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Horus Lupercal

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Horus during his rebellion against the Emperor

"‘And when we are done, after this hour, you will live in glory, and you will be able to say, “I was there, the day Horus slew the Emperor.” That is my pledge."[28h]

"Let the Galaxy Burn!"[5]

Horus Lupercal[1] was one of the 21 Primarchs created by the Emperor in the earliest days of the Imperium of Man, just after the end of the Age of Strife. Like the other Primarchs, Horus was scattered from Terra by the Gods of Chaos and was placed on a far-away world in an attempt to prevent the coming of the Age of the Imperium. Traditional accounts state that Horus was the first Primarch to be rediscovered, fighting alongside his father in the Great Crusade as Lord of the Luna Wolves. Becoming the favored son of the Emperor and beloved by most of his brother Primarchs, Horus eventually rose to become Warmaster of the Great Crusade and was seen as second only to the Emperor himself in power and prestige.[1] But in spite of all of this, he was eventually corrupted by the powers of Chaos and initiated the galaxy-spanning civil war known as the Horus Heresy against the very Imperium he helped create.

History

Early Life

A younger Horus Lupercal[21]

When Horus was scattered, his pod landed on the world of Cthonia, a planet close to the Sol System. He was discovered by the Cthonian gang overlord Khageddon, and given the "no-name" of Nergüi. Growing up for a time under Khageddon's gang, Nergüi engaged in the perpetual gang warfare beneath Cthonia's surface that dominated the world. However his life changed dramatically when he came upon the pod he had arrived to Cthonia on, now being excavated by the Mechanicum. Nergüi engaged in battle with the Tech-Priests, killing one and recovering its weapon before running back to Khageddon. Khageddon scolded Nergüi for his recklessness, saying those he killed would chase them back to their tribal lair. Khageddon refused to give Nergüi his "kill-name" over the incident, much to the young ganger's anger. However just as Khageddon predicted, Mechanicum adepts arrived at their tribal hold and began to dig through ffrom the surface. With the chamber collapsing around them and most of the gang dying, Khageddon instructed Nergüi to slay him to earn his kill-name. After Nergüi performed the act, he suddenly gained buried memories of the Galaxy, technology, and himself. Even his body began to swell, seemingly awakened by a trigger. When the Tech-Priests finally arrived into the chamber a Primarch stood before him: Nergüi proclaimed himself Horus.[22]

Horus

According to Horus himself, after his discovery he was brought from Cthonia to Terra alongside several of his elderly comrades from the gang world. He landed upon Terra to much fanfare, kneeling before the Emperor and taking an oath to serve him dutifully.[20a] This account however is sometimes disputed, with others claiming Horus returned to Terra itself.[14] Because of this early discovery, Horus grew to be the most powerful among the Primarchs as he had grown up from a child to an adult at the side of the Emperor. For a thirty years he was the only Primarch to have been discovered. Friendship between the Emperor and Horus grew rapidly and the Emperor eventually trusted him enough to give him command of the entire force of the Imperium. The Emperor had saved Horus's life at the Siege of Reillis as they fought back to back. At another battle, Horus repaid this debt when he hacked the arm off a frenzied Ork as it tried to choke the life out of the Emperor on the planet of Gorro.[5]

The first of his brother Primarchs Horus was reunited with was Leman Russ, who he regarded as a savage and with a degree of hidden jealousy. Despite this, he fervently followed the Emperor's wish to have him get along with Russ and the other Primarchs that will soon be rediscovered.[17b]

The Great Crusade

Horus before his corruption[22]

As the Emperor and the Great Crusade marched on, Horus proved himself to be a tactical genius. He knew precisely which force to send and where to send it, showing no mercy to those that opposed the Emperor but sparing the innocent from unnecessary bloodshed. As the Emperor departed to find and meet with rediscovered Primarchs, Horus was left in temporary command of the Legiones Astartes and this helped prepare him for the role of Warmaster.[5]

