#Cosrau Yandin

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

Entry #001.v2.final

I have had the pleasure of meeting Yandin once before, in the aftermath of the Indomitus Crusade's arrival over Taralus. The navigator records on the Macragge's Honour had listed that dusty old ball of drab rock and snow as an Armoury World, so there was a fair amount of bemusement all round when we got word of a sizeable contingent of Astartes dug in on the planet's surface. Initial communications indicated they'd been holed up for some time in an old ruin near one of the old space elevators. They identified themselves as Iron Fists, and were claiming the planet as their ancestral chapter world. By all account, Crusade Command spent no small effort to screen them for foul play, corruption or infiltration. While the Iron Fists' claim to Taralus was eventually upheld, there was a general interest from higher up in gathering more information about the chapter and verifying some of the accounts that were coming out of Taralus. Remembrancer Anjelika Biscari led the effort, and took a small team down to the planet's surface to conduct interviews, appraise structures and write reports. I was still fairly new to the role then, and my visit to the Godspire anchorage terminal was the first time I worked alone in the field. Biscari had gone down a few hours before me and had emphasised an unusual need for brevity. "Broad strokes only", I believe her words were, and I didn't understand what she meant until I stepped out of the lander and saw the planet surface for the first time. The sights of war stretched all the way out to the horizon, and the ragged landscape of the Godspire mountains were littered with the husks of drop pods, tanks and bunkers. You couldn't walk twenty meters without passing a pile of burning dead, and it was here I first encountered sergeant Cosrau Yandin, sixth squad, second company Iron Fists. The moment stuck in my head rather prominently, as I recall he was helping a couple of disposal operatives clear a maintenace passage. The two men had been struggling with the body of a metahuman, still in its power armour, and as the sergeant reached in and dragged it out, I decided on a  bit of a whim to snag a pict-capture. It was only once I looked up that I realised I'd just got my first ever look at a Chaos Space Marine. Regrettably, I was only able to spend a few hours with the sergeant on Taralus. Broad strokes, Biscari had asked for, so that was all I could really capture. The Crusade did not linger long at Taralus, and before long the Iron Fists were well behind us. It's only been in recent months, as the Grand Conclave of Baal winds down, that I've had the opportunity and freedom to track the Iron Fists down and produce more of a complete history of the Chapter. It also gave me an opportunity to present Yandin, now Captain of the seventh company, with the pict-capt I took on our first meeting. (or rather, a remaster: most of my original pict-logs were scrambled quite badly during a brush with the bleak coil two years ago, so I had a colleague of mine, Artov Ilqar, recreate the pict with oil on canvas. See attached.) I've since had the opportunity to interview Captain Yandin on a number of aspects of his chapter's history, and hope to catalogue some of the more notable testimonies, treatises and accounts here. Throne willing, Hester Vinchix Calimorre, Historiographer-Moderatus, Logos Historica Verita.

[arceansworde]

The traitor came barrelling out of the smoke, chainsword spitting old gore as it swung towards him. Sergeant Yandin changed course, ducking out of its path, chain teeth shrieking as it ground a deep line into his pauldron. He raised the colossal gauntlet, swinging round to face the traitor as the blade came growling back at him. The crackling knuckles of the power fist caught the blade on its edge, and the chainsword crumpled around it in a gout of filthy oil. Yandin's next blow struck the chaos marine in the chest, cracking the ceramite and bones underneath and pitching him against the stump of a broken statue. He flailed with the broken weapon as Yandin's power fist closed around his head, placing the bolter's muzzle carefully against the ancient, rusted neck-seal of the traitor's armour. The bolt shells tore the traitor’s neck open and burst inside the guttering power unit, the mariner’s armour leaking blood and smoke and sparks.

Yandin turned from the dead marine, the helm coming off n his hands. He looked at it for a moment, staring into the dull eye-slits. Mark Seven, early production. Martian most likely, late M32 by the look of it. His old Ironlore training rattled off statistics, material properties, cogitator capacity, power specifications. But despite that, something deep within him was unsettled. It was like the empty helmet was looking at him.

