The Roboutian Heresy

by Zahariel

Inspired by the great Dornian Heresy of Aurelius Rex, here is an alternate timeline to the Warhammer 40000 universe, where Guilliman turned traitor instead of Horus, and led half the Legions in rebellion against the Emperor. The Index Astartes are done for all Legions. Now, the Times of Ending have begun ... Also has a TV Tropes page now !

9. Index Astartes : Blood Angels

I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.

Inspired by the Dornian Heresy, by Aurelius Rex.

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Index Astartes – Blood Angels : Drinkers of Sensations and Souls

Before their fall, the Blood Angels were the noblest warriors of the Imperium, their Primarch an icon of purity and devotion in a galaxy where the darkness of the Long Night yet held sway. But they were deceived, and pay now forevermore the price of the purity they had sought to keep at all cost. Now, they are the most debased of all traitors, their souls consumed by an unholy thirst that binds them to the Dark God Slaanesh. Where once they were protectors, now they are predators, seeking to slake their desires by preying upon those they were sworn to defend. Twisted in body as well as in spirit, their beauty but a mask for the corruption beneath, they have slain entire worlds in orgies of blood-drinking, tearing open the veil between realities as the chosen scions of the Dark Prince. With their minds enslaved to the whims of the Youngest God, there is no perversion, no crime, no atrocity that will give them pause in their endless quest for blood.

Origins

Long before the Imperium learned the true threat of the Warp and the malevolent powers that dwell within that hellish realm, the corruption of Chaos was already reaching out to twist Humanity. The plague of mutation has befallen Mankind for millenia, and with the discovery of Warp-drive technology and the rise of the psykers, the opportunity for the Ruinous Powers to corrupt and taint grew greatly. But the blasphemy that is mutation can also be caused by more mundane causes, reflecting only the poor living conditions of the afflicted and not the corruption of their souls.

So it was on the world of Baal, in the days before the beginning of the Great Crusade. Baal had once been a cultured and prosperous world, with its two moons equally apt to supporting human life. But, millenia before the beginning of the Great Crusade, its people turned on each other in a terrible war, the cause of which has long been lost to the ages. Biological and nuclear weapons were employed, turning the main planet into a wasteland and devastating the moons' biosphere. The great cities of Baal were reduced to rubble, and its enlightened people to ragged bands of survivors. Due to the radioactivity and pollution caused by the war, mutation ran rampant amongst them, and after a few generations most of Baal was overrun by tribes of cannibalistic monsters. Only a few clans managed to keep themselves genetically pure, by taking refuge in the few sealed vaults that had survived the collapse or erring amidst the desolation in ragtag rad-suits. As years passed, the number of those human survivors dwindled, while the feral tribes of mutants grew in number, boldness and monstrosity.

It was on this world that Sanguinius, son of the Emperor, landed after the Dark Gods stole the children of the Master of Mankind. The story of Sanguinius' youth is written in old Baalite myth, and was compiled by the Inquisition's savant Hyriontericus Lucidio, in the years before his studies drove him mad and his Inquisitorial master had to kill him. His work, accessible only to the highest ranking Inquisitors, tells us a story of courage and greatness typical of the Primarchs, but an attentive reading will reveal that already, the signs of the character traits that would lead to the Angel's downfall were already present.

Although little more than a babe at the moment of his arrival, the young Primarch already bore the angelic wings that would so mark his existence. When a tribe of nomads found the little child amidst the radioactive sands, they thought him to be a mutant, and several claimed that they ought to slay the newborn at once. In the centuries to come, many would dearly wish they had done so, but such was the beauty of Sanguinius that their leader just couldn't bring himself to put him down. Taking the child with them, the tribe brought him to the nearest of the radiation-proof vault, begging its masters to take the child with them, safe from the dangers of the wasteland. Although the vault's lords were as fearful of Sanguinius' wings as the tribesmen had been, they too were swayed by the infant's glorious form, and welcomed him in their confined society.

Sanguinius grew up within this vault, reaching the size of a full-grown adult in only a few months, and continuing his growth far beyond that. During that time, he learned the fragmentary history of Baal, and the terrible fate that had befallen its people. The hatred of the mutant was ingrained within him by his teachers, but at the same time, he began to question his own nature. None around him thought of his wings as an alarming sign anymore, having been in his presence for years and having quickly succumbed to his otherworldly charisma. But the Primarch himself found his difference disquieting, and in the fragments of writings from these days that have survived the passing of time, it is obvious that he was worried his wings meant that he had more in common with the mutant hordes than with the human survivors.

This disquiet was tempered by the constant battles fought by the vault's defenders against the mutants that tried to fight their way inside, pressed forward by the promise of plunder and sheer, animal hatred for those who weren't twisted as they were. Sanguinius proved his might in these battles, his immense strength and keen tactical insight helping defend the vault from many a marauding horde. But it wasn't enough for the young Primarch to protect his adopted home : he wanted to purge the entire world of the mutant taint, to eradicate every trace of the corruption that so repulsed him. He studied the beasts' remains for weaknesses, and spent long hours over old maps of Baal, noting the emplacements of other vaults and mutant strongholds. Already a grand plan was forming in his transhuman mind. Baal was ruined, poisoned by its masters nearly unto death. But there was still a chance that it could be saved. Its slow fall into entropy could yet be stopped. However, it would require lore and technology far beyond Sanguinius' current reach.

The creature was ugly. Its skin was gray, and covered in cancerous growths. The lumps of several limbs that had never grown to full size emerged from its torso, and it looked upon Sanguinius with seven eyes wide in whatever emotion was currently occupying its diseased brain. With a snarl, Sanguinius brought down his weapon – little more than a lump of metal, but the only thing he had found so far that was correctly sized for him – and shattered its skull. As pieces of flesh were splattered on the floor and the rest of the horde stepped back, unwilling to cross the breach that had allowed their leader passage into the vault, Sanguinius wondered if he was looking at his fate. Would he end up like this one day, all reason gone from his mind, replaced by aimless hate ? Was the reason these mutants hesitated not because they feared him, but because they saw him as one of their own and were unable to understand why he stood against them ?

No. This was not him. This would never be him. He looked around, and saw the defenders of the vault finally reaching the breach, wearing sealed suits and wielding flamers. One of the saw him look in his direction, and nodded thankfully to the young angel. Relief flooded through Sanguinius as the soldiers took up position at his side, covering the mass of altered flesh with cones of purifying fire.

He was better than this wretched creature. His blood was pure, his wings sign of his greater destiny, not of some freak accident of genetics. After all, if he was truly a mutant, then why would the people of Baal love him as they did ? They knew mutantkind very well – they had fought them for generations. That they loved him and fought by his side was all the proof he needed that he was superior to the twisted freaks that sought to end all life different of their own in a desperate attempt to erase the source of their self-hatred.

As he reached his full-grown form, Sanguinius left the cocoon of the vault and led a crusade across all of Baal's surface. At the start, only a handful followed him, but soon tribes flocked to his banner, drawn by his vision of a planet free of the flesh-changed. With his power, Sanguinius reaped victory after victory against the barbaric hordes of mutants. His superior intellect allowed him to repair and use some of the old weapons of Baal, long fallen into disuse as the knowledge necessary to maintain them was lost. Rad-sealed tanks rode at the head of his armies as they cleansed Baal of mutant life in a succession of glorious battles on the desert plains. Decontamination chambers were restarted, and the ever-present fear of mutation receded. With some of the devices found in the forsaken vaults, Sanguinius' primitive tech-priests were capable of purifying regions of Baal that had been deadly to all life for generations.

Slowly at first, and then faster with every vault and tribe that joined him, Sanguinius' crusade reclaimed Baal. Clans that had been separated from all other human civilization and tribes that had survived for centuries in hidden caves were reunited. Finally, as the tenth year of the crusade neared its end, the armies of Baal crushed the last of the mutant hordes, Sanguinius slaying its grotesque leader himself. As the people of Baal rejoiced at their liberation, the skies were set ablaze, and from the heavens descended a thousand behemoths of steel. The Emperor had arrived to the world that his son had freed from darkness.

The Emperor had come to Baal accompanied by the Ninth Space Marine Legion, somehow knowing not just that one of His sons waited for Him there, but also which one. The Master of Mankind met His son in the middle of the battlefield, descending on the planet in a flash of teleportation. At once, Sanguinius knew that this being in golden armor was his father, and he knelt, before the Emperor told him to rise and embraced him. This was doubly a day of joy for Baal, as not only had it been freed of the mutant threat, it was also reunited with the rest of Mankind across the galaxy.

Baal's moons, wiped clean of life during the cataclysmic wars, were claimed by the Legion as fortresses and recruitment stations. With all the technology available to the Imperium, it was possible to cleanse Baal of the radiation. But the Angel refused that the planet be restored fully, believing that the harsh lifestyle of the desert would produce strong recruits for the Legion he was to command. The Emperor acceded to this demand, and the two superhuman beings returned to Terra, where Sanguinius would learn all he needed to know before he could take up his rightful mantle as master of the Ninth Legion.

The Great Crusade

Once his initiation was concluded, Sanguinius was given command of the Legion crafted in his image from his father's hands. All Legions were overjoyed when their Primarch was found, but none more so than the Blood Angels, for their gene-sire appeared to be the embodiment of every Imperial ideal : noble, powerful, merciful and compassionate on Mankind's plight. Sanguinius had seen a world return from the brink of oblivion, and he firmly believed that it was the Imperium's duty to share this salvation with as many worlds as possible. On the plains of Baal, at the very same location where he had defeated the last of the world's mutant warlords, Sanguinius made a grand proclamation to his whole Legion. The Three Hundred Companies knelt before their father, and renewed their oath to the Imperium and the ideals of the Great Crusade.

The Blood Angels illustrated themselves in the Great Crusade. Each of them was a warrior as much as a soldier, and their assault forces were amongst the best of the Imperium. Many xenos breed were brought to extinction by the Blood Angels' blades, and joint operations with other Legions showed that they had a friendly, if somewhat secretive attitude. Worlds ruled over by tyrants were liberated in a single strike, and when a planet was found that fitted the criteria for compliance and joining the Imperium, the Ninth Legion always made sure that the transition was effected with diplomacy rather than bloodshed.

At the same time, however, the Blood Angels displayed unprecedented dedication in the purge of these worlds where the human genome had been profaned by genetic tempering and alien corruption. During the Long Night, many cultures had taken to modify their genetic code in order to adapt to the hostile worlds on which they found themselves stranded, while others had integrated mutants as part of their society. The Legionaries of the Ninth broke the back of many such an empire, showing their people the error of their ways by charging directly into the stronghold of their altered rulers before displaying their bodies for all to see. If these kings and tyrants claimed that the changes they had made to the perfection of the human form had made them stronger, then why had them fallen to the blades of the Blood Angels ?

It made for a potent argument, as did the decapitated heads of the worlds' former masters. Entire population thus converted to the Imperial Truth, although these planets would always regard the Space Marines Legions with dread rather than respect. Other Legions saw these violent purges with slight worry, fearing that excess force would alienate the very people they were trying to protect. But Sanguinius assuaged their fears, telling his brothers that the purity of the human gene-code was sacred, and that if they started allowing for deviancy, soon the human race would shatter in a myriad mutated offshoots and would ultimately destroy itself. Not all were convinced, but without rebuke from the Emperor and compared to the exemplar record of the Ninth Legion in all other aspects, this bit of passion was allowed. Even when entire worlds were burned because their entire population had been 'enhanced' through gene-mods of dubious origin and efficacy, the Imperium turned a blind eye. Every Legion had been forced to take such drastic measures at some point, and though the Blood Angels did it more often, it was thought to be just a coincidence, the inevitable result of them facing gene-altered civilizations more often.

Sanguinius was beloved by all of his brothers, though some were jealous of his prestige among the human population of the Imperium. Fulgrim was one of those, and Lorgar, though not concerned with matters of appearances as was the Phoenician, worried that Sanguinius may unwillingly create a cult around his person. Others, such as Angron or Russ, didn't care for their brother's beauty one bit, but respected his prowess on the battlefield. Yet the closest Primarch to the Angel was Horus. Lupercal and Sanguinius fought together on many campaigns, and the bonds of brotherhood between their Legions seemed to be unbreakable. When Horus was chosen at Ullanor to be the Warmaster of the Imperium, Sanguinius supported his ascension, even though many thought he would have made just as good a Warmaster as Horus, if not better.

