GRAHAM MCNEILL "COURAGE AND HONOUR"
'You return to us, Uriel Ventris,' said Lord Calgar, and Uriel's heart soared to hear the welcome and respect in his voice. 'I had not thought to ever lay eyes on you again.'

Uriel looked up into Lord Calgar's face, revelling in the sight of so perfect a warrior. Marneus Calgar's features were as hard as granite hewn from the deepest quarry, yet there was wisdom and nobility within them, his eyes cold as steel and yet filled with humanity.

'Nor I you, my lord,' said Uriel, unable to keep his tears from falling.

'Varro here said we would see you again, but I didn't believe him,' said Calgar. 'I should have known better.'

'Yes,' agreed Tigurius, 'you should have. Did I not say the Sentinel of the Tower would fight alongside us when the Thrice Born is clad in flesh once more?'

'Aye, that you did, Varro,' said Calgar, 'and one day you will explain what that means.'

PAUL KEARNEY «CALGAR'S FURY»
Calgar approached, his feet making almost no sound on the shining marble floor despite his imposing size. The Chapter Master’s left eye, a bionic implant, gleamed red in the dimming light of the temple.

The Lord of Macragge was taller than Tigurius, even though he was not in armour. In appearance, his figure was akin to that of a well-preserved, athletic man in his early fifties, by Terran-standard years, his hair dull gold shot through with grey. Except for the massive scale of his skull, and the broad bulk of his immense form. And the light that shone deep in his remaining human eye.

All over his exposed skin were the faint contrails of old scars, gained over centuries, and so lean was his flesh that when he compressed his lips the outline of his teeth could be seen behind them. His gaze could not be met for long, even by one as close to him as Tigurius.

The Chief Librarian knew the myths that had grown up around the Chapter Master  – that he was invincible, that he was Guilliman come again. Sometimes, when he met Calgar’s deep-set eye and divined the ferocious intelligence behind it, Tigurius could almost believe the legends himself.

PAUL KEARNEY «CALGAR'S FURY»
‘Lord Calgar,’ Tigurius said. The vox link was tenuous now, despite the relays, like trying to speak into a mounting gale.

‘I hear you.’

‘My lord, the translation will occur in the next few minutes.’

‘What of Ixion and Seventh?’

‘They are clear, Chapter Master. They will be back on board the Octavius imminently.’

‘Will you be able to track us in any way, Tigurius?’

‘I will be able to sense your psychic signature for some time – it leaves a trail, like a faint wake, which can be sensed even after you have entered the warp. But it will dissipate quickly. And my lord, I feel that this is going to be a long translation. You may be in the warp for an indeterminate amount of time, and there is no telling where you will emerge.’

‘If we ever do,’ Calgar said, with a bitter laugh. ‘It would seem, Tigurius, that myself and Fifth are about to follow in the footsteps of our lost brethren of the Abyssal Crusade. Rest assured that we shall fight to the end, and if there is ever any way we can relate our situation, our location to you, it shall be done.’

‘I know that, my lord.’ Tigurius bowed in grief over the outspread wings of the aquila pulpit before him. His gauntlets grasped the adamantium until they creaked. ‘And the Ultramarines will never stop searching for you, no matter how long it takes.’

‘In my absence, you will command the fleet. Make sure Iax is safe, and the system is clean. Then proceed to Macragge. Command of the chapter will devolve to Brother Captain Agemman. Counsel him as you have counselled me, and the Chapter will continue to prosper.’

///

‘It comes, my lord. May the Emperor guide and protect you–’

‘And you, my brother,’ Marneus Calgar replied. ‘Courage and honour.’

‘Courage and honour.’

PAUL KEARNEY «CALGAR'S FURY»
Momentarily, he wished that he had kept Brother Tigurius by his side. The Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines was one of the most potent psykers in the Imperium, and a master of historical lore. Calgar missed his counsel, his learning.

But it was bad enough that the Chapter Master was lost to the warp. For the Ultramarines to lose Tigurius also would have been a blow to rock the Chapter to its foundations.

No, he had made the right choice. Tigurius was where he ought to be, where he was needed most. Right now, Marneus Calgar and all those with him were as good as dead.

GRAHAM MCNEILL «THE CHAPTER'S DUE»
He heard footsteps behind him, and returned to his mortal senses. Marneus Calgar stood beside him, his iron gaze cast out over the magnificent vista of the high, snow-shawled mountains.

“I should come here more often,” said Calgar.

“When we drive off the daemons I will come with you,” said Tigurius.

“Tell me, Varro,” said Calgar, suddenly serious. “What do you see?”

“I see that we are trapped in a valley with no way out, awaiting an army of daemons to descend upon us. And there is little hope of relief.”

“I wish I hadn’t asked,” said Calgar.

