Day 1 - Carto

My name is Carto Valtrion Koln Courage Decis Chmorandram Rhadamanthe.

My auramite brothers call me by my last name, that of the place where I was born of flesh; my rampart brothers call me by the first, the one given to me by my progenitors. My other names have been bestowed upon me, as tradition dictates, in the course of my service to the Emperor, the first and last Master of Mankind. Each one is a source of pride, a testament to my unwavering loyalty to my King. I hope to add a three hundred and eighteenth element to my name this month. 

Not for vanity's sake, no, but for the significance it would have.

Day 32

They shout names that are not names, those of the entities to which they have offered their souls. Cuneiform characters are traced on their armor, in the blood of those killed in the last seven years. No one dares look at them for too long. Some of the helmets resemble grimacing faces, unless it's the other way around. The paragons they once were have become nightmarish parodies of the imperial dream. They're horned, deformed, twisted, ravaged.

But most of all, they're on the rampart.

‘Into the nests!’ shouts Archid.

His battle-brothers obey without hesitation, and leap into the recesses; the gesture is instinctive, so much have they rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. The perfection of the movement is reflected in their positioning. A quick but fluid half-turn, and the arm is already up; the acquisition systems in their helmets require three picoseconds of calculation before the reticles turn red.

The rain of bolts begins again.

‘Hold the line!’

Archid roars for form's sake, and out of automatism. His elite warriors are already in position, shields raised; axes, swords, maces and gladii come down with surgical coolness, staining the Himalazyan heights with the blood of the impure.

His two-handed hammer arcs down, smashing an iron helmet, and Archid can't help but feel a sense of pleasure. It pains him to be so far from his father; it pains him that the traitors have finally reached the rampart.

But he savors his first kill, and the release of his righteous vengeance. Like the rest of the legion, he has waited for years, participating physically and intellectually in the building of the fortress. A task almost shameful in its symbolism, but one in which the VIIth excels. The honor of this responsibility and the reason for its existence made them work without rest, with the empty hope that none of this would be necessary. 

On the rampart, blood-spattered to the elbow, captain Aryl Archid and the seven Cataphractii surrounding him fight relentlessly, without letting a single boot of the parvenus land on the ferrocrete emplacements. Behind them, forty battle brothers and three hundred humans are entrenched in the blockhouses, casemates and armored recesses provided for this purpose. Bolts and lasers fall steadily on Iron Warriors and World Eaters, bellowing heretics and gurgling skitarii.

The melee is violent, but Archid doesn't let it distract him. Concentration and prioritization are paramount for an officer like him.

A clawed arm, in the colors of Perturabo's bastard sons, tries to grab him. Archid dodges backwards before bringing the head of his hammer down on that of the renegade. At the same time, his retinal display flashes numerous runes, which he analyzes in as much time as it takes him to pulverize two skitarii. These are not requests, but information, transmitted by his officers, to give him a general assessment of the battle.

The situation is stable. It must remain so, in the name of his lord Dorn.

Day 44

Despite herself, kentarch Jolito can't help but keep her eyes fixed on the sky behind her. The high peaks of the Urals, the last remnants of Terra's largest natural mountain range, no longer conceal everything; she sees thick black smoke filling the cloudless sky, masking even the hundreds of landing craft that...

‘Kentarch!’ calls a voice with an artificial timbre.

Jolito turns and stands at attention automatically. The Imperial Fist captain turns his helmeted head skyward, behind her, and emits an amused growl.

‘You and I, kentarch, are guilty of a sin unworthy of us.

-My lord?

-Turning your back on the imminent threat to look at the landscape. What a disappointment.’

Jolito allows herself a chuckle, and adopts a slightly more relaxed posture. She's learned to appreciate Archid's rare moments of humor, especially in situations like these.