“Sergeant; update.” Clipped tones buzzed in his vox. Yandin turned, the power fist dropping to his side as he gave his report, looking out over the ramparts, He watched the lead elements of the chapter rolling back the traitor's front, armoured platoons sweeping over the endless mire of trenches and bunkers and gun emplacements.

“Acknowledged, captain.” He responded, as orders came through over the vox. There was a call from behind him, one of his marines, hard-headed, tending to a weathered graviton rifle. Yandin nodded curtly, slotting a fresh bolter clip home. “Ever onward.” He muttered, as the fingers of his power fist curled around the helmet and, with a spike of contempt, crushed it.

<<Rememberancer painting - Oil, sketch - Sergeant Cosrau Yandin, Iron Fists Second Company, late-stage during the Siege of Taralus, approx. 091.M42.

Sergeant Cosrau Yandin.Commission by Ilqar

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

Entry #005.2ndcompany.v2[avaronedit].txt

--The Second Company, Part 1 of 5-- +Header Item: Pict-Capture, elements of the Second Company, Iron Fists Chapter, during deployments on Crucible, Poros Crusade, 985.M41. The Departmento Photartem formally apologises for resolution losses and degradation encountered during processing.+

Within every Astartes chapter, there is a company that occupies the lion's share of the spotlight. For some, this is the result of years of dutiful service, such as the Dark Angels' fifth company, or a hereditary, prominent position at the tip of the spear in the case of the Space Wolves' Blackmanes. The Ultramarines second company, oft-referred to as the Guardians of the Temple, exemplify this trend most clearly, thanks to their 'crafted...reputation as dynamic heroes'. The test for such prominence is fairly trivial, and requires that one merely browse the galleries of chapter artwork and identify the company heraldry that comes up most frequently. For the Iron Fists, this trend manifests strongest around the Second company, sometimes colloquially known as the black-blades, but more often referred to as simply "The Second". However, unlike the famous companies of first-founding chapters, the Second's prominence in the eyes of the outside world is not the result of a prodigiously long roll of honour, nor a saga of dramatic, galaxy-shaking deeds. It is a quirk of doctrine that makes the Iron Fists' Second stand out. The bespoke organisational layout of the Second dates back to around 350.M39, some half-century hence of the Fall of Taralus during Abaddon's tenth black crusade. With limited resources with which to rebuild the shattered chapter, surviving command staff were compelled to devise novel force structures in order to maximise the utility of what few assets they had. Swiftly-promoted from savant-initiate to captain (a normally unprecedented ascension that owed more to the lack of more senior candidates with more seniority), it was Llewellus Thoca who received the responsibility of reforging the Second.

Thoca deserves a treatise all of his own (which I am told exists but am struggling to locate at present), but his restructuring of the Second was one of the earliest and most immediately effective measures of its kind. The company focused itself around a core of assault veterans who had survived the Fall of Taralus by near-constant ship defence actions. The successful utilisation of these squads would prove pivotal in the company's first actions since the fall, and gradually the company's doctrine would shift towards creating and exploiting scenarios where their effect could be maximised, usually in the form of rapid, pinpoint strikes on key enemy targets. This structure had its fair share of downsides. The Second had significantly less specialised resources at its disposal in comparison to its contemporaries. The company's core strength was bound up in close-range infantry, and if improperly commanded, that infantry would take heavy casualties, especially if tasked to handle threats they were incapable or inequipped to face. These core assault squads also required significant coordination inside and outside the Second, which required company command to establish and maintain high levels of trust and cooperation with outsiders.

Nevertheless, such hardships would foster unique levels of proficiency across the company's tactical, assault and devastator units, creating a company-wide focus on cohesion, diplomacy and quality intelligence gathering. The entombment of select veterans of the company into dreadnought chassis would further this trend by preserving hard-won expertise for future generations to learn from. In particular, the tactical squads of the second company would develop a bespoke reputation for quality, both within and beyond the chapter, and it was not uncommon for individual squads to be placed under the command of other captains in instances where well-disciplined line troops were vital.

