I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
Inspired by the Dornian Heresy, by Aurelius Rex.
THE TOWER AND THE EMPEROR
Since the Unification Wars, the Tower of Hegemon has stood on Terra, rising high in the Throneworld's skies. Inside its halls, the Adeptus Custodes have worked tirelessly to preserve the Emperor and all His works, using technology lost to the rest of the galaxy to maintain their number and preserve what they can of the Emperor's lost dreams for Humanity. During that time, its sanctity was protected by the walls and wards of the Imperial Palace – but with the coming of Light's End, these wards were weakened, and the Sanguinor was able to bring the Chaos Lord Constantinus and his host of Possessed Marines before it.
We see the Custodes. Our father's greatest creations – greater even than us, they believe not without cause, for none of them ever succumbed to the whispers of Ruin. But is there anything left within them that might succumb ?
We see what our father did to them. We hear the screams of infants taken from the arms of their mothers. We feel the cutting of knives, we taste the blood and the altered vitae pumped into small bodies.
We were born as we are, brother, and our sons retain at least a part of who they were before our gene-seed was implanted within their flesh. But for the Custodes, nothing remains of who they were, because they were never anything else. A Space Marine is without fear – a Custodes is without doubt.
It is a sin, what the Emperor did to them. He knew it, even as He created the first of them. Valdor, noble and mighty Valdor … The Tower's foundations are drenched in sacrificed innocence. Now that the lord to whom its masters dedicated themselves is gone, what manner of trees will grow from such roots ?
As the Tear of Nightmares yawned open across Sol and the Astronomican flickered with Magnus struggling to control its awesome power, a Warp portal opened directly within the Imperial Palace. From that portal emerged thousands of Possessed Marines arriving from the doomed daemonworld of Constantinium, led by the Slaaneshi Chaos Lord Constantinus. By oath and pact, the Constant Ones were bound to casting down the Tower of Hegemon, greatest stronghold of the Adeptus Custodes.
The Tower of Hegemon
The Imperial Palace spreads across an entire continental landmass, and uncounted millions live within its high walls, cut off from the rest of the Throneworld behind defenses reinforced by Perturabo during the Heresy. Though all of it is called the Palace, there are many structures within it, along with entire cities, ringing the Sanctum Imperialis in concentric circles of importance. Among the structures closest to the Cavea Ferrum that guards all access to the Throne is the Tower of Hegemon, whose foundations were laid down even as the embers of Terra's Unity had yet to cool down.
The Tower is the heart of the Adeptus Custodes, the center of operation from where they manage their networks of spies and datafeeds, titanic cogitators listening in on the trillions of daily vox-exchanges across the system, looking for keywords and patterns. It is often said that nothing happens in Sol that the Custodes do not know about, and while that is undoubtedly hyperbole, there is still very little that escape the notice of the Emperor's Companions. The High Lords know this, and though the Custodes by and large remain out of Terran politics, they are careful to avoid doing anything that may draw their attention. Even Goge Vandire at the height of his power and madness was wary of incurring the Custodes' wrath. This eventually led to his downfall as the Captain-General of the times decided that the mad High Lord needed to be removed before his actions led to a new civil war being fought on Terra and threatening the Emperor. This lesson is remembered to this day by the Lords of Terra.
Aside from helping take down the occasional genocidal despot, the Custodes dedicate their phenomenal resources to the sole purpose of keeping the Emperor safe. Within the many spires of the Tower, they study ancient records of philosophies and knowledge long lost to the rest of the Imperium, shaping their own minds into the best instruments possible. They look at the balance of galactic powers and consult the Tarot of the Emperor, seeking where to nudge events to influence the course of wars that may in time grow to threaten the Throneworld. They plan Blood Games, where one of their own is dispatched at a random location on Terra with little to no equipment and tasked with infiltrating the Imperial Palace, playing the role of the enemy in order to spot any weaknesses in the defenses.
The knowledge within the Tower's records matches any in the Imperium, save perhaps the vaults of Titan or the Inquisitorial Fortress at the South Pole. The most complete records of the Age of Strife, the Great Crusade and the Roboutian Heresy can be found there, studied by Custodes looking for insight into His will.