Encased in the segmented plates that form her regiment's ochre armor, kentarch Alyen Jolito feels the need to sit down, but refrains. The carmine cape falling from her white shoulder pads, the full-face helmet displaying too many scratches and the radiant lasrifle resting in her hands weigh so heavily. She'd just like to sit down for a few moments, to rest her muscles after this violent engagement; the fourteenth in a month and a half.

All around her, Imperial Fists and Imperial Army soldiers recalibrate the rampart guns, or hastily fill in the gaps made by traitors. Of the three hundred human soldiers who swore an oath to defend this place, an oath taken before the Praetorian himself, only half remain. The losses of the VIIth legion are less severe, but almost more cruel.

‘Have you seen Carto? asks Archid in his deep voice.

-I think he's on the next level up.’ 

Archid shakes his head in annoyance.

‘I applaud his efforts, but by Inwit, how stubborn he is! Even if communications did work, I doubt Lord Dorn would have time for him. Especially with all this, whatever it is.’

Jolito doesn't answer, but she's also worried about the nature of "it". That morning, before the attack, Daresd estimated that the smoke came from the spaceport, or even Lion’s Gate. The major was never able to explain his method of calculating distance, as a chainsaw sword split him in two vertical parts. If she looks down a little, Jolito knows she'll still find sticky bits of her second-in-command on her armor.

‘You've done a good job, Archid growls, as if reading her mind. Perturabo's dogs can keep coming, we'll hold’.

With that, the captain turns on his heel, his hammer casually resting on his shoulder.

Jolito gives a perfunctory nod, contemplating the distant landscape before her. 

The Ladakh plain is the embodiment of a nightmare. Three carriers, each the size of a small city, rest on their bloated bellies and continue to vomit things bristling with spikes and mechanical tentacles. These barges of the Dark Mechanicum don't just transport traitors; they produce them in their guts, combining forbidden knowledge from the far Dark Age of Technology with the incomprehensible powers of the Warp. Around these metal behemoths, the specialized units of the IVth Legion work on their armor, siege cannons and mechanical monstrosities. The mad dogs of the XIIth roam the ravaged landscape, howling names that Jolito is happy not to hear.

The Praetorian's trap is simple, but terribly effective. The network of tunnels and bunkers that lie beneath Ladakh, and connect to the citadel of Kargil, have been mined and populated with automated servitors.

This underground network has been inherited from the dark periods of the previous millennia, when this region of Terra was under the thumb of some forgotten warlord. Jolito has forgotten the historical appendices to the many strategic briefings, too tired to make the mental effort. But she remembers perfectly the massacre orchestrated by Dorn's genius, when the trap, brief as it was, inflicted heavy losses on the arriving enemy in a matter of minutes. Jolito and her soldiers couldn't help but shout with joy as they watched the traitor forces being steamrolled as soon as they landed by the servitors hidden in the galleries.

The jubilation was short-lived.

Day 51 - Carto

It's now an Iron Warrior who collapses, his head lifted from his neck. He is immediately replaced by something I can't quite identify. Still, my blade comes down, eliminating the threat.

The soldiers of the Dark Mechanicum climb the rampart, having scaled the mile and a half that separates the bastion from the rocky ground. Their claws and talons dig into sandstone, basalt and even adamantium, before reaching for our throats. Prohibited weapons spit out destructive projectiles, damaging Dorn's work and killing his sons.

I leap forward with my guardian-lance. A deformed skitarius explodes as my weapon pierces his chest generator, sending the renegade Astartes beside him reeling. I've barely hit the ground when I swivel around, my spear outstretched; the single-molecule blade cuts the transhuman warrior at the knees, and a volley of bolts finishes him off. 

More than with any other enemy, I need to be quick with a World Eater. That's what my experience in the Webway has…

‘Carto !’

My earpiece crackles. I answer. 