But unbeknownst to the Imperium at large, the seeds of ruin were already present within the Blood Angels. It was during the Great Crusade that Sanguinius first learned of the flaw within his Legion's genetic : a thirst for blood that would sometimes awaken in battle, and destroy the mind of the unfortunate Legionary entirely, leaving only a bloodthirsty animal in its wake, a beast that would attack enemies and allies alike in its fury. The Legion commanders had long known of it, and had kept it secret from even their allies in the Imperium. They feared that the Emperor would order the destruction of the Blood Angels if He was to learn of the genetic defect in what was otherwise a perfect instrument of war. The reason why the Blood Angels seemed to encounter more deviant human civilizations was because, since long before Sanguinius had been found, they had been seeking for a cure to the curse that afflicted their bloodline. Their Apothecaries plundered the secrets of these cultures before purging them, at least as much to hide the evidence of their deeds as to purify the human gene-pool. Sanguinius continued this practice, growing increasingly more desperate as decades passed and no sign of a cure was found, while more and more of his sons were lost to the Red Thirst each year. At the same times, dark dreams haunted Sanguinius' nights. The Primarch had always been gifted with a prophetic ability that had served him well in the wars of the Great Crusade, but now he saw only darkness ahead of him.

He was falling, falling down an infinite abyss, his wings broken and useless. All around him was nothing but blackness, a terrible sense of loss, and flashing images of horror and war.

He saw his sons lost to the Red Thirst, burning entire worlds in their wake, piling the skulls of the fallen and drinking the blood of their foes while roaring their hatred at skies filled with crimson clouds.

He saw Horus towering above him, Worldbreaker held aloft, and caught the expression of sorrow on his brother's face before he brought the weapon down.

He saw his sons die, one by one, not like warriors but like mad dogs put down by their masters, as entire Legions moved to crush them and stop their enraged rampage across the galaxy.

Something seized him, and turned him around in the darkness of the abyss so that he was facing it. It was a bloodstained angel, staring back at him with madness in its eyes and eternal agony etched onto its once regal features. Its face was gaunt, and fangs emerged from its mouth. Chains running through skulls were tightened around its flesh, the eye sockets flaring with red flames as they stared at him in wordless accusation.

'No more peace,' said the creature in a voice that was the screams of every Blood Angel that had ever lived or would ever live. 'No more light. No more angelic grace. Only blood and skulls and souls for you, brother.'

Sanguinius woke up screaming.

The Fall of the Angel

It was while Sanguinius despaired over the fate of his sons that Guilliman made his first move to bring his angelic brother to his side. The lord of Ultramar had already sold his soul to Chaos, and was now preparing for his rebellion against the Emperor. He knew, having been confirmed by prophecy what any tactician could have guessed, that should Horus and Sanguinius stand together in defense of the Master of Mankind, he would never triumph. Though he had already taken steps to adress the issue of the Warmaster, he still wanted Sanguinius to be on his side.

Guilliman knew that, unlike some of their brothers, Sanguinius would never turn against the Emperor out of personal gain or ambition. The Angel was too selfless for that, and a failed attempt would alarm the Emperor of Guilliman's designs, as well as sent Sanguinius straight after him – and Guilliman, for all of his power, was still wary of the Three Hundred Companies' might. So, he designed a plan that would either bring the Blood Angels to his side or see them destroyed entirely.

Roboute arranged for him and his brother to meet, far away from the Great Crusade's center of activities. There, he told Sanguinius that he knew of the Blood Angels' curse, and that he had learned of a potential cure. Though Sanguinius was shocked to learn that his Legion's greatest secret had been uncovered, he was even more eager to learn what his brother knew. According to Guilliman, his Legion had once crossed the path of a particular xenos breed, calling itself the Nephilims. These creatures had enslaved countless human worlds, and fed upon their people to sate their phsychic need for worship. However, they had also possessed great knowledge in the field of genetic alteration, and though Guilliman himself had remained distant from such secrets, he knew that they were still consigned to the world where the Thirteenth Legion had finally broken the back of the Nephilim course across the galaxy. If Sanguinius was willing, Roboute would give him this world's coordinates, that he may bring his Legion there and, with the knowledge of the Nephilim, save the Blood Angels from the doom that creeped in their genetic code.

So desperate was Sanguinius for a way to save his sons from the curse his blood had instillated within them that the Angel didn't doubt Guilliman's words for a moment. After thanking his brother, he sent a message to his forces dispersed across the galaxy, ordering them to come to him. Though many of his Captains were curious as to why they were commanded to abandon the Expeditionary Fleets to which they were attached, they did obeyed, and the Imperial commanders that found themselves without their transhuman allies suffered for it, but accepted that surely, Sanguinius must have some great and grave reason for such a muster.

Nonetheless, not all Blood Angels could be gathered. There were some who were too far to hear the astropathic call, or too deeply engaged in battle to withdraw, even at their own Primarch's command. Finally, when almost one hundred thousand Astartes in total had gathered around the Ninth Legion's flagship Red Tear, the fleet sailed toward the world indicated by Guilliman. It was a distant world, remote from the centers of Imperial powers. On the fringes of the Imperium, in the shadows that hid so much even in those last days of illumination, the Blood Angels would find the damnation that Guilliman had prepared for them.

They would find it on Signus Prime.

Azkaellon, Commander of the Sanguinary Guard

During the Great Crusade, Azkaellon was ever Sanguinius' shadow, leader of the order of guardians that ever sought to protect their Primarch's life. A powerful warrior and a respected leader, his position held no true authority, yet none dared gainsay his command. Prior to the Primarch's discovery, he had been acting as the Legion Master, and was the one responsible for the establishment of the Blood Guardians, the order of Apothecaries tasked with finding a cure for the Red Thirst.

Azkaellon was a shrew politician as much as he was a great warrior, and he spent most of the Great Crusade acting from the shadows to protect the Legion's reputation from being tainted by word of the Red Thirst leaving it or by any association with unsavory characters. On the world of Miridias, it was him who detonated the air recycling engines of the City of Triumphs, causing billions to choke to their death and sparing the Blood Angels a grueling campaign of siege while Sanguinius believed it to have been a last, spiteful gesture by the enemy commanders. He is also believed to have been responsible for the death of several Space Marines from other Legions who, during joint operations, discovered the secret of the Ninth.

Of all the Blood Angels, the Sanguinary Guards were always those the more loyal to their Primarch, placing his protection above all other concerns. And of them, Azkaellon was the most loyal of all. The choices he made and the actions he took, during the Great Crusade, the Heresy, and its aftermath, must all be seen through the filter of that loyalty if his actions are to make any sense.

The events of Signus Prime are not well known to the Imperium. Interrogations of captured Blood Angels who were present, visions from bound psykers and the dangerous research of several Radical Inquisitors, willing to risk their souls by summoning and questionning the Neverborn, has still allowed us to know the grand lines of what occurred on that accursed world. What we know is that as soon as the Blood Angels emerged into the Signus system, they knew something had gone amiss. Where there was supposed to be a populated system, with developped in-system space traffic, there was only the yawning expanse of the void, and planets entirely devoid of life. The Blood Angels believed that the region had been attacked, and sought to investigate. Scouts were dispatched on the planets, only to be met with madness incarnate, as daemons incarnated themselves inside the very rock of the worlds and hunted them down. Finally, as the ships were beginning to close in on Signus Prime, a signal was detected. It was a call for help, and it emanated from what, according to the Ultramarines' maps, should have been the planet's capital, a city of millions.

At Sanguinius' command, the Blood Angels made planetfall. Tens of thousands of Legionaries descended upon Signus Prime, a tide of red ceramite that spread as far as the eye could see. They advanced on the source of the signal in perfect discipline, despite the doubts caused by the transformed environment through which they advanced. Clearly some horrible fate had befallen Signus Prime's population, for their desecrated remnants were exposed all around the marching Blood Angels like the word of an army of macabre and deranged artists. Skins had been stretched to form repulsive banners, organs had been linked together by blood vessels used like string to create a grotesque display of the human body. Yet during all their walk, the Blood Angels did not see a single bone. The reason for this became obvious when they reached the origin of the distress call – which had suspiciously gone silent the moment they had set foot on the planet. Ignoring the warnings of his Librarians, who could sense that something was horribly wrong with the world and advised they leave it immediately and burn it from orbit, Sanguinius commanded them to continue, determined to learn of what had happened to this world, and to claim the secrets of the Nephilim if it remained possible.

In the center of what had once been the planetary capital stood a giant building constructed entirely out of human bones. Its shape echoed those of the cathedrals that once housed the worship of the followers of Old Earth's false faiths, but while these were places of quiet meditation and contemplation, here was a monument to excess and twisted aesthetics. The remains of the dead had been arranged in suggestive and blasphemous poses, their skinless skulls somehow carrying over both agony and ecstasy at the same time.

The aspect of the cathedral gave even the fearless warriors of the Ninth Legion pause. Before Sanguinius could give any orders to his men, the ground around them exploded, and thousands of horrifying creatures that had so far been invisible to even the most sensitive equipment fell upon the Legionaries. Horned creatures with red skin, carrying swords of smoldering bronze that tore through ceramite like paper and took almost no damage from bolts, attacked the surprised Space Marines with unprecedented fury. Dozens of Librarians died in blasts of psychic fire, their bodies torn apart as the more powerful spawns of the Warp used them as gateways to the physical realm. Quickly, the Blood Angels assumed defensive positions, while Sanguinius and his inner circle struggled to reach the inside of the cathedral. They had clearly fallen into a trap, but the Primarch could sense that the origin of the creatures was within the building.

Within, they found many more horrorific sculptures of bone, and, at the center – where a priest would have adressed his flock had this been a true church and not a den of abomination – was a column of crimson fire rising from a deep pit. Even as the Blood Angels looked upon it, the fire was growing stronger, and Sanguinius felt that this was no normal fire but a psychic phenomenom, linked to the souls of his sons fighting outside. Before that pit was a creature that, in later years, would come to be known to the Imperium as a Keeper of Secrets. Before the Blood Angels could attack it, it introduced itself as Kyriss, daughter of the Youngest God, Drinker of the Soul-Broken's tears and emissary to the Blood Angels. It claimed to have orchestrated the whole situation in the Signus system, binding its barbarian kindred outside to its will. Ordering his sons to hold their rage, Sanguinius commanded Kyriss to explain its motives, or it would be destroyed. That was when the Keeper of Secrets made its offer to the Primarch of the Blood Angels. It spoke of the Emperor's lies, of how the galaxy was no godless place. It told Sanguinius of the Primordial Truth and the great powers that lurk within the Warp, of how they had always watched him and his brothers. It spoke of a great war that would soon shake the galaxy, and that if he did not accept the offer of these powers, he and his whole Legion would be destroyed by it, broken upon the anvil of judgment and cast across the stars to slowly die out. And then, it said that if Sanguinius was but willing to give himself over to its master, all of this would be avoided. The curse that even now was driving his sons to greater and greater rage would be purged from them. The darkness within the Primarch's soul would be banished, and the chains placed upon him by both his father and the God of War would be forever shattered.

Sanguinius looked through the openings in the cathedral's walls, and saw that his sons were losing themselves to the rage burning within their gene-code. The battle against the incarnations of rage was awakening the flaw within them, and though victory would soon be theirs, the Primarch knew that once the last of the Neverborn had fallen, his sons would turn against each other – and then his Legion would truly be lost. Though he felt anger at being so cornered, he also knew that what he was seeing outside would have happened anyway – the Neverborn were simply making it happen sooner, forcing him to look directly at the consequences of his inability to save his sons from the Rage. And so, despite the inevitable price such a deal would have, he accepted Kyriss' offer.

