Mark of Calth: 25 (The Horus Heresy)

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Erebus had managed to complete his blasphemous ritual on Calth's surface, which summoned a Ruinstorm to the galaxy's Eastern Fringe -- a monstrous Warp Storm larger and more destructive than anything space-faring humanity had witnessed since the days of the Age of Strife. It would split the void asunder, dividing the galaxy in two and rendering vast tracts of the Imperium impassable for centuries.

A collection of stories by authors including Dan Abnett, Aaron Demsbki-Bowden and Rob Sanders. The battle for Calth is far from over...My brother, hear me. Warriors of the XVII th Legion, hear me. This violence is against the code of the Legiones Astartes and against the will of our father, the Emperor. In the name of the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, I implore you to cease fire and stand down. Open communication with me. Let us speak. Let us settle this. This action is an error of the most tragic kind. Cease fire. I, Roboute Guilliman, give you my solemn pledge that we will deal with each other frankly and fairly if these hostilities can be suspended. I urge you to respond." You have no option! Come with Horus or all you have actually sought will definitely have actually stopped working. During the Heresy two human Chaos-devotees fight to the death under Xen's supervision. The winner, Criol Fowst, is gifted the athame as a prize. Fowst has it with him on Calth when he is punched in the head by a loader-servitor and killed, and the athame is taken by Oll Persson, a Perpetual, who uses it to enter the Warp on his own secret mission.

Authors: Dan Abnett, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, John French, Graham McNeill, David Annandale, Rob Sanders and Anthony Reynolds As befits the man who masterminded the defence of a whole world, Ventanus has the Resolute Planning Trait if he’s your Warlord, allowing Ultramarines units to hunker down on an objective and really keep their grip on it.Later analyses of the Battle would criticize that there were plenty of signs warning of the Word Bearers' intentions, but the Ultramarines, for all their martial prowess, failed to notice them. The Ultramarines were simply unprepared for the novelty of fighting against a brother Legion, especially one that based its strategy on manipulating the forces of the Empyrean. Lorgar took full advantage of this blindness. [2c] He’s also such a Cunning Strategist that he can reroll his own Reserves rolls – and hamper his enemies’ rolls at the same time.

The Kaul Mandari, "The Gene-kin" - Very little is known other than that this unusual cultic sect was bound by some aberrant combination of technology and genetics to the service of the Warp in such a way that they believed utterly they would be re-born immediately after their deaths into a new and glorious form. Accounts submitted by Ultramarines units following the Battle of Calth and the subsequent Underworld War describe incidents of spontaneous mutation as well as the bodily re-vivification of the dead. These baleful creatures were impervious to pain and trauma. Killing the returned Mandari took bravery, discipline and concentrated fire. The Emperor has actually existed to us, Fulgrim, asserted Horus, along with Fulgrim really felt a knot of pain rage uncoil in his gastrointestinal system at such an expression. He suggests to desert us to the wild of the galaxy while he climbs to godhood. There were many portents of the tragedy soon to unfold upon Calth. Given the extraordinary thoroughness with which the XIII th Legion maintained its readiness, it might have been considered tragic, or incompetent, that so few were heeded. The first signs of the Word Bearers betrayal was the minor interruption in Vox traffic around Calth that was attributed to solar distortion -- the void was known to forever creak and whisper around the audible and electromagnetic ranges. Soon there were various reports of a voice chanting over Calthian Vox-links in Calth space. This eerie chanting soon interfered with the main orbital data-feed between the orbital installations and the surface of Calth for several seconds. An hour later, there were two more bursts of such interference, the source of which remained undetermined. Calth Communications Control reported an hour later that there were "a series of malfunction events" and warned that further communication disruptions might be expected during the day until the problem was identified. An hour after that, on the night side of Calth, the first of the bad dreams began.Fortunately, the Furious Abyss was intercepted in the void before it reached Macragge by an ad hoc force led by the Ultramarines Captain Lysimachus Cestus and was destroyed, though at the cost of every one of the Ultramarines' lives.

Secondly, the "Mark" of Calth refers to the solar radiation burns suffered by many of the combatants, principally the human (specifically non-transhuman) troops, when the Word Bearers caused Calth's sun to go supernova, bathing the planet in deadly radiation. The survivors on the surface were forced to retreat into Calth's massive cave systems where they took refuge within the massive arcology-cities. Here the battle would continue, against the remnants of the Word Bearers who had also taken refuge within the cave systems, in a decade long campaign known as the Underworld War. The last of these veterans to die, many years later, still refused graft repair and wore the mark proudly. The arcology systems offered sufficient protection for the remaining inhabitants of Calth and their defenders to survive the wave of solar death that was about to engulf their world. This message successfully reached many millions of people who successfully took shelter within Calth's underground warrens, which had originally been built to free up more land for agricultural cultivation. The Ruinstorm would also isolate and trap those Loyalist forces caught behind it like the Ultramarines, preventing them from coordinating their efforts and supporting one another as the Traitor Legions moved towards Terra. It would even prevent them from warning each other, for a time, of the Warmaster's betrayal and the civil war that had begun to consume the Imperium. The Ruinstorm would leave Terra alone in the void, infinitely vulnerable to the approaching shadow of Horus. Erebus, Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers Legion, takes the anathame that mortally wounded Horus Lupercal and initiated his conversion to Chaos, and hammers it in a forge, splintering eight shards from it, which are then "grown" in a vat of blood into daggers, similar in appearance to the athames carried by the Word Bearers and their cult auxiliaries, but these are imbued with staggering power. Lorgar of Colchis. You may consider the following. One: I entirely withdraw my previous offer of solemn ceasefire. It is cancelled, and will not be made again, to you or to any other of your motherless bastards. Two: you are no longer any brother of mine. I will find you, I will kill you, and I will hurl your toxic corpse into hell's mouth."Gathering at Saturn those of his Legion who had been embarked on crusades in distant parts of the galaxy, Roboute Guilliman would depart the Sol System mere months before news of Horus' rebellion reached the Emperor's ears. The turbulent state of the Empyrean in those years would see the Ultramarines' main strength journey to Calth by a winding and obtuse trail which would also cloak them from all attempts by Terra to recall them or forewarn them of Horus' actions. The Word Bearers, delayed by the slaughter at Istvaan, would not arrive at Calth until the majority of the XIII th Legion had already gathered, travelling a path of blood and ashes of their creation. As the magos concentrated on gaining access to Calth's planetary defence system, the Loyalists' fate took a turn for the worst. The forces of the XVII th Legion's Commander Hol Beloth descended upon the guildhall with a vengeance. He had come to punish the hated Ultramarines with a force of Traitor Titans, the Word Bearers' Terminator-armoured Cataphractii and the dreaded daemon-possessed Astartes of the Gal Vorbak. As the battle spilled ever deeper into the guts of the defence platforms, the passageways and chambers were transformed into charnel houses. In places, the defenders' resolve was sorely tested when confronted with the unfamiliar combat doctrines certain Word Bearers Legionaries employed. Some chanted mournful plainsong as they advanced, an atonal dirge filling the hearts of all who heard it with dread. Others halted after every kill, pausing to enact grisly mutilation upon the recently fallen. In still more cases, the Word Bearers refrained from slaying cornered or overrun foe, instead handing them off to following mortal units to clap in irons and drag off as prisoners. The fate of these unfortunates can only be guessed at, for the last that was seen of most does not bear recounting.