Blood Tears of The Warmaster
Prologue - The End and the Death of the Future That Was
I was there. I was there the day Horus fell. And on that day, I fell with him.
Ullanor. A day that was supposed to be our great triumph.
We were heavily outnumbered but that was nothing new to an Astartes.
The Orks, the Green Skins, they were no match for us. Even with their superior numbers.
The Emperor Himself was there. I think somehow he sensed this was a turning point, a moment that would make or break his plans.
Warmaster.
I see it now, as my consciousness fades. A name. A title. A role.
It was supposed to be his. It was supposed to be Horus.
But something changed, something stopped it. A path blocked by an unforeseen rockslide, forcing us all to take another route. A rail line diverted onto another track.
Was it an accident? Or was there something, someone who… interfered with fate?
Whoever it was, the future is broken now. What should be will no longer be. Cannot be.
I am… Loken. Garviel Loken. Yes, that was it.
I am… or was… a Captain. Nothing special. Not a great commander like First Captain Ezekyle Abaddon, not even a member of Mournival like Tarik Torgaddon.
I am… dying, watching my blood spill forth into a crimson pool as my brothers rush to hold the onslaught of the blighted Green Skins.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. We weren't supposed to be like this.
It began like a wave of discomfort. We all felt it. Like a piece of our hearts, our souls, had been ripped away. That something important had been forever lost.
Then the news came across the vox, that Lupercal had been wounded, mortally injured.
We all -for want of a better word- we panicked.
Commanders across the field demanding updates, demanding to know Lupercals location so we could mobilize, move, get to him in some way, any way to be there, be by his side, to save him.
We were known as one of the most disciplined legions of the Imperium, our father Horus Lupercal was the Emperor's First and Favourite son.
But in that moment, we acted like terrified children.
By Astartes standards of course. We still performed far beyond any human standards. We held the lines, we fought forwards, we didn't give a single inch.
But our losses were far worse than they should have been. This was always going to be a blood battle. Our entire legion against the Ork horde, outnumbered 5 to 1. It was always going to come at a cost. But not at this cost.
I think we still win. I won't see it of course. I won't be here to see what happens afterwards.
A burning spear of gold is seen piercing through the sky like a bolt of lightning. I think I see it moving towards the Tower of Ullanor.
I think its almost time.
My only comfort is knowing that I will be with my father again soon.
I almost see him now, reaching out to me with his hand, his radiant smile welcoming me home.
What could kill a man, a demi-god, such as he?
No mere Ork could slay Horus. Not even the greatest of the Green Skin lineage had a fraction of his might.
Something must have happened. Someone… Something… interference…
Oh well. This isn't my story anymore.
This is then end.
No more Warmaster Horus.
No more Garviel Loken.
===I===
The Book of Sorrows
Conjectured Author – High Traitor Lorgar Aurelian
Grade Omega V Treason Artefact
Clearance Level Omega V Required
Possession outside of the Officio Immaterium is considered a Class 7 Offense under Section 5, Sub-Section 2 of the High Treasons and Heresies Agreement of M32.
===I===
I have penned many works in my time, yet let it be known that this book is to be my Magnum Opus.
I crafted the Lectio Divinitatus, that book which proclaimed my Father a God, the one still carried by squalid masses of their so-called Imperium Secundus.
I brought forth many works on the True Gods and their nature, still shared on more enlightened worlds near the Tear of the Warmaster.
Yet this shall be my finest creation, my Treatise on the Truth that Imperium Secundus seeks to hide.
If this truth was ever known, the very fabric of their fragile Bastion would be rent asunder.
Many worlds would declare for the True Gods and their peoples would flock to the Tear of the Warmaster to receive my instruction in our true patrons.
It does amuse me, that in the ancient Terran Languages of Old Earth, the word Tear as spelt in the old texts had a double meaning.
Despite the same spelling, it meant both an expression of sadness or other emotion, the tears of ones eyes, yet also when pronounced differently meant to rend or destroy, to tear apart.
Even now, many worlds call the Great Warp Rift in space that we of the True Gods call home both the Tear of the Warmaster, his rending of space, whilst others call it the Tear of the Warmaster, in homage to his eternal grief.
