Maeleum Datum : 579.M32
On the daemon world of Maeleum, Horus Lupercal contemplated the progress of the Long War. Since the Proclamation, the Warmaster of Chaos had kept a close eye on the situation outside the Eye of Terror. At his command, the Cabalites had created an extension of the infernal clocks through which the Theft of Time had been performed and the temporal flux of the Horusian territories stabilized. Within his throneroom, they had built a vast device that could be used to peer at almost any location within the wider galaxy, its complex mechanisms answering to the will of the Warmaster alone. Through it, Horus had watched the growth of the cults and rebellions within the Imperium – both those who ultimately served him, and those seeded by his brothers.
He watched the waxing and waning of rebellion and Chaos throughout the galaxy, and, with an eye sharpened by his trials during the Heresy, acted where and when it would benefit his ultimate ends the most. Most of the Cabalites were permanently stationed on Maeleum, with only a few left to provide their expertise to the Horusian warlords. It was they who acted as Horus' hand, dispatching visions and dreams to sensitive souls on Imperial worlds that the Warmaster judged to be in the correct configuration for disruption. Horus could do easily do it himself, of course, but his overwhelming power often caused all but the strongest minds to simply shatter at the contact.
At least, that was the reason he had given to the Cabalites, and none had questioned it.
As the effects of the Proclamation rippled throughout the Imperium, so too had the situation within the Eye of Terror been affected. The rituals of Magnus had spread across the Legions, sometimes exchanged or given as gifts, sometimes stolen or bastardized. Some Legions had proven more apt at making use of them than others – though even the World Eaters had managed to inspire a few rebellions bloody enough for their priests of Khorne to open the way for them.
This was not to say that there was peace within the Eye, with all ambitions turned outward and the grudges and hatred that divided the Traitor Legions forgotten. Far from it. Their prison was aflame with a thousand conflicts waged by forces for whom the Long War held no appeal. Warbands that had broken free of their Legions, renegade forces of the Imperial Army, daemonic hosts, hordes of mutants and cultists raised from twisted daemon worlds by Chaos Lords seeking the favor of the Ruinous Powers – they all fought one another, and launched raids upon the territories of the Legions when they got too bold.
Even now, Abaddon was leading a sizeable portion of Horus' forces to put down a daemonic incursion that had reached one of the few worlds under the Warmaster's control that could produce foodstuffs with any reliability. The last report from the front had the First Captain battling the Neverborn amidst the jungles of Leparthes, in the shadow of the reptilian behemoths whose meat fed a not inconsiderable portion of Horus' dominion in the Eye.
Though he had entrusted much of the management of his territory in the Eye to his lieutenants in order to focus on the Long War, Horus still kept track of the various powers of the Eye. It would be the height of foolishness not to do so, for he knew that, even after the Legion Wars had been put on hold by his defeat of the Crimson Accords and Magnus' surrender, there were many who still eyed his throne and sought the glory of toppling him. For a start, he didn't believe for a moment that Magnus and his sons had forgotten who was ultimately responsible for Prospero's destruction.
After the end of the Crimson Accords and Ahriman's betrayal, the Thousand Sons had been attacked several times by forces that had thought them to be easy pickings. Those who had made it through the storms surrounding the handful of daemon worlds claimed by the Fifteenth Legion had been destroyed, their fates so inventively cruel that even the most crazed of raiders now sailed well clear of the sons of Magnus' borders. With the Cabalites now valued members of the Horusian dominion, there remained very few Thousand Sons beyond the territory of the Fifteenth Legion. Almost all sons of the Cyclops were focused on either pursuing their own arcane research or taking part in the Long War, using their psychic abilities and sorcerous knowledge to great effect.
