Maleum Datum : 594.M34
With the death of Inquisitor Heno'defor and Supreme Grand Master Armaros, both the Inquisition and the Dark Angels believed the other responsible for the murder of one of their own. The Penitent's Blade had been able to transmit one last scrambled astropathic message before being destroyed, warning the Imperium of the Dark Angels' actions, and Horus' influence (and the Dark Gods too, who watched it all unfold with amused smiles) made sure that message reached as many ears as possible, remaining perfectly clear. The First Legion had opened fire on an Inquisitorial vessel, had killed everyone aboard, including an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus.
Rumors spread about what had happened at Pandora, that the Inquisitor had come to the Rock to demand answers about a renegade son of the Lion, who had spoken of betrayal across the entire Legion before perishing. Rumors dating back to the Proclamation swelled, speaking of the Fallen who had fought alongside Horus' armies in his Black Crusade. And around that core of truth, Horusian agents promptly spun their webs of lies. The Dark Angels were traitors, they whispered. They had harboured Horusian sympathies since the Heresy, and when their loyal Primarch had fallen they had given in to those tendencies, serving as the Warmaster's warriors from the inside of the Imperium. And now that the Inquisition had found out, they were revealing their true colors, determined to bring the whole Imperium down.
Kill-teams of Vortigern's Fallen that had waited in hiding for years were activated. They emerged from stasis-crypts or secret strongholds, and launched raids against symbols of Imperial authority. Judges and Governors, Administratum adepts and nobles, all of them despised by the people around them : they were hunted down and slain in broad daylight by warriors bearing the iconography of the First Legion alongside the eye of Horus. On a hundred worlds, each resting at the center of a web of astropathic and trade channels, the Fallen slew Imperial tyrants in the Warmaster's name. Revolutions began as populations rose up in rebellion against the Imperium's oppression, championed by transhuman warriors in the colors of the Lion's sons.
As news spread of these attacks, the loyalist Dark Angel Chapters engaged in warzones across the Imperium found themselves under suspicion of treachery by their Imperial allies. Horusian agents, as well as paranoid Imperial commanders, ordered the arrest of the First Legion's warriors pending investigation. In a small handful of cases, the Dark Angels surrendered peacefully into the custody of the Imperial authorities, but in most cases, the paranoia that the hunt for the Fallen had embedded into the Dark Angels' leadership made them fight back.
Thus took place the Unforgiven War, as thousands of Dark Angels across the Imperium fought their erstwhile allies. Even other Space Marine Legions were drawn into the conflict on both sides, though the distrust of the First Legion for outsiders and the extant of Horus' campaign of disinformation meant that most attempted to bring the sons of the Lion to account.
On the Rock, the officers who had taken over in the wake of the Legion Master's death sent out astropathic messages ordering the return of all Dark Angels to the fortress-monastery, so that they could deal with this unprecedented crisis as a unified force.
Obeying these orders, which came with the higher seals of authority and priority, whole companies of Astartes who had yet to be affected by Horus' grand design suddenly withdrew from their battles against xenos and heretics, abandoning their allies and further damaging the Legion's reputation. Others were forced to fight through Imperial forces in order to evacuate back to their ships.
In one particular instance, only the intervention of the mysterious Fallen known only as Cypher prevented the warriors of the Twelfth Chapter of the First Legion from destroying an entire hive-city in order to extract, with Cypher instead leading the trapped Dark Angels through a secret passage in the underhive leading them outside where their gunships could pick them up. Cypher himself had disappeared by the time the Dark Angels emerged, but the slaughter of billions of Imperial citizens had been averted.
Some Dark Angels simply vanished, looking upon the Imperial blood on their hands and unable to reconcile what they had done with their oaths. They became renegades, their minds breaking under the strain and choosing to reject all of their previous loyalty, blaming their own betrayal on the Imperium's treatment of them. In the worst cases, entire companies turned their coats, becoming roaming warbands that fought for nothing more than survival and bitter revenge against the empire that had failed them. Still, the vast majority of Dark Angels sought to reach the Rock, hoping that there would answers waiting for them there.