As the Angel and his commanders faced the greater daemon, one alone dared to speak against the madness that was taking place. An Apothecary, present only because of the random chances of the conflict taking place outside the cathedral of bones. He called for his father to stop, to deny the monster its wish. The Blood Angels were strong, he argued. They could bear the weight of the curse, and through its rigors they would only become stronger. More than that, the creature couldn't be trusted, and the Angel was too important to the galaxy's future to give himself up like this. But his words, for all their wisdom, went unheeded. Raldoron, First Captain of the Ninth Legion, moved to dispose of this interloper, this lowly Apothecary who dared to think he knew better than the lords of the Legion. He underestimated the determination of the one pure soul in the room, however, and was shot just as he reached the Apothecary.

'No !' screamed Sanguinius.

But it was too late. Already the other Legionaries present had opened fire, and the Apothecary was torn apart in a volley of bolt shells. For a few seconds, his body remained standing upright, and then he fell into the glowing pit, leaving the maimed corpse of First Captain Raldoron behind. In the instant before the fall, Sanguinius saw the name etched on the warrior's shoulder plate : Meros. Then, the pit began to glow with crimson light, and a great flame rose from it, spreading ever outward until it reached Sanguinius and the Blood Angels …

Before it touched them, however, something suddenly snapped into place in the cosmos, and the ragefire that had accumulated at the bottom of the pit was violently expelled up in a raging torrent of infernal rage. Sanguinius felt something being drained from his essence, vanishing into the skies and replaced by a gaping void in his very soul. He suddenly felt free, as if a great burden had been removed from his shoulders. Despite the circumstances, he couldn't help a smile among the tears that ran down his cheeks. It had worked, even if it had cost the lives of two of his sons. He could feel it. His sons were free from the curse of the Black Rage. No more would the Blood Angels lose themselves in berzerk madness, and he would gladly pay any price that would be demanded of him in return.

The sacrifice of two Blood Angels, one faithful to his Primarch, the other ready to stand against him in order to steer him away from treacherous paths, sealed the deal between Sanguinius and the Ruinous Powers. The fury burning in the hearts of the Blood Angels in the system was expurged from their souls, and the battle that had threatened to make the Legion destroy itself ceased as thousands of Space Marines stopped mid-motion, sudden realization at what they were doing hitting them like a bolt to the face. The Ninth Legion had survived Guilliman's trap. They had found what they had been looking for, though none of them yet knew the terrible price they would have to pay for it.

So it was that Sanguinius first sold his soul to the Dark God known as Slaanesh, the Prince of Excess, Lord of Profligacy and Doom of the Eldar. It is said by those few who dare try to divine the plans of the Chaos Gods that initially, Sanguinius and his sons had been marked by Khorne, and should have joined the ranks of the Blood God's followers. Certainly, this theory makes sense in insight, with the full knowledge of the genetic curse that afflicted the Ninth Legion before the events of Signus Prime. Magi of the Thousand Sons speak of how the Dark Prince stole the soul of Sanguinius from Khorne, causing the God of War to roar with such fury that the entire system of Signus Prime was destroyed. To this day, a very localized Warp Storm remains on Signus Prime, radiating the anger of a god wronged by his kin.

The Heresy

Soon after the events of Signus Prime, Sanguinius noticed that his sons were growing restless. Azkaellon tried to conceal it to the eyes of the Primarch, but the Angel knew his sons, and he could see that despite the fact that the rage had been removed from their souls, they were still tormented by some dark need. They thirsted, and no amount of water or wine could sate the burning of their throat, the agony that spread through their bodies. There were no physical symptom to this affliction, and the warriors of the Ninth were strong enough of mind that they were capable of enduring it. But as soon as he learned of it, Sanguinius knew, deep within himself, that he had been lied to. Betrayed. But by the powers with which he had dealt, or by the one who had led him to their arms ?

Seeking answers, Sanguinius answered an invitation of Guilliman. With the full force that had followed him to Signus Prime and had been purged, the Angel went to the system whose name would echo forevermore in Imperial history : Isstvan. Perhaps Sanguinius sought to punish his brother for his lies, or perhaps he wanted an explanation. Their fleets met on the way to Isstvan, and faced each other tensely. Several hundred ships arranged themselves in perfect battle formation as two Legions looked possible destruction in the eye while their Primarchs conferred.

'Look,' said Guilliman, gesturing toward a corner of the room.

A Space Marine entered. No, Sanguinius corrected himself. This was not a Space Marine, though it had the same bulk. Fire wreathed it like a shroud, and a fanged skull was placed where its head should be. The crackling of the flames was like the distant echoes of screams, the sound of which were hauntingly familiar. To the Angel's preternatural senses, the creature radiated fury and hatred, and it shocked him that he had not noticed its presence until now. At the edge of his sight, he noticed runic patterns on the floor from where it had emerged. Had Guilliman learned the secrets that, so far, had been the province of only the Cyclops and his sons ?

'What is this about, Roboute ?'

'Look, brother,' Guilliman insisted. 'Do you not recognize it ?'

'Should I ? This is a creature of the Warp, a spawn of the Empyrean. I …'

'I am hurt, father.'

Sanguinius froze. Warped though it was, he knew that voice, though it was impossible for its owner to be there. Then he saw it : the emblem of the droplet of blood and wings, engraved upon the creature's shoulder. And beneath it, a name : Meros.

'You are dead,' he whispered, the implications of what he was looking at freezing him in place. 'I saw you die, my son.'

The flames around the daemon burned brighter, and its voice was filled with rage and smoldering contempt when it spoke again.

'Meros is dead, cowardly angel. He sacrificed his life to turn you away from the wretched path you and your sons have chosen to embrace. You denied the glory of the Blood God, Sanguinius. Heed my words : the day will come when you and your sons will rue this fool's choice. Your Legion will suffer and burn, and your skulls will …'

Roboute spoke a single word, in a language that Sanguinius didn't recognize but yet understood perfectly. At his command, the beast went silent mid-sentence. The Primarch of the Ultramarines turned to his brother again :

'This is the reason I sent you to Signus Prime despite the risks, Sanguinius. I knew this would be your Legion's future if I did not. Whatever consequences there has been to freeing your sons from this … madness, surely they were worth it ? I will help you deal with them, I promise. But our father … if he should ever learn of what you had no choice but to do …'

The exact contents of that exchange are not known to the Imperium, but it is clear that Guilliman appeased his brother's fury somehow. He told Sanguinius of his coming rebellion, of the allies he had gathered already and of the reasons behind it. He claimed that the Emperor would destroy the Blood Angels, for in His hypocrisy the Master of Mankind would not allow anyone other than Him to be perfect. Only by standing with Guilliman and helping him throw down the tyrant that claimed to rule all of Mankind could the Ninth Legion hope to survive. The affliction that had seized the Blood Angels could be solved, if not cured entirely. But the Master of Mankind would never accept the necessary sacrifices that would have to be made in order for the glorious Ninth Legion to continue its work as the peerless champions of humanity they had proven to be, time and again. The Arch-Traitor reminded his brothers of the secrets of the Legions, breaking the oath he and all Primarchs had sworn never to speak of these dark matters again. Finally, Sanguinius caved in. Faced with the destruction of his Legion, he believed that he had to harden his heart, and do what was best both for the Blood Angels and all of the Imperium. And so it was that the Angel sold his soul to Chaos for the second time.

This time, the price would be the lives of those of his sons who hadn't been with him at Signus Prime. Four Legions gathered at Isstvan as part of the Arch-Traitor's plan's first phase : the Ultramarines, the Imperial Fists, the Iron Hands, and the Blood Angels. These few Companies that had been unable to answer their Primarch's call had not received the 'blessing' that had purged the rest of the Legion from their rage, and Guilliman convinced his brother that they couldn't be trusted with doing what had to be done for the Imperium's future. So it was that Sanguinius called once more for his sons, who had done all they could to be able to answer their father's next call. They rushed to his side, eager to be reunited with their Primarch and to learn for what reason the entire Legion had been summoned. Before they could even meet Sanguinius, however, the orders came for their next campaign. They were sent to Isstvan III, a world that had rebelled against the Imperium and needed to be put to the sword in order for the rest of the galaxy to understand that none could defy the will of the Legiones Astartes.

It is not known whether Sanguinius refused to face the sons he sent to die out of shame, or because he feared they would sense the change within him. All that is known is that the martyred Blood Angels descended upon Isstvan III with all the fury that their brethren had lost, and fought nobly against the agents of the rebellion who had instigated the planet's turning from the Imperium. When death came from the sky as their own brothers revealed their treachery, many of the Blood Angels were unable to believe what was happening to them. Only because of the leadership of one of the Legion's greatest commanders, Amit of the Fifth Company, were hundreds of them able to take shelter in time to survive the viral bombing and the deluge of fire that followed it.

In the aftermath of the bombardment, when the Imperial Fists were sent by Dorn to finish the survivors, the Blood Angels fought alongside those few others who had also survived the initial betrayal. A few lost themselves to the Black Rage in this bleakest of battles, but legends tell that none of those who succumbed to the madness within their blood turned against their allies, instead rushing toward the enemy and meeting honorable deaths to the last.

Although Sanguinius himself never set foot on Isstvan III, Azkaellon decided to send some of his brothers Captains and their forces on the ground, to help their new allies in rebellion and cement the Legion's position in this new age. These Companies took heavy losses while facing their erstwhile brethren, for without the righteous fury that had once granted them strength, they were diminished and, while still formidable warriors, were hard-pressed to match the desperate rage and untainted brotherhood of the loyalists. Beyond that, the sensation of thirst that held them had only increased as they led their brothers to their doom, and it was beginning to drive some of them insane, slowly dropping into catatonia as they became unable to bear it any longer.

Guilliman saw what was happening to his brother's Legion, and decided to take measures to prevent the Blood Angels from destruction. After all, he still needed the help of the Ninth Legion in order to overthrow his father's rule. While his brother remained secluded in his chambers, Guilliman contacted those who led the Legion in his absence, and revealed to them how to slake the thirst that consumed them.

It was on Isstvan V that the Blood Angels would finally reveal to their allies what had become of them. At the end of the Massacre, with tens of thousands of Legionaries lying dead or dying and victory secured by the traitors, the noble sons of Baal could not hold their thirst any longer. They fell upon the corpses of the dead, enemies and allies alike, and gorged themselves on their blood in a ravenous orgy. Such was the curse that had replaced the Black Rage : an eternal thirst that could only be sated through the act of drinking the blood of another sapient creature.

The other Traitor Legions were disgusted by the spectacle, but none moreso than Sanguinius himself. As he saw what had become of his sons, despair overwhelmed him, and his mind, already weakened by the thirst he suffered himself, broke. For the rest of the Heresy, the Angel remained in his quarters, slipping deeper and deeper into insanity, trapped in an imaginary world where his sons were still the noble champions they had been before he sold their souls to Chaos in return for a false salvation. Azkaellon and the rest of the Sanguinary Guard worked hard to conceal their father's state from the rest of the Legion and their allies in rebellion. They claimed that the Primarch had been wounded in the battle of Isstvan and was recovering, sending heralds in his place to the war councils of Guilliman's cohorts.

The Flesh Tearer roared his hatred at the skies as he slew another of the plague-wrecked creatures that infested the ruins of Isstvan. A red haze had descended upon him in the wake of the death of his brothers – the last of his brothers, now that those whom he had once called such had turned upon him. The self-control and discipline he had so hardly learned at the side of the World Eaters, and which had served him so well in the nightmarish battles that had followed the initial bombardment, had vanished altogether when he had woken up, alone and alive, atop his brothers' corpses. Pain, not merely physical, but lodged deep within his soul, was driving him on, forcing him to keep moving, to keep destroying those who served the dark powers that had brought him so low. His every awake moment was filled with the echoes of the dead, and his dreams, when he succumbed to exhaustion when he stood, were naught but fire and ruin.

A sound dragged his attention away from the slaughter of his latest victim. He knew that sound, but it seemed impossible that it be there. Ceramite boots, crushing the rubble of what had once been a beautiful city underfoot. He turned to face the newcomer, and hatred soared within his veins when he saw that it was another Astartes, like those who had betrayed him and killed all of his brothers.

'Who are you ?!' he bellowed. Part of him was screaming at him, telling him to attack, to rend this warrior limb from limb. No one remained on this blasted world that deserved to him, let alone the Flesh Tearer himself. But he held his hand. He didn't recognize the dull gray color of the stranger's armor, nor the sigil on his shoulder, although he felt he should. The weight on his thoughts was obstructing his memory, pressing on his mind and demanding retribution for all that had been done – to him and, more importantly, to his brothers.

