Krieg Acerbus is a Daemon Prince of Chaos and the Axemaster of the Night Lords.[1c] His warband is the largest of the Night Lords in the galaxy.[2a]
Biography
Kreig Acerbus was raised in a tribal culture, as evidenced by the scars that ringed his mouth. Inducted into the Night Lords Legion, he was a giant of a Space Marine and a fine warrior. Like Kheron Ophion, he is described as courageous, an unusual trait for a Night Lord. This, combined with his chosen weapon of a great power axe, earned him the title Axemaster.[1b] During the Great Crusade he was a member of the Kyroptera.[6]
At the time of the Horus Heresy, Acerbus was the youngest of the Konrad Curze's Captains and one of his Chosen. He had a long-standing rivalry with First Captain Zso Sahaal,[1a] who believed he was overly burdened by pleasure in the Legion's work. Along with Captains Jakr, Fal Kata, and Nadigrath, he led an armada that attacked a vanguard fleet of the Ultramarines in the Anseladon Sector shortly before Curze's assassination.[4]
When Curze gathered his Chosen in his palace on Tsagualsa and told them he was going to die, Acerbus did nothing to conceal his great desire to become his heir.[1b] After Curze was killed, Acerbus was among those who stood by until they realised the assassin M'Shen had taken various relics, some of which were supposedly promised to them as the Haunter's heirs.[2b]
Daemon Prince
In the millennia since the Heresy, Acerbus ascended to become a Daemon Prince,[1c] leading the largest warband of the fragmented Night Lords.[2] His warband view fear not as a means, but an end in itself, believing this the enduring lesson of the Night Haunter.[1c]
When Zso Sahaal emerged from the warp in M41, Acerbus answered his distress call in search of the Corona Nox — the crown of the Night Haunter which Sahaal had wrested from M'Shen. While Sahaal claimed it marked him as the Haunter's heir, Acerbus maintained that he was only ever meant to be its keeper, that Curze had foreseen Sahaal's exile and allowed it to happen so that his "worthy witterings" would not obscure Curze's vision of a Legion to eat the terror of the Imperium. Sahaal, though wounded by Acerbus, managed to escape into the icy wilderness of Equixus.[1c]
Acerbus and his warband seem to maintain some distance from the rest of the Legion, not noted to have taken part in either of the known major gatherings in the years since they scattered - the raid on the Callidus Temple on Uriah III[3] and the gathering to debate the 13th Black Crusade.[5]
Related Articles
Sources
- 1: Lord of the Night (Novel)
- 2: Soul Hunter (Novel)
- 3: Throne of Lies (Audio Drama)
- 4: Blood Reaver (Novel), XIV: Loyalties
- 5: Void Stalker (Novel), Epilogue Tertius
- 6: Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter (Novel) - Chapter 11
