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The Primarch Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands Legion with his warhammer Forgebreaker
The Forgebreaker was the legendary Thunder Hammer utilised by the late Ferrus Manus, the fiery primarch of the Iron Hands Legion during the Great Crusade and opening days of the Horus Heresy in the late 30th and early 31st Millennia.
Fashioned by his close friend, and later hated enemy, the Primarch Fulgrim of the Emperor's Children Legion, this exquisitely fashioned Thunder Hammer would prove to have a dark infamy of its own and serve the hands of many masters before the Horus Heresy ended.
History[]
When the primarch of the Xth Legion was discovered during the early years of the Great Crusade, he was among the first of the Emperor's lost sons to be found, and, like Horus Lupercal and Leman Russ before him, had risen to become a warlord in his own right on the world on which he had been cast.
So it was that Ferrus Manus' transition from planetary warlord to general of the Great Crusade was a swift one, aided by his evident hunger for the task set before him and the uncompromising intelligence and diligent application to this greater challenge he displayed. In a scant few years, Ferrus Manus was transferred full control of the X Legion which he took command of body and soul, renaming it and remaking it in his image.
The Gorgon and the Phoenix[]
The brotherhood shared by the Primarchs Fulgrim and Ferrus Manus, the Phoenician and the Gorgon, was well known in the Imperium at the time of the Great Crusade, as the two superhuman leaders formed an instant connection upon their first meeting.
This initial encounter occurred on Terra, beneath Mount Narodnya, the greatest forge of the Urals, where Ferrus Manus was busy toiling with the forge-masters who had once served the Terrawatt Clan during the Unification Wars soon after his arrival from Medusa. The primarch of the Iron Hands had been demonstrating his phenomenal skill and the miraculous powers of his liquid metal hands when Fulgrim, the primarch of the IIIrd Legion, the Emperor's Children, and his elite Phoenix Guard, had descended upon the sprawling forge complex.
Neither primarch had yet met the other, but each had felt the shared bonds of alchemy and science that had gone into their making. Both were like gods unto the terrified artisans, who prostrated themselves before these two mighty warriors as though fearing a terrible battle might ensure between them.
Ferrus Manus later told the tale to the Astartes of the Xth Legion claiming that Fulgrim had declared that he had come to forge the most perfect weapon ever created, and that he would bear it in the coming Great Crusade. Of course the primarch of the Iron Hands could not let such a boast go unanswered, and he had laughed in Fulgrim's face, declaring that such pasty hands could never be the equal of his own living metal appendages.
Fulgrim accepted the challenge with regal grace, and both primarchs had stripped to the waist, working without pause for solar weeks on end, the forge ringing with the deafening pounding of hammers, the hiss of cooling metal, and the good-natured insults of the two demigods as they sought to outdo one another.
At the end of three solar months' unceasing toil, both warriors had finished their weapons. Fulgrim had forged an exquisite warhammer -- Forgebreaker -- that could level a mountain with a single blow, and Ferrus Manus a golden-bladed sword -- Fireblade -- that forever burned with the fire of the forge. Both weapons were unmatched by any yet crafted by Mankind, and upon seeing what the other had created, each primarch declared that his opponent's was the greater.
Fulgrim declared the golden sword the equal of that borne by the legendary hero Nuada Silverhand, while Ferrus Manus had sworn that only the mighty thunder gods of Nordyc legend were fit to bear such a magnificent warhammer. Without another word spoken, both primarchs had swapped weapons and sealed their eternal friendship with the craft of their hands.
Betrayal[]
Fulgrim attacks Ferrus Manus with Forgebreaker within his sanctum, the Anvilarium, aboard the Xth Legion's flagship.
As the Warmaster Horus made the opening moves of his rebellion on Isstvan III, Ferrus Manus' oldest and dearest friend Fulgrim was ordered by the Warmaster to meet with the Iron Hands primarch aboard his flagship Fist of Iron in the hope that he could be swayed to the side the Traitor Legions who now served Chaos.
Fulgrim had sent the bulk of his IIIrd Legion and the 28th Expeditionary Fleet on to meet Horus and the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet in the Isstvan System while he and a small force aided the Iron Hands' 52nd Expeditionary Fleet in retaking the world of Callinedes IV from Orks.
Great bonds of friendship and brotherhood had long existed between the two Legions, and Fulgrim felt that he could convince Ferrus of the righteousness of Horus' cause. Fulgrim's hope proved disastrously wrong and the meeting of the two primarchs in Ferrus' private inner sanctum in his flagship's Anvilarium did not go well, as Ferrus was utterly outraged that his brothers would turn against their father the Emperor.