'Nassir Amit, known as the Flesh Tearer, once of the Blood Angels,' said a voice that was at once full of strength and yet not without warmth. 'My name is Alexis Pollux, and I am here at the behest of Malcador the Sigillite. I have come for you, brother.'

And with these words, the Flesh Tearer remembered who his was, and what he had been.

Without the Primarch to lead them, the Blood Angels soon fell to the Thirst. Now that they knew how it could be sated, and the pleasure they experienced from doing so, any second spent enduring it was intolerable. While the Iron Hands and Ultramarines advanced on Terra, the Blood Angels attacked hive-world after hive-world, feasting upon their population and filling their ships' holds with slaves for later consumption. Those of the Blood Angels with psychic abilities learned how to channel the unholy energies that coursed through them during the act of blood drinking, and became capable of rending the veil of reality apart to summon the Neverborn servants of Ruin. Corrupt Chaplains of the Ultramarines taught those of the Ninth Legion of the Dark God Slaanesh, and worship spread across the Blood Angels – a way to rationalize the atrocities they committed by making them a divine duty and not decadent indulgence of their flesh's weakness. So it was that the Blood Angels made the transition from Astartes to Chaos Marines, while their Primarch refused to face the gravity of his errors.

The Rise of the Daemon

'And the scions of decadence and perversion, who had once been the proudest and noblest servants of the God-Emperor, came to join in the final battle. But they did not bring their blades to bear at the walls of the Palace : instead, consumed by madness and evil, they turned upon the people of Holy Terra, and the Lord of War wept in horror as they fed upon those who could not defend themselves.'

Excerpt from The Canticle of the Dead

At long last, after years of bloody battle across the galaxy, the war came to Terra. The Throneworld hadn't been untouched since the Heresy had been declared : traitors had attempted to bring it down from within, and spies and assassins had fought a terrible conflict in the shadows while Perturabo raised his mighty walls. Nonetheless, this would be the first time since the proclamation of Unity that open warfare was brought to Terra.

All of the Traitor Legions were represented at the Siege, though few were there in full strength. The Space Wolves and the White Scars had scattered across the galaxy, to do as they wished in the wake of their respective Primarchs' disappearance. Still, the forces at Guilliman's command outnumbered the loyalists greatly. But numbers wouldn't carry the battle for the fate of all Mankind. Demigods fought on the walls of the Imperial Palace, and it would be their presence, as much as the valor of their sons, that would determine which side would emerge victorious.

With the two fleets waging war in orbit, the Traitor Legions and their allies came down on Terra in a rain of steel and sorcerous lightning. Each force had received precise orders, and was part of a carefully wrought plan conceived by Guilliman and Dorn together. When Perturabo studied the original designs of the Arch-Traitor after the end of the Siege, the Lord of Iron admitted that the battle would most likely have turned against the loyalists had things occurred according to it. But it did not, for Guilliman, despite all the dark knowledge granted to him by the Chaos Gods, had forgotten the true nature of all those who had gathered under his banner. He had forgotten that followers of Chaos are much like the gods that own them : selfish creatures, who will always put their own agenda over any common cause.

When the Blood Angels arrived on Terra, without their Primarch to lead them – for even now Sanguinius remained in his quarters, having only deigned show himself for the final war council – they did not follow their orders. Instead of converging on the Imperial Palace, they turned on Terra's people, their martial pride entirely consumed by the Thirst. The billions of innocents that Perturabo had coldly chosen to leave defenseless became the playthings of the corrupt Legionaries, and blood flowed as they drank from all who crossed their path. The rage of the Blood Angels' allies at this betrayal was great, and to this day many Chaos Marines still carry grudges against the Ninth from the Siege, remembering the brothers they lost in fights where the Blood Angels were supposed to support them.

But while the Blood Angels did not follow Guilliman's orders, their actions weren't entirely useless to the traitors. Beyond the damage done to enemy morale, daemons began to manifest from the planet-wide orgy of reckless sensations. Entire hosts of the Prince of Excess incarnated on Terra, and though most Neverborn joined the Blood Angels in their debauch, thousands attacked Imperial positions, driven by unknowable urges and pacts. In the Terra Apocrypha, a Keeper of Secrets called Kyriss is mentioned as one of the Daemon Lords who led such an assault on the Psykana Arcana, feasting on the souls of over three thousand psykers before it was destroyed by a group of Thousand Sons.

The slaughter of innocents also had another consequence. Horus Lupercal, who so far had been leading the battle from within the Palace's walls, saw the depredations of his brother's Legion through a thousand pic-feeds. While Perturabo had enough self-control to ignore the atrocities taking place outside, the Warmaster was not so calm. Enraged, he left the command center to the Iron Lord and went straight for the ramparts. There, he began to slay traitors by the dozens, using his warhammer Worldbreaker and the legendary Talon of Horus. All the while, he roared for his brother to come and face him, so that he may answer for his Legion's crimes.

Aboard the Red Tear, Sanguinius heard his brother's call. Where all else had failed, Horus' voice pierced through the fog that had claimed his mind, and the Angel came to Terra to face the one who had loved him most. With only his Sanguinary Guad at his side, Sanguinius met Horus at the Eternity Gate, and the two Primarchs were locked in mortal combat. Today, frescoes on this very emplacement depict the epic duel that was fought between the fallen Angel and the Warmaster.

It had been believed, first in jest during the Great Crusade and then with all too much seriousness, that Horus and Sanguinius were each other's match when it came to single battle, as the greatest of the Primarchs. Angron was another contender for that title, but the lord of the World Eaters was not on Terra yet, and so only Horus could face the Angel. Yet as the duel raged on, it became obvious to all observers that Sanguinius had grown weaker since he had turned his back on the Emperor's light. His moves, while still far quicker than any Legionary's, were slow and hesitant compared to the deadly grace he had once displayed. His face, once so noble and proud, was transfixed in an expression of mute agony. After several minutes of conflict, Horus finally brought his brother down, shattering his sword to pieces with a mighty strike of Worldbreaker. Before he could deal the final blow, however, the Warmaster saw the face of his brother – looking up at him in despair and horror. For a fraction of a second, he remembered Sanguinius as he had been, and the memory stayed his hand – a fatal mistake. In that moment where destiny stood still on a blade's edge, the Lord of Angels sold his soul for the third and final time.

A terrible voice sounded in Sanguinius' skull as the haze receded and the true horror of what he had done was revealed to him at last. It was loud enough to drown the screams of his conscience, to blind him to the image of his brother standing above him, warhammer stopped mid-motion, a look of utter surprise and faint, disbelieving hope on his face. It came from all around him, and from within as well. It was beautiful and horrifying at once. Its promises were the quintessence of truth and the greatest of all lies.

I will end it all.

I will give you back everything you want.

I will make all of your dreams true …

You just have to do this little thing for me first …

Something broke within Sanguinius. He couldn't bear it anymore. He had thought that he was strong once; that he could face the truth and carry on. He had been wrong. He was weak. He had fallen, and now all that remained was to fall even further down. The Thirst was too strong, the horror too great. He wanted it to end, but he knew, without knowing how, that death would not release him. There was only one way for him to be free …

He turned his back on the truth, and embraced the lie.

The Angel screamed his last as the Daemon's fangs tore through his brother's throat. Blood flowed down his throat, rich and potent, loaded with the untold promises of a better future, of all the potential that died in that single moment. Future glories burned as the life of Horus Lupercal was drained by the monster that had once been his brother. Images flared in Sanguinius' mind, and he saw his brother's life pass behind his eyes. Such nobility. Such pride, too. Most of all … such love. Horus had loved him, before all had started to fall apart.

The Daemon screamed as his wings started to change. Their white feathers became purple, and he felt his very core being altered as the stolen life of his brother spread through him, giving him strength. He could feel, all around him, the souls of the millions of mortals his sons were killing to slake the Thirst that could never be sated. They passed through him, consumed to fuel his transformation. He was no longer mortal, as much as a Primarch could be. He was more now, and less at the same time. He had become a principle of being, a creature of thought over matter.

His perceptions began to blur as new planes of existence, which he had only glimpsed before, were fully revealed to him. For one glorious moment, he saw everything as gods did, and the sight exalted and horrified him in equal measure …

And then a veil fell upon him, as the Dark Prince kept his word. The truth vanished from his sight, and the lie he had so dearly clung to enveloped him like a mortuary shroud. Madness descended, and it would never leave him again.

Horus' death nearly broke his Legion apart. Thousands of Legionaries screamed in rage, sorrow and denial, and Abaddon, First Captain of the Sixteenth Legion, gave the order to charge, to reclaim their father's body and destroy the monster that had killed him. He was held back, both by his brothers of the Mournival and the unwavering command of Perturabo. With hatred burning in their souls, the Sons of Horus held their positions. But even so, they were faltering, doubt and dread filling their hearts in the aftermath of their Primarch's demise. Sanguinius had remained on the front-lines, laughing madly as he alterned between tenderly cradling his brother's corpse and butchering any loyal Space Marine that crossed his field of vision. Worse, the Blood Angels had felt their Primarch's ascension to daemonhood, and rushed to the walls of the Imperial Palace in a disorganized horde, eager to taste the blood of their cousins and experience even a shadow of what Sanguinius had.

And then, just as all hope seemed to be lost, the forces of the Third and Eighth Legions arrived. Like vengeful angels, the Night Lords fell upon their debased kin, striking the Blood Angels in the back as they advanced on the Imperial Palace. Given fresh courage by their allies' arrival, the four greatest Sons of Horus, the legendary Mournival, struck out at the one who had slain their father and liege. Together, they ripped out Sanguinius' black heart and shattered the remnants of his mortal frame, casting his essence into the Sea of Souls, moments before being forced back anew by the other Traitor Legions, who sought to defeat these champions while they were still weakened from the titanic battle they had just fought.

With Sanguinius' destruction, the Blood Angels fell, struck by horrible agony as they shared their Primarch's experience through the bond they all shared with him. The Ninth Legion was on its knees, and the loyalists took full advantage of it, slaying thousands of the Slaaneshi traitors in mere hours. When Guilliman fell, the Blood Angels were among the quickest to flee, and many Chaos Marines have raised the hypothesis that this is because they were already running before the Arch-Traitor's death. Nevertheless, by the time the Traitor Legions were on the run, Terra was a smoking wasteland, filled with the scent of blood and the cries of the dying. To the loyal Legionaries that walked its surface, the Siege of Terra definitely did not feel like a victory. The fact that, before fleeing, the Blood Angels had been able to steal away Horus Lupercal's corpse only compounded that feeling in the Sons of Horus' minds.

The Echoes of Blood

Even ten thousand years after the Siege, the trauma inflicted by the Ninth Legion to the Throneworld remains. Despite the many exorcisms performed by the most powerful psykers and most devout priests of the Imperium, the people of Terra still have nightmares of that terrible event. Most of those who suffer from them forget them as they wake up, the physical nearness of the God-Emperor enough to shelter their souls from the darkness. But there are those who remember their nightmares, and are slowly driven insane by the horrific visions, as Slaanesh's touch slowly spreads into their heart.

Several hundreds Inquisitors of the Ordo Vigilus are permanently stationed on Terra, searching for those unfortunate souls and taking them off-world for execution (as, per a rule that is due to religious symbolism as much as to esoteric precaution, shedding blood on Terra is forbidden). Even those who remain pure in front of the dark dreams are afflicted with an instinctive distrust of all Legionaries, for they remember in their very soul what the Blood Angels did to their ancestors.

The Echoes are especially strong on the ground where Sanguinius slew Horus. A cathedral to the Emperor was built on the very spot, filled with homages to the First Warmaster, and the prayers to his memory haven't stopped once in ten thousand years. Despite this, any soul sensitive enough can feel the darkness beneath the church's floor. Pilgrims believe that Horus's shadow yet protects the Imperium, and the Ecclesiarchy encourages this belief, claiming that this is the reason why Sanguinius remains in the Eye, never leaving it in ten millenia. For all that the Inquisition knows, this may very well be true, and as the Echoes of Blood grow stronger and the forty-first millenium reaches its end, even the most pragmatic logician finds himself praying for the help of the First Primarch.

