Arc One - The Triumph at Ullanor
For one hundred years have you waged war. A century of bloodshed and strife, of murder and massacre and slaughter without end. You have torn flesh and sundered bone, tasted blood and endured pain, revelled in victory and wept in defeat. You have done this not for honour or duty, not out of allegiance to the flag or fealty to the golden man who carries it, but because it is what you were made for. You are a Primarch, one of twenty, and today you have come to the ruin of a world to wet your hands in the blood of one you once called brother.
The Stormbird sets down with a dull thump, the hiss of the hydraulics filling the air, and the clang of the rear hatch is echoed by the ringing of fists against armour as your honour guard salutes. The Ravagers await you at the landing pad's edge, a full company of posthuman warriors in their armour of brass and blue, and when you emerge you hear the sudden spike in a hundred immortal hearts. A man must face you in single combat and impress to be accepted into your honour guard, yet now they look upon you and some tiny voice in the back of their mind gibbers with the need to find cover and flee.
"
Khârn!" you roar, stepping out of the passenger bay and into the wan light of another alien star, "where are you hiding? Come out and face me, traitor!"
Your equery is many things, but a coward is not one of them. He stands at the forefront of your honour guard, horned helmet held carefully under one arm, and so you see the faint motion as he swallows and smell the acrid tang of adrenaline as his system prepares itself for combat.
"I am right here, my primarch," he says with studious politeness, as the Chain Breakers at his back edge slowly away without actually moving a muscle. "As I have been for several days. Is there some issue?"
"My messages, Khârn," you growl, looming over him and balling your hands into fists. Your veins sing with anger, your heart thunders in your chest, the nails hum their siren song against your mind. "You've been intercepting my messages, having them rerouted and altered before passing on. That's
treason, Khârn."
"Technically, my Primarch, I believe it would be closer to fraud," Khârn points out, the obsequious little shit, "assuming I did so without your knowledge or authorisation. Which I had."
"How in the hells would you have…" You stop. Rack your memory. Did you? When would you do that,
why would you… oh. Yes, you remember now, after that thing with Sanguinius. Khârn was able to talk you into giving him veto power over your communications, on the basis that it was better than triggering a civil war, and you were in a tolerable enough mood to agree.
"He's got you there, Angron," comes a harsh and creaking voice, and your rage vanishes like dew before the sun as you turn to face the source.
Sura is the last of your siblings, your brothers and sisters of the arena, the last save you who remembers the sands of Nuceria. A hundred years she has fought and bled at your side, and despite the miracles of Imperial medicine the scars of every passing week can be seen upon her withered hide. She has a face like leather, hair like iron wire, strange tubes running beneath her skin and through her spine, and you would still give her fair odds in a brawl with any present save you or Khârn.
"Sura," you say with a smile, "There you are. Hiding again?"
"Pfagh," Sura spits, baring stained teeth at you in a rictus smile. Others her age would scarcely show the passage of years, but the song of the Nails and the chemical treatments required to keep them suppressed are hell on even an augmented physique, much less one scarred by war and want throughout its formative years. "We can't all stay lazing around from rim to planetfall, Angron. Some of us have jobs to do."
"On which note, we should probably move," Vorias interjects, a brief uncertain smile as he nods to the landing field around you. A hundred years the Lectio has fought at your side, and still he flinches to speak when your anger burns bright. "We are somewhat in the way."
You scratch your chin, grunting in acknowledgement. In your rage at Khârn's transgressions you ordered your pilot to set down right in the middle of the ongoing deployment, forcing several companies worth of Chainbreakers to scatter or be crushed under the landing claws. They love you too much to complain, but you can already see the horrible mess that you've gone and made of the Legion's deployment plan, and standing around here isn't helping matters. So you nod, and with your honour guard and retinue in close attendance go in search of somewhere to stand conveniently out of the way. Khârn sends your commandeered transport rising back into orbit with a quiet word, and together your little brothers (and sister) gather at the very edge of the landing field. The view, at least, has something to recommend it.
Ullanor was a living world once. It had oceans and forests, rivers and mountains, a whole ecosystem balanced in bloody harmony. It had history, the scars of war and natural disaster, the marks left behind by the marauding Orks like the shadow left by freshly removed mould. It had all of these things, and none of them mattered, for they were deemed irrelevant in the eye of the one who calls himself Master of Mankind.
