Editing Broken Aquila (section)

==First Claw==
[[File:D8vzje8-fb3aaf6b-2a41-4e88-82f2-7e1989a5bbfb.jpg|thumb]]
Effectively "First Squad", this formation is the core of the narration of the novels. While Talos is unquestionably the protagonist, his attitude and the strained teamwork of his squad drive most of the story.

*'''[[Talos (Warhammer 40,000)|Talos]]:''' The leader of First Claw and former [[apothecary]]. His main shtick is that he has part of the Night Haunter's precognition, which is occasionally useful, but is also breaking his body down. He is oddly principled for a traitor marine and spends a lot of his time looking for some purpose other than just terror-murdering. He also makes a point of looking after his serfs well, provided they do what he tells them. A notable part of his character is that he isn't the most powerful or even the best fighter; instead he's the best at keeping a cohesive squad together and focused, which considering how dysfunctional the Night Lords are is saying something. He's also notable for being the one who hunted down and killed Curze's assassin, although she [[Blood Ravens|got away with the relics]] first. Dies alongside most of the squad while taking down [[Jain Zar]] herself, although given that she's a [[Phoenix Lord]] <strike>she'll be back at some point in the future</strike> she came back for Psychic Awakening. It's never made clear exactly how his prophetic powers work - he's called out by a Raptor as having psychic potential that he never cared to have trained (in part because his trainer would have been Ruven below), but his sight is extremely different from how most seers work and he differentiates his abilities from the farseeing of warp sorcerers as being "pure". Then again, Curze's abilities were described as psychic in the Heresy novels, and Talos' abilities are inferred to be a genetic inheritance. Possibly due to this, or because he was the only Night Lord who loved his father enough to avenge him rather than salivating over his legacy, Talos was one of the very few Night Lords that Curze genuinely liked (or at least didn't actively despise). His last battle came about when he was hunted by the forces of [[Craftworld Ulthwé|Ulthwe]], lead by Jain Zar. Injured and crippled, he let Jain Zar get in what would have been the deathblow, had Talos not committed suicide by grenade cluster. Despite this, Jain Zar's current body survived long enough for Malcharion to curb stomp her to death, then complain about having to finish everything for Talos.

*'''Xarl:''' The beatstick of First Claw. Talos' childhood friend (less so now) and regarded as the best fighter in the company. He's used as a threat by Talos to make anyone trying to edge for command by murdering their superiors. Xarl was a foil to Talos, being a cynic and cutting quite close to a grounded, if otherwise typical Night Lord, as opposed to Talos' romanticized ideas about his father and Legion. Apart from being an abrasive snarker, and chronic complainer, there isn't a lot else to say about him. Dies after headbutting a loyalist marine champion to death through his HELMET - Xarl wasn't wearing one. Badass to the end.

*'''Cyrion:''' The snarky, witty one. The closest thing to a friend Talos has and would appear to the be most normal of the claw. He has a [[Slaanesh]]i "gift" that lets him sense the fear of everyone around him. This would normally be considered an absolute chaos-godsend for a Night Lord, but has the rather drastic drawback of not being able to turn it off, tormenting him with others' woes and terrors. Unknown to just about everyone, he actually loves it, and it's also horribly addictive, forcing him to go on secret serial-killing sprees of the ships crew. Luckily for Cyrion, he has an eminently suitable patsy in Uzas. Uzas fights him and nearly kills him at the end of the road, but was saved by Talos. Cyrion soon dies of his injuries, but has the decency to be apologetic to Uzas in the end.

