Index Astartes: Luna Wolves
Origins
The scattering of the twenty Primarchs threw them to various corners of the galaxy; but the sixteenth pod was barely displaced at all. It flew only a little bit from Terra, to the Hive World of Cthonia. Cthonia was in one of the closest star systems to Sol, so nearby that it could be reached, and had been reached, even by sublight spaceships. Cthonia had been extensively colonized and mined for its valuable minerals, in a series of excavations lasting millennia; and it showed.
Cthonia was a Hive World, riddled by catacombs and mine shafts, tunnels of all sizes digging as deep as its upper mantle, and in a few places delving into its very core, in an arrangement that the Mechanicum noted made that core distinctly fragile. Some of the tunnels predated the Golden Age of Technology, and indeed it has been said that the deepest of them predated humanity entirely. The Hives aboveground found little to mine in the regions not covered by the ancient tunnels; during the Golden Age of Technology, Cthonia was an industrial planet. But all industry collapsed in its aftermath, ultimately leading to a post-apocalyptic landscape infested by gangs, some of whom were secretly kidnapped by the Emperor to form the first Luna Wolves. It is believed to be no coincidence that Horus and his Legion began on the same world, but the Emperor, if he knew, told no one of the true link between Horus and his planet.
The sixteenth pod landed in one of the tunnel-cities of Cthonia, in a region known as Itzal marked by especially wide caverns, some of which even received narrow beams of light from the surface ten kilometers above; and the Primarch within that pod, dubbed Horus by the gangs, grew up, for a few years, among them. Only Horus always had greater ambitions than the gang leaders, and greater restrictions, too.
Horus only lived on Cthonia for about four years; yet he grew incredibly rapidly, and towards the end of his stay, certain things were already becoming clear. Horus was a notable warrior for the gang he fought in, looked thrice his age, and dreamed of uniting Cthonia. Yet he was also noted for his kindness, which many of the gang leaders said weakened him, but which they could not help but respect. And he was noted, in particular, for his battle-rage, especially towards those that violated ganger codes. He seemed capable of enough hate to last a lifetime, yet, at the same time, was more than capable of forgiveness when it was necessary. He was, to many, the savior of Cthonia, the man – or, rather, transhuman, for everyone realized quickly that Horus was no ordinary man – that would raise Cthonia from its orbit around oblivion into, perhaps, a new golden age.
But it would not be Horus that did so; not entirely. When Horus was four, the armies of the Imperium of Man arrived at Cthonia, and the Emperor of Mankind knew straight away that there was a Primarch on the world. Excited about the possibility of finding one of his sons, he descended himself, and Horus recognized him immediately.
Father and son embraced, and all who could bear to look upon them knew that a new epoch in the Great Crusade had begun. The first of the Primarchs had been found, and soon the Imperium of Man would truly be unstoppable.
The Great Crusade
Immediately after their meeting, the Emperor introduced Horus to his Legion, the Luna Wolves. The Sixteenth Legion had first fought in the pacification of Earth's moon, and on this satellite, which was also the location of the gene-labs where Horus and the other Primarchs had been created, the Legion had been likened to wolves by its geno-cultist defenders.
For about six more years, the Great Crusade proceeded at its normal pace. The Emperor had stated that a Space Marine Legion commanded by its Primarch should number about a hundred thousand Astartes, and Horus, known as Lupercal, rapidly increased recruitment among Cthonia's Hives and, also, the inhabitants of Luna to drive towards this number. The Emperor and Horus were father and son, filled with endless love and respect for each other.
When Horus was ten, the Spirit Schism occurred.
None save Horus and his father ever knew the full details of what transpired; but, apparently, the core of the disagreement was the ultimate future of the Imperium. The Emperor planned to guide mankind, in one fashion or another, forever, whereas Horus was worried about the possibility of despotism. Indeed, Horus observed, some conquered worlds tried to worship the Emperor as a god, in direct contradiction to the Imperial Truth. For now, the Emperor opposed such attributions; but would he always? Eternity was quite a long time, after all.
From that crack in their bond, the Spirit Schism grew rapidly. Horus worried that the Great Crusade would ultimately lose its edge of righteousness due to its impersonal motive force, and though he was willing to follow his father's wisdom and continue it nevertheless, he found flaws in the Emperor's personality, above all precisely that it was so regal. The Emperor repeated that there were other, darker forces that could affect humanity's fate, and implicitly linked Horus to them. And Horus began to question his own fate, and crucially that of his sons, once the Crusade was over and the Emperor did not need two million transhuman soldiers.
