Argel Tal

Just in case you doubted, Argel Tal is the Space Marine. The young lady is the survivor he rescued from Monarchia.

"Do you really think that I enjoy this; the torture and the killing? That I would rather not have peace? ... but this is what the true Gods demand, Khârn. This is the Truth we have, this is the galaxy we live in."

– Argel Tal to his bestest bro' Khârn; on why his Legion fucked everything up forever.

Argel Tal was the Captain of the 7th Assault Company of the Serrated Sun Chapter of the Word Bearers Space Marine Legion during at least the latter half of the Great Crusade. Later, he would be referred to as the Crimson Lord of the Gal Vorbak; captain of the Word Bearers' first daemon-possessed Space Marines.

Biography

Argel Tal was a native of Colchis, inducted in the Word Bearers Space Marine Legion by First Chaplain Erebus, who at first had chosen him to become one of the Legion's Chaplains. But eventually, Argel Tal took up the role of Captain of the 7th Assault Company in the Serrated Sun Chapter. Being on board the light cruiser Orfeo's Lament alongside Ingethel the Ascended, Argel Tal witnessed the horrible world beyond the Eye of Terror, while undertaking The Pilgrimage ordained by Primarch Lorgar. While in The Eye, he was convinced by Ingethel to lower the ship's Gellar Field under the pretext of 'enlightening' him and as a consequence he was murderraped, turned inside out and abused in ways unfathomable down to the molecular level before being put together again as a comfy fleshy vessel by the daemon Raum while Ingethel mocked him. Tal and around fifty other Word Bearers managed to return to their Legion (the mortal crew having been simply murder-raped to death and later their remains used as impromptu rations by the starving Astartes), and at Lorgar's request he divulged what he could to the Primarch of his experience in the Immaterium, providing useful insight for the Book of Lorgar (Raum remaining conveniently dormant 'until the time was right', aka. 'don't bother me with trivial meatbag concerns, mortals'). In honor of his achievements in the Chapter, his Primarch installed him as the Captain of his Gal Vorbak (the "Blessed Sons") an elite cadre of warriors who were the first to wear the crimson colour on their power armour (and accessorily to harbor a Daemon inside them).

Lorgar then put him in charge of sacrificing helping other Word Bearers bind with Daemons, something Argel Tal wasn't really okay with but did it anyway because Lorgar asked him to. They found out the hard way that Daemons couldn't care less about bonding with well-balanced warriors who had their and their Brothers' survival in mind, but were really eager to bind to any unhinged soul consumed with revenge against the blue faggots or just killing in general because they were confined to a dreadnought shell. Argel managed to entice around two-thousand daemons to bind with his fellow Word Bearers in time for them to have some fun backstabbin' time on Calth.

Leading the Gal Vorbak, Argel Tal descended finally on Isstvan V against the Raven Guard and their loyalist allies, the Salamanders and the Iron Hands. It was shown to Lorgar by Ingethel the Ascended during his sojourn into the Eye of Terror that Argel Tal will become much more powerful, becoming taller than a Primarch in his Daemon form, and will fight and die "under the shadow of mighty pinions". At first, they thought it meant facing Corvus Corax on Istvaan, and when he survived that, during the Siege of Terra by the Primarch Sanguinius after rampaging through a squad of Imperial Fists. However Erebus, this Motherfucker, would later claim that this was only a potential future. Right before stabbing him in the back. What a dick.

Argel Tal is also known for his 'Humanity' and Bromance with Khârn the Betrayer. The two of them were known and renowned for constantly sniping snarky comments at one another without it ever descending into violence between them, having each other's back in battle and fighting together in the World Eater's fighting pits where they lost almost all their bouts since they couldn't care less about such 'fake' combat.

The BL novel 'The First Heretic' also details that Argel Tal was also a surprisingly chill dude and total bro pre-Heresy. He was the first one to go down to Monarchia, not because he was ordered to, but he went before his superior officer because he wanted answers. Not only that, he was the dude who rescued a survivor, a lady called Cyrene, from Monarchia, and was the first one at Lorgar's side when Magnus refused to help him undertake the Pilgrimage. Argel Tal also had a personal friendship with Aquillon. Aquillon was a Custodian. So yeah, this dude was a bro' with a fucking Custodian. Make of that what you will.

Death

After Istvaan V Argel Tal gathered together survivors of broken Word Bearer companies and formed the Vakrah Jal, the Chapter of Consecrated Iron, a new elite unit of Possessed Marines that would train in the fighting pits of the World Eaters aboard their flagship Conqueror. He later fought in the Shadow Crusade alongside World Eaters 8th Captain Khârn, whom he had become friends with during the course of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. He took part in the Battle of Armatura and the Nuceria Massacre and in the latter was murdered by Erebus, as he claimed Argel Tal's influence would prevent Khârn from embracing the Ruinous Powers and thus cost them the war. Ingethel's prophecy that he would "die in the shadow of great wings" was fulfilled as he died in the shadow of an Aquila on top of the Imperator Titan Corinthian.

Kharn didn't take kindly to his best friend being team-killed and challenged Erebus to a duel, which the latter lost horribly. Records are scarce, but the battle supposedly ended quickly after Captain Kharn severed one of Erebus' hands with his chainaxe, curling it to form a fist and stuck the stump on a stick, then proceeded to use it as a make-shift maul to beat Erebus into near-death while repeating the phrase: "STOP HITTING YOURSELF. STOP HITTING YOURSELF". Eye witness accounts say this lasted for over 6 hours, before some loyalist survivors caught his attention, and threw his fist-maul at them so hard that it destroyed one of the offending marines' heads, before the rest being butchered by him in short order with Erebus taking the opportunity to teleport as far away from the World Eaters as he possibly could like the shitty little coward he is.