The Horus Heresy Book 5 - Tempest

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THE HoRus HERESY®

BOOK FIVE

TEMPEST

wASUPPLEMENT FOR ARHAMMER 40,000

CONTENTS

THE w AR AT CALTH

The Shadow of War............................................................................................. I4 The Battle for the Macragge's Honour.............................................................. 44
The Battle for Calth Near-Space .............. .. .....................................................24 The Battle ofithraca .. ......................................................................................... 54
Betrayal on Calth ................................................................................................. 32 Epilogue ................................................................................................................. 66

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
The Ultramarines ............................................................................................... 70 House Vornherr............... ................................................................................. I22
The Word Bearers............................................................................................. I04 The Mechanicum Taghmata of the Calth Muster .............. .................... I32
Legio Praesagius ............................................................................................... II6 Warp Cults of the Age of Darkness ............................................................. I38

Legio Suturvora .................................................................................................. I46

THE BETRAYAL AT CALTH CAMPAIGN

Introduction ..................................................................................................... I 52 -Mission I- Blood Feud ......................................................................... I64

Phase I- Execution.. .. .................................................................................... I 56 - Mission 2- Onslaught ........................................................................... I65

Phase 2- Open War ....................................................................................... I 57 - Mission 3- Shatter Strike.............................................. ....................... I66

Phase 3- Vindication .................................................. .................................. I 58 - Mission 4- Dominion .... ...................................... ................................. I67

Updated Rules for the Battles in the -Mission 5- Tide of Carnage ................................................................. I68

Age of Darkness Warhammer 40,000 Expansion .................................. I 59 - Mission 6- War of Lies .......................................................................... I69

- Army Selection/Force Organisation Charts ................................... I 59 - Phase I- Legendary Mission: The Shock of Betrayal.................. I70

Battles in the Age of Darkness Force Organisation Chart.................. I 59 - Phase 2 -Legendary Mission:

Battles in the Age of Darkness Core Missions ....................................... I6I The Re-taking of the Zetsun Verid Yard........................................... I72

Deployment Maps .. ........................................................................................ I62 - Phase 3- Legendary Mission: The Death ofTruth ....................... I74

THE l MPERIALIS MILITIA & CuLTS ARMY LIST

Imperialis Militia and Cults Wargear......................................................... I79 - Muster of Worlds: Provenances ofWar............................................... I88

Using the Army List Entries .................. ........................................................ I84 -Troops ............................................................................................................ I93

- The Imperialis Militia & Cults Army List - Dedicated Transport.................................................................................. I98

and the Allies in the Age of Darkness Table ..................................... I84 - Elites .............................................................................................................. I99 1
l
Allies in the Age of Darkness ........................................................................ I85 - Fast Attack. ................................................................................................... 202

Imperialis Militia Warlord Traits .................................................................I86 -Heavy Support............................................................................................ 205

- HQ................................................................................................................. I87 -Lords ofWar ............................................. ................................................... 210

SPACE MARINE LEGION CRUSADE ARMY LIST ADDITIONS
Deredeo Pattern Dreadnought...................................................................... 2I4 Xiphon Pattern Interceptor .................................................................... ....... 2I6

Sokar Pattern Stormbird ................................................................................ .. 2I7

ADDITIONAL MECHANICUM UNITS
Scyllax Guardian-automata Covenant ....................................................... 223 Thanatar-Cynis Class Siege-automata Maniple ....................................... 226
Thanatar-Calix Class Siege-automata..........................................................224 Domitar Class Battle-automata Maniple .. ............ ...................................... 227

THE ULTRAMARINES ' -~
Legion Specific Units ..................................................................................... .. 230 Fulmentarus Terminator Strike Squad ....................................................... 235
Invictarus Suzerain Squad............................................................................... 232 Captain Remus Ventanus ............................................................................... 236 t
Honoured Telemechrus ................................................................................ .. .233 Damocles Command Rhino........................................................................... 237
Locutarus Storm Squad ................................................................................... 234 Roboute Guilliman ........................................................................................... 238 l'

THE WoRD BEARERS i'
Legion Specific Units ....................................................................................... 242 Kor Phaeron ......................................................................................................... 249
Word Bearers Mhara Gal Tainted Dreadnought....................................... 244 Zardu Layak, The Crimson Apostle.............................................................. 250
Gal Vorbak Dark Brethren .............................................................................. 246 Hol Beloth............................................. ............................................................... 252
The Ashen Circle................................................................................................ 247 Anakatis Kul Blade-slaves................................................................................ 253
High Chaplain Erebus ...................................................................................... 248 Lorgar..................................................................................................................... 254

THE TITAN LEGIONS
Legio Titanicus Warhound Scout Titan ...................................................... 260 Legio Titanicus Mars Warlord Battle Titan ................................................ 262
Legio Titanicus Reaver Battle Titan.............................................................. 26I Collegia Titanica Titan Weapons ....... .. .......................................................... 264









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Once woken to the threat of Horus' It is perhaps then more impressive that to begin his conquest of the galaxy, they did
treachery, the innumerable worlds of the word of even such a monumental event as so initially unopposed by the Imperium's
Imperium could raise a host of billions the treachery at Isstvan ever reached the massed fleets.
against him and though Horus might sway Emperor and his councils at all.
many of these worlds by bloody violence or The Eye of the Storm
honeyed words, such a conquest would last This fledgling Imperium was bound Of immediate importance to Horus was the
a lifetime. Worse yet, those of his brother together by a fragile web of astropathic relay need to establish a suitable domain from
Primarchs, the post-human creations of the stations, relying on the services of those which to supply his growing army and to
Emperor, who led the Legions that had not arduously trained psykers within them ensure that those of his brothers he could not
pledged themselves to his cause or whose to pass information across the byzantine sway to his cause were removed as threats to
sons had been slain at Isstvan would soon networks of the Emperor's growing realm. his eventual conquest of the Imperium. To
rally against him, and their wrath would tip Astropathic communication has ever been an these ends he set those Primarchs now sworn
the balance of any galactic conquest. imprecise science, with messages encoded in to him, turning a large proportion of the
febrile psyk-dreams and complex allegory- Legiones Astartes against the empire they
Though Terra stood beyond the immediate code exchanged by the minds of psykers, had fought to build for two long centuries.
reach of Horus, confusion and misdirection all groping blindly in the dark of the Warp
remained the Traitors' greatest weapon. to contact their fellows light years distant. History has shown how the Death Guard
These were weapons that Horus knew well Worse still, in the aftermath of the Isstvan and Sons of Horus Legions were unleashed
how to wield, as a master of war whose massacres, a disturbance began to grow upon the sectors of the Imperium that
talents had been honed to perfection in within the Warp. This disturbance would bordered Isstvan and the horrors that were
the utter destruction ofinnumerable xenos spread out from the galactic north, twisting visited upon those worlds. The slaughter of
civilisations over the long years of the Great and distorting the substance of astropathic the defenders ofManachea in 007.M31 and
Crusade and the subtle preparations that had communications across the galaxy, leaving the subsequent creation of a dark empire
led to his grand rebellion. Out of the fleets many worlds isolated and vulnerable. News amongst the shattered border territories of
of those not allied to his cause, some few of Horus' rebellion was quickly reduced to the Imperium is well documented in other
warp-capable craft had escaped the Isstvan half-truths, rumour and vague nightmares, chronicles and such grim times need not be
system, bearing warnings to Terra and other from which little fact could be distilled. recalled here. Of the other Legions pledged
Loyalist strongholds. Yet most such vessels Even on worlds where believable news of to serve Horus, less is known, though few
had been reduced to shattered hulks, drifting the rebellion was received, often brought doubt that they were directed by their dark
in the orbit oflsstvan V, or had already been by broken Legion craft limping back from master to assault those loyal Legions who had
harried and pursued across the bleak systems the conflict at Isstvan, without the chance to yet to feel the Warmaster's wrath.
of the northern rim until brought to bay and confer with the impossibly distant masters
scoured clean by the blood-hungry minions of the Imperium on Terra, there could be no Fragmentary records place the Traitor Night
of the Warmaster. So the vast majority of the quick response, and the panic that the news Lords in the Thramas Sector locked in
Imperium remained uncertain of events on spread worked only to aid Horus. battle with the unsuspecting Dark Angels,
the edge of the Emperor's domain, and when as evidenced by the broken and rad-scoured
the agents and emissaries of the Warmaster Not only did the increasingly tumultuous worlds to be found in that region in these
arrived, they proved a fertile ground for the nature of aetheric space stymie attempts at latter days. As has ever been the case, it
whispered promises and veiled threats they communication and garble news of what is near impossible to accurately chart the
carried. Many vital strongholds were kept had taken place at Isstvan, it also caused movements of the Alpha Legion, even with
unaware of the rebellion too and took no the disappearance or misdirection ofa the benefit of hindsight. Apocryphal tales
measures to guard themselves against the still unknown number of interstellar craft. and the fragmentary records of the few
storm that was to fall upon them or, worse Though travel through warp space had known survivors of their attacks would place
still, took up arms in Horus' name fearing the always been hazardous, the number of critical
dire consequences of making a stand against supply and munitions convoys and fast the x:x•h Legion in disparate locations across
him. Within the galaxy therefore, Horus still courier craft that went astray or simply never
retained the strategic initiative and the next arrived at their destination far exceeded that the galaxy, in conflict primarily with both
move in the war would be his to make. of any other time either before or in the the Space Wolves and the White Scars. The
years that followed. Many otherwise stout veracity of such reports cannot be confirmed,
Though it may seem inconceivable that Loyalist redoubts were fatally weakened by but were they to be proven accurate, it would
treachery on such a scale might remain the sudden severance of supply lines, later to indicate that the Alpha Legion was capable of
hidden from the galaxy at large, the sheer fall to traitorous forces seemingly unaffected deploying a previously unthinkable number
size and complexity of the Imperium worked by warp turbulence. Few of those in positions of Legionaries and combat-ready void craft.
to Horus' favour. In those days the Imperium of power across the Imperium at that time
was formed of millions of individual worlds, could have anticipated that these were but More is known of the actions of the Word
semi-autonomous thrall realms and treaty- the first stirrings of a far greater catastrophe
bound tributaries. All were separated by that had yet to be unleashed. Bearers and the World Eaters, whose bloody
the immense gulf of interstellar space and
a nigh-incomprehensible mix of divergent So it was that when the hosts of the arch- trail across the eastern Segmentum of the
languages and cultures, some ofwhich Traitor Horus spread from the blackened
bore only the most tenuous resemblance corpse of the Isstvan System in the middling Imperium was punctuated by dead, burned
to their ancestral home in the Sol System. days of oo6.M31, stretching forth his hand
worlds and a tide of slaughter which served

no purpose save sheer wanton bloodlust. To

these Legions Horus assigned a critical duty:

the destruction of one of the most powerful

Loyalist strongholds outside of the Sol

System-Ultramar. __ j ,'~.

··~'"=--'~

THE REALM OF ULTRAMAR

The Price of the Imperial Truth Forged by the brilliant strategic mind of

In the years before the return of Lorgar and the discovery of Colchis by the expanding the Primarch Roboute Guilliman and the

fleets of the Imperium in 857.M30, the XVII'h Legion was known amongst the vast hosts of martial prowess of his XIII'h Legion, the

the Great Crusade by designations other than the 'Word Bearers'. The Emperor named them Ultramarines, Ultramar was the jewel of

the Imperial Heralds at their inception, an elegant title that spoke of the grand purpose for the Imperium's border realms, over five

which they had been created, whilst their fellow warriors named them the Iconoclasts, a hundred worlds torn from the grip of

more brutal appellation coined in appreciation of the zeal with which they cast down the unspeakable xenos empires and the despots

idolatrous temples and cultic strongholds ofOld Night. of Old Night. Two centuries of disciplined

and masterfully planned campaigning since

Through the earliest years of the Great Crusade, the Iconoclasts were the foremost the rediscovery ofRoboute Guilliman had

champions of the Imperial Truth, the vanguard of any assault against those of human won the Ultramarines Legion an industrial

descent who would deny the Emperor's dream of unity. They burned clean the fane-cities base which rivalled any of the ancient

of psychic cults, overthrew grotesque xenos overlords who claimed for themselves the strongholds at the Imperium's core, and

mantle of gods and delivered their human thralls into the expanding Imperium. Those this vast industrial complex supported one

who strayed from the strictures of the Imperial Truth, whether they be alien tyrants or of the largest armies in the Imperial war

misguided human survivors of the Age of Strife, were subject to their uncompromising machine, providing men and resources for

judgement. None could fault the fearsome devotion of these warriors, for the fleets of the hundreds of regiments of the Excertus

the Imperial Heralds were the cutting edge of the Great Crusade, cleansing the taint of Imperialis raised across Ultramar, as well as

Old Night with the terrible power of their unflinching resolve and blind belief in the the XIII'h Legion itself, one of the largest of

teachings of their Emperor. The tally of their victories could not easily be counted, though all the Space Marine Legions.

If some amongst the highest circles of the Officio Militaris whispered that if the Iconoclasts
remained unchecked, they would be left with an empire of ashes and corpses, for it was

not the way of the XVIIth Legion to spare their wrath from those who failed to meet their

exacting standards of purity. Then came the discovery of Colchis, and everything changed.