Their journey was far from tranquil. Decades ago, Night Lords packs had slipped out of the Eye of Terror using rituals performed by their terrified worshippers, and assembled flotillas of pirates and renegades that were now unleashed upon the Dark Angels. In revenge for the humiliation of the Thramas Crusade, the sons of the Night Haunter hunted those of the Lion with cruel glee, taunting them with how quickly the Imperium had turned on them and further poisoning their minds with doubt. Among the First Legion, only the Inner Circle had known the truth of the Fallen, and though discipline held, no amount of preaching by the Chaplains could keep the battle-brothers from wondering just what had been kept from them, and for what purpose.
The Rock itself left on a course for deep space, hoping to hide from Imperial eyes until a course of action could be decided. The First Legion had established a number of fall-back positions across the galaxy, hidden bases empty of all life save a few maintenance servitors, where they could regroup in the case of disaster. Once the orders to regroup there had been sent using codes known only to the Dark Angels, the Rock ignited its Warp engines to begin its own journey.
But as the fortress-monastery entered the Warp, it was beset by furious storms, summoned into existence by the Prince of the Eye's pet Sorcerers. For months, the Dark Angels were forced to fight off daemonic incursions, battling Neverborn inside the corridors of their hallowed stronghold and firing anti-ship guns at inconceivably vast monstrosities pressing against the flickering Geller Fields.
When the Techmarines finally managed to force a return to realspace, it brought them to the ruins of the Caliban system, returned to the site of the Legion's great shame by the machinations of the Archenemy. Attempts to depart immediately from this ill-omened system failed, for the great engines of the Rock had been badly damaged, with the Techmarines estimating that the repairs would take months before the Rock could travel once more, and decades before the last of the damage was undone.
The lords of the Dark Angels quickly realized that their arrival in this particular system was a sign, but couldn't agree on its significance. Some saw it as a trap of the Dark Gods, but others thought it a sign of the Lion, who would soon return to judge them for their failures in the very place where the Legion's fate had once been decided.
In any case, it was all meaningless debate so long as they were trapped here. Even as ships of the Legion began to arrive, drawn by new messages from the few astropaths who had survived the journey, abandoning the Rock was unthinkable. Beyond the strategic considerations, the prisoners who dwelt within its extensive network of cells couldn't be moved without revealing yet more secrets of the Legion to its warriors.
The arriving Dark Angels demanded answers from their superiors, all of them having heard the heretical claims of the renegade Obidiah Hrakon and the accusations of rampant murder and rebellion thrown by Imperial authorities. Attempts by the Inner Circle to stamp down the revelations were met with dismal failure, as some of the warriors even dared to openly accuse their superiors of being renegades in disguise, manipulating the First Legion from the shadows for their own nefarious ends. Once again, millennia of secrecy worked against the Dark Angels, as the battle-brothers felt torn between their oaths to the Legion and those to the Imperium and the Emperor.
In the end, the Inner Circle decided to induct every Dark Angel into its ranks, revealing the truth of what had happened to Caliban to all the warriors of the First as soon as they arrived. But thousands of years of deceit could not be so easily erased, and blaming the Fallen for the attacks which had already happened sounded hollow to Chapters who had themselves been forced to spill Imperial blood to defend themselves and reach the Rock.
To make matters worse, new transmissions reached the vox-net of the Dark Angels, piercing right through the layers of encryption and security. From within the asteroid field that made up Caliban's ruin, Vortigern, lieutenant of Horus and leader of the Fallen in the Eye of Terror, spoke to his estranged brothers.
Vortigern claimed that the leaders of the Dark Angels were lying to the rest of the Legion. He pretended that he and those who had stood on Caliban had always been loyal to the Lion, that they had spent the Heresy defending and fortifying the homeworld. But when the Primarch had returned, his advisors, unwilling to give up their power over the First Legion to the Calibanites (who, after the catastrophic losses sustained in the Heresy, outnumbered them), had convinced him that they had betrayed him.