Ultimately, Horus continued the Great Crusade for the Emperor. But things were never the same after the Spirit Schism, not really. The Emperor would never trust Horus nearly as much as he once had; and Horus, likewise, would never fully trust his father. It is said, sometimes, that the Spirit Schism occurred not when Horus realized his father was not perfect, but when he understood that he was the only one to recognize this.
Horus looked at the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit. It was nearly desolate, at this point, for the vessel was in a Cthonian dock. The weeklong argument was done, but it would be a long time before things settled into a new normal.
Parents often argued with their children, of course, but Horus already sensed this was different. Perhaps it was simply a matter of greater power. Perhaps it came down to their transhuman minds – for those were relevant to this mess, too.
They had both said the things that needed to be said, and neither of them had said them calmly. It amused Horus that what the Emperor had said was his second-biggest flaw had, at this juncture, been shared between them, though only slightly given how it had ended. Besides, as to his supposed biggest flaw – well, no one could truly accuse the Emperor of being proud, not in the same way as Horus. And he would, indeed, have to work on that. He would have less to be proud of now, anyhow.
Especially considering the debate's end.
The Emperor had not chosen to punish him. He had wondered, at that end, uncowed but anxious, as to why. And the Emperor…
"Because," he had said, "I would have said the same things, at your effective age."
And Horus clenched his enormous fists atop the control panels of the Vengeful Spirit, feeling like punching something but well-aware there was no explainable reason to. But these words still rang in his mind.
He would not become his father.
He would not.
But Lupercal continued the Crusade. He openly disobeyed his father and continued growing his Luna Wolves past a hundred thousand, eventually stopping at three hundred and twenty thousand, beyond which size he worried about his ability to manage the Legion; the Luna Wolves would become the biggest Legion by far. The Emperor made no comment, and other Legions would later follow Horus's lead and vary their sizes away from a hundred thousand.
As for Cthonia itself, Horus began a process of re-industrializing the planet, though with as little help as possible from the Martian Mechanicum. Moreover, Cthonia became a hub of commerce, as a Hive World should have been by default. Nevertheless, Horus took care to preserve some elements of ganger culture. The codes of honor used by the gangers still form a basis for some Cthonian law codes, ten thousand years later.
As the Great Crusade continued, Horus met his Primarch brothers. Some of them became close friends. Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists, in particular, built fascinating philosophical constructs, even if frequently they grew too far away from reality. Sanguinius of the Blood Angels and Angron of the World Eaters, meanwhile, were among a very few Primarchs on Horus's level in personal combat; and both of them had their own issues with the Crusade, Angron mourning its destruction and Sanguinius its death. Horus did his best to allay those concerns, even as he worried about freedom himself. Of the three, Angron was the least and Sanguinius the most idealistic, and Horus attempted to stay balanced between them. (Dorn, of course, was the cynic's cynic, and Horus sometimes wondered what the Fists' Primarch was trying to achieve, if everything was worthless. After Inwit's destruction, though, Horus recognized the importance of being a friend to Dorn when so many others were abandoning him.)
Other Legions, Horus had a worse relationship with by far. Corax's Raven Guard seemed to lose touch with humanity through their mechanical augmentations. Lorgar worshipped the Emperor as nearly a god, which was precisely what Horus feared. But it was Konrad Curze and Alpharius whom Horus considered his primary rivals; indeed, he refused to fight alongside Curze, as the Night Haunter appeared to be the worst of tyrants. As for Alpharius, his methods were dishonorable, and more importantly, his extreme devotion to the Emperor of Mankind's person grated on Lupercal.
Horus, with time, developed his own philosophy from his position in the Spirit Schism. He placed value on liberty, on the ability to choose one's own path as it applied to leaders as well as the common people, and on the ability to integrate others' paths when they were wiser. This somewhat clashed with his participation in the Great Crusade, and as time went on it became harder and harder, for him as well as Sanguinius, to justify his continued campaigns.
The Luna Wolves conquered many planets, of course, during the Crusade's course. But as time went on, Horus became increasingly lenient. Some, even First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon, noted that Horus's discipline towards his own Luna Wolves was waning; it was even more thus for the planets he added to the Imperium of Man. Horus's Expeditionary Fleets moved quickly, but frequently left behind protectorates rather than fully loyal worlds. It was only when fighting against the techno-Orks of Gorro, alongside Angron and Sanguinius, that the three Primarchs let go of their limitations against an enemy clearly undeserving of mercy. They fought enemies the Emperor would later say could have threatened even him, and carved a swath of destruction behind them, paving the way for the Ullanor Crusade.
