Horus

The Warmaster Horus during the Horus Heresy

The Eye of Horus

Horus, also known as the Lupercal during his lifetime by the Astartes of his Luna Wolves Legion, was one of the 20 genetically-engineered Space Marine Primarchs created by the Emperor of Mankind from the foundation of his own DNA before the start of the Great Crusade to lead the armies of the newborn Imperium of Man. Horus was the Primarch of the Luna Wolves Legion of Space Marines (later renamed the Sons of Horus), the first Imperial Warmaster, the most favoured son of the Emperor of Mankind, and ultimately, the greatest Traitor in the history of Mankind. Horus' homeworld was the Hive World of Cthonia which lay only a few light years from Terra. Horus was thus the first Primarch to be rediscovered by the Emperor after the Great Crusade began in the early 31st Millennium. Horus was responsible for unleashing the horrific 7-year-long civil war known as the Horus Heresy upon the Imperium of Man in the early 31st Millennium which killed billions of men, women and children in pursuit of his mad ambition to overthrow the Emperor of Mankind and replace him as the ruler of the human race. While Horus ultimately lost his bid for power and was slain by the father he had once so loved during the Battle of Terra, his actions damaged the Imperium of Man beyond repair and inaugurated the current Age of the Imperium, when Mankind is beset by countless horrific dangers to its existence and the Imperium itself has become a stagnant, repressive, intolerant and dehumanising galactic presence.

History

Early Life

A stylised illustration of the Warmaster Horus during the Great Crusade

Created as a genetically-engineered organism by the Emperor in the Imperial gene-laboratories under the Himalayan Mountains on Terra in the late 30th Millennium, Horus, along with his brother Primarchs, were scattered across the Milky Way Galaxy through the Warp by the machinations of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos. This is said to be when the Dark Gods first planted the seeds of heresy into the infant Primarch, whispering darkly into his soul and tempting him to their cause. The capsule carrying the infant Horus came to rest on the Mining World of Cthonia, the primary planet of a star system within a reasonable slower-than-light distance of Terra.

Of all the infant Primarchs scattered to the corners of the galaxy before the process of their creation was completed, Horus grew up closest to Terra. The world of Cthonia had been settled in the very earliest days of Mankind’s exploration of the stars, its hugely rich natural resources ruthlessly exploited until they were all but played out. Thus, Horus grew to maturity amongst the anarchic gangers that populated the post-industrial nightmare of a world honeycombed with long-extinct mines and dominated by decaying hive spires. It was from the hyper violent gang-scum of Cthonia that many of the earliest inductees into the Space Marine Legions were recruited, and it was there that the Emperor found the first of his lost sons.

As such, he was the first of the Primarchs to be rediscovered by the Emperor, and for many years was the only son of the ruler of Mankind to have been rediscovered. There was said to be a great affinity between the Emperor and Horus; the Emperor spent much of his time with Horus, instructing the latter in all aspects of human culture and warfare. The Emperor quickly granted command of the XVI Legion of Space Marines, the Luna Wolves, who had been created from his genome, to Horus, and with these warriors at their backs, the two began to forge the Imperium of Man.

The Great Crusade

For thirty standard years, the Emperor and Horus fought the opening campaigns of the Great Crusade side by side, the Primarch learning at the foot of his sire. When at length the Emperor detected another of the Primarchs and departed to locate him, Horus was left at the head of his master’s hosts, entrusted with the command of the conquering armies. Horus was well suited to the task, and the lessons he had learned in the previous three decades served him well. As one by one the Primarchs were united with their gene-father and their brothers, Horus came increasingly to be regarded as the greatest of their number, the first amongst equals. While happy that he would soon meet one of his brothers, Horus swore to himself that he would always remain the Emperor's favoured child.

