The Death of Autek Mor
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| [//Star Wardens ranging patrol.+] [//dan_j/@dark_isles+] |
'Not all stars burn bright.'
It will be of no surprise to even the least bellicose student that the forgeworlds of the local clusters were amongst the most hotly-contested worlds during the War of the False Primarch – for what does a war necessitate if not steel and shot?
Alongside the dutiful Death Eagles, the Red Talons were bidden to fortify Heliopolis during the first half of the war, and the forgeworlds came to form the core stanchions of the Chapter's 'Dominion of Iron', a inexorably-expanding sectorial perimeter of captured worlds, traversed and held by the Chapter's predation flotillas. These were sent to harry and bleed any would-be pirates and ‘liberators’ that trespassed this throne-sworn fiefdom.
From his seat upon the forgeworld of Heliopolis, Iron-Commander Autek Mor, Master of the Red Talons, would orchestrate an increase in productivity hitherto unseen in the sector's history (the use of its fruits are detailed elsewhere in this record). Ever hungry for more, the Red Talons would eventually reach out for the contested fabrication world of Moreaumunda Principal – and with no direct order to the contrary coming from the curiously uncommunicative Lord Velghor – Lord Mor would take to the field himself, finally having tired of administrative duties and wishing to indulge his more bellicose instincts.
///Cut-in: Lord-Immortal Perkûn is performing the final rites of reparation upon a damaged contemptor engine. His heavy gauntlet pushes against the thoracic engine container, bright-green electoos extending across the fire-blackened generator unit///
-Arise, engine of destruction, arise. Come to life, child of the blessed Unmaker, come to life. Walk again and visit ruin upon those who would stand against Him. Lead us, brother of Mor, and we shall follow-
///The engine comes to life with a sudden jerk, strange energies dancing about its limb-mounted gun. Shells keep raining down upon the battlefield, churning up the earth and littering it with a fog of irradiated isotopes. The dreadnought [subsequently identified as Brother-Ancient Varazdhin] levels his weapon at an oncoming vehicle of auxiliamen bearing the colours of the Pseudo-Legion. The dracosan vehicle crumples, its crew rendered to sub-atomic particles under the weight of singularity-induced implosion///
///Perkûn separates and moves across the battlefield, rendezvousing with Seeker Squad Dva [cross ref. Principia Bellicosa, m29] atop Hangman’s Hill. Perkûn is pointing to the southwest. Image enhances. The frame of Autek Mor can be seen about two and a half kilometres away, circling a second leviathan pattern dreadnought in the Star Wardens’ colours///
The two dreadnoughts circle each other, like crocodilian beasts of ancient terra vying for the same piece of territory. Autek Mor, Lord of the Red Talons, strides slowly, ponderously, as he bides his time. He has overcharged Sunderstrike one too many times in the past few hours, leaving its barrel cracked, the focusing array itself dangerously unstable. The other, Commander Argo, arrayed in his chassis of dark steel and greasy gold, spins his two fists about, claw and siege drill cycling angrily as he rocks his shoulders in anticipation.
“I remember you, Maimed One,” the Star Warden mumbles, the words emerging with a bubbling born of vocalising through his amniotic fluid. He speaks as though distracted, at odds with his combat-readiness; as if speaking to himself, or to a bystander, rather than in direct address, “I knew you’d come. The Ancients whispered it in their tombs. I could read it in the granite brands that litter my dreams, those slivers that run through my black dreams like diamond veins.”
“You lived,” Mor is at a disadvantage with just one melee weapon, dangerous though it was, “That was my mistake – I had trusted that the phosphex would kill you. I should have slit your throat all those millennia ago. I should have ripped your head from your shoulders, Argo. Due to my failing you were able to shed the midnight and don whatever mongrel livery this is.”
“I intend to rectify this mistake.”
“Mistake. Mistake, mistakes, mistaken,” Argo continues to whisper to himself, hazily, as though visions of the past have more grip upon his mind than the inputs of this little world, “Mistake? No. No mistakes. Fate is what it was. A chosen lineage, we are. Of the Midnight we were not, though we thought it. It is known – the Saviour embraces us. We are the future, Mor. You will be felled here. By my hand. You will. It cannot be any other way. I have seen it.”
