Editing Siege of Terra (Hektor Heresy) (section)

===The Fall of Batavium===
Even though Hektor had planned for the [[Black Augurs]] to assist him in the siege of the Imperial Palace, [[the Voidwatcher]] made sure that the involvement of his forces was minimal. Extremely unwilling to risk his life for another's cause, he preferred to sit the battle out in the rear ranks and watch his brothers slaughter each other with a grin of amusement on his lips. That is not to say that the Fourteenth Legion remained passive for the duration of the battle: nearly every Vate had his own goals on Terra, which they departed to pursue with their Primarch's tacit approval. Some went to loot artefacts of power, some set forth to raid the planet's ancient libraries, and [[Ilmari Wieland]] headed to the great Hive of Batavium with the intention of slaughtering its every citizen in a bloody hecatomb. Like many others, the Hive was left with only the most basic defences in the wake of the assault on the Imperial Palace, which made it an easy prey for the Hammerfist Coven. As soon as Batavium's last defenders were vanquished, Wieland and his followers ventured into the Hive's deepest recesses, placed numerous chemical bombs and detonated them from a distance. Like a deadly tide, toxic mists started rising up from Batavium's lower levels, forcing all of its inhabitants to seek shelter in its central spire, the only place towering above the toxic clouds. It was this spire that was set to become their common grave. Seated in his throne room in a great zeppelin circling around the Hive, the Hammerfist started preparing the ritual that would summon two greater Daemons into this world.

Wieland's malefaction did not go unnoticed. The blight that came to Batavium was soon detected by one of the satellites belonging to the [[Scions of Europa]] that were orbiting Terra to monitor the activities of the Traitors. Although the end goal of the rogue Vate was unclear to the Legion's leadership, it was certain that it didn't bode well for the Imperium. To prevent his plans from achieving fruition, a Chapter under the leadership of Praetor Aristomachus was dispatched to Batavium. The Scions of Europa were outfitted with the best chemical protection their Legion's armoury could spare and a large amount of transports. Their objective was to evacuate the trapped citizens of the Hive before Wieland's diabolical ritual was completed. Deeply annoyed by this unexpected interference, the Hammerfist had to pause his great ceremony to deal with the intruders. Summoning the powers of the Warp to his aid, he breathed life into the weapons of the slain defenders of Batavium, forcing them to taste blood once again. The sons of [[Kleisthenes]] were puzzled when they were suddenly assaulted by ranks upon ranks of swords and pikes fighting on their own, as if held by invisible, incorporeal hands. While the Scions of Europa were trying to figure out how to kill something that has no body, Wieland was finishing up his ritual. Great spouts of jet-black smoke appeared from his zeppelin's nozzles and formed a giant storm cloud shaped like a grinning skull over the central spire. At the Hammerfist's command, a severe storm of lightning came down on the spire from this cloud, for several minutes turning it into one colossal electric oven. When it was over, the great structure was melting like a candle and everyone trapped inside it had turned into a charred corpse. 

Just as the Vate had planned, this hecatomb allowed him to summon not one, but two abominations from the Warp, a Bloodthirster and a Lord of Change. As soon as they appeared, Wieland put a binding spell on them and trapped them in the weapons that he had prepared for this occasion: his own bare fists. Long before the ritual, he had tattooed his hands with profane pentagrams that now kept the Daemons firmly imprisoned inside them. However, there was a heavy price to pay for his triumph: the Daemons trapped inside his fists caused him constant searing pain that would quickly drive a lesser man insane. Even though Wieland possessed enough willpower to endure this unending torment, it greatly soured his already unpleasant personality, turning him into an easily irritable madman prone to destructive bouts of rage.