Thus, when the Second was suitably managed and supported, their ability to turn the tide of battles or even whole campaigns was profound. Such deployments frequently put elements of the Second in positions of much greater visibility to mortal soldiery and imperial commanders alike, in stark comparison to the other four battle companies who were generally more capable of operating alone. This factor would be further enhanced by the personality of the Second's captains, who were chosen by vote from within the company and were generally selected for their zeal, inspirational abilities and diplomatic candor, all the better to secure the collaboration that made the Second effective.

+Supplementary Log, Cosrau Yandin, Captain, 7th Company Iron Fists+

As a former sergeant of the Second's sixth tactical squad, Captain Yandin had this to say when asked about the prominence of the company. [edited for brevity]

"This is a feature, not a glitch. The Second lives and dies on its reputation. The moment it is perceived as unreliable by those it fights alongside, it is no longer able to draw on the support, intelligence or specialist units that allow it to fight as well as it does. You've only to look to instances like Ibossim to see how the Second fares when fighting alone." "A lot of the training leverages this mechanic. While you always train with your squad, eight times out of ten your squad trains alone. This cultivates an understanding of what happens when you are unsupported. If you make a mistake, you die, and so do those around you. The pressure is extremely fierce, as a result." "This pressure extends to every part of the company . A warrior of the Second bears responsibility for the lives of those they fight beside. But a captain of the Second carries the entire company on their shoulders. It lives and dies with him. He must be considerate enough to soothe his allies, yet passionate enough to inspire them. He must carefully consider his stratagems, yet always be ready to join the fray himself. He must be open minded to new ideas, but throne forbid he make a mistake." "That's not to say it's all as brutal as it sounds. Yes, I mean it, stop looking at me like that. The Second has just as long a history of teaching its members as it does combat-simming them into perfectionists. Sharing knowledge strengthens the whole company. Ascendants teach the sergeants, who teach each other, who teach the rank and file. [Author's note: 'Ascendant' is a term used within the company to refer to those interred in dreadnoughts.] The first squad was a self-contained bladesmanship academy long before it was the captain's personal bodyguard, and those who do make captain often spend decades being prepared for the role by their predecessor. The last captain, Exitas, could trace the teachings he received all the way back into M40, when Hayabusa Shandar was wrestling necrons out of their night scythes."

"That tradition could've continued for another thousand years, had his tenure not ended so abruptly. Exitas died on Kalidos, during the retreat from the Stygius sector, barely thirty years into his tenure and with no suitable successor prepared. Throne, it wouldn't have been so bad if we'd just lost Exitas. Samas Tenebra was right there, Exitas' direct predecessor, the only First Captain in the chapter's history to have risen from the Second. There was literally no better to teach Exitas' successor, but then Saphyre happened, and before either of them were laid to rest in Taralan soil, our beloved Chapter Master bike-slides onto the Tsiolkovan and declares Throne-damned cog-brained Artos Myra as Second Captain and before you know it-"

+Log terminated: storage capacity exceeded+

Saved by the voxcaptor, Hester Vinchix Calimorre, Historiographer-Moderatus, Logos Historica Verita.

+Attached Image: Second Captain Shado Avaron in action at the head of first squad Zaio, second company, during the "Ibossim Bloodbath", circa 639.M41. Recovered from data-fragments extracted from Praetorian XIX regimental datalink.+

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

Entry #029.3.Supplemental.Demeter

--Recovered from the Archive of Engagements aboard the Tsiolkovan-- --Official Action Report, originally created 963.M41.-- +The Demeter Campaign:

