Zardu Layak

"The Daemonic leads to two crimes. You turn away from the path of righteousness. And you abandon the Emperor as the object of your devotion. For the first, death is merely a just retribution. The second is a heresy so terrible that no punishment can be sufficient. Yet the search for an appropriate penalty continues, and it shall be found."

– Some random dude i found on r/40kLore.

Zardu Layak (also known as the Crimson Apostle, Thrice-Born, The Binder of Souls," and The Voice of the Unspeaking) was a dark apostle, that led the Unspeaking, a warband of Word Bearers during the Horus Heresy. He was one the biggest buddies and a one of the leading lieutenants of Lorgar (Before he screwed over his plans to backstab Horus.( He was also "mysteriously" slain by """unknown circumstances""" during the end of the heresy)).

Origins

This article contains spoilers! You have been warned.

Zardu was originally a Terran born legionary of the Imperial Heralds legion, even before Lorgar returned after the consequential tantrum of the Space Bitch Karen and renamed the legion to the Word Bearers. During the earliest days of the Crusade he was rooting out lies about the Emperor and burned many temples, churches and crushed many religions, while dogmatically following the Imperial Truth, only to do a 180 on it the very second Lorgar returned to the legion. After the burning of Monarchia happened, obviously, Lorgar and the Word Bearers were a tid bit upset, thus changing their religious values again to a more chaotic version of their beliefs propagated by the baldest douchebag in the universe. Layak was crippled by the news and eventually went nuts, and then he began seeing "visions" of his own primarch speaking to him. In the visions "Lorgar" told him not to burn chaotic texts and foreign text that opposed the imperial truth, but to embrace them. He then began pouring blood on his armour when performing deamonic rituals, thus the name "Crimson Apostle". Oh, and he also put on a demonic helmet that fused with his face, so that no one but the dark gods would see his face or whatever.

The Horus Heresy

Zardu Layak was already a high ranking dark apostle that led own appointed chapter of possesed Word Bearers of the Unspeaking by the time the Heresy begun. His first major move during the heresy was the leading assault in the invasion of Calth. After that, he temporaraly replaced both Argel Tal and the prick who looks like a freshly circumsised dick as the new closest buddy of Lorgar during the later stages of The Heresy. That wouldnt last for long however, once Horus would begin preparing for the Siege of Terra. You see, by the time Horus destroyed the imperial outer defenses of terra, Lorgar saw him as weak and too inept to destroy the Emperor and the imperium ( guess he was right all along ). So he began plotting to kill Horus and replace him as the new leader of the traitor legions. To do that, he needed more firepower and an another legion by his side, so began searching for Fulgrim (becouse that lazy cunt did nothing to aid his brothers anyway). So Lorgar and Layak with a small force of word bearers went through the webway to find him. They somehow successfully entered the Palace of Slaanesh itself. There they found a full deamon-primarch Fulgrim and the daemon N'Kari engaging each other in debochery. Fulgrim, obviously, refused however his tantrum wouldnt last long becouse Zardu uttered his true name and forced him to lorgars will. After sacrificing a huge number of mortals , Lorgar planned to unleash a loud psychic scream that would disorient Horus, then have Zayak order Fulgrim to kill the dizzy Horus. After that, the Word Bearers and Emperor's Children would destroy the leftovers of the Sons of Horus Legion, giving Lorgar full controll of the Traitors uprising.

The Betrayal

So where did Zardu screw over Lorgar? Well, he saw how Lorgar would use the chaos powers to fulfill his own goals and begun to doubt whether Lorgars actions really aligned with the desires of the dark gods. So when lorgar chose to enact his plan, Horus was already warned about it by a misterius woman named Actaea. When Lorgar met up with Horus, he was immediately attacked before he could unleash his psichic assault and Zardu Layak freed Fulgrim from his magical bindings. Then Horus proceeded beat the living shit out of lorgar and told him that if were to reappear in his sight he would kill him. Zardu Layak and his band of the Unspeaking would then leave the Word Bearers and join Horus and participate in the siege of Terra.

Siege of Terra

Layak did quite a lot during the siege of terra. Here's a quick summary:

1. Helped the traitor forces to destroy the spheres of defence surrounding Terra during the Solar war.
2. He attended a ritual with the thousand sons to weaken the psichic barrier around terra.
3. Helped Abbadon to destroy a large White Scars battleship named the Lance of Heaven.
4. Helped Abbadon to destroy the genelabs on Luna.
5. He excelled at producing propaganda for the traitor forces and inspired more devotion for the traitor forces to invade Terra. He also gave speeches to civilians on terra and claimed that their lives can be spared if they submit to Horus.

Death

So Layak Dies during the siege of terra. You would think that he was killed on terra, however how and where he died is completely unknown. For all we know he could have been orbiting above Terra and was killed by a butthurt primarch. How munch credibility that theory holds is probably not munch though, due to the fact that the word bearers consider him to be a hero even in the 42nd millenium and have built many statues and monuments for his sacrifice.

On Tabletop

Zardu Layak is a pretty good word bearers hq for 30k Horus Heresy. He has an averege WS 5 as is BS5. Strength is also an averege S4, though T5 is good for fighting other hq . 2 wounds is on the low side for an astartes hero typically and 3 would have been much more welcome. Has Initiative of 5. Has leadership 10 and his armour save of 2+. The most dissapointing stat are 2 attacks that really is inapropriate for an Hq

He has a surprizingly long list of abilities\traits – Independent Character, Master of the Legion, Legiones Astartes Word Bearers, Daemon, Binder of Souls, Zealot, Reign of Fire (warlord trait) and Psyker Level 2 (pyromancy or malefic).