After the Ullanor Crusade, in which an Ork empire was defeated, the Emperor, considering the crusade to be Horus' greatest victory yet, saw fit to partially transfer control of the Great Crusade to Horus, raising him to the rank of Warmaster, the highest official beneath the Emperor himself, and granting him command over any and all Imperial forces, as well as other rights and honours. This strained Horus' relationship with several Primarch's, most notably Angron, Perturabo, and Konrad Curze, who felt either they deserved the title or simply didn't want to take orders from their brother. Leman Russ and Lion El'Jonson meanwhile openly accepted the decision but were clearly embittered by it, Roboute Guilliman, Jaghatai Khan, and Ferrus Manus supported the decision simply because of duty. But Fulgrim, Mortarion, Sanguinius, Lorgar, and Rogal Dorn all supported Horus' ascension to the point where they bowed their heads and meant it, and Horus grew closest to these brothers.[2b]

In these, the last years of the Great Crusade, Horus would encourage the other Primarchs to compete against each other in order to discover the strongest and most able of his companions and to improve their fighting abilities, as well as lead his own personal forces into several notable campaigns. It was after one of these campaigns - the first contact with the Interex — that Horus chose to exercise his right, granted by the Emperor, to rename his personal legion: The Luna Wolves were renamed the Sons of Horus.[2] But despite these accomplishments, the formation of the Council of Terra and his Father's return to Terra created a deeply buried resentment in Horus that, before the Heresy, not even he truly seemed to realize existed.[2b]

The Betrayal

Unknown to Horus, his brother Lorgar, along with his entire legion of Word Bearers, had secretly fallen to Chaos and conspired to make Horus the Ruinous Powers' champion against the Emperor. For many years before acting openly, the Word Bearers usurped loyalist hold on their Legions by establishing Warrior Lodges.[11] The full conspiracy finally manifested during a mission on the Feral World Davin; Horus was wounded in battle by a blade of Nurgle wielded by the Chaos-corrupted Eugen Temba. He fell unconscious and under the advice of Word Bearers First Chaplain Erebus the natives of the world helped to heal him. However, unknown to the desperate Mournival, the healers and Erebus himself had all long since become corrupted by Chaos and were orchestrating the entire series of events. Having his dying body moved to the Serpent Lodge, Horus was soon subjected to an ancient Chaos ritual by the Davin priests, while Erebus entered his mind disguised as the deceased Hastur Sejanus. This image of Sejanus showed Horus horrifying visions of the future, where the Emperor ruled as a god and had discarded the Primarchs once they had outlived their usefulness. Erebus also told Horus that the Gods of Chaos were peaceful beings with little interest in the Materium, and it was the Emperor that was intent on destroying their realm on his quest for godhood. Most disturbing for Horus, he was told that the Emperor had used the powers of the Warp to create the Primarchs. Horus was shown a vision of the past where all the Primarchs, himself included, were scattered across the Galaxy into a warp vortex. The scattering of the Primarchs, despite being orchestrated by Chaos instead of the Emperor, seemingly confirmed to Horus that the Emperor had used foul Warp-magics in his sons' creations. Horus saw the Emperor, who had banned any research into the Warp, as a hypocrite.[2a]

Despite realizing early on that this Sejanus was but an impostor, Horus nonetheless accepted these revelations for unknown reasons and his bitterness towards the Emperor, already growing from his fathers isolation and Secret Project on Terra as well as the formation of the Council of Terra (essentially subordinating the Primarchs to mortal humans), finally manifested in outright hostility. The only attempt to stop the conversion of Horus came from his brother Magnus the Red, who entered Horus's mind but was unable to interfere with the powerful rituals of the Davin Cultists or convince Horus to remain loyal to the Emperor.[2a] Horus dealt with Magnus afterward by manipulating Leman Russ into launching an all-out purge of Prospero.[2c]

After his experience on Davin, Horus agreed to align with the powers of Chaos in order to overthrow the Emperor, which he had become convinced was a corrupt dictator bent on achieving godhood and forsaking his sons in favor of mortal rulers. The Warmaster soon introduced the taint to the Legions under his direct command, converting Angron of the World Eaters, Fulgrim of the Emperor's Children, and Mortarion of the Death Guard to his cause. Eventually, Horus was also able to secretly recruit Konrad Curze of the Night Lords, Alpharius Omegon of the Alpha Legion, and Perturabo of the Iron Warriors. Horus also converted the Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus Kelbor-Hal, founding the Dark Mechanicum, as well as many units of the Imperial Army.[9]

