First, Niklaas' personal Gloriana, Treads Upon the Night, maintained a stable orbit directly above the location, removing the best potential bombardment vector. Second, after several lightning raids by the xenos, the command center was defended by an active void shield network, rendering the window for bombardment a sliver. Third, there was no guarantee that Niklaas himself wouldn't be protected by the shield generators of his personal armour. 

 

In a moment of irony, the Jade General deduced his only viable tactic was a precision strike, much akin to the tactics seen among the Eldar. Estimating a window of 37 minutes, the Jade General would have to inflict as much damage as possible before retreating. For even if he could successfully annihilate the base defenders to a man, the Fire Keeper's much larger fleet would destroy the 3,484^th and strand the Warriors of Peace planetside, dooming them to an eventual death of attrition. 

 

Since it was imperative that the Warriors of Peace be able to retreat back into orbit, drop pods would not see use in the upcoming battle. Instead, as the 3,484^th took its place beside the Fire Keepers fleet, the Jade General would have to rely on two waves of landing craft packed to the brim with Space Marines for combat operations. Once the Warriors of Peace had been cleared to begin landing operations, the Primarch himself would travel to the surface with his elite guard to personally meet with Niklaas. Unknown to the Fire Keepers, every reserve XVII^th fighter, bomber, and gunship were prepped for combat as the first wave of Warriors of Peace disembarked unto the planet. 

 

The first wave had completely disembarked as the Jade General entered into his brother's headquarters. The second wave descended as the emptied first wave of landing craft slowed their speed toward the void. It is said that Niklaas called out in greeting to his brother. The Jade General answered by activating his weapons. The Emperor's loyal son survived the first blow of the ambush through supernatural reflex, his arm catching the Jade General's lightning kick. In that moment, the Warriors of Peace struck. 

 

As the Jade General attempted a killing blow, his sons slew the Loyalists around them. Fire Keepers, especially those closest to the landing pads, died in the hundreds as the Warriors of Peace secured their retreat points. The first wave of aircraft hurtled back toward the surface and strafed defenses, while the second wave deployed its Legionaries to the newly-secured landing zones Anti-air defenses were prioritised to ensure the Warriors' maintained dominion over the skies, an especially critical task given that it would their only avenue of retreat. By far, the most visible carnage was the destruction of the titans of Legio Tonarum. XVII^th bombers and gunships focused fire on these massive machines of war. Unprepared for a blade in the back, the entire base rocked beneath catastrophic explosions as unshielded titans died beneath concentrated fire, which in turn ripped colossal breaches in the Fire Keepers' defenses. 

 

In orbit above the planet, much the same played out as the Warriors of Peace warships opened fire on the unsuspecting Fire Keeper ships and unleashed fighter and bomber wings to cripple the Loyalists. Despite the widespread destruction, this was no mindless release of aggression. With initial security established, the Warriors of Peace targeted series of specific objectives to ensure a proper withdrawal. The 3,484^th concentrated their attacks on the Fire Keeper warships between them and the Mandeville Point. On the surface, security details defended the landing pads, while assault teams targeted the fortress' shield generatorums and communication arrays. 

 

In a moment, the battle shifted as symbolised by the duel between the Jade General and Niklaas. For thirteen minutes they fought, the Jade General struggling to find the killing blow. Although a master martial artist and armed with surprise, he could not overcome his larger brother. It mattered not that Niklaas bled from a different wounds or several of his bones were broken. Incensed with rage over this betrayal, Niklaas was a volcano, fiery and unyielding in his defense. At exactly thirteen minutes and seventeen seconds, the Jade General acknowledged his failure to kill the Steel Prince.

 

Ordering a withdrawal, the Jade General sacrificed his personal guard, the Menshen, to escape. While Niklaas vented his rage on the remaining Legionaries, the entire Warriors of Peace assault force retreated to the landing pads. As quickly as they had deployed, the landing craft swiftly returned to the surface to bring the Warriors of Peace to the fleet. The few remaining anti-air batteries would send several dozen of these crafts burning to the surface. 

 

While most of the Fire Keeper assaults were unable to challenge the Warriors of Peace for control over the landing pads, this would not hold true for the zones closest to Legio Tonarum's positions. While a large number had been slain, Tonarum would not allow this betrayal to come to pass without blood. The nearest titans, no longer concerned with xeno raids, abandoned their posts to wreak havoc on the Warriors of Peace nearest to them. Entire landing pads would be destroyed along with their defenders in the fury of their counter-attack through vulcan mega-bolter, turbolaser and volcano cannon.

 

In spite of these losses, a majority of the Traitors would escape into the air as they returned to the fleet. In eleven minutes and fifty-one seconds, the last living Warrior had boarded the final transport in a perfectly-executed withdrawal worthy of the Scions Hospitalier. 

 

Although the ground situation had consistently remained in the XVII^th's favour, it was the orbital situation that demanded their retreat. As the last transport broke through the atmosphere, the 3,484^th bled ships as the Fire Keepers' 77^th rallied against them. Even with the initial advantage, the 77^th was easily twice the size of the 3,484^th and took advantage of their numbers to strike back. Such was the intensity of the 77^th's counter-attack that the Jade General, now protected aboard the Mandate of Heaven, ordered his fleet to begin retreating to the Mandeville Point before the last transport, a sokar-pattern stormbird known as the Hawk's Fire, safely docked with its ship. 

 

Weaving through the battlefield, the Hawk's Fire would not survive as it was swarmed by Fire Keeper fighters only a hundred kilometres from its ship. Its death would mark the conclusion of the most intense fighting as the 3,484^th Expeditionary Fleet. Aware that the xenos may take advantage of the in-fighting, Niklaas was forced to order his fleet to avoid pursuit. Although the 77^th would lob lance and torpedo salvos at the fleeing Warriors of Peace, they succeeded in only destroying one more ship, a cruiser known as the Viper's Wrath. 

 

In terms of cost, the Raid of Mena-goth is one of the lesser battles of the Day of Revelation. Roughly 14,000 Warriors of Peace were sacrificed, most of which were lost in void combat during the 3,484^th's retreat or during Tonarum's counter-attack on the surface, to slay 26,000 Fire Keepers and well over thirty god-engines of the Legio Tonarum. Yet, this battle is notable for a different reason. Although wounded, the Fire Keepers' woes would not end there. Eager to enact retribution against his brother and to determine the state of the Imperium, Niklaas ordered a complete abandonment of Mena-goth. Paralleling the Warriors of Peace a mere day before, the Fire Keepers were set upon by a resurgence of Eldar forces that would add an additional 8,000 to the butcher's tally. Even to this day, Mena-goth remains in the hands of aliens. 

 

The Raid of Mena-goth would feature prominently in Imperial propaganda as evidence that the Traitors were wholly consumed by their ambitions to the point they were willing to expose humanity to the predations of xenos. This would continue for a decade in the information war between the Imperium and the false Imperium, until it was quietly discarded by the Loyalists. That would not be enough to prevent further controversy down the road. 

 

As for the Fire Keepers' desire for retribution, they would be denied. Hours after successful extraction from Mena-goth, orders arrived straight from the Warmaster. The entire Fire Keepers' were to make straight for the Sol System. Although originally intended to rally for the Loyalist counter-assault against the Traitors, the Fire Keepers would end up playing a critical role in the Mechanicum Civil War. 

[simison]

The Fall of Light

 

More astute readers of this volume will notice the absence of two infamous Legions, the mercurial Wardens of Light and the treacherous Eagle Warriors. The Arch-Traitor's plan had not forgotten them, but no accurate record has survived of what took place over Gatra V. What is known is that Icarion convinced the Warmaster to order Gwalchavad and his Legion to reinforce the Eagle Warriors' Compliance of the Gatra system.