While many of his brothers and the Space Marine Legions created in their genetic image were gifted in specific fields of military science, Horus was a natural leader, his greatest genius his ability to meld seemingly divergent allies into a coherent whole. This skill was not only of use on the battlefield, for it carried over into contacts with
the peoples the Great Crusade met. It was Horus’ way to treat with the populations of newly-contacted worlds according to the cultural traditions of each, and this highly successful doctrine was repeated in each of the Imperial Expeditionary Fleets. Horus believed that to do so would lessen the hostile reaction of opponents who wished to parley. Tragically, it might also have been the cause of the Primarch’s fall, and
with him fully half of the Space Marine Legions.

The Primarchs Horus and Fulgrim during the great Triumph after the successful conclusion of the Ullanor Crusade

As the Great Crusade pushed outward, and more Primarchs were discovered, the Emperor's time became divided, pulled in more and more directions. Horus was often placed in overall strategic command of the Crusade, a position in which he proved his skill as a leader time and time again. He quickly won the approval and support of the other Space Marine Legions, along with their leaders.

One of the skills that made Horus such a great leader was that he possessed an innate understanding of human psychology; he was able to read in such a way that he could choose to promote their strengths or exploit their weaknesses. This allowed him to find a non-military solution in several campaigns as he used his sheer charisma and negotiation skills combined with the ever-present threat of the Space Marine Legions' unstoppable force to bring other human-settled worlds into Imperial Compliance without bloodshed.

His understanding of the human mind allowed Horus to bring out the best within his fellow Primarchs, which allowed him to deploy the various Legions into the battlefield roles to which they were best suited. He quickly learned of skill displayed by the White Scars and Night Lords in deploying for rapid strikes, while the Imperial Fists and Iron Warriors were always placed at the forefront of planetary sieges. Horus was said to wield the Space Marine Legions, and later the human soldiers of the Imperial Army, as a lesser general would position individual squads to perform to their advantages. He was also responsible for promoting competitive rivalries between certain Space Marine Legions in the desire to spur these Astartes on to greater heights, but these rivalries would eventually transform into outright hatred when the Great Crusade took a turn for the worse.

Corruption by Chaos

The Warmaster in his Dark Mechanicus-forged Terminator Armour

Shortly after the Luna Wolves Legion and their allies declared victory in the great Ullanor Crusade against the mightiest Ork empire faced by the Imperium until the 41st Millennium, the Emperor offered Horus the honour of renaming his Legion the Sons of Horus in honour of himself and to show his preeminent place among the other Primarchs. Horus refused this honour, characteristically not wishing to be set above his brothers, but was promoted to the newly-created rank of Imperial Warmaster, serving as the new Supreme Commander of the Imperium's millions-strong armies while the Emperor left the Crusade in Horus' capable hands and returned to Terra to pursue the secret Imperial Webway Project that he hoped would draw the newborn Imperium together in unbreakable bonds.

Despite the majestic rank and unparalleled authority bestowed on him, it was said that Horus was not content. The wording of the Emperor's declaration, claiming the glory of Horus' victories as entirely his own, chafed. Although this was the usual rhetoric for such Imperial announcements, Horus saw that while the Emperor remained behind in the Imperial Palace on Terra for reasons that he would not share even with his sons, Horus would be out in the field of battle, winning the Emperor's Imperium for him. It seemed that a deep-rooted resentment and jealousy had begun to simmer in the corners of the Warmaster's mind.

First Chaplain Erebus of the Word Bearers, the XVII Space Marine Legion that was secretly in league with the Forces of Chaos since they had been humiliated by the Emperor for their violations of the Imperial Truth on the world of Khur over 40 years before the start of the Horus Heresy, became a very close confidante and adviser of Horus. The Words Bearers, who originally had worshipped the Emperor as a God and whose Primarch Lorgar had penned the Lectitio Divinitatus before he turned against his father following the events on Khur, had been brutally reprimanded for their constant erection of temples and shrines dedicated to the worship of the God-Emperor on newly conquered worlds, a policy that had directly violated the Emperor's secularist philosophy and had slowed the XVII Legion's progress in the Great Crusade to a crawl. In the wake of his humiliation and the reprimand against his Legion on Khur, Lorgar had sought to discover whether there truly were divinities worthy of human worship during the quest that came to be known as the Pilgrimage of Lorgar. During this journey, Lorgar entered the Eye of Terror and came face-to-face with the power of Chaos, a force that he believed was truly divine and worthy of his service and the worship of all Mankind. He brought this faith to his Legion, and soon all the Astartes of the Word Bearers believed that the Chaos Gods were more worthy of their loyalty and worship than the Emperor who had proved himself to be a false god. With the guidance of the Ruinous Powers, Lorgar and the Word Bearers hatched their secret plans over the course of the next four decades to convert humanity to the service of the Dark Gods, starting with Horus.