None the less, let this book stand alone amongst my works.
There is no need to know any previous writings, here will be the complete unvarnished Truth that will make even the loyal children of Imperium Secundus shudder at its honesty.
And so we begin, like any good creation myth. And much will be created during this tale.
In the beginning, there was the Gods. The Three that came forth together as mankind slept in its primordial cradle.
Nurgle, Lord of Decay. Khorne, Lord of Blood. Tzeentch, Lord of Change.
They spread their word forth into the galaxy, adopted as Gods on many worlds by many beings. Even on Earth, whilst they came under different names, their nature would be echoed for eons as War, Plague and Deceptions gave tribute to their beings.
The Aeldari, sometimes known as the Eldar, brought forth Slaanesh, the Lord of Excess, in their hedonistic pleasures. And so the Pantheon was made 4, for a time.
Then came forth my Father, the self-proclaimed Emperor of Mankind. He was the greatest psyker of our species, an immortal being beyond any normal man or woman, a Perpetual as some call them.
A being, like some others, whose very essence meant he was a Universal Constant, one to whom death was a mere inconvenience as they always returned one way or another. There were others with such a gift, but none held his pure Psychic Might.
My Father was a force to be reckoned with, one with who even the Eldar could not compete.
He stole from the 4 Great Powers, many secrets and powers, with which he shaped his Imperium.
Yet he did not praise the Gods for the gifts he wantonly took.
Instead he devised his 'Secular Imperium' and in his arrogance believed he could starve the Gods of their Energies.
He even devised a weapon he believed could kill the Gods within the very warp itself. He built himself a Golden Throne, from which he proclaimed he would destroy the Gods and set himself as humanity's sole ruler.
This angered the Gods, and their plots made ready for the coming of his progeny, those who would be his undoing.
My Father made for himself 20 sons, fashioned after himself to be as Demi-Gods amongst men, to lead his armies in War. They would be known as the Primarchs.
They would build for him the First Imperium, each commanding a Legion made of men enhanced by each Primarch's own genetic stock.
Of these 20, there are 2 of which are no longer spoken, their names and Legions erased from history.
They had no part to play in the Sorrow to come, so I shall not speak more of them. But the stories I could tell, especially of the 2nd. How the Sorrow would have been so different had the 2nd and 11th been with us.
And they would have been with us. The Warmaster would have seen to that.
Of the 18 whom lived to carry on the building of the First Imperium, the Great Crusade as it was known, none were more beloved and respected than Horus Lupercal.
Horus, reported First Found Son of the Emperor, though rumours from our kin of the 20th Legion would say otherwise…
He was hand picked by the Gods to be their Chosen Champion, destined to be the Sacrificial King, the one with which they would break the Emperor's Will.
But Fate never runs true, and his Destiny was taken from him by the vile interventions of Xenos.
Few know of the Cabal in this age. It is not a name spoken aloud by any whom remember it.
Their actions on that day, at Ullanor, changed Fate forever.
In their hubris they sought to change Destiny, to remove the Champion of Chaos from the board before his piece was even moved.
In the greatest of ironies however, by removing the Sacrificial King they forged for themselves a far more damning future.
The Gods do not sit idle when their plans are disrupted, and in the Chaos of the death of Horus Lupercal, the power of the Pantheon was only strengthened by this loss.
If it were ever known in Imperium Secundus, the hands that coiled around Horus' life-force and robbed him of his future, the riots that would spew forth would be glorious.
The High Lords would never be able to control the madness, the anger. Even Osiris would be unable to placate their demands for vengeance.
But I digress…
I am the Herald. The one who announces the coming of the one who shall forever shape humanity's future.
This was not the future the Gods had desired, but the Pantheon is stronger than could ever have been possible with the Sacrificial King.