Long a world mired in religious strife, it was on Colchis that Lorgar, r7'h Primarch and
soon-to-be lord of the Imperial Heralds, was re-united with the Emperor. As with all
the Legions, the return of the XVII'h's Primarch had a profound impact on the Imperial
Heralds, one that at first seemed beneficial to their character. Where once the Imperial
' Heralds had been cold and aloof to all, obsessed with their own bitter crusade, they became

u common sights within the established worlds of the Imperium and amongst the many
r Great Crusade fleets, eager to engage with their brothers and to praise their newfound
I lord. Where once destruction and death had been their only purpose, Lorgar taught them
to build and to believe in the Emperor's grand vision for the future of Mankind. That he
also spread his misguided belief in the deified Emperor, the religion he had founded at the
moment of the Emperor's arrival on Colchis, is now well known, and its spread throughout
the Imperial Heralds was to culminate in their re-consecration as the Word Bearers. The
annals of the Great Crusade and other contemporary historical documents record no
comment by the Emperor on the open secret ofLorgar's indiscretions, whether to rebuke
or to encourage them. It is assumed that while no open censure was recorded against the
Word Bearers in their earliest years, the Emperor remonstrated with Lorgar in private;
indeed many of the writings ofLorgar's brother Primarchs infer such occurrences, yet
these attempts came to naught. While the Emperor had apparently been willing to tolerate
this while it did not interfere with the progress of the Great Crusade, as the newly dubbed
Word Bearers began to delay longer and longer at their conquests, building temples and
fanes in His honour, many among the Officio Militaris and the Emperor's inner council
began to question their priorities. In 963 .M30 the Emperor sent Malcador the Sigillite,
first among his councillors, and Roboute Guilliman of the Ultramarines to correct Lorgar's
ways. At His order, the Word Bearers were publicly censured and the city ofMonarchia
on the distant world of Khur, along with its false temples, was destroyed by the warriors of
Ultramar as an object lesson in the folly of false religion. The entirety of the XVII'hLegion
was then forced to kneel in the ashes of their devotion while the Ultramarines stood over
them in judgement, that which they had seen as worthy devotion now labelled treasonous.

After a period of seclusion, Lorgar returned to the forefront of the Great Crusade,
redoubling the efforts of the Word Bearers and bringing dozens of worlds into swift
Compliance, thus avoiding further scrutiny from the Emperor. Few at that time imagined
that his new zeal could have been anything other than that of an errant son who sought to
atone for his mistakes. Yet in the years to come, many would look back at these actions and
see the earliest hidden signs of the coming treachery.

Ultramar was a blade at the throat of Horus' years before at Monarchia, an insult that Signus, the Dark Angels to Tsagualsa and
rebellion. Left unopposed and given time had apparently festered within the Legion the Ultramarines received orders to muster
to gather in strength, for the warriors of and driven them willingly into heresy. alongside the Word Bearers at Calth, both
the XIII'h Legion and their oath-bound Indeed, it is commonly believed that the plan Legions to be deployed against the Ork hold
Imperial Army auxilia, Ultramar would adopted by the Traitors for the destruction of of Ghaslakh.
form a bastion that could resist even the Ultramar originated in the twisted mind of
full might of Horus' dark hosts. Worse, with the Word Bearers Primarch. Gathering at Saturn those of his Legion who
Ultramar intact and alerted to Horus' plans, had been embarked on crusades in distant
any attempt by the Traitors to move against It is unlikely that the true architect of the parts of the galaxy, Roboute Guilliman
the core systems of the Imperium would see Calth atrocities will ever be known however, would depart the Sol System mere months
the forces of Guilliman sally forth to trap him and weighed against the innumerable sins before news of Horus' rebellion reached
between their defenders and their own vast committed by both Lorgar and Horus, the Emperor's ears. The turbulent state of
numbers. Yet, if Horus could bring Ultramar the attribution of this one offence is the Empyrean in those years would see the
to ruin and leave the warriors of the XIII'h inconsequential. What is known is that the Ultramarines' main strength journey to Calth
Legion scattered or slain, there would have earliest stages of the assault on Ultramar by a winding and obtuse trail which would
been no other Loyalist force capable of were laid down long before Horus arrived at also cloak them from all attempts by Terra
stopping the advance of his growing armies. the fateful worlds ofisstvan, in the year 005. to recall them or forewarn them of Horus'
M31, with a series of orders issued under the actions. The Word Bearers, delayed by the
That Lorgar found the breaking of his seal of the Warmaster dispatching a number slaughter at Isstvan, would not arrive at Calth
brother's realm to his liking is undoubted; of Legions to campaigns in the furthest until the majority of the XIII'hLegion had
the XVII'hLegion had suffered a humiliating reaches of the Imperium. Of these, the Blood already gathered, travelling a path of blood
rebuke at the hands of the Ultramarines Angels were sent forth in their entirety to and ashes of their creation.

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Is. The initial stages of the voyage of the military outpost of the Xlll'hLegion
combined fleet of Angron and Lorgar are from Ultramar, seized in battle during the
i' The Bloody Road to Ruin the easiest to trace, marked as they were by Imperium's expansion into the galaxy and

t: Much of our knowledge of the journey
undertaken by the Word Bearers and the

World Eaters comes to us from the ruins a trail of butchered worlds and broken void fortified by the Ultramarines as a way-station

of those planets which fell in their wake, craft left to drift as charnel way-markers. for forces prosecuting the wars of the Great

from buried and forgotten cogitator cores Few worlds of strategic significance existed Crusade. Honourum was no unprotected

and ancient pictographical arrays. of the among the simple colony worlds initially colony world, but was garrisoned by a full

beginnings of this fell undertaking, as the targeted by the Traitor Primarchs. Indeed, company of the Xlll'h Legion under the

newly blooded Traitors gathered amid the many of the worlds that the fleets paused command of one Captain-Praetor Arcaes

corpses of their brothers, we can only guess. to butcher appear to have been selected Odenathus as well as several regiments

Yet we can infer from later events that they at random and fell beneath the blades of of Solar Auxilia raised from amongst the

cannot have tarried long in the corpse-filled the rebels for no better reason than wild teeming industrial cities of that world.

sands of Issrvan V, waiting only until Angron slaughter, no desperate pleas for surrender Yet when the blood-mad Primarch of the

and his bloodthirsry sons had slaked their were heeded and no attempt at conquest was World Eaters came howling against the

thirst for war on the remnants of the Raven made; the corpses of those worlds that were walls ofHonourum's cities, the warriors of

Guard Legion and other scattered Loyalists sacked were simply left to rot. two full Legions at his back, there was little
the defenders could do except delay the
II that had taken to the wilderness oflsstvan V. While in most cases this senseless reaving inevitable slaughter. The battle for Honorum
has been revealed as the handiwork of lasted barely a day, but the killing continued
! Even in the aftermath of the titanic void the World Eaters, with pict records of for weeks as the berserk World Eaters and
battles that had taken place at Issrvan, the Legionaries in the distinctive white and Gal Vorbak hunted the few auxilia survivors
blue heraldry of the Xll'hLegion, Angron and holdout bands ofUltramarines through
I combined fleets of the two Legions were always at the fore, are common, they cannot the gutted carcasses of its cities.

I ~ still a force of system-shattering potency.
The Word Bearers fleet numbered over a

hundred capitol class ships, including nine all be dismissed as simple butchery. Tales

Gloriana class battleships, several of which told by the few survivors of the Aglaean Leaving Honourum in such ruin that

had once borne the colours of other Legions, Colonies describe the wholesale abduction even in these latter years it has yet to fully

and the three Abyss class kingships, still as of hundreds of thousands of souls by recover, the Traitor Primarchs disappear from

yet unknown to the Imperium at large. These Legionaries in armour the colour of dried attempts to trace their course. It is assumed

ships were the Furious Abyss herself, which blood, and the blasted ruins of Gareva that they travelled through the desolate

departed for Jupiter ahead of the main fleet conceal numerous ritual pyres and profane area of space along the Imperium's eastern

before heading directly for Calth, as well as inscriptions of unknown significance. In border, its common name on astronavigation

the Blessed Lady and the Trisagion. light oflater events, these atrocities would charts of that age the 'Dominion of Storms', for

seem precursors to Erebus' great ritual at other, surer paths would have taken them

The World Eaters operated many times Calth, or possibly measures taken to smooth far from their objective. This region of the

that number of smaller craft, fleet pursuit the fleets' passage through the turbulent void was renowned for the ferociry and

barques and gunships bristling with short tides of the Warp. For even as the Traitor frequency of the ethereal gales that beset

range firepower. Led by Lorgar's flagship, the fleets made their bloody way, the storms that vessels that dared sail the Empyrean there,

Fide!itas Lex, and the squat Conqueror where were encompassing the Imperium rose to a yet the Traitor armada passed through its

Angron had placed his flag, the combined new crescendo, almost as if in anticipation of embrace seemingly unscathed, their vessels

armada included almost three hundred events yet to pass. continuing to leave a trail of destruction in

thousand Legionaries as well as uncounted their wake, emerging erratically from the

mortal soldiers and men-under-arms, a force It was not only isolated colonies which fell Warp to destroy worlds and lay waste to those

Horus considered more than sufficient to under the onslaught of the Traitor armada. ships unlucky enough to encounter them.

reduce Ultramar to ruins. Honourum was at that time the furthest

During the crossing of the Dominion of

Storms, as Angron and his warriors devoted

THE GHASLAKH XENOHOLD more time to searching for ever-decreasing

Presented to the adepts of the Officio Militaris as a grave threat to the securiry of the numbers ofvictims on which the Primarch

Imperium's eastern domains, the Ghaslakh Xenohold, an Ork infestation long ignored, could satisfy his lust for war, the progress of

was the pretext under which Horus, his treachery then undreamed of, marshalled the the armada slowed to but a crawl. Even with

combined might of the Ultramarines and Word Bearers Legions at Calth. the unnatural ease with which the Traitors

passed through the churning Warp, such

In the aftermath of Horus' rebellion, many within the Imperium have doubted whether excesses threatened to foil the Word Bearers'

the xenohold ever existed, that perhaps it was a fiction to justify the removal of the XIII'h attempts to reach the overdue rendezvous

Legion from the Imperium's core. Yet there are some surviving accounts ofUltramarines- at Calth and destroy the advantage of

sponsored explorator sweeps of that region of space, including evidence of Ork attacks on surprise they still held. The Chronicle of Ashes

the fortress world of Golsoria. If Ghaslakh did exist as a credible threat to Mankind, any records that as they neared the edge of the
Dominion of Storms, in the aftermath of
j devastation its inhabitants wreaked on the defenceless worlds around it has long since Angron's destruction of Garalon Prime, the
t been forgotten amid the destruction wrought by Horus and his allies.

~~li two Primarchs were on the verge of a violent
Of Ghaslakh itself, no trace now remains to satisfy the curiosiry of scholars. confrontation. Had this not been averted by
the untimely arrival and assault of a wayward
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xenos fleet from the heart of the Xersinia THE CHRONICLE OF AsHES
Prohibited Zone on Ultramar's border, the
history of the Imperium may well have taken In 017.M31, a task force of the Ultramarines Legion, composed of the survivors of the
a much different course. 19'h, 48'h and 207'h Destroyer Cadres, encountered several renegade Word Bearers cruisers
defending a lone Gloriana class battleship identified as the Chronicle of Ashes in the wild
THE AxE FALLS and uncharted space of the Dominion of Storms. Overwhelming the Traitor escort craft
with the brutal efficiency that marked the Destroyers of that Legion, the Ultramarines
By mid 007.M31, the combined Traitor fleet captured the Chronicle of Ashes in a furious boarding action involving nearly three hundred
is believed to have taken anchor at the edge Space Marines and two full days ofbloody close quarters fighting as they swept the ship's
of the prohibited zone to the galactic north of innumerable decks clear ofTraitor Space Marines.
Calth that had languished under an edict of
quarantine since the earliest days of the Great In the aftermath of their victory, the Ultramarines discovered something unexpected
Crusade. The barren worlds contained within in the vaulted halls of the Chronicle of Ashes' upper decks; stretching across every wall
the Xersinia Prohibited Zone were shunned and onto ceilings was etched a history of the Word Bearers' actions and undertakings in
by Imperial craft, who dared not risk either the twisting and fey language of now dead Colchis. Later investigation of this prize by
the wrath of interdiction squadrons from the members of the nascent Inquisition was to reveal a wealth of information regarding events
Five Hundred Worlds or the xenos plague that had previously been hidden to Imperial scholars, and the details were transcribed
that had once ravaged the long dead colonies into a series of tomes now kept in the sealed archives of the Imperial Palace, before the
within. Thus the Traitor fleet remained Chronicle of Ashes was finally cleansed, tech-exorcised and re-dedicated as the Lex Talonis,
undetected, lurking within this forgotten and before being presented to the Ultramarines in 022.M31 and incorporated into the newly
ignored area of space, despite its proximity to founded Nemesis Chapter. Many of the events noted in this history are based on the
more well-travelled regions of the Imperium. writings found within the Chronicle of Ashes, whose proscribed contents were made
available to the author.
While at anchor, they most likely engaged
in a necessary period of consolidation as the those charged with the assault on Calth to of the Traitors' captives, and vital to the final
vast armada had been separated and scattered refine and perfect the schemes they had long stages of the armada's preparations. While
across a parsec in their travels through the hidden beneath a veneer of loyalty. It was the XIII'h Legion was widely known to field
tumultuous currents of the aetheric medium. common knowledge that the Veridia System by far the largest number of Legionaries, a
During this time, as the various squadrons was heavily fortified against outside attack, a notional250,ooo warriors according to the
of the great armada reassembled and made legacy of the Ork raids that had long plagued Officio Militarum at the outbreak of the
ready for the attack on Ultramar, both the outlying systems within Ultramar-any Horus Heresy, their fleet assets were less
Legions engaged in a campaign of reaving frontal assault by a known enemy would overwhelming. The strength ofUltramar's
and piracy, the sleek Legion strike craft sustain massive losses. However, as the warp naval squadrons lay not in their heavy
running down heavily laden chartist barques storms that afilicted much of the Imperium battleships, most of which were relics of the
or crippling unsuspecting patrols before continued to worsen and cripple the effective Terran naval reserve that had been operated
disgorging merciless parties of Legionaries spread of vital news across the disjointed by the XIII'hLegion before the return of
to root out the cowering crews with fire and empire ofMankind, Ultramar remained their Primarch, but in the large number of
sword. Some rumours claim that the Word unaware of the Warmaster's treachery. This steadfast cruisers and multi-role strike craft.
Bearers went so far as to employ some then did not mean that the Traitor armada could These lighter, more tactically flexible vessels
unknown form of psychic manipulation to ignore the defences of the Veridia System were manufactured in excess by the pre-
ensnare passing craft, leading astray their though, for if left intact they could inflict Compliance shipyards ofKonor and Calth,
Navigators with false beacons before tearing heavy damage to the Traitor fleets once and had protected the Five Hundred Worlds
apart the fabric of reality itself to allow the roused to the unexpected threat. The vast since long before the Emperor's arrival. The
impossible creatures of the Warp to spill star fortress and its massed batteries of macro knowledge that the pride of Guilliman's fleet,
forth inside the doomed craft. Whatever cannon set in high orbit over the cold orb the ancient battleships built in the shipyards
the manner of their capture, word of the of Ischara, in the furthest orbit from the of distant Mars, were laying quiescent at
loss of these craft did not reach the ears of system's primary, and the neutron-pulsar anchor and at their most vulnerable, and the
Guilliman until long after the Horus Heresy cannon buried in the icy wastes of the need to maintain the fiction that the entire
had ended. fourth moon of the gas giant Ravishol were Word Bearers Legion was arriving in the
therefore both marked for destruction. Veridia System, dictated the inclusion of the
With information torn from mind-broken greatest portion of the Word Bearers fleet
chartist captains as well as from the data Through their bloody interrogations, the strength at Calth.
locked in the cogitator banks of their ships, it Traitors also learned that the majority of
was then that the final stages of Calth's doom the Ultramarines fleet and Legion assets Yet in order to fully cripple Ultramar and
were formulated. The intelligence allowed had mustered both on Calth's surface and the XIII'h Legion, it would not have been
the renegade commanders to build an amongst the innumerable slipways and enough for the Word Bearers and their
accurate picture ofUltramar's defences and, shipyards which hung in its orbit awaiting allies to destroy Calth and those Legionaries
more specifically, those of the Veridia System, the expected and overdue arrival of the Word and other military assets gathered there.
where the unsuspecting world ofCalth Bearers. The number and disposition of They would also need to strike at the other
waited. While the disposition of the Veridia those craft in orbit was no doubt among the strongholds scattered throughout the
System, its worlds and orbital stations was information dredged from the broken minds Five Hundred Worlds, to shatter both the
far from a secret, accurate knowledge was far
superior to hearsay and rumour, and allowed