Heresy

Burning the Galaxy

Horus moved, along with several other secretly traitor legions, to Isstvan III, seemingly in order to suppress a rebellion and reinstate Imperial control. Once he arrived however, he sent down specially selected troops from all four of the legions with him, sending down all those he knew would never join him in open rebellion. Once they were on the planet he proceeded to virus bomb the entire world and killed billions of inhabitants in seconds, along with hundreds of space marines, and a ground war eliminated the remainder[3]. The psychic shock wave from this event was said to be louder than the Astronomican. Horus then redeployed his forces to Isstvan V where he was met by seven Space Marine legions sent to bring him to Terra to face an inquest into his actions on Isstvan III. Four of these seven legions proceeded to rebel against the Emperor. It now became obvious that Horus had massive power as he hunted down the three legions that had stayed loyal. Only a few Space Marines managed to escape his forces and make it back to Terra, and among those killed was Ferrus Manus, Primarch of the Iron Hands.[4] Eventually Horus would mount the skull of Ferrus Manus in his throne room, where he began talking to it in private and lamenting that he must rely on psychotic generals and daemons instead of true, effective strategists like Ferrus had been.[13] As Horus' rebellion spread, he claimed a personal fiefdom in the northern Imperium dubbed the Dark Empire.[25]

Ascension

Following a failed assassination attempt by Shadrak Meduson after the Battle of Dwell, Horus regained a lost memory that the Emperor had erased, that of the Emperor's unlocking of dark powers on Molech. Horus invaded the planet hoping to gain the same abilities as his father. Horus eventually managed to enter the gate, and after an unspecified but extremely long period of time exited the Warp with his powers greatly increased. While time in the Materium had only been mere moments, Horus had been within the Warp for so long he had visibly aged. Inside the Warp for what seemed like an eternity, Horus had won a thousand kingdoms, amassed billions of Daemonic followers, and defied Gods. Eventually Horus forcibly acquired the same power the Emperor had gotten, but with his own force of will and without deception like his Father had. However he had refused a place within the Warp, choosing instead to reenter the Materium with his new power to make war on the Emperor. Aboard the Vengeful Spirit, Horus then survives an infiltration by the Knights-Errant led by his former Mournival adviser Garviel Loken. The attempt failed and Horus killed Iacton Qruze before the Knights-Errant escaped.[12a]

Horus during the Heresy at the Battle of Trisolian

Now with the powers of a god and maintaining his previously youthful appearance with his new-found abilities[12b], Horus then set a course to fight his way through the Imperium in an attempt to reach Terra and, ultimately, to kill the Emperor and place himself on the throne. However at the Trisolian, he was confronted by Leman Russ and his Space Wolves, who had tracked the Vengeful Spirit thanks to runes planted by the Knights-Errant during the Battle of Molech. Russ and a large force of Space Wolves were able to board the Venegeful Spirit, and the two Primarch's came face to face. Russ was disgusted by what had become of his brother. Nonetheless Horus pleaded with Russ to join him and help in his quest to overthrow the Emperor and expose his lies. Surprising none, Russ rejected Horus and the two engaged in a titanic battle. Despite Horus' sorcerous powers, Russ was protected thanks to the Spear of Russ he wielded. It thus came down to a battle of sheer power, one Horus was dominating despite Russ' speed. Horus caught Russ upon his Talon, but Russ broke free of his armor and impaled flesh to plunge the Spear of Russ into the Warmaster's side. However Russ hesitated at the final second to deliver the killing blow, and instead only partially pierced Horus' side. The wound was still devastating, and more importantly the power of the Spear cleansed Horus of the corruption that had befallen him since Molech. For the first time in the battle, Russ saw Horus Lupercal before him, not a creature of Chaos.[17a]

