Maeleum Datum : 296.M35
Though it hadn't been without setbacks, the Sundering of Segmentum Pacificus was still a great victory for Horus. It was unclear if the rebellious Segmentum would maintain its independence for long : even as militarization ramped up within its borders, it remained far weaker than the Imperium, and much more disunited. Still, the Prince of the Eye was satisfied with the results, and now turned his baleful gaze elsewhere.
Since before the Great Crusade, the xenos raiders known as the Dark Eldars, or Drukhari, had preyed upon the worlds of Humanity. Indeed, there were ancient records from before the Age of Strife that spoke of entire human worlds depopulated by the forebears of the present-day Eldars, though the motive behind these depredations had at least partially changed since the Fall that had put an end to the Aeldari Empire.
Consumed by the curse of the Dark God Slaanesh, whom the decadence of their ancestors had spawned, the Drukhari were forced to feed upon the suffering of others lest their darkling souls be swallowed by the one they called She-Who-Thirsts in fearful whispers. Over the centuries, untold billions had been taken by the raiding fleets of the Drukhari, sentenced to a fate worse than death in Commoragh so that their tormentors could feed off their pain and the twisted industry of the Dark City could continue to turn, its thorned gears oiled by the blood of the weak.
The Imperium's highest circles knew of the existence of Commoragh, but the Dark City was too well-hidden within the Webway to be easily reached, and far too heavily defended to be destroyed by anything but a full commitment of the Imperial warmachine. Furthermore, the highest-ranking members of the Ordo Xenos suspected the existence of terrible weapons held in the vaults of Commoragh's ruling families, devices capable of unspeakable destruction which the foul xenos wouldn't hesitate to unleash should their power base come under threat regardless of the cost to themselves. Spite, after all, was a language spoken by all species.
With the right alliances among the Craftworld Eldars (or the right prisoners to interrogate), it might be possible for the Imperium to find and destroy Commoragh : the question was whether the dying curse of the Drukhari would leave them capable of surviving their other enemies. Preoccupied as it was with the prosecution of the Long War and a hundred lesser foes, the cold calculations of empire meant that Mankind was forced to continue to endure the Drukhari's existence.
Because of this, the Dark Eldars' greatest concern had long been the White Scars. Since the raids on Chogoris during the Heresy and the disappearance of Jaghatai Khan in the Webway during the Scouring, the Fifth Legion had dedicated most of its strength to fending off the various pirates and raiders that preyed upon the Imperium, reserving the bulk of their wrath for the children of Commoragh.
Horus cared little for the men, women and children subjected to the agonies of the Dark City, of course. The empathy he'd once been known and celebrated for had long since been lost to the whispers of the Ruinous Powers. Yet the same monstrous pride that the Dark Gods had used to turn him to their cause also meant that his disgust for xenos preying upon Mankind had remained just as strong.
For all their rejection of the dead Aeldari gods, the Drukhari still paid homage to the Dark Prince, whether they admitted it or not. Every act of torture, every cut inflicted on a helpless prisoner, every act performed to try and feel something through centuries of sense-deadening horrors, was a prayer to the Lord of Excess. The Aeldari had turned their back on Slaanesh when the Dark Prince had been born and suffered the Fall in consequence, but the Warmaster of Chaos knew that the Youngest God might yet forgive them for this insult. Eldar souls were favoured above all in the Court of Excess, though only a handful of Children of Isha willingly and openly gave their devotions to Slaanesh at the moment.
Yet Horus would brook no rivals to Humanity's destiny as he saw it. The Eldars had their chance, but had flinched on the brink of apotheosis. Slaanesh might be content to prolong their slow extinction in order to extract every morsel of torment it could from them, but Horus saw things from a more pragmatic perspective.
If the Imperium couldn't deal with the Drukhari, then Horus would do so instead, and prove once more that he alone was worthy of the crown of Master of Mankind. The Emperor Himself had failed to remove the threat of the Dark Eldars during the Great Crusade; regardless of His reasons, the propaganda value of such a coup alone meant it was worth pursuing. And the superweapons of the Drukhari Great Houses would also serve Horus well, once the time for manipulation and subtlety had passed and his forces faced those of the Corpse-Emperor in open battle, as he knew would inevitably happen one day. As with all advanced Aeldari technology, these weapons required psychic ability to use, something that the Drukhari had denied themselves in order to avoid the Doom, but which Horus' servants possessed in abundance.