Mor charges, the neon-purple energies arcing about his claw licking through the air as he aims to gut his opponent. Maddened as he may have been by internment and genic predisposition, Argo had honed his skills as well in death as he had in life. The fluidity of his movement belies the heaviness of his tomb and takes Mor by surprise. With his siege claw he twists Mor’s wrist aside, then the drill bites into his flank, chewing deeply into the less-armoured hydraulics. Mor feels his right knee wobble and threaten to give in.
The thin barrels mounted to his chest come to life with a thought’s pulse. A teeth-cracking hum reverberates through the air as invisible tides of gravitic energy lap against Argo’s plate, crumpling its outer layers like tinfoil wherever they made contact – yet the chassis itself remains intact.
///A flash of light blots out any vid-feed. Radiological and auditory disturbance resulting from critical engine failure renders all forms of sensory feed unviable for t:0.34 minutes. Feed re-establishes itself relatively quickly but heavy clouds of ionized dust blot out large portions of the field of view. No immediate movement can be detected///
-Lord Mor, please come in-
///t:0.04 minutes pass between each vox-click///
-Lord Mor, please come in-
///Dragan’s vox hails go unanswered, Perkûn falls into a sprint as the wind clears away the heavy clouds of dust. Autek Mor can be seen, his chassis turned on its side, its adamantium plating destroyed and peeled back far enough to reveal the base-structure that surrounds the sarcophagus. Seeker Squad Dva follows, Dragan forcibly overrides all vox-channels///
-ALL AVAILABLE RED TALONS ARE TO IMMEDIATELY MOVE TO MY POSITION-
-VOID CAPTAIN UROSH, I NEED IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION VIA THUNDERHAWK-
-RELINQUISH ALL OTHER POSITIONS, ABANDON MOREAUMUNDA-
-LORD MOR HAS FALLEN-
From his seat upon the forgeworld of Heliopolis, Iron-Commander Autek Mor, Master of the Red Talons, would orchestrate an increase in productivity hitherto unseen in the sector's history (the use of its fruits are detailed elsewhere in this record). Ever hungry for more, the Red Talons would eventually reach out for the contested fabrication world of Moreaumunda Principal – and with no direct order to the contrary coming from the curiously uncommunicative Lord Velghor – Lord Mor would take to the field himself, finally having tired of administrative duties and wishing to indulge his more bellicose instincts.
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| [//Moreaumunda Principal {tithegrade=}Exactis Prima+] [///Moreaumunda Principal; the skies burn a bright scarlet, atmospheric pollution igniting under the constant ionising discharge of large-scale deployment of radium, volkite and darkfire weaponry. Locally embroiled factions: Red Talons (Pen.), Taghmata Minoris ‘Kukulkan’ (Part.), Star Wardens (Part.), Local PDF (Part.), miscellaneous elements of the Astra Militarum (variablis)///] |
***
Gilded arms, and an army of the dead
'Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all to see life as it is, not as it should be.'
[//Cervantes+]
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| [//Caputmori of the Star Wardens, raised in defiance of the invading Red Talons+] [//thrones_arcane+] |
[//Princip. belligerents={Orthodox alliance}//] +Red Talons+][//Princip. belligerents={Partisan}//] +Star Wardens+]
The few extant trace-records of the conflict imply that the Star Wardens had invaded Moreaumunda Principal with little recourse to their allies in the region, after chancing upon a report that it was gripped by an existing insurrection: a Partisan uprising against the Red Talons garrison.
Their apparent lack of communication is sometimes taken to imply a lack of respect for, or patience with, the Partisan High Command – their loyalty being to Volnoscere alone – but as there is scant evidence for or against this characterisation, it is worth also noting another plausive theory: that the Star Wardens were attempting to claim a quick scalp in order to demonstrate their capabilities following their loss at Neo Jove.
Indeed, the 'fevered dedication' of the Chapter is attested in the records of more than one Partisan-leaning Inquisitor, and to win a Forgeworld thus had both practical and symbolic value for the Chapter. To raise their singular Caputmori over Moreaumunda Principal would validate the Gilded Arm faction (those of the Chapter who claimed Volnoscere to be their own returned Primarch), a change which perhaps reflected an evolution of their complex beliefs surrounding ancestor worship.
A strike of opportunity allowed the Chapter to overwhelm the small number of defenders in relatively short order.