Despite the effects of the Spear, Horus still remained committed to the Emperor's destruction and rejected Russ' offer to return to Terra and allow the Emperor to heal him. The two Primarch's again came to blows, and this time Russ was badly mauled by Horus' talon. As Horus stood over Russ and was about to deliver the final blow with Worldbreaker, a single Space Wolf rushed to his Primarch's aid and was swatted aside by Horus. Soon more came, and then hundreds, until Horus was swarmed by a desperate mob of Space Wolves piling upon him. The distraction gave Bjorn enough time to drag Russ back to his flagship Hrafnkel and escape. After the battle, Horus ordered Abaddon to pursue the Wolves to Yarant, but secretly expressed regrets that so much blood had been spilled in his war.[17a]

The wound Russ gave Horus proved far more enduring than any could imagine. Constantly plaguing by the Warmaster, at the Battle of Beta-Garmon the wound reopened and Horus collapsed into a coma-like state. Before he passed out, Horus demanded that Maloghurst issue a general summons of all the Traitor Primarch's to Ullanor in preparation of moving on Terra. Despite the best efforts of Maloghurst to hold the traitor war effort together, without Horus' power things began to fall apart. Fulgrim and Angron refused the summons entirely while Mortarion stated he would only take a summons from Horus himself. With Abaddon busy chasing the Wolves in the Battle of Yarant, Horus Aximand and Falkus Kibre vyed for leadership and undermined Maloghurst's authority. Maloghurst in desperation turned to Lorgar and Zardu Layak to revive the Warmaster. The Word Bearers revealed that part of Horus' soul was still trapped within the gate of Molech, and the Chaos Gods were literally tearing it apart in their squabbles over such a valuable prize. The majority of Horus' spirit refused to submit to the Dark Gods, and this combined with the doubt created by the power of the Spear of Russ had created his comatose state.[18]

With the Sons of Horus facing destruction at Heta-Gladius under the leadership of Aximand, Maloghurst conducted a blood ritual with the bound Daemon Amarok to journey into the Warp and attempt to recover the lost piece of Horus' soul. Inside he found Horus on an eternal battlefield, waging a never-ending struggle against enemies and creatures from across time and space. This Horus thought he was still on Molech, and was unaware of what had transpired since. Maloghurst revealed the truth, and bade Horus go with him. Horus refused to submit to the Gods and free his soul from this realm, but Maloghurst attempted the ritual a second time. This time the two found themselves on Ullanor on the eve of the Triumph. Maloghurst begged Horus to submit to the Gods, but the Warmaster refused to be a slave. Maloghurst noted that Horus had chose this path and was no slave, and it was far too late to turn back now, the Warmaster must settle things with the Emperor and end the war. This time Maloghurst understood what must be done, and plunged a knife into Horus' wound. With Maloghurst giving his own life to awaken the Warmaster, Horus awoke and immediately took command of the Legion once more.[18]

With Horus renewed, he traveled to the surface of Ullanor to meet with the Traitor Primarch's that had already arrived. On the surface, he met Fulgrim and Lorgar. In truth, Lorgar had planned to usurp Horus as Warmaster as he viewed him as weak and undeserving of the title. Before Lorgar's coup could be enacted, Horus revealed that he knew of his treachery thanks to the efforts of Actaea. With the previously enslaved Fulgrim being freed by Zardu Layak, Lorgar's plan fell apart completely. Horus beat Logar viciously and exiled him, ordering that he never enter his sight again but retaining command over the Word Bearers of Zardu Layak. Before leaving Lorgar revealed his sadness for Horus, he had become such a slave to Chaos that even he pitied him. According to Layak, by this point Horus' form was consistently shifting between various states. His pure Luna Wolf form, that of the Warmaster, that of the empowered being on Molech, and finally his "new" form that was simply a dark maw of Chaotic energy. Horus had finally thrown away the last of Lupercal, all that existed was a Slave to Darkness.[18] Horus then met with the other Primarch's that arrived on Ullanor: Perturabo, Angron, Alpharius, and Magnus. A second, darker triumph on Ullanor was held as the traitors arrayed their forces. After sacrificing 1/10th of their slaves to the Gods, Horus ordered all move on Terra at last.[18]

