Dirkwald

Sir Dirkwald is a Noble of House Mortan who pilots the Knight Errant Black Heart. He recently completed his 1,000th patrol on his house's homeworld of Kimdaria, which according to House Mortan's customs now allowed him to serve off-world.

As a result, Sir Dirkwald was among the House Mortan forces assigned to support the Rutherian Crusade of the Black Templars Chapter of Space Marines. A force of Knights under the command of Dirkwald fought with the Gladius Strike Force led by Castellan Dramos to blunt the assault of the Iron Warriors led by Warpsmith Etrogar upon the Fortress World of Ghreddask during the Talledus War.

The conflict that raged upon Ghreddask was dominated by the presence of super-heavy war machines and enormous armoured battalions. Striding through the hailstorm of shells and rocket barrages came the towering forms of Imperial Knights, as well as their dark mirror, the dreaded Chaos Knights.

Both of these bitter enemies upheld ancient oaths to their liege lords with unwavering certainty. In the case of the corrupted houses, their refusal to break bonds of honour had found them fighting on the wrong side of the Horus Heresy, supporting the traitorous forces of the Warmaster Horus as they made war upon the Imperium of Mankind.

House Mortan provided the majority of the Loyalist war engines on Ghreddask, with no less than six Knights hailing from the dark world of Kimdaria. Veteran beast-hunters all, the Mortan Knights hailed from a world wreathed in perpetual darkness and ravaged by predatory behemoths, a harsh place that had forged iron-hard souls.

They proved invaluable in the battle against the Daemon Engines produced by the Soul Harvester Scarax Krond, corralling the twisted abominations with fleet Armigers before tearing them apart with Reaper Chainswords and Thunderstrike Gauntlets.

Warpsmith Etrogar had forged pacts with Houses Khomentis and Vrachul, both of whom were sworn to serve the Dark Mechanicum. The war machines of Vrachul belched acidic vapours from vents and exhaust ports; a pall of chemical smog wreathed them in battle, dissolving the flesh and armour of anything that strayed within its bounds.

The warriors of Khomentis kept daemonic spirits as hunting thralls and took cruel delight in chasing down and brutalising wounded and damaged Imperial Knights. Both houses favoured the rush and crash of close combat, a craving that the Loyalist Nobles of House Mortan were only too glad to accommodate.

Ghreddask shook to the impact of Titan-killing weaponry as these two ancient foes duelled, prepared to fight to the bitter end.

History
When Kor Phaeron offered the Iron Warriors the chance to invade the Talledus System, the Iron Warriors warband commanded by Etrogar were tasked with containing the Imperial forces at Ghreddask, the system's formidably defended Fortress World.

The warpsmith saw the outer planets of the Talledus System as the perfect testing ground for newly perfected monstrosities -- the Soul Harvesters.

These horrific creations were spaceborne fortress-factories that consisted of a central Daemonforge, surrounded by snaking tentacles of hellforged metal. These parasitic engines would embed themselves deep into a planet's crust, their boarding tentacles disgorging Iron Warriors into weak points in their enemy's defences.

Meanwhile, the roaring furnace at the structure's heart would feed upon flesh, metal and the souls of the slain in order to spew out fresh Daemon Engine reinforcements.

As far as Kor Phaeron was concerned, this assault was merely a diversion for his grand assault upon the system capital world of Benediction. It would divide Imperial reinforcements, and secure the Dark Cardinal the time he needed to oversee the destruction of Benediction and its rebirth as a shrine of worship to the Chaos Pantheon.

For his part, Etrogar had no interest in Kor Phaeron's grand ideological plans for the Talledus System. A ruthlessly practical soul, Etrogar saw the rampant psychic disturbance unleashed by the Great Rift not as a spiritual awakening for Humanity, but as an infinite source of power to be harnessed.

The warpsmith entered Talledus at the helm of the Soul Harvester Scarax Krond. More spaceborne factory than starship, this cephalopodic metal monster was powered by an immense Daemonforge. A product of the Iron Warriors' darkest experiments in metallomorphosis and Warp-engineering, it would be the first such creation to be tested in battle.

