Nick Kyme - Promethean Sun

For all true Promethean sons burn, baby, burn!

Mighty heroes battle for the right to rule the galaxy.

The vast armies of the Emperor of Earth have conquered the galaxy in a Great Crusadethe myriad alien races have been smashed by theEmperors elite warriors and wiped from the face of history.

The dawn of a new age of supremacy for humanity beckons.

Gleaming citadels of marble and gold celebrate the many victories of the Emperor. Triumphs are raised on a million worlds to record the epic deeds of his most powerful and deadly warriors.

First and foremost amongst these are the primarchs, superheroic beings who have led the Emperors armies of Space Marines in victoryafter victory. They are unstoppable and magnificent, the pinnacle of the Emperors genetic experimentation. The Space Marines are the mightiest humanwarriors the galaxy has ever known, each capable of besting a hundred normal men or more in combat.

Organised into vast armies of tens of thousands called Legions, the Space Marines and their primarch leaders conquer the galaxy in the name of the Emperor.

Chief amongst the primarchs is Horus, called the Glorious, the Brightest Star, favourite of the Emperor, and like a son unto him. He is the Warmaster, the commander-in-chief of the Emperors military might, subjugator ofa thousand thousand worlds and conqueror of the galaxy. He is a warrior without peer, a diplomat supreme.

As the flames of war spread through the Imperium, mankindschampions will all be put to the ultimate test.

The Salamanders

Vulkan - Primarch

Numeon - Captain, 1st Company andleader of the Pyre Guard

Varrun - Pyre Guard

Atanarius - Pyre Guard

Ganne - Pyre Guard

Leodrakk - Pyre Guard

Skatarvar - Pyre Guard

Igataron - Pyre Guard

Hekatan - Captain, 14th Company

Kaitar - Battle-brother, 14th Company

Luminor - Apothecary, 14th Company

Angvenon - Battle-brother, 14th Company

Tuvar - Battle-brother, 14th Company

Oranor - Battle-brother, 14th Company

Bannon - Sergeant, 14th Company

Gravius - Captain, 5th Company

Venerable Brother Attion - Dreadnought

The Death Guard

Mortarion - Primarch

The Iron Hands

Ferrus Manus - Primarch

Gabriel Santar - Captain, 1st Company

The 154th Expeditionary Fleet

Glaivarzel - Imagist and iterator

Verace - Imagist

Imperial Army

888th Phaerian - Army division,including cadre of overseers anddiscipline-masters

Of ancient Nocturne

Nbel - Black-smiter of Hesiod

Breughar - Metal-shaper of Hesiod

Gorve - Plainskeeper of Hesiod

Rektar - Hornmaster of Hesiod

Banek - Tribal king of Themis

Other

The Outlander

I dont understand. You raised me. You taught me how to huntwith spear and bow. I lived in your house and worked in your forge.

Yet you ask me to believe that I am not your son?

So who is my father?

Vulkan of Nocturne

No one saw him die. The jungle just came alive and took him. Soundlessly, the trooper was simply gone. His slayer moved as a blur, blending with the shadows until it was lost in the heat haze. Scant light penetrated the dense leaf canopy above. Men, shouting and panicking in a tightly packed column, went for their lamp packs. It was stifling in the heady gloom. Heat thickened the air, but the troopers bodies cooled with growing fear. Stabbing light beams sentnight-beetles scurrying for dark hollows. Vine serpents hung inert in mimicry of their namesakes in the hope of being overlooked. If only the men could play dead like that and the predator would pass Flat leaves, that were not really leavesat all, heaved and pulsed but there was no sign of the monster. Cries of panic subsided, usurped by a quiet tension as the jungle swallowed voices and stole the soldiers resolve. The discipline-master of the 888th Phaerian Imperial Armyheld up a clenched fist.

Still. Stay still and listen. If we listen, we will live.

His brocade and jacket seemed incongruous amongst his bare- and barrel-chested charges. Phaerian death-worlders were brutish, slab-muscled men used to deltas and trackless swamps. Skulls jangled on their bandoliers, the rictus mouths clacking as if in amusement. Camo tattoos striped their pugnacious faces but couldnt hide their fear. This was supposed to be their element.

Hearts beating in two thousand chests made a louder clamour than the entire jungle in that moment. The forest held its breath.

Lifting his puniter-stave, the discipline-master was about to order the advance when the cyber-hawk perched on his shoulder shrilled. The warning was too late. As if exhaling again, the jungle opened its maw and the discipline-master disappeared. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. Just like the trooper. They were being picked off.

Snap fire from a dozen rifles chased the hole left by the discipline-master but the trail was cold before the soldiers had time to realise they were aiming at nothing. Order went with him, Army overseers powerless to prevent the two thousand-strong infantry group from unleashing carnage with their auto-carbines and scatter-locks. Hot las and solid shot spat out in all directions as the men vented their fear until their mags ran dry. Sections of Rapier and Tarantula gunners added heavier firepower to the barrage. The thick jungle in the immediate vicinity became a mulched flatland in under a minute. Electro-goads and vox-amplified orders bellowed at ear-bleeding volume eventually brought the madness under control.

A dumb quietude fell, undercut by heavy breathing and nervous whispers.

The cessation was brief.

Out of the darkness came monsters. Vast beasts, their ululating cries louder than any augmented overseer, crashed into the column of men killing Phaerians by the score. On one flank, the line bent and broke as hulking, scaled things with horned snouts armoured by bony carapace drove into it. The first Phaerians to die were ground to paste, whilst those that came next were thrown into the air or gored to death. Other beasts, smaller but still many times larger than a man, bullied in alongside the hulks. Saurian like their larger cousins, but avian in nature and aspect, they cantered and sprang amongst the shattered platoons, rending with dewclaws. With their coherency so brutally broken, the scattered Phaerians were easy meat. Hooded riders snapped off shots with long and alien rifles, their conical helms gleaming pearlescent white.

From above, a shriek split the air and a second later the leaf canopy was broken by a flock of winged lizards. A lucky burst of rapier fired chewed up the membranous wings of one, sending rider and beast into a fatal dive, but the rest of its kindred reduced the jubilant Army gunners to a visceral mist.

The air was thick with blood and screaming as the tattered regiment consolidated into the clearing theyd made. Not so much a column now, the slowlydiminishing circle of bodies offered feeble resistance to the aliens and their scaled beasts. It was no place for a last stand and soon the Imperial Army was running again, back through the darkness. Branch tendrils came alive, snagging wrists and ankles; sucking bogs opened up to swallow men whole. Insect hordes rallied, filling mouths and ears as the entire jungle animated to repel the interlopers.