With the distant guidance of the Fifteenth Legion, unbound psykers had managed to escape the harvests of the Black Ships. Individual psykers had fled from the Imperium hunters, and in some cases, they had even banded together to destroy small parties of Sisters of Silence – something which always earned that particular group of renegades the favor of the Thousand Sons, who well remembered the part the Sisterhood had taken in the Burning of Prospero. Following the instructions of the Sorcerers, these psykers eventually found their way to one of a handful of enclaves that their kindred had built. Hidden from the Imperium's sight on desolate worlds made inhabitable only through the constant use of their psychic abilities, these colonies hosted thousands of unbound psykers, who learned to use their powers and had built functioning societies.
Several circles of Thousand Sons had dedicated themselves to protecting these groups from discovery, knowing full well what the Imperium would do if it learned of them. Of course, their efforts hadn't been enough to hide the existence of these enclaves to Horus. Ahriman had come to him with that knowledge in person, and asked that they be left alone – arguing that they could be very useful resources in the Long War. Horus had indulged him, though he had seen through the Exile's justifications. For all that Ahriman had turned on his own Legion and bound his fate to the Warmaster, there was still much Tizcan sensibility left in him.
Other Thousand Sons sponsored cults of knowledge and sorcery within what passed for the Imperium's intellectual elite, using their pawns to gather tomes of forbidden lore and relics before coming to harvest them along with the most promising members of these societies. Not a few rebellions had been started by those whose eyes had been opened to the realities of the galaxy in that way – and so it was that, even in their hatred of him, the Thousand Sons served Horus' goals.
By contrast, the Night Lords were still loyal to Horus, bound to him by the will of their Primarch. Since delivering Moriana to Sicarius, Konrad hadn't left Kerlazium. The divide within the Eighth had only grown, and the duality that afflicted the Eighth Legion was reflected in its approach to the Long War. There was only one common point between the two : their obsession with akhrali, that precious liquid extracted from the damned souls imprisoned upon the Night Lords' homeworld. Not only was the liquid the foundation of their dark kingdom, feeding both the Legionaries themselves and their few living thralls, but it had proven very useful in amplifying the sorcerous abilities of psykers and witches. A not insignificant number of Sorcerers from other Legions were willing to pay a high price for samples of akhrali, though the Night Lords were loath to part with any quantity.
"Three hundred slaves for a single bottle ? I have seen your so-called 'torture palaces', Night Lord. I know the quantities of akhrali produced daily within them. Do you take me for a fool ?"
"No. I take you for someone who wants what only we can provide. Four hundred slaves."
Conversation overheard in a station in orbit of Kerlazium
The former Techmarine Xerkieri had designed and built vast factory-like buildings, where millions of souls were tormented by automated devices in order to extract the akhrali more efficiently. While less potent than that harvested through more personal means, the sheer quantity produced was enough to fuel what passed for the Eighth Legion's industry. In order to increase the number of souls used both in these pain factories and as slaves, the Legion was also encouraging the growth of criminal cartels within the Imperium. The Sorcerer Nephandim had discovered a way to brand mortals in life with a sorcerous mark that ensured that their soul would manifest on Kerlazium upon their death. Gangs all over the galaxy now used this mark as a way to distinguish their members, most of them unaware of its true meaning. For the millions of ghosts brought to Kerlazium by this discovery, Nephandim had been elevated among the inner circle of the First Captain, Zso Sahaal.
Meanwhile, the Night Lords who had embraced Chaos' potential had chosen to pursue quality over quantity where the souls they tormented were concerned. From the Warp-infested wastes of Kerlazium, they whispered into the ears of sleeping murderers, driving them to ever-greater depths of atrocity. Thousands of hive-cities were terrorized by the serial killers inspired by the Eighth Legion, and the Night Lords laughed at the fear they created and the dwindling in the population's faith in their superiors' abilities to protect them that followed. And when their puppets inevitably died, their mad spirits were dragged to Kerlazium, where the akhrali produced from their agonies was far sweeter and more potent than that extracted from common criminals.
Perturabo had kept his word after Horus had triumphed over Lorgar's and Magnus' alliance. The Lord of Iron had allied with the Warmaster – though unlike the Night Haunter, he had done so as an equal. The domains of the Fourth Legion remained independent from the Horusians, but defense pacts and trade accords had been forged between the two powers.
