Word from the Crusade

[Cactus]

I have recently been granted sight of a rare volume of forbidden lore that contains much of interest to my Unforgiven brothers. Although the constraints of IP-LAW (Imperial Proscription 50, Authorised Works) prevent me from sharing everything, I can convey some words to stir the spirit of all sons of the Lion while you conduct your grim duties.
 

Allegiance: Fedelitas Constantus

 
This should settle that old debate. Astelan was a liar and an oath-breaker, pay him no heed.
 

"Empire, monuments and legends are built by those who are merely victorious. We were born to kill not to build. We are not idle long enough to leave monuments and we leave no work of the enemy intact to spawn legends. We are the First Legion, and he that follows in our wake is death."
 
Attr. Hector Thrane, Keeper of the Black Gate and First Master of the First Legion, 828.M30

 

They had walked into the mouth of hell, and not only had they returned, but they had left hell shattered in their passage.
 
From AK's description of the battle of Samerkand, 668.M30

 

...of those Imperial formations attached to support the First Legion in combat most came to bloody ends. Some were savaged by the monsters the newly-dubbed Angels of Death had come to slay, and others would simply vanish, purported to have been silenced by the First Legion themselves, lest word of some dread enemy return to the camps with the survivors.

 
I really like the way that fundamental parts of the M40 Dark Angels' character are seeded early on, and largely shaped by their position as the First and the operational role they're given. Distrust of outsiders, a feeling of superiority, compartmentalisation of powerful knowledge, 'off the record' campaigns of destruction, these are all present before the First Legion has left Sol. It gives them more depth, and moves away from everything being defined by relationship to the Fallen.
 

In order to fight the monsters the Emperor had foreseen in His path, they would need monstrous weapons. Alone among the Legiones Astartes, they would make common use of the forbidden weaponry of Old Night, of gene-phage and rad wave, employed to wipe clean the nests of those enemies deemed too terrible to be faced in open battle. The First Legion were the fulcrum of the Emperor's wrath, the agency of His hate, for they brought not simple destruction but the all-encompassing oblivion of utter annihilation. They were the Angels of Death, a title that would one day encompass all of the Emperor's Space Marines but, in those brutal days of conquest and blood, it was theirs alone.

 

To [the Lion] would fall the role of watchman at the edge of the Emperor's domain, the bane of monsters and beasts and the bearer of weapons too terrible to entrust to any other. He would be the cold and inevitable destroyer, the doom that once unleashed could not be recalled, subverted or delayed; taught by the black depths of the forest the value of cold, ruthless tenacity. He was the first of all the Primarchs, war distilled into its rawest and most fundamental essence, death that walked like a man, and the galaxy would be forever changed.

 

...though some [Primarchs] might exceed him in the details of some tasks there were none that were his equal in the grander scope of battle, none whose will could match the bloody-minded determination of the Lion. His talents and resolute confidence, which some might have called arrogance, won him few friends but saw him placed at the head of his legion faster than any of the Primarchs to be rediscovered before him.

 
Is AK showing a little bias here? I love the grudging acknowledgement in "some might exceed him in the details of some tasks".
 

"We are the Angels of Darkness, for us there is no peace, no end but war and death. We shall not walk in the golden halls of Mankind's future, but stand resolute in the shadows beyond. While we yet draw breath, this Imperium will not fall, and we will not know defeat, for I pledge every warrior, every drop of blood in the Legion in the name of victory, no matter the cost."
 
The oath sworn by the Lion to the Dark Angels gathered at Gramarye and recorded in the books of the Council of Masters.

 

...but the Dark Angels he hoped to banish, to send far enough away that by the time they could return his grim business would be complete. This was not to be, the Lion would return to the Imperium as the sun returns to the horizon each morning, blinding and implacable, and he would reach for the heart of his fallen brother. Horus had loosed a beast the equal of any that lurked in the dark between the stars, one that would tear apart the Imperium to grasp a victory of ashes and blood.

 
This isn't new information about Horus' planning but again I like the words.
 

...the warriors of the First Legion were confronted by a vast rift in the fabric of space, a monstrous wound in reality from which was disgorged a mass of writhing pseudopod. The sole nearby planet, a barren orb of black basalt studded with structures of ancient provenance, had been ensnared by the amorphous mass, an anchor by which it sought to drag the whole of its foulness into this realm of existence. Sworn to ward the borders of the Imperium, the First Legion ships did not hesitate to engage the foe...

 
I love a bit of Lovecraftian cosmic horror. This is the nature of the threat the First Legion faced in the early years of the Great Crusade. Annihilating existential threats so the expeditionary fleets can progress.
 
I'll leave you with some lines from AK on the Lion's entrance to the Heresy narrative:
 

Word of the rebellion and the betrayal of the Imperium had spread far further than any might have thought and set loose another terror. What approached the Imperium was no simple band of killers, for the Night Lords even with the gene-blessings of the Legiones Astartes heritage had become little more than that. No fractured remnant of a Legion all but beaten by the treachery of Horus, but a full army of the Legiones Astartes in all its furious glory come to exact a toll for the betrayal of the vows once sworn by the Warmaster and his conspirators. Once they had been first, greatest and most feared, but now they came last to the battlefield, diverted by the wiles of Horus and enraged by the betrayal of their kin.
 
The Lion made haste to properly greet his wayward brothers, and he who followed at his heels was Death.

 

[Raziel-TX]

Thanks for sharing!

[Brother dean]

 

"Here in this moment I see neither Traitor or Loyalist, only the living and the dead.  The dead can beg for neither mercy or forgiveness for only history can judge them.  The living must bear the weight of their choices and fight for them, and there is much fighting still to be done"

p43.  

 

Now lets wake him up from the Rock and ask what to do with Cypher and his unaligned co-horts?   Or is it just me that sees this foreshadowing?

 

[Cactus]

No, I see it too. The Hunt is also foreshadowed by the unconfirmed accounts of the First Legion making sudden diversions to chase possible thunder warriors that evaded the cull.

I also see a thematic contrast with Curze's zero tolerance philosophy of law and order. It's stated both here and in the BL fiction that the Lion was troubled by the similarities between himself and the Night Haunter.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Cactus