So it was that Horus began to plan the destruction of Commoragh. Yet for all of Horus' great power and the freedom of action he'd enjoyed since the Dark Gods had slackened their control over him after their fateful decision to change their plans for the Long War, the Prince of the Eye was still bound to the will of the Warp's infernal suzerains. The Dark City was an important stronghold for Slaanesh, and the center of many of the Dark Prince's schemes. Before he could begin his preparations, Horus had to gain Slaanesh's approval of his plan, and pay a tithe to the Lord of Excess commensurate with the damage it would inflict to the Dark Prince's position in the Great Game.
Of course, the other Chaos Gods would revel in such a diminishment, but Horus knew better than to expect gratitude from them. The balance between the Four was crucial to the Warmaster's greater goals, and so he struck a bargain with Slaanesh. Horus would pay a sixfold price to Slaanesh in return for his blessing, but in return, Commoragh would fall and the Horusians would suffer no punishment from the Lord of Excess.
In truth, Slaanesh had grown bored with the Drukhari. The current course of the Long War, with its emphasis on cults and subtle corruption of the Imperial edifice, was one for which the Dark Prince was well-suited, and his power had grown, with the so-called nobility of the Imperium of Man being particularly vulnerable to the lure of Excess. Furthermore, the White Scars had now denied the Dark Eldars' raiding parties their easy prey for the past four thousand years, in revenge for the depredations visited upon Chogoris during the Heresy.
With the teeming worlds of Humanity denied to them, the noble Houses that led the Drukhari, and whose bloodlines had once ruled the cosmos under the Aeldari Empire, had been forced to adapt. Explorers had been sent across the infinite void aboard the fastest ships the arsenals of Commoragh could build, to find worlds populated by lesser alien breeds. Dozens of nascent civilizations had been extinguished in the cradle so that their bloody corpses could be thrown into Commoragh's hungry maw – including a strange species of blue-skinned humanoids that had grown to sentience on a world of the Eastern Fringe.
Even this hadn't been enough to compensate for the dearth of agony afflicting the Dark City, and so the Drukhari had turned on one another in a bitter struggle for survival. The Houses, led by the three Dynasts, had turned on their so-called 'lessers', who had reacted by banding together in meritocratic Kabals for mutual protection, led by the charismatic and devious Asdrubael Vect, a former slave who had sworn a vow that he would one day rule over Commoragh. The Dark Eldars gained little from the torment of their own kind, as their souls already belonged to Slaanesh, but every Drukhari removed from Commoragh was one less rival for the limited supply of agony available. This, most of all, had earned the displeasure of the Lord of Excess.
Horus spent many years planning his assault on the Dark City, careful not to let any sign of his intent slip to the Commorites. Then, finally, in the year reckoned as 296.M35 by the Imperial Calendar, the Prince of the Eye executed his plan.
Through manipulation and intrigue, the Houses and the Kabals were set upon each other in bloody warfare, the Dynasts determined to drive the upstarts into the dirt, and Vect's allies burning with the desire to carve a place for themselves in Drukhari society. Tens of thousands of Dark Eldars perished in brutal skirmishes all across Commoragh, along with hundreds of thousands of slaves caught in the crossfire. Yet this was all only a prelude, and a means to force the Drukhari lords to recall their forces from abroad back to the Dark City to help fight their rivals.
Once the situation was sufficiently chaotic, treacherous cults of Slaanesh among the Dark Eldars led Horusian strike forces through the Webway. Since the day of the Fall, there had been those among the Drukhari who sought to escape dissolution in the Dark Prince's maw by swearing themselves to him, hoping to earn a better afterlife or simply consumed by Slaanesh's hedonistic tenets. Such heretics and traitors were hunted down without mercy by all other Drukhari, but there were always more to take their place, and now they had brought Commoragh's doom.