“Yet as grim as things are, there is a remarkable lack of fear amongst the new garrison of the shrine fortress. These are the finest warriors of Ultramar, my lord, and there is power here, wrought into the very bones of the fortress. It is no accident that we have come to this place.”

Calgar said nothing, his gaze drawn to a wavering tear of lightning that had  appeared at the end of the valley. It drew wider with every passing second, and they smelled the rank stench of the daemonic on the wind.

“I hope you are right,” said Calgar.

GRAHAM MCNEILL «THE CHAPTER'S DUE»
Tigurius drove his staff into the ground, as much to hold himself upright as it was a gesture of defiance. His strength was all but gone, and weariness swamped him. His eyelids drooped and a grey haze gathered at the corner of his eyes. He saw Marneus Calgar walking back towards him, his armour splashed with black ichor.

The Chapter Master had his fist in the air, and Tigurius heard cheering.

“We did it, Varro,” said Calgar, and Tigurius could see the powerful life energies radiating from him.

Where Calgar was triumphant, men would feel their hearts lifted and their courage swell. His presence was worth a thousand men on the battlefield and Tigurius tried to smile in response.

“We have survived this attack,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, “but they will be back tomorrow.”

“Let tomorrow look to itself,” said Calgar as the cheering grew louder. “Tonight we are alive and the moon is shining down upon us. Every attack we turn back leaves us stronger, and every defeat weakens our enemies.”

“These monsters are just the daemon lord’s chaff,” said Tigurius. “When we are at our lowest ebb, that is when M’kar will come for us.”

“And when he does I will kill him,” said Calgar.

“It’s not that simple,” said Tigurius.

“Yes, Varro, it is,” said Calgar, throwing an arm around Tigurius. “The daemon lord will come and either I will destroy him or he will kill me. It is that simple.”

“No, my lord,” insisted Tigurius. “It is not.”

GRAHAM MCNEILL «THE CHAPTER'S DUE»
The daemons hurled themselves at the fire, and the mountains shook with their death screams. As each was destroyed, Tigurius felt his grip on the energy empowering it falter. He could not hold onto it much longer without dreadful consequences, and he felt the enormous power in orbit around Talassar turn its baleful gaze upon him.

It was as though he looked into the darkest abyss, a vast emptiness from which there could be no return. Tigurius quailed before the horror of ultimate oblivion, and knew there could be no victory against such power.

The last of his strength was gone, and Tigurius felt himself falling into the abyss.

Powerful hands caught him, and he felt himself being carried away. Blades were clashing and bolters were firing, but all Tigurius could feel was the cold emptiness of the void. His eyes slowly closed and he heard a voice calling to him.

“I’ve got you, Varro,” said Marneus Calgar. “I’ve got you.”

GRAHAM MCNEILL «THE CHAPTER'S DUE»
Marneus Calgar knelt beside Varro Tigurius and watched the colour drain from his face. For three weeks, his Chief Librarian had hovered close to death, but now it looked as though his invisible struggle was at an end.

Agemman looked enquiringly at him, and he shook his head. “My lord,” said his First Captain, nodding towards the firing slits cut into the walls of the keep. “The fire at the walls. It’s dying.”

“I know,” he said, holding tightly to Varro’s hand. It was cold and grey, lined and thin, like an old man’s. “That’s not all that’s dying.”

“The daemons will be coming again. We need to get onto the ramparts,” pressed Agemman. “The gunports need manning. If this is the end, then we should face it head on.”

“Do it,” said Calgar. “I will be with you presently.”

Agemman nodded. “He was a good man,” he said at last.

“He’s not dead yet, Severus,” pointed out Calgar.

“Of course,” said Agemman, bowing and moving away.

Calgar had carried Varro Tigurius from the breach in the walls with the daemons snapping at his heels. In their hunger to slay him they had hurled themselves through the fire, but its pure light had consumed them instantly.
The fire had burned for three weeks, and they had used the time wisely, further strengthening the defences, resting and practising quick reaction drills for the reserve forces. Varro had remained in his deathly state throughout, unmoving and with his pulse slowly weakening as he slipped ever closer towards death.

“You have to live, Varro,” he whispered. “We can’t do this without you.”
He held his Chief Librarian’s hand tightly willing him to live and wishing he could gift him a portion of his own strength. Calgar remained at his Chief Librarian’s side for several minutes until he felt the presence of several people behind him. He looked up from Tigurius, blinking back the tears that threatened to come as he saw nearly a hundred of the civilians they had discovered in Castra Tanagra.

GRAHAM MCNEILL «THE CHAPTER'S DUE»
“Goodbye, Varro,” he whispered, turning away and making his way to the ramparts of the keep where Agemman and thirty warriors of the 1st Company awaited him.
As Agemman had said, the fire with which Varro had kept the enemy at bay was gone, and the daemons were massing at the edge of the cracking gouge of lightning at the end of the valley.
Cold winds blew over the fortress and the first rays of dawn spilled over the mountains.