The meeting ended in violence as the Gorgon made his difference of opinion over continued loyalty to the Emperor known to the Phoenician with his weapons, determined to stop Fulgrim's betrayal of the Imperium before it could begin. Ferrus attempted to use his silvery necrodermis hands to destroy Fulgrim's golden sword Fireblade, but the resulting explosion knocked him unconscious.
Fulgrim intended to kill his unconscious brother with the weapon he had forged for him, the warhammer Forgebreaker, but proved unable to kill his oldest friend despite the promptings of the Slaaneshi Daemon that now corrupted his soul. Instead he took the wonderous weapon that he had once crafted in brotherhood for Ferrus as a reminder of their former friendship, and left behind Fireblade, which Ferrus had forged for him.
When Fulgrim emerged from Ferrus' inner sanctum, he gave a signal to his elite Phoenix Guard, who instantly beheaded all of the Iron Hands Morlocks Terminators who served as Ferrus' own elite bodyguard with their Power Halberds. The Emperor's Children also nearly slew the Iron Hands' First Captain Gabriel Santor.
Fulgrim successfully fled the Iron Hands' expeditionary fleet in his personal assault craft, the Firebird, as he ordered his warships, the battle barge Pride of the Emperor and its escorts, to open fire upon the ships of the 52nd Expeditionary Fleet. This surprise attack crippled the Iron Hands force and provided a distraction while Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children warships fled into the Warp to rendezvous with the rest of their 28th Expeditionary Fleet in the Isstvan System.
Drop Site Massacre[]
The Iron Hands come to grips with their hated enemies, the Emperor's Children.
Overcome with mind-numbing rage at such treachery, Ferrus Manus and his warriors gratefully received the Emperor's orders through his brother Rogal Dorn to assault Horus' Traitors. Together with the Raven Guard and Salamanders Legions, the Iron Hands were to confront Horus and his lieutenants on the world of Isstvan V and crush them utterly.
The battlefield of Isstvan V was a slaughterhouse of epic proportions. Treacherous warriors twisted by hatred fought their former brothers-in-arms in a conflict unparalleled in its bitterness. Though the Iron Hands, Raven Guard and Salamanders had managed to make a full combat drop and secured the drop site, known as the Urgall Depression, they did so at a heavy cost.
Overwhelmed with rage, the headstrong Ferrus Manus disregarded the counsel of his brothers Corvus Corax and Vulkan and hurled himself against the fleeing rebels, seeking to bring Fulgrim to personal combat. His veteran troops -- comprising the majority of the Xth Legion's Terminators and Dreadnoughts -- followed. What had begun as a massed strike against the Traitors' position was rapidly turning into one of the largest engagements of the entire Great Crusade.
Ferrus Manus confronts Fulgrim for the last time on the battlefields of Isstvan V.
Ferrus Manus and his Morlocks charged through the shattered ruin of the defences, his black armour and their burnished plates scarred and stained with the blood of enemies. Fulgrim's fixed smile faltered as he truly appreciated the depths of hatred his brother held for him and wondered again how they had come to this point, knowing that any chance for brotherhood was lost. Only in death would their rivalry end.
Ferrus taunted Fulgrim for his betrayal of the Emperor and siding with the Traitor Horus. He thought his brother mad, for the Warmaster was defeated -- his forces routed and the power of another four Legions would soon be brought to bear to crush their attempt at rebellion utterly. Unable to contain himself any longer, Fulgrim shook his head, savouring the final act of betrayal to come, revealing to Ferrus that it was he who was naive. Horus would never be foolish enough to trap himself like this. He pointed out towards the northern edge of the Urgall Depression so that Ferrus could see that it was he and his fellow Loyalists who were undone.
Dragging their wounded and dead behind them, the Primarchs Corax and Vulkan led their forces back to the drop site to regroup and to allow the warriors of their recently arrived brother primarchs of the second wave a measure of the glory in defeating Horus. Though they voxed hails requesting medical aid and supply, the line of Astartes atop the northern ridge remained grimly silent as the exhausted warriors of the Raven Guard and Salamanders came to within a hundred metres of their allies.
It was then that Horus revealed his perfidy and sprang his lethal trap. Inside the black fortress where Horus had made his lair, a lone flare shot skyward, exploding in a hellish red glow that lit the battlefield below. The fire of betrayal roared from the barrels of a thousand guns, as the second wave of Astartes revealed where their true loyalties now lay.
