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Thadus Valconet Horst

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Targetdrone.gif This article is about the inquisitor involved in the Gothic War; for the inquisitor involved in the Second War for Armageddon, see Horst.

Thadus Valconet Horst was an Inquisitor researching the Eye of Night and Hand of Darkness prior to the outbreak of the Gothic War.[1]

Biography

Thadus Valconet Horst was an experienced Inquisitor by 139.M41 when he began investigating the Arx Raid. He eventually became convinced that the forces of Chaos were planning a new Black Crusade, heading towards the centre of Chaos activity in the Gothic Sector. Discovering that the mysterious artefact known as the Hand of Darkness had been stolen from Purgatory, he attempted to recover its counterpart, the Eye of Night, from Ornsworld. Again he was too late.[1]

Horst began researching the Eye of Night and Hand of Darkness from the secret Inquisitorial Fortress under the Cathedral of Savaven to discover what the artefacts might do and how to find them. While much of his work was sent to Terra, some of his later work was destroyed[2a] along with the planet by Abaddon the Despoiler's Planet Killer in 143.M41. Horst survived the attack and was involved in co-ordinating the Imperial response with Lord Admiral Cornelius von Ravensburg.[1]

After the war, Horst disappeared investigating Abaddon and the Blackstone Fortresses.[1] He eventually found the Eye of Night with the aid of Moriana the Witch, promising in exchange to kill the daemon that possessed it for failing to fulfil its own bargain with the seer. He was defeated, his body possessed, and so Horst projected his soul into the body of the Grey Knight Paladin Belacus and teleported through the warp to a psychic beacon in the ruined fortress on Savaven.[2c]

Centuries later, Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax and a squad of Grey Knights sent by Roboute Guilliman to recover the Eye of Night. The only trace of the location was remains of the Ecclesiarchy planet that Horst used as his base, which had his psychic spore. After searching through one of the small fragments of the planet remaining, they found Horst bound to the skeleton within the Paladin's armor.[2a] He was in a state between life and death, and he said that he knew that Moriana would know where to find the Eye of Night. The two inquisitors entered the Eye of Terror searching for Moriana, who revealed that Horst knew the location but that he was suffering from amnesia.[2b] She gave them a daemonic guide who led them to a daemon prince who held Horst's body and the Eye of Night. Greyfax killed the daemon, and Horst in the process, and recovered the Eye of Night from within its body.[2c]

Conflicting sources

On page 95, the Battlefleet Gothic Rulebook states: "Like a rations pack crushed in your fist, Savaven just crumpled in on herself, then broke up into thousands of fragments. There’s just an asteroid field there now, really dense, impossible to navigate."[1]

Other accounts of the Planet Killer describe similar levels of destruction.[Needs Citation] Eye of Night (Audio Drama) completely contradicts this account, postulating an intact Savaven on which Horst/Belacus could take refuge.[Needs Citation]

In Shadow Point (Novel), Horst's first name is given as "Gideon" rather than Thadus. [3]

Sources