While the Tower is the home of the Adeptus Custodes, most of it is manned by their mortal serfs, descendants of long bloodlines who have served their transhuman masters for millennia. In their isolation, these serfs have developed a strange culture of their own, wearing the bones of their ancestors to honor their life-long service and dedication. Each line serves the same function, passed down from one generation to the next along with the morbid remains of their forebear.
It is also within the Tower that dwell the artisans who craft the weapons and armor of the Custodes, each suit of auric warplate uniquely designed for its wearer. As new Custodes are forged in the Tower's most secret chambers, the gear they will use upon their ascension is also forged, and it would be a close thing if one were to compare the mind-boggling cost in resources and lore of the gear and its fated wearer.
While the Custodes always numbered ten thousand, far fewer than that were located within the Tower of Hegemon, or even across the Palace, at any given time. The Imperium may believe that the Custodes remained within the Imperial Palace, never leaving its borders as they kept watch over the Master of Mankind, but the reality was very different.
In the days of the Great Crusade, the Custodes had sent many of their own numbers across the stars, first to fight alongside the Emperor as the Legio Custodes while He led the united armies of Humanity, and then to keep watch over key individuals and to perform tasks too sensitive to trust to any other. During the Heresy, however, their numbers had been bled almost dry, as thousands perished fighting in the Webway after Russ' attempt to murder Magnus with sorcery. Still more had died when Guilliman had breached the Cavea Ferrum and reached the Throneroom, where he and the Emperor had duelled before Fulgrim's intervention had saved the Master of Mankind – a deed that the Custodes have never forgotten. By the time the Arch-Traitor was defeated and his Legions in flight, less than five hundred Custodes remained alive.
When Perturabo left Terra to go pursuing his brothers and later build the Iron Cages, the Lord of Iron met with Constantin Valdor, first Captain-General of the newly renamed Adeptus Custodes. Unique among the High Lords, Valdor agreed with Perturabo's beliefs that the Traitor Legions would one day emerge from the Eye of Terror and the Ruinstorm, and that these great Warp Storms needed to be watched. As Perturabo withdrew his Legion from Sol in order to garrison the Iron Cages, the task of safekeeping Humanity's cradle passed once more upon the Adeptus Custodes. They rebuilt their numbers, plucking children from the ruins of Terra and inducting them into their ranks until they numbered ten thousand once more – smaller than most Space Marine Legions, yet possessing a combined power that would rival any of them.
Of these Ten Thousand, over seven thousands were in Sol at the onset of the Angel War. A thousand had been sent to reinforce the Iron Cage around the Ruinstorm by the Captain-General after the doomscryers of the Imperial Palace had sensed Guilliman's awakening. Only knowledge of Omegon's plans had kept Galahoth from joining this host himself, for even the Custodes, with their crippled emotions, felt hatred for the Arch-Traitor who had condemned the Emperor to the Golden Throne.
The rest of the Custodes outside of Sol were scattered across the Solar Segmentum and beyond, fighting the wars that their commanders had judged most threatened the Emperor. No few of them had been sent to Cadia, for even from Sol the seers of the Imperium could sense the might that was gathering in the Eye of Terror, preparing to be unleashed upon the walls of the Iron Cage.
Of the Custodes remaining in Sol, another thousand had been dispatched to Mars to assist in the final stage of the Lie of Iron – for there were things in the Haydes that could not be trusted to the hands of the Adeptus Mechanicus. A thousand remained in the halls of the Tower itself, attending to their various duties, when the Emperor died and Light's End struck.
Captain-General Galahoth had kept the intent of the Primarchs from most of his brothers, for he had sought to prevent their replacement of the Emperor on the Golden Throne before He had made His will known to the three hundred warriors of the Companions. Only the three hundred Companions, along with the Tribunes and a few other Custodes occupying important positions in their complex hierarchy, knew what Omegon intended – and what Galahoth had decided would happen instead. That secrecy, however, did not survive the Emperor.
The psychological impact of the Emperor's demise upon His guardians cannot be overstated. Since the very foundation of the Custodes' order, they had defined themselves in relation to Him : their every deed and thought aimed to serve Him and His ends. Every action the Custodes had committed, no matter how terrible – and there had been plenty of those, for the galaxy was a dark and merciless place, and the Custodes were no more hesitant to spill Imperial blood than the Inquisition – had been justified by the total and absolute certainty that they were done to protect the Emperor, and that without the Emperor, Humanity was doomed. Now that justification was shattered, along with their purpose.