capability of the remaining warriors of the of knife-fast cutters, grappling barques and Ultramar, all to fuel the sorcerous schemes
Ultramarines to rebuild as well as their will interdiction cruisers of the World Eaters set in place by Lorgar himself and, where
to fight. To this end the great Traitor armada fleet, were dispatched across Ultramar to before he had restrained his blood-maddened
was split apart, dividing into at least half a bleed the Ultramarines fleet away, forcing brother, Angron was now to be unleashed.
dozen fleets. them to respond to a series of small-scale
raids and lightning-fast assaults. These latter With their plans laid and commanders
The largest, comprising the fewest ships squadrons were tasked with causing the most briefed, Lorgar began the Shadow Crusade
of the line, but including the world-killing bloodshed and destruction possible, making into Ultramar with the dispatch of Erebus
firepower of the Trisagion and the Blessed no attempt to capture or hold territory, and and Kor Phaeron to Calth at the head of
Lady, as well as both the Fide!itas Lex and were unrestricted to those strategic targets nearly seventy capital ships and numerous
the Conqueror and the Primarchs who an opponent might have expected them squadrons of escort craft, led by Erebus'
commanded them, set course for the war- to strike at. Instead, it would be lightly Destiny's Hand and the squat battle barge
world of Armatura to burn the beating defended agri-colonies and the industrial ofKor Phaeron, still broadcasting her old
heart from the perfect empire. The Word spires of worlds such as Espandor and Latona identity as the Raptorous Rex instead of her
Bearers captain, Zadkiel, finally arriving that would feel their wrath in the bleak days newer designation, the Infidus Imperator. The
at Ultramar with the Furious Abyss, began to come. attack on Calth was to be the opening volley
a futile assault on Macragge, while Erebus in Lorgar's campaign, a symbolic bloodying
and Kor Phaeron took the main force of the This would be a crusade whose first and of the knife and cruel retort to the shame
Word Bearers fleet to Calth. The remainder foremost aim was to spread terror and blood Guilliman and his warriors had wrought
of the armada, the few fleet strike craft across the Five Hundred Worlds, to wring years before on Monarchia.
amongst the Word Bearers and the vast array every last iota of suffering from the people of
War had come to Ultramar.

'/

Kor Phaeron,
Architect of Betrayal

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THE HoRRoRs oF THE PROHIBITED ZoNE

Coreward of the Realm of Ultra mar is a volume of space comprising many millions of square light years which, from the very earliest days of the Great
Crusade, has been declared strictly forbidden to all subjects of the Imperium under pain of death. The cause of this prohibition is known only to the most
highly-ranked peers of the Imperium, for with such knowledge comes temptation and the perpetuation of a doom that has already afflicted countless worlds
wrthin the region.

It was during the so-called Long March to Ultramar, when the 12'" Expeditionary Fleet first encountered the region during its great rim ward voyage, that the
fiect's Navigators and Astropaths sensed a vast, looming darkness in the void and a concomitant vortex within the depths of the Warp. None could identify
the source of the phenomenon, but many were convinced it was some artefact or lingering echo of an event on the scale of the Fall of the Eldar, yet far more
ancient.

Proceeding with caution, the fieet's pathfinder squadrons discovered a string of systems that were host to dozens of resource -rich paradise worlds teeming
with limitless varieties offiora and fauna. The Great Crusade had already learned of the Eldar and their so-called maiden worlds- planets seeded with
verdant life in preparation for eventual settlement, and found to its cost that the Eldar defended such worlds with the utmost vigour. Claiming them would
prove costly, leading to heated debate amongst the fieet's leaders as to whether it was best to destroy the worlds to deny them to the aliens or attempt to occupy
them in the name of the Imperium. The matter was decided by Indias Cavalerio, Grand Master of the Legio Tempest us Titan Legion, who swore to take the
maiden worlds in the name of the Emperor as a matter of honour.

And so the lead elements of the 12'" advanced cautiously through the cluster, augurs on high alert for attack from the impossibly agile and notoriously stealthy
Eldar. Yet no such attack came. Legio Tempestus maniples made planetfall across a dozen worlds, the Solar Auxilia and Imperial Army line regiments
accompanying them reporting the verdant glades and teeming oceans were the Imperium's for the taking.

On one such world however, the vanguard of the 321'"1 Nexxas Solar Auxilia came upon a vine-choked structure which towered dozens of metres over the
forest canopy. Decadent ossific curves marked the object out as xenos in origin and so the ground forces assumed the highest possrble alert state in expectation
of imminent attack. When that attacl1 came though, it did not take the form of an army of alien warriors. What occurred next is only known through the
grainy pict-captures transmitted to the fieet by orbital uplink and after-actron accounts submitted by the crews of the Tempestus engines. The air beneath the
towering alien archway shimmered, revealing tire black of the void shot through with seething nebulae. From that void emerged a bleeding and ragged figure.
Before the Solar Auxilia could react, the figure held up a chalice of actinic liquid and then cast it to the ground. Immediately, a cold wind as if born of the grave
gusted forth.

Upon that wind was seeded death. The Imperial Army troops fell first. Their eyes bulged and then burst and fiesh ballooned and distended hideously,
heralding what must have been an agonisingly prolonged death. The better-equipped Solar Auxillia troops survived longer, the myriad systems wrought into
their void-warded armour keeping them alive long enough to fill the vox channels with desperate requests for extraction. Such pleas were short-lived however,
for whatever allen viral strain was assailing them was so potent, that it ate through their armour seals before any could reach the landing zones.

Within hours, the only human presence on the surface of any of the worlds rn the cluster were the Titans of Legio Tempestus, their systems strong enough
to keep the virus at bay. Word of the disaster filtered up the chain of command to the 12'" Expeditionary Fleet's fiagship via Aslropalhic relay and specialist
strategio-savanls learned in the ways of the alien were immediately set to theorising what was occurring and formulating a response. lt was clear that across
the entire deployment of the 12'1' Expeditionary Fleet, every single one of the paradise worlds on which Imperial forces had set foot was being seeded with a
vrral plague strain keyed specifically to the human genetic signature. Worse, the strain rapidly spread to the crews of numerous war slrips through no agency
tlrat has ever been discovered since, as if carried on tire unseen winds of the void.

The fieet's response was commendably decisive and was later credited with saving the lives of upwards of three million lruman troops as well as numerous
paradise worlds, which might still one day be claimed mtact. As it retreated, tire Legio Tempestus was set to destroying any and all of the alien gate structures
rts engrrrcs could locate. Evacuating its engines was a major wrdertaking, as tire inexplicable plague struck down thousands of crew on the heavy landers and
Titan transport vessels, yet the entire Lcgw was successfully withdrawn.

In the aftermath of this event, tire Councrl ofTen·a ordcr·ed that the entire region be interdicted out to a distance of thirty astronomical units in order to
forestall the alren plague from spreading from world to world or infectrng passing shrps. When alias! lire 12'1' Expeditionary Fleet reached Ullramar and
tire Prrmarclr Guilliman look lm rrghtful place amongst the Emperor's sons, rt fell to lrim to enforce the cordon. Gurlliman set himself to this duty witlr l1is
wstomary efficiency, ensuring that vord beacons were placed on the outskirts of lire affected systems and along stable warp routes skirting it. All vessels were
forbidden to enter tlrat region and anything coming from rt was engaged and destroyed without hesitation.

Though many lrope that one day the paradise worlds of the prohibrted region might be settled, until the plague that haunts the stars thereabout is eradrcated, it
remaim forbidden for any servant of tire I mpcrrum to trespass there.

22

Auxiliary of the r2'h Infantry Tercio, Mainward Sub-Cohort, 255'h Calth Solar Auxilia Cohort (the 'Calth High Guard'):
The 255th Calth Solar Auxilia were raised in late oor.M31 primarily from the Erud Provincial Militia of the Imperialis Auxilia, the
best of the province's yeomanry being converted to the 'Solar' template, and trained and equipped for void and exploratory warfare.
The 255th was deployed across several key orbital defence platforms protecting Calth Near-Space, the Mainward Sub-Cohort being

assigned to the defence of Platform Elipsia-Veridia 09/ Q



The bulk of the Word Bearers war ships THE Bow WAVE oF FATE
weighed void anchor some distance out from
Calth's ring of hundreds of orbital platforms, As the seas drain at the approach of a tsunami, so an event of such import as the betrayal
while their heavy troop transport barques set of the Calth Conjunction was foreshadowed by numerous portents, few of which were
down at prearranged muster camps across noted at the time but which in retrospect are telling of its cataclysmic scale. Vox operators,
the planet's surface. With hindsight, the for example, reported abnormal interference on a wide spectrum of channels, including
Word Bearers' efforts to remain apart from distant chanting, eerie whispering and intermittent screams. Tragically, the Ultramarines
the Ultramarines and their allies were clearly had followed the Edict ofNikaea and relegated their Librarians to the line, and many of
evident. Aside from an honour party of Word these individuals reported later that they had experienced a range of inexplicable effects,
Bearers boarding the Ultramarines cruiser including auditory and visual aberrations, and profound feelings of impending horror.
Samothrace and a briefhololith contact Only in the aftermath of the Battle of Calth would the Ultramarines rescind the edict, in
berween the Primarchs, the rwo Legions recognition of the manifest necessity of maintaining a cadre of warriors who could warn of
remained apart until the moment the Word the approach of such dire events.
Bearers' true intent was revealed.

THE BELL Tous The death of Calth Veridian Anchor set in ships, vox stations were blasted, augurs were
That moment came when the Campani.!e motion a chain offurther disasters, each blown and hard-lines fused, while many of
more cataclysmic than the last. The venerable the officers attending these systems were
accelerated without warning to almost half Ultramarines war ship, the Antrodamicus, consumed in the back-blast, alongside the
maximal realspace velocity, her approach slipped her graving dock moorings and many thousands of specialists slain in the
towards Calth masked by unknown forces. began an inexorable, sternway descent process. Veteran shipmasters forrunate
It was a suicidal manoeuvre beyond the through the atmosphere. With her former enough to avoid being blinded were shorn
capability of human void masters, and dock locked in geostationary orbit above the of any facility to command their own vessels
the fleet tender was transformed into a world's capital ofNuminus City, the result and were unable to raise their fellow captains
relativistic missile aimed squarely at the was horrifyingly inevitable. The Antrodamicus or their superiors. Those few vox channels
densest concentration of the anchored fell with calamitous majesty through the that remained open were overwhelmed
Ultramarines fleet. A dozen Legion skies above Numinus, parting the clouds as a thousand voices spoke out at once,
warships were slain in the blink of an eye, before impacting the surface with the power signals officers demanding to know what
the impact destroying each in sequence as of an atomic detonation and in the process had happened, requesting orders or simply
the Campanile's mass was transformed to obliterating the Kalkas Fortalice Watchtower begging for aid.
pure energy. By the time what remained of -the very heart of the Mechanicum's
the tender struck her true target - Calth command and control nerwork.
Veridian Anchor- nothing of her form
remained but her super-dense reactor core. From the moment the Campanile struck
The orbital platform and every warship her first victim to the incendiary death of
tethered to it were slain in an instant. the Calth Veridian Anchor, mere seconds
had passed, but tens of thousands of lives
The shock of the platform's demise came had been extinguished in that instant.
as lightning from a clear sky. The wave At a stroke, the most potent gathering of
front sent dozens of vessels spiralling out naval power in the Segmenrum had been
of control and the flash-pulse blinded dealt a mortal blow. Across nine hundred
thousands of deck staff before armoured vista and more orbital platforms, thousands of
panels could react and lower. Worse still - ground installations and dozens ofwar
though as history would eventually reveal, far
from a coincidence- the impact destroyed
the anchor's cogitation engines, which at that
stage in the Calth Conjunction were in direct
control of the planet's mighty defence grid.





