Editing Sand Keepers (section)

==Notable Members==

'''Sasian Terca'''

''Leader of the Eighteenth Squad of the Sacred Band, First Executor of the Primarch's Will''

Born on Terra at roughly the time the Emperor began his conquest.  Sasian Terca was the son of Obaius the Savage, a sadistic warlord who reigned over Sud'Nuk Hive.  When the Emperor demanded Obaius' submission, the tyrant proposed talks and a banquet.  In a monstrous ploy to shame the lord of mankind, Sasian's elder brother was slain, his flesh cooked and served before the Emperor.  Obaius' cruel game was immediately seen through and repaid with swift and deadly justice.  Barely knowing and never mourning his vile sire, Sasian grew up as a ward of the Emperor and was brought up alongside the orphaned children of the Emperor's fallen bodyguards.  Excelling under the fine tuition afforded him in the Imperial Palace, Sasian Terca was an obvious choice for the Adeptus Astartes.

As a youth he was inducted into the Sacred Band of Hektor Cincinnatus and came to know and love the First of the Primarchs.  During the fierce campaigns of the '''Pacification of the Merican Hives''', Sasian led the Eighteenth Squad, showing a calm resolve in the face of the death.  He had drilled his men extensively in the use of the crude firearms of the period and only the marksmen of the [[Eyes of the Emperor|Nineteenth Squad]] were more accurate.  The success of Sasian Terca's men proved that the Nineteenth Squad's genetics were not merely theoretically valid, but battleworthy.  Sasian and his fellows took command of the new cohorts of the Eighteenth ''Legion''.

Unlike the other men who led in trust for a lost Primarch, Sasian Terca refused to be acknowledged as lord of the Legion, instead styling himself as Executor of the Primarch's Will.  The unshakeable belief that their genefather was out among the stars was widely held among the Nineteenth.  Sasian's bravery and skill at arms would be demonstrated by victories in the '''Acrypso Compliance''', the '''Pacification of Oltroth Beta''' and in many lesser battles.  Yet his fate was to die in 820.M30, struck down by the '''Sorceress Queen of Hezuno'''.  Sasian Terca's last words reported words were, ''"Our father awaits."''


'''Aurus and Diatus Moelia'''

''The Twins, Executors of the Primarch's Will''

It is unusual to see birth brothers among the Adeptus Astartes, even more so for twins to be inducted.  Yet Aurus and Diatus Moelia were far from ordinary.  Like all of the Terran-born recruits to the Eighteenth Legion, the Moelia brothers had begun their lives as part of a tyrant's household.  Their maternal uncle, Koac Moelia, was the chief bodyguard to the Lord Minister of Maniketra Hive.  Koac was cruel and controlling of his family, keeping the boys' mother as his maidservant and forbidding her contact with the outside world.  Their father remains unknown, for the twins were only a few weeks old when the Thunder Warriors overran Maniketra.  Though their mother disappeared in the chaos of the conquest. Aurus and Diatus would be adopted as wards of the Emperor as a sign of his redeeming mercy.  Their strength and intelligence, even at a young age, saw them recruited into the Space Marine programme and won them places in the '''Sacred Band''' as members of Sasian Terca's Squad XVIII.

Blooded in the [[Unification Wars (Hektor Heresy)|Unification Wars]], the Twins assumed command of new cohorts of the Eighteenth Legion, and would jointly succeed Sasian Terca when he fell in battle at Hezuno.  Their leadership of the Crimson Hawks would last for just three years, but the long hoped for rediscovery of [[Darius Cyaxares]] took place in that blessed time.  The brothers Moelia first met their genefather in 853.M30 on the occasion of transferring command of the Legion to him.  Darius took them aside after the formalities to assure the Twins that they would continue to exercise operational commands and that he hoped to rely on them to carry the newly-dubbed '''Sand Keepers''' forward through the Great Crusade.  He added, more solemnly, that he had foreseen that only one of the twins would live for much longer.  The Primarch advised Aurus and Diatus not to struggle against fate but instead to cherish the time they had left together.

Duty would restrict the Twins' ability to follow Darius Cyaxares' advice, but they were glad to reunited in 854.M30, when Diatus Moelia visited the Legion's new base on '''Kumul'''.  Here, his brother Aurus was supervising the construction of the Sand Keepers' facilities for training new recruits from Simurgh and the Legion's other tributary fiefs.  Tragedy struck when Diatus mockingly jumped the perimeter wall and was fatally wounded by a defence turret.  As he lay dying in his shocked brother's arms, Diatus whispered, ''"None can escape their fate!"'' - words that would go on to become the battlecry of the Sand Keepers.