Weapons, ammunition and warmachines flowed from the industry lines of the Fourth Legion, while the Sons of Horus brought fresh slaves and resources taken from their father's Eye-born empire. The Iron Warriors controlled the greatest industrial base in the Eye of Terror, surpassed only by the infernal forge-worlds of the Dark Mechanicum – but where the heirs of Kelbor-Hal were divided and endlessly feuding among themselves, the bitter rivalries of the Fourth Legion were buried beneath their Primarch's overarching authority.
Even the blood-addled warbands of the Eye knew better than to attack the holdings of the Lord of Iron; not just because their defenses were all but impregnable, but because even in victory (however costly it might prove), they would draw Perturabo's cold, legendary ire. The Iron Warriors were also the last of the Traitor Legions to have dominions outside of the Eye of Terror : entire star systems whose existence had been purged from Imperial records during the Heresy, ruled with an adamantium fist by Fourth Legion warsmiths and their companies of transhuman warriors. Hidden from the Imperium, these small kingdoms were in contact with Perturabo's Triarchs.
Using Warp-infused technology, Perturabo's commanders made use of these distant domains. Forbidden technology was leaked to ambitious tech-priests, mercenary armies of mysterious origins provided to rebels, and elite Astartes strike forces made available to the enemies of the False Emperor. The warsmiths who controlled these islands of Iron Warriors territory were always extremely careful, unwilling to risk exposing themselves to the Imperium. Even so, despite all the security measures they took, the Inquisition eventually learned of their existence – though not of their location.
Across the galaxy, the hunt for the surviving traitors had redoubled, with the Imperial Fists leading the way, more determined than ever to find the Iron Warriors and purge them from the stars. Several minor dominions had already fallen, but the Lord of Iron considered them an acceptable price to pay when compared to the havoc their influence had wrought upon the Imperium. One of the warsmiths whose kingdoms was taken from him this way was Amarion, also known as the Blade-Breaker. Though his fortress world was lost to the combined efforts of the Seventh Legion and the Imperial Guard, Amarion himself survived, escaping the desolation aboard his battle-cruiser, the Unforgiven Glory, along with several dozens of his battle-brothers. In the fifty years that had passed since then, Amarion had become a plague upon trade across several Sectors of the Segmentum Tempestus, leading a disparate fleet of pirates and renegades with ruthless efficiency. It was said that Perturabo was pleased with his son's deeds – in as much as the Lord of Iron was ever pleased.
Some Legions were proving less suited for the new form the Long War had taken in the wake of the Proclamation. To the surprise of absolutely no one, the Twelfth was among these. Angron's threadbare sanity had collapsed in the wake of the Conclave, leaving only pure rage and bloodlust. The Daemon Primarch of the World Eaters had returned from his banishment at the edge of the Radiant Worlds, that region of the Eye where the psychic light of the Astronomican met the madness of the Warp.
There, the chosen of Khorne made war unending upon the hosts of the Emperor : legions of angelic figures, gleaming with golden light. At his side were hordes of Khorne's infernal legions, and those of his living sons who were mighty enough to endure at his side, and foolish enough to try to do so. Like most things where the followers of the War God were concerned, this served a purpose beyond the mere joy of endless carnage. The metaphysics involved in this burning war spread Angron's own fury beyond the borders of the Eye. Entire ships were lost to madness during Warp translation as they heard the distant echoes of the Red Angel's screams, and were dragged into the Eye, where those who survived were soon found by the Twelfth Legion.
By some dark miracle, the eight warlords appointed by Horus and who had divided the might of the World Eaters among them yet lived, and they had carved bloody trails across the Eye of Terror. Each of them led a Slaughtertide : a horde of World Eaters, blood-crazed mutants and cultists, and daemons of Khorne summoned by the slaughter that followed the Slaughtertide wherever they went. More akin to galactic disasters than armed forces, even the other Legions dreaded the coming of one of the Eight to their territory, and made great use of sorcery and offerings to twist the tides of the Warp so as to keep them at bay.