“The last dawn,” said Calgar. “Reminds me of the final canto of the Lament of the First. ‘Praise the sun that brings the dawn of our final doom.’”

“Now there’s a depressing thought,” replied Agemman. “Saul Invictus’ last speech before the tyranids overran them.”

“Sorry, just thinking aloud.”

“I hope that’s not the inspiring speech you’re planning to give.”

“I’m all out of speeches, Severus,” said Calgar.

Agemman nodded and said. “Good. I don’t much care for speeches before battles.”

They lapsed into silence, watching as the new dawn grew bolder, painting the mountains in vivid gold and purple. Calgar thought it beautiful and knew Tigurius would have loved to capture such a scene in water-colours.

GRAHAM MCNEILL «THE CHAPTER'S DUE»
The daemon lord bellowed in pain and released its grip, turning and fleeing from the agony of the flames. It smashed through the walls of the keep and over the breach, its daemonic horde gathered around it as it drew on their power to sustain itself.

Calgar dropped to the floor of the chamber as the fire died, unable to believe what had just happened. He turned to see what had saved him, and his heart leapt to see so magnificent a sight before him.

Varro Tigurius stood at the far end of the chamber, gaunt and hollow-cheeked, with the pallor of a corpse, but still alive and still breathing. A dozen civilians held him upright between them, bearing the weight of his arms and body as the Chief Librarian of the Ultramarines swayed unsteadily on his feet. Maskia Volliant, Praefectus of Tarentum, held Tigurius’ staff though it was almost too heavy for him to bear. Calgar had never been so proud of his people than at that moment.

“I have severed the link between the daemon lord and the Indomitable,” said Tigurius. “It will not be able to draw power from the warp rift
anymore.”

“Emperor’s grace, but you are a wonder to me, Varro,” said Calgar.

“I had help,” said Tigurius modestly, looking around at the courageous civilians who held him upright.

GRAHAM MCNEILL «MARNEUS CALGAR: LORD OF ULTRAMAR»
‘I like to come here when I need to restore my equilibrium,’ said a voice from a recessed reliquary. ‘I imagine it is the same for you, my lord.’

‘Were you waiting here for me?’ asked Calgar, as Varro Tigurius emerged from the reliquary, his skull-topped staff held loosely in his right hand.

‘Why would you think I might be?’

Calgar bit back his first response, in no mood for his Chief Librarian’s habit of answering a question with one of his own.

‘Because you have petitioned me for the last week with an audience, and you know I often come here when it’s quiet.’

‘Does it help coming here?’ asked Tigurius. ‘To lessen the burden upon you, I mean?’

‘Sometimes,’ admitted Calgar. ‘I look up at Lord Guilliman and I think of the times he lived through. It comforts me to know that what we face is a spit in the rain compared to what the Five Hundred Worlds faced then.’

‘Then I will pre-emptively offer an apology.’

‘For what?’

‘For adding to your burden.’

Calgar beckoned Tigurius forward. The Honour Guard parted to allow the Librarian within their armoured shieldwall.

‘The last year has been hard, yes?’ said Tigurius, taking Calgar’s proffered hand.

‘I don’t have time for this, Varro,’ said Calgar, and they set off on a circuit of the mighty primarch’s shimmering stasis tomb. ‘Just say what you have to say.’

GRAHAM MCNEILL «MARNEUS CALGAR: LORD OF ULTRAMAR»
‘Severus Agemman is a hero of Ultramar,’ said Calgar with a warning tone. ‘A hero of the Imperium.’

‘That he is,’ agreed Tigurius. ‘No question. I stood with him on the walls of Castra Tanagra. I watched the two of you face the daemon lord, but he is not the man he once was.’

‘None of us are, Varro,’ said Calgar, looking at the gaunt, drawn features of the librarian. ‘Perhaps you most of all.’

Holding the daemons back from the walls of Castra Tanagra had drained Tigurius in ways Calgar could never know.

Tigurius smiled grimly. ‘There’s truth in that, my lord, but you know of what I speak. The First Company needs a warrior who can lead them in battle, and Severus has never fully recovered from the daemon lord’s blow that struck him down. You know it, and I know it.’

‘You would have me replace him?’

‘I would,’ said Tigurius.

‘And who could replace him? Sicarius? Ventris? Galenus?’

‘It is not my place to say.’

‘Since when has that ever stopped you?’

‘This decision must be yours and yours alone,’ said Tigurius. ‘Much depends upon you making the right choice.’

WAR OF BEASTS:
On the night of his journey to Vanantis IX, Marneus Calgar of the Ultramarines was visited by a vision of his old friend, Tigurius. At first, Calgar welcomed the spectral image, for he knew that this was no illusionary dream - the Chief Librarian was reaching out to him in an astral form, and clearly a message beyond compare.

