The Emperor Falls.

Part 9 - The Immolantes.

Guilliman stands over his father's soul, dying and bleeding. He watches as it wains, before being transmuted, sucked into the warp. He turns back to his father's body. Looking at it's eyes, a massive light emanates from them both. It writhes and shakes, the first movement in 10 millenia. However this is not a moment of celebration of his revival, this is a moment of fear, for the fall of a god and a leader, is the fall of those who believed and worshipped him.

He calls out to Sanguinius "Come brother! We will not last long here." Sanguinius eagerly follows, his face twisted into a fake confidence. Beneath the surface he is terrified. He had a Daemon within him, his mind still unable to adjust to the feeling of being free again. His mind recalls the pain that he was put under. Despite lasting only hours, it felt like millennia, being tortured by Chaos, every plague from Nurgle, blade from Khorne, pain from Slaanesh and every mutation and change from Tzeentch. He was shown so much, how Horus fell, what they did to him. It humanized the chaos legions in his eyes. He realized what was done to them, what rituals they performed to turn them and how even the worst of them had courage in the face of this ruinous beast. 

"Brother! We must move, now!" Guilliman orders Sanguinius, he knows that his mind is a wreck but if they do not move now, their bodies will become as such. Sanguinius snaps out of his trance before running with Guilliman. Ordering all Custodes to follow him, one questions him. "We are indebted to your father, not you or the Empire he created. We will die with him, not live in failure with you." Trajaan Valoris, ever steadfast in defense of the Father of Mankind, moves toward his father's body, ordering his men to stand with the Golden Throne. A voice so loud it could deafen mortals, in a tone that even Daemons would shudder at bellows "YOU ARE TO FOLLOW HIM." They turn toward the source. The writhing corpse of the God-Emperor speaks. "YOU ARE ALL MY GREATEST CREATIONS. YOU SHALL CONTINUE IN MY DREAM. STAND WITH ME AND YOU WILL DIE." Trajaan, nevertheless stands with the Progenitor and readies his spear against Daemon and marine alike. The remains of the ten thousand stand, ready for the final battle against Chaos and their final moments with their father. "I'm sorry father, but in our last moments together, I embrace autonomy, we are warriors of yours, but not slaves. If we wish to die with you, we shall." These were the last recorded words of Trajaan Valoris before he gave his life, taking down scores of Daemons and Marines before the claw of a greater Daemon would crush the skull and spine of the Captain-General. Despite their selfish reason for staying, the Last Stand of the Custodes, as it would come to be known, guaranteed the survival of all of Terra's civilian population from Daemonic incursion and allowed the survivors time to escape the blast radius, a fact that influenced Trajaan's decision, even if he still wished to die with his father. 

In the history books of the Age of Anathema, you will find no mention of a Custode. Custodes is a forgotten word in the dialect of the times for there was no Great Emperor to guard and serve, No Master of Man to dedicate their lives to. Instead, the Ten Thousand gained a new name, they were referred to in reverence as the Adeptus Immolantes. The Sacrificers.