In exchange for this service, the renegades were granted passage to the Horusian Dominion in the Eye of Terror, and a daemon world to call their own and reshape according to their whim and the will of Slaanesh, along with its entire mutant population to do with as they pleased. Thus were the Sha'eilat, the Children of Hell in the Eldar tongue, reborn from the ashes of the Eye's first and most terrible war, when the forces of the three elder Dark Gods had hunted down and wiped out the corrupted Aeldari who had been transfigured by the Fall. Under the protection and patronage of the Prince of the Eye, the Sha'eilat would serve Slaanesh forevermore, as had been promised.
Thus was the first of the six offerings made, and Horus' armies delivered to the Dark City. Shrouded from immediate detection by sorcery and the chaos already raging in the streets, they moved to their objectives in small, elite groups. Horus had selected his best warriors for this operation.
Hunting parties of the Night Lords descended into the depths of the Dark City, led by Talos Valcoran, the Soul Hunter and herald of the Night Haunter. They had been given a single mission by the Prince of the Eye : to hunt down the eldest of the Haemonculi, lords of life and death and the oldest souls to have ever eluded Slaanesh. As Talos' renown in the Eye of Terror had grown, so too had his powers : now he could direct the visions that had previously crippled him, using them to pluck knowledge of his prey's position in space and time.
The Covens of the flesh-crafters were well-defended, of course, but the daemonic gifts of the Eighth Legion proved superior to both traps, mundane obstacles and armies of bio-manipulated horrors in the end. One by one, the last living members of the Aeldari Empire were dragged out of their hiding places, their pale bodies branded with sorcerous sigils that ensured that this time, there would be no resurrection for them, regardless of the precautions they had taken. Talos himself ended the life of Urien Rakarth, leader of the self-proclaimed Prophets of Flesh, and witnessed the wretched soul of the antediluvian monster dragged into the Silver Palace, where Slaanesh awaited.
Thus was the second of Horus' promised offerings to the Dark Prince made.
Meanwhile, in the palace of Lord Dynast Xelian, emptied of all but the most essential personnel by the growing unrest, the Blade of Ptesh performed its deadly craft. Any loyalty the assassin might have once possessed for its people had been gone long before it had been brought before Horus by Curze, and it executed its mission without any hesitation. Dozens of Xelian's most elite guards perished without every seeing their killer, every death an offering to Slaanesh – for the Blade of Ptesh now wielded knives that had been crafted in the Forge of Souls at the Warmaster's request, and a powerful Slaaneshi daemon was bound within each blade.
Deeper and deeper into the palace went the Blade of Ptesh, until it stood before the doors of one of the many vaults holding the Dynast's plunder – as well as the many 'gifts' tithed to him by his subordinates. With devices provided by the Dark Mechanicum, it opened the gate, deactivating the many traps guarding it in the process. Moments later, the assassin left the palace with its prize, though not before sabotaging the shield generators and setting several generators up to detonate, further adding to the confusion when Xelian saw his palace vanish in a sphere of white-hot light six minutes later.
The prize the Blade of Ptesh had stolen from the Dynast's vault was one of the few Xelian had claimed in person. Several centuries ago, in a fit of pique over the spiritual famine afflicting Commoragh, the Drukhari Lord had led a raid on the forge-world of Verdigris IX, deep within the Imperium's borders, in an attempt to prove to the mon-keigh that for all their stalwart protectors' best efforts, nowhere was truly safe from the Aeldari Empire's truest heirs. In addition to the millions of Mechanicus thralls taken as slaves and the Haemonculus-created toxins released in Verdigris IX's atmosphere guaranteeing the world would be poisoned for centuries to come beyond even the augmented tech-priests' capabilities to endure, Xelian stole a priceless relic that had only recently been sent to the forge-world : a newly rediscovered Standard Template Construct.
Known as the Panacea, this STC contained the technological knowledge to heal almost every sickness and ailment to have ever plagued Mankind. Xelian had stolen him for himself as a way to reassure himself that he and his kin were still the galaxy's greatest predators, and promptly locked it away in his vaults. Now the STC was in Horus' possession, and soon the medical marvel would be perverted by the apostles of Slaanesh in the Prince of the Eye's domain. From it, a hundred and one dark miracles would be created and spread across the stars, to help the cults of Slaanesh spread the word of their Dark Prince.