The Post-Heresy

'Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew,
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded, though immortal.'

Extract from the Terra Apocrypha

With Guilliman dead and the Sea of Souls roaring in fury, the Traitor Legions fled the Sol system. The Ultramarines, having recovered the body of their master, retreated straight to the Ruistorm, where the daemon-haunted remnants of Ultramar would provide them cover from the Imperium's retribution. As for the rest of the Traitor Legions, although they would ultimately end up in the Eye of Terror, each followed its own path to this place of damnation. For the Blood Angels, led by Azkaellon, this path brought them first to Baal. Why the Commander of the Sanguinary Guard directed his fleet there rather than straight to the Eye, where their Daemon Primarch was waiting, is unclear, but it was a move that would serve the Ninth Legion well.

The Blood Angels stripped their fortresses on Baal's moons of weapons, ammunition and gene-seed, and nearly emptied the planet itself of life, filling their ships' holds with human livestock. They also found someone they hadn't expected : Fabius Bile, once Chief Apothecary of the Emperor's Children. Believed to have died in the Bleeding Wars that had pitted his Legion against the Dark Eldars, Fabius had survived his captivity, but the experience had changed him beyond recognition, tearing out the mask of the healer and revealing the insane genius that lurked beneath. Bile sought to understand the genetic work that made the Astartes into what they were, and when he had learned that the Blood Angels had claimed the corpse of a Primarch, the possibilities such material represented had made him come to Baal, confident that the Legion would go back there sooner or later.

Azkaellon met Fabius, who had come alone aboard a stolen and now crashed Eldar ship. Their exchange is lost to history, but the Commander agreed to bring the Apothecary with him to the Eye of Terror, where his Sorcerers told him that Sanguinius waited for them. As for access to Horus' remains, Bile would have to wait for the Daemon Primarch's choice in the matter. Fabius accepted the offer, and during the Blood Angels' journey to the Eye, began to experiment on wounded Blood Angels, forgotten by Apothecaries that now cared little for their former duties. Those who survived his experiments would form the base of Bile's own warband, choosing to follow this strange Apothecary rather than commanders who had left them to die slowly of their wounds. A few Apothecaries, who had spearheaded the research into a cure that was now all but forgotten, also approached the son of Fulgrim, sharing with him the knowledge of gene-forging they had accumulated during the Great Crusade.

Finding the world where Sanguinius had reappeared wasn't easy. It took several decades of realspace time before the Ninth Legion was reunited with its Primarch. It was during this quest that the Imperial Fists made their attempt at breaking free of the Iron Cage only to be humbled by Perturabo's defenses, causing the Seventh Legion to shatter when Sigismund turned against Dorn in the aftermath. At first, the Legion was delighted to have found Sanguinius at last, and none more so than Azkaellon, who could finally beg his lord's forgiveness for his failure to protect him from the Mournival. However, when the Commander of the Sanguinary Guard met his father in person, he quickly saw that the Angel had not emerged unscathed from his transformation and subsequent destruction.

The madness that had afflicted Sanguinius during the Heresy, and that Azkaellon had believed banished by the battle of Terra and his master's ascension, had returned tenfold. Sanguinius couldn't perceive the universe around him, his perceptions clouded by a veil of illusions. Shocked, Azkaellon and the rest of the Guard decided to keep this a secret from the rest of the Legion. However, Fabius Bile already knew, and while Azkaellon considered simply killing the former Apothecary, Bile made a counter-offer. In return for an audience with the Daemon Primarch so that he may seal his alliance with the Ninth Legion, Bile swore he wouldn't reveal Sanguinius' condition to the rest of the Blood Angels. This oath was sworn and sealed in blood, binding Bile's fate to that of his word.

What happened when Bile met Sanguinius is lost to history, and the subject of much speculation. Whatever the renegade offered, the Daemon Primarch accepted his deal, and the Apothecary was given full access to Horus' corpse, to do with as he pleased. And so, while the Blood Angels got used to their new existence in the Eye of Terror, Fabius Bile worked to unlock the Emperor's secrets. Ultimately, he succeeded in cloning Horus Lupercal, creating a horde of malformed simulacras and a handful of viable Legionaries. This act was the one that gave Fabius his title of Primogenitor.

The man – wasn't he more than a man ? He couldn't remember … - looked up from the chessboard again, staring at the angel sitting in front of him across the table. The angel was impossibly beautiful, and the man felt like weeping in joy simply by looking at his face. He wanted nothing more than to keep playing, to relish in the pleasure of the angel's company forever. And yet, there was something tugging at the edge of his mind, a distant memory that he couldn't quite remember. It prevented him from simply enjoying the instant, constantly attempting to drag him toward the past …

'You …' he began to say, as realization finally dropped him. An image flashed in his mind – the angel before him at his feet, looking up at him. Only it wasn't an angel. It was a daemon wearing an angel's skin, and its fangs had tore his throat and drunk his blood. Rage flowed through him like a lava flow, and he hurled himself at the creature in front of him, hands aimed at its throat. 'You killed me !'

Something blurry passed in front of his face, and he had a moment to watch his own beheaded corpse fall to the ground in a clash of hastily assembled power armor before blackness surrounded him.

Sanguinius tipped the head over with a foot, watching it in silence for a few seconds, before turning away from it, and walking toward the next room, where another image of his beloved brother waited for him. Perhaps this time, it would work. Perhaps this time, his brother would love him.

With these new forces under his command, Bile called upon the second part of his bargain with Sanguinius. At the Primarch's order, thousands of Blood Angels joined the former Apothecary in what would be known as the first Black Crusade in the Imperial archives, and the Clone Wars to the Legions involved in it. Cadia, one of many worlds fortified by the Iron Warriors, was the first victim of this attack. The Imperial Commander of the planet had been corrupted by Slaaneshi cults, and led half the planetary garrison to rebel against those who had remained loyal, opening the Warp corridor to the forces of the Arch-renegade.

With the fall of Cadia, the Blood Angels forces were able to conquer dozens of systems, forcing the Iron Warriors to call upon the help of the Sons of Horus and Emperor's Children. During the long, bloody conflict, the cloned Astartes of Fabius began to carve their legend, creating the infamous 'Black Legion' that, to this day, continue to taunt the Sons of Horus with its very existence. Although billions of civilians died to the Blood Angels' depredations during the Clone Wars, the issue was never in doubt. The Blood Angels faced the might of three combined Legions, and the batch of twisted monstrosities created by Fabius could not balance such odds. In the end, however, the death blow to the Black Crusade came from within its own ranks, as would so often be the case in the future. The War of Woe had begun between the Blood Angels and the Imperial Fists, starting off the Legion Wars that still rage in the Eye of Terror ten thousand years later. Azkaellon, speaking with Sanguinius' authority, called back most of the Blood Angels forces under Fabius' command, leaving him defenseless against an assault led by the Primarch of his former Legion himself. His cloning facilities destroyed, the Arch-renegade had no choice but to flee for his life with his few remaining servants.

The most ironic thing is that it was under Bile's orders that the genetic facilities of the Imperial Fists were attacked, to gather more varied genetic material for his twisted experiments. But despite this setback, his mad genius would continue to serve him well in the Underworld. To this day, he is a powerful Chaos Lord in the Eye, with warriors of all the Traitor Legions serving under his command, scouring the Eye and the Imperium for whatever their dark master desires. All Legions trade with him for his knowledge, bartering goods and spoils of war in return for access to his facilities, where new Chaos Marines are created out of infant slaves and offered gene-seed.

As for the Ninth Legion, with the end of the War of Woe came the revelation of Sanguinius' mental state to his Legion. It is said that Bile was responsible, as revenge for the destruction of his clones of Horus, which he thought would help him restore the lore lost during the Clone Wars, and to bring more warriors under his banner. Whether this is true, or just another sin laid at the foot of the Arch-renegade of which he is, for once, innocent, is a fact known only to his own twisted mind.

Thrar Hraldir looked through the occulus, boiling with rage as the image of the daemon world disappearing as the ship left the system. No. Not left. Ran. He had been forced to run, after the madman who called himself Primogenitor had showed just how much concern he had for the lore Thrar had brought to him, seeking a partnership. It had seemed so obvious to him : both Bile and himself sought to unravel the mystery of the Emperor's genetic work. Surely by working together they would achieve their respective ends more quickly. But he had underestimated the depths of pride and self-delusion to which the former Apothecary of the Emperor's Children had sunk. Bile would not allow for anyone other than himself to have access to the secrets of the Master of Mankind – his arrogant genius would not allow for anything like a colleague, and Thrar would not lower himself before the renegade.

Vengeance would be his for this affront, he swore, and cold ice flowed through his veins as he refocused his thoughts, taking the fire out of the anger that had threatened to awaken the beast within him. He turned to his vox officer, and ordered the transmission of a certain audio file on all frequencies. For all of Bile's admitted genius in the matters of genetic perversion, the son of Fulgrim lacked either interest or talent in the more mundane aspects of technology. It had been easy to hack into the systems of his armor and extract hours of logs, including a very interesting conversation between Fabius and the leader of Sanguinius' bodyguards. Let see what would happen once the Blood Angels knew just why their Primarch had spent most of the War of Woe on their homeworld.

He would need to run far, Thrar mused. The consequences of his message would be far-reaching, and he did not doubt that many would seek to punish him for it, should its origin ever be revealed. The Eye had many places to hide, but he doubted one could hide from what could very well be an entire Legion, if things went truly against him. Besides, the mutagenic energies of the Warp were stronger than anywhere else here, and while studying their effects was fascinating, he doubted he would be able to endure them long enough to find what he wanted. No, he and his Wolf Brothersneeded to leave the Eye, but that wasn't a problem for him : he had learned several paths in and out of the Warp Storm. That left the question of his destination … Perhaps, the Wolf Priest thought, it was time for him to pursue this old goal of his. The Halo Stars seemed like a promising lead on his quest to free his brothers from the beast within their souls.

Such was the egoism of the Blood Angels at this point that they didn't care that their lord was a deranged godling trapped in visions of a false reality, but the Legion's fragile unity was shattered by the truth. Without the fear of Sanguinius' wrath, banished back to the tides of unreality for a hundred years by Rogal Dorn's fist in a cataclysmic mutual destruction, the Blood Angels no longer felt the need to follow any chain of command, and they dispersed across the Eye of Terror and beyond. This was the end of the Blood Angels as a united Legion, and in their place formed a hundred warbands of self-righteous monsters – all as Slaanesh had designed.

The Devil's Crag Incident

In 955.M41, a warband led by the Chaos Lord Dante of the Blood Angels attacked an Imperial world known as Gehenna. With the help of his Sorcerer Mephiston, Dante plunged the Warp currents into turmoil, cutting the planet off any Imperial reinforcements so that he and his troops may plunder it at their leisure. For three years, the Imperium was unable to pierce the veil and reach the planet, despite numerous attempts – Gehenna was an important industrial world, and its loss was affecting productivity on other worlds across several systems. When Navigators finally announced that the Warp had calmed enough to allow passage, the gathered fleet sailed at once, hoping to at least punish the traitors before they could escape.

When they arrived, however, they found no sign of Dante and his warband. Gehenna was a ruin, with no trace at all of its former inhabitants – all gone, and not even a corpse remaining. The Inquisition quarantined the planet and sent search teams, but half of them vanished without a word and the other half never found anything. The only clue is an astropathic message left by Dante before leaving the system. Enraged, the Chaos Lord swears revenge against a being he calls the 'Silent King', without any explanation as to its nature or origins. The Inquisition is still of several minds as to the identity of the Silent King : some believe him to be a rival warlord, other some xenos princeling, while others still think it to be another derogatory name attributed by the traitor to the God-Emperor.