Archid requests my support on the upper bastion, mentioning airborne troops. By virtue of my rank, I'm theoretically responsible for the defense of this fortress, as well as its logistical management. But the battle doctrines of the VIIth dictate that the best-placed element should be the decision-maker, and I'm committed to this. There's an unstoppable logic in this way of waging war, let alone when in defense. 

The Tashmetu fortress consists of three main semicircles, in addition to the redoubts built when we inevitably have to retreat. The first rampart is one thousand three hundred and two meters long, and four meters high, including the shooting nests. I jump onto a staircase and climb it quickly, while my subconscious deconstructs the information transmitted by my eyes. My ears listen incessantly to the Imperial Fists' transmissions, and my brain analyzes, deduces and forms the plans that flow from this information.

The three skitarii blocking my path die instantly, struck by a single blow from my guardian-spear. I emerge onto a vast terrace, where three Astartes in yellow are fighting for their lives. I spot seven World Eaters, whose dorsal reactors don't seem to weigh them down. These berserks did not escape the anti-air barrage unscathed; the ceramite of their armor is open at certain points, and whole segments are missing. One of them even has a hole piercing his left thigh, letting in dirty light. But nothing seems to stop them, or even slow them down. 

I launch myself with grace, and the nearest enemy falls in three pieces. I avoid the clumsy blow of the one who tries to charge me, and my gauntlet hits the side of his helmet; it's enough to throw him off balance, allowing an Imperial Fist to finish the job.

I strike, I parry, I slash. Every battle we win here delays the one we'll inevitably lose.

Day 64

The first rampart has fallen.

She forces the oath of her regiment through her lips, to occupy her mouth usefully. She knows that without it, the sobbing will begin again.

Tashmetu was built purely functionally, without the ceremonial flourishes that characterize the rest of the Palace. For many weeks, Rogal Dorn and the esteemed captain Camba Diaz debated the materials needed, their quantities and the placement of defenses to make the gate a dead end. Everything here is gray, from anthracite ferrocrete to bare adamantium.

And yet, Jolito feels the destruction of the fortress in her very being. The work of the VIIth is crumbling under the onslaught of traitors. The first rampart is a mass grave, where more than half her regiment lies. Proud and ancient, the Thalia Triumphant is now down to six incomplete squads; the Astartes themselves have suffered heavy losses, and the two sides of Tashmetu have been abandoned to the enemy, their entrances hastily sealed with explosives. 

Her finger squeezes the trigger, but the weapon spits out no laser. Jolito steps back awkwardly, and remembers that she had exhausted all her cells seconds earlier. This doesn't stop the skitarius in front of her from violently lowering his flail.

‘For the Emperor!’

Archid accompanies his cry with a hook, and the yellow ceramite pulverizes the cyborg's skull.

‘Back off, kentarch! Regroup!'

He doesn't have time to check if the human is obeying his order. He doesn't have time to retrieve his hammer, lost somewhere in the melee. He doesn’t have time to assess the situation as a whole, and to honor his command duties.

Archid steps back, drawing his bolt pistol, and lets Vacarad take his place. The Cataphractii seems immovable, ready to defend the immense staircase linking the first rampart to the second against all odds.

‘Carto, calls Archid in his vox. Carto?

-I read you, captain.

-The access must be sealed! Now!’

A click on the frequency confirms that the order has been received.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Archid takes a step back, now drawing the plasma pistol clipped to his belt. The weapon buzzes as it wakes up, its complex reactor eager for destruction.

Vacarad is supported by Sigaz and Clasiam, the latter far outshining his brothers. The Saturnine armor is a relic, outdated in every way; but at this very moment, the wide shoulder pads that characterize it prove to be an oh-so-valuable advantage. Clasiam occupies most of the space, forming a living rampart with Vacarad and Sigaz. 

‘Carto!

-Seven seconds, captain'.

The Custodes' voice conveys no emotion, and even Archid is moved by that fact. His own transhuman muscles burn, and his psycho-endoctrinated mind suffers the loss of the first bulwark. Yet nothing seems to erode Carto Rhadamanthe's almost robotic determination.