But in other places, Horus was gentler, often assimilating local customs into his Legion. This climaxed when dealing with the Interex alliance, a union of human and xeno species. Horus peacefully convinced them to become a protectorate, despite their xeno content. It was the first and only xeno protectorate formed during the Great Crusade, and caused major unrest in Terra's ruling circles, as it seemed to violate the Imperial Truth.
"Have you gone mad, Targost? The Interex's inhabitants are different from us, yes. They have not learned some lessons we have, but also possess some knowledge we do not. But that is no reason to wage war when it is undesirable. We should save our rage for worthier targets. There are rumors, after all, that a world our Legion has truly conquered is rebelling. Would you forget that?
"No, I suppose you would, and propose disobeying Lupercal for the sake of – what, exactly? Testing the limits of our organization? I will argue with the Primarch when and only when I feel it is necessary to change his course of action, and even then I will do so openly, and honorably.
"I'm sorry, old friend, but your faction seems to have been filled with too many sycophants. Farewell. I hope our next meeting will be more pleasant."
- Luc Sedirae
Horus Lupercal, however, was already charging (with some Interex explorers) towards the rebellious planet of Davin, where betrayal's dawn would catch him.
The Great Betrayal
The jungle world of Davin, a desert planet whose abhuman people had been conquered by the Luna Wolves decades earlier, had declared full rebellion from the Imperium of Man. Horus sped to put it down by force; Eugen Temba, the current governor, had been a close friend of Horus's, but Horus had not received any clue as to why he would rebel, and had been forced to conclude that it was something diplomacy alone could not settle.
When Horus arrived, he found that Temba had apparently been affected by Warp energy, having been transformed into some sort of monster. Horus considered attacking Temba himself, but relented after it had been discovered Captain Verulam Moy, who had been sent to make contact, had been killed by a blade with poison potent enough to kill a Space Marine without inflicting more than a skin wound. It later turned out that Temba's blade had been affected by the dark powers of the Chaos God Nurgle.
Horus considered whether to risk the descent; and as he did, Captain Tybalt Marr, Eighteenth Captain and Moy's close friend, took the initiative and attacked himself, ultimately killing Temba at the cost of his own life. Temba's warriors, reanimated by sorcery, collapsed upon their leader's death.
There was now nothing alive (or undead) on the surface of Davin's moon, as every Luna Wolf to have descended there had fallen. An infuriated Horus Lupercal ordered the moon's surface bombed into oblivion, which it was. Then, the matter of Davin itself came up. This time, Horus did not attempt diplomacy, at least after hails from a distance received no reply. Instead, the world was cleansed by a combination of surgical Astarte strikes and more bombing. Three quarters of the Expeditionary Fleet's stockpile of bombs was said to have been used. Some of the Luna Wolves' captains, among them Horus's equerry Maloghurst, attempted to calm the Primarch, but this was more to avoid waste of materiel than anything else.
Only after the campaign was over did Horus Lupercal and the Luna Wolves realize what they had done: they had exterminated an entire world merely for rebelling against an order they were not sure they themselves supported, and for a feeling of wrongness. Curze would've been proud.
And then, as the Luna Wolves searched through the last of the wreckage for anything more, Chaplain Erebus of the Word Bearers appeared in the system, and proposed, plainly, rebellion.
Horus Lupercal was tempted, sorely so, after receiving proof that Dorn and Angron were participating in the uprising. When he agreed to meet with Erebus on the Vengeful Spirit, he still had no idea as to his decision. But when Erebus declared, casually, Lorgar's worship of the Chaos Gods, Horus suddenly understood everything. The Interex's description of powerful Warp entities, Temba's mutation alongside the transformation of his world's terrain, Lorgar's rebellion supported by the inexplicable – and above all, Captain Loken's last discovery on the surface, that of records confirming that Davinite civilization had brought about its own apocalypse in order to satisfy their religion of suffering - all crystallized, in a brilliant epiphany, in Lupercal's mind. Horus attacked Erebus, and ultimately choked the Word Bearer Chaplain. A powerful Chaos weapon, stolen from the Interex, was later discovered in his ship; Erebus had hidden it to avert Horus's early suspicions.
Horus stood for freedom. But he, like the Luna Wolves behind him, stood resolutely for the Imperial Truth, for divine tyranny could be more terrible still than the mundane sort. And that would not change, no matter how powerful the thirsting gods were.
Horus Lupercal looked at the strategic map with a new eye after the news of Lorgar's betrayal came in. Regrettably, he was too far from Terra to reach it before the traitors, if that was where Lorgar would immediately strike; and the path to Terra was defended, but not well enough. So he began planning the galaxywide war. And no matter Horus's possible failings in some areas, he was an excellent strategist.
