Meric Voyen
Meric Voyen was Apothecary of the Death Guard's 7th Company, under Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro.
Biography
Shortly before the campaign in the Isstvan system, Garro was furious when Voyen confessed that he was a member of the secret warrior-lodges forming among the Death Guard's elite warriors. Garro silenced the outrage of his fellow Company Marines, but confronted Voyen in private. Garro said he would not censure Voyen for belonging to the lodges, but said it was essential that, thenceforth, Voyen keep no secrets from his Captain. Voyen, shaken by the continued trust that Garro showed in him, agreed to this.[1a]
When Garro was wounded during the battle on Isstvan Extremis, Voyen was anxious to attend to him, but another Apothecary reached Garro's side first — Fabius of the Emperor's Children. Voyen was reluctant to allow Fabius to attend to Garro, but let the matter go.[1b]
Garro's injury required the replacement of his leg with a bionic. Before the Death Guard embarked on its planned campaign on Isstvan III, Garro was enraged when Voyen and the other Apothecaries refused to pronounce him battle-ready.[1c] Ironically, this proved to be Garro and his Company's salvation. Isstvan III was a carefully prepared trap, where loyalist elements of the Death Guard, the Emperor's Children, and other loyal Space Marine Legions would be culled by Horus.
Instead of making planetfall, Garro and the 7th Company were assigned to the frigate Eisenstein, along with Captain Ignatius Grulgor. From aboard the ship, Garro witnessed the virus-bombing of Isstvan III by the Traitors, and narrowly escaped assassination by Grulgor and his men. Voyen, shaken, admitted that the lodges had been planting seeds of treason among the Death Guard, stirring up their resentment at the Emperor's abrupt departure from the Great Crusade and the subordination of the Astartes Legions to the Council of Terra.[1d]
During the Eisenstein's voyage to Terra, Voyen questioned Garro's actions at several times, never more angrily than when Garro ordered that the frigate's warp engines be detonated, in a forlorn hope of signalling a nearby ship. Voyen even drew his weapon on his Captain to prevent this, before Garro stared him down.[1e] The Eisenstein was in fact found by the Imperial Fists' Phalanx, and carried back to Luna.[1f]
Inside the Somnus Citadel, Voyen and the surviving Death Guards of the 7th Company witnessed a final horror when Solun Decius succumbed to Nurgle's Rot, forcing Garro to destroy him on Luna's surface.[1g]
Afterward, Voyen told Garro that he was renouncing his oath as an Astartes, deciding that he had proven himself unreliable to his battle-brothers. Garro encouraged him to stay, but Voyen declared that he was a healer first and a warrior second, and so was going to dedicate his life to finding a cure for the Rot that claimed Decius.[1h] Voyen eventually returns from his mission only to confront Garro and was killed as he carried a taint of Nurgle's disease within him.[2]
Shortly before the Siege of Terra, the same Daemon that possessed Solun Decius took over Voyen's body. The Daemon was able to organize Chaos Cult activities on Terra, which led to the Knights-Errant combating them near White Mountain. Nathaniel Garro was forced to put down Voyen.[3]
Sources
- 1: The Flight of the Eisenstein (Novel) by James Swallow
- 2: Garro: Ashes of Fealty (Audio Drama)
- 3: The Buried Dagger (Novel) — Chapter 5