Organization

The Sanguinor, Herald of Sanguinius

A mysterious figure of the Ninth Legion, wearing a golden mask and harboring wings of golden feathers that drip with a drug potent enough to drive a Space Marine mad. In its presence, all those who follow the path of the Dark Prince are driven to kneel and abase themselves, and thoughts of disobedience are impossible. For that reason, the Sanguinor also bears the title of Herald of Sanguinius, as only the fallen Primarch of the Ninth Legion was once said to possess such inhuman charisma. The Sanguinor is always accompanied by a retinue of Blood Angels, who are so awed by his presence that they do not succumb to the infighting that usually follows any gathering of such narcissist warriors. The masked warlord uses them to speak in his name, although whether this is because he cannot speak for his own or because of some inflated ego remains unknown. The Inquisition has recorded appearances of this individual all over the galaxy, and the Thousand Sons have confirmed that he has also been present in the Eye of Terror. The idea that he can bypass the Iron Cage at will is a disquieting one, and the Inquisition has been on the hunt for a very long time. Appearances of the Sanguinor are reason enough to call for powerful forces, for he never shows up without being involved in some grand plan, such as a Black Crusade or the recovery of a powerful Chaos artifact. Never has the Sanguinor been at the command of any such fell design, but he has allied himself with Chaos Lords from all Traitor Legions at some point, as well as some mortal warlords with the Dark Prince's favor.

Only the best warriors of the loyal Legions can hope to best the Sanguinor in combat, for he is very skilled with the daemon blade he carries on the battlefield. However, each time the Sanguinor was reported to have been defeated, no body was recovered, and the golden warrior appeared once more at another place in space and time. The Ordo Malleus has many theories as to the nature of the Sanguinor. Some believe him to be just another Chaos Champion, favored enough by the Dark Prince that he is brought back from the dead every time he falls in battle. Others claim that it is a title, that the golden mask is passed from one wearer to another when the previous incumbent dies. Some even believe him to be a Daemon Prince, which would explain his apparent immortality and strange powers, but contradict reports from the bound psykers who have been near him. A persistent theory, apparently popular among the Blood Angels themselves, is that he is a shard of Sanguinius himself, the part of the Daemon Primarch that has accepted the truth of his situation and embraced the Dark Prince wholly. Incarnated within the flesh of a Blood Angel, this shard, they whisper, will one day unite the Legion again and lead it to unprecedented glory. This dreadful possibility, however unlikely, is cause enough for many Inquisitors to have dedicated themselves to the creature's destruction. The Grey Knights themselves owe a debt of blood to the creature, and its name is listed among those of the Chapter's foes in their fortress of Titan.

Of the Three Hundred Companies that once made the Ninth Legion a peerless fighting force, only a pale shadow remains. The Blood Angels are fractured beyond anyone's ability to unite by their own pride and the knowledge of their Primarch's madness. The grievous losses they took during the Heresy and the subsequent wars in the Eye have much reduced their number, and this combined with their arrogance tend to make them only associate with each other in small groups. But while one may be forgiven for thinking that this would make them any less of a threat to the Imperium, to believe so is a great mistake. Although Slaanesh has all but destroyed the Legion that has dedicated itself to him, the Blood Angels have been reforged into a powerful tool of corruption, capable of gathering hordes of mortal slaves far beyond what the other Traitor Legions can achieve. Even within the Eye, where millions of Chaos Marines pay fealty to the Ruinous Powers, the Blood Angels remain a power to contend with, their alliance with Fabius Bile ensuring them a steady supply of fresh recruits.

Despite their small numbers, the Blood Angels have almost as many warlords in their ranks as the other Traitor Legions, and legends of their fell deeds are told across the length and breadth of the Imperium despite the Inquisition's best efforts to quell them. The sons of Sanguinius make for good commanders of the damned, and are capable of drawing large numbers of worshipers to their banner, all while being individually formidable warriors. Hundreds of them – only a fraction of a Legion's force, but enough to be a nightmare for the Imperium – have left the Eye and its endless battles entirely behind. They hide amongst the Imperium's borders, ruling over pirates and renegades. These isolated warriors are beacons to the scum of the Imperium, gathering them and making them into something approaching an effective fighting force. More than once, the Imperial Navy has been forced to take action after an increase in piratical activity in one sector only to learn that a son of Sanguinius was responsible for it, his presence forcing the pirates to greater risks in order to sate their master's endless appetite.

The Glamour of Sanguinius

During the Great Crusade, Sanguinius proved to have inherited one of the Emperor's traits. Like the Master of Mankind, his appearance was fluid, changing according to his moods and those of his observers, but always magnificent. Kings and overlords who had ruled their worlds with an iron fist for decades would weep at the beauty of Sanguinius, and command their armies to lay down their weapons and welcome the Imperium. Many of the Blood Angels shared the handsomeness of their Primarch, though none of them possessed his shifting abilities. That changed after their fall to Chaos, when the dark blessings of Slaanesh wove their way into their genetic coding. Soon after the Blood Angels retreated to the Eye of Terror in the wake of their father's destruction at the Gates of the Imperial Palace, a new ability spread amongst the Ninth Legion. It is said that a part of Sanguinius' daemonic essence was distilled into his sons upon his defeat, and that it granted them part of his powers. Even the Blood Angels created now, ten thousand years after the Angel's first defeat, still inherit that gift from the gene-seed that turned them into Chaos Marines.

Once this ability manifest, the Blood Angels project a psychic field that alters the image any observer sees when looking upon them. They appear to be beautiful, pristine warriors clad in perfect armor engraved with the suggestive sigils of Chaos. The very idea of attacking such a being seems blasphemous to the unguarded psyche, and it isn't unheard of for veterans of the Imperial Guard to remain motionless even as one of Sanguinius' sons drain them of blood, a beatific smile on their face.

This effect is known as the Glamour of Sanguinius, and it is one of the greatest tools of the Blood Angels in their infiltration of Imperial society. Only psykers or individuals warded against such manipulations can see the Blood Angels as they really are : hideous, gaunt monsters, whose eyes burn with their unholy desires. Powerful individuals can rip off the Glamour entirely, allowing those around them to share the truth of the traitors' nature. This act always enrages the Blood Angels, for they are the first to fall to the Glamour, and do not like to be deprived of their beautiful lie and forced to face the reality of their monstrosity.

Homeworld

The Mausoleum of the Faithful

Unlike the other Legions that purged their own ranks of loyalist elements, the Imperium knows which Companies of the Blood Angels were martyred at Isstvan, although the source of that knowledge has been lost to time. After the Heresy, a mausoleum was built on Baal, amidst the ruins of the Blood Angels' fortresses. There, the name of every faithful Blood Angel is engraved upon adamantium, that it may be remembered unto eternity. It is a secret place, known only to a handful of Inquisitors and Legionaries. Beyond the fact that the servants of Chaos would obviously attempt to defile it should they ever learn of its existence, it also serves as a repository for all the knowledge accumulated on the Ninth Legion. Records from the Great Crusade are kept there alongside accounts of the myriad horrors committed by the Blood Angels since their fall, kept locked in stasis behind dozens of purity seals until an Inquisitor with the correct authorization codes can bring them back into reality for a brief moment. This has proven a valuable source of information to the members of the Ordo Malleus in their eternal struggle against the servants of the Dark Prince. The Mausoleum is maintained and defended by servitors and automated defenses. It is said that on occasion, the ghost of one of the Blood Angels fallen on Isstvan III will appear to guide a visitor through its labyrinthine depths and to the archive relevant to their quest.

During the galactic cleansing that followed the end of the Roboutian Heresy, Baal was destroyed by the Sons of Horus. After that, many of the Blood Angels' strongholds in the Eye of Terror were lost during the Legion Wars, and when the Legion shattered, they lost even more to opportunistic attacks from the other Legions. Other worlds were abandoned by their Astartes masters as they left, seeking new horizons to defile. Now, apart from a few daemon worlds too deeply touched by Slaanesh to be contested, the only true stronghold of the Ninth Legion is the Daemon World where their Primarch dwells. There, reality is a slave to the delusions of those touched by Sanguinius, presenting images of their deepest and darkest desires. The name of this cursed place is unknowable to any with any shred of sanity left – even the Blood Angels themselves, who can feel a connection to it no matter how far they run, cannot conceive of it.

Since the end of the War of Woe, only the Sanguinary Guard permanently remain with their father on the Legion's homeworld. Led by Azkaellon, who has remained loyal to his father despite everything, they protect their lord from intruders and inconvenient truths alike. To this day, Sanguinius lingers there, lost to the Glamour, his power such that reality itself twists around him to conform to his visions. There, he relives the glorious days of the Great Crusade, as well as visions of the galaxy in which he remained true to the Emperor, while noble Horus was the one to succumb to the temptations of Chaos instead. However, according to a recorded vision, experienced and written down by Magnus himself, his brother does not know any peace in his exile in the underworld. The lingering remains of his conscience occasionally try to wake him up gathering great storms of nightmare that plunge the entire daemon world into war as the Sanguinary Guard and whatever allies they can find fight back ghosts of the Legion's past and vengeful, fiery angels. It appears that Slaanesh lied when the Prince of Chaos offered Sanguinius a peaceful lie in return for Horus' life – but then again, such is the way of the Powers of Ruin.

Beyond the Sanguinary Guard, their demented Primarch and the daemons that attend them, the daemon world is also the resting place of the souls of all who die while victim to the Glamour. Their shades are eternal slaves to daemons and Sorcerers, populating cities of illusions, trapped forevermore in a spell of lies until their essence is consumed by the very planet. This energy is used to empower the magic that Slaanesh weaved into the planet in order for it to be of use to his dark designs, despite the mental state of its master. While most daemons worlds in the Eye of Terror are somewhat anchored in space, in that a corrupt Navigator of a fell Sorcerer having already visited them can usually find their way back to them, the homeworld of the Ninth Legion flickers into existence across the Warp Storm, never appearing the same place twice. When it appears near the Eye's borders, entire systems can be plunged into its baleful shadow, spreading madness and corruption. Sages and seers alike have tried to establish a pattern to its appearances, but have so far failed to obtain anything of use. On several occasions, Inquisitors have successfully claimed to know the location of the next manifestation of what has come to be called the Harbinger Star. Each time, however, they have been revealed to be secret agents of Slaanesh, with links to the mysterious Sanguinor, and their 'revelations' were only used to bring and trap faithful servants of the God-Emperor on the worlds soon to be touched.

The Predators of the Webway

While the dark kin of Commoragh count amongst the Imperium's most bitter enemies, it is not unheard of for the Craftworld Eldar to join hand with Imperial forces against a common menace. Even if the xenos are not to be trusted, their knowledge of the galaxy far surpasses our own, and the Inquisition has even been known to forgive Imperial officers taking the liberty to deal with the Eldar on their own – with only minimal punishment.

However, the Lost and the Damned have a vastly different view of the galaxy's oldest living species. Eldar are the enemy of Chaos, and all disciples of Ruin revel in bringing misery to the aliens – and none more than the devotees of Slaanesh. The Youngest God, master of the Blood Angels, was born when the Eldar empire fell, condemning the entire species to a slow extinction and an unavoidable damnation in the Warp's darkest tides. For ten thousand years the xenos have denied the hunger of She-Who-Thirsts, trapping their souls into spirit stones or staving off their deaths by offering the pain of others to the Dark Prince. And amongst the Blood Angels, it is considered a sacred duty to help accelerate this passage into oblivion. To the debased sons of Sanguinius, the blood of the Eldar is the sweetest wine, made rich by the intensity of every moment of an Eldar's long life, and many are ready to go to any length to taste it. Entire warbands have dedicated themselves to this hunt, and stalk the corrupted paths of the Webway – a galactic network of gates and portals – in search of accesses to Eldar Craftworld. Along daemonic hordes, they gather information on the twisted paths of the Labyrinthine Dimension, their minds clearer than any of their kind outside of its dark confines. It is believed by the Inquisition that the Webway somehow clears their spirits, enabling them to think and reason as the warriors they once were rather than the beasts they have become.

But when, at long last, a passage to a Craftworld is found – an event of tremendous rarity, for such ways are well guarded by the fearful xenos – all their calm and poise is thrown to the winds. Billions of Eldar have died under the assault of the Dark Prince's ravenous hordes, and paths corrupted by the Warp can never be made clean again. The mysterious Harlequins have spent many centuries battling the Blood Angels in the Webway, luring them away from paths leading to their Craftworld kin. Meanwhile, Seers will journey far to seal existing portals they have foretold are at risk of being discovered by the Great Enemy, or conceal precious records from its servants. But it is a losing battle, and ultimately, the Eldar are doomed to extinction – and an eternity within the claws of the goddess their ancestors' folly brought into nightmarish existence.