Warmasters Fulgrim and Guilliman used their best ships to speed to Terra. Corax arrived there via some mysterious archaeotech. Mortarion and Russ headed there as well, though they would likely be late. Horus, meanwhile, contemplated the many smaller Luna Wolves forces that would be able to intercept the traitors. After Alpharius revealed that Lorgar had split his forces into two fleets, Horus sent a last command to those scattered garrisons and armies: to slow the Second Fleet down, by any means necessary.
They did just that. Using skirmish tactics, the Luna Wolves arrested Lorgar's advance towards Terra, to the point where Mortarion and Russ were there before him. One of the most notable among these skirmishes happened on the jungle planet of Irnetiun, where Iacton Qruze of the Third Company managed a speartip strike that nearly destroyed Lion el'Jonson's flagship, the Invincible Reason, and severely scattered the rest of the Dark Angels' Fleet. Qruze somehow survived the attack, and would later meet his end defending Terra, against a group of World Eaters that seemed to single him out for destruction.
Iacton Qruze watched his doom gather. The sword Tisiphone felt heavy in his hand.
He was surrounded, and by Cthonia, it had been a marvelous effort on the part of the World Eaters. They had done the same when they'd saved the Invincible Reason, though that they had done with a delay. Really, it was as if the Twelfth Legion had something against him in particular.
Well, he supposed it wasn't all that surprising. A lot of people disliked him. The Half-Heard, unable to break pre-Lupercal habits, more loyal to the Emperor than the Legion. He'd cautioned against Angron and Sanguinius, and indeed Dorn too. He wasn't deaf, even if he was both quiet and long-winded; he knew the whispers surrounding his competency. Either way, though, he'd proven that competency well enough at Irnetiun. He could die knowing he wasn't a failure, at least.
"I'm sorry," the enemy Captain said, lowering his visor; and Qruze saw Kharn's pretty Terran face. "You deserved a more dramatic end. We'll make it beautiful, at least."
"I'll show you dramatic," Qruze said with a snarl, though his defiance was largely false. He was tired, by now.
"You could have been a link to bring the Legion back to its roots," Kharn explained. "To reunite Cthonia and Terra, with your newfound prestige. And a fully loyal Horus Lupercal… well, that's something best avoided. It always leads to trouble, for ones such as us."
Qruze nodded. "Would Horus really have listened to me?"
"He would have," Kharn said.
Qruze smiled. "Well," he said, "that's as nice a thing to begin with as any. Lupercal and the Emperor!"
He charged, but Kharn was already there, and swords clashed; Qruze spun, wounding another of the Twelfth, but felt the sting of Kharn's blade in his neck as he faced the World Eater champion fully. As he collapsed, he looked up, into those inhuman eyes.
There was no comfort to be found with them; but Qruze's mind created its own.
He died free.
Horus himself led the galaxywide war effort, alongside (unfortunately) Curze and Alpharius. Even in unthinkable times, Horus honored his decision not to fight alongside the Night Haunter, but Alpharius he did ally with, especially on Molech, against the Chaos Mechanicum forces that had taken the world and ensured Lorgar's open path to Terra. The Primarchs agreed then, in that battle, that though they would always disagree on much, both had underestimated the other's power, loyalty, and above all character.
In any case, the Luna Wolves pursued the galactic war; and behind Lupercal himself, this effort was supervised by Horus's advisory council of his four most favored Captains, the Mournival. Tarik Torgaddon of the Mournival, for instance,was the one to reclaim the Isstvan system for the Imperium. Another member, 'Little' Horus Aximand, won a major victory on Dwell while Lupercal fought on Molech, against a cult assisted by elements from the Iron Hands and White Scars who outgunned Aximand by twenty percent but failed to coordinate.
Throughout the galaxy, as war raged, Horus Lupercal and the Luna Wolves put down the flames of rebellion which, Horus suspected, he had helped to fan. But their enemies now stood against liberty, not for it, favoring the subjugation of mankind under gods that were the very opposite of any Horus desired to worship – uncaring, utterly, and twisting men's very thoughts to deny them any semblance of choice.
After Molech, Horus turned his gaze to Terra, which was closer than ever. He chose to strike for it, because if he landed, the war would be all but over. The siege was already near a stalemate, without his assistance, and the Luna Wolves were the largest Legion. But Lorgar realized this too; and so the Word Bearers and Iron Hands struck for the Throne Room, and the tragedy that concluded the Great Betrayal took place.