Terra

Horus' forces at last arrived in the Sol System in the Solar War. However during the initial phases of the battle, neither he or the Vengeful Spirit appeared and this led to much grim speculation by Rogal Dorn, Malcador, and others as to his true intent. Their suspicions were proven correct when a ritual conducted by Ahriman and the Word Bearers aboard The Comet created a massive Warp-rift directly over Luna, from which spilled tens of thousands of warships. At the head of the armada was the Vengeful Spirit, with Horus himself commanding from Lupercal's Court. Beset on all sides, the defenses of the Sol System collapsed and Horus was able to strike directly towards Terra. But as Horus besieged the Sol System in the Materium, so did the Ruinous Powers assail the Imperium in the Immaterium. The Emperor alone held back the tides of the Warp from the Sol System. As Horus finally arrived in the Sol System he appeared to the Emperor as a feral wolf, goading the Emperor and declaring him a tyrant and liar. The Emperor refused to even respond to Horus in these exchanges, looking past him to instead announce his rejection of the Ruinous Powers and declaring their puppet as nothing. As the embers of his fire died, the shadows around him drew closer and closer. As Horus arrived directly over Terra, the fire finally died and Horus gloated that the only option left for his father was to run.[19]

Horus' war came to its climax during the Siege of Terra. During the Siege he was increasingly absent from direct command, something that frustrated First Captain Abaddon. Instead Horus spent large amounts of time inside the pocket dimension that had become Lupercal's Court, accompanied by Zardu Layak and his Word Bearers. Here he would fall into a comatose state, scanning the Empyrean for lore and weakening the Emperor upon their psychic battlefield within the Warp.[20a] Horus swelled with the powers of the Chaos Gods and now commanded through fear rather than charisma. Abaddon began to become disgusted with what Horus had become, considering him now to be little more than a slave to the Chaos Gods. Zardu Layak stated that while supremely powerful, the Chaos Gods would quickly burn out Horus with their power and he had limited time left to live.[20b] Layak's prophecy rang true, as a few months into the siege Horus had begun to display signs of senility.He recalled past glories as if they were presently occurring and called his current Emissary Argonis by the name Maloghurst. Horus was kept recused from the traitor armies, and much of the day-to-day planning in the siege fell to Perturabo.[21a] After the setback at the Saturnine Wall however Horus became more directly active in the Siege's execution. He ordered Perturabo to use the Legio Mortis to attack the Mercury-Exultant Kill-Zone, despite its formidable defenses. When Perturabo expressed doubt in the plan Horus was adamant it would succeed, because it willed it so. Later, Horus had Argonis inform Perturabo that the Iron Warriors were to be dispersed across the various warfronts and that the Lord of Iron's own position would be taken by Mortarion and the Death Guard. The act caused the already-disillusioned Perturabo to quit the war effort.[24]

Horus remained isolated aboard the Vengeful Spirit until the final stages of the Siege, where apparently he began to prepare for his landing to kill the Emperor personally. Horus issued his first direct command not given through Argonis in weeks when he ordered Traitor forces to capture the Eternity Gate.[27a] Horus then psychically ordered Angron to find and kill Sanguinius, an act apparently more out of desperation than anything else.[27b]

The Death

Despite the loyalist success in holding the Eternity Gate, Horus' army were still on the brink of victory and soon captured the Bhab Bastion, Rogal Dorn's own command center.[28a] It was then that Horus, his mind in the Warp, intercepted a message from Roboute Guilliman that he and his reinforcements were a mere 9 hours away from Terra. Horus finally roused from his throne and journeyed to the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit.[28b] There, he addressed his equerry Kenor Argonis as Maloghurst, saw long-dead Zardu Layak at his side, and stated he he would finally finish the war with a daring gambit. To the shock of all present, Horus stated that he had apparently lowered the Vengeful Spirit's Void Shields, inviting the Emperor himself to teleport aboard his flagship. This would allow Horus to slay the Emperor before Guilliman's reinforcements could arrive. With their Emperor dead, Guilliman's fleet would lose heart and scatter before the forces of the Warmaster.[28c]

Soon enough, the Emperor took the bait and He alongside Rogal Dorn, Sanguinius, Constantin Valdor, and their elite forces all teleported to the Vengeful Spirit. It was then that Horus sprung his trap, using his sorcerous connection to his flagship to scatter the loyalists throughout the vessel. He took control of many of the Emperor's own Custodes, forcing them to attack their own liegelord as the Emperor reluctantly struck them down.[28d] Rogal Dorn was trapped in an endless desert of madness for what seemed to him to be centuries.[28e] Horus revealed his true power and mental strength, which he had apparently been concealing in order to lure his father to him.[28f] According to Actae, Horus was preparing to be elevated to a fifth Chaos God, using humanity just as Slaanesh had used the Eldar. All across Terra, his followers chanted the name of the soon-ascendant Dark King[28g] (though apparently this in fact referred to the Emperor).

