Horus (Warhammer 40,000)

Horus was one of the twenty Space Marine Primarchs, and of them, held The Title Warmaster, in the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe. He was the Commander-in-Chief of the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus Legion, the favoured son of the Emperor of Mankind, and the galaxy's greatest traitor.

Early life

Created by the Emperor in gene-laboratories deep below the Himalayas, Horus, along with his brothers, the Primarchs, were scattered across the galaxy by an Agent of the Chaos Gods. The capsule carrying the infant Horus came to rest on the Hive World of Cthonia, The Primary planet of a system within a reasonable slower-than-light distance of Holy Terra.

As such, he was one of the first of the Primarchs to be rediscovered by the Emperor, and for many years was the close companion of the ruler of Mankind. There was said to be a great affinity Between Them; the Emperor spent much of his time with Horus, instructing the latter in all aspects of culture and warfare. The Emperor quickly granted command of the Luna Wolves Legion to Horus, and with these warriors at their backs, began to forge the Imperium of Man.

The Great Crusade

For thirty years, Horus and the Emperor fought together, saving each other's lives on several occasions. As the Great Crusade pushed outward, the other Primarchs were discovered, the Emperor's time was divided, pulled in more and more directions. As Horus's responsibilities swelled with the Explosive Growth of the Imperium, Horus swore to himself that he would always remain the Emperor's favoured child. Horus was often placed in overall strategic command of the Crusade, a position in which he proved his skill time and time again. He quickly won the approval and support of many of the other Space Marine Legions, along with their Primarchs.

Among Horus's greatest skills as a general was his innate grasp of psychology, his instinct for promoting their strengths and exploit their weaknesses for greater benefit. This allowed him to find a non-military solution to several campaigns, using his skills of negotiation and the threat of unstoppable force to bring world leaders into the Imperium without bloodshed. Horus always ensured that he followed any local customs, believing that he would lessen the hostile reaction of opponents who wished to parley.

Horus encouraged the best from his brother Primarchs, deploying the Legions into roles that best suited them. When rapid strikes were needed, White Scars or Night Lords were chosen. When a siege was called for, the Imperial Fists and the Iron Warriors would be at the forefront. Horus wielded the Space Marine Legions and growing Imperial Army as a lesser general would wield individual squads. Horus personally trained almost all of the Primarchs in hand to hand combat, and was only ever bested by Leman Russ. He also promoted competitive rivalries between certain Legions, rivalries that would overflow into outright hatred when the Great Crusade took a turn for the worse.

Horus often credited a measure of his success to the counsel of the Mournival, an informal body of four chosen captains of the from his own Legion. Among the captains were elevated to the Mournival were Ezekyle Abaddon, the First Captain, whose name would be cursed ten millennia later as Abaddon the Despoiler; Tarik Torgaddon of the Second Company; Horus Aximand of the Fifth Company, nicknamed "Little Horus" because of his resemblance to the Warmaster; and Garviel Loken of the Tenth Company.

The Corruption

After Horus's Legion completed the Ullanor Crusade, the Emperor declared this the single greatest victory yet for his Imperium. If Horus wished it, the Emperor would officially rename his Legion the "Sons of Horus", and promote Horus himself to the rank of Warmaster - the Commander-in-Chief of all the Imperium's armies. Initially Horus declined the accolade as he did not want his Legion to be seen as superior to the others. Eventually he agreed to the Emperor's suggestion; by naming the Legion after himself, Horus believed, he would cement his role as Warmaster.

Despite these honours, Horus was not content. The wording of the Emperor's declaration - which claimed Horus's victories as the Emperor's own - grated on him. Although this was standard for such announcements, Horus saw an Emperor retreating to his palace on Terra to pursue secret projects, projects whose true nature had not been divulged even to him, while Horus was out forging the Imperium. A deep-rooted resentment within Horus finally surfaced.

Before he could return to Terra to officially claim his new title, Horus and his 63rd Expedition were called to the planet of Davin, the eighth world his legion had brought to compliance. Erebus, First Chaplain of the Word Bearers Legion, informed Horus that the planetary governor of Davin had betrayed the Imperium and denounced Horus as the lackey of a "fallen god". Infuriated, the Warmaster led his Legion to Davin's moon, where Eugen Temba's flagship, the Glory of Terra, had crashlanded. The moon, which had been similar to its lush and verdant neighbours, was a foetid swamp of decaying foliage and toxic air. It, like Temba and his men, had been tainted by the Chaos God Nurgle, Lord of Decay. Horus confronted and bested Temba in single combat, but not before taking a deep wound from a mysterious weapon. This weapon was the lethal Anatheme, a stolen Xenos weapon capable of [...] even the Emperor's Primarchs. Horus collapsed, and his Legion's apothecaries could do nothing to help him.

The Sons of Horus despaired. It was then that the traitor Erebus offered to take Horus to the Lodge of the Serpent on Davin, where the priesthood would "heal" him. The marines agreed readily, such was their desperation. During the ensuing ritual, the spirits conjured by Erebus and the Davinite priests began their work. They preyed upon Horus's growing resentment of the Emperor. Magnus the Red of the Thousand Sons, used sorcery to reach Horus, and desperately tried to convince him to stay true to the Emperor. It was too late.