WOLVES AMONG THE fLOCK moorings when a broadside from the Word The tortured vox channels were choked with
attempts to contact the Word Bearers and
Few imagined that the disaster which had Bearers Legion Sanctifying Grace caused restore sanity, but even those few vessels
whose hailing systems were functioning
descended upon Calth Near-Space was any her to shed her guts as her keel was split were unsuccessful- the Word Bearers would
not, or could not, answer.
kind of accident. With the Mechanicum's wide open. The Ultramarines vessel's drive
Rubicon
manifold -the planet-wide command section separated and tumbled through the From the first moment of disaster, the bridge
void along with a thousand engineerium crew of the Ultramarines flagship, Macragge's
l and control network used to coordinate plasma-stokers, its eventual impact gouging Honour, had fought valiantly to restore vox
! machines of all types by thought alone- an irradiated crater hundreds of metres capability and establish contact with the
collapsed with the death of Calth Veridian deep into the surface of the planet below. Word Bearers. Now, contact was made, albeit
1~• Next to die was the newly commissioned limited to a grainy, flickering holo projection
Anchor, an immediate coordinated response Trials of Anteias,her entire prow burned to and sibilant audio transmission laced with
was impossible. With the Kalkas Fortalice static and feedback. Guilliman demanded
l' Watchtower consumed by the fall of the his brother stand his fleet down, swearing to
Lorgar that the Ultramarines had played no
Antrodamicus, the multiple redundancies superheated gas in hungry fusion waves as part in whatever disaster had visited Calth.
Lorgar had no interest in conversing with
engineered into the network should have the Rapture of the Void unleashed weapons his brother and instead spat a bitter curse
before terminating the link. In that moment
restored control with seamless efficiency. of unknown class and terrifying effect. The Guilliman saw that what was unfolding could
be no accident. With his fleet burning and
This could not occur for, as was later consequences of the discharge of these and the Word Bearers crippling or destroying
ever more of his vessels with each passing
ascertained, the Word Bearers' Traitor many other weapons would scar the void minute, the Primarch of the Ultramarines
gave an order he had never imagined he
Mechanicum allies had insinuated some about Calth for years, indicative that the would have cause to speak. With bitter
resolve, Roboute Guilliman ordered his sons
manner of tainted machine code into the devices had been wrought before Old Night to defend themselves, authorising measures
up to and including return of weapons fire.
manifold, blinding and deafening Calth at its and were of a type long proscribed by order
With the Primarch's order given, battle was
most vulnerable moment. ofTerra herself. truly joined. The Word Bearers redoubled
their attack, their initial actions now revealed
Anarchy ensued. Many commanders Still the Word Bearers bore down on their as no less than a preparatory atrocity. In the
span of scant minutes, the Ultramarines
assumed that the Orks had launched a pre- targets, a phalanx of heavy cruisers led by vessels Gladius, Hope ofNarmenia, Valediction,
Vosperus and Antropheles were engaged and
emptive and overwhelming attack, and soon the battleship Abyssal Communion powering destroyed as they mounted a courageous
yet doomed rearguard action in an attempt
enough what appeared to be return fire was along a shattered line of orbital slips as the to buy precious time for their beleaguered
compatriots to regroup.
flashing across the burning orbital field. squadron ofUltramarines frigates tethered
Signals analysis undertaken many years
Bereft of functional scanning capability, ships to it struggled in vain to disengage docking later would reveal that it was around this
point in the betrayal that the Word Bearers
were reduced to visual observation alone and, clamps and boarding umbilicals. The honour company that had come aboard
the Ultramarines cruiser Samothrace at the
as their captains looked out upon the void Communion unleashed volley after volley beginning of the Calth Conjunction gained
control of that vessel's bridge. In the wake of
with stunned disbelief, the contrails of fire from her fearsome broadside batteries, the Word Bearers assault parties came a cadre
of the Mechanicum whose mission was to
streaking across space only served to confirm pounding the Defence ofRomus and the Scion turn the vessel fully to the Traitors' control.
Ten minutes later, the Samothrace was making
their very worst fears. of Latium to twisted, burning metal and full speed for one of the still-intact orbital
platforms, a facility codified as Zetsun Verid
crippling three other vessels for her cohorts Yard. The Dark Apostle Kor Phaeron would
lead this crucial stage of the Word Bearers'
But the weapons fire was not that of any Ork to murder. attack in person, the outcome of which
would damn an entire star system.
war ship, it was coming from Word Bearers

vessels which, even as the disbelieving Within minutes, scores of Word Bearers war

Guilliman and his senior officers watched ships were pounding every Ultramarines

from the bridge of the Macragge'sHonour, vessel within range, their own systems

were closing in on the scattered mass of powered to full yield while those of their

Ultramarines ships as they floundered amidst victims remained cold and sluggish. Shields,

the chaos of burning debris. engines and weapons were all outputting at

optimal levels, while the reactors of a great

Undetected by any of the few auguries still many Ultramarines ships had yet to be fully

l operational, the Word Bearers battle barge awakened.
Act of Convocation surfaced with terrible grace
'l through a cloud of pulsing micro debris left Upon witnessing the Word Bearers'
by the destruction of an Ultramarines frigate , attack, Roboute Guilliman and his officers
i the dust slowly parting by the bow wave of concluded that the sons of Lorgar had
her void shields. The Ultramarines heavy made some tragic mistake. Some reached
I cruiser Star of Paramenia never saw her slayer, the conclusion that the Word Bearers had
the battle barge's forward weapons batteries misconstrued the death of Calth Veridian
Iii breaking her spine before she had the chance Anchor as an enemy assault and were firing
ill to raise shields or react in any way. As the Act blindly, their systems or their wits so blasted
of Convocation emerged fully from the roiling by the calamity that they were unable to tell
iI~ili cloud, corposant arcing from her otherwise friend from foe. Others concluded that the
invisible shields, another three crimson- Word Bearers feared that the Ultramarines
ol
; hulled killers hoved into view in her wake. had taken it upon themselves to censure
I them again in a repetition ofMonarchia, that
ii The void erupted in flame and shellfire as if the Word Bearers' worst unspoken fears

liI ~ Word Bearers vessels fell upon the wounded had been confirmed, they saw no alternative
Ultramarines ships. The battle barge Judicious but to fight for their very lives.

til Truth had barely fought clear of her burning
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While not as strong or as heavily armed

ti With the Battle of Calth fully underway, the glimmer of the doomed Veridian star's light and armoured as the trans-human Legiones
Astartes they would be fighting, these
Word Bearers enacted the next stage in their could penetrate.

orbital operation. A formation of seventeen defenders were nonetheless the elite of

Word Bearers planetary bombard monitors, In subjecting the southern island cities Calth's human forces. Configured according
and surrounding oceans to this level of to the long approved and highly efficacious
fi~. led by the Destiny's Hand, forced its way punishment, the Word Bearers were able 'Solar' pattern, these units were equipped
through the burning debris field and edged

into a low orbit. From there, the formation to concentrate their subsequent ground with vacuum-warded void armour and so

broke into smaller squadrons in order to attacks, focusing on the regions about the could fight even in areas depressurised by

unleash an overwhelming coordinated world's capital ofNuminus City, as well as the breaching of the platform's outer skin.

bombardment on key surface targets. Had Ithraca and a handful of other locations. While not so potent as Legiones Astartes

Calth's defence grid been operational, not Subsequent analysis suggests that this bolters, their weapons were still capable of

one of the vessels could have approached strategy was dictated by cultic alignments inflicting significant damage when massed

within ten thousand kilometres, yet the of ritual significance, fate and symbolism, as against targets they could scarcely miss in the

bombard force went unchallenged as its if Calth's demise had been preordained to platform's cramped interiors.

vessels loomed so close that their dark forms proceed according to a specific and intricate

were dimly visible from the ground, silent pattern no sane mind could perceive. The greatest advantage the Solar Auxilia

harbingers of an entire planet's doom. Those concentrations of population and defence units had over lesser troops and

infrastructure that were not part of this pressed station hands was their chain of

As one, the ships of the Traitor bombard formula were condemned to destruction out command. Well organised and relentlessly

fleet opened fire. Munitions the size of of hand, allowing the Word Bearers to focus drilled in every facet of'Zone Mortalis'

tanks rained from the skies by the hundreds, on those whose death, by their own hands, warfare, they could be relied upon to stand

detonations blossoming from horizon to held the most esoteric pattern. resolute against any foe and, if necessary,

horizon. Plasma bolts burned through the to die in pursuit of their sacred duty. On a

clouds and burst across the land, scouring Orbital Defence hundred orbital defence stations and more,

all life at their touch. Blinding columns of As the southern island cities were being Word Bearers boarding parties forced their

heavy laser beams speared down through pounded to dust and vapour, the battle in the way along passageways swept with torrential

the heavens, boring through dozens of void was spilling ever further across Calth blizzards of laser, plasma and flame. The

metres of crust and setting in motion a Near-Space. The world was ringed by over defenders were on home ground and had

cascade of tectonic destabilisation, whilst nine hundred orbital defence platforms, trained countless times to undertake such

kinetic munitions smashed into mountains, each bristling with lance turrets, weapons duties, and so made the boarders pay dearly

shattering the lands asunder as if they were batteries and torpedo launch tubes, but for the first few gains they made. The Word

the hammer of some ancient god enacting each had been rendered as defenceless and Bearers weathered the storm, striding

their terrible judgement. impotent as an unarmed freighter by the inexorably into the very jaws of death.

usurpation of the defence grid's command Ceramite armour cracked and degraded

With the Word Bearers in control of Calth's systems. Many of these platforms, even the layer by layer as round after round impacted,

defence grid, the bombard squadrons had no smallest of which were served by crews of but few were the truly telling killing blows

need to seek out and destroy its hundreds hundreds, were engaged and crippled in the defenders could land, and so with lethal

of thousands of weapons silos, bunkers and scornfully opportunistic strikes by passing inevitability, the Legiones Astartes closed

towers. Instead, they moved in on the dozens Word Bearers war ships, while others were on the defenders' positions. Even then the

of defenceless cities, ports and other centres simply ignored. A number however were Solar Auxilia enacted tactical protocols born

! of infrastructure and population. The skies singled out for destruction or boarding, again of generations of void warfare mastered
suggesting the existence of some underlying by their Saturnine forebears before the
l and esoteric pattern to the entire attack. Unification Wars. Lasrifle sections fell back
darkened with falling bombs and entire In a phenomenon that would be repeated along pre-ordained routes while Veletaris
countless times, the Word Bearers sought Storm Sections held the attackers at bay with
il districts were cast to burning rubble. No

region was immune to the bombard fleet's

li! attentions, but several were singled out for
ill particularly thorough devastation. out specific enemies to slay in specific ways, fearsome volleys of volkite fire and searing
as if in doing so they would honour their blasts of flame. Others simply held their
i!·~, The southern island cities simply vanished Primarch, or some other still higher power. position, maintaining a steady rate of fire as
beneath a conflagration so intense that death came for them, determined to the last
Across Calth Near-Space, boarding torpedoes to buy their comrades time to fall back to
ltl!I~~II no trace of their existence remained but and assault claws exploded from the launch the next defensible position. But the Word
deep crater pits marking their graves. The bays of Word Bearers vessels to smash into Bearers had gained a foothold and, ultimately,
oceans about this dense island chain were the armoured flanks of scores of defence the bold defenders were doomed.
platforms. Even as the assault claws fusion-
l ; targeted by a concentrated fusillade of burned through metres-thick armour and As the battles spilled ever deeper into

energy weaponry of numerous types. TheiI

~j initial effect was the flash-vaporisation ofI
hundreds of millions of cubic metres of sea torpedoes bored deep into their guts, the the guts of the defence platforms, the
passageways and chambers were transformed
water, creating a dense, super-heated fog that platforms' defenders mustered. All available

:!i thundered outwards in an ever-expanding hands were scrambled to oppose the Word into charnel houses. In places, the defenders'
resolve was sorely tested when confronted
wave front, boiling alive anyone unfortunate Bearers boarding parties, but it was the
I! enough to be caught out in the open. Within
Solar Auxilia stationed on each platform with the unfamiliar combat doctrines
l'l hours, Calth was wreathed in a thick blanket who would bear the brunt of the fighting. certain Word Bearers Legionaries employed.

tkil ~~~~~~-~-~- ~- ~-~~~ - - -~ -~~~_._~.............._~---_ - ....... ~~ -. -T-'.~d.~-~...;~;;..~··~0~~~-=·' ~-~r·:.:.~- ~~-~~--~·5~5-!~- -~-~--~2·~-~-~~~z~~-;~~·~D~~~~-~

Some chanted mournful plainsong as they Marshall's instruction and so died at Turnus' conquest, but enlightenment. Here instead

advanced, an atonal dirge filling the hearts hand, a bolt round detonating within his was a transcended being radiating a new-

of all who heard it with dread. Others halted platinum-chased skull. His depury however found self-assurance, as if he and he alone !
after every kill, pausing to enact grisly acceded when the Lord Marshall repeated was parry to knowledge still hidden from
mutilation upon the recently fallen. In still the order, and within minutes the entire others, but which they would soon learn r'
more cases, the Word Bearers refrained from platform was consumed in atomic fire, briefly whether they willed it or not. No longer
f

slaying cornered or overrun foe, instead forming a new, deathly star in the tortured cowed or eclipsed before a more overtly

handing them off to following mortal units skies above Calth. purposeful or assured Primarch, Lorgar was

to clap in irons and drag off as prisoners. the very essence of phlegmatic defiance.

