The Battle of Yarant

As the traitor tide rolled inward toward Terra, certain worlds were chosen, or chose themselves, to stand as breakwaters against the flood. The Battle of Yarant was one such stand, a fortress-world set athwart a traitor advance route where the Blood Angels and a detachment of the Legio Custodes resolved to sell every hour at the highest price the enemy could be made to pay.

There was no illusion of ultimate victory. Yarant was to be held, not saved, and its defenders fought with the terrible serenity of warriors who have made their peace with death. The sons of Sanguinius held the wall-lines with an artistry of slaughter that even their enemies grudgingly marked, while the golden warriors of the Legio Custodes moved through the breaches like living judgement, closing wounds in the defence that no lesser warrior could have sealed.

Yarant fell, as it was always going to fall, but it fell slowly, and in that slowness lay its whole grim purpose. Each week the world endured was a week the Throneworld had to prepare, a week of walls raised and guns emplaced upon distant Terra. The Blood Angels who died there entered the long litany of the Legion's sorrows, remembered not for a triumph but for a sacrifice, one candle among the many that lit the road to the final siege.