Lorgar's death did much to shatter the traitors' unity, but Lupercal's impending arrival did the rest; and so, the siege was lifted. But it did not feel like victory. Not in the least.
The Escape
As soon as he heard that the siege was over, Horus redirected most of his assembled force towards Chogoris, the flat homeworld of Jaghatai Khan and the White Scars. That planet was the easiest to reach of the Traitor homeworlds, and Horus wanted to redeem himself, in a sense, for the failure to reach Terra and perhaps for his three closest friends among the Primarch all being traitors (though Horus was said to continue talking to Sanguinius until the Arc left). Horus used his remaining stockpile of cyclonic torpedoes to destroy Chogoris from the Vengeful Spirit; the planet had an unstable core, like all the Primarchs' homeworlds did at first, and thus exploded upon bombardment. Then Horus hid and waited.
When the White Scars' fleet, led by the Silver Scar, Jaghatai Khan's newest flagship, arrived in-system, Horus was cloaked; and as Jaghatai investigated the ruins of his planet, he attacked. His ships outnumbered the Khan's, and he had the element of surprise.
The battle lasted, nevertheless, for several hours before the last White Scar ship was obliterated, without any losses on Horus's part during the entire engagement. Jaghatai Khan was presumed dead after the incident, though in truth he survived, beginning his ascent to Daemon-Princehood. Still, the Fifth Legion was broken by the battle of Chogoris.
Meanwhile, the other two captains in Horus's Mournival, Ezekyle Abaddon of the First and Garviel Loken of the Tenth, jointly fought against another sizable Slaaneshi force, though this one was only slightly assisted by fleeing White Scars. It was a cult near Terra itself, and its armies struck towards Cthonia. The planet was well-defended, and under Abaddon and Loken would never be captured, but the attackers' intent was not capture, but destruction. A single cyclonic torpedo in the right place could kill Horus's homeworld – and that torpedo was a very real possibility, because Serghar Targost, the Legion's Seventh Captain, had embraced the taint that Horus had refused.
Abaddon's second-in-command Falkus Kibre challenged and killed Targost in single combat, though only after Targost had killed fellow Captain Luc Sedirae; but even that did not destroy the invasion. In the end, however, Abaddon and Loken managed to shoot down the invaders' flagship, which carried their cyclonic torpedoes. The flagship immediately exploded in a psychic fireball that did successfully wipe the surface of Enyxil, the third planet in the Cthonian system, free of life. But Cthonia stood.
After the battles of Chogoris and Cthonia, the Luna Wolves continued to help cleanse the galaxy of remaining Chaos Astartes and xeno incursions into Imperial space. For two decades, Horus fought tirelessly to protect the realms of man, his earlier doubts forgotten due to the nature of the enemy the Imperium now faced.
And twenty years after the Betrayal, over two hundred years after the Spirit Schism, Horus Lupercal set foot on Terra, ruled by Malcador, for the first time since then. He agreed with the Sigilite, to let the Sixteenth Legion embrace political and judicial studies as well as warfare; but the true goal of his visit was the throne behind the power. Horus arrived at his father's effective mausoleum, and knelt before the eternally unconscious Emperor.
There, on Terra, one last time after the Great Crusade had ended, Horus Lupercal again swore loyalty to humanity, and softly spoke of his dreams for mankind.
The Long War
Several hundred years after the Betrayal's conclusion, not long after the reinforcement of Cthonia's core was complete, Horus departed the Imperium, perhaps forever.
Corax had long spoken of a massive ship, ultimately called the Arc (arc, rather than ark, because of Magnus's opinion on the two words' numerological qualities), that could carry humans past the bounds of this galaxy and into another, within the span of perhaps three thousand years. And after the war's end, this ship was built. Yet there was a flaw: it needed a being with massive psychic potential, such as a Primarch, to pilot it.
And Horus – Horus was ill at ease in Alpharius's new Imperium. The two of them may have become friendly rivals, but rivals they still were. And though Lupercal trusted Alpharius not to be more tyrannical than the inevitable cost of running an empire, he felt uncomfortable. The Imperium seemed to increasingly become a cage. He needed freedom.
He needed a frontier.
"Because that is my path, Magnus. I have less psychic power, certainly, than you, but I can still steer the Arc towards its destiny, and none other both can and wants to. Not even Corax himself, not really. I care not for your political debates, in truth. I long for a place where I am not a cog in the necessary machine of the Imperium, but an explorer in a world without end. And when that galaxy runs out, why, there will always be another – and even more importantly, in truth, is that even if I stay there, I need not rule, or fight, once humanity's foothold has been established. And when I will, it will not be for duty, but responsibility.