 

[Recent events may have shortened memories of some, but Gwalchavad and Alexos Travier, Lord of the Thirteenth, were once the closest of friends. Although one a psyker and the other a Blank, both were marked with unusual beginnings that placed them apart from their brothers. Both had sought to prove themselves to the Imperium with zeal, yet were known for their own divergences from standard doctrine. Finally, both served a period of mentorship under the watchful gaze of Icarion where they spent ample time in each other's company. This would form the foundation for a powerful bond that would seem to have lasted for all time. Until the Day of Revelation.]

 

Recordings from surviving Warden vessels show the 11^th Expeditionary Fleet reaching their cousins in seventeen days after merging the 11^th, the 22^nd, and the 66^th under Gwalchavad's command. After confirming casualty counts from translating into the system, Gwalchavad ordered his fleet to enter into high orbit over Gatra V next to Alexo's 27^thExpeditionary Fleet. As the Wardens ships executed their orders, Alexos Travier personally contacted Gwalchavad, inviting his brother to come aboard the Tira-to to enjoy fellowship and to discuss the current strategic situation of Grata V. Gwalchavad happily accepted. Once the Warden fleet reached their positions, Gwalchavad and his personal guard traveled over to the Tira-to.

 

From here, the account becomes muddled by whispered rumors and shadowy half-truths. Not more than twenty minutes after Gwalchavad met with Alexos, data logs recorded strange phenomena occurring on the planet's surface. Concurrently, all contact was lost with Gwalchavad and his honour guard. As the Wardens of Light attempted to reestablish communication with their Primarch, the Eagle Warrior warships opened fire upon them. Reeling from the ambush, the Wardens of Light plead and demand answers for this treachery. From the surface of Gatra V, the unexplained phenomena increased. Strange, purple flashes occurred over eight of the most populous cities. Vox systems began receiving the shrieks and screams of pain and agony with no origin point. Human crewmembers became afflicted with random bouts of insanity as they babbled about incredible evils hunting them, only those physically stationed near the Wardens of Light enjoyed a small degree of protection. 

 

What was clear was the XIII^th's hostility. With silence answering them on the vox, the Wardens of Light cast aside their confusion as they regarded the Eagle Warriors as enemy combatants. The Warden fleet returned fire as the commanders sought the whereabouts of their Primarch, whose fate was still unknown aboard the Travier's flagship. Already the battle threatened to overwhelm them as the Eagle Warriors had secured a 2-to-1 advantage in numbers alone before their ambush. A priority order was dispersed amongst the Loyalists: their number one objective was Gwlachavad's safety. Ignoring all other foes, the surviving Warden ships boosted towards the massive battleship, ready to sacrifice their lives to a man to save their gene-sire. Gwalchavad's personal Gloriana, the Caledwylch, led the assault. The famed warship would pay the ultimate price as the Eagle Warriors concentrated their fire upon the mighty battleship. Yet, as it died in fire and flame, it ripped an opening in the Eagle Warriors' lines, allowing the rest of the 11^th to approach the Tira-to. 

 

In the midst of this gallant charge, a shockwave erupted from Gatra V. Eyewitness accounts vary in description, but the common theme was that a 'tear' of some sorts was ripped open in the fabric of reality. All visual recordings of that moment have been deemed classified by the highest levels of authority and have been sealed away from prying eyes. Regardless, the 'tear' was a temporary one, lasting 4.8 seconds before it 'collapsed', as survivors have described it. 

 

Despite the large-scale distraction, all was not lost for the Wardens of Light. Gwalchavad's personal stormbird was spotted fleeing from the Tira-to, a few minutes later. Piloted by the hero, the Scoprion, the famed Warden demanded immediate support for him and his passenger: the Primarch Gwalchavad himself. Their spirits restored, the remaining Wardens threw themselves into a frenzy as they protected the stormbird, until it safely docked within Chalice of Hope. Gwalchavad secured, the Wardens of Light fled from the guns of the XIII^th.

 

[All surviving ships of the XII^th formed a shield around the Chalice of Hope as they fought their way through the Eagle Warrior envelopment. So desperate were the Wardens of Light that several ships would resort to ramming techniques to physically clear a route past the Eagle Warrior warships. It would take the sacrifice of four ships before the remnant of the 11^th Fleet escaped from the trap. Even then, total annihilation was a possibility if not for the fact that the 27^th Expeditionary Fleet failed to give chase. It is still a mystery as to why Alexos Travier did not deliver a final blow, especially given the final outcome of the Insurrection. Perhaps memories of his former friendship stayed his hand. It could be that whatever foul event consumed Gatra V had left its mark on Alexos, preventing him from capitalising on his victory. Or, maybe Alexos hoped to enact another scheme upon his brother. 

 

Whatever the case, only a mere fifth of the 11^th would escape the system. None of those ships were undamaged. The final tally would see well over 40,000 Wardens of Light dead. The death toll could have easily reached greater heights had Gwalchavad gathered additional Warden of Light fleets to his banner, but he had believed that the combination of three of his Legion fleets to be of sufficient strength to aid the Eagle Warriors.]

 

When inquired of how the Scorpion had both rescued their Primarch and escaped Alexos, the Scorpion explained that it had only been through the sacrifice of Arngrim Valten and Gwalchavad's personal guard, that the Scorpion had successfully reached the Tira-to's hanger bays. Of Gwalchavad, apothecaries attending him reported he had been injected by bizarre, xenos narcotics. They would do all they could to restore their father, but, for the moment, Gwalchavad was removed from the Insurrection. 

[bluntblade]

The Battle of Kartyg

Kartyg was the purest ambush of the Day of Revelation, fought as it was between Legions who cordially detested one another long before the Insurrection began. Even as allies in the Great Crusade, Crimson Lions and the Berserkers of Uran could not be trusted to fight together, and it is likely that Raktra Akarro demanded the chance to slay Hectarion as the price of his entry into the war. Knowing that the IIIrd Legion was widely dispersed, he likewise divided his Hordes to seek out the Clans of the Lions - although the Lions' impressive numbers meant that some Clans would be assaulted by detachments of the Drowned and the Warbringers.

 

The Berserkers' mightiest Hordes, numbering some 80,000 warriors, laid their trap on a world close to the war front where the IIIrd Legion was currently campaigning. Kartyg was a mining world in the Eastern reaches of Segmentum Obscuras, recently brought to compliance and only lightly garrisoned. Its governor deferred instantly to the authority of a Primarch, especially one with Raktra’s monstrous reputation. With that, it was the work of a few short hours to butcher the garrison and enslave the population. Then the VIIth Legion sent out a falsified distress signal through Kartyg’s terrified and bewildered astropaths, dug in, and waited.

 

Hectarion arrived with 60,000 of his Legionaries and a collection of Army fleets which had happened to be in the region, believing that a xenos force of unknown nature and alarming strength was loose behind Imperial lines. He found a world apparently stripped bare, its fortresses gutted. The Lions’ advance forces made planetfall, seeking survivors or lingering enemies in the cities. As they delved into the subterranean levels, further companies - known as Brotherhoods among the IIIrd Legion - penetrated the mines, and in these depths they found the enemy. The Berserkers had set mortal troops, feral and death worlders utterly in thrall to the Ashen King, in the upper levels of the mines and the under-cities. With the face of the enemy apparently revealed as human but non-Imperial, the Lions attacked in greater strength, accompanied this time by the Army regiments.

 

Now the Berserkers showed their bloodstained hand, companies storming up from the deepest reaches with Titans and Knight walkers lumbering in their wake. Equipped to engage a mortal horde, the Lions and Army had their lines torn asunder, their tanks blasted and shredded by the Berserkers’ war machines. Even as the true face of the enemy became clear, the VIIth Legion fleet emerged from the shadow of the system’s second, uninhabited world and from high above the solar plain. With naked malice, they fell upon the Loyalist fleet.