After Lorgar placed his agent near Horus, Erebus slowly managed to twist the thinking of Horus against the Emperor and turn half of the Mournival, the Warmaster's most trusted advisers within the XVI Legion, towards the same path of treachery by exploiting their intense loyalty to their Primarch over that for their far more distant Emperor. This plot reached its climax on the moon of the Feral World of Davin, where Horus was wounded during a struggle against Eugen Temba, the former Planetary Governor of Davin who had rebelled against the Imperium following his corruption by Chaos. An ancient xenos artefact blade sacred to Nurgle known as the Kinebrach Anathame had been stolen by Erebus from the museum of an advanced human civilisation called the Interex during the Luna Wolves' brief sojourn on their world of Xenobia and had been given by him to Temba. Temba had become the mutated servant of Nurgle, the Chaos God of disease and decay, and managed to seriously wound the Warmaster with the corrupted blade. The Apothecaries of the XVI Legion proved incapable of healing the Warmaster's wounds despite every form of advanced medical technology at their disposal, until it seemed that Horus would surely die.

Erebus then convinced the Luna Wolves' warrior lodge to allow him to take the Warmaster to a secret sect on Davin and use sorcery at the Temple of the Serpent Lodge in order to treat the Warmaster. The creation of a warrior lodge within the Luna Wolves and many other Space Marine Legions based on the lodges used by the savage warriors of Davin had been another of Erebus' ploys to infiltrate and corrupt the Astartes into turning against the Emperor. However, not all Astartes of the Legions joined the lodges, as many saw them as a direct violation of the Emperor's desires that all Space Marines dedicate themselves to truth and openness. The lodges would prove to be the primary purveyors of corruption in those Legions which turned Traitor in the days immediately preceding the start of the Horus Heresy and those Astartes within those Legions which lodges which held themselves aloof from those secretive organisations were marked as Imperial Loyalists who would later be betrayed at Istvaan III.

The secret sect on Davin was in truth a Chaos Cult, and using sorcery, which was outlawed by the Emperor, the cultists managed to warp the mind of the Warmaster against the Emperor by playing on the seed of jealousy and resentment that he felt for his father after the Emperor had left the Great Crusade behind to return to Terra. Magnus, the Primarch of the Thousand Sons Legion, tried to unmask Erebus and reveal his manipulations, but Horus' corruption by the power of Chaos could not be stopped as he gave in to his feelings of jealousy, egotism and bitterness. Once Horus recovered, he schemed with the Astartes of the Luna Wolves' warrior lodge to overthrow the Emperor and purge the Legion of its remaining Loyalists.

The Horus Heresy

The Warmaster Horus aboard his Battle Barge Vengeful Spirit during the Siege of Terra

The first sign the Emperor accepted of Horus' turning was when he used virus-bombs to 'pacify' a planet, killing sixteen billion to defeat one man and his tiny heretical faction. When the Emperor demanded an explanation, Horus retorted by denouncing the Emperor, claiming him unworthy of the battles fought in his name. Horus then went on to declare that he would replace the Emperor as the head of Mankind. The Emperor, worried by the outburst of his son, ordered seven Legions of Space Marines to find Horus, determine his loyalty, and destroy him and his Legion if necessary.

Of the seven Legions sent to Istvaan V, four turned to the side of Horus. Between them and the three Legions already on planet, they almost completely annihilated the loyal Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard Legions during the infamous Drop Site Massacre. Horus had just declared civil war on the galaxy, beginning a series of events that would still bear his name ten thousand years later.