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| [//+++[DATA#SPO#LFAIL##E-VOX-TRA#SCR##ON###ILEC#RUPTI##+##.892%+]+++ #et_them_b###_brot#er!_Let_###m_all_bur######________+] [//@thrones_arcane+] |
Recognising that the Red Talons would likely strike back in force, the Star Wardens, under their entombed Lord Argo, dug in. Most notably, Moreaumunda was garrisoned by a substantial proportion of the Chapter – it is rumoured that all but a demi-company were present, though this may be a misunderstanding of the partial records of the closely-related Coldforge series of campaigns.
Moreaumunda is notable for the Star Wardens' startling deployment of dozens of Dreadnoughts – far more than one might have expected of a Codex Chapter. The reason for this is hazy. It may have been a hitherto misunderstood quirk of the Chapter, or it may have represented Argo's determination to deploy all the forces at his command. This latter interpretation would tally with the grievous losses that the Chapter had suffered on Neo Jove – perhaps Argo and his followers recognised that the dead would be needed to hold Moreaumunda against the fearsome Red Talons. Whatever the reason, the sheer number of Honoured Ancients that walked the streets of Moreaumunda Principal was unprecedented, and remarked upon by the Archmagos Veneratus of the world.
It was inevitable that the Red Talons would indeed return – and indeed, it took less time than might have been imagined. It appears that scarce weeks had passed before a punitive counter-invasion force of Red Talons emerged in the system.
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| [//Given the high number of armoured walkers on the Forgeworld, Red Talons patrols were issued high-penetration rounds as standard+] [//dennis_k/@the_iron_within+] |
While the broader war was presumably substantial and significant, very few records can be pieced together – it must therefore suffice to know that the first siege was a failure, and the Orthodoxy would not reclaim Moreaumunda Principal until much later in the war, as the Partisans fell back en masse to the Myrean League shieldworlds.
Given the paucity of records surrounding this conflict, it is fortunate indeed that what follows – this critical record of the first, failed orthodox siege of Moreaumunda Principal – details perhaps the most significant event: the death of Autek Mor.
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| [//dan_j/@dark_isles+] |
***
+++Access Granted+++
+++Welcome, Lord-Inquisitor Enoch+++
+++Precis: The War of a Thousand Blades, The First Siege of Moreaumunda Principal+++
+++Locis Planetaris: Moreaumunda Principal+++
+++Status: Fides [REDACTED]+++
+++Unspooling Telemetric Data+++
+++Vid-Feed: Lord-Immortal Perkûn, Keeper of Keys+++
+++Fraternitas: Unguis Rubrum+++
+++Locis Precis: Hive Accarat; The Hever Basin+++
>>>UNSPOOL_FEED<<<
>>>MISSION_BRIEF: SUBJUGATION<<<
>>>CLEANSE; REINTEGRATE INTO THE DOMINION OF IRON<<<
>>>MISSION_PRIORITY: ABSOLUTUM<<<
>>>SUCCESS RATE: 64.77%<<<
***
-Arise, engine of destruction, arise. Come to life, child of the blessed Unmaker, come to life. Walk again and visit ruin upon those who would stand against Him. Lead us, brother of Mor, and we shall follow-
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| [//ident: Brother-Ancient Varazdhin. Note-I: strange hexagrammic iconography on the right knee protector; strong similarity to various examples of honorifics found in the Ordo Reductor. Note-II: large, chest-mounted wave-generator of unknown provenance and function [cross-reference: The Sarcosan Endeavour, M39+] [//almir_h/@count.hodo+] |
-[CRACKLING STATIC]OU HAVE MY THANKS, BROTHER-IMMORTAL. GO IN HONOUR AND MAY THE TEMPEST FOLLOW IN YOUR WAKE-
///The engine comes to life with a sudden jerk, strange energies dancing about its limb-mounted gun. Shells keep raining down upon the battlefield, churning up the earth and littering it with a fog of irradiated isotopes. The dreadnought [subsequently identified as Brother-Ancient Varazdhin] levels his weapon at an oncoming vehicle of auxiliamen bearing the colours of the Pseudo-Legion. The dracosan vehicle crumples, its crew rendered to sub-atomic particles under the weight of singularity-induced implosion///
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| [//tentative ident: Void Hoplites+] [//james_t/@tangential_contrivances+] |
***
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| [//ident: Lord-Immortal Perkûn advances with two members of Seeker Squad Dva. Of note is the unilateral use of volkite weaponry amongst all Red Talon Seeker formations [cross-reference: The Principia Bellicosa, m29] and a vast majority of Immortal Formations [cross-reference: The Inculcata Ferris, a treaty on the cultural divergences of the children of Ferrus, m37]. To the left, Seeker-Princeps Pveto. To the right, Seeker Hathel.+] |
***
The two dreadnoughts circle each other, like crocodilian beasts of ancient terra vying for the same piece of territory. Autek Mor, Lord of the Red Talons, strides slowly, ponderously, as he bides his time. He has overcharged Sunderstrike one too many times in the past few hours, leaving its barrel cracked, the focusing array itself dangerously unstable. The other, Commander Argo, arrayed in his chassis of dark steel and greasy gold, spins his two fists about, claw and siege drill cycling angrily as he rocks his shoulders in anticipation.
