Pilgrims of Hayte - The Bloody Solstice on Malfi: The first major incident attributed to the cult, the events surrounding the "Bloody Solstice," set the pattern for much of the cult's later activities and can be seen as emblematic of its worst excesses and black-hearted passions. In the years immediately following the destruction of House Koba on Malfi, order had been restored to all but the most desolate areas of the upper hive cities, and an uneasy truce forced upon the fractious ruling houses and guilds. This fragile peace, however, was rocked by a series of dreadful murders.Members of the Ecclesiarchy, ranging from lowly mendicant preachers serving in the poorest hab-stacks to senior Canons who tended the high altar of the Seven-Spired Basilica, were being slaughtered. Some died in what at first seemed accidents, others were attacked almost at random by screaming madmen, and more were torn apart by unknown forces behind locked and barred doors. As the death toll rose, the local planetary Enforcers and Arbiters could find no link or common cause between them other than their faith, and seemed powerless to stop the ever-spiralling number of killings. The targeting of the faithful in this manner caused a serious threat to the faith of the populace and resulted in copy-cat killings, the vandalism of shrines, open unbelief, and public panic reaching epidemic proportions. Eventually, the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition were called in despite the misgiving of the Malfian elite.With three full Inquisitors heading the task force, a brutal crackdown into suspected cult activity was carried out. It was discovered that a powerful group calling itself the Pilgrims of Hayte lay behind the attacks. The Ordo learned that from a stronghold in a deserted industrial hive sector known as the Rustblight scav-zone, they had infiltrated numerous refugee camps, low hive hab communities, and even some isolated shrines, replacing the Imperial clergy entirely.The cult preyed on the weak, the desperate, and those that Malfi's decades of near-anarchy had abused and made destitute, turning them against Imperial law and Imperial faith. What the Inquisition had not guessed at, however, were the daemonic powers the masters of the cult possessed. When a 400 strong force of Adeptus Arbites and inducted Imperial Guard closed in on the cult's stronghold on the fateful eve of the Solstice of the Winter Martyr, they were expected.No sooner had the Inquisition penetrated the interior of the zone, then attacks began from waves of crazed cult zealots more than willing to die if they could take the Loyalists with them. As the task force forged slowly ahead through the maze of rusted works, it was hard pressed when horrific mutants and terrible slavering beasts, clearly twisted and bound with the energies of the Warp, entered the fray.The inducted troopers began to fail and rout in the face of the enemy, only to be mercilessly hunted down and destroyed by the insane cultists. The hardier Imperials, such as Arbites Kill-teams, soon found themselves isolated, outnumbered, and overwhelmed as their ammunition ran dry and shimmering daemons rippled out from the shadows to tear them apart. The three Inquisitors, finding their fighters spread out and overcome, moved to rally and concentrate their forces. However, they underestimated the dark motivator behind the cult. He called himself Karcist, Prophet of Truth, and he presented himself to the embattled Ordo forces with no less terrible allies than a pair of bound Daemonhosts at his side. A massacre followed, and although the resolute Inquisitors managed to destroy one of Karcist's Daemonhosts, only Inquisitor Corina, his right arm withered to the bone by the touch of a Daemonhost's scabrous claw, managed to escape.News of the Holy Ordos' defeat, no doubt disseminated by carefully-placed cultists and Traitors, spread like wildfire though Malfi's upper echelons of power. The nobility isolated themselves, abandoning the people to fend for themselves. For a brief time the whole planet seemed to cower in terror, and a great world tottered on the brink of the abyss -- the Bloody Solstice had begun.Madmen and Warp-tainted freaks erupted onto the streets killing and burning with wild abandon, seemingly without pattern or purpose. Adeptus Ministorum temples were attacked and their congregations massacred, and within the central Adeptus Arbites Precinct Fortress, a Charnel Daemon was unleashed, killing scores of loyal Arbitrators before it was finally destroyed by concentrated cannon fire. As riot and panic broke out and killed thousands more of Malfi's people, PDF detachments and the local Enforcers were overwhelmed, power was cut and fires raged out of control. The whole structure of Malfi's continent-spanning hive city network neared collapse.Invoking his full authority, the maimed Inquisitor Corina called together a meeting of Malfi's Great Houses, presenting an impassioned demand for them to lend their weight to the fight or lose everything. He appealed to their faith and their duty first, but it is recorded that it was not until he mocked their injured pride and stupidity for allowing such heresy to fester in their midst that they sided with him. With the leadership, private armies, and even the secretive assassin cadres of the Great Houses to back them, the Loyalists fought the rising tide of anarchy and the suicidal fury of the Pilgrims of Hayte head on. For solar week after solar week of gruelling and bloody fighting, they held their ground. As further aid poured in from the Holy Ordos and the Battlefleet Calixis, they gained the upper hand, order was restored, and the last remnants of the cult battered itself to extinction against the Imperial forces.Karcist and several of his subordinate sorcerers were never found during the great Malfian purge that followed, but were sighted leading cults and atrocities in later decades all across the sector. The Arch-heretic Karcist finally met his end, not at the hands of the Inquisition, but in the power-fisted grip of the Rogue Trader Harriman Vale nearly a standard century later. In the final analysis, the "Bloody Solstice" of Malfi provided a deadly exclamation point at the end of seven standard decades of misrule, discord, unrest, and bloodshed for Malfi. It has since entered the myths and history of that world as the direst moment of a dark age.