The fate of these unfortunates can only be Elsewhere however, even the elite of the

guessed at, for the last that was seen of most Solar Auxilia could not stem the inexorable More shocking than Lorgar's manner,

does not bear recounting. tide of assault nor blunt the zealous fury of however, were the words he now spoke

the Legiones Astartes Word Bearers. Valiant to Guilliman. With scornful derision,

On a scant handful of orbital defence troopers died by the thousand, and at last the he informed the Lord ofUltramar that,

platforms, the Solar Auxilia defenders were Word Bearers' intent in boarding specific contrary to Guilliman's assumptions, Lorgar's

successful in repelling Word Bearers assaults, orbital defence platforms was revealed treachery was not vengeance for Monarchia

but not without paying a heavy price indeed. as the same scene was enacted upon the and neither was it an isolated event. Rather,

On Platform Principia-Veridia 27/ K, a sub- bridges of scores of defence platforms. Those it was part of a long-planned scheme of

cohort of the 222"d Calth Solar Auxilia rad- commanders taken alive were forced to bear impossible scope and ambition, and that

purged an entire marshalling deck just as a witness to the destruction heaped upon the no less than half of their brother Primarchs

Word Bearers void-breaching parry forced its world whose defence they were sworn to. were complicit in it, including the greatest

way onboard. The resulting flood of neutron Compelled to watch by the vice-like grip of of their number, Horus. Three of their

radiation was so intense that even the a Word Bearers Dark Apostle or other senior brother Primarchs, Lorgar claimed, were in

trans-human physiologies of the attacking officer, the last sight these men and women fact already dead, a claim that history would

Legiones Astartes could not fully protect saw served as a vital component in the vast reveal as erroneous, yet which he himself had

them. The first of the attackers wavered and and terrible ritual unfolding on Calth. Much every cause to make at that time.

the auxiliaries of the 222"d fixed bayonets later, it was determined that the intent of

and charged, their Solar pattern void armour this cruelry was to sear the sight of the dying Guilliman was rendered speechless by the

able to fend off the radiation only so long as world into each victim's consciousness as an staggering hubris evident in Lorgar's words,

it took the charge to strike home. Dozens of act of witnessing, a scene the Word Bearers yet he knew his brother spoke the truth,

the stricken Legiones Astartes were overrun believed the dead would take with them to unpalatable as it may be. In that moment,

before they could react, and seconds later the afterlife as evidence to the powers that he swore anew to end his brother's betrayal,

the auxiliaries fell victim themselves to the hold sway there of the Traitor Legion's deeds. even if it was the final act in his long and

radiation. Not a single warrior of either side loyal service. Even if it was revealed as utterly

survived, the rad-flooded chamber forming a THE H ONOUROF MACRAGGE contrary to sound tactics and sane strategy,

tomb for enemies locked in a mutual death- Two hours into the orbital battle, the Master Guilliman's sole intent at that moment was to

struggle for all time. of Vox of the Ultramarines flagship reported hunt Lorgar down and slay his brother by his ~I
to Roboute Guilliman that the Word Bearers own hand.
The defence of Platform Elipsia-Veridia flagship, the Fide!itas Lex, had opened a litho- l
09/ Q was equally successful and equally cast hailing channel. The Primarch of the But it was not to be. Lorgar's hard-light avatar

lethal for both sides. In this instance, it is Ultramarines stepped onto the holocaster suddenly twisted, mutating into a monster

thought that a substantial force ofTerminator platform at the centre of his bridge as the torn from nightmare or the imagination of a

armour-equipped Word Bearers utilised a hooded figure of his brother Primarch Lorgar madman. Guilliman ordered the hololith link

rare teleportarium array to board the station manifested before him in grainy hard-light. terminated in disgust at what he dismissed

and launch a brutal coups de main attack on For perhaps the first time in his life, the as grotesque theatricaliry. Only then did it

the station's primary strategium. The station famously measured Guilliman was lost to become evident that the hololithic signal

master had scant moments to react and so fury. He raged at his brother for his betrayal lock had already been cut. The thing of 1
mounted a noble, if futile, defence of his and swore to exact merciless vengeance. eyes, teeth, tentacles, scales and unreal flesh
bridge. The attack had bypassed the large Guilliman denounced Lorgar's very saniry standing in the centre of the bridge of the i
sub-cohort of the 255'h Calth Solar Auxilia and swore that he and all his sons would be Macragge's Honour had transubstantiated from
stationed on Elipsia-Veridia 09/ Q , the Word punished. But the Lorgar that listened to all hololithic hard-light to corporeal flesh and i
Bearers judging that the defence would of this with a smirk upon his lips and the the abomination was revealed to the horrified '1'
collapse with the strategium captured. This remainder of his face hidden in shadow was bridge crew and the enraged Primarch as all I
not the being Guilliman had once known. too real.
did not occur however, for the 25s'h was No longer was Lorgar the cerebral seeker I

commanded by the veteran Lord Marshall '

Turnus, a beloved leader of advanced years after truth who had debated the nature of An instant later, the entire bridge erupted .'l
and with countless victories to his name. the universe with his brother Magnus for in an explosion of phantasmagoric viscera,
Determined to strike back at the Traitors days on end, nor was he the over-zealous son blowing out its armoured viewing dome

even if they could not possibly be repulsed, who had brought upon himself the censure and blasting its occupants into the void. At a

Turnus ordered the station's Mechanicum of the father-Emperor he had declared a god. stroke, the Ultramarines were bereft of their

magos prime to overload the platform's Neither was Lorgar the chastened warrior beloved Primarch and their beleaguered fleet

plasma reactor. The magos refused the Lord who alone of all the Primarchs sought not had lost its flagship. i
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in most cases would travel directly to Calth. Despite these measures, some of which were the guise of allies, under the authority of the
Some detachments, most notably elements still incomplete with the arrival of the first Master ofUltramar to pass all gates and seals
of the roth Chapter engaged in the ongoing contingents of the Ultramarines, there was without question.
Compliance of the insular colonies of the little civil unrest amongst the population of
galactic north-east and those companies of Calth, many of whom were retired soldiers The Beginning of the End
the 7'h and 22"d Chapters assigned to the and well-used to the voracious appetite of an The first ships of the Word Bearers Legion
reduction of the Fraal crucible worlds along Imperial crusade. Those few insurrections fleet to arrive at Calth were those ofErebus
the edge of the galactic void past the Imperial that occurred, as private resources and guild and attendant companies of the Flayed
fortress oflncalpeta Terminus, were not able workers were reassigned to service Legion Hand Chapter, translating into the Veridia
to join the muster, either due to the distances needs, were quickly and quietly silenced System around the orbit oflschara and the
involved or the ferocity of the fighting they by the Vigil Opertii, the secretive internal Veridia Maximus Starfort nearly a month
were engaged in at that time. security force ofUltramar. behind the original schedule set in place
for the Ghaslakh Crusade. Still unaware
For Guilliman and the main body of his By the time of Lord Guilliman's arrival of the Issrvan massacres, the Ultramarines
Legion travelling along once-stable warp from Ultramar, Calth and the Veridia sentinels who witnessed their approach
conduits, now rife with storms, directly to System had become a fortress. The prime initially ascribed the tardiness of their allies
Macragge, the journey was arduous and time warp translation points and various to the same warp turbulence which had
consuming. It would be almost eighteen planetary orbits had been seeded heavily also delayed their own ships rather than the
months sidereal before he would arrive, and with minefields and kill-sats slaved to the darker purposes to which the XVIIth Legion
during the voyage his fleet was becalmed Mechanicum's data grid, while deep range had devoted the time.
twice by aberrant warp confluences and system cutters patrolled the fringes of the
the heavy cruiser the Tiger's Heart was lost system, out past the orbital fortress ofVeridia Passed through the many layers of protection
with all hands to the Empyrean's fury. Other Maximus. No unauthorised craft could have draped around Calth and the growing fleet
detachments of the XIIIth Legion voyaging survived within the boundaries of the system sleeping vulnerable at anchor in its orbit,
along paths little travelled, such as the for more than a few moments, such was the Erebus and his entourage were quickly lost
ever-turbulent routes through the Eastern efficacy of the Ultramarines' preparations. in the controlled chaos of the muster, a few
Fringe, suffered even more. Four companies Yet all of this was to come to naught, for thousand warriors amongst a million other
of the 14th Chapter, en-route from the border when the Word Bearers arrived to bring men-under-arms. For a further solar day,
fortress of Lachesis, were ravaged by a series death and destruction to those who had so Word Bearers heavy cruisers and assault
of geller field collapses during transit, and recently been their brothers, they did so in barques continued to arrive in ragged
contingents of troops from Accatran and
Tigrus were so delayed that they did not THE UNMARKED
arrive at Calth until after the tragedy was Of the entire Legion, only five whole chapters of the Ultramarines and a handful of
over. Few at the time marked the sudden and separate detachments from other chapters were spared the Mark of Calth. As with
almost vindictive rise in warp disturbances as those Legiones Astartes of other Legions who had lived through the Issrvan massacres,
anything other than misfortune and unhappy an unspoken rift formed between the veterans of Calth and those who had not passed
coincidence, though later scholars point to through the fires ofbetrayal. No official designation to mark the veterans of Calth was
these incidents as the first stirrings of the ever promulgated amongst the XIIIth Legion, nor did Guilliman ever sanction any division
Ruinstorm, or perhaps a dark future-echo of between the warriors of his Legion, yet on those occasions where the Ultramarines
the carnage to come resonating in the Warp gathered afterwards in numbers, the survivors of Calth ever formed a separate body. The
around Calth. bitter wound of base betrayal was one they carried through all their days, the lasting legacy
of the Word Bearers' assault on the worlds ofUltramar; trust came to them only with
Calth itself was thrown into turmoil, its difficulty and always there was a hint of paranoia in their preparations for war and the
governor instituting a series of gargantuan execution of their campaigns.
engineering projects to accommodate the
coming muster. Encampments would be Of the so-called 'Unmarked' chapters, two had been assigned to distant Great Crusade
needed to harbour over roo,ooo of the forces at the time of the Calth atrocity; the 7th Chapter was divided amongst the vast
Legiones Astartes along with their attendant reaches of the Dominion of Storms and the roth Chapter was battling through the xenos-
war machines and chattels, requiring infested Eastern Fringe. The remaining chapters, the 19'\ as well as those which bore the
specialised facilities built to the most title 'Evocatii', the 24'h and 25'\ had been assigned garrison and training duties amongst the
exacting specifications and the re-assignment myriad worlds ofUltramar. Though none escaped the fires of Horus' rebellion, none were
of nearly a million labourers from the tested as were those few who had stood against the unthinkable at Calth, none ever stood
world's verdant fields. The vast majority at the brink of annihilation and the edge of madness as did their brothers.
of Calth's and Veridia Forge's industrial
output was shifted to creating vast stockpiles In the later years of the Scouring, the Unmarked would continuously see assignment
of ammunition, small arms and armour to operations removed from the main body of their brethren; even Guilliman seemed
replacements in preparation for the Ghaslakh averse to their company on campaign, perhaps seeing in them a reminder of days now
Crusade, placing even greater strain on the lost. Eventually, the Unmarked would be among the first of the Legion to be renamed and
growing colony which was further directed separated during the Second Founding, and remain perhaps the truest reflection of the
to raise a number of new regiments for Ultramarines of old.
service in the Excertus Imperialis.





procession, making no attempt to match the SIXty-eight muster camps had been created billeted alongside their Word Bearers allies,
precise formations of the Ultramarines and across the surface of Calth, each intended to hoping to foster a sense of unity among
taking up station in otherwise innocuous house several full Legion compames during the Legionaries, a gesture of trust and
orbits overlooking the XIII'h Legion ships, muster operations, providing drill grounds reconciliation that served only to make
and munitions storage facilities as well as the Word Bearers' coming betrayal all the
depositing an estimated so,ooo Word Bearers makeshift barracks. Guilliman intentionally more devastating. Distributed across Calth
arranged for his own Ultramarines to be by their hosts, the Word Bearers companies
and perhaps half a million auxilia units
amongst the Calth muster sites.

,,

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and their cult auxiliaries prepared for the Eager to solidify the bonds between the pointless battle readiness drills of the
coming storm in the open, under the guise two Legions, the command echelons of the Word Bearers with whom they shared their

ofcombat preparations for the Ghaslakh XIII'h Legion made no attempt to investigate mustering camps were ignored or, if they *
Crusade, stockpiling ammunition, marking reports of odd behaviour by the Word persisted, censured.

the deployment of the XIII'h Legion troops Bearers or their support units. Those few

and beginning the occult preparations and officers of the XIII'h Legion who questioned Few records can accurately define when the

sacrifices that would enact the Ruinstorm. the discordant chanting or seemingly killing began on the surface of Calth. Most