When He let go of life and scattered His power, every Custodes on Terra immediately sensed it as some ineffable link that had accompanied them since their memory began was brutally sundered. Even the ancient guilt, carried by generation after generation of Custodes since their failure to protect the Emperor from Guilliman, paled in comparison to that shock.
Even Custodes dispatched on distant missions felt the death of the Emperor. Not a few perished as they stumbled, unable to comprehend what was happening to them, and the enemies that had been struggling to survive up to this point seized that opening, whispering disbelieving prayers of thanks to their foul deities once they stood over the golden corpses of their would-be executioners.
It was then, as the Custodes reeled from the death of their lord and master, that the Chaos Lord Constantinus launched his assault of the Tower of Hegemon.
We see Constantinus, self-proclaimed Emperor of a world he sacrificed without batting an eye. In his veins flow the blood of the Arch-Traitor, yet he does not hear the voice that now rises from the Ruinstorm. The mark on his soul has severed all such ties, and the only words he hears now are those of the Dark Prince, who speaks to him in his own voice.
We see the Constant Ones. The mindless praetorian guard of a petty tyrant. Hollowed by their cruel master, made into perfect vessels for the ravenous hunger of the Neverborn. An army of daemonhosts, their flesh warped by unholy entities, their hands clutching to weapons they used to carve an empire they never were a part of.
We hear the amused laughter of Slaanesh, who delights in what his pseudo-mind perceives as irony.
The sorcery of the Sanguinor had delivered the five thousand Constant Ones and their lord right at the foot of the Tower, among the lesser temples and keeps that crowded in its shadow. In another time, they would have been blasted to their atomic particles by the Tower's guns, but the madness unfolding across Terra and the stricken state of the Custodes meant that they reached the Tower's great doors unhindered.
It was there that the Possessed Marines faced their first opposition, for the Tower had not been left undefended. Ten warriors of the Allarus Custodian, clad in the Allarus Terminator armor of their caste, stood watch over the Tower's gate, and though they too had suffered the backlash of the Emperor's demise, the approach of the Chaos warband stirred them from their confusion. Sending messages of alarm to the rest of the Tower, these august warriors opened fire on the Constant Ones, tearing the first ranks of the Secondborn asunder with volleys of bolt shells.
At their command, automated defenses whose machine-spirits had been thrown into disarray by the opening of the Tear of Nightmares added their firepower to the onslaught. Only a fraction of the Tower's mighty defensive array was thus brought to bear, however. Caught in the open, the Constant Ones suffered losses, but not nearly enough to stop their advance – not with the skies above bleeding with the power of the Warp and the will of their Chaos Lord leashing their very essences to his will. Trampling over the corpses of their fellows, the Possessed Marines reached the Custodes, and though these noble heroes each slew several more of the heretics, they were eventually overwhelmed and torn limbs from limbs by the Constant Ones' Warp-given strength.
Constantinus, standing among the greatest of his slaves, imperiously gestured at the gate with his blade, which shone with the Ruinstorm's light. At his command, two vast, monstrous things that had once been human children came forth from the horde of Secondborn. Though all of the Constant Ones had been nearly impossible to distinguish when they had served as the Chaos Lord's enforcers on Constantinium, no two of them were similar after their journey through the Warp. They were a host of monsters, united only in their purpose and the command of their lord.
These two towering figures slammed their fists against the door, their daemonic flesh burning at the touch of its wards. They ignored the pain, and struck again and again, until at last the gate broke and the way inside the Tower of Hegemon was open. As their task was fulfilled, the two giants – far too huge to enter the Tower – fell back a few stumbling steps before crashing to the ground, their hearts bursting in their chest from the combined damage of the wards and the exertion of their impossible strength.
The Constant Ones poured through the gate, and spread into the Tower like disease flowing from a rabid animal's bite. Alarms that had not rung since before the Great Crusade blared across the Tower's hundreds of levels as security systems were broken through, the infernal auras of the Constant Ones unmaking the confused machine-spirits and allowing the Possessed to spread further.