Thus was the third part of the Prince of the Eye's bargain fulfilled.
By now, word of the Astartes' presence had begun to spread, the veils of sorcery that had concealed the Night Lords' presence having dissipated during their hunt for the Haemonculi Covens. Yet still, the Houses and the Kabals were more preoccupied with each other than with the intruders in their midst, rightfully fearing that turning their focus to the mon-keigh gene-bred brutes would allow their rivals to fall upon their backs. Even the slaughter of the Haemonculi Covens, whose services granted immortality to the Drukhari willing to pay their price, wasn't enough to convince them otherwise. Not all of the Covens had been targeted by the Night Lords, after all, only those led by the twisted Aeldari survivors.
Of course, had the Dark Eldars realized that the strike force was fighting its way down the depths of Commoragh and toward Khaine's Gate, the towering Webway Portal that had been one of the Dark City's major thoroughfares before the Fall and which now led only into the raw fury of the Warp, perhaps their attitude would have been different. And, had they known that, among the Sons of Horus that made up the warband was none other than Horus Lupercal, his terrible presence shrouded by the efforts of his Sorcerers and the constant work of his own will, then they would most certainly have put their differences aside to deal with this common threat.
But the Prince of the Eye had made sure the arrogant Drukhari would only realize his presence and goal once it was far too late. When the Harlequins of the Shattered Dream, who ever lurked near Khaine's Gate to guard against the horrors it contained, attempted to ambush the Chaos Marines, the Warmaster of Chaos finally revealed himself, the mere sight of him sending the disciples of the Laughing God into agonizing fits that made them easy prey for the fallen Primarch's escort.
Then, at last, Horus stood before Khaine's Gate. With a smile on his lips and triumph in his grasp, the Prince of the Eye set to work.
Khaine's Gate lies open before Horus, its ancient wards shattered by his awesome power. Behind it, he sees the numberless Legions of Excess, ready to pour through and claim the souls of those whose sins gave them birth.
For now, they are paused, awaiting his permission to pass. They can sense his power, from the meanest Daemonettes to the towering Keepers of Secrets, and they fear him, each and every one of them.
Now is the time to impose the bindings that will restrain them, the commands that will keep them from laying complete waste to the Dark City so that its hollowed, burned-out carcass can be used as a staging ground for his forces. From there, they would have access to the entire Webway – nowhere in the galaxy would be beyond their reach. Dorn's proud Cadian Gate would become obsolete in one fell swoop.
He raises his Talon to begin the weaving -
Pain. So much pain, lancing at his side, burning his very soul. He has to use all of his will just to stay standing, to keep any sign of weakness from showing – because if the daemons before him see it, they will tear him apart, regardless of the bargain he made with their patron.
He cannot put the binding into place. He cannot force his will upon the Legions of Excess. Instead, he lowers his claw, turning the gesture into an invitation.
The hosts of Slaanesh pour through the broken Gate in a tide of smooth skin and gleaming carapace, parting around the Prince of the Eye. Despite their infernal senses, none of them sense the blood pouring from his flank – the only thing his power is capable of now.
The wound dealt to him by the Emperor on the Vengeful Spirit has torn open again. It took him centuries to recover from his battle against the Masters of the Forge of Souls, and he knows it will take him even longer to recover from this. He isn't blind to the cruel irony of his situation : he could wait for the wound to fully heal, though it would take millennia. But in the meantime, he would be powerless, unable to act, and that is anathema to him.
Truly, it is a most ironic trap the Dark Gods have woven for him.
Horus Lupercal grits his teeth. No matter. Plans change. This is still a great victory, bringing him closer to his ultimate goal.
He will rise to the Pantheon's challenge.
Pouring out of Khaine's Gate, the Legions of Excess spread across Commoragh in an unstoppable tide. Every Drukhari locked in fratricidal battle felt their arrival, a keening pain in their withered and blackened soul and a crushing sense of abject terror at the Doom that had come for them.