“I remember you, Maimed One,” the Star Warden mumbles, the words emerging with a bubbling born of vocalising through his amniotic fluid. He speaks as though distracted, at odds with his combat-readiness; as if speaking to himself, or to a bystander, rather than in direct address, “I knew you’d come. The Ancients whispered it in their tombs. I could read it in the granite brands that litter my dreams, those slivers that run through my black dreams like diamond veins.”
“You lived,” Mor is at a disadvantage with just one melee weapon, dangerous though it was, “That was my mistake – I had trusted that the phosphex would kill you. I should have slit your throat all those millennia ago. I should have ripped your head from your shoulders, Argo. Due to my failing you were able to shed the midnight and don whatever mongrel livery this is.”
“I intend to rectify this mistake.”
“Mistake. Mistake, mistakes, mistaken,” Argo continues to whisper to himself, hazily, as though visions of the past have more grip upon his mind than the inputs of this little world, “Mistake? No. No mistakes. Fate is what it was. A chosen lineage, we are. Of the Midnight we were not, though we thought it. It is known – the Saviour embraces us. We are the future, Mor. You will be felled here. By my hand. You will. It cannot be any other way. I have seen it.”
Mor charges, the neon-purple energies arcing about his claw licking through the air as he aims to gut his opponent. Maddened as he may have been by internment and genic predisposition, Argo had honed his skills as well in death as he had in life. The fluidity of his movement belies the heaviness of his tomb and takes Mor by surprise. With his siege claw he twists Mor’s wrist aside, then the drill bites into his flank, chewing deeply into the less-armoured hydraulics. Mor feels his right knee wobble and threaten to give in.
The thin barrels mounted to his chest come to life with a thought’s pulse. A teeth-cracking hum reverberates through the air as invisible tides of gravitic energy lap against Argo’s plate, crumpling its outer layers like tinfoil wherever they made contact – yet the chassis itself remains intact.
They stand, for a moment, in a deadly embrace.
“You will die, Mor,” Argo’s words are still quiet, yet this close they cut like a razor through gossamer, “You must. Though it pains me, the figureheads of old must be left behind. Pruned away for the sake of a better future.”
Mor jerks his claw downwards, parting ceramite and steel where its tips make contact. Bright runes flash across his vid-feed – hydraulics are failing and the singularity containment cell within Sunderstrike is growing ever more unstable.
“Why must you resist, Mor?” groaned Argo, claw coming from above, the drill from below, “Can you not see? A Primarch has returned. He will save us.”
“Another Primarch, is it?” critical reports are growing more numerous by the moment, “Our crusade went to shit because of them. Our future ruined because of that gaggle of madmen. Will he be as much of a saviour as Horus was? I piss on this primarch of yours, Argo.”
Mor strikes true, wrenching apart a sizeable chunk of Argo’s flank, but in return the claw pins his shoulder in place as the drill cuts upward, chewing through the limb’s joint until it comes off with a shower of sparks.
“You will die, Mor.” Argo repeats, his enemy left with no means of defending himself, “You never answered me when we met last. Tell me, are you afraid? Now, that the hour draws upon you?”
“Burn, Argo,” Mor said, blinking away all warning runes, overriding his chassis’ safety mechanisms as he brings Sunderstrike up, “Perish, and trouble me no more.”
