Imperial Fists Primaris Lieutenant Heyd Calder leads a strike force of the Indomitus Crusade to defend the Cardinal World of Almace.
Heyd Calder was an Imperial Fists Primaris Lieutenant and one of the members of the new incarnation of the Huscarls raised on the order of Roboute Guilliman in the Era Indomitus after the birth of the Great Rift. His mastery of the arts of war was said to be matched only by his skill at diplomacy.
He led the defence of the Cardinal World of Almace in the Odoacer System alongside an Indomitus Crusade strike force composed of White Scars and Raven Guard Primaris Space Marines from an assault by the Chaos forces of the Word Bearers led by the Chaos Lord Amatnim Ur-Nabas Lash.
History[]
Beneath the surface of Almace was an imprisoned Word Bearer, who was the true target of the Chaos invasion of that world. The Chaos Lord Amatnim Ur-Nabas Lash had discovered the existence of the prisoner during an invasion of an Imperial Ecclesiarchy world that contained the lost Word Bearer's extensive writings. To Lash's surprise, they were passages of the Word Bearers' Primarch Lorgar's Lectitio Divinitatus and it appeared that the Ecclesiarchy had incorporated many of its words and ideas into the original teachings of the Imperial Creed.
Soon afterwards the Chaos Lord received a vision he thought came from his primarch which ordered him to free the captured Word Bearer. This led Lash to believe he would be the one to end Lorgar's self-imposed isolation within the Eye of Terror and allow the Daemon Primarch to bring the fractious Word Bearers under his direct command once again. In order to fulfill his destiny, Lash began looking for the prisoner and gathering the warhost he would need to free the Word Bearers' lost brother.
Centuries later, Lash finally discovered the prisoner's location on the world of Almace and he brought this news to the Word Bearer's Dark Council, whose Dark Apostles ordered a Word Bearers assault on the Cardinal World. After hearing Almace's plea for aid from the Cardinal-Governor Eamon, Calder and his Primaris Marines began to fortify the star system as best they could. The strike force's warships attempted to slow Lash's oncoming fleet, but found themselves heavily outnumbered by the Word Bearers armada. While Lash lost a number of warships to their attacks, the Chaos Lord set several ambushes which destroyed most of the Indomitus Crusade strike force's fleet.
This left only the Imperial forces defending Almace to stop Lash, but before they reached the Cardinal World, Lash was forced to confront his rival, the Dark Apostle Lakmhu. Lash could not afford to have the Dark Apostle betray him in the course of the assault. He ordered Lakmhu and the other agents within his force who served the Dark Apostle Erebus' faction within the Word Bearers, opposed to his own faction which favoured Kor Phaeron, to seize Almace's Primus asteroid facilities, which lay close to the world. Lash hoped his rivals would die in the attempt, but if not, the Chaos Lord intended to eliminate Lakmhu and his allies himself after the long sought-after prisoner was liberated.
Lash unleashed his hordes on the Cardinal World and what followed was a massacre as the Chaos Lord's forces overwhelmed the Imperial defenders. Lieutenant Heyd Calder led a desperate but failed attempt to stop the Chaos Lord and his warband from advancing on the planet's palace. Lash easily overpowered the lieutenant and was about to kill him when the prisoner the Word Bearers had come to free unexpectedly intervened on the Imperial forces' behalf.
Revealed to be a Word Bearers Contemptor Dreadnought named the Anchorite, he uttered a word of Colchis' ancient lost language, which created a bright light that banished the Chaos Lord's Daemon allies back to the Warp. Left surprised by the Anchorite's actions, Lash greeted his lost brother and told the Dreadnought they had come to bring him back to his Legion.
To his shock, the Dreadnought immediately refused the offer. Though he was left confused by the Anchorite's answer, the Chaos Lord told the Dreadnought to stand aside so that the Word Bearers could kill those who had imprisoned the Anchorite for so many Terran millennia. Instead, the Anchorite attacked the Chaos Lord while he decried the lies the Chaos Gods and Lorgar had told the Word Bearers, which had led to their damnation.
As he fought, the Anchorite praised the God-Emperor for saving his soul and roared passages from the Lectitio Divinitatus. In a rage at this betrayal, Lash destroyed one of the Anchorite's arms, but the Dreadnought fought on. Because the Word Bearers had been ordered to bring the Anchorite back alive, the Dreadnought was able to kill many of the Word Bearers before Imperial reinforcements finally arrived.
With that, the Word Bearers' were defeated and Lash was confronted by Lieutenant Calder. As his forces were killed around him, Lash told Calder that even though they were defeated, the Word Bearers had truly won a victory on Almace.
The Anchorite's existence had been revealed and the truth that much of the Adeptus Ministorum's Imperial Creed was based on Lorgar's original Lectitio Divinitatus could not be denied. They both followed the same path towards the acceptance of divinity originally laid down by Lash's primarch. The only difference between them was that the Word Bearers were farther down upon that path than the Imperium, having realised that the only true divinity in the universe was found among the Chaos Gods.
A vindicated Lash made no attempt to defend himself as Calder fatally struck him down with a blow from his Power Sword.
Sources[]
- Apocalypse (Novel) by Josh Reynolds, Chs. 1-2, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 26