Belial

Belial commands the Deathwing, the entire First Company of the Dark Angels and the greatest concentration of Terminator-armoured veterans in the Chapter. He came to the office after a spectacular triumph at Piscina, where his generalship turned back a dire threat in the closing years of the forty-first millennium, and the Masters and Grand Masters of the Chapter gave their unanimous assent to his elevation. As leader of the First Company he sits at the very core of the Inner Circle, privy to the deepest of the Unforgiven's secrets.

His path to greatness began far from the Rock, on the feral world of Bregundia, where he was raised among a knightly order and shaped by its ideals of duty and honour. As a boy-knight barely into his second decade he was bested in combat by a Dark Angels Chaplain, yet he fought so well against so overwhelming a foe that he was taken as an aspirant rather than left behind. That early lesson never left him.

Belial is defined above all by an unforgiving pursuit of perfection. He chastises himself for the smallest failure, for a single shot gone wide or a moment's hesitation, and he takes no joy in victory, seeing only the flaws that might next time prove fatal. This severity makes him a demanding master, but it has also forged one of the deadliest commanders the Deathwing has ever known.

Into battle Belial bears the Sword of Silence, one of the four legendary Heavenfall Blades reserved for the highest of the Inner Circle. Its obsidian edge seems to drink the light and sound around it, and by tradition it passes to the most lethal close-quarters killer in the Chapter. With this blade in one fist and a storm bolter in the other, encased in hallowed Terminator plate, Belial teleports into the heart of the foe wherever the Dark Angels' need is greatest, and few enemies survive the encounter.