 

The Lions’ fleet did not suffer as greatly as those of the Iron Bears and the Scions Hospitalier, as they were arrayed for battle, but on the surface their forces were ripped apart, trampled under the pitiless feet of the Legio Yharma. The Lions mounted a desperate series of evacuation attempts with their gunship wings, but such was intensity of the VIIth Legion attack that only a fraction of these craft returned to the void, bringing Lions to relative safety. Hundreds of craft fell prey to fire from the surface or Insurrectionist fighters and interceptors, spiralling to earth in flames. Even the thickly armoured bulk landers of the Tricendian Auxilia came apart, shattered by Titan cannons before they could flee.

 

As Raktra’s flagship approached, Hectarion held the IIIrd Legion fleet together, tactical sense warring with his duty to his sons and outrage at his brother’s crime. His lieutenants, Vericos and Hastein Iron-Arm, attempted to dissuade him from confronting Raktra directly, but only the intercession of Traighas Two-Blade could cut through his fury and stave off a suicidal attack. They had received astropathic missives from nearby worlds, and realised that the Berserkers’ actions were part of a greater whole. The Lions would serve no one by standing and dying in this backwater. They had to escape with what strength they could, and learn of the war’s true extent.

 

The Lupa Sanguis led the Lions’ surviving vessels in their breakout from the system, but even with Hectarion swayed, their escape was hardly certain. Only the unexpected number of Army ships, which outnumbered those of the IIIrd, had delayed the destruction of the fleet, the Auxilia fleetmasters advancing courageously into the teeth of the enemy to buy time for the Emperor’s son. At the system’s edge the Hooded Guillotine, the Berserkers’ menacing flagship, caught up to its sister ship.

 

Here Hectarion would likely have met his end but for the bravery of Rix Thegnir Hralssen, who commanded the strike cruiser Draugren. Peeling off from the formation, Hralssen had his ship intercept the Hooded Guillotine at ramming speed, firing all the while as it shot towards the leviathan. Its assault craft hastily scrambled, the Draugren unloaded its cannons into a cluster of the Gloriana’s spinal towers, enduring grave damage to itself to knock its target off course. Stunned momentarily by the daring ploy, Raktra's favoured companies were beset by suicidal boarding attacks by those gunships and assault rams which had reached the Hooded Guillotine. Wounded by Hralssen’s act and beset by attackers within, the baleful ship left its lessers to pursue Hectarion. Hralssen paid for his bravery at the hands of Raktra himself when the Draugren was boarded in its turn.

 

Hectarion escaped with roughly two thirds of his fleet, but less than that proportion of the warriors he had brought with him. Some 37,000 lay dead on Kartyg or floated in the void above, along with hundreds of thousands of Army troops, their regiments shattered by the ravenous violence of the Berserkers. The survivors found the surrounding systems suddenly hostile, with the awful certainty that the VII^th Legion would soon be in pursuit. Their only recourse was to retreat. The Lions learned of Icarion's treachery soon afterwards as they hastened back towards Loyalist territory, swearing grim oaths of vengeance upon the Insurrectionists.

[MikhalLeNoir]

Can we merge the 888th under Logaine Valjean instead of the 66th? Makes more sense to me to have a smaller fleet attached. (Especially as cervantes and dumah are chars i want to tackle in the future who were not there during the events)

[simison]

Can we merge the 888th under Logaine Valjean instead of the 66th? Makes more sense to me to have a smaller fleet attached. (Especially as cervantes and dumah are chars i want to tackle in the future who were not there during the events)

 

I updated Grifft.

[simison]

The Godslayers, the Grave Stalkers, and the Harbingers have passed rules inspection. Three legions left.

[bluntblade]

Found an existing blurb for the Godslayers:

 

Exemplary Battles

If a common thread runs through the VIIIth Legion’s campaigns, it is the sheer tenacity with which they waged war upon the enemies of the Emperor. While the Godslayers were hardly averse to wielding the formidable technology available to them, they used it mostly to complement their own inherent might, and though they had their share of heroic champions and brilliant tacticians, sheer endurance became their defining trait. Consequently their annals are full of gruelling marches, grinding battles of attrition and hard-fought defences. Yet we can see these methods applied with a distinct difference of mindset before and after Koschei was found. The Godslayers under Thyris made that refusal to relent synonymous with an utter lack of mercy for their enemies. Koschei would turn it to a profoundly different end; the Godslayers would endure what their allies could not, and on their shoulders the Emperor’s mortal soldiers would be carried to heights they could never achieve on their own.

 

Actually, turns out we've got them all down.

 

Exemplary Battles

The Grave Stalkers’ battle records, as far as they exist, tell of clandestine operations which could suddenly become a tide of slaughter, scattering enemy soldiers in terror. These were far more subtle than the caricature of hide and seek which often overshadows the truth of how they worked. The Grave Stalkers devised strategies which worked in effect as elaborate acts of psychological torture upon their foes. These became only more consummate once K’awil assumed command, yet some of their operations demonstrate his capacity to wage other kinds of war, and the dark ambition with which he steered his Legion.

 

Exemplary Battles

Only a fraction of the Drowned’s campaigns are well-known to us. Quite aside from the Legion’s secrecy, the environments in which they plied their trade frequently deterred and impeded outside observers. Indeed, the reports by Prefect Veron and his cadre have proven invaluable in exploring how the XVIth waged war when apart from their cousins, the Custodians being able to brave the inhospitable battlefields where the Drowned thrived. As with the Scions Hospitalier, the Drowned demonstrated a willingness to adapt in order to persevere, learning from the other Legions with whom they grudgingly served. As time progresses, we can see how this hunger for greater potency led them to stray beyond the Emperor’s bounds, ensuring a need for greater secrecy even as they chose more arduous campaigns, craving recognition for what Morro deemed his Legion’s primacy.

[bluntblade]

Flight of the Dragon

 

Entering the Warp only began a second sequence of trials for the souls aboard the Dragon of Autumn. Knowing the vessel's unique value, Koschei and Ka’wil had committed several companies each to capturing it, and many of these made boarding actions as the Dragon finally fled Kataii. Lord Chief Cass and the Totem Guard - what remained of them after the recovery of Daer'dd's body - led the main strength of the troops aboard against the Godslayers. The Bears’ hunger for vengeance was such that they went straight for the Godslayers, and it almost doomed them. Chief Praetor Nibaasiniiwi realised that the Grave Stalkers were elsewhere, and raced with his company to the bridge, where the duplicitous sons of Ka’wil had bypassed the outer lines of defenders and wreaked havoc on the mortals who tried to bar their way.

 

The Daughters of Daer'dd, especially the Gishada void specialists who fought beside the ship's Strendu Ogryn guard, presented a formidable obstacle. But while they might be reckoned among the Emperor's deadliest mortal servants, they were simply outmatched against Space Marines. ___ had taken a pack of Reapers for his vanguard, and their frenzied attack almost broke the morale of the defenders. They spilled onto the bridge, almost killing Lotara Sarrin in the process.

 

By this time the ship’s full complement of Dreadnoughts had been awakened and four hastened to the bridge along with Nibaasiniiwi. Catching the Grave Stalkers between hammer and anvil, they slew them and secured the bridge as Cass’ warriors crushed the VIIIth Legion boarders. Yet it was almost for naught, as a second force of Grave Stalkers were stealthily making their way to the Geller Field generator. They might have reached it without the Bears knowing at all, had a Shaman not discerned the chill of Pariahs close at hand. Several squads led by Captain Yoxer Bellows pursued and intercepted the Grave Stalkers, but though the Grave Stalkers perished under their blades, they had achieved their goal. Its generator beset by haywire grenades, the Geller Field flickered and failed. Madness spilled into the Dragon.

 

Hundreds of corpses, Loyalist and Insurrectionist alike, jerked to life. With cries that no living human could give, they surged to their feet and immediately set upon the defenders. In the first seconds they were a tide of animated corpses, but even worse things became apparent swiftly. Horns sprouted from scalps, skin stretching until the vicious points tore through. Teeth and nails were forced roughly from gums and fingers as fangs took their place. Blood streamed from eyes and mouths, matched by a reddening of skins.