Beliefs

Astorath, the Arch-Priest of Slaanesh

Among the few Blood Angels who do not call the Eye of Terror their home, none are more dangerous than Astorath, the so-called Arch-Priest of Slaanesh. Once a Chaplain of the Ninth Legion, he has completely embraced the teachings of the Dark Prince, and strives to spread them to as many naive souls as possible. For millenia, he has journeyed across the galaxy, using stolen ships or the paths through the Warp. Wherever he goes, cults dedicated to the Prince of Excess rise and the faith in the God-Emperor vanes. Unlike his Legion brothers, his devotion to Slaanesh is more religious than practical, and he is one of the worst enemies of the Ordo Hereticus. He is the only recorded Blood Angel never to lose himself to the Thirst, and his self-control allows him to scheme and plot with an ease and scope that wouldn't shame a disciple of the Changer of Ways. While his brothers focus on their own satisfaction and desires, he seeks to increase Slaanesh's influence on the galaxy and his standing in the Great Game of Chaos. Astorath delights in corrupting members of the Ecclesiarchy, using them to spread his corrupt beliefs amongst the masses of the Imperium. His rhetoric relies more on his lies than on his Glamour, allowing him to preach his master's foul ways on the vox, his followers blaring his words from powerful speakers on their war-engines.

Like many of his kin, Astorath displays the wings of his Primarch. He fights with a spear sparkling with eldritch light, and psykers have described his presence as a black hole in the fabric of the Sea of Souls, a gateway leading directly to the maw of the Youngest God. All those who die near him, no matter their loyalties, have their souls torn from their corpses and dragged into this abyss, fed to Slaanesh whether they were faithful servants of the Emperor or blood-crazed scions of Khorne. Many agents of the other Chaos Gods have tried to kill Astorath for this, as the Ruinous Powers do not take kindly to being denied the souls they have marked as their own. On the archeotech world of Hell's Hollow, an alliance of warbands from the Imperial Fists, White Scars, Iron Hands and Dark Angels cornered the Arch-Priest and tried to bring him down, only for him to escape through the Warp after killing a dozen of their champions. In their fury, the Chaos Marines laid waste to the entire planet, murdering billions of civilians before turning on each other and tearing themselves apart. Despite the destruction of his cult on the planet, and his failure in achieving whatever goal he had set out for, Astorath was greatly pleased with this outcome.

The Blood Angels are whimsical, egocentric beings, and they are supremely unwilling to cooperate. Each of them believes himself to be the only being of importance in the universe, and to be only second in all of existence to the Dark Prince Himself. The shackles of honor and duty they once placed upon themselves have been replaced by supreme indulgence, and many among them consider the act of drinking blood to be sacred, a way to commune with the divine as well as the supreme experience. With the murder of their own at Isstvan III, the carnage of Isstvan V and the death of Horus, there is no vow remaining that the Legion hasn't broken already, and the Blood Angels see no reason to fear any other transgression.

Blood is primal to whatever passes for culture among the shattered remnants of the Ninth Legion, for it is through its consumption that the sons of Sanguinius can sate the Thirst. However, it is not sacred to them as it is to the Imperial Fists or other Khornate cults. To them, blood is merely the primary way through which they experience sensations beyond the ken of all mortals. During the Great Crusade, blood was the symbol of the genetic purity which they so desperately sought, but now that mutation and an eternity of indulging in their worst excesses have made monsters of them all, those who still remember those days only laugh at how naive they once were. They see themselves a perfection manifest or have long abandoned its pursuit in favor of hedonistic excess.

While the Thirst was initially a curse, a hunger that needed to be sated, now the sons of Sanguinius take pleasure in the myriad variations of experience they taste when indulging their dark urges. In a way, they are similar to drug addicts, incapable of conceiving the world around them in any other way that considering how to obtain their next high. Any human being is a potential meal to them first and foremost, and any use or attachment lays far behind this primary concern. When a Blood Angel grows thirsty, even his most loyal and valuable mortal servants are at risk of becoming their master's next victim, their bloodless corpses discarded after the deed, their existence already forgotten by their fickle lord.

Rafen held aloft the Spear of Telesto. It caught the light of Evangelion's sun, the tear-shaped blade shining like the fires of damnation, and the fist-sized ruby inserted within glowing with the forbidden energies contained within, already reawakening after their long slumber as they sensed the presence of one of Sanguinius' blood. All around him, his followers abandoned the ork corpses they were busy desecrating and raised their own weapons in homage, screaming ecstatically as they beheld the object of the warband's quest. Finally, after decades of searching, he had found it here, on Evangelion, far into the Segmentum Obscurus.

In the crowd of his followers, Rafen saw the face of Ramius Stele, and the expression on it made him laugh. The renegade had believed it to be Akio's fate to claim the weapon, and had been more than a little upset when Rafen had killed his birth-brother and taken leadership of the warband for his own. Too bad for him, Rafen thought. Now that he had found the Spear, he no longer needed the guidance of the wayward Inquisitor. He wasn't going to kill him right now – that would be distasteful, and probably at least a little bit ungrateful too. But once they had tested the Spear's power, once Stele was certain that Rafen had been right – that the ancient weapon was his by right … well, things would be different.

Combat doctrine

'They will come to you in the disguise of an angel, beautiful beyond compare, offering pleasure and illumination and asking only for the slightest price in return. But know this, sons and daughters of the God-Emperor : theirs is a false salvation, for they are naught but daemons in disguise, and the love they speak of is nothing but the lie from which they derive the greatest, sickest pleasure : to see their victims willingly come to them, offering their blood to those who care nothing for their existence beyond a mean to temporarily sate their eternal thirst.'

Entry one-hundredth and sixty-sixth of the Ordo Hereticus' archives about the Blood Angels

Most Blood Angels are content to remain within the Eye of Terror, the heart of their master's power, and to taste the infinite pleasures it has to offer – sensations beyond the ken of the mortal realm, and the blood of beings that have lived for millenia yet know nothing of innocence. There are those, however, with greater ambitions, and they are one of the greatest threats to the Imperium of Man.

When a Blood Angels warband manages to escape the Iron Cage through its ever-shifting paths, there can be few reasons other than to raid any world catching its Chaos Lord's fancy. While other Legions may scheme and plot, spending decades or even centuries carefully preparing the fall of an entire Sector to the Ruinous Powers, most of the Blood Angels are far too self-centered for that. They seek out the most populated and least defended worlds before descending upon them, killing any who oppose them, taking what they want and leaving a ruined world in their wake. Usually, by the time the Imperial retribution arrives, they are long gone, and the planet has to be purged of their taint at an even greater cost in lives. For this reason, Imperial ships on patrol are always on their guard for the slightest rumor, vision or astropathic nightmare concerning the Ninth Legion – it is a lot easier to fight them in the void, where no innocent citizens will be caught in the crossfire. The Night Lords especially hunt down the Blood Angels, for the necessary purges that follow their raids offend the ethics of the sons of Nostramo.

On a rare occasion, though, a Blood Angel warlord will manage to keep his Thirst under control long enough to formulate a plan. These generally take the form of abductions amongst a target world's ruling class. The unfortunate captives are brought before the Chaos Marines, and exposed to his Glamour. Most immediately swear fealty to the creature in front of them, their loyalty to the Emperor forgotten, swept away by the lies of Chaos. They are then sent back to their worlds to spread the word of Slaanesh, creating cults ready for the coming of their masters. Others use their wealth to procure slaves for their masters, or telling them the roads for convoys of Imperial criminals. Those with psychic gifts attempt rituals to tear open the fabric of reality and bring forth the Neverborn minions of Slaanesh – often accompanied by their Astartes counterparts, walking the insane paths of the Warp alongside the daemons. The case of Grendel's World, where an entire planet was lost despite the quick dispatch of the Eighth Legion, is infamous : after years of investigation, the Inquisition retraced the entire daemonic incursion to a single woman, who believed that the first ritual would bring forth the perfect lover that stalked her dreams. Once battle is joined, the Blood Angels fight at the lead of mutant hordes and armies of spellbound followers. While they are capable of keeping a cold head as long as bolts aren't flying, once battle is joined, their minds are too damaged by the Thirst and narcissism for them to have any solid grip on tactic. Sometimes they will charge ahead, leading their troops by example. Other times, they remain in reserve until the final push, to reap all the glory with the least effort. As illustrated the first time they broke free of the Iron Cage, the true threat of the Blood Angels is the legion of cultists and traitors within Imperial ranks. Like their fell masters, these renegades excel at hiding their treachery until it is too late to stop them.

But despite their decadence, the Blood Angels are not to be underestimated. Their devotion to the Dark Prince has granted them heightened senses and speed, and there are all masters of whatever weapon they favor. During the Great Crusade, they were amongst the Imperium's fiercest assault troops, and the gifts of their fell patron have only made them stronger. They are a lesson to the faithful : for all the corruption and soul-ruin that the Warp twists its slaves with, it never renders them useless, for its malevolence spreads far beyond those already under its thrall. Many an Imperial champion has looked past the veil of the Glamour and seen the monster, only to be defeated by what he thought to only be a pompous damned one.

The Sanguinary Marines

Though all the Blood Angels bear the mark of Slaanesh on their flesh, there are those who walk further down the path of ruin that any of their brethren, indulging in their thirst beyond all other pursuits and letting it define their entire existence. While most sons of Sanguinius have at least a modicum of control over the Thirst, seeking to sate it only with the most valuable blood, they gorge themselves relentlessly, without care for the quality of the vitae they drink. These beings are rewarded for their devotion to the Dark Prince's gift to their gene-line, and evolve into something altogether more terrifying than a simple Traitor Marine. They gain great wings, like their sire, but these are not the beautiful feathered appendages of an Angel : instead, they harbor bat-like wings the color of spilled blood. While these wings shouldn't by right be able to lift their massive, armored frame, the power of the Warp allows them to fly. Most of them forgo the use of weapons altogether, using fangs and claws to rend their prey apart, reveling in the sensation of blood splashing on their distorted features.

These Sanguinary Marines, as they are called amongst the servants of the Dark Gods and those of the God-Emperor alike, do not possess the ability to disguise their true nature common to other Blood Angels. All who look upon them know them for the monsters they are. The bones of their skull and jaw are reshaped when they obtain their wings in order to allow their teeth the strength to bite through armor and skin and into the veins beneath. Like the mythical vampyr of Old Earth, they are beasts, hideous monsters that prey upon the weak to sate their dark hungers.

Without the ability that allows their kin to gather devotees, they are forced to hunt for the sustenance they so crave. They form packs, lending their services to Chaos Lords from various Legions in return for a steady supply of blood. Such bargains are struck between the Chaos Lord and the strongest of the Sanguinary Marines – usually the one who can still remember, even if only dimly, what he once was. Those who employ them feed them the scum gathered aboard their ships between raids, and take care not to use them near anyone they ought to take prisoner. While they are regarded with disgust by most, especially among their own Legion, their usefulness as terror and shock troops cannot be denied, and their use is cheap enough that many warlords ignore their corruption and lack of self-control.

Recruitment and Geneseed

Corruption amongst the ranks of the Ninth Legion is rampant. The touch of Slaanesh has rewritten their genetic code, twisting the existing flaws into an expression of that Dark God's principles called, with quite literal simplicity, the Thirst. All Blood Angels display elongated canines, and many of them have all of their teeth changed into fangs, the better to tear at the flesh of their prey. Their omophagea is heavily altered, allowing them to experience the lives of those they drain of blood, reliving decades worth of memories in a single moment. There are theories that they actually need to drink blood in order to counter the degeneration of their genes, but the Blood Angels themselves do it because of the sensations it provides to their debased minds. Wings are also a frequent mutation, with the most obvious example being the Sanguinary Marines. But other Blood Angels display feathered wings instead, and retain the ability to use the Glamour, shrouding themselves in the same illusions as their father. On several occasions, a Blood Angel warlord has claimed to be Sanguinius himself, using the Daemon Primarch's name to gather more deluded slaves to his cause. Whether or not these Chaos Lords believed their own lie remains unknown to the Inquisition. Every Chaos Marine with even a shred of intelligence left can see through the imposture, as many of them remember the time when the true Sanguinius fought amongst mortal men, and even those too young to have fought in the Great Crusade instinctically know that this is not one of their kind's gene-sires. But for most of the human slaves of Chaos, Daemon Primarchs are akin to mythical figures, closest to the fell Gods they worship. Their ignorance make them easy prey for such deceptions, and most never realize that they have been lied to.