The shrines of the Incubi fell one by one, their trophies claimed by the children of Slaanesh along with their souls. In the Great Shrine, Drazhar the Executioner, Master of Blades and fallen Phoenix Lord, kept fighting long after the last of his students had perished, surrounded by so many daemonic corpses they didn't have the time to dissipate back into the Warp.
Such was the fury and martial prowess of the Executioner that it drew the gaze of Khorne, who had been observing the destruction of Commoragh with great interest. The Drukhari's endless scheming and preying only on weak prey disgusted the God of War, but the raw hatred that consumed Drazhar was beautiful in his burning eyes. As the lord of the Incubi finally fell, the Lord of Skulls decided that letting his rival claim that particular soul would be a waste, and plucked Drazhar's soul from his flesh before the Dark Prince could devour it through the mouths of the daemonic swarm. Slaanesh's thwarted screams shook the Realms of Chaos, but Drazhar's fate had not been part of the bargain the Dark Prince had struck with Horus. And so the spirit of the Master of Blades was taken into Khorne's realm, there to be remade anew as it had twice before : once when the Aeldari who would become Drazhar had been saved by Asurmen, and another time when he had fallen from the Path his master had laid down for his people to follow.
In the Bone Middens, the Wych Cults fought hard against the Neverborn, and none fought harder than the legendary Queen of the Knives and Succubus of the Cult of Strife, Lelith Hesperax. Her grace surpassed that of the lesser children of Slaanesh, her speed and reflexes enhanced beyond the superhuman limits of the Drukhari race by centuries of single-minded training in the pursuit of martial perfection. She danced amidst the throng, and the Neverborn danced with her even as they sought to flay her pristine skin and gorge themselves on her potent soul.
Lelith might have been able to keep up this dance forever, or until she found a way out of the Middens and toward the sections of Commoragh still held by her dark kindred. The Cult of Strife were prominent among the Wyches, and entire armies of Drukhari yet remained within the confines of the Dark City, led by Archons who, loath to let even this most ruinous of crisis go to waste, were gathering what assets and allies they could amidst the devastation.
But the Neverborn had allies of their own, and those moved more swiftly, driven by the will of Horus Lupercal. With Khaine's Gate open and his attempt to bind the daemonic hordes failed, the Prince of the Eye had summoned the additional forces waiting for his command in the Webway. Initially meant to assist the Legions of Excess in the purging of the Dark City and the capture of key areas, they were redirected to new objectives.
To the Bone Middens, Horus sent some of his most powerful weapons : Possessed Marines created from the fusion of the greatest Horusian Astartes and the most potent daemons that could be bound by sorcery. Each of these Greater Possessed had been subjected to decades of preparations before their transformation : their very skulls had been surgically broken and the inside of them engraved with sigils of power, their minds trained in the secret truths of the Warp, their bodies augmented with drugs bought from the New Empire at exorbitant prices.
Flying on mutated wings, five of these monsters descended upon Lelith Hesperax. The Queen of Knives managed to slay three of them before the remaining two finally killed her, tearing her flesh apart and sending her soul hurtling into the Sea of Souls, where the Dark Prince awaited eagerly for her arrival.
And so Slaanesh received the fourth prize Horus had promised him.
As the daemonic incursion continued and more and more daemons poured through Khaine's Gate, that which the Dark Eldars called a Disjunction seized the entirety of Commoragh. The Warp mixed with the substance of the Webway, and new infernal portals manifested everywhere, allowing new daemonic hosts to enter. Most belonged to Slaanesh, but there were others belonging to the rival Powers, drawn to the devastation like vultures to a battlefield. Like children fighting over a toy, the Dark Gods vied for control of Commoragh, a situation that could only end one way.
The structure of Commoragh as a realm of the Webway was, by nature, anathema to the stuff of the Empyrean. Horus knew this, and ordered his forces to withdraw from the Dark City, taking with them as much plunder as they could, along with millions of human captives rescued from the slave pits, desperate to escape the hell that had consumed their existence since their capture.
