Editing The 13th Black Crusade (section)

===The Emperor's Bride===

[[File:Fall_of_Cadia_-_Celestine.JPG|thumb|The Living Saint]]

She arrived like a comet, wreathed in holy fire as she made her descent. As she neared, and the defenders got a better look at her, her name began to be spoken, from Battle Sister to Shock Trooper. It spread like wildfire, uttered in reverence and elation by the faithful.

For [[Saint Celestine]] had finally come.

She didn't even slow down once down on the muster fields, as her fiery wake swept traitors off their feet. Her silvered sword was a blur, and each stroke banished daemons back to the Warp.

Her arrival re-invigorated the defenders, and strength returned to tired limbs as much as hope flared in their hearts. The Emperor was still with them! Why else would He send his [[Living Saint]] to guide them in this darkest of hours? Even Creed forgot the looming threat of the Blackstone Fortress to join his men in battle. Only the Astartes were unaffected, as the Imperial Creed wasn't their faith, but even so Celestine's arrival was still welcomed.

The traitor Baneblade was buried against the surge of defenders, and cultists scattered from this renewed fury. Only the Black Legion was able to meet the charge with their own blasphemous resolve, and so the attacked soon stalled.

But Celestine did not come alone. The landing craft of five companies worth of Battle Sisters from the Order of the Martyred Lady, escorted down by [[Imperial Fists]] [[Stormtalon]]s, arrived on the muster field and disgorged their cargo of chanting Sororitas. They had been lost in the Warp for around fourteen hundred years before Celestine had found them, and now was their chance to make up for that lost time with interest.

The reinforcements tipped the odds in the defenders' favor once more, and the traitors were pushed back. Saint Celestine sought Urkanthos out personally, and while she was no match against the Daemon Prince on her own, her faith had resurrected the [[Geminae_Superia|twin canonesses that]] he had slain just shortly before. And so the trio's battle with their unholy foe began in earnest.

Outside the eastern walls, Baroness Vardus of House Raven was out of options. The Titans of Legio Vulcanuum continued their inexorable march towards Kasr Kraf, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Detonating her plasma core and going out in a blaze of glory sounded like a sound tactical move at this point, but before she could act on these thoughts, the bright yellow [[Stormhawk]]s and Thunderhawks of the Imperial Fists swooped in. The entirety of the ''Vessel of Damnation's'' right side disappeared under intense turbolaser fire, and as the aircraft finished their attack run, the baroness put aside thoughts of glorious suicide away. For now.

Far above the melee at the muster fields of Kasr Kraf, the Chaos ships in orbit were about to get their own rude awakening.