Shargen Aurastra and newly-promoted Second Captain Samas Tenebra are called upon to mop up remaining traitor presence in the Demeter sector following the War for Pandorax, encountering a Black Legion warband styling itself “The Obsidian Blade” carving out a domain for themselves in the ravaged Avaricum system, led by former Justaerin member Vayxin the Ravager. Tenebra leads a select cadre of forces to defend a critical mechanicum outpost but is forced back by a short-lived but bloody daemon incursion summoned by Dark Apostle Kabrius on the outpost’s upper levels, at the loss of most of Squad Octavian and the company’s attached librarian. The loss atop the manufactorum buys the warband time to reactivate an old Shadowsword within the manufactorum. Determined to ensure such an asset does not make it offworld, Aurastra leads a daring assault on the manufactorum to end Vayxin and his new toy. The battle is fierce, and Aurastra is almost killed when his command vehicle takes a direct hit from the Shadowsword’s main weapon. Despite the long, storied careers of both Aurastra and Vayxin, the battle is decided by youngbloods:

Neophyte Sergeant Trazis, who despite coming under heavy fire had successfully outflanked the Shadowsword, ingressing through a hull breach in the rear to plant a meltabomb on the Volcano Cannon’s primary capacitor bank.

Savant-Initiate Hastel Glademan, who provided air support from the Stormtalon Hurricane Dragon, catching Dark Apostle Kabrius in the open and flattening his position with a barrage of cyclone missiles.

Brother Cosrau Yandin, who followed Aurastra into a direct confrontation with Vayxin the Ravager. Despite losing many battle-brothers and taking a near-fatal wound from the Ravager’s chainfist, Yandin was able to slay the warlord alone, exploiting a breach in his Terminator armour using nothing but a well-placed meltagun shot and a combat knife to Vayxin’s exposed eye.

--Unofficial Interpretation Fragment #3 of 12# (Please Confirm?), derived from tactical data logs recovered from Redeemer-Pattern Land Raider Tvashtar's Fire during subsequent restoration--

"Sable Exact, this is Tvashtar. We are coming to you." Keldek Mormys clipped over the vox channel and spurred the Land Raider forwards. The turret bustle next to him rattled and shook as the tank’s machine spirit assumed direct control of the twin assault cannons. Mormys watched the weapons' target reticles track jerkily across the pict-feed wired directly into his helmet, just one of a dozen sensor inputs feeding into the cocoon-like driver's position high in the vehicle's interior. If he hadn't been controlling the tank though direct nerve impulse, he wouldn't have needed to lift a finger more than an inch off the controls before he'd be touching the glacis plate, such was the tightness of the confines of the position. All the better to allocate space to armour, armament and passengers. In truth, given the potency of the machine spirit within Tvashtar's Fire, he was barely more than a passenger himself. The tank was an old one, with a bombastic, eager character. He could feel it every time the Land Raider’s treads dug into a rise, like a mountain goat scrambling up a spoil heap. According to the stories, it was fully capable of operating fully autonomously when circumstances were particularly dire. It was only the narrow advantages of the organic mind in pattern recognition and data processing that warranted his presence at all. That and the vox link to the battleforce command network that dispersed its constant stream of data packets in clicks and growls directly into his ears. And right now the network was alive with a hashing, maddening overlap of information, The Mechanicus outpost was a slowly growing silhouette on the horizon, a squat monolith of fortified stores and workshops. The nimbus of warplight had crackled into existence around the outpost’s summit at the exact same time the aetheric interference had started filling the vox-channels, but enough of Gygar Octavian’s final broadcast had made it through the hissing static. It was that broadcast that had spurred every Iron Fists asset on the planet to converge on the outpost.

“Captain Aurastra,” Mormys called on the tank’s internal vox. “We have uplink with reconnaissance elements. Glademan and Trazis are joining formation. We shall reach engagement range in six minutes.”

“Noted, Keldek. Maintain flank speed and mark targets as they appear. Please keep the network link open while I inform our comrades.” The captain’s tone was relaxed, as was the tone of the data packets that briefly flashed through Mormys’ perception on their way from the Land Raider’s internal systems to the other vehicles in the formation. Mormys caught a brief snippet of off-network speech in that same tone beneath him in the passenger bay. A rousing speech, no doubt. That was beneficial. Tvashtar’s Fire was used to hosting terminators, not tactical marines, and the unfamiliarity of their cargo was reflected in the machine spirit’s disposition.