Such was the bloodshed they caused that it echoed in the Warp with enough strength to touch the souls of warriors and soldiers across the galaxy. Combined with visions of Angron and his daemonic allies battling the creatures born of the Emperor's psychic residue, this was enough to turn many to the bloody worship of Khorne. In the eye of these fools, Angron and his sons were brave rebels, who fought forever against all tyrants. They dedicated their own acts of bloodshed to them, and this was enough for the connection to be established, delivering the gore-soaked Eaters of Worlds outside the Eye of Terror.
The Death Guard, afflicted as it was with the bountiful "gifts" of Nurgle, were at a disadvantage in the new Long War too. No sane Imperial subject would consider aligning himself with such horrific beings, and the Death Lord himself despised sorcery and refused to trust in Magnus' rituals, instead designing their own horrific methods to commune with followers outside the Eye. So disgusting and vile were these ceremonies that no member of the Imperial nobility, no matter how debauched or corrupt, would ever consider using them. But Mortarion's sons had no interest in corrupting the pampered elites of the Imperium : instead, the witches working for the Death Lord under the threat of unimaginable torment sought to plant the seeds of rebellions within the oppressed masses. From the Plague Planet, they directed a network of cults among the lower classes. To the outside eye, these groups merely offered the safety of numbers, as members watched out for one another, giving help freely in the form of food, water, and protection from gangs and cruel overseers.
It was only in the inner circles that the truth of these groups was revealed, as they embraced mutation and disease as a source of strength. Unseen by the Imperium, keeping hidden from the Inquisition, these tainted communities were growing on thousands of worlds, drawing more and more members while their leaders grew ever more monstrous. Once they reached a critical mass, the dissension began, openly aimed at increasing the standards of living. At that point, either the Imperial authorities cracked down hard on the workers (thus driving even more into the arms of the cult) or they began negotiations, which gave the cult an opening to subvert them. It was quite a devious con, and one Horus wouldn't have expected from his dour brother.
In the Eye of Terror, the Dearth Guard's daemon worlds were kept secure not by their defenders, but because no other force could make war upon them and survive the environment. Though the corruption of the Plague God took a different form on each one, all of them were utterly hostile to forms of life not already infected by Nurgle's afflictions. Those who besieged the dominions of the Fourteenth Legion more often than not simply bombarded them from orbit until there was naught but ashes left, before using the shifting nature of the Eye to reshape the planet entirely. But destroying the sons of Mortarion completely was even harder now than it had been before their transformation on the way to Terra, and such would-be conquerors often found that the Death Guards had survived their assault when they rose from the ruins to slaughter the invaders. Very few warlords were left in the Eye now that were willing to assault a Death Guard world : even should they claim victory, the spoils were meagre and the costs high.
In their gilded cities of pleasure and pain, the Emperor's Children continued their pursuit of excess. They had received Magnus' rituals with delight, seeing the new opportunities this provided them. Small cabals of sons of Fulgrim, never more than squad-sized, plotted and schemed to find ways back to the Imperium in order to sate their debased lusts upon its population. Through sorcery and infernal pacts, they made contact with the cults of Slaanesh that plagued the galaxy. From the luxurious halls of the high-spires to the obscura dens of the underhives, the charismatic Legionaries spread their twisted philosophies, turning hedonistic conclaves into degenerate cults whose horrific acts soon rent the veil and helped their transhuman patrons come across.
Though all strata of Imperial society were vulnerable to their manipulations, the arrogance of the Emperor's Children made them focus their efforts on the higher classes. The sons of Fulgrim revelled in bringing down the good and great of the Imperium, reducing them to slaves to sensation and dragging all that was noble into the mud of excess and cruelty. They delighted in creating cults of personality which, under various disguises, manipulated the masses into overthrowing Imperial authorities before summoning their transhuman masters in planet-wide celebrations, at which point the charismatic tyrant proceeded to drag the world deeper and deeper into the abyss, until naught was left of its former self.
