| abstract | - The 4th Company is known as the "Defenders of Ultramar" -- an accolade won in the Chapter’s earliest history, when Chaos Space Marines from the Word Bearers Traitor Legion attacked the Ultramarines towards the end of the Horus Heresy and drove them back to the very heart of Ultramar. It was upon the world of Calth that the final battle would take place. Famed for its orbital shipyards, Calth was a typical world of the Realm of Ultramar. Its inhabitants were wealthy and generous, knowing little of want or fear. In many ways, their world was a paradise, but it was not to last. When the Word Bearers Traitor Legion launched their attack against the Ultramarines, the strike against Calth was led by one of the Word Bearers’ greatest champions, the former Master of the Faith, Kor Phaeron, the right-hand of the Word Bearers' Primarch Lorgar. This mighty Chaos Champion swore to utterly destroy the planet, and was very nearly successful. From his personal Battle Barge, he directed a full-scale invasion of the Calth System. Calth's three sister planets were all destroyed, massive geo-nuclear strikes ripping them apart at the core. Calth's once gentle sun was laced with deadly heavy metals and substances that increased the star's radiation output ten-fold. Within a century after the battle’s end, the final elements of Calth's atmosphere were burned off by its sun and the world was left airless, its populace now dwelling in gigantic underground caverns. Upon its surface, the 4th Company fought the Word Bearers to a standstill. The Traitor Marines held superiority in numbers, weaponry, and brutality, but the Ultramarines never gave in. As driven as the Chaotic warriors of Lord Kor Phaeron were, they could not dislodge the Ultramarines, many of whom had once called the planet home. The war upon Calth was devastating and horrific. Ancient codes of warfare and martial conduct were broken and set aside by the Word Bearers as all manner of death and destruction was unleashed. The Ultramarines were stunned by the millions of Chaos Cultists the Word Bearers used as human shields and cannon fodder. The Word Bearers, in turn, had underestimated the tenacity and resolve of their hated foe. In the end, Lord Kor Phaeron was defeated when reinforcements from the Ultramarines homeworld of Macragge drove the Word Bearers from the surface of Calth. Kor Phaeron retreated all the way to the Maelstrom, a turbulent region of the galaxy much like the Eye of Terror where the Immaterium of Chaos seeps through into the material realm of the physical universe. The Ultramarines were victorious, and the leader of the 4th Company, Captain Ventanus, would one day set foot upon the shattered original Legion homeworld of the Word Bearers, symbolically capturing the Traitor Legion's abandoned homeworld of Colchis.
|