historians assume that the Word Bearers reveal their treacherous intentions turned destruction; Shadowsword and Falchion
acted as one, on the signal of the Campanile's on the Ultramarines as they were struggling super-heavy tanks ambushing Titans as they
death throes in orbit, yet information to comprehend the tragedy unfolding above strode unopposed through the retreating
gleaned from necro-cortical probes and the them. Thousands ofUltramarines and their warriors of the XIII'h Legion. Though several
few survivors of the fighting indicate that vassals died in the first few moments, cut Titans were grievously wounded by these
it was not so. Whether driven by bloodlust, down at rest or as they rushed to assemble in attacks, only two Shadowsword tanks and a
the burning desire for revenge or simple the face of some unknown assault in orbit. single damaged Falchion escaped the chaos
miscommunication, many ofthe Word Barracks were turned into abattoirs, warriors within the muster zone, part of a column
Bearers units began the slaughter long before slaughtered as they slept and drill grounds under Captain Sydance which fought its way
ships began to rain down from the skies of were festooned with the crucified corpses clear of the massacre.
that world. The most remote of the muster of the slain. Across an entire hemisphere of
camps, established in the few remaining Calth, ships began a stately plunge into the On the far side of Calth, where night
wilds of Calth, played host to a series of atmosphere, looming over doomed cities currently reigned, in the sprawling
coldly executed massacres as the small suddenly engulfed in mass panic. Even munitions plants ofDainhold, the Word
contingents ofUltramarines, intended to debris that, through sheer chance, failed to Bearers drove screaming swarms of ragged
act as hosts and emissaries of goodwill, were plough into one of Calth's teeming cities auxiliaries against the warriors of the XIII'h
put to the knife by their erstwhile brothers. caused untold damage, sundering vital transit Legion that had barricaded themselves
All along the northern coast, at the edge of lines and darkening the skies with dust and within the fortified manufactorum buildings.
the Satric Wastes, the Word Bearers built ash. Each impact only served to cripple the Only when the Ultramarines' guns had run
grotesque monuments to their treachery flow of information between the scattered dry and the corridors of the manufactoria
from the bones of their unsuspecting allies. Ulttamarines detachments and exacerbate were strewn with the blasted corpses of the
Such actions cannot be truly considered any the confusion and panic that followed. With fallen, did Nur Asoktan lead the cataphractii-
form of sane warfare as these isolated camps their orbital facilities cast down and the armoured elite of the Flayed Hand forwards
served only as assembly points that would Mechanicum's noosphere communication to hunt down the surviving Ultramarines.
spare Calth's cities any disruption due to grid laced with lethal bio-feedback, each of Outmatched and cornered, the warriors of
the large numbers of the Legiones Astartes the Ultramarines now stood alone, unable Ultramar fought on with combat blades and
drilling nearby, and were mainly reserved to reach their brothers further than the improvised explosive devices, severing power
for the use of the Word Bearers' late-arriving sound of their own voice. Faced with the to several facilities so as to use the darkness
formations and thus served little strategic unthinkable, the Ultramarines' carefully to their advantage.
purpose. Much debate has been made of the codified doctrines and precepts failed them
reasons for these attacks, some attributing entirely, and they stood for a brief moment, All across Calth, from the Satric wilds to the
them to simple bloodlust or madness, while helpless in the face of annihilation. cities of Ourosene, the same brutally one-
others see a malign pattern to these actions, sided battles played out, the Ultramarines
ascribing them to some unfathomable On the verdant fields of Komesh the assaulted and overwhelmed by those they
Ultramarines 9'h Chapter died, its half- had expected to stand alongside them, their
I Colchisian dogmatic practise. assembled ranks overrun by a tide of scarlet blood spilt and bodies raised as grotesque
.'1l In more populous areas, especially those warriors and armoured vehicles under the trophies.The orbital defence systems of
command of Foedral Fell. Small islands of Calrh, hundreds of spaceborne weapons
nearest the great cities and space ports of cobalt blue shone sporadically across the stations bristling with cannon intended
Calth, such wholesale butchery was absent. plains as individual companies and small to cripple the void crafr of any attacker,
Instead, the careful scholar will uncover a detachments made brave, but futile stands were turned upon the planet by the Word
number of forgotten reports which indicate with whatever weapons and munitions Bearers, searing terrible wounds into the
that certain XIII'hLegion commanders that were at hand. The fighting at Komesh world and utterly annihilating any force
and their entourages were eliminated some was to be some of the bloodiest of the ofUltramarines that had gathered in the
hours prior to the beginning of open fighting entire engagement, with upwards of IS,OOO open and leaving entire cities ablaze, their
on Calth, no doubt falling victim to Word Ultramarines slain; the survivors, barely inhabitants nothing more than charred
Bearers assassination cadres which had husks. Yet not all of the battles fought in the
infiltrated Ultra marines staging areas under s,ooo strong, would later fight their way first few hours of the fighting on Calth were
the guise offriendship. Such cadres rarely to the Word Bearers' advantage, whether by
survived their murderous attacks. Even free under the command ofTetrarch Tauro luck or some quirk of organisation, a few
confused and shocked, the Ultramarines Nicodemus in a running battle that would Loyalist units were not caught unprepared by
responded to violent attack with immediate last almost twenty long hours. Further the Word Bearers' treachery.
and deadly retribution, but by then the north at the muster camps ofErud, within
damage had already been done and the rigid sight ofNuminus City, engines of the Titan The Word Bearers' assault into the coastal
chain of command that formed the backbone Legion Suturvora scattered and blasted bunker network of Sylator Province was
of the XIII'h Legion was shattered. elements of the I", 2"d and 3'd Chapters of the halted by a cohort ofbattle-automata from
Ulttamarines Legion. Legio Cybernetica Magenim. Severed from
IN THE FACE OF ANNIHILATION the direct control of their Mechanicum
When the Campanile struck home at the In the face of these angry metal gods, even overseer by the dumpshock that afflicted
heart of the Ultramarines' orbital defences, Space Marines were as helpless as children, many magos in the wake of the orbital
sending kilotonnes of debris cascading from and hundreds died to each salvo the Titans grid's destruction, the battle-automata of
high orbit onto the surface below, those loosed. Only determined resistance from the cohort fell back on the core-logic of
contingents of Word Bearers who had yet to armoured companies of the I" Chapter
forestalled the Ultramarines' complete





their cybernetica cortex and responded
to any potential threat, no matter how
inconceivable, with deadly force. In the wake
of the battle-automata's rampage, a regiment
of Solar Auxilia, the 14'h Garnide Heavy
Infantry, secured the bunker complex and
dug in.

In the far north, along the icy shores of
Thrascias, close to the remote location
chosen by Erebus for the locus of his
Ruinstorm ritual, a large force of Gal Vorbak
butchered their way through the isolated
towns of the region. The fate of those
Calth natives captured during these raids is
uncertain, but may be linked to the bizarre
rituals undertaken by Erebus and other
members of the Word Bearers command
echelons. This obsession amongst the
XVII'h Legion for the pursuit of seemingly
meaningless religious rites over more
practical concerns led to a number of
setbacks during the fighting on Calth.

In the Thrascian wilderness, their obsession
with ritual appears to have contributed to
the Word Bearers' failure to engage the two
thousand Destroyers of the Ultramarines
zznd Chapter mustering in the bleak region,
or perhaps they believed that such a small
force was no threat to their operations.
Unlike other Legiones Astartes units, many
of whom reacted with shock and some
dismay at the appearance of the Gal Vorbak,
an effect these shock troops delighted in
exploiting, the veterans of the zznd Chapter
were long inured to confronting the most
hideous and malignant xenos encountered
by the expanding Imperium. Log excerpts
recovered from the battlefields of Calth
long after the fighting indicate that the
officer cadre of the zznd Chapter contingent,
having no ability to confer with their fellow
Ultramarines, made the assumption that the
Word Bearers, either in part or as a whole,
had been overtaken by some form ofxenos
contamination. Facing a threat they assumed
was capable of suborning the potent physical
form of a Legiones Astartes, the warriors of
the zznd swiftly deployed the most potent
weaponry at their disposal and the fighting in
Thrascias swiftly became a hell of phosphex
and rad storms as Destroyers and Gal Vorbak
clashed in bitter, unremitting combat.

A Nightmare made Flesh
Despite a few small victories, the onset
of dusk over the capital city ofNuminas
appeared to herald the end of the
Ultramarines Legion. In less than twelve
hours, almost one hundred thousand
Ultramarines had been slain and the Word

The Warp Flasks Bearers controlled almost every major city
For the duration of the Calth war, the Loyalist formations were plagued by an inability and strategic target on Calth. With debris
to communicate between themselves. The destruction of both key orbital and surface from the orbital massacre continuing to rain
facilities in the opening stages of the attack had utterly destroyed the vox network that down on the besieged planet, orbital strikes
had once allowed instantaneous communication between Imperial units anywhere on the obliterating vast swathes of the landscape
surface of Calth or even in high orbit. Short range lowband vox transmissions were garbled and the catastrophic collateral damage caused
beyond recognition by the worsening solar interference and the bizarre interruption by any battle between the Legiones Astartes,
of distant chanting and sibilant whispers. Despite this, the Word Bearers seem to have casualties amongst the civilian population
maintained the cohesion of their forces , displaying few signs that they experienced the were beyond nightmarish. Millions upon
same problems which bedevilled the Ultramarines. millions of Imperial citizens perished in fear
and agony in the first few hours, and millions
Artefacts recovered from Calth suggest they employed a device that operated by more continued to die as the fighting carried
transmitting communications through the Warp, thus bypassing the interference which on. Indeed, the Word Bearers' intent seemed
ruined more conventional communications devices. The few accounts of those artefacts less to persecute the Ultramarines of the
recovered from the archives of the Word Bearers hint at their operation; most tellingly in XIII'h Legion than it was to cause as much
fragments of almost ritualistic verse that speak of enslaved symbiotic warp entities and death and destruction as was possible.
ritualistic psychic disciplines that predate the arrival of the Imperium on Colchis.
This design, for it was not simply bloodlust
or madness on the part ofLorgar's sons, was
intended to facilitate some malign psychic

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ritual on a grand scale. While the deeper the usually stoic Legiones Astartes. The well as the formidable firepower of their l
religious connotations of these actions emergence of these aberrant manifestations own fleet, against the system's sun itself and
amongst the Word Bearers remain unknown follows no sane strategic plan. Indeed, the the resulting flare in solar radiation was i
to us, the immediate consequences are well Word Bearers seem to have treated their beginning to take its toll on the warriors on
documented by the few survivors of the appearance as a vital goal in and of itself Calth's surface. Those not shielded from the
Battle for Calth. Many accounts attest to rather than in furtherance of their military sun's glare or protected by the augmented
bizarre aberrant weather patterns during campaign. Most such incursions are noted physiology of the Legiones Astartes, were
the early stages of the conflict- freak as occurring in areas where the fighting soon blistered and burned, and most would
typhoons, unnatural aurora and cloud cover was particularly fierce or the death toll later to succumb to extreme radiation
being the most prevalent. As the death toll excessively high, where their rampages, poisoning. Only those scant enclaves
mounted and the fighting spread, these whilst stunningly brutal, rarely impacted on that were within one of the few shielded
phenomena became more pronounced the wider strategic situation. structures still held by the Loyalists escaped
and the first instances of manifesting warp this lingering death, though few who
entities are recorded. Such creatures were Not only were the surviving Loyalist still lived could see this as anything but a
all but unknown to the Imperium at large, elements tormented by the depredations temporary reprieve.
the subject of long discredited legend and of the Word Bearers' tenebrous allies, but
the ramblings of delusional Astropaths also by the deterioration of the situation
and Navigators, and their appearance only in the Veridia System. The Word Bearers
inflamed the abject panic which gripped had turned the full destructive capability
many areas, even affecting the ranks of of the Calth orbital defence platforms, as

~~ ~ ;;~••I•



The First Chapter Master, Marius Gage, had too great. Human crew were slaughtered, worked. The creatures came on and ever
been able to grasp hold of a railing at the
moment of the breach and pulled himself their minds overcome by primal terror at on, impervious to effects that would
along the tortured bridge towards the main
portal, which was sealing off against the void what they were witnessing. Lithe, horned have scoured the ship of any known life
even as he struggled towards it. Metres from
the armoured hatch, Gage came across the creatures congealed of the roiling energies form . Such failures were compounded
grievously wounded Chapter Master Banzor
and pulled his fellow Legion officer through of warp space, whose skin glowed like lava because the vessel's internal command and
the portal as the blast doors lowered. Banzor
died soon after, but Gage had no chance to and who carried wickedly barbed long control systems had been crippled early
mourn him for the destruction on the bridge
was but one torment being visited upon the swords, butchered those too stunned or in the betrayal, and with so many senior
Macragge's Honour.The entire conning tower
was disintegrating around him and deafening too slow to flee. Other incarnated entities Ultramarines dead and lower tier officers
howls of bestial insanity were flooding the
corridors, accompanied by the screeching included bloated, plague-ridden corpse- isolated from one another, the same mistakes
of tortured metal, the roar of escaping
atmosphere and the wet screams of crew things, one-eyed and drooling and using were made over and over. The Ultramarines'
being slaughtered.
rusted cleavers to hew the helpless crew like famed ability to analyse any challenge and
Those few who survived the destruction
on the bridge, almost exclusively Legiones meat on a butcher's block Still others were reason their way to victory broke down
Astartes, for mortal flesh was too fragile
to withstand such hurts, were forced to deceptively mock-human, lithe and fleet entirely, through no fault of their own.
flee downwards, pursued all the while by
death as, deck by deck, the conning tower offoot, possessed of viciously sharp claws Worse still, the creatures were able to
crumbled into the void. If any expected
respite upon reaching the main body of the that they used to sever and stab and gut foes shrug off even the heaviest weight of fire
vessel, they were to be disappointed. The
barrel-vaulted companionway which passed who were stood helpless and enraptured at from the Space Marines' bolters and other
along the uppermost decks of the Macragge's
Honour presented a scene ripped bloody their approach. These and a thousand other weapons. They swarmed unharmed through
and ragged from the worst excesses of Old
Night. Crew hands were cut down, blood and insanities descended upon the flagship, until hails of fire to fall upon the defenders
severed limbs cast in all directions by things
of warp-born shadow and searing empyreal soon even the shattered chain of command with otherworldly savagery. The creatures
fire. The more experienced warriors knew
that catastrophic warp breach could bring on that had survived the loss of the bridge followed no perceivable strategy or logic, and
chronic hallucination and mass psychosis,
while some were party to the theories that was gone. It was as if a scene of ancient, it was apparent they had no objective but to
certain anti-life forms were able to exist in
the shadowed depths of the Warp itself. But apocalyptic mysticism was playing out, and shed blood. It would later be observed that
this was no warp breach, for the Macragge's
Honour was in realspace. the Space Marines of the XIII'h Legion were they appeared more to be culling prey than

To the beleaguered defenders, it looked confronted with nightmarish foes against fighting an opponent in any conventional
as if the entire ship had been boarded by
creatures of no catalogued xeno-type at the which the laws of reality themselves held no sense, an observation many others would
very height of the battle the Word Bearers
had initiated. Only the superior mental sway. Chaos, bloodshed and anarchy claimed make before the end.
conditioning of the Legiones Astartes could
bear such a weight of betrayal and horror, and the interior of the Macragge's Honour.
many of the surviving officers reached the
immediate conclusion that their traitorous THE Kn.r.ERS CLOSE IN
brother Legion had unleashed some form of
xenos-terror organism as yet another weapon The battle devolved into a bitter struggle Unknown to the surviving Ultramarines
in their perfidious arsenal.
for survival as individual warriors were cut Legion officers or any of the defenders
But the Ultramarines had no chance to
mount a coordinated defence of the flagship, offfrom their fellows and swept into the desperately holding back the tide of horror
for the enemy's numbers were simply
bowels of the vessel or else overwhelmed spilling through the Macragge's Honour,

and slaughtered out of hand. First Chapter a hunting pack of Word Bearers cruisers

Master Gage and Antoli, so far as each knew was closing in on the flagship through the

the only Legion officers still alive, did what burning void. Though the Ultramarines

they could to restore sanity, ordering the vessel was far larger than the enemy war

crew to go to ground, to barricade themselves ships, the Macragge's Honour was not only

into whatever compartments they could defenceless without its bridge, but its crew

while any and all Ultramarines, naval could scarcely defend their vessel from

armsmen and soldiers of the Imperial Army boarders whilst fighting a desperate battle

were to rally together. Even this ostensibly for their very survival within. The cruisers

straightforward order was almost impossible took up position about the wounded flagship,

to enact. Wave after wave of horror flowed matching her now drifting, directionless

through the entire length of the Macragge's course before firing close range boarding