Surprisingly, it's a thought that brings Archid some comfort.

Suddenly, a shrill noise is heard, and a reddish light quickly rises from the three corridors linking the ramparts. The fusion nozzles continue to whine, generating star-like heat in strategic points of the structure.

With lightning speed, the three access bunkers collapse into liquid magma, with partially melted pieces of masonry tumbling down the three corridors. Skitarii made of iron, renegade Astartes and mere flesh humans are sucked in and swept away by the incandescent flow, which floods the first rampart with inescapable violence.

‘Fortification!’ orders Archid.

His brothers in power armor carry out the injunction, repeated a thousand times, moving debris and useless material with precision. Broken ferrocrete blocks, ammunition crates, twisted rampart cannons and the corpses of enemies are tossed indiscriminately into the artificial lava, which is already cooling and hissing. Once the shapeless mass has stabilized, it will provide a cover as solid as it is uneven, from which loyalists can repel subsequent assaults.

If terrain advantage changes sides, Imperial Fists change the terrain.

Captain Archid would like to join his brothers in the urgent task of fortifying this position, as he did so many times during the Great Crusade. But he and his brothers in Terminator armor watch the esplanade for any enemies who may have braved the molten rock.

‘It's a victory’, comments an approaching voice.

Carto of the Tharanatoi wears a delicately adorned suit of armor, but there's nothing warlike about the Custodes' gait. It's that of a destroyer, usually encased in Allarus armor to advance unstoppably towards the enemy, deploying a deluge of obliterating fire. Protected by his lighter energy armor, Carto is nonetheless a living weapon.

Archid nods in greeting, without taking his eyes off the proceedings. He notices the kentarch Jolito, slumped against a parapet. She has a gourd in her hand, but doesn't seem to have the strength to lift it to her mouth. Her broken helmet rests against her legs.

‘A victory, repeats Archid. In a way, I suppose.

-The enemy has been pushed back, observes Carto. The loss of the first rampart has always been a certainty. And we're still within the time parameters as calculated by Lord Dorn. 

-Holding out for two months is indeed a victory, but a worrying one. We haven't spotted any super-heavy weaponry, and Stor-Bezashk's absence isn't reassuring. Who knows what the Praetorian faces in defending the rest of the Palace?’ 

Neither can answer this question, and neither admits that this simple fact disturbs them. Since their deployment to Tashmetu, no one has managed to reach the Grand Borealis or any other command authority.

Defending the Palace's rear has never been an imperative. The Himalazyan mountains, which have not been razed to the ground in the last two centuries, form a natural rampart that the enemy would not have been able to breach in several months of siege. But the Ladakh plain is too tempting a target for Perturabo's dogs, and although old and poorly maintained, the road leading to it from the Palace is vulnerable. The Praetorian and Malcador didn't want to take any chances, and decided to reinforce Tashmetu accordingly to make it an anvil on which traitors would break.

It was a wise decision, thinks Archid. The enemy attacked an impregnable position en masse, and suffered heavy losses. These are all dead men who will not storm the positions established by Dorn and Singh.

Despite this, the captain feels the insidious veil of uncertainty hanging over him. What about the main attack? Are the spaceports still holding? Is his father still alive? Where are the stalwart Camba Diaz and the intrepid Sigismund fighting?

Day 75

‘What are they doing?’ asks sergeant Daeine. 

Too tired to answer, Jolito considers raising her head, then abandons the idea. The dozen or so remaining soldiers are all around her, except for Daeine, who stands guard a few meters away. It's pointless, of course, as the impassive Imperial Fists are already strategically spread out on the rampart and tirelessly watching over the plain. But the kentarch insists on maintaining a semblance of discipline in this chaos, and the routine of keeping watch can only be good for the spirit.

Jolito notices one of the Astartes stirring, and captain Archid steps forward to converse with him. 

