Sanguinius

Sanguinius, also sometimes referred to as the Angel, was the Primarch of the Blood Angels Legion of Space Marines. He was killed during the climax of the siege of the Imperial Palace during the Battle of Terra defending the Emperor of Mankind from the Warmaster Horus aboard his flagship the Vengeful Spirit during the great betrayal of the Horus Heresy.

History
After the Primarchs were scattered, still in their gestation capsules, from the Emperor's gene-laboratories beneath the Himalayan Mountains to the corners of the galaxy by the Ruinous Powers of Chaos, Sanguinius came to land on the second moon of the post-atomic Feral World of Baal, which was called Baal Secundus. There the infant Primarch was discovered by one of the wandering tribes of humans who called themselves the Folk of Pure Blood, or more simply, The Blood. Sanguinius' life nearly came to an end there and then, as the touch of Chaos had altered the infant. Small vestigial wings, akin to those of an angel, protruded from his back, perhaps a gift of the Dark Gods granted during his transit through the Warp. Many were those amongst The Blood who wanted to kill the child as a mutant, while others wanted to spare the boy, for in every other way, he was as perfect a child as had ever been seen. Eventually, the tribesmen's basic humanity prevailed and the child's life was spared.

Sanguinius grew quickly and learned everything his adoptive parents within The Blood could teach him. After three weeks he was as large as a three year old child and could walk. As he grew his wings also increased in size and strength, changing into mighty pinions that could bear him aloft on the desert air. By the time he was one Terran year old, he looked and acted like a man in his youthful prime. He could walk without a radiation suit in the poisoned, radioactive wasteland of Baal Secundus, and could shatter mighty boulders with a single blow. When a wandering band of mutants surprised his tribe, Sanguinius slew them all single-handedly, although they numbered over a hundred. This was the first time the members of The Blood had ever seen him truly angry, for he felt his comrades' lives were in danger. When the blood-rage overtook him he was indeed terrible to behold. The full powers of a Primarch came upon him and a nimbus of light played about his head.

Sanguinius distinguished himself in the fateful years that followed. He soon rose to the leadership of The Blood, and under his guidance they rolled back the mutant tide which threatened all of humanity upon their poisoned world. Under Sanguinius' direction Mankind gained another chance at civilisation upon Baal Secundus. In time, as a result of his accomplishments, Sanguinius was nearly worshiped as a god by the humans of Baal who owed him so much.

Sanguinius and the Emperor
It was shortly after that fate intervened once more. The Emperor had been searching across the galaxy for his lost children and his incredible psychic powers led him to Baal. His ship landed at the conclave of the Blood and he walked straight to the home vehicle of Sanguinius.

Others among the Primarchs are said to have fought against the Emperor when they first met but this was not the case with Sanguinius. He immediately recognised the Emperor for who he truly was and bent his knee before the Lord of Mankind. The Emperor raised him up and looked upon his people and saw they were fair and noble. The best of the warriors were to become Space Marines, using the gene-seed extracted from Sanguinius, while the rest were left on the moon to defend mankind's birthright upon Baal Secundus.

Thus were born the Blood Angels, among the legions of the first founding. They joined the Emperor's fleet and sailed across the Sea of Stars to participate in the Great Crusade.

Sanguinius Betrayed
The Warmaster Horus, the commander of all Imperial forces in the Great Crisade after the Emperor retired to Terra to pursue his secret Webway Project, ordered Sanguinius to the Signus Cluster - a tri-star system of the Ultima Segmentum near to the Galactic Centre. His Legion, the Blood Angels, was to cleanse the seven worlds and fifteen moons of Signus of alien invaders and release the humans thereon from their xeno-overlords.

Sanguinius had no reason to doubt Horus. In fact he greatly admired the Warmaster and had fought many campaigns at his side. Their relationship was so close it had even incited jealousy amongst their brother Primarchs on occassion. Sanguinius was relishing the opportunity to once again prove the value of their bond. The Blood Angels duly set course for Signus, unaware that they were heading into the most foul of traps. Unbeknown to Sanguinius, the Signus System had been infested by Chaos and was now ruled by Kyriss the Perverse, a Greater Daemon of Slaanesh and his large daemonic host. Agents sent to the world by Horus from Davin, and other Cult Worlds, infested the untold millions on Signus, and in their numbers hid the witch-cabals that had summmoned the daemons to Signus. When they received the pre-arranged signal from the Warmaster, these cults rose up in violent insurrection and seized power. The human population was enslaved, reduced to fodder for the minions of Chaos. Powerful summoning spells by the witch-cabals allowed the daemons free reign over Signus. In addition to this, thousands of psykers had been possessed. The seven worlds and fifteen moons of Signus were now in thrall to the the mighty Daemon Prince. The Signus System had become a Realm of Chaos, and a Domain for Daemons.

Horus had carefully set his trap and into it rode the Blood Angels, the unwavering Sanguinius at the fore. There was never so base a betrayal as this one. Sanguinius looked to Horus as a brother, he never would have believed he could be sacrificed to the foul denizens of the warp. The Blood Angels' fleet was assaulted as it entered Signus, panic spreading through the fleet as the non-Space Marine crews and auxiliaries faced the fury of Chaos for the first time in their lives. The Daemon Prince Kyriss sent an image of himself to Sanguinius, declaring ownership of Signus in the name of Slaanesh and challenging the Primarch to take it back from him.