In total, nine Space Marine Legions turned Traitor, along with many regiments of the Imperial Army and the battlefleets of starships which were under their control. They began to lay waste to the Imperium that Horus had fought so hard to construct. The Horus Heresy came close to shattering the Imperium as brother fought brother on the battlefields of a thousand worlds.

The final stage of Horus' plan to defeat the Emperor resulted in the fifty-five day Siege of the Emperor's Palace on Terra. Battering the defenders with almost innumerable forces, Horus may have achieved his goal. However, on the fifty-fifth day, Horus learned that the Space Wolves, Ultramarines and Dark Angels Legions were on their way to reinforce the horribly outnumbered Loyalist forces on the surface.

Gambling the result of the Heresy on a single action, Horus lowered the shields protecting his battle barge, the Vengeful Spirit. The Emperor, accompanied by the Blood Angels' Primarchs Sanguinius and Imperial Fists' Primarch Rogal Dorn, an elite bodyguard of Legiones Custodes and a detachment of Space Marines, teleported aboard the Warmaster's flagship, but were scattered throughout the Chaos-warped starship by the Ruinous Powers at Horus' command. Horus easily defeated several Veteran Imperial Fists before slaying Sanguinius, the angelic Primarch of the Blood Angels. Finally, the Emperor himself found his way to Horus' throne room, and engaged his once-beloved son in a titanic duel.

Although accounts of the actual battle vary, almost all confirm that the end of the duel resulted in Horus' death, and the fatal wounding of the Emperor. Knowing instantly that their leader had fallen, the Forces of Chaos that had declared their loyalty to Horus splintered and fled, their daemonic allies disappearing back into the Warp without Horus's power to maintain their link to the material universe. Pursued by Imperial forces, most of the Traitor Legions retreated into the vast Warp Storm in the Segmentum Obscurus known as the Eye of Terror. The Sons of Horus did likewise, but under the direction of Horus' First-Captain, Ezekyle Abaddon, the remaining Chaos Space Marines of the Traitor Legion took the time to launch an assault on Horus' battle barge and retrieve their leader's body from the throne room of the Vengeful Spirit.

After Death

The tragic tale of Horus does not end with his death aboard the Vengeful Spirit. His body was enshrined on the Daemon World the Sons of Horus claimed for their own within the Eye of Terror after they fled Terra and renamed themselves once more as the Black Legion. Horus' corpse resided there for several hundred years, before the body was stolen by the corrupted Apothecary Fabius Bile and the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion, in an attempt to clone the body of the Warmaster to bring Horus back to life so that he might lead the Traitor Legions once more in an attempt to conquer the Imperium. Abaddon led an assault on the Emperor's Children's fortress, and believing that the continued worship of his Legion's dead Primarch had trapped the Traitor Legions and led them to the brink of destruction, Abaddon utterly destroyed Horus' corpse and claimed the Warmaster's Power Claw, the Talon of Horus, as his own, as well as the title of Warmaster of the Forces of Chaos.

Sources

• Codex: Chaos Space Marines (3rd Edition)
• Codex: Chaos Space Marines (4th Edition)
• Codex: Space Marines (5th Edition)
• Horus Rising (Novel) by Dan Abnett
• False Gods (Novel) by Graham McNeill
• Galaxy in Flames (Novel) by Ben Counter
• Flight of the Eisenstein (Novel) by James Swallow
• Fulgrim (Novel) by Graham McNeill
• A Thousand Sons (Novel) by Graham McNeill
• Nemesis (Novel) by James Swallow
• The First Heretic (Novel) by Aaron Dembski-Bowden
• Prospero Burns (Novel) by Dan Abnett
• Age of Darkness (Anthology) edited by Christian Dunn, 'Little Horus' by Dan Abnett
• Deliverance Lost (Novel) by Gav Thorpe
• Index Astartes IV, "Luna Wolves, The Infamous Black Legion"
• Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned (1st Edition)
• Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness (1st Edition)
• Deathwatch: First Founding (RPG), pp. 90-91