The Blood Angels' long association with Fabius Bile has enabled them to perform the transformation from the infants they take from plundered worlds or their chattels of deluded followers with relative efficiency. Those who catch the eye of the few Blood Angels who remain interested in the Legion's future are first tested for physical adequacy, then submitted to several compatibility tests going from the mundane – genetic markers and the like – to the more esoteric, depending on the recruiter's own beliefs. In some cases, hundred of recruits are immersed in the Warp in giant debauches of Neverborn limbs and mortal flesh, and the survivors judged worthy of joining the ranks of Sanguinius' sons. Once chosen, these youths are interred within great sarcophagus, the mechanisms of which will automatically proceed with the implantation of each of the organs necessary to become a Space Marine, each of them harvested on the dead or vat-grown in some deviant laboratory. This process is a lot simpler than the series of complicated procedures required by traditional transformation practiced by loyalist Legions, which seem to be a result of the Blood Angels no longer possessing the patience required to attend to the delicate surgeries themselves, instead delegating their charges to the cold care of machines as much daemon as cold steel. Whatever the nature of those unfortunate souls placed within, by the time they emerge as fully-formed Chaos Marines, all trace of their former identity is gone. Only the Thirst remains.

There are rumors that these dread sarcophagus can turn even full-grown adults into Chaos Marines. Several Inquisitors have been lost investigating this, only for their genes to be discovered in dead Blood Angels. Despite extensive studies, it is still unknown whether this is due to the Blood Angel having slain the Inquisitors and claimed part of their DNA due to some freak mutation, or if the far more horrible possibility is the actual one. The Ordo Hereticus has been investigating this for decades, interrogating captive Blood Angels and dismantling their captured devices while observing all purification protocols, but who know what dread wonders the fallen sons of Sanguinius are capable of in the Warp Storm they call home ?

Leonatos, the Prince of Eidolon

Deep within the Eye of Terror, amidst an eternal vortex in the Warp currents, lie the daemon world of Eidolon. Among the thousands of worlds that were engulfed in the Sea of Souls when Slaanesh arose from the decadence of the Eldar empire, it is unique. Screaming seers tell of it in rhymes and deranged songs, and daemons whisper of it to those foolish enough to hear their treacherous words.

While most worlds in the Eye fall under the dominion of one of the Ruinous Powers, Eidolon is a battlefield, a place eternally contested between the four Dark Gods. Four powerful daemon princes each rule over a slice of the world, and their forces wage eternal war against each other, trying to seize control of the whole planet and knowing full well that none of them will ever win. For the Dark Gods do not care about one more daemon world : all they want is for the fighting between their servants to continue for all eternity. To that end, they pluck the unfortunate lost to the Eye's tide, sparing them annihilation and bringing them to Eidolon, that they may fight and die for the glory of Chaos. Many paths lead to Eidolon, but there is only one way out : to defeat one of the four lords of this fell place, and refuse to take his place. Every other escape is but temporary, and even those who meet their doom during raids beyond Warp portals find their souls dragged back to the daemon world. Death itself cannot free those claimed by Eidolon, and the four masters of the realm are, in truth, as much slaves as the billions that cower in their shadow.

Yet for all that power is ever in flux on Eidolon, one particular lord has risen to prominence in the last centuries. Cultists across the breadth and width of the Imperium whisper his name in their prayers, or sail through the Eye in the hope that they will be chosen to join his armies on the daemon world. Known as Leonatos, he was once a Space Marine, and a Captain of the Blood Angels. His peregrinations through the Eye led him to be trapped on Eidolon, and he sought to escape by defeating the Slaaneshi lord who then ruled over a quarter of the world. But after slaying the powerful daemoness in single combat, Leonatos chose to remain on the daemon world. Since then, his many victories over the champions of the other three Chaos Gods have earned him ascension to daemonhood, and his power has grown greatly, surpassing his rivals for longer than any previous lord in Eidolon's long and bloody history. Although he commands few Blood Angels, those owing him their oath are Chaos Lords in their own right, leading hordes of tens of thousands of cultists and lesser warriors.

On several occasions, Leonatos has used powerful sorcery to tear open a path across the Warp and attack worlds within the Imperium that had fallen under a Warp Storm's shadow. When this happens, daemons and cultists pour forth in equal measure, for Eidolon is home to both, and all kneel before Leonatos' throne. Every time, the Daemon Prince of Slaanesh has led from the front, killing all who opposed him with his mighty daemonic blade, a weapon as twisted and evil as its wielder. Known as the Blade Encarmine, it is rumored to have once been used by Sanguinius himself – although such claims are common among the Traitor Legions. Regardless of its origins, the weapon allows Leonatos to taste the blood of his foes without needing to drink it directly, for despite his transformation into a prince of the Neverborn, Leonatos is still afflicted by the Thirst. His position on Eidolon ensures he never runs out of victims, but the thrill of novelty pushes him to continue his assaults on the outside universe.

Warcry

It is only very rarely that the Blood Angels do not announce their presence to their foe long before they are first seen. The debauched sons of Sanguinius revel in the terror of their enemy almost as much as they do the blood they drink from the still-living bodies of the vanquished, and to see their advance is akin to watching a veritable menagerie of horrors inside the mind of a demented musician. Vast choirs and orchestras of the lost and the damned will sing the praises of an advancing host of the Ninth Legion, calling out their names and deeds. Chained and drugged psykers will send waves of adoration and terror ahead, and great challenges and speeches are broadcast across the vox for the enemy to hear. Not only do this weaken the enemy moral, it also bolsters that of the self-centered, narcissist Blood Angels and their cohorts. Savvy Imperial Commanders will order their forces not to listen to the vox, and blare sirens through every speaker to drown out the sound of the Blood Angels' claims, while preachers with augmented lungs and vocal chords recite prayers to the Emperor. Many an Imperial Guardsman has barely survived an encounter with a Blood Angel warband only to end up deafened by his own side's auditive barrage.

This assault on the senses, however, ends as soon as the lines of the two armies meet. Then the Blood Angels let loose the monster within them as they feed, and can rarely speak at all amidst the orgy of sensations they are enjoying. On the rare occasions that they do, or when they have no occasion to perform their grotesque parades and still wish their foe to know who they are facing, the following warcries have been known to be shouted to the enemy : 'For Sanguinius !', 'Behold the blood of Angels !' and 'Slaanesh thirsts as we do !'

At the gate of Sanguinius' palace, the Sanguinary Guard fought. The skies above them were aflame with war, as energies born from the Daemon Primarch's conflicted mind crushed against one another. Like the philosophers of Old Earth had said : as above, so below. Shades in the form of Astartes came at the line of Azkaellon's warriors, their spectral weapons all too capable of causing damage for all that they weren't real. Here, physics were subject to the one with the strongest will, and even now Sanguinius' will was great indeed. These ghosts – projections of but a fragment of his mind – were proof that the Lord of Angels remained mighty, and worthy of Azkaellon's devotion.

Walking besides the ghosts of the sons Sanguinius had ordered killed were the lesser spirits – the frail humans who had died in the war fought by the demigods who walked amongst them. The Commander didn't think that Sanguinius should feel any guilt for their passing, for they should have been honored to die for him – but, as ever, questioning wasn't his place. His duty, sworn in blood, was to protect his liege, and he and his brothers had held this oath true even as the rest of the Legion had abandonned their Primarch in the name of their petty ambitions. Traitors, all of them.

Time passed as the battle raged on. Azkaellon tore his spear from the ground and shook free the remains of the ghost. Already, the marble floor was regenerating, the cracks closing as if time was flowing in reverse – which it was. With the fall of the last of the echoes, the mind of his Primarch was clear, and his hold on the world was reasserting itself, restoring back to its perfect form. Soon, there would be no trace left of the battle. For a time, the world would be at peace, until the next surge in Sanguinius' psyche. This time, the attackers had been weak, and the Sanguinary Guard had not needed to rely on the help of unworthy allies to defend their lord. This gave Azkaellon some hope : perhaps his lord was growing free of his undue remorse.

The Commander of the Sanguinary Guard lifted his eyes to the tormented heavens. In the distance, he could see the blazing golden light of the Firetide, the psychic flare of the Astronomican reaching even here in the Eye, plunging entire systems into purifying fire and creating the only region of the Eye where the daemon world had never journeyed …

Azkaellon blinked. Was it just a trick of his vision, or his memory playing tricks on him ? It seemed to him that the light was weaker than the last time he had been able to look upon it …

---

AN : remember last chapter, when I said that I had to write smaller chapters or else the Legions would be unbalanced ? How naive my past self seem now. Still, since the last chapter was also the one with the most (re)views and apparently the favorite, it can't be a wrong way of doing things. Let's just hope that it wasn't just because Konrad Curze is a long-time favorite of Warhammer 40000 fans.

Thanks for all the reviews for the last chapter ! To those asking for a specific Legion to be done : sorry, but you will have to wait for its turn. And yes, it sucks for the Alpha Legion, but it also means that I will be able to wrap everything together in their chapter, just in time for the eventual Time of Ending sequel.

There is just so much ... stuff to write about when you are doing something like the Roboutian Heresy. The original universe is so rich that inspiration is really easy to find, and it's almost impossible for me to put something aside and not write about it once I have an idea. While I am on the subject of 'inspiration', the quote at the beginning of the Post-Heresy section is from Paradise Lost, by John Milton. The book is a classic depicting the fall of Satan, so I just had to mention it somewhere (after all, the authors of the Horus Heresy do that kind of thing all the time).

Anyway, the Blood Angels. Here they are, the noblest of all in canon, reduced to the lowest of traitors here. I am not really happy with how I wrote their fall from grace, but then again, what you write is never quite as good as what you imagined. Basically, while Fulgrim in canon fell because of his pride and the whispers of a daemon sword that he should REALLY not have picked up (I mean, seriously, taking the sacred blade of a culture you just exterminated ? I get that he was influenced by the Warp and not in his right mind, but still !), the same wouldn't have worked for Sanguinius. It would also have been rather lazy of me. So, instead, Slaanesh get to the Angel by his only weakness : his sons. The whole 'trapped in an hallucination' thing is because I just can't imagine the Sanguinius of canon going the same way as Fulgrim, not giving a frak about his sons and only pursuing his own interests. It also gives me a convenient excuse for the fact that the Daemon Primarch of Slaanesh hasn't been doing anything for ten thousand years. See, in the canon, the Daemon Primarchs are supposed to be lost to the Great Game, but recent works (like the very good Arhiman : Unchanged) have introduced the notion that, perhaps, there are other reasons for their absence. In the Roboutian Heresy, I want every daemon primarch to have a reason for remaining in the Eye. So far, Lion El'Jonson is weakened by Luther's spell and need all the Fallen dead, Rogal Dorn is hunting for Sigismund, and Sanguinius is insane.

CONTEST ! Whoever first tells me (in review or PM) where I got the idea for Eidolon gets a short story of his choice written immediately, priority on everything else (so long as it's not a trolling suggestion that I really cannot fit in canon or in the Roboutian Heresy verse). Let see if there is anyone besides me bored enough to look for really old lore !

As usual, if you enjoyed the story, saw a contradiction with previously established canon, or want to give me an idea for the next part (which will be about the Iron Hands, fallen to Nurgle), please review !

That's all for now. See you next time for a short story (still working on the big finish for the current arc of Warband of the Forsaken Sons, don't forget to leave it a review to tell me which new units you would like to see in action). And also, go take a look at Nemris artwork for the Roboutian Heresy. You can find it on Deviantart (links on my profile), and it is really, really good.

Zahariel out.