Editing Nobledark Imperium Notable People (section)

== Tankred ==

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">''''' The Enduring '''''

The unstoppable force that is Tankred began his march through the ages on the perennial shithole of Nuceria on the periphery of ancient Ultramar. Like many on that blighted world he had little to love of his home. He was born some forty or fifty years after the War Hounds tore through the place and imposed at least some notion of law and order, a time when Nuceria had become merely shit rather than it's previous state of fucking intolerable.

Tankred's mother offered him one piece of advice for his future life as she lay dying of Raggy Lung in an AdBio hospice on the outskirts of Desh'ea "get off this shit world. Run to the stars, never come back". They were words he took to heart and after he buried her he sat about pondering exactly how to do this, penniless street urchin that he was. In those days the War Hounds had set up a recruitment station in the semi-derelict palace of the previous corrupt planetary ruler. They were Tankred's ticket to a new life, hopefully one with less pestilence and famine in it.
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The recruitment master was unimpressed by the malnourished gutter oik and although he did hand over his sandwiches he would not let him through the door. This was in the latter half of the Great Crusade when supply lines were being crisscrossed and rearranged and resources were being reallocated as the Imperium expanded on all sides. Nuceria was on the list to be substantially rebuilt after the Red Angel expended much enthusiasm knocking it down. Due to positioning of major Imperial assets and the ever shifting and retreating nature of the frontier the planet was soon to shift jurisdictions from being Angron's responsibility to coming under the tender mercies of Mortarion. Grim as the prospect was the locals, those that knew anything of what was going on, did consider their future prospects improved by this change. Tankred certainly did.

The War Hounds all throughout their history have had a somewhat tenuous relationship to paperwork. In the confusion of the switch over it was easy enough for the young Tankred to slip into the ramshackle fortress and pretend he had always been there. Either he was convincing enough or the Dusk Raiders just didn't care, they were less picky than the War Hounds and would conscript anyone who could be trained to hold a gun right way around best out of three. The war effort was always in need.

The man given command of the Desh'ea post was an astartes captain by the name of Calas Typhon. For a super soldier he was remarkably scholarly and a veteran of the Imperium backed Barbarus Uprisings and a native of that toxic world. To him Nuceria seemed quite pleasant.

Tankred endeared himself somewhat to the grizzled old captain for his almost Mortarion levels of levels of endurance and dogged determination, qualities that the Legion put great value in. For Tankred's part he just wanted off the planet and if becoming part of the Legion was his ticket out he would hold back no effort.

Years past Tankred grew to be a young man. Scared from hard training and as enduring as a mountain. He was deemed worthy. He would not join the Legion as a mere Imperial Army soldier, he would become an astartes.

The transformations were not gentle. Most of the glaring flaws in the process had been long since ironed out by then, this was not the Unification Wars, but there is a limit to how kindly you can disassemble a man and stitch him back together with extra parts buried in there.

Tankred did survive to the surprise of many though not himself, Tankred endures all things. For his tenacity he was granted his greatest desire. He was loaded onto a ship and he left cursed Nuceria. He never looked back and eventually the bleak world became nothing but a bad and fading memory of another life. His early career as a Space Marine was unremarkable when compared to those of his peers, which is to say it was a constant meal-storm of glorious combat, conquests and victories of the sort that other men would talk about for generations and some becoming legends that would reverberate around a world for centuries.

His brothers in arms thought quite highly of him. He was quick to laugh and quick to forgive. His face was much accustomed to smiling, which given the scars was not pretty, and his only really annoying flaws were a degree of irreverence and a "fascination" about ordained women.

It wasn't until the awful days of the War of the Beast that Tankred really showed just how awfully tenacious he could be. They were dark days. he could kill a thousand orks before dinner and there would be ten times that left to butcher and although his arm would not tire he couldn't kill them fast enough. But he did kill them fast. He exemplified the teachings of Captain Typhon; Not one step back, march and kill and never stop moving forwards. Where he strode forth they fell back, their lines twisted and buckled and broke and the only thing that slowed his pace was having to step over their cooling bodies.

One battle blurred into another as he fought and fought, his wounds sustained were grievous and he was practically rebuilt several times in transit between battles but always he would rise from what should have been a deathbed itching to satisfy his ire against something wretched.

