Blood Angels - Burning of Anahktor: Anahktor is a star system no longer listed on any Imperial map. It features in no record of conquest nor on any battle honour or in any Divisio Militaris archive. Only in the Great Library of Terra, hidden deep beneath the Imperial Palace and among the ranks of the Blood Angels themselves can the story of this long forsaken battlefield be found.It is a cautionary tale still told among the ranks of that crimson-clad brotherhood, a tale of an angel's rage and a Legion's shame. It shows, perhaps, that the two Legions, the old IXth Legion and the Blood Angels, are not as far apart as history would have us believe.Once to be found in the area of space travelled by the Expeditionary Fleets, but a short sojourn through the Warp past proud Anvillus itself, Anahktor of old was a small haven of Mankind that had weathered the storm of Old Night. It had done so by being ready to sacrifice what it must and take what it could, its small but effective void navy making a wasteland of neighbouring star systems in order to provide for its people, surviving on plunder and slaves.Indeed, so efficacious was this strategy that by the time the first of the Imperium's scout ships arrived on its borders, Anahktor was not only surviving but thriving. So secure did it feel in its small glory and petty strength that those first Imperial scout ships were met with fire and thunder.The first of the Imperium's fleet to receive word of this attack was a Host of the Blood Angels, Sanguinius at its head and 12 companies of his sons standing ready. Already engaged in an augur sweep of the nearby sectors, Sanguinius ordered their course diverted to Anahktor and the fleet arrayed in attack formation.They broke aether with gun ports open and cannon primed, and in a short, brutal engagement broke the enemy fleet waiting for them, the marauder craft of Anahktor proving little match for the brute battleships of the Blood Angels. Within short order, the IXth Legion had pushed on to the first inhabited body in the system, throwing a cordon of iron around it and lighting the sky with the immense firepower of their cannon.A small airless orb, the inhabitants of Anahktor Extremis were limited to a garrison of Anahktoran soldiers, waiting in sub-surface habitats whose presence was betrayed only by the guns that bracketed the sky above them. Uninhibited by any civilian presence, Sanguinius ordered an immediate assault, eager to deny the enemy time to regroup and recover its momentum, committing the 19th, 67th, 171st and 94th Companies to the attack. Preceded by a brief, but highly accurate bombardment that cracked the surface and shattered the guns of the Anahkroran defenders, a path was opened for the Drop Pods and assault craft that followed on its heels.Brutal close quarter combat enveloped the cold sub-surface halls of Anahktor Extremis as the Blood Angels carved a red path through them. The enemy they fought was so heavily cybernetically augmented as to be barely recognisable as human, and were dubbed the "Iron Bulls" by the Imperium's troops for the sensory horns grafted to their skulls, though among their own people they were called the Kusarikku. Wielding primitive plasma casters and grav-lances, the Iron Bulls held against the forces of the IXth Legion for six solar hours, holding each intersection of the labyrinthine tunnels with tenacious courage and consummate skill.All across the desolate outer worlds of the system, the same story was written in fire and blood. The Blood Angels harried and beset the enemy, who resisted with great valour, fighting to the bitter end on every outpost and imposing upon the IXth Legion a high cost for each world that fell. Amid the asteroid fortresses of the belt that encircled the outer system, the Iron Bulls staged ambushes and feigned retreats, drawing the Legionaries of the IXth Legion towards craters rigged with blasting charges, sacrificing their own lives to stymie the Legion's advance.On Anahktor Median, the gateway to the inner system, they drew a line with their own bodies, fighting a sprawling battle across 50 kilometres of shallow acidic sea and rocky archipelagos, riding great multi-legged augmetic frames like mounts into battle and stalling the advance of nine companies of the BloodAngels. The warriors of the IXth Legion came to admire the courage of the foe, and took great pride in the victories won against them.Sanguinius himself gave the order for a six hour ceasefire in honour of the foe's valour and sacrifice, for though the Anahktorans refused all attempts at direct communication, he wished to offer a salute to the warriors who had fought so well. Privately, the winged Primarch lamented the need for their destruction and hoped that the pause, his ships arrayed in space just short of the system's throneworld, would convince the Anahktoran leadership to bow before the Emperor and wed their strength to that of the Imperium.However, what came next was to shatter any such hope