As the southern island cities were being pounded to dust and vapour, the battle in the void was spilling ever further across Calth Near-Space. The world was ringed by over nine hundred orbital defence platforms, each bristling with lance turrets, weapons The campaign was launched by the Word Bearers' Primarch Lorgar Aurelian with the goal of exterminating the XIII th Space Marine Legion outright. The purpose of the Word Bearers' invasion of the Ultramarines' Realm of Ultramar in the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy was to tie down the XIII th Legion and prevent them from reinforcing their fellow Loyalists as the Traitor Legions marched relentlessly on Terra itself. At around Mark -16.44.00, Magos Uhl Kehal Hesst noticed a foreign scrapcode infesting the cogitators controlling Calth's orbital defence network. The source of this scrapcode was a Chaos ritual being conducted in secret at the camp of the Word Bearers' auxiliaries, The Brotherhood of the Knife. [2d]. This ritually-produced scrapcode, known as the Octed, was finally implanted at Mark -7.55.09. [2e] 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.

Of those who arrived under the banner of the Word Bearers, exact information is more difficult to discern, as many units arrived under false colours and forged identification signals. Based on the pict-recordings of surviving Ultramarines units and other sources, the following Word Bearers chapters are known to have been presnet, at least in part, during the Calth atrocity: Deployed to Calth after seeing heavy combat in the Eastern Fringe, all at a nominal strength of at least 6,000 Legionaries and slated for full resupply at the munitions plants of Dainhold before loading for transport outsystem: Early in the rise of Roboute Guilliman, Calth became part of the new Ultramar empire. When Guilliman met the Emperor of Mankind, Calth became part of the greater Imperium. [10]Lorgar of Colchis. You may consider the following. One: I entirely withdraw my previous offer of solemn ceasefire. It is cancelled, and will not be made again, to you or to any other of your motherless bastards. Two: you are no longer any brother of mine. I will find you, I will kill you, and I will hurl your toxic corpse into hell's mouth." The term Mark of Calth refers to two related phenomena occurring in the course of the Battle of Calth, during the Horus Heresy. When the Word Bearers launched their surprise assault on Calth, it marked the beginning of their righteous campaign of vengeance against the hated Ultramarines Legion. But for one young acolyte of Kor Phaeron, it is not the sons of Guilliman that he seeks to bring low - through infernal pacts and daemonic power he strives to carve out a destiny for himself in the midst of the greatest war that the galaxy has ever seen. The name of Marduk shall be spoken with awe for millennia still to come... Eventually, Magos Tawren and her Loyalist Skitarii forces managed to consolidate with the surviving Ultramarines of the 4 th Company, including their commander, Captain Remus Ventanus. Assessing their desperate situation, Ventanus realised he had a vast horde of Chaos Cultists arrayed against his forces as well as hundreds of thousands of Traitor Astartes. Reaching the guildhall, Ventanus leapt the barricades, leading the assault forward. He tore into the fleeing Chaos Cultists who shrieked in fear at the prospect of facing the fierce Astartes officer. As the Ultramarines moved forward into the building they continued to be pounded by the XVII th Legion's artillery and heavy weapons. Reaching the Cogitator that was their goal, Magos Tawren attempted to connect into it and upload the kill code that would shut down the planetary defence grid.

and terrible ritual unfolding on Calth. Much later, it was determined that the intent of this cruelty was to sear the sight of the dying world into each victim's consciousness as an act of witnessing, a scene the Word Bearers believed the dead would take with them to the afterlife as evidence to the powers that hold sway there of the Traitor Legion's deeds. Of the forces of the Excertus Imperialis, details are more vague, but it seems likely that at least half a million troops-under-arms perished during the fighting, alongside the entire fighting complement of the Legio Praesagius. Erebus had managed to complete his blasphemous ritual on Calth's surface, which summoned a Ruinstorm to the galaxy's Eastern Fringe -- a monstrous Warp Storm larger and more destructive than anything space-faring humanity had witnessed since the days of the Age of Strife. It would split the void asunder, dividing the galaxy in two and rendering vast tracts of the Imperium impassable for centuries. In addition to Legiones Astartes assets, a great mass of cultic auxiliary units that accompanied the Word Bearers which may have numbered in excess of half a million men-under-arms, though the proficiency and sanity of most was questionable: Unusually, the book is written almost entirely in the present tense, purporting to be the official Imperial action report on the events of the battle, interlineated with the personal notes of Primarch Roboute Guilliman.

Essential Novels

Legio Praesagius - "The True Messengers" - Long allied to the warriors of Ultramar, the Legio Praesagius deployed to Calth at full Legio strength, with nearly 118 god-engines landed in the southern continent of Ithraca prior to embarkation. Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines Legion, prior to the teleportation assault on the Zetsun Verid Fleet Yard The Ruinstorm would also isolate and trap those Loyalist forces caught behind it like the Ultramarines, preventing them from coordinating their efforts and supporting one another as the Traitor Legions moved towards Terra. It would even prevent them from warning each other, for a time, of the Warmaster's betrayal and the civil war that had begun to consume the Imperium. The Ruinstorm would leave Terra alone in the void, infinitely vulnerable to the approaching shadow of Horus. After the massacres of loyalist forces at Isstvan III and V, and having gained the allegiance of Lorgar and the other Traitor Primarchs, Horus believed that the Ultramarines - the largest of all the Space Marine Legions - were the last and only significant obstacle to his total victory over the Emperor [2k]. The Ushmetar Kaul, "The Brotherhood of the Knife" - Largest and most effective of the warp cults deployed by the Word Bearers to Calth. The cult force was, it appears, organised into between 10-20 sub-sects, each at least 10,000 strong. Recorded as engaging in the most violent rites before, after and even during battle.

Every post will be filled with Spoilers from the novel so if you haven't read this week's book then proceed with caution. Horus Heresy Saga: Mark of Calth Rubio, with little choice, then left Calth behind with Garro in his Stormbird. Rubio would become one of the Sigillites Knights-Errant and later one of seven Astartes drawn from both the Traitor and Loyalist Legions who would form the founding core of what became the secret Grey Knights Chapter of Space Marines. Not only were the surviving Loyalist elements tormented by the depredations of the Word Bearers' tenebrous allies, but also by the deterioration of the situation in the Veridia System. The Word Bearers had turned the full destructive capability of the Calth orbital defence platforms, as well as the formidable firepower of their own fleet, against the system's sun itself and the resulting flare in solar radiation was beginning to take its toll on the warriors on Calth's surface. Those not shielded from the sun's glare or protected by the augmented physiology of the Legiones Astartes, were soon blistered and burned, and most would later to succumb to extreme radiation poisoning. Only those scant enclaves that were within one of the few shielded structures still held by the Loyalists escaped this lingering death, though few who still lived could see this as anything but a temporary reprieve. 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.From the bridge of the disabled flagship Macragge's Honour, Guilliman swiftly deduced that the Word Bearers were opening fire on them, but attributed it to mistake on Lorgar's part. He transmitted urgent pleas for cease-fire, but when Lorgar refused to stop after a direct lithocast communication, Guilliman reluctantly authorized his forces to defend themselves, officially commencing the Battle of Calth at Mark Zero. [2i] Prosecution