“Stay here”, commands Jolito, rising to her feet.

Her soldiers murmur their assent, too exhausted to ask questions. Jolito approaches Daeine and the ruins of the battlements, made as shapeless as they are thick by the fusion ducts. More than ten days have passed since their retreat to the second rampart, and the traitors have not renewed their assault. 

What Jolito sees below gives her the beginnings of an answer.

‘It's very strange,’ observes Daeine pragmatically.

Their crude forms outlined by the setting sun, the Iron Warriors' barges vibrate as their huge engines glow incandescently. The Dark Mechanicum ships and atmospheric belandres carrying the humans lie motionless on the plain.

Lazily, the ships of the IVth leave the cracked ground, and soar into the heavens. The hubbub reverberates in every crevice of the plain, rattling Jolito's bones.

‘Are they retreating? asks Daeine.

-They're retreating, confirms Archid. Perturabo's dogs, anyway. The other bastards seem to want to stay here.

-Why should they leave, and leave their auxiliary troops behind? Jolito protests. Have we... have we maybe...?’

She doesn't dare finish her sentence. Daeine glances at her, but doesn't comment. Archid just keeps his eyes on the barges, on the lookout for any traps.

‘No'.

Everyone turns to watch Carto advance. The impressive Cutsodes descends the stairs leading to the third and final rampart before coming to a halt, his guardian-spear in hand. His scarlet crest flutters in the twilight wind, adding a little movement to his broad silhouette. 

When he speaks, his deep voice is amplified by his armor's speakers:

‘I haven't been able to contact Bhab, he confesses. On the other hand, I was able to establish contact with an Excertus major named Krarov and defensive elements of the Meru bastion, led by sergeant Katjor'.

Archid frowns, and a thin smile appears behind his beard. Uris Katjor is a sergeant in his company, which had been split into two parts just before deployment to Tashmetu. As stoic as ever, the gathered Imperial Fists are nonetheless feeling a surge of joy.

‘We didn't win, proclaims Carto. Aurum, Marmax and Colossi will fall shortly, and both spaceports are in enemy hands. In all probability, the traitors will arrive at Eternity Gate within a week'.

In the deafening silence, only the suppressed sob of a soldier breaks the calm. Jolito bows her head, aware that Daeine is watching her, searching for answers. Archid stares at the Custodes, showing no emotion whatsoever.

‘All is not lost, however. Sergeant Katjor has informed me that a special operation is underway, somewhere on the Ultimate Wall. It may even be over, but communications are too poor to be certain. Major Krarov has nevertheless informed me that the Iron Warriors seem to be retreating en masse.

-And the Praetorian? asks Archid. What news of our father?

-None. There's every reason to believe he's still defending the Palace, though. Our mission remains unchanged’.

Jolito looks up, gazing at the high Himalazyan peaks. She knows they're packed with anti-aircraft batteries and combat servitors, linked by an almost primitive but effective noospheric system. On reinforced platforms, Fornax Iustorum, Flamma Umbrarum and Custos Harenae stand silent watch; the three Warlords, proud members of Legio Ignatum, are the last bulwark of this sphere of defense, and will ensure that if Tashmetu should fall, nothing will get through to the Indomitor bastion. This massive wall, hidden behind the region's last natural mountains, protects the Sanctum Imperialis and is virtually impregnable.

Filled with melancholy, Jolito and the soldiers of the Thalia Triumphant consider the Warlords, stuck as they are until someone comes to retrieve them.

After the victory.

Day 103

There's nothing human, or even transhuman, about the horde. They are, in every accepted definition of the word, daemons.

Archid has never faced one before, but the result lives up to his expectations. Whether physically present or not, ectoplasmic flesh collapses under his blows, and that's quite enough.