 

Violence and blood were in every facet of every transformation, for they were the very essence of the creatures that resulted. The survivors’ recollections make clear that the defenders had no illusions as to what they faced. There could be nice mistaking their enemies for mundane xenos. These were daemons, the awful truth that lay behind the facade of the Imperial Truth. Drawn into this realm by bloodshed, they sought only to unleash more carnage. And unleash it they did.

 

The massacre’s course cannot be measured in time such are the vagaries, but we can say for certain that the toll of dead ran into the tens of thousands. Through the menial decks the daemons rampaged, ripping apart all they encountered. The Bears and their auxiliaries, only just triumphant over the Godslayers and Grave Stalkers, were mired in an even more savage battle. Other Astartes moved in ways that were well understood. The movements of the daemons were fundamentally unnatural, seeming to rip their way through existence.

 

No machinery was targeted, no strategic locations prioritised; the daemons sought only kills, and thus they were drawn to the places where their victims were most concentrated. Bears, Daughters and Army soldiers raced to these places, Cass intuiting what his enemies sought. The VIth Legion retained a degree of mysticism which others frowned upon, and it may well be that this leant them a means of understanding and combating the foe. Certainly their Shamans, led by Aandegg, were vital in the defence. Fire and lightning burned the daemons, weakening them for the blades of the Bears. Yet even as the fiends were slain, dissolving into ichor, more corpses shuddered with the violation of second life and lost their shape to the embodiments of slaughter. These larger, more powerful and more terrible to behold.

 

Cass and Sarrin watched the carnage as it unfolded, finding a pattern in the madness and deciding on a desperate solution. Knight walkers of House Blinstrubas were roused by the surviving scions aboard, Seneschal Kedin leading the way, and civilians were herded to a handful of the Dragon’s hangars, the defenders paying a heavy price to clear the way for them. Moths to flame, the daemons were drawn to their prey, swarming to the hangar as techmarines and magi went to work on the Geller field generator. This, Sarrin deemed the ship's best - perhaps only - chance for survival.

 

Numbers dwindling, the Dragon’s defenders clustered around Dreadnoughts and the Knights of Blinstrubas, whose mighty weapons were the best means of resisting the daemons after the Shamans’ art. Cass led the largest force, Aandegg at his side, while Nibaasiniiwi and Leonas commanded the others. Sequestered behind them in each hangar, the remaining civilians were kept safe for the moment. But as the violence reached its crescendo, a monster of unprecedented power arose.

 

It pulled itself from the remains of a broken Dreadnought, parts of the ruined ironform fusing to its flesh as its corpus swelled and warped. It cannot be named, nor even described in too much detail, for it is perilous to invoke anything of such a fiend’s essence. What can be written and said is that it reared higher than any of its kindred, horns reaching higher than any of the proud Knights. This was a Bloodthirster, and nothing aboard this ship was its equal.

 

Mortals fell wailing to their knees at the sight or collapsed, catatonic - several perished from their terror. A dozen Iron Bears died to its first attack, a score of Huronian Sunstriders to the next. Gunfire raked its flesh and it did not seem to feel it. Three Dreadnoughts fell upon it, gouging and hacking, and fell in their turn. Cass himself was struck down, his Cataphracti armour buckled and bones shattered. The defenders could wound it, but they could not bring the beast down. When the tide turned it was the work of those labouring on the Geller field. With fortuitous timing they restored the mechanism, and once more the barrier was raised around the ship.

 

Immediately the effects were apparent, the daemons weakening. The lesser creatures collapsed altogether, unable to exist with their connection to the Warp severed. The Bloodthirster, powerful enough to endure the severance, was engaged by a pair of Knights - the Gallant Surging Wolf and Magaera Sondak - resolute in their attack though it tore the arm from Sondak and raked its claws through the armour of the Surging Wolf. Finally Kedin, ensconced in his Valiant Coldclaw, took a hand. Harpooning the daemon with his walker's Ursus Claw, he dragged it close and cleaved it in two with repeated blows of its power claw. The rest of the horde were destroyed by the vengeful Iron Bears. Yet it was only at ruinous cost: over half the Astartes who had fled Kataii aboard the Dragon were slain, and their commander wounded unto death. Nibaasiniiwi, whose command none contested, ordered that Cass be placed in a stasis chamber. A perilous voyage to an uncertain harbour still lay ahead.

 

In the face of catastrophe, the Dragon’s Navigators salvaged some fragile hope, guiding the ship through the hellish currents through which it drifted. The Warp remained unquiet, its channels almost impossible to read for most. But Senek Ulcos, the chief Navigator, alighted on what he described as a pinprick of light in the madness - a glimmer of the Astronomicon, almost lost in the tumult. So miraculous was this discovery and the swiftness of the subsequent passage, that some have attributed it to the purposeful action of the Emperor himself. With Ulcos’ skill, the Dragon and the little flotilla around it forged a path back to the light.

 

Weeks later, the Dragon pulled itself free of the Warp on the edge of a heavily fortified system, Nibaasiniiwi and his soldiers ready to fight again if necessary, but with little hope for their own survival. Sure enough, a fleet of Legion ships loomed at the edge of auspex range, the damage to the Dragon’s systems making it impossible to identify them, prowling warily around the leviathan. Nibaasiniiwi took to the vox-hailer, giving a brief account of their ordeal and promising the Bears’ defiance and fury to any others who had betrayed the Emperor.

 

The answer came in the stolid accent of Obsailes. This was a fleet of the Tenth Legion, the noble Fire Keepers. Tasked with fringing the heart of Segmentum Solar, its captain assured Nibaasiniiwi that they meant no harm to any Loyalist. After their savage ordeal, the Bears had found their way back to Loyalist territory, not far from Terra itself. And yet, it would soon emerge, they were scarcely any further from the violence of the Insurrection.

[simison]

Blunt, how's Untara coming along?

[bluntblade]

Nothing so far I'm afraid. Left my tablet at home in the rush, so will only progress when I'm home on the 17th.

[simison]

Alright, I'll be ready.

[simison]

After some thought, I'm downgrading the Haclyon Wardens-Warriors of Peace rating from Sworn Brothers to Fellow Warriors.

[bluntblade]

I'm surprised they ever had that, tbh.

[simison]

A holdover from back when I commanded both.

[Grifftofer]

After some thought, I'm downgrading the Haclyon Wardens-Warriors of Peace rating from Sworn Brothers to Fellow Warriors.

 

I've rectified this in the file, along with filling what I have of the Steel Legion allies chart. Very nearly finished :)

[bluntblade]

Posting this to edit more easily:

Underwater Madness

In several instances, Icarion seems to have assigned operations on the Day of Revelation as rewards for those sworn to him; an opportunity to settle scores or assert one's primacy in the most emphatic way. Such interpretations are inevitable when one considers the Perfidy of Untara, in which two Legions would clash in a realm of warfare where both excelled - the oceans.

On the Loyalist side were the vaunted XIX^th Legion, famed even among the Astartes, led by one of the best-loved Primarchs. The Scions Hospitalier had proven themselves dauntless and staunchly loyal in their duty to Imperial unity throughout their service. More pertinently, when the Legions found themselves divided, the Scions took the side which proved to have the Emperor’s favour, Pionus setting himself against several of his brothers at the Vizenko Prosecution and condemning them for their trespasses. Quite aside from the fact that Icarion had suborned several of Pionus’ opponents from the Prosecution, the deed proved that the Primarch of the XIX^th could not be expected to turn against the Emperor.