Now it is a stage, polished flat by the artifice of the Mechanicum, every line and contour reshaped and all "extraneous detail" pared carefully away, beautified by destruction. Even the air is sweet, the atmosphere poisoned by chemical additives so that those who come to walk upon the surface are not offended by the stench of industry and war. Millennia from now, when stars have faded and every man to ever live has turned to ash and dust, Ullanor will remain deformed, its surface scarred to better serve the cause of one man's vanity.
"Hm. You could send a hundred poets to a thousand stars, and not come up with a keener metaphor," Ardun Solus says grimly, detaching his helmet with a faint hiss and moving up to stand at your side. Your chief apothecary has always been melancholic in disposition, cynical about the grand ideals of this Crusade and blunt in his assessment of its progress, but today you cannot find it in yourself to disagree. "We might as well send those remembrancers all home tomorrow."
"I don't know, I kind of like it," Sura chuckles, tiny in form next to the posthuman warriors that surround her but still as fierce and vital as ever. "The skulls are a nice touch."
There is but one landmark on Ullanor now, a single scar to mark its otherwise perfect face. A road, five kilometres wide and a hundred times as long, a spine which stretches across the horizon and lends structure to ten thousand landing fields and mustering grounds. The border is marked by poles, long metal spikes hammered into the ground with impossible force, and atop each spike the polished bone of an Orkish skull gleams in Ullanor's light.
"Can't say I envy the poor bastard who had to put them up," Vorias muses, his ice-white eyes contemplative as he stares at the horizon. "Look, they're all etched with names as well. I wonder if we could take a few as souvenirs…"
"No looting," Khârn grunts, as boring as ever, "And heads up. We've got company."
You're not sure which line-toeing incompetent made the decision to put the Twelfth and Thirteenth Legions beside one another on the fields of Ullanor, but the contrast could not be more stark. Your little brothers clump together in small bands around the landing field, relaxing while they wait for someone with a plan to actually make themselves known, but the Ultramarines have already left their muster point behind and are making their way down the central causeway in a perfect parade march. Their weapons and armour are freshly polished, their banners snap and flutter majestically in the perfumed wind, and every step is taken in perfect synchronisation with a hundred others. You'd call them toy soldiers, had you not seen them fight.
"Well now," you say with a grin, already crossing the field while Khârn mutters obscenities in a quiet voice behind you, "Let's go and be neighbourly."
Roboute Guilliman leads his Legion on parade, standing proud and untouched in the bay of an open-topped transport that drips with the honour rolls of a thousand battles. He is regal and dignified, with eyes that look ever to the horizon and an aquiline nose kin to those you once took pleasure in breaking, and you'd wager the first man to hold a triumphal march would find much in your brother he could call familiar. You expect he saw you coming well in advance, but it's only when you step out in the causeway that he holds up a hand in silent command and the marching ranks of his legion slam to a halt. Just as well, really, you'd hate to get blood on their pretty armour.
"Barbarian," the Consul of Macragge says, stepping down from his podium yet looking down at you even so. He's wearing a laurel wreath, though you don't think anything of the kind grows anywhere within a sector of Ullanor, and his chiselled jaw works silently as he tries to find the words to address you.
"High Rider," you grunt, eyeing him as you did to so many before they were dragged down and murdered. Behind you the Ravagers go tense, hands drifting to blades or unclicking the safeties from their boltguns, and while the Ultramarines would never dream of being so undisciplined you can feel the sudden spike of tension as they focus their attention on you.
For a long moment the lives of everyone present hang in the balance. Then you snort, Guilliman allows himself a smile, and with a laugh you take your brother's hand as he offers it.
"I must be going soft," you grumble, though you cannot help but smile, "I'm actually glad to see you."
"As well you should, for who else will tolerate you long enough to offer company during the ceremony?" Guilliman replies in a voice of perfect sincerity, looking past your shoulder a moment later. "Captain Khârn. My sympathies, as always."
You snort, and out of respect for your fellow Primarch you keep the idea of slamming his head into the side of the overwrought podium firmly in the realm of fantasy. Had someone told you a century ago that you would ever be friends with a man like Roboute, you'd have added their blood to the sands of Nuceria and never doubted yourself, but a hundred years can soften even the hardest of wills. It helps that your brother is, for all his other faults, entirely sincere when he addresses your comrades - when he commiserates with Khârn it is because he knows the man from long years of correspondence and several co-authored treatises you never bothered to properly read, and when he thanks Sura for loaning him some of her Eaters for cross-Legion training you know for a fact he has properly credited her skills in whatever new tome of warfare he is writing.