In those crucial first moments, the only advantage of the Tower's defenders was that their foe did not know the inside of the Tower of Hegemon. Even at the apex of the Siege of Terra, the Tower had never been breached, and never since then had any spy of the Ruinous Powers made it inside. All that Constantinus – and by extension his warband – knew of the place were legends and rumors concerning the treasures and wonders that awaited him inside, if he could but claim them.
The Chaos Lord split his army, sending the Constant Ones to purge the Tower of its rightful masters and seize it and its riches for himself. What thoughts passed through Constantinus' mind then – what dreams of Terran rule and ambitions of ultimate power – are known only to the foul Power that owned his soul.
Eventually, the Custodes emerged from their stupor and rallied against the invaders. Individual warriors fought through packs of Secondborn, before joining up with more of their fellows to form ad hoc squads – fighting alongside strangers was no impediment to the Custodes, who had ever been lone warriors rather than soldiers. Patchy vox-networks were established as shield-captains in various areas of the Tower took command and sought to coordinate a response to this sudden invasion even as their minds were still boggled with the blasphemous truth of the Emperor's death.
Yet it was not enough, and, level by level, the Tower of Hegemon was conquered by the Constant Ones, with the Custodes forced to concede holy ground to the Secondborn's advance. It is said that the Custodes are without pride, for such a flaw could be used against them – but even so, it burned them to retreat before the Constant Ones.
Since the creation of the first of their kind, back during the Age of Strife, the Custodes had been shielded from the fell powers of the Warp by the Emperor's aegis. This spark of the Emperor's own power, imbued within the Custodes' being during the cellular alchemy that transformed them from infants into transhuman warriors, had acted as a defense against the supernatural might of many of the foes they faced. Combined with the Custodes' psychic conditioning, which extended far beyond that of the Space Marines, this had made the Custodes all but immune to psychic manipulation.
With the death of the Emperor, the Custodes' adamantium-clad certitude in themselves and their purpose had been badly shaken. The biological aspect of the aegis remained, but the infernal auras of the Constant Ones affected them more badly than they would ever have before Light's End. No Custodes succumbed to the whispers of the Ruinous Powers, what little of them could be heard within the Tower even as the rest of the Throneworld succumbed to madness – but for the first time, the Emperor's bodyguards could hear them.
The tide only began to shift when one of the Constant Ones' forces found the stasis cells in which the Custodes kept the captives used for some of their Blood Games, when an enemy of the Throne would be released within an isolated section of the Imperial Palace and a single warrior would be tasked with eliminating them before they could reach the cordon delimiting the area of the exercise. By such methods were the defenses of the Palace tested and the Custodes trained in fighting the many foes of the Imperium.
Through the eyes of his servants, Constantinus saw the captive Chaos Marines that filled many of these cells. In his arrogance, the Slaaneshi warlord believed this discovery to be a gift from his Dark God. At his command, the Constant Ones shattered the seals of those cells containing warriors of the Traitor Legions. All nine renegade gene-lines were represented, save for the Ultramarines – for whenever a son of Guilliman was brought to Terra he never spent any time in those cells, instead being used instantly, such was the Custodes' grudge against the Thirteenth Legion.
At first, the Chaos Marines were confused – their last memories before being hurled into stasis were of the golden figures of the Custodes or their agents capturing them on far-off battlefields. Constantinus spoke to them through one of his Secondborn slaves, revealing to them that they were on Terra, within the Tower of Hegemon – past the walls of the Imperial Palace and within striking distance of the Golden Throne itself. The Chaos Lord demanded their loyalty in exchange for having freed them, and at first the Chaos Marines, trapped alone on the world most hostile to their kind, considered the offer.
Then one of them – a warrior of the Seventh Legion, the Imperial Fists – recognized the insignia on one of the Constant Ones' warped shoulder paldron. The Pureblood revealed to the other captives that their "saviours" hailed from the hated bloodline of Guilliman, the failed Arch-Traitor whose weakness had cost the Traitor Legions the war when they had first rebelled.
As had been the case many times over the last ten thousand years, that ancient grudge overcame any gratitude the black-souled Chaos Marines could have felt towards their liberators. Even the few Blood Angels among the prisoners rejected the offer, despite their shared allegiance to Slaanesh and the fact that it had been an Imperial Fist, a champion of Khorne, who had first realized the origin of their rescuers. Battle erupted within the cells as the Chaos Marines – who had been held captive with all their weapons and armor – fought against the Constant Ones, matching their millennia of experience in the Long War against the Possessed's daemonic strength.