Ferrus looked on in stunned horror as Fulgrim laughed at the look on his brother's face as the forces of his "allies" opened fire upon the Salamanders and Raven Guard, killing hundreds in the fury of the first few moments, hundreds more in the seconds following, as volley after volley of bolter fire and missiles scythed through their unsuspecting ranks.
Iron Warriors Primarch Perturabo holding the reforged Forgebreaker, following its conversion into a Daemon Weapon.
Ferrus Manus turned to face Fulgrim, his teeth bared with the volcanic fury of his homeworld. The two primarchs leapt at one anther, Ferrus wielding Fireblade and Fulgrim holding Forgebreaker. Their weapons had been forged in brotherhood, but were now wielded in vengeance, meeting in a blazing plume of energy. The two primarchs traded blows with their monstrously powerful weapons, Ferrus Manus wielded his flaming blade in fiery slashes, his every blow defeated by the ebony hafted hammer he had borne in countless campaigns. Both warriors fought with the hatred only brothers divided could muster, their armour dented, torn and blackened by their fury.
The two primarchs traded terrible blows, wounding one another deeply during their fierce struggle. As Ferrus pushed himself to his feet and staggered towards the wounded Fulgrim, he cried out as he brought the flaming blade towards his brother's neck. But Fulgrim lashed out as he drew the single-edged, Daemonically-possessed sword he had taken from the Laer temple and blocked the descending weapon. With the power of Chaos streaming from the blade, diabolical strength flooded Fulgrim's limbs as he pushed against the power of Ferrus Manus, feeling his brother's surprise at his resistance.
Fulgrim managed to surge to his feet and lashed out, his silver blade biting deep into the breastplate of Ferrus' armour, and the primarch of the Iron Hands cried out, falling to his knees once again. Fireblade slid from his grasp as he gasped in fierce agony. Fulgrim saw Ferrus Manus reaching for his fallen sword, his fingers closing around the wire-wound grip, the flames leaping once more to the blade at its creator's touch.
Fulgrim's blade seemed to move with a life of its own as he swung the sword of his own volition. Fulgrim tried desperately to pull the blow, but his muscles were no longer his own to control. The Daemonic blade sliced through the genetically-enhanced flesh and bone of one of the Emperor's sons. The Iron Hands' primarch fell to the ground, his head decapitated.
Ferrus Manus was dead by his brother's own hand and his Legion nearly shared his fate. The fate of their primarch was a mystery to the Legion as his last known position was overrun by hordes of screaming enemy warriors. What became of the great Primarch Ferrus Manus would remain a mystery to the Astartes of the Xth Legion.
Dark Fate[]
Following the massacre, the now Daemonically-possessed Fulgrim later presented Horus with the decapitated head of Ferrus Manus and Forgebreaker as a sign of his loyalty. Later on, in the wake of the Drop Site Massacre, to celebrate Perturabo's decision to have his Iron Warriors join his side in the conflict, Horus presented the Lord of Iron with Forgebreaker, the personal weapon of the fallen primarch of the Iron Hands.
The granting of this boon was the embodiment of a new pact between the Warmaster and the Iron Warriors' primarch, a gift from Horus to Perturabo intended to symbolise Perturabo and the Iron Warriors' newfound allegiance to the Warmaster rather than the Emperor. Fools claimed that Forgebreaker had sealed the pact between Horus and the Iron Warriors, but only Perturabo knew it was Horus' forgiveness for the massacre his Legion had perpetrated against the population of Olympia that truly bound the Iron Warriors to Horus Lupercal.
In the 41st Millennium, presumably this mighty weapon is still in the possession of the Daemon Primarch Perturabo, who resides on the Daemon World of Medrengard deep within the Warp rift known as the Eye of Terror.
Appearance[]
The weight of the formidable warhammer Forgebreaker was enormous and unbearable for anyone but one of the Emperor's Astartes. Its haft was the colour of ebony, elaborately worked with threads of gold and silver that formed the shape of a lightning bolt, and the head was carved into the shape of a mighty eagle, its barbed beak forming the striking face and its tapered wings the claw.
Anyone who looked upon the mighty warhammer could feel the power radiating from within it and know instinctively that more than just skill had gone into its forging. Love and honour, loyalty and friendship, death and vengeance...all were embodied within its majestic form, and the thought that the Iron Hands primarch's sworn honour brother and fellow primarch had created this weapon made it truly legendary.
Sources[]
- Horus Heresy: Collected Visions, pg. 330
- The Horus Heresy - Book Two: Massacre (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 235
- Fulgrim (Novel) by Graham McNeill
- Forge World News: Ferrus Manus The Gorgon Mini
- Genesis of a Primarch Ferrus Manus The Gorgon with Simon Egan