Prologue

Ithar watched as the sun set over distant mountains, tears welling in his eyes as it conjured up memories. Memories of better times, of places long gone and friends long passed.

He hated himself for it. He was Asartes, stronger than this petty emotion called sorrow. Yet as much as Ithar tried he could not forget. As much as he tried to lose himself in his new existence as a mercenary he could not forget the glory of the past and mourn its loss.. His life as an Invader was over and he weeped for that.

The sun setting over the distant mountains reminded him too much of home, it's stark resemblance surely a work of the cursed powers that be who constantly tormented him. He had been too weak and his brothers had paid the price for his failure. So it was that Ithar had become a mercenary, the shame of returning to the Chapter simply too much for him to bear. And now there would be no such reunions, Ithar and his errant squad now classified as renegades and traitors, no longer allowed to call themselves Invaders.

That sat fine with Ithar who felt he was not fit to bear such a title. The Invaders were honourable servants if the Emperor while Ithar had no honour and had ultimately failed his Master to the point where he was beyond any measure of redemption.

Had Salem Ithar had any honour he would have taken the death-oath so that his last days were steeped in a small amount of glory. But he had even failed at that and the man who was left was one who despised himself for his lack of conviction.

He wished greatly that the Invaders would make some attempt to hunt him down, to destroy the stain he left upon the Chapter's history. But the Eldar attack on their homeworld had devastated the already battered Invaders to the point where their very survival was at stake. Yet another thing for Ithar to hate himself for, for when Ithar and his squad met their end their gene-seed would rot with the rest of them, rather than go towards creating more Invaders.
Even in death he would be a disappointment to his Chapter.

Sergeant Salem Ithar, ex-Invader wanted nothing more than oblivion. Whether he found it in life or in death he really didn't care.