Nigh on two hundred Chaos Marines had been kept by the Custodes, for with the resurgence of Chaos across the galaxy in recent years, the order had judged it necessary to up its members' training. United only by their common hatred of the Ultramarines and the Imperium, they nonetheless managed to overcome the force of Constant Ones that had been sent to release them.
Other captives, such as the few Tyranid warbeasts brought from distant frontlines, were kept in their cells, while others, such as a squad of Aspect Warriors from the Eldar Craftworlds, were dragged out and slaughtered. Those who paid fealty to the Ruinous Powers, such as a cabal of hereteks from the Dark Mechanicum, a trio of witches, a wide-eyed Imperial noble in whose veins ran the curse of the Raven's blood, and several hundred traitor Guardsmen and other footsoldiers of Ruin, the Chaos Marines released and quickly bound to their will, bolstering their numbers.
This new Chaotic force struck at Custodes and Constant Ones alike, seeking a way out of the Tower – but its initial location meant that it was the servants of Constantinus who suffered the most from their rage. Outraged at this perceived affront, the Slaaneshi warlord sent more of his forces at the Chaos Marines, lessening the pressure on the Custodes.
It was then, as the fate of the Tower of Hegemon rested on the edge of the sharp blade that Chaos forever held at its own throat, that Omegon struck, with an army behind him.
We see Omegon. Our youngest brother, the only one of us all who did not sleep, who did not fall, who was not stolen away by the enemies of Humanity. He did not fall like me; he did not burn like you; he did not sleep like Perturabo, his flesh torn to bloody pieces. But do not believe for a moment, brother, that Omegon hasn't suffered.
He has walked through these last ten thousand years the long way around, seen all that has happened, all that has been lost. We see the long wars, the thousands and thousands of sons he has buried in unmarked graves. We see the half of himself he lost, we feel the pain of that separation, a wound that has never really healed.
We see the spark of inspiration, born in a conversation with an alien witch about myths that were old when apes first swung in the branches of Terran trees. Rhana Dandra, the battle of the Gods. In the dark, the two reluctant prophets conceived of a plan that might just slay the Primordial Annihilator.
They wanted to make gods to fight the horror that wants to eat the galaxy. Hubris ? Only if they fail, brother, otherwise it is called genius. The metaphysics were sound. The test run was a success – if not for the interference of the jealous unliving and the ill-winged ravens, Ynnead would have awoken already. But he did not account for the wishes of our father, or the Adversary, of whom we will not speak yet. And so we came to Light's End.
But the enemy made a mistake, brother. If they had waited, the death of our father would have broken him. Now they have given him a war to fight, and duty holds together the pieces of his broken heart. Yet it will not be enough. He needs more, if he is to recover. He needs the hope he so desperately sought to bring into being. He needs to see that, even if all his plans did not end as he wanted them to, they still achieved their one true purpose.
And for that, brother, victory will not be enough.
The Primarch of the Alpha Legion came upon the Constant Ones' rearguard at the base of the Tower, accompanied by the Chosen of Magnus – those worthy souls who had accompanied the Crimson King to Terra, and who had stood at the entrance of the Cavea Ferrum, waiting for news of their Primarch's fate. At Omegon's side was Galahoth, Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, who Omegon had pulled free of his shock at the Sanctum Imperialis' entrance, and almost dragged through the Cavea Ferrum before the Captain-General had recovered enough to follow on his own.
With them too came the Custodes of the Dread Host, a division of the Adeptus Custodes whose headquarters were located in the Sanctum of a Thousand Eyes. Omegon and the Chosen had emerged from the Cavea Ferrum near this stronghold, and with Galahoth's help the Primarch had managed to rally the shaken warriors of the Dread Host to come to the Tower of Hegemon's rescue.
The Dread Host
While the Adeptus Custodes may seem monolithic to an outside observer, its every member a stoic guardian standing upon the walls of the Imperial Palace, ever vigilant against any threat to the Master of Mankind, there exist different branches to the Ten Thousand's activities. Though all Custodes live to protect the Emperor and do His will, they do so following several approaches depending on the warrior's inclination, talents, and the needs of Him on Earth.
