Corvus Corax - Youth on Lycaeus: Like all the primarchs, Corax was separated from the Emperor while still an infant in the Emperor's gene-laboratory beneath the Himalazian (Himalaya) Mountains on Terra by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos. The Chaos Gods snatched the infant primarch's gestation chamber and flung it through the Warp, half-way across the galaxy.Corax was eventually discovered in a lightless chamber far beneath the surface of a barren moon called Lycaeus, the desolated but inhabitable moon of the planet Kiavahr. At this time, Kiavahr was a technologically advanced Forge World, providing its city-sized manufactoria with minerals extracted from the non-atmospheric moon by legions of mine slaves. Above the cavern was a mighty glacier, and the primarch might never have been discovered at all were it not for the arrival of a team of Lycaean miners pursuing a mineral seam.To some, the appearance of the miners within solar minutes of the young primarch attaining consciousness speaks of greater powers at work. Whatever the truth, the primarch was taken in by the slaves and hidden from the mine's cruel overseers. Under the iron watch of heavily armed guards, the enslaved inhabitants of Lycaeus, who included criminals, political opponents and workers who had simply failed to meet their quotas, had long provided the rulers of Kiavahr with a free and unlimited source of manpower. As with many of the primarchs, Corax matured in a preternaturally short span of time, the phenomenon serving to confirm the slaves' belief that he represented a great gift to their people. It was they who named him, using their word for "saviour" or "deliverer" in anticipation of future deeds.Created with a wealth of knowledge already imprinted into his mind, the young primarch nonetheless had much to learn from his protectors. Many of the prisoners were radicals condemned for holding views contrary to the interests of the tech guilds that ruled Kiavahr, the planet about which Lycaeus orbited, notions of justice and Human dignity that had no place in their brutal regime. Corax swore to his protectors that he would liberate them from their cruel existence. Fortunately for Corax and the Imperium at large, the young primarch's mentors counselled caution against overt signs of defiance or precipitous quests for vengeance. From these brave, wise men and women, Corax learned to bide his time and to observe his foes, to use his superhuman, gen-hanced faculties to plan far ahead towards the day he would lead the uprising and overthrow the hated slave lords of Lycaeus.It was during this time that Corax came to learn something of the abilities he had been invested with. Always moving one step ahead of the cold-hearted and bloody-handed wardens, he was never discovered. Even when directly in the line of sight of an enemy, by willing an observer not to see him, the primarch somehow avoided detection. At length, Corax could utilise this uncanny ability to go where no other slave in the prison could go, moving about unseen beneath the hard gaze of the guards. There were limits to this ability, as Corax discovered to his cost; auspexes and other artificial methods of detection remained able to see him. It appeared to be the mind of the observer that was somehow tricked into disregarding the primarch's presence should he will it.As Corax reached maturity, so the rule of the tech guilds drew to an end, though the overseers would not know of it until it was too late to avert their doom. Corax led a masterfully conceived campaign that bled the prison authorities dry, taking small cells of freedom fighters on a range of missions, some to steal weapons, others ammunition, still more to sabotage key systems so that they would fail at the moment of his choosing.Eventually, that moment came and Corax led the slave uprising that would cast off the shackles of Terran centuries of oppression. In a necessarily bloody battle, Corax and his fellow freedom fighters took the prison. The bloodshed was great, for not all of the slave-prisoners had been imprisoned for their radical ideals; many were convicted killers and worse. The primarch was forced by necessity to utilise their fighting abilities and overlook their previous crimes, on condition they never repeat them after their bondage was cast off.In yet another convergence of great events, it was in the immediate aftermath of the liberation of the prison moon Lycaeus and the opening salvoes of the atomic bombardment of Kiavahr that the Emperor arrived in 922.M30 to reclaim His lost gene-son. Unlike events surrounding so many other such meetings, however, the Emperor came alone, without an expeditionary fleet of the Great Crusade, and the next solar day left alone. While it is known that the Master of Mankind and the XIXth Legion's primarch spoke for long solar hours, what passed between them remains a matter of conjecture. With the benefit of hindsight, some have claimed that the Emperor spoke to Corax of things mortal Humans, even some other primarchs, were not yet ready to hear; of the truth of those inhuman powers that seethe within the Warp and the darkness soon to come.Certainly, it appears that when the full horror of the Warmaster Horus' treachery unfolded solar decades later there were elements of it Corax seemed to have been forewarned of, though he only ever passed such knowledge on to his forces as and when they needed and were ready to assimilate it. Whatever the truth, one thing is known to have passed between father and gene-son that night. The Emperor would leave Corax to complete his mission and to defeat the tech guilds of Kiavahr. Only later would he be ready to assume command of his Legion.It was as if in leaving Corax to liberate Kiavahr on his own, the Emperor was ensuring the primarch learned and assimilated the most vital lessons of war. The Emperor departed, leaving His son to complete his task using only those weapons he had to hand. Those weapons turned out to be a stockpile of atomic barrages and mining charges the masters of Kiavahr had secreted on Lycaeus, believing them safe from the multitudes they ruled over. In their hubris the guilds never imagined that the slave-miners might one day cast off their shackles and claim those weapons as their own.Even as the guilds sought to launch a counterattack against the massively outnumbered freedom fighters, Corax knew the terrible order he must give. Using the steep gravity well that tethered Kiavahr and its moon, the primarch committed to a full-scale atomic bombardment of the vast manufactory cities below. Even as the atomic fires blossomed on the face of Kiavahr, Corax demonstrated that by slaying thousands, millions would be saved. This, some would later claim, was the lesson the Emperor meant Corax to learn, and one that would temper his nature against the numerous challenges few but the primarchs of the Legiones Astartes can fully comprehend.Their greatest cities decimated, the Kiavahran guilds had no option but to capitulate. Kiavahr was liberated and Lycaeus renamed Deliverance. The primarch had confronted that most terrible lesson of war -- oft times, the innocent must suffer for the sake of all. It was a truth the Emperor knew well, and one that Humanity as a whole would experience on an unprecedented scale within a single standard century of Corax's reunification with the Emperor.Soon the Mechanicum stepped in to retake control over their ancient colony world and the planet was rebuilt to the benefit of the Imperium while the black tower which had once housed the Kiavahran garrison of Lycaeus became the Ravenspire, the fortress-monastery of the Raven Guard Legion.