Editing Sand Keepers (section)

==Beginnings: Crimson Hawks==
The nascent Eighteenth Legion drew their manpower from the sons of the Emperor's defeated enemies on Terra.  It is this that gave them their first moniker, ''The Janissaries'', but they would become better-known as the '''Crimson Hawks''' after their distinctive emblem.  Their best recruits were assembled into the XVIII Squad of the '''Sacred Band''' and followed Hektor Cincinnatus into the battles of the [[Unification Wars (Hektor Heresy)|Unification Wars]].  Led by '''Sasian Terca''', the Eighteenth acquitted themselves with honour in the blooding of the Merican Hives, though three of their number would be slain before the end of the campaign.  Their names, '''Aciprus Molfia, Hiapro Doquius''' and '''Niopus Cus''' form the beginning of the Sand Keepers' long Remembrance of the Fallen.

The Emperor was pleased with the performance of the Nineteenth Squad and ordered that they be released from the Sacred Band to take command of their gene-brothers.  If the Crimson Hawks did not spring from Terra as one of the first and most glorious of the Legions, they were not without their successes.  As they struck out to bring new worlds into the embrace of the Emperor, the Nineteenth felt certain that their own Primarch would soon rejoin them.  Yet brave Sasian Terca, Executor of the Primarch's Will in the absence of their lost gene-father, would die in battle in 820.M30, just two years before [[Darius Cyaxares]] was discovered on Simurgh.