Argo flinches – as much as a dreadnought can flinch – as the neutron beamer’s heavy barrel lifts, the cracks running along its length screaming with migraineous, purple light. Energy readings spike and then – for the briefest of moments – blinding light seems to undo reality itself as the detonation’s roar casts everything into deepest silence.
“You will die, Mor,” Argo’s words are still quiet, yet this close they cut like a razor through gossamer, “You must. Though it pains me, the figureheads of old must be left behind. Pruned away for the sake of a better future.”
Mor jerks his claw downwards, parting ceramite and steel where its tips make contact. Bright runes flash across his vid-feed – hydraulics are failing and the singularity containment cell within Sunderstrike is growing ever more unstable.
“Why must you resist, Mor?” groaned Argo, claw coming from above, the drill from below, “Can you not see? A Primarch has returned. He will save us.”
“Another Primarch, is it?” critical reports are growing more numerous by the moment, “Our crusade went to shit because of them. Our future ruined because of that gaggle of madmen. Will he be as much of a saviour as Horus was? I piss on this primarch of yours, Argo.”
Mor strikes true, wrenching apart a sizeable chunk of Argo’s flank, but in return the claw pins his shoulder in place as the drill cuts upward, chewing through the limb’s joint until it comes off with a shower of sparks.
“You will die, Mor.” Argo repeats, his enemy left with no means of defending himself, “You never answered me when we met last. Tell me, are you afraid? Now, that the hour draws upon you?”
“Burn, Argo,” Mor said, blinking away all warning runes, overriding his chassis’ safety mechanisms as he brings Sunderstrike up, “Perish, and trouble me no more.”
Argo flinches – as much as a dreadnought can flinch – as the neutron beamer’s heavy barrel lifts, the cracks running along its length screaming with migraineous, purple light. Energy readings spike and then – for the briefest of moments – blinding light seems to undo reality itself as the detonation’s roar casts everything into deepest silence.
***
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| [//ident: Lord Autek Mor, the Maimed. Ornery and bellicose ally though he was, his absence during the closing periods of the Years of Sorrow and the opening years of the era that followed would mark a significant decrease in the Red Talons large-scale organized combat capacity. Markedly, it has been observed that in the interim – termed by the Red Talons as the ‘Lord’s Fall’ – most patrol formations of the chapter would revert to tried and tested harrying patterns pioneered by the Shattered Legion forces of the Horus Heresy.+] [//almir_h/@count.hodo+] |
***
///A flash of light blots out any vid-feed. Radiological and auditory disturbance resulting from critical engine failure renders all forms of sensory feed unviable for t:0.34 minutes. Feed re-establishes itself relatively quickly but heavy clouds of ionized dust blot out large portions of the field of view. No immediate movement can be detected///
-Lord Mor, please come in-
///t:0.04 minutes pass between each vox-click///
-Lord Mor, please come in-
///Dragan’s vox hails go unanswered, Perkûn falls into a sprint as the wind clears away the heavy clouds of dust. Autek Mor can be seen, his chassis turned on its side, its adamantium plating destroyed and peeled back far enough to reveal the base-structure that surrounds the sarcophagus. Seeker Squad Dva follows, Dragan forcibly overrides all vox-channels///
-ALL AVAILABLE RED TALONS ARE TO IMMEDIATELY MOVE TO MY POSITION-
-VOID CAPTAIN UROSH, I NEED IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION VIA THUNDERHAWK-
-RELINQUISH ALL OTHER POSITIONS, ABANDON MOREAUMUNDA-
-LORD MOR HAS FALLEN-
-I REPEAT-
-LORD MOR HAS FALLEN-
***
 |
| //ident: Lord-Praevian Dragan to the left, Brother-Ancient Varazdhin to the right. Dragan would prove to be instrumental in the successful extraction of Lord Mor. It is by his superlative understanding of the ancient Legio Cybernetica engines oathed to the Red Talons that a massive convoy of no less than 179 Castellax, 28 Domitaer, 16 Vorax and 4 Arlatax engines could be established, and the body of the then thought of as deceased Chapter Master be successfully defended until extraction could be performed. It is with great honour that he would be delegated to Lord Enoch’s tacticae conclaves and invested with the authority to speak for his lord, and by extension, his whole chapter.+] [//almir_h/@count.hodo+] |