With its vast alpine ranges and city-sized citadel fortresses, the Fortress World of Ghreddask was the most heavily defended planet in the Talledus System, aside from Benediction itself. Its seven great hive cities provided billions of souls for the Astra Militarum, and its deep reserves of promethium and super-dense minerals only added to Ghreddask's critical value to the Imperium -- making it an irresistible target for Etrogar.

The Scarax Krond latched onto the surface of Ghreddask like an immense parasite, thrusting pseudopods the size of habblocks deep into the earth. These snaking tentacles pulverised their way through rock and stone with siege drills and melta-cannons, before bursting up from the earth within the walls of Ghreddask's citadel fortifications. Heretic Astartes warriors marched forth, unleashing deadly volleys of bolt rounds into their unprepared foes.

At the same time, Chaos Knights of House Khomentis lumbered from the gatehouse of Scarax Krond, bellowing oaths of destruction as they set upon the armoured formations of the Astra Militarum.

Tank after tank was blasted into molten slag, and arcs of heavy bolter fire obliterated entire formations of Ghreddask infantry. All the while the Daemonforge of the Scarax Krond glutted itself upon the aura of death and destruction. Blasted corpses and twisted wreckages of shattered war machines were shovelled into its furnaces, as Etrogar and his fellow Warpsmiths stoked the hellish fires with the souls of the slain.

The Scarax Krond spewed out a tide of Daemon Engines, from scuttling, spider-like Venomcrawlers to hulking Maulerfiends that galloped into battle, eager to mutilate and destroy. Soon the Loyalists were in full flight, retreating to thepolar citadel of Fortress Resolve, where they prepared to make their final stand.

Just as the cruisers of the Iron Warriors prepared orbital bombardments that would blast open the last vestiges of resistance on Ghreddask, the Chaos fleet picked up a surge of Warp disturbance. Two enemy capital ships dropped out of orbit -- black vessels, bearing the stark white cross of the righteous Black Templars Chapter.

Castellan Dramos led a single strike force detached from the Rutherian Crusade, all that could be spared due to the Black Templars' extensive campaigns elsewhere across the Segmentum Solar on behalf of other Shrine Worlds. Fortunately, Dramos could also call upon a cadre of Imperial Knights from House Mortan, commanded by the dour yet ferocious Sir Dirkwald.

Dramos scanned the latest tactical cogitations broadcast from Fortress Resolve. The situation was grim. The Iron Warriors were besieging the polar citadel, pouring daemonic forces against its shield-walls while their siege tanks kept up a relentless bombardment. Yet the true threat, Dramos quickly intuited, was the Scarax Krond.

As long as the Soul Harvester's Daemonforge was operational, the Traitors could replenish their forces indefinitely. Strike Force Dawnhammer would deploy in a decisive attack upon the Soul Harvester.

The warriors of House Mortan made for the surface of Ghreddask in their fortified bulwark-landers, the heavily armoured vessels shrugging off reams of flak fire. Sir Dirkwald led a frontal assault upon the Scarax Krond. From the parapets of the Soul Harvester, Iron Warriors poured a stream of fire down upon the advancing Loyalists.

While the Knights drew the attention of the Chaos defenders, squads of Inceptors descended upon the Soul Harvester like living comets, burning through the upper atmosphere and locking coordinates upon the pulsing shell of the Scarax Krond.

They struck home with shattering force, breaching holes in the fleshmetal carapace with demolition charges, even as they fended off flocks of fire-spitting Heldrakes. Castellan Dramos led the assault into the heart of the Scarax Krond, battling through the innards of the iron monster, alongside a retinue of veteran crusaders.

This assault team suffered grievous losses as the Iron Warriors assailed them at every turn, but in an act of self-sacrifice that would mark their names in the honour-scrolls of their order, Dramos and his Command Squad managed to detonate a cyclonic charge at the heart of the structure.

The resulting Warp explosion swept through the Soul Harvester, immolating Loyalist and Heretic alike and blasting its assembly halls and charnel-factories to atoms. The Scarax Krond convulsed and thrashed its metal tendrils like a wounded animal, but its daemonic furnaces would not be snuffed out so easily. Dramos' sacrifice had bought the defenders of Ghreddask precious time, but the planet's fate still hung in the balance.