To give his accusations more credibility, Vortigern told the Dark Angels to ask their leaders just what, and who, was kept imprisoned deep within the Rock, implying that Lion El'Jonson himself might slumber there, trapped by the cabal that had betrayed him to ensure that he never woke and retook the reins of the Legion from them. Just like they had imprisoned all those who had stood against their plot on Caliban, subjecting them to unspeakable torments in order to break their minds, all in order to protect their lies and convince their own blind followers of their truth, like witch-hunters of old torturing innocent to extract 'confessions' in order to justify their own atrocities.
Strife spread across the Dark Angels, but did not yet degenerate into open battle. The Interrogator-Chaplains revealed the presence of the Fallen captives, held in cells until they repented of their sins – only for some of their loyalist brethren to decry the entire effort as foolish, a waste of resources and lives even if the proclaimed goal was true.
It was then, as confusion reigned and the sons of the Lion were on the verge of drawing their swords, that the Warp ripped asunder, and an Imperial fleet emerged. The Inquisition had not taken Heno'defor's death lightly, and had mustered a Crusade force to bring the Dark Angels to account. A force capable of destroying a Legion couldn't be assembled so quickly, but then the Dark Angels were far from having gathered their full strength either. Scores of ships of the Imperial Navy, led by the sinister vessels of the Holy Ordos and accompanied by all manners of Warp-capable crafts from the systems that had been hit by the Fallen. The Space Marines of the other Legions were present in force as well, with the Space Wolves, who had become the Inquisition's monster hunters after Russ' disappearance and held old grudges and older rivalries against the Dark Angels, being the first among them. Through arcane means, they had tracked the spoor of the First Legion to this place, the ruins of their fallen homeworld.
The Lord Inquisitors leading the armada ordered the Dark Angels to power down their weapons, shields and engines, and submit to questioning and punishment. The Dark Angels refused, blaming the Inquisition for the murder of their Supreme Grand Master and accusing them of wanting to purge the entire First Legion. Discussions swiftly turned to threats that would soon escalate into full-blown civil war if nothing changed. The cooler heads who attempted to defuse the situation were shouted down, and in more than a few cases executed on suspicion of treason on the spot. How many were killed by Horusian agents, and how many by loyal Imperial officers, would never be known for certain.
Among the Dark Angels, some were ready to open fire on their own, believing that to open fire on the Imperial fleet was to be forever damned. Meanwhile, Vortigern continued to speak, despite the best efforts of the First Legion commanders to shut him out of their system. The Blade of Ptesh had done its work well, and the 'gifts' it had left behind ensured the Fallen couldn't be silenced.
Battle seemed inevitable, with both sides driven to hysterical paranoia by the plots of Horus Lupercal. But before the first shots of the Unforgiven War's final battle could be fired and the doom of the First Legion written in Imperial blood, a new ship entered the Caliban system. This ship arrived alone and unheralded, but her size dwarfed all but the Rock itself. She was black as the void, and her name was written in silver letters upon her hull, each the size of a Warhound Titan, as it was broadcast for all to hear, along with her master's proclamation.
She was the Shadow of the Emperor, Gloriana-class flagship of the Nineteenth Legion, reclaimed from the ruins of the Isstvan Massacre in the wake of the Scouring and rebuilt over the course of centuries of work. And on her command deck stood Corvus Corax, Primarch of the Raven Guard, who had come to prevent those who claimed to serve his father from doing the Arch-Traitor's work in his place.
AN : Surprise ! Had you all forgotten about the Raven Guard ?
Confession time : so had I, apparently. The next chapter will explain just what the Nineteenth Legion have been up to since the Heresy, as well as finish the Dark Angels arc.
By my estimation, we have around 8-9 chapters left in this story. I believe the ending I have come up will surprise you.
I have also been working on the next bloc of chapters for A Blade Recast, so you can look forward to this as well.
Zahariel out.