Unbowed, Sanguinius and his senior officers planned their counterattack. Despite the fact they had never fought against such a foe, the Blood Angels were sure that they would prevail. Despite the crippling assault he had endured, the Primarch and his loyal troops counterattacked, launching a series of attacks across the planet of Signus Prime. The ferocious Space Marines confronted vast hordes of deranged human cultists and packs of monstrous daemons. Sanguinius had sworn to personally confront and vanquish the perverted Kryiss and lead his elite companies to besiege the daemon's defiled palace - the Cathedral of the Mark.

The planet was soon awash in the blood of Loyalist Space Marines, cut down in their thousands by the foul hordes of Kyriss, mixed with the blood of multitudes of slain cultists, traitorous allies of the daemonic rulers of Signus, and the sickening ichor of banished daemons. The Primarch ordered his Legion to fight on and strike for the Cathedral of the Mark, where he could confront and destroy Kyriss, and thence reclaim the planet in the name of the Emperor. When Sanguinius arrived at the outskirts of the defiled palace he came face-to-face with an unnamed nightmare; a Bloodthirster, a Greater Daemon of Khorne named Ka'Bandha. The mighty Bloodthirster was all that stood in Sanguinius' way, between him and righteous vengeance.

Ka'Bandha began taunting the Primarch and made outrageous claims of Horus' betrayal of his brother, Sanguinius. Enraged at the Greater Daemon's taunts and fearing his claims to be true, the angelic Primarch launched himself at the towering monster before him. At his side were the elite of the Legion, fully ten companies of Veterans, Dreadnoughts and Terminator Squads. Ka'bandha was surrounded by a massive horde of bloodletters and hounds of furies. The two forces engaged one another. The fight was fierce and bloody, the carnage appalling. The fighting between daemon and angel was titanic. The nearly evenly matched in both ferocity and skill. Finally, the Greater Daemon managed to stun the angelic Primarch and struck him to the ground with the flat of his axe. Stunned but not out of the fight, Sanguinius taunted the Greater Daemon, daring him to attack him. Though Ka'bandha had the Primarch helpless before his wrath, he let Sanguinius live and warned him that they would meet once again. Sanguinius had dealt the creature a terrible wound and in response the Greater Daemon had crushed his legs, cast him to the ground and with a howl of fury had slaughtered near five companies of the Blood Angels as it fled the scene. The trauma of this act of malevolence stunned the Primarch into unconsciousness. The Blood Angels redoubled their efforts to banish the daemon horde. Filled with vengeful fury, the Legion fought as it had never before. The Blood Angels went berserk and in their mania they smashed the daemons asunder, all but annihilating the daemonic horde of Signus Prime. As the planet was cleansed the rage of the Blood Angels subsided. Their fury ebbed as they slowly began to realize that they had won a great victory. The daemonic horde and its Chaos Cultist allies had been utterly destroyed. Those daemons that had not been killed had fled back into the Immaterium including the so-called mighty Kryiss of Slaanesh, the self-proclaimed master of Signus.

Within a few days the grievance wounds that Sanguinius had suffered at the hands of the Greater Daemon eventually healed. Whatever befell him in the future, the Primarch swore that he would have his vengeance upon the daemon Ka'bandha. When the call from Rogal Dorn came for them to retun to Terra the Blood Angels made all haste, understanding the gravity of the situation facing the Imperium and so Sanguinius and his Blood Angels returned to Terra.

The Battle of Terra
Sanguinius distinguished himself during the Battle of Terra, when it looked as if the Imperial Palace and the entire homeworld of Mankind might fall under the iron heel of Horus' Traitor Legions and the power of Chaos. He organised the final defence of the Emperor's Palace and slew a giant Bloodthirster of Khorne single-handedly by snapping the daemon's spine over his knee. He then heroically held the Eternity Gate leading to the Inner Palace and the Emperor's Throne Room alone when all others had fled. When the Emperor teleported aboard Horus' Battle Barge, the Vengeful Spirit, in orbit of Terra for his final confrontation with the traitorus Warmaster, Sanguinius stood at his side for the final battle.

Battle raged throughout the daemon-infested spacecraft, and Sanguinius became separated from the Emperor. While he was still alone he chanced upon Horus. Although bearing the wounds of his earlier actions and knowing it would almost certainly spell his doom, he immediately attacked the Warmaster. But Sanguinius was no match for Horus at the height of his daemon-provided power, and was slain by the Warmaster with contemptuous ease. However, some say that as a direct result of Sanguinus' brave but futile attack, resulted in a minor chink in Horus's Terminator Armour, and that it was through this small chink that the Emperor was finally able to deal the fatal blow. The psychic echo of Sanguinus's sacrifice can still be heard by the Blood Angels down through the millennia, causing a madness and a fury to come upon them as they see dark visions of their Primarch's final hours.

To this day, the Blood Angels are among the most feared and least trusted of all Space Marine Chapters, souls haunted by the horror of those ancient events and whose bodies are wracked by a secret and terrible thirst that must never be revealed.

The body of Sanguinius was taken by the Imperial forces as they retreated from Horuss crippled flagship back to Terra. His body was then borne away by his Blood Angels to their homeworld of Baal, where he was buried deep within a vast tomb beneath the Blood Angels' main chapel. The doors to his tomb were topped with massive Angel effigies in honour of their fallen Primarch.

Today, nearly ten millennia later, Sanguinius is the most venerated of all the Primarchs. He is commonly held in the highest honour due to his noble sacrifice which allowed the beloved Emperor to defeat Arch-Traitor Horus. The name Sanguinius is cherished throughout the Imperium by the common citizenry. Temples devoted to Sanguinius have been erected alongside those dedicated to the Emperor. The Primarch is even commemorated on his own sacred day of celebration called the Sanguinala, where adepts across the galaxy wear the red badge of Sanguinius on their breasts to commemorate him.