"We were all created by our father for a purpose, though Dorn never quite understood that. And I must be without that, cast adrift in the void to choose my own fate.
"And, besides, we need the Arc. Humanity is too close to extinction, constantly, in the Milky Way. We must become an intergalactic species before it's too late."
- Horus Lupercal
And so the Vengeful Spirit became the heart of the Arc. Horus took his Mournival's surviving members with him, including the ancient Aximand; but Loken and Abaddon had by this time suffered enough wounds to confine them to Eternal-pattern Dreadnoughts, placing them outside traditional command, and the drawing of lots which assigned half the Legion to the Arc and half to Cthonia left both of them behind. Abaddon became the effective Legion Master, the so-called Steward of Luna, until his death in M34 on the Death World of Pythos fighting daemons and Salamanders. Loken is alive to this day, the last Luna Wolf in the galaxy to remember the Betrayal and his Primarch.
Corax had thought of building a second such ship; his loss, however, brought such plans to a standstill. The hundred and fifty thousand remaining Luna Wolves (the Legion had been affected less than most by the Betrayal, and rebuilt quickly after it) have continued fighting for the Imperium. These sons of Horus have participated in a number of major campaigns over the millennia. One must consider, for instance, the defeat of Sigismund's Fourteenth Black Crusade in early M34, when Abaddon led the Imperial defense against the Black Crusade that reached further than any other. In the end, Abaddon stopped the attack on the dead surface of El'Phanor; Sigismund was nearly killed by the Dreadnought, before being rescued through a Warp portal by his lieutenant.
More recently, the Luna Wolves and Imperial Army defeated a titanic invasion of various xeno species, as well as of a major Red Corsair warband, in the Gothic sector due to a counterattack by Captain Eralak. Offensively, they have, for instance, recently cut in half the Ork empire of Charadon, in an operation led by Zagthean 'Xenobane', the Steward of Luna, himself. Not long thereafter, Zagthean wiped out the upstart empire of the Q'orl Swarmhood in Segmentum Obscurus, fully earning his moniker.
As per Horus's agreement with Malcador (which the Sigilite later forced versions of on other Legions), the Luna Wolves also act as arbiters and even planetary governors, especially in cases where no one from a world is trusted enough by the Imperium to become its ruler. It should be said, however, that some worlds outright invite a Luna Wolf governor; the Legion has maintained its traditions of syncretism, and also its reputation for a relatively light grip. Thus it has been, since before the days of Lorgar's betrayal, and thus it will ever be, for man's choices should be his own.
Organization
The Luna Wolves currently number close to a hundred and sixty thousand, their numbers suffering less fluctuations than those of some other Legions in the millennia since Horus's departure. Though they are no longer the largest Legion, they still hold some relics from the days when they were split, including maintaining only even-numbered Companies. These go up to the Two Hundred Twentieth Company, each company containing approximately fifteen hundred Astartes. The companies are themselves organized into six Chapters, but those determine a company's position in the galaxy more than anything else, as no position of Chapter Master exists. The Legion is led by the Steward of Luna, a post currently held by Zagthean Xenobane, who is advised by the Dreadnought Garviel Loken, known as the Lord Remembrancer, both mocking and recognizing the order of artists encouraged by Malcador. The rest of the Steward's inner circle, numbering about a dozen individuals - most, but not all, of whom are Astartes - are the Veritarion, a loose group which has chiefly the right to veto an order of the Steward within their magisteria (though, naturally, those who would abuse this are not chosen to the Veritarion).
"Why Luna? Simple. Because Terra was the Emperor himself, and Horus was always his right hand. Other Legions were closer to him, of course, and other Primarchs more rewarded; but the simple truth is, that was not Horus's duty. His task was ever to be the naysmith, to provide the view opposite to the Emperor, so that, when they agreed, the galaxy would shake before them. It could not, should not, have been otherwise. If Terra and Luna were closer, after all, the tides would be more severe, and life would suffer; and an orbit that is too close – well, that is unstable."
- Amalaxis Godslayer of the Veritarion, on the Steward of Luna
Each Company is divided into, nominally, simply a hundred and sixty nine-man Squads, plus attached specialists. In reality, most Captains designate several Sergeants as their lieutenants, each of which manages perhaps twenty squads. Such ranks are often informal; but much about the Luna Wolves is informal. They are notable, after all, as the second-savagemost Imperial Legion (though in a less destructive way than could be expected), and it is no accident that they share a totem with the sons of Russ.