The task of killing Pionus went to a brother who shared several of his talents and indeed had shared several battlefields with him, yet never the glory that accrued to the Scions. Sorrowsworn Morro of the Drowned was a bitter warlord who had skirted censure by his father and brothers more than once, tolerated for his Legion’s willingness to endure any hardship and persevere in any warzone, but for his transgressions and mien always denied acclaim and the glory he coveted. He despised what he saw as the enthronement of a weakling in the Warmaster, and had argued vociferously for the cause of gene-seed experimentation on Baal. In truth, the Sorrowsworn and the XVI^th Legion were already treading a darker path than any truly guessed at this time, except perhaps the arch-heretics among the Eagle Warriors.

The material disparity between the two Legions was not apparent so much in manpower as in the auxiliary units they fielded. The Scions’ protectorates and alliances, especially the realm of Yamatar, ensured that they marched to war backed by Titans, Knights and maniples of automata. The Drowned lacked any close allies among the former two, so if they were to attack with a realistic chance of success, the site of the ambush must be chosen carefully. Icarion and his advisers had likely grasped this before Morro had even pledged the Drowned to his banner. It is unknown, however, when the Insurrectionist eye alighted on Untara, where the betrayal was to play out.

Open Waters
Appropriately enough, this was an Ocean World, one of unusual significance within its subsector. Sitting at the intersection of several stable Warp routes, it held rich deposits of prometheum that provided its settlers with great wealth. By the time that the first Imperial outriders found it, Untara was serving a collection of stellar polities and its rulers only too happy to accept compliance. Over the next eighty years its wealth was parlayed into great civil and military works, complemented by several levies for the Imperial Army, and Untara grew into a subsector capital.

It was about ten years after the Emperor’s return to Terra that the rumblings of discontent began. Agitators within the Untaran Parliament pressed for greater autonomy, and in a decade these had turned into calls for outright secession. The matter was only more disquieting for the presence of a Fire Keepers garrison which had seemingly done nothing to stay the unrest. Finally, a sector governor decided that enough was enough, and called upon the nearest Expeditionary Fleets to settle the matter. One of these was the 192^nd, Pionus’ own, which was due to visit Untara in its final stages of resupply. Neither Pionus nor his advisers were overly perturbed at the request for another fleet to join them, though they must have questioned the governor’s decision not to deploy any of the garrisons at his disposal. They refrained from any query, however, for the governor had been put in place by Icarion himself.

The other fleet was commanded by Sorrowsworn Morro, comprising his famed and dreaded “Kelyfos”. This was the main force of the XVI^th Legion, known to comprise over 100,000 warriors. As such the Drowned outnumbered their cousins who, while being the larger Legion, were far more dispersed, with only half their number accompanying their Primarch. Their ships showed all the variety that the XVI^th’s fleets were known for, ancient relic-vessels sailing alongside ships raised over Mars and Jupiter and taken as spoil over the course of the Great Crusade.

The Scions may not have been present in great strength, but their senior officers and veteran companies were disproportionately represented in the flotilla. Five of the Déka, the Legion’s ten senior commanders, were present, gathered for an offensive into the Greythan Expanse. Pionus was also accompanied by Tallus Orion and his sister Inna, the two heads of the Legion’s Apothecarion, and Titan-barques of the Legio Gojira sailed with him. These would be delectable prey if the conditions could be made right, and so Icarion's agents had laboured to ensure the conditions were right. Morro, for his part, exploited them to the hilt.

The Ocean Conquerors
The two fleets met one jump away from the Untara system so as to present an overwhelming display of force when they translated. When they did so the threat was unmistakable, and despite the four star forts arrayed around Untara, its fleet parted meekly before the oncoming Legions. The Scions and Drowned settled into a bombardment anchorage above the main centres of power before sending companies aboard two of the star forts, which had been laid open to them. So far, things appeared promising; the show of force had cowed the recidivists just as Icarion had planned.

Pionus made for the surface, with Seventh Captain Glaucus left in command of the fleet. A quarter of the Scions joined him in the descent, with more ready to follow. As the gunships issued from hangars, Seventh Captain Glaucus coordinated the Scions’ part in the seizure of orbital control from the bridge of the Hell's Heart. Untara boasted ancient, marvellous cities wrought from coral in the Age of Technology and built grandly upon since then, but the true focus of power lay with its mineral wealth. Thus it was to the focal point of that wealth, not the old cities, that the Scions would deploy.

The Districtas Facilitas was the economic heart of Untara, a sprawling port in which promethium was shipped to orbit and good were imported from across the Imperium. However, unlike terrestrial space ports, the Facilitas lacked towering structures of plasteel and ferrocrete, and had little presence above the surface other than its vast landing plates. Instead, the bulk of its structure lay beneath a shallow sea and the dunes below that, dotted with copses of plasteel forest where the Untarans had built their promethium refineries. It was here that the greatest number of Scions Hospitalier deployed, commanded by Captain Epinondas of the Déka, a force of some 12,000 Scions Hospitalier.

Sixth Captain Diokles took 4,000 of his brethren, by some margin the smallest force, to the Crucible. This fortress constructed by those Fire Keepers who had initially garrisoned the world. However, it had become notorious among the Legions as more of a prison than a holdfast, a dumping ground for the pyskers of the Fire Keepers where they could be forgotten by their father and brothers whilst still accomplishing a task of some use. By the time of the Day of Revelation, the Ember Host was some 500 strong, but the numbers were of little import to Diokles. His task was to ascertain just why, with a planet apparently verging on serious unrest, the Ember Host had not acted to rein in the Senate.

The final deployment of Scions was the 8,000 Legionaries drawn from the Fifth and Second Battalions, led by Darius Mytakis and Metis Odyssales. Most prominent among them were two hundred Terminators of the Depthstrider elite, which formed Pionius Santor's honour guard. Pionus led this force to the Omnium, Untara's political centre, where he meant to extract an apology and fresh pledges of loyalty from the lords of Untara. Smaller forces made for various other locations across the surface.

Morro made a similar show of force at the Omnium, notably outdoing his brother as 15,000 Drowned Men disembarked from bulk landers. The old Legion Master Hennasohn was dispatched to the Crucible: a famed psyker, it was suggested that he could bridge any gap of understanding between Diokles and the Ember Host. Pionus permitted this display out of a cautious optimism that Morro, with whom he had shared a frosty relationship in recent decades, might finally be seeking reconciliation with the brotherhood of Primarchs. As ever, the great tragedy of the Imperium ensured the cruellest of ironies.

Pionus received on the most minuscule of warnings from Medeos, his Chief Librarian. A noted telepath, Medeos had entered a little behind his master, but on entering the presence of Morro he was struck by convulsions. He spoke only one word, imploring Pionus to flee, before the Morro drew his whips and struck, cleaving through the Librarian's spine. Medeos fell like a cut thread, the first death in the massacre that now unfurled.

Perfidy
The first shots came less than a minute after Medeos' death. Presumably Morro had identified the most advantageous time to attack, but it was vital that the killing begin before any communication could reach the Scions' fleet from the Omnium. A barrage of macro-batteries issued from Iocet, one of the star forts occupied by the Drowned. The XIX^th Legion battleship Spear of the Waters came apart in less than a minute, its shields stripped away and its escorts obliterated. Several more vessels were badly damaged. Vox-hails rang across the fleet, both Legions voicing outrage. XVI^th Legion ships pulled alongside their stricken cousins in support. Then they let loose with their own cannons.

The Scions reeled in orbit, losing no time in hailing their Primarch, but too late. Even as Pionus swung around to demand answers from the Senate he was attacked by Morro, whose barbed whips tore into his armour and lacerated his flesh. Badly wounded, Pionus staggered away, enveloped by the Depthstriders as the Drowned opened fire. Mytakis bellowed in desperation for his men to bar their enemies from pursuing them, and the Depthstriders turned their weapons on the Senate’s grand gates. With the sacrifice of this improvised rearguard and an avalanche of broken masonry the way was shut, but the reprieve only lasted minutes. At the same instant, Scions Hospitalier across Untara had come under attack.