*'''Uzas:''' The one no one likes but keeps around because he's useful. The most obviously corrupted member of the squad, openly worshiping [[Khorne]] and going into berserk furies. Unfortunately for Uzas, either Khorne's attention was too much for his psyche or Uzas' opportunistic worship displeased Khorne. Either way, he's been reduced from a reasonably smart soldier, to a mad, stupid, screaming, blood-frenzied berzerker, with vanishingly few moments of lucidity giving hints that his old self survives somewhere inside. Whilst he usually targets crew serfs during his berserk moments, he has on at least one occasion attacked and killed a fellow Night Lord. Even Xarl has problems keeping him at bay during his rages. He's put on execution notice by Talos for his various transgressions, though the sad part is that it's not entirely his fault--he doesn't remember anything he does when he loses control and Cyrion keeps getting him to take the fall for his own murder sprees. During the fight with Jain Zar, he takes a chakram to the face which knocks some sense into him, enough for him to put some pieces together. He's more than a bit tetchy with Cyrion when he finds out the truth. Towards the end, he starts taking skulls in Talos' name and First Claw instead of for Khorne, signifying that his renewed faith in Talos has finally outweighed his compulsive worship of Khorne, and he's almost back to the Night Lord ideal of a secular Chaos Space Marine. Right when he's about to kill Cyrion for letting him take the blame for Cyrion's own killings, and Talos stabs him in the back, thinking Uzas went berserk again. He dies gurgling on his own blood, but internally joyfully thanking Talos for putting him out of his misery.

*'''Mercutian:''' The closest thing to a normal member of the squad, being First Claw's heavy weapons guy. Not originally a member of 1st Claw (Talos' squad) but he and his old sergeant Adhemar were the survivors of Seventh Claw, and both were adopted during the events of the first book. Unlike the others, who were typical gangsters on Nostramo, Mercutian was the son of a wealthy aristocratic gangster, making him the best educated and most sophisticated of First Claw. Naturally, the makes him more than a little antagonistic with Xarl, who embraces that he was an urchin and street ganger in his youth and the most upfront about how they're all just upjumped criminals. In spite of their differences, they're both two of the more downbeat members of the squad, with Mercution sometimes complaining about how much things suck. Is a believer in the in-universe fan theory that [[Sevatar]] is still alive in the present. Which given he was unaccounted for by the end of the Heresy might have some credence, though many Night Lords (including Talos) simply dismiss the idea. He dies trying to buy time for the rest of First Claw as they run from Jain Zar, managing to injure her leg and actually buying time rather than being a posthuman speed bump.

*'''Adhemar:''' An old Night Lord who was sergeant of Seventh Claw. He and Mercution were adopted into First Claw after a Warhound murderized the remains of their squad. Talos offers to give him leadership of First Claw, but he declines, later revealing that he believes in Talos's ability at maintaining squad cohesion is simply better than his own. He plays the role of the old soldier who is also a mentor to his men, being a senior badass who isn't afraid to cry manly tears at having to pull out his old squads' progenoids, and being a figure of respect who convinces Talos that he doesn't actually suck at his job during a moment of doubt. Like other old mentor archetypes, he also dies during a convenient point in the plot, taking a meltagun shot to the face meant for Mercution and Uzas. This was also during the same campaign in which he and Mercution were inducted into First Claw, making him the shortest-serving member of the team.

*'''Variel:''' A [[Red Corsairs|Red Corsair]] who joins the Night Lords because they're more his style (and the Red Corsairs are pricks). Former Apothecary Secundus, neat-freak, and medic/torturer extraordinaire. Nicknamed "the Flayer" because he likes skinning peoples' faces and wearing them on his armor. Comes across as borderline autistic since he hates being touched, is incapable of picking up on relevant social cues, and is stoic to the point of hilarity. Despite their mutual respect, he and Talos have a bond of loyalty based on principle rather than friendship. He is the only member of the squad to survive the events of the books. After Talos dies, Variel takes his well-matured geneseed and uses it to create Decimus, Talos's heir apparent.
** There's a popular fan theory that Variel pursued Octavia and Septimus through the stars to induct their child into the Legion, based on a line that Variel stated that he fully intended to confiscate Octavia's son when it was born to put him through recruitment. Considering the only time Talos actually defied Variel's wishes was when he fought like hell to keep Septimus, Octavia, and their unborn child away from Variel and put them into the relative safety of Imperial hands, and also that Primus through Nonus were all unrelated slaves, this seems unlikely, but technically possible. Also, the effort of finding and capturing Septimus and Octavia after they were extracted from Tsagualsa, as opposed to the effort it would take to simply seek out and take a new slave fit for Legion recruitment makes this unlikely.