His brothers and the humans of the Thalia Triumphant fight stoically, treating this new enemy as they would previous ones. The Astartes have been able to consult the reports compiled by the Sigillite, as well as the brutal but succinct accounts of the war on the Webway. The neverborn are unusual adversaries, whose psychological impact should not be underestimated; the resilience of Imperial Army soldiers is all the more impressive. 

Sigaz disappears almost suddenly. A clawed hand grabs the veteran by the huge shoulder pad of his armor, and throws him over the rampart, like... like something. The vulgarity of such a gesture, of such a ridiculous death, enrages Archid.

The captain lunges forward, his hammer crushing the creatures before him. 

Two huge legs now cling to the rampart, covered in scarlet leather. A disproportionate, horned head can be discerned in the supernatural fog, where two porcine eyes gleam with yellowish malice; the monstrosity's fangs are of various sizes, but all bear names. Despite the distance, Archid can read with terrifying accuracy the one hundred and seventeen thousand, eight hundred and thirty-three names belonging to every member of the VIIth present on Terra. With alarming slowness, Caejec Sigaz's name fades from a disproportionate canine.

‘He has not fully materialized! thunders a voice. Destroy him!’

As he shouts his command, Carto leaps between the daemons, his guardian-spear striking with the lightning speed that adorns his knee pad. He has faced and defeated renegade space marines, various daemons and Terran warlords; he has mastered the Ka'tahs of the Tharanatoi to perfection and has always been able to adapt to what the galaxy has to offer. 

But he recognizes what is being born before him. A divine avatar of the Eight of Brass, formed by the sound of viscera drying up on a dusty plain, and of bones breaking under the blows of a primitive club. The daemon is almost as old as time itself, although its hold on reality is not total. Yet.

Jolito cries, frightened by this nightmarish vision and powerless against the twisting laws of physics. But she is the last Thalian kentarch in this accursed galaxy, and training and duty are engraved in her. She raises the weapon she picked up several days ago, and opens fire; the bolter's recoil is almost too violent for her, but she has no tears left for the pain to spill. So she endures, keeping the pressure on the trigger, unable to take her eyes off the enemy. Her suffering is channeled into the volleys she fires, the gun's barrel exorcising her fears.

+Blood for... a throne... to build.+

At her side, the seven other survivors of her battalion keep up a steady fire on the creature, to which are added the bolts fired by the Custodes. The deluge would have overwhelmed any other adversary, but the thing continues to climb the rampart, while other etheric deformities block the way to Carto and the Astartes.

+From the weak... flows... blood.+

In a cloud of impenetrable blackness, the daemon rushes towards the human soldiers, an oversized axe held in his clawed fingers.

The supernatural movement takes them all by surprise, and one of the soldiers chokes with fear, dead before he knows it. Daeine is reduced to a bloody pulp by the daemon's fist, while a brutal backhand dismembers three other thalians. Hemoglobin covers the entire floor.

Jolito drops the bolter, and reaches for her belt to...

The axe comes down, and splits the kentarch Jolito in a violent spray of hemoglobin. 

Of the three hundred humans who heroically held Tashmetu together for over three months, there's no one left. The horde threatens to overrun us, but the unholy winds of the Warp aren't blowing hard enough; before long, the Imperial Fists will have managed to repel the attack, if we can hold out.

The humongous daemon strides towards me, and I run to meet him. I don't have time to reload my weapon, as every passing second threatens to strengthen my opponent in the duel ahead. My heavy armor would have come in handy. So would more of my brothers, and artillery support. 

There's no point in lamenting what isn't.

My run turns into a roll, the enemy's oversized axe grazing my scarlet crest. I only half stand up and thrust my guardian-spear into the hypertrophied thigh facing me, before rotating my wrist. I'm already on the move when the daemon's weapon shatters the ferrocrete, and with a powerful backhand, I slice through the non-existent tendons of one of his legs. 

+The Anathema will be... crushed under golden brass.+

I'm about to step back when his fist slams into me, sending me tumbling backwards several meters. The auramite protecting me is intact, but my breath is short. I can see the daemon charging at me when...