The 192^nd Fleet had been waiting with shields lit, ready to do battle with the defenders of Untara. Thus they were not immediately devastated by the onslaught of the traitor-held star forts. But with the treachery of their cousins, they were caught between two enemies. The Scions responded with coiled fury, hammering back at their attackers. The Hell’s Heart, Pionus’ sharp-prowed flagship, led an attack against Karanst, the first star fort to begin firing on the fleet. With a ruinous barrage of torpedoes they cracked its armour before loosing iron-eater warheads into the exposed structure. Karanst was condemned to a lingering death as the voracious compounds laid waste its heart, but the Scions paid heavily for that victory. Two battleships and five cruisers had been lost in the attack and the Hell’s Heart came away with a gaping hole in its port side. A Titan-barque of Gojira was lost next, taking with it a war maniple of god-engines.

Still the Drowned attacked, joined by the Untaran fleet. Morro’s baleful flagship, the Queen of the Damned, mirrored the actions of the Hell’s Heart. Baerlun Voidstainer, Morro's fleetmaster, may have been a mortal, but he was an ancient and ruthless tactician in his own right, having served Morro on Pheneos and been deemed too old to become an Astartes. Augmetics and rejuvenat treatments had made him a grey shipman of long service and great skill. Now he put his abilities to use, following his master into treason and slaughter. The 192^nd Fleet was to be enveloped, sundered and picked apart like a shoal of fish by ocean predators.

The Scions aboard the star forts had responded to the treachery by fighting their way to the control chambers, seeking to at least disable the great weapons of the forts or, if possible, turn them upon the attackers. On one of the two forts they had been resisted, but the commander of Tethys fort had not successfully suborned all his officers. Two lieutenants and their men staged a mutiny, killing the commander and throwing open the command chambers to the Scions. Before long the guns of Tethys had begun to exact reprisals against the Drowned, but this was an eventuality foreseen by Morro. The Queen of the Damned, flanked by two Goliath-class battleships and another with an uncomely, likely alien aspect, descended upon the station. Nova cannon and vortex missiles ripped away shields and left gaping, burning wounds. Finally a fusillade of strange projectiles shot from the Queen of the Damned on noisome, iridescent contrails. Where they struck, Tethys’ structure imploded, contorting and turning in upon itself.

As the Queen of the Damned destroyed the fort its sister ship, the Horrorheart, rampaged through the XIX^th Legion formations. Its provenance was and remains unknown to history, but its armament was justly infamous long before the Insurrection. Tidemaster Renno, commanding in Hennasohn’s place, hewed the void with salvo after salvo, crushing dozens of vessels in mere minutes. Lesser battleships might, with sufficient guile, coordination and courage, bring low a Gloriana, but Renno sailed with squadrons of his own, screening the behemoth and adding their fire to its. In these circumstances, only the wounded Hell’s Heart could hope to halt the reaver, and with little chance of its own survival.

Fighting for survival as they were - the Untaran fleet joining their allies in the slaughter - the Scions could do little to prevent their enemies from deploying hundreds of transports. These raced down to the surface, and Diokles’ forces could only warn their brothers of the assault to come. Touching down, the craft let down their ramps to release thousands of Astartes, joined by the sinister troops of their Mechanicum allies. Adsecularis, combat servitors and automata spilled into the cities of Untara, seeking blood and punishing any who obstructed them with lethal force. Dreadnoughts too came forth, and the Drowned had armed themselves specifically to do battle with another Legion, right down to the armour-piercing bolts in their guns and stranger, abhorrent weapons which inflicted revolting wounds upon their victims.

The Sanguine Tide
Many of the Legions’ customary tools might be reckoned dreadful enough. Bolter, chainsword, melta, flamer and volkite alike, the Angels of Death wield monstrous tools for grisly work. Yet the arsenal that the Drowned now brought to bear was something else; weapons that inflicted deaths of surpassing cruelty and pain. Howls of agony issued from Space Marine throats, even their phenomenal pain thresholds unable to cope with these baleful weapons.

At the Crucible, Diokles’ men were cut down on the landing platforms at they tried to break free, pinned down by the new arrivals and hacked and blasted apart. Diokles himself fell to the blades of Hennasohn and his guards, but it was not only XVI^th Legion weapons which brought death to the Scions. The Fire Keepers of the Ember Host renounced their loyalty, having already made common cause with the Stormlord. With sorcerous fire, they consecrated their betrayal in the ashes of their kinsmen. If there had been any doubt that this treachery had also been pre-planned, X^th Legion turncoats appeared at the Omnium, where Odyssalas’ warriors tried desperately to reach their Primarch, hurling themselves at the Drowned Men who blocked their path.

In the Districtas Facilitas, Epinondas had consolidated his forces and dug in. Like most of his Déka brothers, he took a forensic approach to the preparation for a battle. Now he used what he had learned from the holographic records, ordering companies to locations which they could rally to and make defensible. With this done, Epinondas’ tactical acumen stymied the slaughter, creating kill-zones which it would severely cost the Drowned to break through. However, he had underestimated the lengths to which the Drowned would go to exterminate the Scions.

XVI^th squads, aboard modified dreadclaws, shot towards the Scions’ location. Cutting their way in, they emerged to the rear of their prey and announced themselves with their guns. Epinondas’ secure position was at once broken, and behind the initial waves of breachers and tactical marines were the infamous Malacost hazard squads. With Epinondas locked in battle they struck, catching him in a crossfire of mass-reactive bolter rounds until only scraps were left.

The surviving Scions were splintered, robbed of their commander and surrounded on all sides. The Drowned set about nothing less than the butchery of their onetime comrades, their formations closing like a fist on a throat. No dignity was afforded to the Scions, only the cold and contemptuous dismemberment of a cornered enemy. A single XIX^th Legion captain, Yovun Arima, led a breakout with nearly three hundred Scions, making a daring attack on the route by which the Malacost themselves had infiltrated. But this was only a small success, less than a fortieth of the Scions who had entered the Districtas. Arima’s warriors still faced a deadly trial, attempting to shake off the Drowned who would soon be in pursuit and with little hope of reaching their brothers elsewhere.

With Pionus stricken at the Omnium, Darius Mytakis took charge of the companies who succeeded in linking up with the Depthstriders, formulating a path to the landing plates as he demanded fresh gunships from orbit. Waves of Drowned Legionaries broke against the formation, hounding them from the front and rear. The surviving Librarians of Medeos' retinue were instrumental in keeping the enemy back, bolstering the efforts of their brothers, and even then the stream of deaths could only be slowed. Several XIX^th Legion companies were fractured or wiped out entirely as they attempted to defend their wounded Primarch, prepared to put down mortal troops but utterly unready to face fellow post-humans. But through valour, cunning and sheer fury, the Depthstriders forced a bloody march through the Traitors in their way.

The Omnium now resembled one vast convulsion of violence, with mortals caught between the anger of the opposing Astartes. A handful of Odyssalas’ companies, under the command of Captain Morada, commenced a ferocious and costly action to secure the landing platforms. Both sides knew these to be the Scions’ only way of evacuating their Primarch, and so the Drowned’s second wave had left heavy support squads and Mortis Dreadnoughts. Morada lost hundreds of men to shake the foe’s entrenched position, and only defeated them with the aid of the gunships which had descended to retrieve Pionus. Then the Drowned’s attacks were stymied, but only because several of the Thunderhawks and Stormbirds had brought Scions to the surface, ready to lay down their lives by the hundred if that was needed to get the Primarch to safety.

In orbit, whole Psalidas of Drowned Men, thousands of Astartes, had fought their way aboard the star fort Aphron, where XIX^th Legionaries still held control having slaughtered the Unataran garrison. At first the Drowned were beaten back, the Scions entrenched and their resistance stiffened by automata maniples and Army troops of the famous Yamatar Ashigat regiments. Then a second wave of gunships set down in the hangars, and among these were Stormbirds bearing strange and ominous markings. Landing ramps hissed open and unnatural howls shook the recycled air. Vast, misshapen figures, massive even by the reckoning of a Space Marine and heavily armoured, took to the slaughter.