There is a place for everyone in Roboute Guilliman's perfect world, highborn or low, and though you might disdain his methods and detest the paternalistic attitude he so often employs, you'll concede at least that he's better than most of the alternatives, low bar thought that is. Maybe once you've hacked off the Emperor's head you'll turn your attention to Konor's Son, but you doubt that day will come anytime soon.
"Your work, I take it?" You interject, nodding to the seemingly endless ranks of polished skulls lining the causeway. "Must have been quite the war."
"Most of them, and yes, it was," Guilliman nods, turning back to remount his mobile podium. You'll not be caught dead riding such a thing, but Sura has no such reservations, taking a running leap onto the transport's side and sprawling out over the tread guard like a princess on her bench. "Horus took the largest, of course, while the Khan claimed his own tally but refused to contribute to the display without proper attribution. Current projections say that between us the Ork menace has been broken for at least a generation, while the more optimistic are talking in the region of centuries."
You frown at the thought, keeping pace while the transport lumbers into motion and the Astartes resume their parade. It's not that you doubt your brother's projections, as such - if there is one thing he can be relied upon for it is to have attended to all of the paperwork and run all the numbers thrice for accuracy. It is rather that you doubt the Orks, with their famed tenacity and explosive populations, will stay down for any length of time… or that you even want them to. There's something pure about fighting the Orks, something straightforward and honest that not even the most cynical of your little brothers can truly object to. The greenskins exist to make war and take almost as much joy in it as you do, and on some level you'll be disappointed not to take to the field against them in an honest battle again.
"I guess that explains all the fuss," you nod, gesturing around at the world paved flat. Frankly you suspect there's something more to come, some other announcement or plan that the Emperor decided was worth turning a world into a stage that he might announce it, but you don't know what it might be and you refuse to waste time trying to guess. "Not bad. Of course, while you were picking out the proper height of sticks for this little display, I was out there winning another war."
"The Calyx Slavers?" Roboute asks, looking down at you with a raised eyebrow, and when you nod he does you the credit of being impressed. "A worthy accomplishment. The last predictions I saw claimed it would be another four years before they were properly broken."
"Your projections don't count everything," you chuckle, nodding to Sura. She's grinning like a particularly smug cat right now, her stained teeth bared in challenge at the world. "The City Eaters deserve the credit. Half the battles the tacticians were expecting simply didn't happen, and it was all down to them."
"A worthy accomplishment indeed," Roboute inclines his head in respect to your little sister, who preens at the attention. "I would rather like to read a copy of the campaign report, should one be available."
"Oh, I reckon that can be arranged," Sura cackles, rubbing her fingers together in blatant entreaty. You sigh, and remind yourself to have another talk with her about being at least vaguely subtle when she requests a bribe. "Might want to ask your brother though, weren't all Twelfth we took our creed from."
Guilliman pauses at that, and looks down at you. "Please do not tell me that…"
You nod, hiding a smile, and your brother sighs.
"Oh, he is going to be
insufferable."
The Twelfth Legion boasts among its number a cadre of elite operatives, chosen for their skill at infiltration, guerilla warfare and rear-line harassment. In this unit are the rebellious slaves of the City Eaters born anew, but their tactics and strategy are not wholly of your devising. One among your brothers has had much to teach them, and through the teaching has formed a bond with you and your Legion that may yet prove crucial in days to come.
Who was it?
[ ] Alpharius, though young and inexperienced, has shown real skill for infiltration and subversion. In following his example, your City Eaters have learned to slip between the enemy's ranks and masquerade as friends, gathering intelligence and providing subtle incentive to arrange everything as desired for a grand orchestra of disaster. Such tactics are slow and often delicate, but unparalleled in scope and precision.
[ ] Corvus Corax, though reserved and painfully intense, has no equal in the arts of stealth and sabotage. The City Eaters have learned from him, and prefer to target the infrastructure and warmaking capacity of their targets, either softening them up for the main invasion or bringing the whole edifice toppling down. Such tactics are often ruinous and require much rebuilding in their wake, but are highly effective and easily paired with more conventional military solutions.
[ ] Konrad Curze, though a vicious lunatic, understands the mind and its foibles better than anyone. Your City Eaters have become masters of psychological warfare, stoking paranoia or encouraging complacency as the mission demands, until the enemy might as well throw open its gates before your arrival. Such tactics minimise casualties, both friendly and hostile, but create no shortage of ill feeling among friend and foe alike.
NOTE - This vote will remain open for 24 hours. The next three votes will be similarly focused - each will present a selection of three Primarchs, one of whom you have formed a strong bond of brotherhood with, and which of them you choose will provide additional information and context on how Angron has conducted himself and his Legion over the past century of war since Nuceria.