With a war cry worthy of Russ himself, the Imperial Fist captain strikes with the force of his muscles and servomotors. The thunder hammer shatters the kneecap it strikes, tearing off the entire leg. 

+The rusted desert... will eat you up.+

Archid reverses his grip on the shaft and pivots, giving even more momentum to his second blow. The weapon sinks deep into the prostate monster's ribcage, conjuring up filaments of carmine energy. 

+Your father... broken. On his knees in... the blood of his sons.+

The mental attacks emanating from the daemon glide over Archid, who stands before the daemon of Khorne. His teeth, adorned with too many names, seem blunted, and the glow that animates his malevolent pupils seems duller.

‘Die, in the name of the Emperor'.

Archid's hammer comes down on the deformed skull.

Day [error]

There are only nine of us left. The second rampart comes into my view, along with the corpses in yellow armor bathed in perpetually liquid blood. 

The daemons' incursions are sporadic, but insistent. We fend them off automatically, defending the third and final rampart. There's no need to talk, as no strategic coordination is required. Valiant but tired, captain Archid occasionally encourages his brothers, reminding them of the resilience bequeathed to them by their genetic sire.

I remain silent, scanning the vox conversations. We sometimes pick up echoes from the Palace, intercepting imperial frequencies without always determining their precise origin. We manage to piece together a fragmented vision of the siege, although clear contact with Bhab would be welcome. We heard the cries of those who died defending the Europa and Mercury walls, signaling the opening of the Palatine sector. The bastions of Razavi and Cydonae have fallen, but as far as we know, Golgotha still holds out. Situation at Hasgard is unclear.

Yet none of this information explains the colorful sky, or the ghostly claws that sometimes seem to caress Luna. Nothing justifies the ground that constantly changes state, or the raucous laughter that sometimes erupts from the mountains.

Something is happening on Terra, and we don't know what.

Day [error]

Of the forty space marines who stood beside me, Aryl Archid was the last to die. 

I saw him on his knees, surrounded by a horde of graceful, purplish-skinned creatures. I tried to join him, but we've been fighting in isolation for too many hours. I could only watch helplessly as bone claws and chitin blades penetrated his armor to dismember him.

I'm the only one holding Tashmetu, and the death of my companions... saddens me. The galaxy is in flames because of the bastards of the Astartes project, but the sons of Dorn have proved themselves unyielding fighters, worthy of defending my king's dream. I praise the spirit of the VIIth, and the memory of captain Archid. 

The same goes for the Thalia Triumphant. In the hell raining down on the Imperial Palace, the unparalleled scale of this conflict brought out only the best in the humans who were here. No courage was more impressive than that of kentarch Jolito and her men.

Death surrounds me, gradually closing in on me to accompany me to the end. It isolates me, but I'm impervious to it all. My body and mind have been shaped by the Master of Mankind, and I belong to the ideal of the Imperium. On top of the world, far from my auramite brothers and the Emperor's wisdom, I will prove myself worthy of the aquila that adorns my breastplate.

I strike and parry, cleave and dodge. It's been too long since I've used all my bolts, so it's by the sheer force of my limbs, and the sharpness of my blade, that I clobber the waves of daemons hurling themselves against me. I see shapeless creatures crawling against the mountain, while others materialize in the air and take flight. The persistent staccato of the Legio Ignatum machines punctuates time; they too will eventually fall, victims of the daemons I can't stop. 

The incessant cackling of the neverborn echoes in my mind, while whispers reverberate in my crested helmet. I hear the voices of my natural progenitors, and those of my battle brothers; the voice of Horus, and that of the Sigillite. I hear and ignore empty promises, useless threats.

I continue to fight, as long as my King demands it.

For my name is Carto Valtrion Koln Courage Decis Chmorandram Tashmetu Rhadamanthe.