Tigurius pressed spectral fingertips to Calgar's temples. In this master scripture, he had imparted his terrible knowledge - a collection of mental images and literal symbols that had left a fiery imprint upon Calgar's mind. Such a connection would have driven a lesser man mad, but thanks to his recent transformation into a Primaris, Calgar endured the mental assault, sifting and sorting the torrent of images almost as soon as they entered his mind.

The Macragge High Council needed him as their sword and shield in the Imperium Nihilus; the Primarch himself commanded that Vigilus should stand. Then the image of Tigurius faded, tears of blood glistened on his cheeks, and at last he was gone. But the deed was done, and soon the new army set out on the road.

WAR OF BEASTS:
Recovering from Tigurius' unexpected visit, Marneus Calgar hastily assembled a relief force from the Adeptus Astartes he could commandeer, coax, or force to appear. Although every available force was committed to the defense of the Imperium and the destruction of its enemies, Calgar was able to redirect resources from stable fronts wherever possible, assign new tasks to war fleets that had strayed or misdirected, and recall several new Primaris Chapters from the Indomitus Crusade. He ordered his captains and the Chapter Masters of the other Chapters to inform their Navigators of what was at stake, and to set out for the Vigilus System with all haste.

Were it not for the astropathic link Tigurius maintained with Lord Calgar, they would never have reached the planet in time. The Chief Librarian, surrounded by his finest followers in the depths of Hera's fortress, mentally led the Ultramarines fleet (and their allies with them) across the maddened Imperium Nihilus.

They reached Vigilus, but at a terrible cost. Several Epistolaries tore out their eyes, slowly consumed by the Empyrean ritual, just as the psykers that fuel the Astronomican are consumed by the Emperor's psychic power. Others were executed by point-blank shots by Chaplains who could see the telltale signs of daemonic corruption on their bodies. Tigurius himself, though wasted and burning from the strain, did not flinch. In the end, he simply collapsed to the floor, his mortal body aged by decades - but only after Calgar's liberation fleet had entered realspace and settled into orbit around Vigilus.

SAGE'S KNOWLEDGE:
Marneus Calgar, the true heir of the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, was renowned for his strategic genius. Guided by the counsel of his mentor, Ortan Cassius, the Chapter Master defended the Ultramar Empire from countless foes. It was strategic intuition that helped Calgar break the back of Hive Fleet Behemoth as it ravaged the Eastern Fringe, protect the Imperium from Heretic Astartes, and wreak havoc on the Necrons on Damnos. Much of this was achieved in close collaboration with his friend, Varro Tigurius.

In recent years, Calgar had increasingly found the Chief Librarian distant, even anxious. He would stare blankly into space for minutes at a time until called upon. Some said he had glimpsed the true vastness of the void beyond the known boundaries of the galaxy. Others believed that while he had psychically confronted the synapse creatures of the Tyranid race, and even penetrated the minds of their dead, he had touched something that had left an indelible mark on his soul.

Perhaps this connection had warned Tigurius of the threat of the Genestealers swarming beneath the surface of Vigilus; perhaps his understanding of the galaxy and its fate should he fail had given him the knowledge he shared with the Chapter Master. The Chief Librarian himself had not and would never tell the truth.

GUY HALEY "DARK IMPERIUM: GODBLIGHT"
‘When we have the measure of them, we can wipe them out. I caution a little restraint, Marneus,’ said Tigurius. ‘The nature of the threat coming…’ His eyes narrowed. ‘There is something more, something beyond the fight here. A great peril to all. Something unexpected.’

‘Until it reveals itself, restraint is my strategy. I am reinforcing the walls in case these vessels are not the only foes,’ said Calgar. ‘I trust your gifts, Varro, but I have five regiments of auxilia ready to move here from the interior if need be, and if the worst occurs, then we may call upon Tetrarch Balthus for reinforcement. The war is drawing to a close in the west, thanks to the aeldari. That is something.’
Calgar rapped the stone with a mechanical knuckle. ‘This is a poor situation. I cannot remain here much longer.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Too many of us still fight at Vigilus. I should be there now.’

‘This last decade has been difficult for you,’ said Tigurius. ‘I understand.’

‘I think you are one of the few that do, Varro,’ said Calgar. ‘You have been wounded, and worn out, forced to sacrifice your brothers to speed me on through Nachmund. Both of us underwent the Rubicon. Our paths track each other.’

‘And yet I think for you, it has been more difficult,’ said the Chief Librarian. ‘You have the burden of command of us all. You are the ruler of Macragge and of all Ultramar. There have been many changes. If I were in your position, it would be hard not to see the primarch’s actions as criticisms. They are not.’

Marneus Calgar said nothing to that, but Tigurius read him accurately.