Editing The Markian Corps (section)

====Anorexia on Cykarox====
The Pacificus Campaign, so far, had been rather spectacular for the Imperial Army. Regiments and battlegroups jumped from planet to planet, and rebel worlds fell under the heel of the Markian Corps. With the Great Scouring in full swing and the Legiones Astartes dedicating themselves to galactic liberation the pacification of the segmentum was drawing near. However, the enemies of the Imperium were all so worldly and mortal, and the deceptions of Chaos were not yet known to the marshals of Markia. On the hiveworld of Cykarox the 100th Army, with units attached from the Goda Retainers and the Solidus Chromehounds, met major setbacks soon after planetfall in 017.M31. An unknown disease had spread among both Markians and Cykaroxians, and was rapidly rooting itself in the overcrowded hives. A fifth of the army was too ill to fight, and hundreds had died from the plague. Still, the 100th fought on, taking hive after hive, sweating through the pandemic. 

In the spires of Cykarox, the cauldron of Nurgle stirred. The world's aristocracy, including the planetary governor, was afflicted with the pox. This was no mistake, as it was the governor who invited the plague into both his world and his body. The lords of Cykarox, knowing what happened to those who opposed the Emperor, consulted with an agent of the rotfather's cult, and asked for a weapon to defeat the Markians in one fell swoop. They learned of a heavenly matron, said to be the more beautiful than angels, who could save them. Immediately they sought to summon her, and as per the cultist's instructions spread her love through the fluids the cult provided. They imbibed the pus drawn from boils, and slipped contagions into the water supply of the hives. However, the saint they wished for did not come to save them; not when they had yet to meet defeat.

Despite the growing plague the 100th Army fought its way to the final bastion of Cykarox, Hive Hunden. By the time they reached the last hive the 100th only had a single grand corps able to fight, as the rest of the army was dead or dying from disease. Even at only a third of its initial strength the Markians could still defeat the rebel PDF with strength of arms and skill. Now, on the brink of defeat, in the depths of despair, and without a soul left untouched by illness in the hives Cykarox would be saved by Nurgle. From the ground sprung thick vines that climbed the spires of Hunden and blossomed into wilted flowers. From the flowered sprouted creatures of rot and plague. Nurglings and plaguebearers clustered in the streets, citizens wreathed in pain as new and even greater diseases grasped them. In the center of the hive grew a single tree, taller than any tower on Cykarox, its leaves withered and its wood full of fungus. A single flower as red as blood blossomed on the highest branch, and its petals pealed back to reveal the world's new saint. Her limbs were like a fly's, skinny and sheathed with rugged keratin. Her lanky body was pocked and covered with open sores, fungus and worms crawled out from under her pale saggy skin. A thin translucent skin covered her veiny body, and the only substantial flesh on her body were her small droopy teets that ooze pus and her potbelly, pregnant with the children of Septicus and covered in the holes left from nurglings clawing their way from her womb. She opened her mouth, her teeth like rotten wood, and sung her melody of deafening screeches, letting the love of Nurgle reach all the humans of the world through her song. 

The hosts of Anorexia brought gifts of disease and death to the 100th personally, and invited them to be her children with blades and clubs. A tide of disgust swept over the frontline and into the camps, and they brought the soldiers too sick to fight to meet Anorexia personally. She spoiled her guests with poxes and plagues, fed them carcass and fungus. Through her generosity she won the hearts and souls of the 100th, and they swore to tell the whole galaxy of their devotion to their new mother. However, before they could begin to show their new love the 2nd Markian Battlegroup, previously providing orbital support, began bombarding the planet. They granted the remnants of the 100th a swift death, and burned the vines and hives in radfire and macrocannon barrages. The fires of vengeance swept clean the surface and shook the world to its core; not a blighted shrub was left by the time the rancored commodore lifted the bombardment, and all the 100th Army was cremated, spared from an unlife as servants of the alien god. The Markians mourned the loss of their brothers, and carried the ill news to Atashia in silence.