Eventually, the inevitable came to pass. The work of the Old Ones had endured for millions of years, but entropy claimed all in the end. The walls of Commoragh cracked, and the raw stuff of the Empyrean poured through, dissolving all reality. Spires that had survived the Fall tumbled, and wonders and horrors without equal in the entire galaxy were consumed by the Sea of Souls. Shrieking Drukhari and terrified slaves were all engulfed by the seething madness, made equal at last in their final moments.
So died Commoragh, and its destruction sent shock waves across the Webway. Shaa-Dom, which for thousands of years had been the sole rival of the Dark City, was unmoored from the Labyrinthine Dimension entirely. Drawn into the Warp, it came crashing down on Aftermath, the City of Cities, where its population was promptly set upon by the Eldar-hating locals and the Masters driving them.
El-Uriaq, the Tyrant of Shaa-Dom, was dragged from the ruins of his palace at the end of a long and bitter battle, and subjected to all the torments the exiled Masters of the Forge of Souls could design before his soul was sent to Slaanesh. Of the millions of Drukhari who'd dwelled in Shaa-Dom, a scant few hundreds managed to survive past a standard Terran year, finding places in Aftermath beyond the sight of the Masters. Most of them, it was said, ended up joining the houses of pleasure and pain belonging to Zerayah, the so-called Daughter of Fulgrim – a fate arguably not too different from being cast into She-Who-Thirsts' hungry maw.
Only a small fraction of the Commorites survived and managed to escape Commoragh in time. Led by none other than Asdrubael Vect, they fled the collapsing realm aboard ships belonging both the Kabals and stolen from the Houses (or in the hands of captains who'd abandoned their oaths and now only wanted to escape the hordes of She-Who-Thirsts). Strangely, these refugees met no opposition from the Horusian warriors who had engineered this apocalypse, and they would go on to become raiders under Vect's command. Despite their small numbers and lack of a base of operation, they would commit many acts of atrocity in the centuries to come, driven by hatred and a renewed desire to make the entire galaxy bleed.
Thus was the fifth price paid by Horus to Slaanesh, as the one who would be called Supreme Overlord of the Drukhari was allowed to escape, his pursuit of power an endless prayer to the Dark Prince.
The weapons retrieved from Commoragh's vaults before its destruction by Horus' strike force were brought to Maeleum, where they were studied by the Cabalites of Ahriman in order to unlock their secrets. The knowledge of the Aeldari far surpassed even that of the greatest human Sorcerer, but Ahriman was certain that he and his brothers could master the truths contained within the alien devices in time – as well as the way to use them when Horus needed them.
The humans rescued from the slave pits were also brought to the Sons of Horus' homeworld. There, they were shown the dark majesty of Horus' dominion, and turned into fanatical devotees of the Prince of the Eye. In the years to come, they would be spread beyond the Eye of Terror, serving as demagogues preaching the greatness of Horus with the fervor of true believers, telling others of how it was the Warmaster's forces that had rescued them from their xenos captors, and brought divine retribution upon them – not the servants of the False Emperor and His rotten and weak Imperium.
Meanwhile, though he had failed to seize the Dark City, Horus was still bound by his covenant with Slaanesh to honor the last price he'd promised to pay. In the gene-labs of the Horusian Dominion, the flesh-smiths of the Sixteenth Legion crafted a perfect host body, uniquely suited to containing the essence of a powerful daemon without being corrupted and eventually destroyed. All manners of foul sorceries and heretekal Dark Tech were used to make this possible, and the failed attempts had to be purged – sometimes at great cost, as they woke feral and insane, and unleashed the full might of their unshackled psychic potential. But eventually, the fallen Apothecaries succeeded, and the host body was brought before the Daemon Prince Shaha Gaathon, the Harbinger of All Pleasures.
Shaha Gaathon was one of Slaanesh's first ascended servants, having done the Dark Prince's bidding when he was yet slumbering in the darkness of the Aeldari psyche. His hatred of the Children of Isha ran deep, and now, he'd been given the chance to indulge it in full. By possessing the host body provided by Horus, Shaha Gaathon could walk the worlds of men undetected, and turn the enemies of Chaos against one another. A Horusian cabal engineered the Harbinger's escape from the Eye through their portals, and provided him with an ironclad false identity within the Imperium's high spheres, with documents and resources to match.