The warriors of the Dread Host are the incarnation of the Emperor's wrath, waging war only when the time for subtlety, subterfuge and diplomacy is long since past, and all that remains is the need to crush the foes of the Golden Throne. From their stronghold of the Sanctum of a Thousand Eyes, they watch all that occurs within the Sol system and beyond. When a threat is detected, they sail the stars aboard a trio of ancient warships carrying weapons recovered from the Dark Age of Technology and collectively known as the Moiraides. Before them, there is no escape, no surrender : the Dread Host is unleashed to make an example of those who dare threaten the Throneworld, cutting them down with merciless, overpowering strength.
It was the Dread Host that destroyed the rebellious Omega Conglomerate in M37, shattering their armies of mind-linked soldiers before dragging the would-be overlords from their towers for public execution. When the cults of the Screaming Flesh, sponsored by the Raven Guard, rose across seven worlds in the Solar Segmentum during M39, it was the Dread Host that purged them and the monstrous Children of the Raven leading them. Such is the righteous fury of the Dread Host that the Warp itself echoes with it, and Inquisitorial records indicate that Chaos activity diminishes in areas where they have been active for generations afterwards.
With the Pale Spear in hand, Omegon cut a bloody path through the Possessed Marines. Though still haunted by the unintended consequences of his plans, the Lord of the Hydra was a terrible presence on the battlefield, a warrior who had fought the Slaves to Ruin in all their forms for ten thousand years. For all their might, the Constant Ones were nothing the Primarch had not faced, and killed, before.
Next to him fought Galahoth, and even reeling from the death of the Emperor the Captain-General was a terrifying foe. On the side of the two demigods, Ahzek Ahriman and Ephrael Stern fought together, the rest of the Chosen of Magnus following, and the Constant Ones recoiled at the Daemonifuge's presence, their infernal essences repelled by her blazing power.
This vanguard of heroes and champions crashed through the Constant Ones, and it was a slaughter. The Constant Ones died in droves, cut down by blade or psychic power, their daemonic spirits sent shrieking back to the Immaterium.
Among the Custodes of the Dread Host rose the banners of the Vexillas, and the power of these holy standards struck the daemonic spirits puppeteering the flesh of the Constant Ones with a nameless terror. Meanwhile, the Custodes of the Tower were reinvigorated by their approach, and the shroud of confusion and doubt – emotions that, until that day, had been wholly alien to the transhuman warriors – was lifted. In its wake was left a sense of renewed purpose, mixed with the burning need to expunge the shame of showing such weakness.
The battles across the Tower of Hegemon redoubled in violence and intensity. Constantinus, having sensed the arrival of Imperial reinforcements, was determined to survive and earn the glory that had been promised to him by the whispers of the Dark Prince. The Chaos Lord knew that his only chance of victory laid in breaking the Custodes' spirit anew, something that he thought could be achieved if he slew their Captain-General. Through the mouths of his servants, he taunted the Captain-General, speaking of the Emperor's death and the coming of a new age in which Galahoth and his kind would have no place left to them.
By then, Galahoth had been separated from Omegon by the vagaries of battle, and was leading several squads of his brothers – both belonging to the Dread Host reinforcements and the Tower's own defenders – into the Hall of Armaments. The Captain-General's armor, linked to the Tower's struggling security systems, had located the leader of the invasion there, along with dozens of Constant Ones, who were defiling the priceless relics of the order in a deliberate provocation.
Surrounded by the armor and weapons of the Custodes of ages past, the Captain-General faced the lord of the monsters who had dared to profane his Order's ancient stronghold. Around the two warlords, Galahoth's comrades and Constantinus' slaves battled, while at the center of the engagement a duel worthy of the ones fought during the Siege unfolded.
The daemonsword clashed with the long-hafted axe, and the air howled as infernal power met energy field. Galahoth was strong, incredibly so, but Constantinus was a Lord of Chaos, the conqueror of a world of monsters and warlords. The power of Slaanesh flowed into him, greater than ever before as he did the Dark Prince's will, while Galahoth's blows carried an unmistakable hesitancy to them, a slowness that would have been meaningless against a warrior less gifted.
