Charnel Angels
What can I tell you of Sanguinius? What words can truly convey what our gene-father meant to us? You youngsters will never know what it was like to march under the shadow of his wings; you have only ever seen his tomb and heard the name Sanguinius spoken of a myth to inspire. Few remain among us who can claim to have seen him fly, but fewer still can claim to have seen the Legion before his coming, and they like me are entombed in Dreadnoughts forevermore. Listen close then novitiates and learn that we were not always Blood Angels, once we were something far greater and more terrible.
From Terra we advanced, proud and mighty. The Great Crusade they called it, twenty Legions in lockstep, crushing all who dared stand before us. I was there; I saw it with my own eyes. It was glorious beyond imagining, when the Emperor led us in person and the Primarchs were but rumours on the wind. In time they were found, but those are tales for another day. Today we speak of the IXth Legion in its infancy.
From our beginning we were different, the outsiders, the shunned and ignored. Hard to believe isn't it? The noble IXth, scorned as outcasts among Astartes. Well, we weren't always so noble. The Revenants we were, the Eaters of the Dead, the Charnel Feast. Hated, reviled, shunned. Sent to the worst hellscapes and expected to die, but we came out stronger each time.
You shake your heads in denial but we were proud of who we were! The Night Lords feared us, so we told ourselves, the War Hounds would not dare face us, we laughed. Idle boasting, perhaps, but the Dusk Raiders certainly refused to stand in the field with us. The Praetorians, the Iron Tenth, the Warborn, they all scorned us. Only the Corpse Grinders would let us roam near their warzones, but they were always ruthless bastards. But you care nothing for old man's fantasies; you want to hear of our Primarch.
The tale is well known, he came to us on the battlefield, our mouths full of the enemies' guts and our blood-thirst keen. Our hearts were aflame and we looked upon this strange mutant who claimed to be our gene-father with suspicion. Legend tells how Sanguinius knelt in the dust and swore his loyalty to us, and so claimed ours in turn. A remarkable true telling, but far from the whole truth. Few among us bought this act and many doubted his troth, I among them. Who was this stranger to claim lordship over us? What did he know of our sorrows and strife? We doubted him, I doubted him, and together we determined to prove his ill-intent. What a fool I was.
It was not long later when the truth dawned. The storming of the Gerushold, when the IXth soared higher than ever in our new golden finery. Our wings cast shadows over their walls, our swords reaped a fearful tally and our fangs grew wet. I saw Sanguinius, from a distance, brave and bold beyond my wildest dreams. Death was in his hands, fury in his hearts and his spear reaped lives with abandon. None fiercer, none so bloodthirsty. I saw a darkness in him that surpassed our own, but still I did not trust him.
Afterwards we counted our dead and the tally was high. My company had suffered the worst, storming the great gates. Nine-tenths of our numbers laid out in the dust, including bold Captain Kustian. I too lost my oldest friend that day, my squad Brother Hurut. A lifetime of war, from Terra to the stars. Battles beyond imagining, foes piled high in our wake. Never have I known such a quick blade, and his voice, ah, his voice could carry through the din of battle like a clarion call at dawn. Yet all the fine heraldry in the galaxy couldn't mask his wounds. To see him broken nearly unmanned me.
Sanguinius walked the field at twilight, and I found myself hating his perfect splendour and shining visage. Sorrow consumed me and I turned my face away, so I wouldn't have to look at him. His presence brought me back. He walked past the waiting Captains, past the Standard Bearers and cup holders. Past the lords militant and admirals. He shrugged off the victory tokens they offered like they were passing trifles, laurels any man would crave to call his own, all so he could speak to me. Me, a mere line-Brother.
Sanguinius looked upon me and offered his apologies. Can you imagine it, a Primarch apologising to a mere initiate? He should have been faster, he confessed, he should have breached the fortress sooner. My Company's losses were due to his sloth, he lamented, and he begged for my forgiveness. Callow fool that I was I took this for falsehood, a drama played out for the lords looking on, but then Sanguinius turned his gaze to the dead and with tears in his eyes asked me if Hurut had ever finished his aria.
Hurut had been my Brother-in-arms for a lifetime, we'd bled and sweated and slaughtered across a hundred worlds. I knew him as well as my own stench, but I never knew he tried to compose music. Nobody knew, not a man in the Company, but Sanguinius knew. He knew each and every one of us, not just as names in ledgers, but as men. You cannot grasp the scope of this; you have only known a thousand Brothers. We numbered tens of thousands in those days, a Legion in truth, but Sanguinius knew all his sons, better than we knew ourselves.
In the sight of mighty lords and lowly Blood-thralls our Primarch knelt before the rows of dead and wept salt tears. No other lord of the Imperium would shrug off his dignity so readily, no other would allow his troops to see him cry. In that moment I knew shame as never before. I had doubted Sanguinius' intent; spread lies about his integrity and publicly cast aspersions on his motives. How mean and bitter a wretch was I, to besmirch so pure a soul?
When I saw crystal tears falling from his cheeks the stubborn pride within me broke and I saw clear at last. Sanguininus was our sire, and he loved us as a father should love his sons. The loss of even one hurt him deeper than any knife ever could. In that moment I swore myself to his cause, truly and without reserve. In that moment I was a Revenant no longer, but a scion of his line, a Blood Angel. That, young ones, is what Sanguinius was to us. More than a commander, more than the spiritual inspiration to rise above our flaws that you have been shown. He was our father, and we were his sons, of the same blood and together we were glorious.
But time makes fools of all men. Sanguinius was lost, the Legion was broken, and our lineage scattered across the stars. Now we stand divided, mere echoes of glory. But for a moment, we were great. You do not understand what we lost, you never will. The death of Sanguinius took something from us that will never be recovered, and left us raging in the dark as memory that it was ever different fades away.
Stop hounding me with your words, I am tired. Go away now and leave this old Dreadnought to mourn his father.