Nykona Sharrowkyn - Great Crusade: As one of the most secretive of the Legiones Astartes, the Raven Guard always valued their discretion and many of their greatest victories were only rendered public many standard years after the enemy had been silenced. As a result, the circumstances of Sharrowkyn's participation in the Great Crusade are largely unknown.In fact, very little solid information on Sharrowkyn's career within the Raven Guard is readily available apart from his induction into the ranks of the 66th Company. From later testimonies, it seems almost certain that Sharrowkyn was a member of the Mor Deythan, the Raven Guard's elite squads of infiltrators, although Sharrowkyn always publicly denied the fact that he indeed belonged to this august formation.Yet his natural discretion and his excellent marksmanship suggest otherwise. Like all the Mor Deythan, Nykona had been blessed with his primarch's rare gift to shroud himself in shadows -- an art he allegedly studied amongst the greatest of the XIXth Legion's Shadowmasters.Rumors have it that Sharrowkyn was also one of those select few who had personally been trained in hand-to-hand combat by Corax himself -- his deadly prowess with the short sword certainly gives credence to this tale. Yet his great autonomy in the field might also indicate that Sharrowkyn, in fact, belonged to a previously unknown order of trained assassins and infiltrators, an alternative to the Legion's extensive cadre of Moritat.While Sharrowkyn's involvement in the Great Crusade will probably never be fully revealed, events placed him on the black sands of Isstvan V during the infamous Drop Site Massacre.As before, Sharrowkyn's actions on this most tragic of days are a matter of pure conjuncture. What is known with any certainty is that the Raven Guard valiantly assailed the enemy positions, and that sometime during the Loyalist attack, Sharrowkyn was wounded and brought back to a Loyalist camp to be medically treated.He was still there when the Traitors of the second attack wave showed their true allegiance, by callously opening fire on the Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard.To their credit, the Loyalists reacted quickly. The retreating Salamanders and Raven Guard immediately returned fire. The Iron Hands were still mostly battling the Emperor's Children, fuelled by the anger of their Primarch Ferrus Manus as he sought out his treacherous brother Fulgrim in single combat.The full account of this dreadful day is told elsewhere, but for Sharrowkyn, the battle was already lost. Wounded and separated from his Legion -- which sought to escape the deadly trap that was now forming -- Sharrowkyn followed his instincts.The XIXth Legion did not breed common warriors or those Legionaries that would gladly choose to die weapon in hand, hurling insults at the enemy while fighting on till their dying breath. No, the Raven Guard only lived according to one motto: strike, fade and strike again.Despite the pandemonium that reigned in the Loyalist camp, despite the bombardment unleashed by the Iron Warriors and even the Alpha Legion's Headhunter Squads assassinating the Loyalist Apothecaries within the camp, the wounded Sharrowkyn looked for any mean of escaping the camp alive. It was then most fortunate for him that he encountered Iron Father Sabik Wayland of the Iron Hands Legion.