Constantinus could guess where the reason for that weakness quite easily.
"The False Emperor is dead," he taunted his foe, laughing aloud as his preternaturally sharp senses registered the twitch in the Captain-General's posture.
In truth, Constantinus still could scarcely believe it himself, though he knew it was true. For so many years the Traitor Legions had been in exile, ruminating on their failure and dreaming of the time they would finally cast down the Corpse-Emperor – and now it had happened, he could feel it. The fire that had scoured Terra during the Siege had guttered out, and the children of Chaos walked upon the Throneworld with barely any opposition to their presence.
Truly, nothing was eternal, nothing lasted – except for him. He was going to live forever.
"There is no place left for you in the galaxy !" he laughed, as the two of them continued to trade blows. Then, in a split-second instant of awareness, he saw an opening in Galahoth's guard, and struck. His daemonsword plunged into the Captain-General's exposed flank, and blood poured from the wound in torrents as Constantinus tore his weapon free. Galahoth stumbled and fell, his body turning numb as the fell energies of the weapon spread throughout his flesh.
Laughing, Constantinus raised his blade, ready to deliver the deathblow. The Captain-General reached for something at his belt -
Galahoth was standing, dodging the strike aimed at his flank. The daemonblade bit into his auric armor in a shower of sparks, but did not draw blood. Constantinus blinked, his mind unable to comprehend what had happened as the Moment Shackle, that ancient relic capable of stealing slivers of time in the heat of battle, undid his decisive blow.
This couldn't be. He had already won. He couldn't be cheated. He couldn't fall here. He was going to live forever. The Sanguinor had promised -
With a mighty blow of the Watcher's Axe, the ancient relic weapon passed down from one Captain-General to the next since its forging in the wake of Valdor's disappearance after the Roboutian Heresy, Galahoth slew Constantinus. The sixteenth Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes stood over the corpse of the Chaos Lord who had dared defile the Tower of Hegemon, brandishing his head to the Constant Ones.
With Constantinus' death, the Secondborn he had brought with him to Terra lost all direction. They went from an army, if one possessed of inhuman fury, to a horde of beasts rampaging throughout the Tower of Hegemon with no thought given to tactics. If Constantinus had allowed his praetorian guard to retain even a modicum of individuality, their leader's demise would not have been nearly so crippling, but the arrogance of the Slaaneshi Lord meant that everything he had accomplished would perish with him. Perhaps, as his soul plunged into the Warp to find its rightful reward, this pleased him.
The battle of the Tower would last for several more hours as the Custodes purged their domain from invaders. Of particular note was the escape of several of the former captives, who managed to reach another entrance. Only a few of these Chaos Marines made it outside, but in the confusion of the Angel War, it was easy for them to slip away.
With the Tear of Nightmares yawning overhead, seeming wide enough to swallow the entirety of Sol, vox-communications were down across the system. But the Tower of Hegemon had some of the most powerful transmitters in the Imperium, and once the Constant Ones were broken, Omegon made for the closest comms center. With the help of the Custodes, he quickly set up an open broadcast, first sending out a stream of numbers and letters that the Primarch typed out from memory without hesitation – identification codes that could be unlocked by the Hydra's cyphers and would reveal the identity of the sender – before speaking his message.
"This is Primarch Omegon, addressing all Twentieth Legion assets in the Sol system.
No more secrets. No more conspiracies. The time for shadow wars is over. We must step into the light once more, and show the galaxy what we are truly capable of.
By my authority, this is my will : initiate the Damocles Protocol.
For the Imperium. For Humanity.
… For the Emperor."
Primarch Omegon, Lord of the Hydra.
And as the Lord of the Hydra spoke, so it was done. Across the entire Sol system, the agents of the Twentieth Legion heard the words of their master, and enacted every measure, every provision, every preparation that had ever been made by them and their predecessors.
The Damocles Protocol had been in place for thousands of years, enacted at the order of Omegon after the disaster of the War of the Beast had caught the Hydra blind-footed and had nearly seen Terra itself destroyed by the Orks' unstoppable onslaught. Never again would the Throneworld be caught so unprepared, so the Hydra had sworn. Of course, the other lords of the Imperium had learned that lesson as well, but Omegon remembered how, after the Roboutian Heresy, that same lesson had been eventually forgotten. The simple truth was that, in a way, the entirety of the Imperium – or at least the Solar Segmentum – served to protect Terra from danger.