Mormys reached for the panel on the communication terminal, to patch into the squad-level vox net and see if First Captain Aurastra was as good as marshalling those of another company as his own. His finger was on the switch when the Land Raider’s external sensors lit up with alarms. Mormys hammered the switch into the on-position and felt the marines in the passenger bay flinch at his interruption.

“Captain, we have a massive thermal signature reading from within the outpost.”

“More information, please, Keldek.”

Mormys strained closer to the pict-screens, flicking through view options, focusing in on the bloom of heat radiating from the lower portion of the outpost. The metres-thick shell of reinforced ferrocrete yielded precious few answers, but there was a horrible sense of familiarity that was starting to creep out of the more organic parts of Mormys’ brain.

“Uncertain, captain, but the readings align with macro-grade weaponry. Will continue to observe.”

“Understood.” There was another click as the Captain plugged directly into the Land Raider’s internal systems, his next words ringing well-beyond the confines of the tank.

“All elements, this is Shargen Aurastra. We have a potential grandis-level threat spooling up in the bowels of that outpost. Make all haste and stay vigilant. If we see it before it sees us, the advantage will be ours.”

The message was met with a flurry of confirmations from the other force elements. Mormys sent  his own brief confirmation and urged Tvashtar’s Fire to go faster, eyes glued to the rattling pict-screens as the tank ground through the remnants of a walled-off courtyard and summitted the lip of a crater.

“Hurricane Dragon to Niveus Exact, this is Glademan!”

The signal spiked almost painfully through Mormys’ senses, thick with static and interference as it shot into the Land Raider’s vox network. He didn’t even hear Aurastra’s response before the signal continued, and Mormys was just about to start work on a scolding reminder about vox-procedures that the pilots of the Fifth Company were in clear need of, before the rest of the signal drove a pulse of shock up his spine.

“I have my sight on the facility. The lower bay doors are open, we have super heavy armour, I repeat, super heavy armour emerging.”

The Land Raider’s momentum carried it down into the crater and up the other side, its machine spirit taking advantage of Mormys’ momentary paralysis to dig its treads in and climb. It was still moving at speed when it reached the crater lip, so it took a few moments for the tank to come to a stop. A few moments that Mormys spent staring at a gargantuan, slab-sided nightmare of riveted metal that had clawed its way from some unholy bowel of the fortified mechanicus outpost and was now rolling straight towards them. In the face of ordinance designed explicitly to fell titans, vox-procedures went out the window. Mormys’ words were heard in the ear of every Iron Fist within ten kilometers as he jammed the tank’s motors into reverse and screamed “SHADOWSWORD!”

It was too late. Keldek Mormys was imparted with the acute sensation of the Land Raider’s glacis plate, rendered red hot by a billion watts of laser energy, peeling back like the lid of a sardine can, before his world became a unitary point of infinite light and heat.

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

Entry #012.3v2.(fennion).uncompressed.

--The Second Company, Part 4 of 9 5 9-- +Header Item: Pict-Capture, Sergeant Harmik Fennion, retrieved from archived sensor-capts, Avaricum Tercius, Demeter Campaign, approx. 963.M41. The Departmento Photartem formally apologises for hue losses and degradation encountered during processing.+

Continuing this entry on, and I quote "names that should be known" (??) within the Iron Fists' Second Company, we come to Harmik Fennion. Chapter readiness records, as delightfully reliable as they are, suggest that Fennion was the sergeant of the seventh squad, second company, from 932.M41 at the latest. This is according to a few cross-referenced accounts of the Emerigo campaign, in which Fennion is described as:

"a proud graduate of the Gygar Octavian School of Unsubtle Grox-Headedness" by one Ensign Ebosan, and

"...adequate..." by the aforementioned Sergeant Gygar Octavian himself.

