The Nine Who Held

Dorn, Sanguinius and Khan hold the Siege as a theatre — and beneath them, contrary to the popular list of three, stands Vulkan: he is on Terra in secret, blocks Magnus’s strike in the Imperial Dungeon and defeats him in the Webway. The difference is that the first three have Legions, and he has only himself.

Dorn pays with a Legion and with peace of mind: after 014 he seeks the Iron Cage. Sanguinius pays with himself and with the future of the IX — the Red Thirst, awakened by Ka’Bandha on Signus, becomes hereditary after the primarch’s death. Khan pays with the freedom of Chogoris, which he nevertheless set against the warp, and nearly with his life at the spaceport of the Lion’s Gate, where he beheaded Mortarion.

Their loyalty is not obedience to Nikaea: Khan chose for a long time, Sanguinius saw his death, Dorn hated the necessity of becoming the Father’s jailer. On the map the trio with Legions is visible only in 013–014 at Sol; before that Khan is Chondax and the Path of Heaven, Sanguinius is Signus and Secundus, Dorn is Terra from about 005–006. If you are looking for why the loyalists won, do not write “because they were right”. Write: because several primarchs accepted a war of annihilation of their own armies at a single star, while Horus could not hold Perturabo at those same walls.

Guilliman holds not faith in the Father but the state. Secundus is the price and the proof: he is ready to break the letter in order to save the function, and ready to dissolve the crown (011.M31) when the function is once again called Terra. Lateness to Terra is not a stain on loyalty but the bill of the Storm.

The Lion holds Caliban worse than Ultramar: he conducts Thramas as a hunt, Secundus as a suspicious alliance, 014 as a turn homeward, where Luther is already ready for war (015.M31). The I Legion is almost intact numerically and almost useless at the Palace. Russ holds the role of executioner until Prospero and the role of brother after it: at Trisolian (012.M31) he wounds Horus with the Spear of Russ aboard the Vengeful Spirit and withdraws. The VI is bled white twice — Prospero, and Alaxxes with Trisolian — and does not reach the key battles of the Siege in time.

On the map the three latecomers are huge arrows that do not enter the cabin. Loyalty without timeliness. The canon does not make them traitors for Secundus, for Caliban, for the Burning of Prospero. It makes them people whose virtues — order, secrecy, fangs — did not coincide with the schedule of the walls. The atlas shows this by absence, and that is harsher than any red mark.

The nine loyalists pay asymmetrically. Ferrus — his life. Sanguinius — his life. Vulkan — a death that cannot be finished, and a Legion, but not his own absence from Terra. Corax — a Legion and the future of the gene-seed. Dorn — a Legion and the sanity of the victor. Khan — half of the V and the myth of freedom. Guilliman — Ultramar and a reputation that Secundus will later strike out. The Lion — Caliban and an eternal inner schism. Russ — the right to be something more than an axe, and no time to exercise that right at the Throne.

“Held” means: did not take the gift of the gods in the form in which the nine others took it. It does not mean: kept what they loved. If the article on the traitors is about the different entrances of Chaos, this one is about the different prices of refusal.

The Emperor on the Throne does not give thanks as Dorn and Russ would have wished. He cannot. This too is canon, not a metaphor: the Golden Throne after 014.M31 is not a place of audiences.

A list of loyalists at 014.M31 lies if you forget geography: look at which of the nine numerals are not at Sol. In the “Tactics” entries of the dossiers the loyalists are often more conservative — the wall, the regulation, the hunt, the shadow — but Ferrus and Russ are not conservatives. Do not group the good ones into a single doctrine.

The book minimum: Massacre (the price of Isstvan), Scars (Khan’s choice), “The Unremembered Empire” (Guilliman’s price), Saturnine and Echoes of Eternity (the wall and the Angel), Prospero Burns (Russ’s account). Disputed points: the degree of the Lion’s guilt for the lateness and the degree of Ferrus’s freedom in the cauldron. But what Vulkan does on Terra is not disputed: he stops Magnus and strikes him in the Webway.

Read the frames. Read the absences. Loyalty on this map is a vector that does not always point to Terra in time. A halo appears when a side is looked at without time. Drop the side’s label, keep the geography — and loyalty again becomes a route that one may fail to make in time.