The Scions knew well the monstrous power that gene-tampering could buy. Perhaps a few, likely no more than a score scattered across the Legion, remained who had fought in the Unification Wars and seen the monsters wrought by techno-barbarians. So it is likely that, while their mortal allies mistook the new enemy for gene-hulks or Ogryn Charonites, terrifying enough in their own right, the Scions recognised they were something more, and fouler. They moved and fought with too much poise and intelligence, spiked as it was with deranged bloodlust, to be such crude beasts. With awful clarity, they realised they were facing creatures that were kin to them - they may never have been full Space Marines, but they had been meant for that glory before undergoing a perversion of the process that made an Astartes. The Forlorn were unveiled.

What followed was the kind of slaughter which the Legions themselves had wreaked upon mortal armies throughout the Crusade. Where the line had held before, now it buckled just as warplate did under the blades and claws of the aberrations. Scions were eviscerated, their bodies mangled beyond recognition. Only massed gunfire could reliably fell the Forlorn, and behind the monsters came the Drowned, exploiting the disorder that they caused. The elite Charonite Seekers were deadliest in this role, striking at officers and throwing their units into further disarray. Within an hour of the Forolorn making their presence known, the last Scion on Aphron was a parcel of shattered ceramite and pulped flesh, only a couple of hundred fighting their way free aboard gunships and saviour pods.

Below, in the depths of the Omnium, Odyssalas had been cornered by Drowned companies led by the notorious Gorespray Lorkut. With no hope of reaching his Primarch, Odyssalas ordered his warriors to breach the city’s walls with bombs and melta charges, several of these having been taken from the better-armed Drowned. A ragged string of explosions punched through the coral and stone walls, allowing the sea to come thundering in. The Omnium had defences against breaches, but the damage done by the fighting and Odyssalas’ actions saw to it that these were not enough. Thousands were killed as the merciless tendrils of the ocean forced their way into the grand structure, and throughout the Omnium the battle was now fought through flooded passageways under crimson emergency lights.

Morro caught Mytakis’ force at the port, threatening to finish what he had begun in the shadow of the gunships which might carry Pionus to safety. Yet in this dire moment, the XIX^th elite would not break, even in the face of a Primarch. Divemaster Therskites turned to bar Morro’s path, half the surviving Depthstriders and thirty more Scions halting to stand with him. As one they raised their guns, picked a single target and fired. Even a Primarch could not shrug off such a wave of fire, and Morro reeled from it. Plasma, bolters, lasfire, volkite rays - all inflicted a measure of punishment. Several of the warriors around him were reduced to ashes and gory fragments of armour and bone, and the ceramite of Morro’s armour began to bubble and flow.

All knew this would not be enough to end him; Morro broke through the storm and punished the defiance of Therkites’ warriors, tearing them apart. More Drowned Men followed, advancing over the bodies of their comrades and victims, ready to end the task. But Therskites had sold his life dearly, and the gunships now loosed their own weapons, first against the Drowned and then against the gantries and platforms. The enemy were cut off from Pionus, and would have difficulty in retrieving their warriors from the surface. The wounded Primarch was hauled aboard, and the gunships turned skyward again, braving the swarms of enemy craft to deliver Pionus to the fleet.

From Heart of Hell
Yet Pionus’ flagship could not reach him. Beset by enemies, the Hell’s Heart wallowed in a deluge of fire, and Glaucus came to a grim realisation. Even if the flagship could win free of the battle, it would never survive Warp entry. He ran the calculations and identified three necessities. First, a ship would have to run the gauntlet and retrieve Pionus, before leading a breakout with whatever vessels could be saved. Second, as many personnel and war machines as possible must be evacuated from the flagship. Third, if the Hell’s Heart was never to leave this system, then its end must be made fruitful.

Glaucus turned to his protégé, Galen Diomes. Captain of the 19^th Company, he had been left in command of Glaucus’ ship, the Nereid, while his mentor had taken over on the Hell’s Heart. Diomes was charged with retrieving the Primarch and any other escapees from the surface, ordered to take as many ships as he deemed necessary. As the Hell’s Heart and its escorts bulled into the Drowned formation, all caution cast aside, Diomes burst through the net and took his ships down into low orbit. His breakout went all but unnoticed, for the Drowned's prey were many; the remaining barques of Gojira and House Toho, as well as the Army bulk conveyers, among them. Besides, the XIX^th Legion’s flagship hunted, and it sought another of its kind - the vicious Horrorheart.

For Glaucus knew the Drowned Man who occupied the Horrorheart’s command throne. He and Renno had once been comrades, long estranged like their Legions but nonetheless, warriors who had fought together in six theatres. That former friendship was enough for enmity to burn like acid in his blood. The Scions might shackle their fury, deploying it with rigid discipline, but it was never absent. Now it rose to the surface, as the Hell’s Heart, Pionus’ bright white blade in the heavens, cleaved the Insurrectionist fleet.

XVI^th Legion vessels fell back at its approach, firing to strip the armour from its flanks and rip the spires from its spine, but not quickly enough. Dozens of frigates and destroyers were dismembered and sent spinning away by the Gloriana's torpedoes and lance-strikes. The Ironclad-class battleships Athogeion and Heikuros shadowed it, taking in the escapees from the Hell’s Heart and its escorts before turning to follow the Nereid. Glaucus’ gambit was well-orchestrated indeed, for it pushed the main body of the Drowned fleet between the Scions and the remaining star forts, giving his brothers a further respite from the onslaught.

As his flagship thundered towards its fellow Gloriana, Pionus was borne up into the void. Diomes, slipping the net and fending off the enemy ships that attempted to follow, took up position in low orbit. He had his ships train their weapons on the fighter wings pursuing their master, and lance beams stabbed down into the masses of enemy craft. With every minute, ships were destroyed protecting the Nereid, but finally the gunships reached their refuge. Diomes knew that to withdraw would mean abandoning thousands of his brothers to their deaths, but he had his mentor’s final instructions and now the survival of the Legion lay in his hands. The Nereid’s thrusters blazed anew, and the Scions began their retreat.

As the flight began, a clash of behemoths drew to its climax. The Horrorheart attempted to veer and evade its counterpart, but Glaucus was not to be denied his prize. Using the four remaining cruisers to effect a feint, Diokles drove the Horroheart into his sights and ordered a final burst of power fed to the engines as the last course corrections were made. That burst drove the Hell’s Heart, cannons still blazing, toward its opponent, and the mighty prow burst from the far side of the Horrorheart’s belly. There the two giants hung in the void, entangled like bull animals fighting beyond all thought of survival, and still they lashed one another with their vast guns. Machines and bodies spilled in their thousands from the great wound Diokles had made, but the Horrorheart was not slain. Reverse thrusters flared and the Drowned ship wrenched itself free, taking half the prow of the Hell’s Heart with it.

The coda to Glaucus’ great charge was a series of ragged volleys delivered with every remaining gun as the Hell’s Heart ruptured, the kick of its own cannons shaking loose its metal bones and great sheets of its armoured carapace. So great was the damage that Glaucus could not overload the reactors for a final strike, the ship disintegrating under the assault of the circling XVI^th Legion ships. But Glaucus, a true master of voidwar, would not yield to death before he brought his quarry down. A single Stormbird, maintaining a vox-link to the flagship, recorded Glaucus’ final words: “You never deserved to sail her. For the [lost to vox interference]... For the Emperor.”