Despite this...ringing endorsement by his peers, Fennion seems to have enjoyed a fairly successful career as far as space marine sergeants go. His squad attained consistently high kill rates, relatively few casualties, and battle commendations across Demeter, Poros and a number of other campaigns. However, a few noted statements in his log stand out as unusual, and detail explicit rejection of bionics, in apparent confliction with the chapter's general adherence to the teachings of Ferrus Manus. This appears to have even gone so far as to merit him an official warning from Company Command for "deliberately slowing tactical replenishment rates". Odd. What is also odd is that the best-quality pict-capt I could find of Fennion depicts him wielding a power sword of a pattern that is generally not seen outside the armouries of the Ordo Malleus. I;ve asked Yandin about the sword, and he has refused to comment.

+Supplementary Log, Cosrau Yandin, Captain, 7th Company Iron Fists+

"Fennion was...well, you couldn't have asked for a better sergeant, in my books. The line between mechanical obedience and radical initiative is a hard one to walk, especially as a sergeant, but he managed it, and managed it well. He never cut corners, never took shortcuts, but always managed to find little ways of improving things. For example, I remember him wrapping ammunition belts around his wrist rather than using magazines, because 'the burst rate never quire lines up right with the clip capacity.'" "By the time he took me into the seventh squad, his reputation for clean efficiency was known well outside the Second Company. It was a reputation that got him places, no doubt about that. Fennion's reputation put him alongside First Captain Aurastra, when we charged at a Shadowsword on Avaricum Tercius. Fennion's reputation also put him on the plainwards flank of Verchen's rearguard during the siege of Taralus. It put him against two score Kakophoni noise marines of the third legion. It put him in his grave, that day...."

+End log.+ +Addendum. I refuse to comment on Fennion's sword. -Y.+

Throne knows I try, Hester Vinchix Calimorre, Historiographer-Moderatus, Logos Historica Verita.

[yandins-beleagured-historian]

"Privileged to call you kin. If I may offer you some words of encouragement, from one successor to another, know this. When our gene-fathers discuss the weakness of the flesh, there is an assumption that is being made - that iron does not fail. Iron cannot be broken." "This is a lie we know all too keenly. Iron breaks. But even a modest smith can smelt its wreckage down, cast fresh ingots, and grind new edges. Iron may be remade, time and time again, no matter how badly it breaks. And so long as we know how we were broken, how we might be broken in future, so long as we understand our failure, we can bolster ourselves against it." "I wish you the greatest of luck with your own reforging. May your edge cut ever onward, and may you always rise from the anvil anew, to overcome what broke you last time. " - Cosrau Yandin, Seventh Captain, Iron Fists Chapter.

I wanna tell yall about a Iron Hands Successor I cooked up and yall tell me if you’re into it

They’re named the Blood Forged, led by their Chapter Master Morgun Tenkred (Twins… they were…), who wields a modified Mars pattern Heavy Bolter named “War Feeder”

They’re a fleet chapter, their capital ship is named the Holy Petrifier (<- Not the final name), and they float around the systems nearest to Medusa

Their history is tragic, as all things in 40k are. Originally they were known as the Steel Bound and were sent to reinforce Raven Guard in a siege defense. It was a great and terrible battle, a Pyrrhic victory at the most optimistic. Tenkred was almost one of them, and as he woke up in the infirmary he looked out at a sea of marines in black Ceramite and ruined heraldry. He watched blood, coolant, and oil all spill from marines lying lifeless on gurneys, Apothecaries scurrying around trying to save any marines they could. They all looked so similar to Tenkred, and such a thought refused to leave him even after he had recovered. As the council decided what was to be the fate of what Steel Bound were left he threw himself into reading the words of his genefather.

It was there the Blood Forged was born, for his father’s words finally… *Clicked*. He realized it wasn’t bioaugmentation that would make him strong like his father, it was discipline. It was what differentiated a warrior from a soldier, a predatory beast from a man with purpose.

It’s in that moment he felt a great shame, his own augmented arm clicking restlessly as he prayed for some way to repent his weakness. His prayers would be answered in the grimmest way.

He was summoned before the council, and told he was the last ranked officer in his chapter, and seeing as how they didn’t have a chaplain to spare, he was offered to lead what was left of the Steel Bound. He took it gratefully, founding the Blood Forged during (maybe) the Ultima Founding, sparing the new Primaris the dogma he crawled out of