Honour, witnesses later describing how grapnels across the void, tethering hunters

the angles of the bulkheads and the spaces and prey together so that the boarding assault

between shadows were seen to wrinkle and could begin. Within minutes, dozens of

fold in upon themselves before snapping Word Bearers assault groups were crossing

taut once more to reveal savage wounds in the gulf between vessels. The Macragge's

the very skin of reality. It was through these Honour was heavily armoured against

wounds, which later would be described as external assault however, and although

'micro-rifts', that the creatures came. her outer skin was studded with scores of

air-gates of all sizes, the enemy would have

Across the ship, individual Legiones to fusion-burn their way in before a full

Astartes and naval officers fought bravely to boarding action could get underway.

repel the invaders. Falling back on long-

established counter-incursion protocols, Order from Chaos

they ordered what responses they could. As the Word Bearers breacher squads were

Entire sections were purged of breathable to begin their attack on the exterior of the

atmosphere or flooded with toxic gas, while flagship, the balance of the battle for the

others were plasma-scoured or subjected to vessel's interior shifted. Pockets of organised

brutal extremes of temperature. Nothing and stoic resistance began to coalesce, l

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individual warriors drawn towards leaders nature of the attack against the vessel, but survived that day, but those who did were
able to command the fight-back by their own he knew that only a steady and determined blooded in extremis and many went on
heroic example. counter-advance towards the forward to become warriors of great renown. But
sections offered any hope of linking up with that was far in the future and numerous
Chapter Master Klord Empion, commander other forces and holding the ship. indescribable horrors lay ahead as the captain
of the 9'h Chapter, was one such leader, led his force through the fiend-haunted
a warrior who was attending to duties Meanwhile, Captain Heutonicus of the 161" chambers of Deck Twenty in an effort to link
elsewhere on the flagship when the bridge Company had taken command of a small up with other survivor groups.
was breached. Empion was fortunate to have band of isolated Ultramarines initiates only
with him at the time of the incursion a large recently ascended to the status of Legionary. Of all the tales of courage and honour told
number of warriors and sub-officers from The first battle these young warriors fought of the defence of the Macragge's Honour, one
his chapter's command cadre. He quickly was against a foe none had any inkling how frequently recounted is that of Sergeant
built this into the core of a force with which to counter and for many it would be their Aeonid Thiel of the 135'h Company. At the
to repel the attackers, and which was soon last. It fell to Captain Heutonicus not just moment of the breaching of the flagship's
reinforced as it fought its way along Deck to keep his charges alive but to lead them in bridge, Thiel was under censure awaiting
Thirty-five gathering dozens ofLegiones battle, a task in which he excelled despite a hearing with the Primarch himself in an
Astartes, naval armsmen and Solar Auxilia the odds against him. Barely a quarter of the antechamber lined with dozens of Lord
troops. Empion had no explanation for the initiates fighting under Captain Heutonicus Guilliman's personal weapons. Confronted

by the first of the attackers, Thiel had recognising that they were something other what remained of it. It was near this location
reached for the nearest weapons to hand than aliens, psychic manifestation or even that Thiel encountered the severely wounded
-an electromagnetic longsword and a some unknown xenos strain somehow able First Chapter Master Gage, saving the senior
Kehletai friction axe, both impossibly rare to reside within the Warp. He saw that they Legion officer from certain death at the
and incredibly potent examples oflost were creatures from humanity's darkest hands of a warp-born horror that had already
weaponsmiths' arts. nightmares in a very literal sense. severed his right arm.

Wielding the Primarch's exotic weaponry, As he fought, Thiel came upon other warriors Still fighting off the blood-taint of a warp
Thiel fought his way through a horde of fighting back to back against the waves of entity's venom, Gage saw straight away that
foes, quickly discovering that the creatures attackers. He was soon leading an ad hoc Thiel's methods were working and should be
were significantly more vulnerable to the force of several dozen Legionaries, armsmen, disseminated throughout the whole force.
effects of his axe and sword than they were to Solar Auxilia and even abhuman stokers The First Chapter Master agreed with Thiel's
those of his bolt pistol. Thiel was gifted with determined to fight for their flagship. He observation that the creatures were more
the rare ability to think outside of accepted made briefcontact with both Empion and susceptible to melee weaponry, though he
dogma, indeed, it was this very characteristic Heutonicus, and berween them the three reserved judgement on the sergeant's theory
that had earned him the mark of censure - were able to coordinate an advance across that this weakness was derived from arcane
the red-painted battle helm which he wore several decks that would see them converge rituals used to summon them in the ancient
still. Thiel named the invaders 'Daemons', in the proximity of the conning tower, or myths of humanity. Nevertheless, Gage was

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an experienced officer and wise enough to Sanctity of Saramanth. Shipmaster Hammed outsiders normally permitted to enter were

know that in his wounded state he could not had survived the destruction of his vessel Techmarines, members of the Legiones

lead the force effectively. Tactical leadership and the manifestation of an entire army Astartes who had been inducted into

was turned over to Thiel while an apothecary of warp creatures, yet even as the tides of certain of the mysteries of the machine.The

stabilised the First Chapter Master, and soon horror receded, the last of the invaders were chamber was sealed by an armoured portal

after, the forces under Thiel, Empion and descending upon him. two dozen metres high and from beyond

i Heutonicus were combined. In an instant, Sergeant Thiel saw his chance this came weapons fire intermingled with
to rescue Shipmaster Hammed, but he had the now all too familiar sounds of attacking
! to act without even a second's delay. He led creatures from the Warp. Gage saw he had
his force out onto the launch deck, ordering no choice but to violate the sanctity of the
t MASTER AND CoMMANDER machine fane, and while he held to the

·l With the immediate situation stabilising,

f' Gage was able to gather information from

scattered Ultramarines forces and formulate sustained and rapid fire even though he secular Imperial Truth and had witnessed the

a plan to retake control of the Macragge's knew the bolts would do little more than worst excesses of heathen religiosity, he was

Honour. The fate of the Primarch remained distract the fiends . But distraction was wise enough to respect his allies' beliefs as

unknown and few allowed themselves exactly what the sergeant intended, for as mighty gears engaged and pistons spat great

to dwell on it lest they be overcome with the horde turned upon this new threat, the gouts of vented gas as the brass portal ground

grief and lose what edge they might have creatures' attentions torn from the cornered inwards to reveal a sight unlike any other the

retained. Rather, the First Chapter Master shipmaster to the attacking Ultramarines, veteran Chapter Master had witnessed.

ordered the force to make for the flagship's Thiel ordered the loading deck platform

auxiliary bridge, located several dozen levels upon which Hammed and the other The interior of the machine fane resembled

directly below the destroyed conning tower. survivors were standing to be lowered. The the inner workings of a great engine, a

This plan was in itself insufficient to gain Ultramarines had to keep the warp entities towering altar dominating the central

anything more than the most superficial engaged long enough for the platform to space. About this was gathered a group of

control of the massive vessel; for that, the deliver the survivors to safety and so they Mechanicum Tech-Priests of various Orders,

skills of an experienced shipmaster would poured a relentless rain ofbolter fire into each unleashing a relentless stream of fire

be required, and the flagship's captain, the horde, all the while taking measured into a circle of lithe Daemons capering about

Shipmaster Zedoff, had been slain along with steps backwards towards the deck entrance. them. The incense- and smoke-filled air was

the majority of the bridge cadre. At last the shrieking horde closed to within ravaged by volkite rays and pulsing waves of

metres of the firing line, and Thiel judged focused radiation. The attacking creatures,

Here, at last, the fates looked kindly upon that the shipmaster was safe. With a final step however, were all but impervious to the

the Ultramarines. Mere minutes before the back, the Ultramarines crossed through the effects of weapons that could melt the flesh

loss of the bridge, the Macragge's Honour hatch and the blast door crashed down. The from the bones of mortal men. They shrieked

had recovered a number of salvation craft enraged howls of the warp creatures were and cackled mockingly at their touch,

ejected by the Sanctity of Saramanth earlier as loud as the impacts of their weapons and darting back and forth to deliver graceful,

in the battle, and amongst the survivors was claws pounding upon the other side of the yet utterly deadly caresses with long,

her captain, Shipmaster Hammed. Gage portal. Shipmaster Hammed was safe. razor-edged claws. When the Ultramarines

had no way of knowing if Hammed lived or crossed the threshold into the machine

had been slaughtered along with so many SERVANTS OF THE MACHINE fane, the creatures immediately ceased their

others among the crew, but he knew that in As Thiel's force extracted Shipmaster tormenting of the adepts and hissed in

the veteran shipmaster lay the best, perhaps Hammed, First Chapter Master Gage, now sibilant challenge to this newly appeared foe.

the only hope ofregaining control of the largely recovered from his injuries thanks to

beleaguered flagship. the superhuman physiology of the Legiones Where Thiel had ordered his Legionaries

Astartes, led his own force towards the to fire upon the entities to distract them,

It fell to Sergeant Aeonid Thiel to lead the auxiliary bridge. The route took the column Gage's intent was quite different. With a

search for the shipmaster, he and his force through an area of the Macragge's Honour bellowed order, he called for bolters to be

making for the primary starboard launch that was the exclusive domain of the vessel's stowed and hand-to-hand weapons to be

deck while Gage and Empion led the Mechanicum contingent; one that had drawn. Combat blades, chainswords and

remainder of the force towards the auxiliary clearly seen heavy fighting already, for the bayonets were all brought forth and the First

bridge. The distance was not great and deck was strewn with the severed limbs and Chapter Master brandished the Primarch's

overall the tide of invaders was mercifully cyber-organs of scores of tech-adepts, skitarii, own friction axe, which Thiel had passed

receding. Yet many of the warp entities were battle-automata and combat servitors. Gage to him, so that all might see and follow his

the equal of a Space Marine and some were ordered his squads to slow their advance example. Shouting the war cries ofUltramar,

considerably stronger, so that even reaching and to remain vigilant for remnants of the the squads advanced in perfect formation

the launch deck cost the Ultramarines wave of warp fiends that had inflicted the to engage the warp things in the measured

irreplaceable losses. When Thiel reached his slaughter, as well as any survivors that might fury of hand-to-hand combat. Razor sharp

destination, he found the deck swarming be there. It was not long before signs of both claws lashed from nowhere to lacerate power

with the same crimson-skinned, horned were detected. armour and rend Legiones Astartes flesh, and

creatures that he and his warriors had faced in a dozen seconds the same number of brave

in such large numbers at the beginning of At the heart of the area was a sacred Space Marines fell. But more Legionaries

the battle. The horde was converging on a machine fane dedicated to the Omnissiah. stepped into their place in the line. Face

I single point, which Thiel realised with horror The chamber was counted as the holy of to face , the creatures were revealed as

t-1 was that occupied by the survivors of the holies by the Tech-Priests and the only nightmarish mockeries of the human form,

