Mark of Calth: 25 (The Horus Heresy)

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We know that this noblest of Legions often disapproves of unconventional units like Destroyers, but in typically pragmatic terms, the sons of Guilliman aren’t willing to completely give them up, and so this unique take on the unit came into being. I’ve recently started a new Ultramarines force myself, and I’ll be adding a squad and trying them out in the scenarios presented in this month’s feature as soon as I’ve painted them. Mark of Calth is the twenty-fifth volume in The Horus Heresy series of novels and is an anthology of short stories. Seven years after the Battle of Calth, a war weary Vakrah Jal, Kaurtal, journeys to the surface and remembers his rebirth at the hands of Argel Tal. Or is this the past telling of the future to be? Many human civilians and soldiers suffered terrible radiation burns, which remained with them for the rest of their lives. Although these burns were painful and unsightly, the survivors of the Battle stubbornly refused to have them surgically removed, declaring that the "Mark of Calth" was a badge of honour. [1b] Sources

It would take several Terran years for the remnants of the Ultramarines fleet to return to the Veridian System after the Loyalist survivors rode out the storm. Unfortunately, the forces of Chaos left on the planet also fled underground as well. Vetanus vowed that the Ultramarines and their allied Loyalist forces would continue to fight until every last Traitor on Calth had been exterminated. Thus began the phase of the conflict that would be remembered as the "Underworld War."At the meeting, Erebus gives each of the warlords - Kor Phaeron, Morpal Cxir, Foedrall Fell, Hol Beloth, Quor Vondar and Phael Rabor — one of the daggers, keeping one for himself and one for Kolos Undil, the sergeant in command of his bodyguard unit. Leaving the meeting, Erebus reflects that Lorgar may intend for all of them to die in the upcoming battle, but Erebus has his escape planned; whether the other commanders figure out that their athames will likewise allow them to move through the warp, he will leave to fate. Erebus, Dark Apostle of the Word Bearers Legion, takes the anathame that mortally wounded Horus Lupercal and initiated his conversion to Chaos, and hammers it in a forge, splintering eight shards from it, which are then "grown" in a vat of blood into daggers, similar in appearance to the athames carried by the Word Bearers and their cult auxiliaries, but these are imbued with staggering power.

It was almost as if the Traitors had known what was coming, and had orchestrated events so that the Imperium would voluntarily cast aside the only practical weapon it possessed against the sorceries of the Empyrean just before it was needed most. After the Ultramarines' experience at Calth, Roboute Guilliman sought to petition the Emperor for the revocation of the Edicts of Nikaea and the reinstatement of the corps of Librarians within all of the Loyalist Space Marine Legions. The Heresy came to Calth without warning. In just a few hours of betrayal and bloodshed, the proud warriors of the XIIIth Legion – Guilliman’s own Ultramarines – were laid low by the treachery of their erstwhile brothers of the XVIIth. Now, as the planet is scoured by solar flares from the wounded Veridian star, the survivors must take the fight to the remaining Word Bearers and their foul allies, or face damnation in the gloomy arcology shelters beneath the planet’s surface. The term Mark of Calth refers to two related phenomena occurring in the course of the Battle of Calth, during the Horus Heresy. The Campanile continued to plow through the orbital installations surrounding Calth, shooting forward like a solid projectile, a gargantuan mass of streaking death. It annihilated a pair of slipways and the ships within them, ramming through the vital data-engine hub and destroying multiple data-engines as well. As the automatics failed and the noosphere experienced a critical and fatal interrupt, the orbital fleet yard’s power core was obliterated, killing over 35,000 men and women. The Campanile finally broke up, still travelling at immensely high realspace velocities, and a large chunk of the disintegrating vessel spun out of control and destroyed another Ultramarines Battleship. The remaining pieces of the Campanile cleared the far side of the Calth Veridian Anchor and rained down, burning like meteorites, upon the surface of the planet. The Ultramarines learned another hard lesson at Calth. The Calth Atrocity represented the Loyalist Astartes' first sustained experience with fighting the Warp entities later known as daemons in realspace. The Ultramarines realised that their decision to accept the anti- psyker dictates of the Council of Nikaea had led to their voluntary surrender of the one weapon that might have proved most potent against the horrors of the Warp.During the Heresy two human Chaos-devotees fight to the death under Xen's supervision. The winner, Criol Fowst, is gifted the athame as a prize. Fowst has it with him on Calth when he is punched in the head by a loader-servitor and killed, and the athame is taken by Oll Persson, a Perpetual, who uses it to enter the Warp on his own secret mission. The situation outside was rapidly deteriorating as armoured columns in service to the Word Bearers moved into position and began firing at the Loyalists with a hail of shells and laser fire. Two Traitor Reaver-class Titans approached at full stride, intent on annihilating the servants of the Emperor. With the majority of his allied commanders already dead, Ventanus knew that his company line was all but broken. Life on Colchis was often harsh outside of the cities which were all controlled by a religious institution known as The Covenant. Slavery was rife, and Desert nomads who dwelt outside of these cities were dubbed The Declined and seen as damned by the Great Powers. [4] History The war on Calth continues both above and below ground. Ventanus, the "Saviour of Calth", attempts to destroy a large contingent of Word Bearers, but falls into a trap that may destroy all life on Calth.