December, 841.
Damaetus System, Planet III, Moon II.
High King Jahk Vyronii looked up at the emerald sky streaked with drifting ribbons of color.
As a moon, the knights' homeland was lit by the reflected glow of the gas giant it orbited, bathing everything in a bright emerald hue.
Jahk's eyes were filled with fury. He knew that with every batch of Mitu aliens dropped from orbit, another noble fortress would fall into ruin.
His communicator crackled. His eldest son, Gios, spoke:
"Father, we only have around two hundred Knight mechs left."
Jahk felt the grief of the machine spirits welling up, filling his heart with desolation.
His house had once fielded six hundred Knight suits. Now only a third remained.
Jahk could feel it. House Vyronii stood on the edge of annihilation.
Their supplies were nearly exhausted. Across all Damaetus, not a single fortress remained intact.
Memories of Vyronii's ancient glory flashed through Jahk's mind.
The Damaetus system sat at the crossroads of several short but stable warp routes, drawing early colonists to this world. Using the hulls of their exploration ark-ships, they built a mighty fortress, Stormgloom Keep.
The settlers soon learned that the world was ruled by alien creatures who called themselves gods, who demanded that the newcomers submit to them.
Thus began the Age of War.
For decades, Vyronii Knights fought the twisted creatures who fed upon humans, using the standardized fortress templates of Stormgloom as their strongholds.
Their battles boiled swamp oceans, scorched vine-choked forests, and turned the green sky black.
In the end, they slew or drove the cephalopod–mammalian hybrids into the furthest wilds.
For five thousand long years of Old Night, the Vyronii Knights resisted countless invasions, some by unknown xenos, others by infamous enemies such as Orks and Aeldari raiders.
But none were as terrifying… as the Mitu.
Over centuries of resistance, generation after generation of Knights died.
Yet they never yielded. Even when nothing remained but shattered ruins, they upheld their oaths and refused to let the Mitu carry out their merciless purges.
Jahk listened as the machine spirit of his Knight, Solitus, roared its greeting.
Battered, poorly maintained, nearly falling apart, yet still determined to meet its end with honor.
Through ages of bloodshed, each Knight armor had outlived countless pilots. This gave the Damaetus machine spirits a strange, unique nature, both aggressive and mournful.
And the Knights themselves had absorbed that temperament, solitary, stubborn, unbreakable.
Every noble bestowed upon their Knight armor a name filled with its own tragic dignity.
Jahk's Knight was Solitus, a symbol of lonely resistance against alien cruelty.
The High King steadied his thoughts and spoke into the comm-net:
"Knights of Damaetus… we are the last humans in a broken galaxy."
"We will be destroyed, but our oaths are unbreakable."
"Hold your ground. Protect our people."
Solitus raised its left arm. Its shock-lance rotated and roared.
"Our oaths are unbreakable!"
The replies were fewer than Jahk expected.
He didn't check for survivors. A new alert flashed across his retinal display:
[Plasma reactor output: 50.13%]
Jahk silently shut off the communicator. From now until death, he needed no further communications.
Like this lonely, dying world, he would face his end alone.
He ran a hand across the worn leather and cold metal of the command throne, then struck it firmly. The machine spirit roared in anger as Jahk burst out laughing.
His sorrow vanished. His eyes hardened as Mitu vehicles and anemone-like bodies came into view.
Jahk's hands danced across the rune-panel. Solitus howled in rage and charged forward.
With longer mechanical legs than most Knights, Lancer-class Knights were taller and faster.
Its ion buckler wasn't a force field; it was a real, solid shield.
Damaetus chancellors had standardized the Lancer pattern because its reinforced frontal defense excelled in dense jungles full of beasts.
Now, with supplies nearly gone, conserving energy mattered even more.
Speed meant survival.
Jahk fired Solitus's last five ion rounds. With thunderous booms, five Mitu disc-tanks exploded.
He shut down the augury. Every remaining watt had to go to locomotion and weapons.
In melee, he needed no aiming.
Solitus slammed into the Mitu ranks. Jahk silently thanked the ancestors for the old knightly design; his shock-lance could fire at range or serve as a melee weapon, like the ancient Terran lances from the archives.
He would not die waiting helplessly for death. He would die killing xeno filth.
The lance smashed through six-limbed Mitu bodies, turning them into liquefied sludge that splashed across Solitus' armor.
Solitus advanced through the horde, crushing alien after alien.
Mitu tanks glowed strangely and launched metal projectiles.
Jahk raised his shielded arm; the ion buckler flared.
Explosions rocked Solitus, but Jahk pushed on.
[Reactor output: 49.34%]
[Reactor output: 37.58%]
The alerts buzzed in his mind, but he no longer had attention to spare. His vision was filled with writhing anemone limbs.
When beams began slamming into Solitus and he felt its pain through the machine-spirit link, Jahk realized the ion shield had been forced offline.
Defenseless, he did not panic.
He had accepted reality long ago.
There was only one thought left: Kill as many Mitu as possible before death.
Jahk lifted his head proudly and charged like a true Vyronii.
Solitus trembled, smoke rising from its damaged plating, yet continued tearing through alien ranks with its lance.
Then, Jahk saw something.
A kilometer ahead, a black aircraft rushed in at high speed.
' Mitu flyers?'
The remaining Vyronii Knights also noticed the fast-approaching air formation.
They watched the rotary cannons spin up, and saw the torrent of fire not shred their broken Knights…
…but completely annihilate the Mitu tanks and anemone soldiers.
A stormbird descended. Before it landed, Nareth leapt out, golden wings unfurled.
He surveyed the battlefield and immediately spotted the staggering Knights.
With his Primarch vision, he pieced together the banner fragments hanging from their legs:
A green field, a red backdrop, a white castle, and a crowned skull.
'The crowned skull, House Vyronii.
'The white castle, Stormgloom Keep.'
'Just as in my memory,' Nareth thought.
They stand on the edge of extinction.
His eyes glowed. His psychic will extended like a giant hand, seizing a Mitu disc-tank.
A thought, and the tank spun like a saw blade.
Spinning faster-
Faster-
Faster -
Until it slammed into another tank.
Boom. Boom. BOOM!
In a chain of devastating impacts, half the Mitu vehicles were instantly destroyed.
The Vyronii Knights, saved in their darkest moment, stared in shock at the black-armored, golden-winged giant in the sky.
Nareth descended slowly.
His gaze turned toward Miguel Cuesta, who had just stepped off the stormbird's boarding ramp, raising the Mindforge Staff.
.....
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