But the Orks had bypassed those defenses, and what the greenskins had done, another foe may achieve eventually. And so Omegon had directed his Legion to make preparations for another invasion, spending much time in discussion with the then-Captain-General so that the Adeptus Custodes would allow such a deployment of forces in Sol by a Space Marine Legion. Many of the Custodes' leadership of the time were survivors of the Roboutian Heresy, and they were wary of allowing Space Marines such a foothold in the heart of the Emperor's domain. In the end, Omegon managed to convince the Captain-General, though only he knows what guarantees and promises he had to make.
Now those ancient measures, which had been added to every century since their creation, were finally enacted. All across Sol, hundreds of stasis coffins within which volunteer Alpha Legionaries had slept away the ages unlocked, releasing their warriors into the warring system and uploading tactical data into their armor. Many of them failed to wake, the complex mechanisms of their coffins having malfunctioned at some point during their slumber. It was not a death worthy of a Space Marine, but still many more sons of the Hydra rose, picking up their weapons and beginning to fight against the many foes besetting the Throneworld.
Merchant ships that had sailed the Warp routes around Terra for generations dropped their camouflage and revealed themselves as agents of the Coils of the Hydra, unmasking military capabilities they had kept hidden from foe and ally alike. Broadcasting Twentieth Legion's idents, some of them joined the Solar Fleet that even now marshalled to face off against the Laers, while others provided orbital support to beleaguered Imperial forces surrounded by Slaaneshi hordes.
Weapon caches were opened, and agents of the Hydra scattered across Terra rallied terrified but still loyal populations, arming them so that they might fight against those who would prey on them. Less martially impressive but equally welcome, vast reserves of preserved foodstuffs were also made available – a precaution that, with the orbital lanes in ruin, might save millions from a slow death by starvation.
Dormant orbital stations, that had gone dark for thousands of years, thundered to life, their machine-spirits awakening to find a system riven by madness and strife. Tentative vox-links were established across Sol, with the Tower of Hegemon serving as a communication hub. From their reports and the Tower's own sensors and networks, coaxed back to function by the harried servants of the Custodes – by ancient law, laid down within the Treaty of Olympus, no Martian tech-priest was allowed within the Tower of Hegemon – Omegon was finally able to get a picture of what was happening in the system.
Everywhere in Sol, war was raging. Daemonic hordes were attacking almost every outpost, and cult uprisings were combining with maddened civilians. The Primarch's blood ran cold as he recognized the xenos lifeforms deployed alongside the Slaaneshi forces, and went colder still when he saw the broken heraldry on the Tithed Ones' despoiled armor.
Faced with the true scope of the threat facing Sol, Omegon reacted quickly. With the help of the Thousand Sons, he identified the most critical locations. While the Throneworld was defended by billions of human soldiers, their numbers bolstered even further by the forces the Alpha Legion had recalled for the celebrations of the millennium's end, most of those would be defenceless against the terrible powers that now stalked Terra. Omegon's hails to Titan asking for the help of the Grey Knights went unanswered, as the fortress-monastery of the daemonhunters was itself under attack by a different foe.
The most pressing threat was the infernal presence approaching the Astronomican. One of the four Keepers of Secrets on Terra – one that had left a psychic trail in the void as it came from orbit – had landed near the Hollow Mountain, and was advancing toward it quickly. With the Astronomican already weakened by the transition from the Emperor to Magnus and the opening of the Tear of Nightmares, the Imperium could not afford more disturbances in the immense machine's operations.
AN : Here is the first part of the Angel War. I have decided to publish one part every week, until I reach the end of my current backlog.
Back when I wrote this, I was checking a few videos from Kings and Generals (a channel I greatly recommend), and I learned how the Custodians order from the Roman Empire met its end. It was dissolved by the Emperor ... Constantinus.
I swear I had no idea that was the case when I wrote the Interlude where I introduced the Chaos Lord Constantinus and set him against the Tower of Hegemon.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this first battle record of the Angel War. Please tell me what you think of it, and what you are hoping to see in the rest of this series.
Thanks to Jaenerya Targaryen for beta-reading this.
Zahariel out.