One misadventure of carnage after another and Tankred ended up upon the Eisenstein as it burned it's engines out to get to Old Earth. It is difficult to say how fast the ship was going when it slammed into the flank of an Ork Killa Krooza in low Earth orbit as by that time the surviving crew had abandoned ship and all Space Marines were screaming through the atmosphere in drop pods.

But they were far too late to save Sanguinius. The Angel of Baal was dead and mutilated beyond all recognition and The Beast was slain. Some level of frustration was relieved upon the surviving orks and the Chaos scum that still crawled upon the irradiated and ash blacked surface of Old Earth but it was not all that satisfying.

Tankred served in the Wars of Reconquest as the Imperium was painstakingly rebuilt. It was a bitter task to walk upon worlds the Imperium had failed or had failed the Imperium and it was a long time before Tankred would again feel the same joy in his work as he once did.

That time was a time a time of rebuilding for the Imperium and the Legions could not stand apart in this. Calas Typhon, now Marshal Typhon the Pilgrim, was a source of much of that change in the Death Guard. He was at odds with the Primarch in Legion doctrine. Mortarion wanted a measured march in the long war to rebuild and bolster defenses, Typhon believed that only in preemptively decapitating potential threats could time for others to rebuild be granted and no other Legion had the stamina for the job. Unable to reconcile the schism and resigned to the fact that the Legion would have to be divided soon anyway Typhon became first High Marshal of the Black Templars. In a touching display of generosity and proof that no lingering ill will was held Mortarion gave them the aptly named Eternal Crusader for a flagship. High Marshal Typhon, now Typhus due to Administratum typo when the ships paperwork was transferred, attracted many battle-brothers to his side who shared his beliefs of war

Tankred served in the Black Templars, founder order of the Templar movement, with as much ferocity and tenacity as he did in the Death Guard but tempered with hard won experience and the wisdom of painful lessons. More scars were had, more mending, more new recruits marveling at his insane endurance and more Apothecaries baffled at his continued survival.

It continued like this for centuries. Tankred never never achieved the rank of officer, he lacked the temperament or the willingness to be educated and he tended to intentionally annoy outsiders a lot. He was there in the Malagant campaign when the old Pilgrim died to Fallen hands, his last living link to Nuceria finally cut.

It was in the war of Sanctia that Tankred came closest to finally meeting Death. A Dark Eldar Kabal were in alliance with Fallen Marines and they were dragging people out of their homes and off of the streets. All women and children, the Dark Eldar weren't interested in men, they were of no use to what was the earliest incarnation of the Daemonculaba experiments ████████ █████████████████████ ███████████████████████████ ███████ █████████████ ████████████████ ████████ █████████████ █████ █████████ ███████████████ ██ and better to have died by their own hand, the Fallen Raven Guard had much to answer for.

With false radio signals and staged refugee convoys the Imperial forces made it appear as though a very rich target was heading for the old nuclear fallout shelters in the arid wastes, there Tankred and his forces placed their feet squarely upon the ground and sold their lives for misdirection's sake. So tempting and real the target seemed that all descended upon it like vultures. They had to fight. It had to be "real". Real enough to die for to catch them all. Tankred was the last to fall, a serrated knife shoved under and up his ribcage, neatly bisecting both hearts. As he slumped to the ground and the lights dimmed from his eyes he had time enough to see the Fallen Raven King turn and try to flee. Then the nuclear warheads went off.

A fisherman found Tankred or at least what remained of him twelve miles away on the bank of a meandering river. A chunk of burned meat and charcoal so badly ruined it could not be said where the distinction between his armour and his flesh was.

When a novice Apothecary reached down to see if his primary progenoid had survived in a salvageable state he discovered to his horror and pity that Tankred endured. The one remaining arm with the bloody stubs of fingers grasped the apothecary by scruff of his neck and drew him close and with a death rattle and blood speckled whisper imparted these words "I'm not going out like this you workshy little shit, lash me up and strap me into a Dreadnaught or by The Old Gods I will give you such a kicking".

When Tankred next saw the light of day he weighed several tons and couldn't be hurt by anything short of anti-tank weapons. Since that dy his legend has only grown. He is Tankred, he endures. He epitomises the truth that to win a fight you have to be the last man standing. And he is, oh he is. He is a wall that moves forwards, as inevitable as Death.

Although he has always claimed to be in the Long War only for the beer and the bitches his deeds have been noble and he marches onward, forever. Tankred endures.

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