///The vid-feed shifts as Perkûn climbs on top of the sundered chassis, the majority of its structure having been disintegrated on an atomic level. Perkûn uses his omnissian axe and the armatus’ mechadendrites to break through the amniotic tank’s crust, until a container of amber and red liquid becomes visible. Within can be seen the broken shape of a space marine. One eye of glacial blue staring up at Perkûn through a haze of blood, the other an empty pit that seized uncontrollably. Olfactory sensors registered spiking concentrations of antiseptic and sancto-sanguinary compounds in the air. Several leaks can be seen running across the reinforced glass, each one draining the preserving fluid rapidly///
***
I can see him break through my adamantine prison. Perkûn, loyal Perkûn. His mechadendrites flit before my weakening vision, undoubtedly scanning my biometrics. I try to raise arms towards him that I have not possessed for millennia. The glass breaks. Instinctively, I draw breath, expelling oxygenated gel through my ruined maw as Perkûn carefully peels back the glass. The air. I can smell the air. It burns. Everything burns. Existence is pain at this point. Even an aberrant mind such as mine is sent reeling from sensory overload. I refuse the cold embrace of sleep, for within it there is only death. I cannot die here, I think to myself as my sarcophagus is being hefted out of the chassis, I cannot accept failure. Argo’s prophecy is a lie.
And yet my lids grow so heavy.
So heavy.
+++VID-FEED TERMINATED+++
+++CONCLUSIO: THE MAIMED IS NO MORE+++
+++STATUS: UNCONFIRMED+++
+++TACTICAL EVALUATION: CRITICAL FAILURE+++
+++Fare well, Lord-Inquisitor Enoch+++
+++May He-Upon-Terra protect+++
***
Final Report
All Red Talons forces present upon Moreaumunda Principal – numbering somewhere in the area of 2,100 Astartes plus support-personnel – abandoned their positions. Those within reasonable reach of reinforced positions simply fell back, while others performed rapid on-site extraction protocols usually employed only in warzones considered lost causes (///See: Hrud Migration Extraction Protocols; Transempyrean Collapse Procedures///).The Chapter would immediately draw back to forgeworld Heliopolis. While its function as the mainstay of Astartes patrol units alongside the Heliopolian supply routes and warp-nodes would continue, the bold expansions of the so-called 'Dominion of Iron' would cease, effective immediately, for the next five years.
The Chapter would not respond to any communiques by either the Voivode’s or Master Enoch’s office for at least five months. Eventually, a department of Delegatii would be assembled by the Red Talons and despatched to various warzones to function as the bearers of Lord Mor’s authority. Meanwhile, it is assumed, Lord-Immortal Perkûn and Lord-Praevian Dragan would both don the mantle of Chapter Commander in the interim and share the responsibility of guiding their brethren.
Mor’s Fall would mark one of the most humbling defeats that the Pentarchy suffered in the war, temporarily rendering the Red Talons disorganised and ineffectual as a larger, more cohesive force beyond the borders of their and the Death Eagles’ fiefdom. [REDACTED]
>Signed, Inquisitor Marian, Ordo Chronos ((628.m39))
The Chapter would not respond to any communiques by either the Voivode’s or Master Enoch’s office for at least five months. Eventually, a department of Delegatii would be assembled by the Red Talons and despatched to various warzones to function as the bearers of Lord Mor’s authority. Meanwhile, it is assumed, Lord-Immortal Perkûn and Lord-Praevian Dragan would both don the mantle of Chapter Commander in the interim and share the responsibility of guiding their brethren.
 |
| [//ident: Lord-Praevian Dragan to the left, Lord-Immortal Perkûn to the right. Leading the two is a captain identified in later records as Urosh, former master of the fifth company and Voidmaster of the Unguis Rubrum. During this interim period it is these three that would become the de-facto rulers of the chapter, each one donning the outdated title of Praetor as a signifier of their absolute authority over their brotherhood.+] [//almir_h/@count.hodo+] |
>Signed, Inquisitor Marian, Ordo Chronos ((628.m39))
'To combat monsters, it is only natural that we must create monsters in return. May He-upon-Terra ensure that their loyalty is strong, and their shackles stronger.'
[//Thought for the day+]