Editing Hektor Heresy (section)

===A Hall of Brass===

When the Stone Men set off on their long voyage to the Atalantos Worlds, their Navigators had to strain to pick out the light of the Astronomican.  Within a week of relative time, the Voidwatcher's sorcery had completely blotted out that reference point and the fleet was blind.  With one exception, the ships dropped out of the Warp and made for a planet where they could refit.  These scattered forces went the way of many of the Marines who lost touch with their Legion, fighting petty wars with little bearing on the greater strategic picture or turning their coats and going over to the Traitors or the Bulwark.  The only ship to carry on regardless was Onyx's flagship, the Mount Everest super-battleship.  Propelled by its ancient warp drive and the Primarch's admantium will, the Mount Everest plunged forward through the nightmare of the Warp.

Accounts of the great ship's voyage differ wildly.  Although the Mount Everest would not emerge from the Warp for a year by the accounting of realspace, Captain Jabal of the 31st Battle Company recorded a journey of just three weeks.  By comparison, Scout-Sergeant Tantalus began his journey as a five-year veteran of the Legion and emerged crippled by old age.  It is known that the Mount Everest's Gellar Field fluctuated during its voyage, leading to Warp manifestations that would have destroyed a lesser vessel.  A leading explanation for the survival of that Onyx's flagship is that psycho-reactive crystal structures in its armour that hardened against the influence of Chaos in response to the Primarch's own determination, though even more outlandish ideas have been advanced.  Regardless, the Mount Everest did not disintegrate, but its complement was harried by daemonic incursions.

Onyx himself was the focal point of the daemons' attention.  The Primarch was assailed by waves of smouldering Neverborn under the command of foul Balheizihr, the Brazen Bull of Khorne.  As his bodyguard died around him, Onyx fought not only to survive, but also to contain his anger.  Balheizihr finally came to grips with Onyx and began to throttle the Primarch, searing the flesh of his thick neck and mockingly asking if Onyx would die or give in to rage.  Either way, the Brazen Bull declared, the Stone Men would belong to the God of Fire and Blood.  Yet Onyx the Indestructible found a third way.  He endured.  The Primarch suffered Balheizihr's burning touch for unknown ages, grappling with the daemon until the Mount Everest returned to Realspace in a most unlikely location.