Horus battles Sanguinius aboard the Vengeful Spirit

Swelling with the powers of Chaos, the fully awakened Horus drove the crew of the Vengeful Spirit mad with his mere presence including hardened Space Marines such as his equerry Kenor Argonis.[29a] He broke down the barriers of space and time between the surface of Terra and his flagship, causing the two locations to overlap with one another and for time itself to be paused at this single monumental moment, with even the Inevitable City manifesting in his honor.[29b] Still preparing to face his father, Horus deliberately let Sanguinius reach him within the heavily mutated Lupercal's Court. Planning to turn Sanguinius to Chaos so that they may confront their father together, Horus was genuinely disappointed when his brother refused his offer to join him in ascendency.[29c]

Horus, as he confronts the Emperor during the climax of the Horus Heresy.[9a]

Instead, the already heavily injured Sanguinius attacked Horus with all his might, displaying ferocious combat ability. Horus still held back his true power, engaging in a purely martial battle with Sanguinius in hopes of breaking him down so he may accept the powers of the Warp. However Sanguinius fought so stubbornly and viciously that Horus grew frustrated and even took several wounds.[29d] In the end, Horus was forced to change his plans when he detected that the Emperor was incoming towards his location. Horus finally decided to kill Sanguinius and unleashed his full power, reaching into the 8th dimension to grab Sanguinius and slam him to the ground mid-flight. Horus proceeded to batter his brother with Worldbreaker and impaled him several times with his Talon before the skull of Ferrus Manus. Horus let out a disappointed sigh as his brother died and his body was strung up by Daemons.[29e]

Horus battles the Emperor

Shortly after killing Sanguinius, Horus was confronted by the Emperor. Much to Horus' annoyance, the Emperor spoke past him and instead addressed the Chaos Gods that had arrived to witness the final struggle, defying them.[30a] In the ensuing struggle Horus, fully empowered directly by The Four Gods of Chaos, was able to overpower the Emperor after a titanic clash that transcended both space and time and spread across several dimensions.[30b] Horus nailed the Emperor's broken but still-living body to a 5th throne he had constructed alongside those for the Chaos Gods, declaring that he was a God and would make the Emperor his puppet-slave as punishment.[30c] However Horus was interrupted first by the Custodian Caecaltus Dusk and then Ollanius Persson, contemptuously killing both.[30c] Horus was next confronted by Garviel Loken, his former son who made it aboard the Vengeful Spirit. Loken pointed out that the Emperor had rejected to fully drink from the warp to become the Dark King and that Horus was the one being controlled by the Dark Powers. Loken appealed to Horus' pride, convincing him to briefly shed off his tremendous Warp powers and finish the Emperor as a mere Primarch. Horus, perhaps in his arrogance, agreed to do so since the battle was over anyway. Horus briefly cast off the powers of Chaos and crushed in the Emperor's skull with Worldbreaker as the Chaos Gods and Daemons around them angrily shouted and protested, trying to warn Horus of something. Horus ignored them but was shocked to find that this was simply a ruse by the Emperor. Loken and the Emperor's corpse had both been illusions, and the real Emperor launched one last assault upon Horus.[30d]

The Emperor used the power of the reactivated Astronomican to shine its light directly into Horus' brain. Horus Warmaster fell into agony as he desperately tried to cloak himself in Warp power once more. However much to Horus' horror, he discovered that the Chaos Gods were now teaching him a lesson of sorts by deliberately denying him their power. Horus came to the realization that he had never been in control, and his Chaos masters were treating him as they would a disobedient slave. The realization combined with the brief absence of Warp corruption over his soul saw the old Horus the Emperor had once loved manifest once more. Horus pleaded with the Emperor to kill him before the Chaos Gods could fully reassert control. The Emperor initially hesitated, but granted Horus a mercy and stabbed His son through the chest with the Athame blade Ollanius had given him. The Emperor then channeled all of His might into the blade, obliterating Horus' form and reducing him to a mere skeleton inside charred armour. His body was watched over by the real Garviel Loken, who was heartbroken over the tragedy.[30d]