Specialists are of four kinds: Librarians, Apothecaries, Techmarines, and Bridgemen, which combine the function of Chaplain and human relations manager. About three percent of the Legion is in each of those categories. Apothecaries, Techmarines, and Bridgemen are attached to Companies; each of them must undergo special training, Apothecaries on Cthonia, Techmarines on Mars, and Bridgemen on Luna, which retains substantive bonds to the Legion that bears its name.
Librarians are a special case. Horus always limited the number of Librarians in his Legion, trying not to induct psykers, due to his worry about psychic powers and a rudimentary knowledge of the Warp's dangers. He did, however, encourage those psykers that were not weeded out to develop their powers in a fashion arranged with Magnus the Red himself, and the Luna Wolves were one of the first Legions to have an organized Librarius department. After all, an untrained psyker is more dangerous than a trained one to his brothers, and less so to his foes. Librarians are not associated with a Company; indeed, they are frequently called the Zeroth Company, as they are organized much like one. In battle, though usually they fight alongside a Company as usual, sometimes they will fight as a Librarian task force (for instance, against daemonic incursions), as if they were the Fifteenth Legion and not the Sixteenth.
Combat Doctrine
The Luna Wolves have earned a reputation as ferocious warriors, more than soldiers. They will tend to negotiate more than other Imperial Legions, excluding, of course, cases involving Chaos taint; the Interex have even been followed by other xeno protectorates, such as the Jokaero, which irritates Alpharius greatly. But if they do attack, they do so in devastating fashion. They prefer close-combat over ranged weaponry, and will often (though certainly not always) strike at the heart of the foe, seeking to personally crush their leaders and collapse the enemy into a disorganized mess (ironically, they thus share similarities with their eternal rival, the Night Lords). An alternative means to achieve a similar goal is the armored speartip; both methods are referred to as the "General Speartip", and are the favored tactic of the Legion, other things being equal. Some say the Luna Wolves lose control too much in combat, but none who have watched them in battle dispute their effectiveness.
On defense, the Luna Wolves will coordinate their strategy with the human defenders, but fundamentally will focus on mobile defense and fighting retreats more than trusting walls. They also maintain a healthy respect for void warfare, and in a significant fraction of engagements, Luna Wolf reinforcements will arrive and gain orbital superiority just in time to crush an attacking army (the closest shave over the past century being in the battle of Aurelia, Araghast the Pillager's fleet arriving seconds before it would have been too late to save the Captain from Eliphas the Inheritor's Word Bearers). It has been noted that, more than any other Legion, the Luna Wolves fight for their brothers and the humans they protect. War is not to them, as it was not to Horus Lupercal, merely an exercise in grand strategy; it is the final note in the lives of countless people, and as such, they will seek to make it a worthy one. It is a tone of vengeance and brotherhood, mourning and stasis. Indeed, they can barely imagine it otherwise; though they use the mechanical often enough, they place a particular emphasis on not being part of it.
Homeworld
The Luna Wolves' homeworld is the planet where Horus landed. Cthonia, though Lupercal lived exclusively on it only for four years, had a significant impact in the Legion's beginnings in another way as well: some of the first Luna Wolf Legionnaires were from there, before even Horus's arrival. The result was that a modified version of ganger culture served as a foundation for the Legion's ideals of fury, empathy, and liberty.
Cthonia is notable for its tunnel complexes, which dig towards its formerly unstable core. Most of these were initially dug to extract minerals, as well as to bury the dead. Some, today, are also inhabited by the living. Cthonia was for a long time a rather overpopulated planet, and because it is now able to support a large population, it does just that. That, indeed, enables many of the Hives to have large gang sections; the Luna Wolves, remembering their origins, police those only for Chaos taint.
Cthonia is a thriving Industrial world as well, and a center of commerce; but its vast population ensures a variety of lifestyles. Indeed, though like the other Legions the Luna Wolves recruit from other planets as well, they recruit a larger fraction of their Marines from Cthonia than any other Loyalist Legion does from their homeworld. This is simply because the negative effect on population fitness is much smaller on a planet with over a trillion people.
Beliefs
The Luna Wolves' version of the Imperial Truth places a particular value on opposition to false gods, on the role of recognizing the fundamental indifference of the universe (which, due to the nature of human preference, tends to manifest as hostility) as a liberating thought – that there is no such thing as divinely ordained sin, but merely human (or xeno, or daemonic) evil, and that those who claim such a role are tyrants or worse. Often, they also serve as the advocates for simple honesty, as compared to hoarding secrets like the Alpha Legion; they celebrate the promulgation of truth in general, even when it is grim.