And it all began at Ullanor…
Chapters:
Chapter 1 A New Master of War
Chapter 1.1 The Death of a Son - s/14324880/2/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 1.2 A Change of Plans - s/14324880/3/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 1.3 Horus of the Underworld - s/14324880/4/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 1.4 Dauntless Drinking - s/14324880/5/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 1.5 Hello John - s/14324880/6/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 1.6 Reset the Board - s/14324880/7/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 1.7 The Haunter becomes The Haunted - s/14324880/8/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 1.8 You Work For Us Now - s/14324880/9/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 2 The Errors of Nikaea
Chapter 2.1 Adoptive Sons - s/14324880/10/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 2.2 Magnus Unchained - s/14324880/11/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 2.3 Arraignment on Nikaea - s/14324880/12/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 2.4 The Discourse of Demi-Gods - s/14324880/13/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 2.5 The Stacked Deck - s/14324880/14/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 2.6 The Warmaster Challenges The Emperor - s/14324880/15/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 2.7 The Hound Disciplined - s/14324880/16/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 2.8 There Are No Psykers In The Alpha Legion - s/14324880/17/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 3 The Truth Unmasked
Chapter 3.1 I Was There The Day The Warmaster Destroyed The Imperial Palace - s/14324880/19/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 3.2 A Tale Of Two Mournivals - s/14324880/20/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 3.3 The Laughing Falcon Ensnared - s/14324880/21/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 3.4 Talk of Murder - s/14324880/22/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 3.5 Remember Whom We Serve - s/14324880/23/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 3.6 The Darkest Day - s/14324880/24/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 3.7 Angelic Dreams - s/14324880/25/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 3.8 The Missing Primarch - s/14324880/26/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 4 – The Death of Secrets
Chapter 4.1 Loyal to the Truth - s/14324880/27/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 4.2 Flight of the Night Haunter - s/14324880/28/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 4.3 The Nature of Gods - s/14324880/29/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 4.4 For His Own Good - s/14324880/30/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 4.5 Pest Control - s/14324880/31/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 4.6 War Plan Silver - s/14324880/32/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 4.7 Long Knives - s/14324880/33/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 4.8 Alone In The Dark - s/14324880/34/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 5 – Devising Division
Chapter 5.1 The Phoenician's Mirth - s/14324880/36/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 5.2 The Powers of the Four - s/14324880/37/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 5.3 A Snake Amongst The Wolves - s/14324880/38/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 5.4 Error 0000000111110100 - s/14324880/39/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 5.5 A Thousand To One - s/14324880/40/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 5.6 To The Ashes Return - s/14324880/41/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 5.7 Father - s/14324880/42/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 5.8 Do Not Make Our Mistakes Again - s/14324880/43/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 6 – The Dominos Fall
Chapter 6.1 The Praetorian's Dilemma - s/14324880/44/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 6.2 A Gorgon's Ire - s/14324880/45/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 6.3 The Cost of Sympathy - s/14324880/46/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 6.4 Heeding The Call - s/14324880/47/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 6.5 A Conspiracy Of Unkindness - s/14324880/48/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 6.6 Roboute's Imperium - s/14324880/49/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 6.7 The Rubric of Caliban - s/14324880/50/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 6.8 Webway Devoured - s/14324880/51/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 7 – The March On Terra
Chapter 7.1 An Old Crow Calls at Midnight - s/14324880/52/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 7.2 On Wings of Blood - s/14324880/53/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 7.3 Muster of the Warmaster - s/14324880/54/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 7.4 A Light In The Dark - s/14324880/55/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 7.5 The Rebels of Nikaea - s/14324880/56/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 7.6 The Pale King of Mars - s/14324880/57/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 7.7 Iron Terror - s/14324880/58/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 7.8 A Discordant Choir Of Angels - s/14324880/59/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 8 – End Of The Great Work
Chapter 8.1 No Quarter - s/14324880/60/Blood-Tears-of-the-Warmaster-An-Alternate-Warhammer-40k-Heresy
Chapter 8.2 The Crusade Vitae - Coming Soon
Chapter 8.3 Malcador The Hero - Coming Soon
Chapter 8.4 I Was There… - Coming Soon
Chapter 8.5 The Solar War - Coming Soon
Chapter 8.6 Horus Lives Once More - Coming Soon
Chapter 8.7 Sorrows Unending - Coming Soon
Chapter 8.8 We make for Ultramar - Coming Soon