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their faces both alien and androgynous. They of the fleet that had gathered in orbit, barely the debris-strewn void, often trailing a
were surrounded by a musk of cloying scent one fifth of the original number of vessels cometary tail of blood globules and vented
which threatened to overwhelm those battle- were battle-worthy. Furthermore, only now gas. Yet Chapter Master Empion's primary
brothers dispossessed of their helms with was the full extent of the boarding action objective was not the destruction of the
lethargy or delirium. against the Macragge's Honour realised. enemy boarding squads, as desirable a
secondary mission as that clearly was to the
Following the Ultramarines' example, the Miracle ofMiracles Ultramarines. Three Legionaries in each
tech-adepts cornered at the machine altar It fell to Chapter Master Empion to squad carried a melta charge to sabotage the
cast aside their myriad exotic weapons and formulate and oversee a daring counter- Word Bearers' heavy breaching equipment,
took up their ceremonial axes and staves. boarding assault, drawing on every and as the battle-brothers of both sides
Blurting binaric war-cant across the chamber, Ultramarines Legionary his staff could fought and bled, many of these specialists
the magos ordered the battle-automata and muster. Forty groups, each numbering up set to destroying the great fusion heads and
combat servitors to add their weight to the to thirty Space Marines, passed through the boarding gantries with well-placed charges,
fight, and soon the tide was turned .
armoured air gates and advanced on their many giving their lives in the process. i
The wicked glee vanished from the warp designated targets. Each was assigned a
creatures' leering faces as the realisation of vital objective, from sabotaging the enemy's At one such objective, the tide of battle had I
their impending defeat came too late. They docking towers, detaching their void turned inexorably against Squad Six, led 'i
were surrounded, the Ultramarines on one grapnels and fusion drill heads, to counter- by Sergeant Thiel. The Word Bearers had
side and the Mechanicum on the other attacking Word Bearers moving across the counter-attacked in far greater numbers than I
as the battle lines pressed ever inwards. A outer hull. Using void harnesses to bolster anticipated and the surviving Ultramarines
minute later the last of the vile warp-things the in-built capabilities ofLegiones Astartes were resigned to extracting what vengeance
dissipated to nothing as their phantasmagoric power armour, the squads moved rapidly they could before being overwhelmed and
forms were hewn apart by chainswords and towards their targets, each step a Legionary slaughtered. But such a fate was not to be and
pounded into the deck by the massive fists of took under the low gravity conditions instead something that many later named
the Castellax battle-automata. powering him forwards tens of metres, each a miracle occurred. From the void came a
parabolic burn of his harnesses' thrusters demi-god clad in armour of cobalt and pearl,
COMMAND RESTORED carrying him high over the deep valleys an inaudible roar distorting his usually
Having secured the shipmaster and the and towering hills of the ship's exterior calm visage. It was Roboute Guilliman,
senior Mechanicum magos, the Ulttamarines architecture. The Legionaries were dwarfed Primarch of the Ulttamarines, and he was
Legion had won a very real hope of regaining by the sheer scale of the flagship's form, a as a raw force of nature, his usual measured
control of the Macragge's Honour. It was not city-scaled landscape of iron and ceramite, demeanour driven out by cold fury as he slew
until both Gage's and Thiel's forces at last the wounded surface of Calth visible as it Word Bearers by the dozen. As incredible
fought their way through what remained rose above the port side attitude thrusters as the fact of the Primarch surviving the
of the warp incursion and rendezvoused in a spectacle that under more conventional destruction of the bridge was, what would
at the auxiliary bridge that either knew circumstances would have taken the breath mystify future generations of gene-smiths
for certain that the other had succeeded away. But on this day of betrayal, all that the was the fact that the Emperor's son wore no
in their mission. It was a tense wait for the counter-boarding squads cared for was the battle helm. He had fought for ten hours in a
first squads to arrive at the muster point, but survival of their flagship. vacuum without any apparent oxygen supply,
it was soon apparent that both forces had a feat that even the preternatural physiology
achieved their equally vital objectives. The Ultramarines soon encountered of the Primarchs could not entirely account
their hated foe, for there was little for. Many accept that the body of a Primarch
Almost exactly ten hours after the main possibility of a stealthy approach to battle could withstand the effects of ebullism,
bridge of the Ultramarines flagship had been in such conditions. The cobalt-armoured hypocapnia, pressure-driven body mass
breached and their beloved Primarch lost, Ulttamarines had been observed as they expansion and extremes of temperature for
Shipmaster Hommed, with the aid of the traversed the slate-grey hull and soon mass extended periods. That a Primarch's body
two most senior magos rescued from the reactive bolts were scything through the void could continue to function without oxygen
launch deck, gained control of the vessel. on bright contrails. The Space Marines had however is beyond any known capability
The auxiliary bridge was activated and been created for this mode of warfare and of even these most awe inspiring of trans-
control of the mighty war ship invested in were equipped to the very highest standards, human super-beings.
Shipmaster Hommed. Within minutes, vox
systems were re-awakening and contact was and so the battle was relentless and bitter. The Primarch's intervention saved the lives
established with Ultramarines units on the Bolt rounds which penetrated battle plate
surface of Calth for the first time since the
destruction of Calth Veridian Anchor by the caused partial armour decompression before of dozens of his sons. It fell to them though
Campanile. These facts might have been cause automated inner seals contained pressure to persuade their gene-father to cease his
for celebration in any other circumstance, loss and even with a limb exposed to the furious battle on the flagship's outer hull and
but with the re-activation of the vessel's
communications and augur systems came vacuum, they could fight on for extended to rejoin his warriors within. The Primarch
still more dire realisations. There was still no periods so long as oxygen reserves were not had fought for ten hours without respite,
sign of the Primarch, Legion forces on the compromised. Soundless battle erupted his sons believing him lost. Now he was
surface had been worse than decimated and across the hull, each Legionary able to hear returned to them, and for the first time since
only his own thunderous breathing and the beginning of the Battle of Calth, defeat
the urgent orders barked across the vox- and extinction did not seem inevitable.
net. When combatants clashed in melee,
impacts sent victims rumbling away through

..._..1'----;;;::;-:~--=z ~ ~Lu;,.. ·~ ~= ~00?..--t·"':::'_;?:t.,i.J::o

THE AsHES OF CALTH

"Leave no stone upon stone, salt the earth with the blood of the fallen and !eave only ashes to mark their passing. Let Ca!th be the grave marker of the
U!tramarines."

N ur Asoktan, the Butcher of Dainho!d and master of the Flayed Hand

In every account of the war on Calth, there The fighting around the southern city of hurt those who had wounded them and put
is little dispute over the overwhelming Ithraca stands as an exemplar of the bloody, their plans into action with whatever tools of
tactical advantage held by the Word Bearers one-sided and yet curiously inept battles war they could gather to themselves.
in the early stages of the fighting. They the Word Bearers fought across the face of
had complete control of orbital space, with Calth in the brief surface war. What initially Convergence ofMight
the Ultramarines void craft scattered and appears as a strategically sound assault on an Ragged Ultramarines detachments from
broken and the overwhelming firepower of objective held by unsuspecting units of the battlefields across the continent went on
the orbital defence platforms under their XIII'h Legion, quickly degenerated into a the offensive instead of running for shelter
control. On the ground, the Word Bearers confused massacre, only complicated by the as lesser warriors might have done, some
chapters held all major strategic objectives inexplicable tactics employed by the Word as isolated commands and others using
and had inflicted devastating casualties upon Bearers and those auxiliary units which short range local vox nets to coordinate
the Ultramarines, leaving the XIII'h Legion had long served under their direction. In with other groups of survivors. Leading the
with few means to even organise a cohesive many cases, the Word Bearers seem to have bloodied remnants of a dozen companies of
campaign against the Word Bearers, let alone abandoned all military logic and sought the Ultramarines 9'h Chapter, the Tetrarch
prosecute such an offensive. simply to kill and destroy without recourse Tauro Nicodemus cut his way through Word
to any other concern. Bearers forces under the command ofFoedral
Fell. Wielding his tired Legiones Astartes
Such was the advantage granted the Word like a rapier, he targeted isolated units as
Bearers by treachery that the casualties the Word Bearers dispersed to ravage Erud
inflicted upon the Ultramarines were Province. Tetrarch Nicodemus annihilated
crippling despite the flawed tactics the those Word Bearers commands lost to an
Word Bearers employed. Regardless, the unpredictable blood rage while avoiding
Ultramarines refused to die, denying the larger forces and slowly made his way to
Word Bearers the victory they reached for. the north-east, following a fragmentary vox
Even crippled by the destruction of the signal broadcast from the remains of the
orbital vox network, bereft of their command fortified manor of the planetary governor at
elements and battered in body and mind, Leptius Numinus.
Ultramarines detachments across the planet
put aside doubt and fear, devised methods to To the north, in the scrub deserts around the
Holophusikon of Calth, a second Tetrarch,
Eikos Lamiad, the Iron Warden of Konor, led
a mismatched assembly of Imperial Army
soldiers and Ultramarines armoured units in
pursuit of the same signals. Tetrarch Lamiad
and a retinue composed of Solar Auxilia from
the 41" Espandor High Guard, a battered
Contemptor pattern Dreadnought and a
towering Thanatar siege-automata, scoured

the plains for other survivors, while Imperial The Martyrs of Calth
Army officers organised these stragglers into In the aftermath of the fighting on Calth, it was all but impossible to form an accurate
a column headed towards Lanshear. picture of the losses incurred on the combatants. With the surface of the planet rendered
all but uninhabitable by the actions of Kor Phaeron, it has since proved impractical to
Even as far south as the vast forests of recover many of the fallen or verify the deaths of those who came to Calth with treachery
Sharud Province, where Word Bearers-allied in their hearts.
Mechanicum units and Titans of the Legio
Suturvora had turned the dense foliage into The Ultramarines recorded their casualties at the moment when Guilliman and the
a hell of flame and ash, units of the XIII'h remains of the XIII'h Legion fleet departed Calth at II9,422 Legiones Astartes fallen in
Legion responded to the call to arms. In a combat, with a further 28,392 rendered combat-incapable by battle injuries and trauma.
display of tactical coordination few other Few of the chapters committed to Calth could muster even a quarter of their nominal
Legions could have matched, even at their strength, and some were so decimated that they faced being reorganised into other
best, the few thousand survivors of the II'h chapters and their old designations removed from the XIII'h Legion's order of battle.
and 12'h Chapters of the Ultramarines fought Most of the injured were evacuated to the surviving craft of the fleet and swiftly returned
a complex war of hit and fade against fire- to combat duties in the crisis that was unfolding across Ultramar, a crisis that forced
blackened automata and blood-hungry Word Guilliman to order the prioritisation of military assets over the stranded civilians in the
Bearers units. Ad hoc fire teams defended brief evacuation effort. Almost 40,000 Ultramarines, both wounded and combat-ready,
rough fortifications of earth and fallen trees, were forced to remain on Calth, some as volunteers, set to the protection of those civilians
while other units hastily prepared the next who could not be evacuated, and others due to the brutal dictates of circumstance. Of the
line of defence, exacting a heavy toll in blood forces of the Excertus Imperialis, details are more vague, but it seems likely that at least
for each position the Word Bearers forced half a million men-under-arms perished during the fighting, alongside the entire fighting
them to abandon. complement of the Legio Praesagius.

As the fighting wore on, what had begun as Of the Word Bearers who landed on the surface of Calth, almost none would ever leave. It
a series of isolated and chaotic slaughters is estimated that so,ooo or more ofLorgar's sons and an uncounted mass of Auxilia troops
slowly began to coalesce. With many Word were•sacrificed in the battle, although only 2o,ooo are thought to have died in the initial
Bearers detachments disregarding what was fighting, with the remainder prosecuting the Underworld War on Calth for over a decade
once considered standard military practice after the initial battle.
to engage in inscrutable rituals and wanton
butchery, the XIII'h Legion survivors were Just as bitter to the Ultramarines Legion was the damage inflicted on its fleet assets. Never
afforded a momentary respite. For any other renowned for the numbers of heavy combat void craft in its service, the losses suffered at
than Guilliman's own, such a pause would Calth were crippling and hamstrung any effort to prosecute a war beyond the bounds of
have meant little; a chance, perhaps, to sell Ultramar. Such was the Ultramarines' desperation, missions to salvage the hulks drifting
their lives dearly in a glorious but hopeless in orbit above Calth were quickly authorised despite the death toll such missions exacted
last stand or futile rage-fuelled assault. For in the deadly radiation of the Veridia star.
the XIII'h Legion however, it was a chance
to grasp victory from defeat. With several troops, reinforced by several maniples of met their ends with none to tell of the deed.
task forces of survivors converging on the Legio Suturvora Titans; were the Loyalists Even where they emerged momentarily
outskirts ofLanshear, an army that numbered to engage such a force head-on , they would victorious, the warriors of Ultramar could
in the thousands and even included a Titan have had little hope of a conventional victory. not help but be dismayed by the cost of their
maniple of the Legio Oberon, the Deathbolts, Another target, one of significant strategic triumph before more foes sought them out.
the Loyalists had assembled a response value enough to tip the scales of the brutal
that was capable of achieving more than an war unfolding on Calth, would have to be Sanachi Province and much of the southern f
honourable death. found before the Loyalists would expend continent were reduced to a charnel house
their last strength. as rampaging entities spawned there from '
Yet while the Word Bearers had sacrificed
the strategic initiative, they still held a Bitter Victories the very depths of the Warp, and few would
tenuous advantage in numbers, the initial Elsewhere on Calth's war-torn surface, the
battles and orbital bombardment having fighting knew no pause or ebb in its brutal ever live to speak of the horrific events that
taken a terrible toll on the XIII'h Legion, and ferocity. Innumerable battles, both large and
unlike the Loyalists, they were not scattered small, played out in blasted cities, frozen took place. The Korvel Islands were engulfed
across the surface of the planet and isolated tundra and burning forests. The entirety
from their commanders. In Lanshear City, of Calth was engulfed in a war that knew in nuclear fire, their populous cities blasted
Hol Beloth, master of the Graven Star, nothing of mercy or restraint, and blood was
commanded a force of almost ten thousand spilled under the bright sun ofVeridia as well from orbit at Kor Phaeron's command,
Legiones Astartes and uncounted auxilia as the starlit blanket of night. Heroes were
born in the crucible of war and perished perhaps for no better reason than to see
forgotten and unrecorded by any who yet
lived, and the most treacherous of villains them burn. The slaughter fields ofKomesh

were covered with over twenty thousand

dead Ultramarines, their corpses and the

bodies of the wounded who still lived used

to ornament Word Bearers tanks and aircraft.

In Sylator, the war engines of the Legio

Cybernetica Magenim, long since having

,. .. ...exhausted their stocks of ammunition, :t

~ ~4

I r7·:gh~=~~~=:::~:::~:: -·--·-"";~~~k-=-•,•••,r ·-f-·•·-""-U-·o• =·•"-·!-·~ ----· -·.

I auxiliaries and deformed Word Bearers shock
units with bare manipulator and the strength
of their servo-driven limbs, while their
masters sought with desperate futility to
restore control of Calth's defence systems.

In the blasted ruins of the manufactoria of
Dainhold, the remnants of the Ultramarines
8'hand rs'hChapters, reduced to less than
r,ooo warriors, continued a grim battle
against the Flayed Hand Chapter of the Word
Bearers. Already worn down by the unending
tide of chanting auxiliaries unleashed
upon them to drain their munitions, the
survivors were little more than desperate
bands isolated in the crumbling halls of the
manufactoria, and yet they still held after
almost a full twelve hours of constant battle.
However, measures taken to stymie the
screaming hordes of auxiliaries unleashed by
the Word Bearers, severing power to lights
and heating systems and forcing the merely
human auxiliaries to fight in the fro zen
darkness of Calth's winter night, deterred
the power armoured Word Bearers as little as
they did the remaining Ultramarines.

With dusk falling over the cities ofErud,

half a world away, dawn was arriving over
.. Dainhold's manufactoria, heralding an assault

lj by the elite of the Flayed Hand Chapter

r of the Word Bearers. Fully two hundred

I hulking Cataphractii Terminators were
! unleashed on the exhausted Ultramarines
I holding out. Trampling a path through
·u the masses of dead and injured auxiliaries
.~ who thronged the manufactoria hallways
> and vestibules, the fresh Word Bearers

;

.!

Terminators tore into the few battered

Ultramarines who remained, spending

munitions with abandon as they slaughtered

the defenders.

With almost no ammunition remaining
to them, the warriors of the XIII'hhad few
weapons left that could stop the rampaging
Terminators, yet still each warrior strove to
inflict as much damage as they could before
death overtook them. Improvised pitfalls and
hastily converted industrial tools accounted
for several of the heavily armoured Word
Bearers, and those officers and veterans who
bore powered weaponry potent enough to
pierce Terminator plate made valiant stands,
but ultimately there was little the isolated
and exhausted warriors could do. By the time
Dainhold was fully engulfed by the changed
and suddenly deadly light ofVeridia there