A final flurry of vortex torpedoes leapt across the gulf between the two ships and striking the wound that its sister had made. Great portions of the Horrorheart’s skeleton were unmade, and what was left could no longer withstand the stresses of the ship's own engines. Twisting, its crenellated spine torn in two and vast ruptures bursting open along its flanks, the Horrorheart came undone. The reactor safeguards failed, and nuclear fire flooded the vacuum, disintegrating what remained of the Hell’s Heart when it struck. Along with Glaucus, hundreds of Scions and tech-priests, along with hundreds of thousands of mortal personnel, had given their lives to ensure a chance for their comrades. Two of the cruisers and a handful of escorts survived their diversion, racing to join the main fleet as they pulled out of orbit, the Primarch secured.

Survival
Pionus, once aboard the Nereid, had recovered sufficiently to assess the situation, and point-blank refused his men’s efforts to move him to the Apothecarion. Instead, with his Apothecaries attending to his wounds as best they could on the bridge, Pionus orchestrated a withdrawal, pulling ships back wherever possible and springing counterattacks as necessary. It was costly, and the Scions lost ships with every action, but gradually the XIX^th Legion pulled free, making for the Manderville Point.

This success perhaps masks the knife-edge on which the Legion had teetered on the landing platforms; only a Primarch could have orchestrated such a retreat successfully, and the ravaging of the Iron Bears gives us a clue as to how things would have gone otherwise. It is for good reason that Therskites and the warriors who stood with him are said to have saved the XIX^th. Nonetheless, that accolade must be shared with a mortal officer on the enemy flagship. For critically, the Queen of the Damned did not intervene; had it done so, it is unlikely that even Pionus could have saved his fleet from total destruction. However, Morro had sustained grave injuries of his own in the pursuit’s final minutes, and his fleet were unable to contact him. Fearing the worst, Flag-Captain Baerlun broke from combat and brought the Queen of the Damned into a lower orbit in order to gain a teleport locus, saving the Nereiad from its murderous attentions.

More broadly, the XVI^th Legion formation had been disrupted still more with Glaucus’ suicidal attack, and in the confusion it took longer for them to recognise which vessel was leading the retreat. Helm-feeds show the Copper Prince standing in spite of wounds that would likely have killed an Astartes, his flesh charred and peeled away from the bone in places. Nonetheless, he was deeply unimpressed that his fleetmaster had abandoned the fighting to rescue him. Morro wasted little time in executing the mortal for his failure to pursue and destroy the Scions.

With no realistic chance of catching Pionus now, Morro turned his attention to finishing the battle on Untara itself. Over the next day, Scions were hunted down on the stations and in the cities. The surrounding waters were scoured, as was the void around Untara. Those few Scions who were found, comatose but alive in sealed armour, were killed on sight. Their equipment and gene-seed was taken by The Drowned just as they salvaged from the bodies of their own. The Ember Host were permitted to take a share of the plunder, and were given transport to Madrigal for an audience with their new liege lord.

The gains far outstripped the losses for the Insurrectionists. The Drowned had lost 20,000 warriors in the battle, largely as a result of destroyed ships. The element of surprise and the complicity of the Untaran Senate had proved a potent weapon indeed, giving them a far greater advantage than the arithmetic would suggest. The Scions had lost two of the four Titan-barques they had brought to Untara, Knight walkers and tens of thousands of Secutarii joining the Titans in oblivion. Three Army bulk conveyers had been crippled with another destroyed, and into these Drowned Men and their Mechanicum servants poured. Willing or not, the mortal prisoners they took would serve the Stormlord's cause. The bulk would be converted into servitors, but those young and robust enough would become Aspirants for the Legion. The Forlorn too would grow in number as a result, with defective Aspirants given over to the Ioseka flesh-twisters within the Apothecarion if their minds were sufficiently intact.

Morro had intended to linger long on Untara, dredging the entire world as his Legion brought the entire subsection to heel before making for Iona and finishing what he had begun. This was the contingency he had made for Pionus' unlikely survival, one for which fresh forces would be placed at his disposal. With Alexandros and Kelbor Hal assuredly in control of the Sol System, a boot upon the Emperor's throat, the Imperium would be mired in confusion. Considering these factors, Morro would have enough of an advantage to overcome even Pionus' mighty allies in Yamatar and the Taghmata of Gryphonne. Glory long denied to Morro awaited; the entire Southern Imperium would capitulate because of the Sorrowsworn's deeds.

But as the second day of the hunt began, his Astropaths received an urgent message from the Stormlord. Not all had gone the Traitors’ way; strands in Icarion's web had come loose and threatened to unravel his entire scheme. Morro was ordered to depart Untara and set his Legion to the carving out of a shadow empire from which the Stormlord could vie with the Emperor. Untara, drawing on the resources of a subsector now yoked to the Stormlord's banner, was expected to defend itself. Morro reluctantly complied, although three companies were left with instructions to ensure that no Scions endured on Untara.

A handful of Scions remained, not one force larger than seventy from the data-logs recovered. The Drowned pursued them for weeks until only one warband remained. Odyssalas, ever the canny warrior, had gathered what survivors he could find as all hope of escape dimmed, and begun a campaign of sabotage against the cities and refineries close to the Crucible. With the disruption brought on by the battle, several ocean floor installations had gone quiet, and Odysslas’ band used a clutch of these as bases, patching up their equipment enough to keep functioning in the depths. The Scions had by now accepted fate’s judgement, hoping for nothing more than to hinder the enemy for as long as possible, but on this tale, salvation intruded.

Before the bulk of the promised reinforcements could reach Untara, a Fire Keepers fleet entered the system, seeking their erstwhile brothers. They laid waste the handful of Drowned ships along with the Untaran fleet and the two star forts left functional. The X^th Legion ships carried the remnants of Tribe Barinthus, and though sorely depleted, rage smouldered in them. Changes to the Stormlord’s plans meant that Untara’s defences had gone largely unrepaired, and the X^th Legion, famed for their siegecraft, were consummate unmakers.

Within a few hours the Senate and its haughty occupants had been destroyed. The Drowned had resisted fiercely, but they had already taken losses at the hands of their prey. The newcomers, having had months of voyaging to sharpen their blades, slew them with the fervour of wronged men denied vengeance for too long. The Fire Keepers went about their task with ruthless focus and speed, leaving the populace alone for the most part but eradicating the overseers of its industry. The subsector might yet be reclaimed, but Untara’s output must at least be staunched for now.

Intuiting the purpose of the Drowned Men who had stayed, Chief Thirgen sought the surviving Scions, finally making contact with Odyssalas and his warband. Declaring his loyalty to the Emperor, he bade them come aboard his ships and leave the system, promising a chance for retribution. While suspicious and given to fatalism after their ordeal, the Scions saw little point in resisting their saviours, and departed Untara with them. Plucked from an ignominious end and borne towards Terra, Odyssalas would survive to add a bloody tale of his own to the ledgers of the Insurrection.

While this small postscript was playing out, Pionus had withdrawn to Iona with the remains of his fleet to consolidate their strength and take stock of their losses. The harm inflicted on the Scions was grave: some four-fifths of the warriors Pionus had brought with him died in the ambush, and they represented some of the Scions’ most skilled and experienced personnel. Of the Synedrion officers present, only Mytakis and Primus Medicae Tallus Orion had escaped the system with their Primarch. Odyssalas was presumed to have been lost with the bulk of Second Company, and his brothers would not learn otherwise for several months.

Severe as the damage was, it was mitigated in part by the dispersal of the XIX^th Legion. Even with as many of them grouped in one place as Icarion could arrange, the force at Untara only constituted half their total strength. Ambushes were launched against three more of their fleets, but in those cases the Scions proved able to fight their way free, although each detachment paid in blood for their escape. With their Primarch alive and the scientific riches of Iona at their disposal, the Scions Hospitalier remained in play.

[simison]

I have found no errors in the new additions. Unless there is anything else to add, I believe Untara is complete.

[bluntblade]

Imperium victor!

 

I mean on to the next thing.

[simison]

Blunt, we have an error: "His lieutenants, Vericos and Hastein Iron-Arm, attempted to dissuade him from confronting Raktra directly, but only the intercession of Traighas Two-Blade ."