Thus was the sixth and final debt of the Warmaster to the Dark Prince repaid, and its consequences would be most terrible.
The damage inflicted to the Webway by Commoragh's fall had been immense. The Craftworlds, which depended on the network to travel the stars, found many of the paths they had used were now lost, destroyed or flooded with the Neverborn, forcing the urgent sealing of many of their Wraithbone portals lest the Craftworlds themselves be invaded by the daemonic hordes. Furthermore, the death of so many of their dark kindred had caused some of the Craftworlds to reconsider their isolationist policies, and what happened once Shaha Gaathon finished his infiltration of the Imperium would only aggravate the situation.
In the decades following his incarnation, Shaha Gaathon drove the vast armies of the Imperium to hunt down the Craftworlds. With Commoragh destroyed, he argued passionately, now was the time to wipe the foul xenos from existence completely – after all, how could the Imperium do less than the accursed heretics of the Eye ?
Since the end of the Great Crusade, the Craftworlds had evaded conflict with Humanity by remaining beyond the Imperium's reach, but in his obsessive hatred, Shaha Gaathon had learned the location of these hiding places. Six Craftworlds burned at the hands of the Harbinger's dupes over the next hundred years, before the Inquisition realized the true nature of Lord Admiral Viktor 'Eldar-Bane' Yuri and killed him, banishing the Daemon Prince and killing thousands of his mind-bound thralls along with him.
Even so, what fragile bonds had been forged between individual Imperials and the Craftworlds in the struggle against the cults of Chaos were sundered by these attacks. From then on, the attitude of the Asuryani would be even more hostile to the Imperium than previously, for the mon-keigh had proven just how easily they were manipulated by the Great Enemy. On Biel-Tan in particular, calls began to be heard for the complete extermination of the human race, and it was only because of the impossibility for the remnants of the Aeldari Empire to execute it that the idea did not gain too much traction. Besides, the Craftworlds were too busy looking to their own defenses, as Slaanesh seemed to have grown bored with toying with them and was driving the rest of his servants to hasten their extinction.
Craftworld Lugganath was the first victim of this resurgent focus, as Fulgrim himself led a coalition of Emperor's Children warband to destroy it completely, claiming the souls of its population for Slaanesh. Exodite worlds were also targeted by reaver bands operating under the distant control of the Third Legion. Among the remaining Eldars, militarization exploded, the hold of Khaine on their souls growing stronger with every passing cycle.
The twilight of the Eldars, which they had managed to elude for more than four thousand years, now loomed closer than ever.
He was free. Lost in a strange and alien realm, alone and deprived of all but the weapons he had been born with, but free.
His captors were dead, though he had been denied the chance to avenge the many wrongs they had done him.
They had fed off his pain even as his sons starved them. He knew this, because his tormentors had made sure to tell him with every cut, thinking it would drive him mad. And then, they'd had the audacity to be surprised when he'd laughed in their faces and mocked them for their failures even as their poisoned knives dug deeper into his guts.
His sons. They were still out there, he knew, still fighting, though surely all those he'd known must be long dead by now. He had to get back to them.
And so Jaghatai Khan, Primarch of the White Scars, began his long trek through the Webway, searching for a way home.
AN : This chapter ended up longer than I planned, but then it does deal with cataclysmic events. Also, I have finally come up with how I want this story to end and how to get there. A few more chapters (three, in fact : try to guess what that number might mean) and we'll enter the endgame for this timeline.
Just to make things clear, here is a list of what Horus promised to Slaanesh in exchange for the Dark Prince's blessing to destroy Commoragh :
The souls of the Haemonculi who were once members of the Aeldari Empire
The creation of the Sha'eilat faction of Slaaneshi Eldars under Horus' banner
The perversion of the Panacea STC
The soul of Lelith Hesperax
Letting Asdrubael Vect escape
Helping Shaha Gaathon get a mortal body and infiltrate the Imperium
As always, feedback is appreciated.
Zahariel out.