The Sons of Sorrow Chapter's "Blades of Mourning," an assault squad of the Corinthian Crusade Force's Seventh Company, halted at the breach blasted through the rock wall. Their yellow Power Armour looked mottled and worn beneath the dim mining lamps, the bleeding red heart emblems on their pauldrons silently bearing witness to the tragic fate that had haunted their Chapter from its birth. They had just fought their way through a brutal breach assault. Every inch of their armour was stained with green or black Xenos blood, their Power Swords' energy fields hummed, and their Boltgun muzzles still radiated heat.
They were the Emperor's angels, death incarnate, merciless gods of war who brought destruction to humanity's enemies. Yet when they stepped into the mine cavern, where a small collapse had just occurred, every one of them froze.
Before them, amid the devastated rubble, a woman who had just given birth leaned weakly against a boulder. Her clothes were ragged, her face covered in sweat and dust, but her eyes shone with an almost feverish maternal radiance. In her arms lay the source of the crying-a newborn.
The child... was different.
Not a trace of blood or amniotic fluid stained him. His skin was as smooth and flawless as the finest ivory. A faint, warm golden halo enveloped him, driving back the surrounding darkness and making his tiny body look like a holy infant from legend.
What shook these battle-hardened Space Marines to their souls even more was the enormous green corpse lying beside the woman. It was an Ork Warboss. His distinctive, massive Power Claw and heavy armour marked him as a Warboss of exceptionally high standing among the Orks. Yet his hard skull, which could all but withstand a direct Bolt Round hit, now had a fist-sized hole punched