and kindle the wrath of the Great Angel in its full and terrible glory. Advancing under a flag of truce, several Anahktoran craft approached the Blood Angels flagship Red Tear, each a wallowing transport barge signalling in the obtuse language of Anahktor that they bore gifts for the Primarch, scans revealing no targeting or aberrant energy readings until the moment the first barge erupted in flame. One hundred and thirty-two Blood Angels died in the explosion that ripped through the fleet, doubling at a stroke the number of casualties the Legion had sustained in the campaign.Three cruisers sustained significant damage, and one, the Inculcator, was gutted and left aflame from stem to stern, damaged so severely that it would later be abandoned. His trust betrayed and many of his sons dead as a result of the low treachery of his foe, Sanguinius let slip the collar of discipline andcalled for a Day of Revelation, a reckoning for Anahktor and a redress of the wrongs done to his Legion. The people of Anahktor had proven themselves unworthy of a place within the Imperium and unworthy of the Great Angel's respect or mercy.Surging forwards, the Blood Angels vessels blasted a bloody path through the inner system, annihilating those few squadrons of Anahktor's defence fleet that remained and rained nuclear fire onto every isolated outpost, leaving only ashes and fields of glass. The Anahktor responded in desperation, shielding military targets with civilian populations, launching suicide runs with more fire-ships and attempting further ambushes. All failed in the face of the Blood Angels' unleashed fury and their ships enveloped Anahktor Centralis, a brutal constellation of lights in the night sky.There they waited, while below, the Iron Bulls rushed to man defences, herding their people to form shields around gun platforms and fortresses while the Blood Angels watched. Then, as dawn's purple haze coloured the horizon, the Blood Angels fell from the sky, at their head a host of the silver-masked Erelim, the Order of the Angel's Tears who served as the Blood Angels' Destroyers.They chose as their target the single largest force of the Iron Bulls marshalling in defence of their throneworld, seeking to cut the heart from the enemy in a single stroke. Like meteors, the Drop Pods smashed home amid the Iron Bulls' lines, some opening like lethal flowers to reveal missile pods that spat flame and death, while others disgorged crimson-clad killers, their Bolters roaring. With the formation of the enemy broken and its soldiers in disarray, the main force of the IXth Legion descended on fiery contrails, alighting at the battle's frenzied centre and throwing themselves into the fray without hesitation.What had begun as a battle swiftly became a rout and then a slaughter, as the Blood Angels pierced the heart of the enemy formation and slew their command echelon, throwing the Iron Bulls into chaos. The enemy driven before them, the Blood Angels, without pausing to regroup or resupply, drove forwards relentlessly.Their sorrow concealed by the ornate masks of their Order, and bound by the oaths they had sworn, the Erelim and their brothers swept across the planet like a crimson tide. Any who raised arms against them were slaughtered, for this was not to be a battle, a matching of wits and blades in honest combat, but instead a massacre. The Blood Angels brought forth those devices and munitions that Sanguinius rarely gave countenance to the use of -- the terror knownas Phosphex and the invidious curse of rad weapons.Cities became charnel fields of broken corpses, forests and fields became cinders and ash, and fortresses open and blackened wounds. Anahktor Centralis was not conquered, but ruined. No man at arms was left alive, no stone left upon stone and those of its people that survived the fighting would become serfs to labour in the belly of the Legion's ships or in distant manufactoria.Thus ended the fighting in Anahktor, a bloody tribute to the terrible rage that still festered at the heart of the IXth Legion even after its unification with its Primarch. The last of the Iron Bulls to fall did so at the hand of Sanguinius himself, who cut a path into the palace of that system's petty ruler alone, save for a small cadre of his Sanguinary Guard. As they deployed, the last of the Iron Bulls, in huge horned exo-skeletal suits of ripplingsynthetic muscle and great diamond-toothed chain blades, sought to bar the Great Angel from his prize, but the Primarch was more than a match for such clumsy engines of war.Borne through the air on white wings now spattered in blood and gore, he swooped upon the ungainly suits, cleaving them apart or plucking them from the ground only to release them in a plummet to their doom, swiftly clearing his path to the throne room. There, the Great Angel himself dragged the quivering lordling from his throne and brought him forth to witness the ruin of his kingdom, the wrath of the Emperor and the price of his own treachery.