Editing The 13th Black Crusade (section)

===Faltering Faith, Faltering Defenses===

At the East gate, the commander waited too long for stragglers. When the gates finally tried to close, Chaos [[Chaos_Dreadnought#Helbrute|Hellbrutes]] were in position to hold the doors open. Desperate defenders hurled everything from plasma guns to expended ammo packs into them, and while they were able to take them down, a large warband made up of [[Possessed]] had managed to slip through the breach.

Before the warband could do any damage, the remains of the [[Novamarines]] 2nd Company and Cadian 403rd intercepted them, and under the shadow of the Jorus Redoubt made their stand. It bought time for the tanks of 185th to turn their battle cannons on the traitors, but while the traitors were annihilated, scarcely a hundred of the 403rd remained, and none of the Novamarines survived the encounter.

The West gate, on the other hand, could not at all, as its locking mechanisms failed due to supernatural decay. The commander there ordered the 113rd Death's Head [[Baneblade]] company to use their tanks to block the opening, but it was too late; wave after wave of deranged [[Chaos]] [[Cultist]]s streamed through. The traitor Astartes of the [[Black Legion]] followed, but by this point it was far beyond what the weary defenders could throw off. The gate was lost, and with it the second curtain wall.