No sin was beyond the sons of Fulgrim, not even the ancient eugenic practices of the Old Night, which had created a thousand mutant bloodlines culled during the Great Crusade. By selective breeding and gene-splicing, families whose lineage had remained pure since the first diaspora of Humanity through the stars became monsters, hiding their inhuman aspects and hungers behind masks of stolen flesh. Billions of workers were transformed into little more than drones, their individuality stolen away by drugs and gene-twisting plagues, the Imperium only noticing what had happened when the recruiters of the Imperial Guard came to call only to find none of the tributes could learn to lift a lasgun. World after world was burning, purged by the loyalist Legions or obliterated outright by Exterminatus – and Horus' agents made sure that the stories of these events were suitably twisted to serve his needs, while the Imperium refused to let the truth spread.
In the sprawling, daemon-infested cities of the Third Legion, artisans whose minds were consumed by their obsession for their craft created items of unmatched beauty, presenting them to their patrons as gifts. These artefacts were then smuggled out of the Eye and to wealthy Imperial collectors, their souls soon succumbing to the cursed relics' corruption. In all these ways, despite their lack of unified leadership, the Emperor's Children were doing a great job at pulling the Imperium down into corruption, eroding its moral strength and deepening the distrust of its trillions-strong population into its God-Emperor-appointed masters.
Of Fulgrim himself there had been no sign since the Conclave. Horus knew that the Phoenician had withdrawn to his own hidden daemon world, abandoning his sons until his ever-changing whims demanded their service or worshipful attention once more. Had the Warmaster desired to, he could have found his brother – but there was no need. Like his Legion, Fulgrim had proven that he was a tool best left to his own designs : attempting to channel his capricious nature was an exercise in futility.
Despite Lorgar's withdrawal after Moriana's Declaration, the Word Bearers remained far more united than the Third Legion. The Dark Council had taken over, under the combined leadership of Erebus and Kor Phaeron. Through guile, cunning and blackmail, the Dark Apostle and the Master of the Faith had reclaimed their former prominent positions within the Seventeenth, and were now directing a campaign of underground warfare across the galaxy, calling upon instincts sharpened during the decades that had preceded the rebellion.
On the matter of the Proclamation, the Word Bearers were divided. Some recognized it as a strategic master-stroke, a way to turn the Traitor Legions' exile from a weakness into a strength. For while the exiled could make contact with their allies in the Imperium through sorcerous means, the Imperium could never hope to attack them in the Eye. But others believed Horus' lies to be heresy of the highest order. These fanatics believed that the Warmaster should have made the Primordial Truth obvious in his message, and re-ignite the flames of holy war in the name of Chaos. These warriors had not embraced the new War. Instead, they remained mired into the Legion Wars' mindset, guarding the Legion's daemon worlds and building weapons of apocalyptic power in preparation for what they believed to be an inevitable confrontation with the Horusians. In that regard, the remains of the Crimson Accords served them well, granting them access to the accumulated esoteric lore of the Thousand Sons.
A sizeable part of Horus' efforts within the Eye were dedicated to keeping track of these projects. Some, the Warmaster allowed to reach completion, seeing their potential if they could be captured – but most, he ordered to be subtly sabotaged in ways that cast the blame on the Apostles and Warpsmiths responsible. His spies also hunted for any clue as to the paths outside the Eye of Terror that the Word Bearers had secured, using them to send entire, Chapter-sized Hosts on holy quests.
The Ecclesiarchy bore the brunt of the Word Bearers' efforts outside the Eye. The Seventeenth Legion's hatred for the organization knew no bounds, and Kor Phaeron had sworn an oath upon the tattered remnants of his soul that he would see it disgraced and destroyed. Acknowledging that the mad cults they had employed as bolter fodder during the Heresy had little use in the new war – with the loyal Legions able and ready to crush any such pathetic insurrections – the Dark Council had adopted a different approach.