The Luna Wolves do revere their Primarch quite a bit, but they are far from worshipping the Emperor as a god, and openly believe he was imperfect, just like Horus, indeed that it was this which made them both great. That said, they also believe in the importance of compassion towards one's enemies so long as it does not interfere with their fighting spirit, and have been noted to empathize even with some xenos. Their traditions are syncretic, taking elements from every untainted world they have conquered during their long history. Finally, the Luna Wolves believe in their First Value, liberty, though precisely what that means varies (fittingly) depending on which Luna Wolf you ask.
Gene-seed
Overall, the gene-seed of the Luna Wolves is pure, and it is generally agreed that most of their deviations from Astarte mean come down to traditions and a shorter course of conditioning. It is, however, indisputable than the Luna Wolves' multi-lung organ no longer functions properly, no longer allowing the Astartes to breathe for as long in inhospitable environments as Astartes of other gene-lines.
Battle-cry
The Luna Wolves often shout their battle-cries not in High Gothic, but in the languages of their allies or the world they fight on. "We are returned!" is used in many situations, sounding applicable surprisingly often, as is the old motto "Kill for the living – kill for the dead!". Before he departed the galaxy, "Lupercal!" was a common cry; after that point, Ezekyle Abaddon ended its use, and today the other common motto is "Break the heavens!"
999.M41
Above Horus Lupercal, the galactic core of Andromeda shone, a brilliant globe of stars in the night sky surrounding a shining accretion disk and the devouring blackness within. There was nothing like in it in the Milky Way, whose core was marred by the sore of the Maelstrom. Horus had traveled the paths between those stars before, narrow though they were. As wondrous as they were difficult, like so much of the universe.
He turned his gaze down from the heavens as he saw the being he was meeting with emerge from his pyramidal transport.
Horus checked with the Astartes around him first. The Justaerin as a nominal bodyguard, and at their front the four phases of the Mournival, all clad in the sea-green plate adopted by those of his sons that remained at his side. That armor was far removed from what they had worn in the time of the Great Crusade, ten thousand years ago and three million away. Sometimes that was due to technological advancements, sometimes due to infrastructural losses. Such was time.
His counterpart was accompanied by an honor guard as well, Praetorians whose backs arced with their anti-gravitational machinery. Szarekh, the Silent King, was at their front. At first glance his metallic body looked decrepit, skeletally weak. Horus knew that was an intentional illusion. Szarekh was weighed down only by his own regrets.
"Szarekh, Silent King of the Necrontyr, representative of the Necrons," he said in formal greeting.
"Horus Lupercal, Lord of the Wolves, representative of the Assembly of Worlds and Imperium Secundus," Szarekh replied, with his own speakers despite tradition - Horus suspected he was responsible for that habit. Then again, perhaps the Silent King merely did not wish to choose a new Triarch. Lord of the Wolves - if Russ heard of that... if he was even alive...
But then, there were no wolves in Andromeda, except for his gene-sons. The Arc had not brought any of the Legion's totem with them, not even as genetic data.
"I have come to the Nexus," Szarekh continued, as per ceremony, "to have the heart-stars witness our pact."
Horus allowed a smile. "Two warriors from beyond this galaxy, yet it is still here we come."
"Where else?" Szarekh asked. "It is this galaxy that we are protecting."
Horus nodded. The Shadow in the Warp offered some chance of communication with the Milky Way, and of distracting the Hive Fleets from the path their bulk was following into Horus's (and Szarekh's) home; but it was only a chance for now. Until then, as he had decided millennia ago, his future was here. "And our strife has endangered that defense, Silent King. I would have peace and alliance, against the Tyranid swarm, the C'tan their pressure fuses, and the Leganeit their song ignites."
"So wills the Kingdom of the Necrons," Szarekh said.
"So will the Assembly of Worlds Unbound and Imperium Secundus," Horus answered for his empire without an emperor, his frown not leaving his face. Szarekh was a reluctant tyrant, but undeniably a tyrant nonetheless. He had enslaved his entire species, and not entirely unintentionally. The Assembly had accepted the peace treaty for good reason, but Horus had misgivings about the alliance.
But Szarekh had also destroyed the gods who had tricked his people into annihilation, and he had not used his power to become a god himself, though he could have. He was a monster, and an alien in a sense more profound than a difference in species; but when he had been a foe, he'd been one Horus could respect.
And he was a power that Horus Lupercal wanted at his side for the coming war, a conflict that would outshine the Great Crusade just as much as the stars above outshone the scattered brown dwarfs of the halo.
So as Szarekh extended his necrodermis hand, Horus Lupercal, son of two galaxies and father to three Legions, put forward his own gauntlet and clasped it in the warrior's grip.