Post-Mortem

After the battle, the Vengeful Spirit was quickly placed under Abaddon's command. Abaddon found Horus's body and ordered the retreat into the Eye of Terror. The body of Horus is said to have been put on display in a temple, the Sons of Horus revering the Warmaster even in death. The Neverborn, on the other hand, remembered Horus not for his victories but his failures, referring to him as the Sacrificed King.[15a]

At the end of a series of inter-traitor wars, the fortress of the Sons on Maeleum was destroyed, and the body of Horus stolen by the Emperor's Children. To the disgust of the Sons, the body was used by Fabius Bile to create at least one clone of Horus.[7]

Ultimately, Abaddon returned to lead forces to destroy the Emperor Children's fortress and the clone of Horus with it. At the climax of the battle, Abaddon, wielding the Talon of Horus, confronted the clone of Horus who was armed with Worldbreaker. After killing scores of Abaddon's allies, the clone of Horus caught sight of the Talon of Horus being worn by another. Horus' clone lashed out at Abaddon with Worldbreaker, but the First Captain caught it with the Talon. Worldbreaker was crushed and Horus' clone impaled by Abaddon. In its dying moments, the clone of Horus remembered who Abaddon was and acknowledged him as his son.[15b]

Wargear

By the time of the Heresy, Horus was equipped with the gigantic Power Maul Worldbreaker, said to be constructed by the Emperor's own hands. His right arm wielded the Talon of Horus, a monstrous Power Claw constructed for him as a gift by the Dark Mechanicum's Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal. Originally, he fought with a Power Sword and Twin-Linked Bolter.[16] Horus wore an enormous suit of Terminator Armour known as the Serpent's Scales.[15]

Quotes

Quote Notes
The creatures of the Warp are just "aliens" too, but they are not life forms as we understand the term. They are not organic. They are extra-dimensional, and they influence our reality in ways that seem sorcerous to us. Supernatural, if you will. So let's use all those lost words for them... daemons, spirits, possessors, changelings. All we need to remember is that there are no gods out there, in the darkness, no great daemons and ministers of evil. There is no fundamental, immutable evil in the cosmos. It is too large and sterile for such melodrama. There are simply inhuman things that oppose us, things we were created to battle and destroy.
- on Sixty-Three Nineteen, after the Battle of the Whisperhead Mountains
Horus Rising (Novel), Part One, ch. 10
The day will not save them. And we own the night.
- attributed to Horus before the assault on the Imperial Palace
Adeptus Titanicus (game) (1988),
p. 43
Let the Galaxy burn. Galaxy in Flames (Novel),
ch. 12
When the traitor's hand strikes, it strikes with the strength of a legion.
- attributed
The Traitor's Hand (Novel) by Sandy Mitchell,
ch. 5
'The truth will surely blind us: only in the half-light of the lie do we clearly see.''
- The Warmaster Horus, Prior to the final assault on the Haruspex Gate, Bh'al Morthia Campaign.
The Horus Heresy Book Six - Retribution pg.189
Look at me, Loken! See what I am! I am made mighty beyond all measure by the warp! I am transfigured and ascendant! I am a god, boy, a mighty god, and gods do not make mistakes!
- Horus to Garviel Loken during the final battle against the Emperor
The End and the Death: Volume III (Novel) - 10:xiv

Miniatures

Trivia

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Etymology

  • Horus was a prominent ancient Egyptian Deity known as the child of Osiris and Isis. The deity was a prominent rival of the god Set, the god of disorder (chaos).
  • Lupercal was a cave at the southwest foot of the Palatine Hill in Rome, in which according to legend a she-wolf raised Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city.
  • Horus's childhood name on Cthonia, Nergui, is a Mongolian name meant to avert misfortune from the child and translates to "no name".[Needs Citation]

Sources