Horus was weak, Horus was a fool!

The prisoner repeated this to himself endlessly in the dark. Bound and suspended in his cell, He did not remember how long he had been in here. The room was barren, which of itself was a remarkable feat for a ship as grandiose as The Vengeful Spirit. When The Emperor of Mankind first gave the vessel to him, he marveled that a Battleship could also be a work of art. It was though every cabin, passageway, and wall was somehow richly engraved, decorated and embellished.

The great starship, crewed by entire nations, was more than just the flagship of The Emperor's Great Crusade. When Horus Lupercal commanded it, The Vengeful Spirit was a travelling glimpse of The Emperor of Mankind's vision. How many diplomats, and leaders of newly contacted worlds had fallen to the promise of The Vengeful Spirit, swayed by its grandeur alone? Yet here he was in a room without so much as cracks in the stonework. Did the Emperor leave these cells barren by design? he wondered. Or perhaps, his sons altered the room to mock him. Like the door left slightly small band of light, the only feature. Freedom so close forever mocking him.

He had tried to escape, of course. That was why he was in here after all. When they first captured him, he was simply thrown in a medical cell. When he escaped they doubled the security, when he bypassed that, they incarcerated him deep within the bowels of the ship. There was no window to his room now, but in some ways that were preferable.

Trapped in his old cell, The deposed Warmaster could only watch. As his sons' rebellion against the Imperium of Man unfurled he saw hundreds of worlds, worlds that he spent a century conquering and building up for his father, ripped apart and lay to ruin. He recognized so many. He saw his brother's homeworlds of Chemos, Caliban, Chorgoris turned into infernos. The flame and smoke were so thick, that from space the atmosphere clouded, and the features vanished in a dark fog.

He thought of those Worlds, and wondered how many had seen The Vengeful Spirit's return with joy. Did they welcome Horus' arrival in the streets only to be fired upon from orbit? How many were promised the end of War, only to party to a massacre? Even if his brothers are able to undo the work of Horus, his son, the rift of treachery would never heal on these worlds. The Emperor's vision would be sour, its songs ring sarcastic. No doubt too, his accomplishments had been erased, and his statues toppled. He was certain his brothers hunted him as a traitor. The thought of Sanguinius and Fulgrim learning of this. It broke his heart, but he was comforted with the knowledge that at least they would come to kill him soon.

With regret, he noted that The Vengeful Spirit was the greatest vessel in the Imperial Navy. Those ships he recognized as his brothers and his comrades, were all forced to retreat or fall altogether. All the while others began to take on new grotesque forms. With each battle, The Conqueror and The Terminus Est were corrupting into something vile. The Conqueror of Angron had accumulated so many vessels it transformed into a Space Hulk, with the bodies of Imperial crafts held together with some organic mass. The Terminus Est perhaps had changed the most. It could no longer be called a ship, it was a lifeform covered in an organic skin and orifices.

Perhaps he should not be thinking such a way, but what bothered the prisoner the most was the sloppiness. He had watched The Vengeful Spirit perform its naval engagements. He could indeed see that it was the finest ship in the Galaxy, for had it been any less it would have already been taken. He thought that he had trained his sons better than this, yet his captors had made sloppy mistakes after textbook error. He was almost disappointed.

Perhaps more baffling was its near schizophrenic inconsistency. It was as though it was guided by four different crews, all counteracting each other. The ship would stumble between aggressive charges and killing sprees, to reserved defenses, to excessive offenses, to strange maneuverings. Perhaps from a distance or another time, The prisoner would have found it funny. But Horus Lupercal did not.

It ravaged his brain, this question. How was he so viciously outmaneuvered that his army, and the army of at least 3 of his brothers, and countless auxiliaries be so decimated? Even A Single Legion could bring a planet low. Yet he was returned to his ship in chains. How did he get captured? The perfect memory of the Astartes haunted him as he wracked his brain to continue to replay the events of Istvan in his head. There were no flaws in the deployment. Ferrus's performance was reliable and his actions exacting. Mortarion had not lost an ounce of his ruthless efficiency. But the reinforcements? The Blood Angels had not come, but were they not relieved anyways? Having them come when they did would have just led them to slaughter. No, it could not be that.

So much of the battle had gone wrong in ways that Horus would never have imagined. He remembers seeing the faces of his guardsmen. First, there was treachery. They had gone in looking for the separatists. Instead, there were turrets, mines and traitorous sons. Someone had expected their arrival and not shown up themselves. Then there were the bombardments. Their own ships turned against them, bombarding the planet while they were still on it. Horus could not make contact with the ship. Communications were dead silent. His men were prepared for most threats, but what were they to do when your own air support fired upon you?

And then the true terrors had come. Those he lost. They came back. By some unholy energy, they came back and turned against their brothers. The regiments attempted to hold their own, but the men were losing their hearts. That was when they came. The auxiliaries fled in terror, citing some ancient superstition of demons. But the demon was a fitting name for them. These creatures of strange horrific appearance came with their desire for the others. Horus and his brothers tried to fight them off but he could not fight them off. He told them to save themselves. He believes he made the right call. What else was he to do? He could only hope that Mortarion and Ferrus had been able to avoid capture. Or at the very least he hoped they were killed.

Horus had attempted one last time before, and they finally chained him. Now suspended and chained, there was nothing the prisoner could do but wait. At least before he could protest. strapped in suspension he could only watch as a group of masked figures would come. They brought their strange blades with foreign markings, and they would skin him alive. They would start with his face And then the rest of his body. But why? Why had his sons done this to him? Before he would have taken a bullet for his sons, and they him. In fact, Horus Aximand, his son and confidant, did take a blade for him, back on Davin. What had change that consumed them with such hatred now?

But hate they did. The prisoner was restrained on his own ship. His only company when his sons came to flay him alive. He would grow it back, as all primarch's did, and when it did they would come back again. This had persisted from the beginning of his capture to now. There was nothing he could do except wait, perhaps the surgeons would be sloppy and allow him a chance to escape again. But until that day, this was the fate of the great Warmaster. Horus Lupercal, keeper of The Emperor's legions.