Instead of a horde of the Lost and the Damned, they focused on creating high-level agents, infused with Chaotic abilities, capable of acting as agents provocateur and assassins on par – and sometimes greater – those of the Assassin Temples. These agents were created within highly secretive cults, which operated on century-long time frames. Using indoctrination and brainwashing, their members were made fanatically loyal to a cause they more often than not knew nothing about. Buried deep within the Imperium, these organizations acted on orders they did not understand, and not even Horus – nor, the Warmaster suspected, his skulking brother's heirs – knew them all.
Yet for all the threat that the Seventeenth Legion might pose to his supremacy, it was the Alpha Legion that worried Horus the most. Since the Broken Conclave, he had not seen or heard from Alpharius – if it had truly been his brother who had been on Zu'lasa, and not one of his body doubles. In the final days of the rebellion, the allegiance of the Twentieth, never quite as certain as the Warmaster would have liked, had become even more muddied. On Ullanor, Alpharius had offered him a priceless trove of intelligence on Dorn's defenses of the Solar system, before departing, telling him without words that his Legion's strength had been spent in the effort to gather this data. Yet as the home system of Humanity had burned, there had been reports of warriors clad in the Hydra's colors, fighting across that great battlefield without paying heed to the commands of Horus' warlords. Most had fought on the side of the rebels … but not all.
The new format of the Long War played to the strengths of the Alpha Legion more than it did for any other Traitor Legion. The fanatic devotion of the Seventeenth made it more difficult for the Dark Apostles to play the subtle games required to turn the followers of the Throne without breaking their minds with the truth of Chaos or the use of their brainwashing cults, while the operatives of the Hydra were expert at twisting truth and lie alike to make pawns of others. As far as Horus could tell, the Twentieth was responsible for dozens of civil wars which had crippled supply lines to Imperial war zones and destabilized Sectors upon which the loyal Legions counted for recruitment – and these were only the ones that hadn't escaped his gaze.
He didn't know where the Alpha Legion's main base was located, if it even had one. He suspected that the number of outposts of the Twentieth outside the Eye surpassed even that of the Fourth Legion. It also seemed that the sons of Alpharius could move in and out of the Eye of Terror at will. Outside the Eye, their lack of obvious Chaotic markings allowed them to disguise themselves as warriors from loyal Legions with nothing more than a new coat of paint on their armors.
An army of master conspirators, scattered across the galaxy with little if any cohesive leadership, its loyalties questionable and its skills undeniable. Sometimes, Horus felt as if he ought to pity those in the Imperium who knew of the Hydra's threat. They truly were a nightmare enemy.
From his throne, Horus watched it all, listening to the whispers of countless daemons and the reports of his spy-masters and Sorcerers. In his mind's eye, he held an image of the galaxy, considering every angle of the Long War, seeing where and when best to act to shift things to his advantage. Even now, with the nine Traitor Legions working to drag the Imperium into darkness in their own ways, the empire they had all built together remained strong. His loyalist brothers worked tirelessly to keep it standing, to repair what the heretics and the xenos tore down.
He knew that it would take time before he could ever hope to overthrow the Imperium and claim the glory that was rightfully his. But it was fine. He could play the game. He could be patient.
In the end, all would kneel to him.
AN : this took entirely too long to write, and ended up being the longest chapter of this story so far. Still, I am quite happy with how it ended up. Having learned of each Traitor Legion's modus operandi in the Long War, which one do you think is the most dangerous to the Imperium ? And, more importantly, which one do you want to see more of in future chapters ?
With this, we have entered what may be called "Season 2" of Prince of the Eye. The Devil has more or less pacified Hell and his fallen legions, and now the plotting and intrigues to overthrow Heaven's rule can begin in earnest.
What did you think of this chapter ? What do you hope to see in the next ones ? Tell me in your reviews ! The future of this story is very much still to be defined, and I have learned with The Fifteenth Ascendant that all it takes is a single comment to radically change my plans.
Zahariel out.