The Horus Heresy

The first sign the Emperor accepted of Horus's turning was when he used virus-bombs to 'pacify' Istvaan III, [...] all loyalist elements of the Chaos legions to "defeat" one man and his tiny heretical faction, but this was an excuse to kill all loyalist elements of the legions. Horus encouraged his allies in the WarP to vent their fury, scrambling warp communications and making travel difficult. The Emperor on Terra working on his project in the Imperial Dungeons was absent as, halfway across the galaxy, Horus was denouncing his father, claiming him unworthy of the battles that had been fought in his name. Horus declared that he would replace the Emperor as the head of Mankind. In the Emperor's absence, Rogal Dorn assumed command. He was able to contact seven Legions of Space Marines and ordered them to investigate the cause of the Istvaan incident, and engage if necessary.

Of the seven Legions sent to Istvaan V, four were already on the side of Horus. Their true allegiance had been kept secret, and Horus ordered the daemons to relax their turmoil to allow the loyalist troops swift passage to confront him. Between them and the three Legions already on planet, they almost completely annihilated the loyal Iron Hands, Salamanders and Raven Guard Legions. Ferrus Manus, primarch of the Iron Hands and overall commander of the loyalists, faced Fulgrim and was slain by his former friend. Corax, primarch of the Raven Guard, was near-fatally wounded, and Vulkan, primarch of the Salamanders, was missing, presumed dead. Horus had just declared civil war on the galaxy, beginning a series of events that would still bear his name ten thousand years later.

In total eight Legions turned traitor, though they were soon joined by the Thousand Sons who felt themselves betrayed by the Emperor, along with the regiments of the Imperial Army and space-fleets which were under their control. They began to lay waste to the Imperium and the Horus Heresy came close to shattering the Imperium as brother fought brother across thousands of worlds. However, Horus made a grave misjudgement in believing that Jaghatai Khan of The White Scars would join him as he was growing tired of the increasing beaureucracy appearing in the great crusade, and also believed that Leman Russ of the Space Wolves would join him after being disillusioned from their unneeded destruction of Prospero. Both would prove steadfast in their support of the Emperor.

Horus took his army to Terra and began what would become a fifty-five day long Siege of the Emperor's Palace. On the fifty-fifth day, Horus learned that the Ultramarines, Space Wolves and Dark Angels Legions were en route to reinforce the defenders.

Horus assessed the disastrous news. The entire invasion had been planned to overwhelm Terra before reinforcements could arrive. Even without reinforcement, the Emperor's men would need weeks to break completely. Horus realised that his gamble had failed. Horus, frustrated into rashness, gave the fatal order: that the shields protecting his battle barge be dropped. The Emperor, accompanied by an elite bodyguard, immediately teleported aboard. Their force was scattered throughout the Chaos-warped starship, and Horus easily defeated several Imperial Fists veterans before fighting Sanguinius, the angel-Primarch of the Blood Angels. Sanguinius, already wounded, was no match for Horus and was strangled by the Warmaster. Finally, the Emperor found his way to Horus's command room, and engaged him in a titanic duel.

The Emperor held back for most of the battle, remembering Horus as his beloved son and not wishing to believe that he had turned so utterly to Chaos. This allowed Horus to grievously wound the Emperor. After slashing the Emperor's throat, blinding him in one eye and breaking his back, Horus was interrupted. A lone Adeptus Custodes entered the chamber. Horus allowed him a full view of his master, before [...] the Custodes with a psyker attack. In that instant, the Emperor realised how far Horus had fallen. He gathered his full strength and Delivered a massive psychic blow that fatally wounded Horus. The Chaos Gods who had possessed Horus's body were seized with fear and fled. Knowing that he would not be around to stop Horus a second time, the Emperor destroyed Horus's soul to prevent the chaos gods from reanimating him, then collapsed.

Accounts of the actual battle vary but all confirm that the end of the duel resulted in Horus' death, and the fatal wounding of the Emperor. Knowing instantly that their leader had been slain, the forces that had declared their loyalty to Horus splintered and fled, their daemonic allies dissolved into the warp. Pursued by Imperial forces, those Traitor Marines that did not retreat into the warpstorm known as the Eye of Terror were hunted down by their loyal brothers. The Sons of Horus did likewise, but under the direction of Horus's first captain, Ezekyle Abaddon who led the counter-attack on Horus's battle barge to retrieve the Warmaster's body.

After Death

The tale of Horus does not end with his death. His body was enshrined on the daemon-world the Sons of Horus claimed for their own within the Eye of Terror. He resided there for several hundred years, before the body was stolen and cloned by Fabius Bile and the Emperor's Children Traitor Legion.

Ezeklye Abaddon came to realise his men were shackled by the memory of their dead Primarch, and would forever be bound to the failures of the past if they could not break with him decisively. The Legion severed the link with their past by destroying all the clones and the corpse whose cells had birthed them, and hailed Abaddon the Despoiler as their new Warmaster, who renamed the Sons of Horus the Black Legion.

Inspiration

The story of Horus and the Emperor has similarities to many religious and mythical stories.

For instance, Horus bears many similar characteristics to LUCIFER. Once one of the most favoured angels of God (favoured Primarchs of the Emperor), he fell from grace as his supreme self-confidence turned into arrogance. He then led many angels (the Traitor Legions) to fight against God (the Emperor) in a war in Heaven (the Horus Heresy). Unlike Lucifer, Horus defeated Sanguinius (whereas Lucifer was cast down by Archangel Michael) and moved on to fight with the Emperor himself.

Other similarities can be seen with the Arthurian myths, where Mordred has a similar role to Horus. Mordred is the son of the King, who commands half his forces (in Warhammer 40,000 the Emperor returns to Terra and Horus fights on; in Arthurian legend Mordred guards Camelot whilst Arthur goes on campaign). The hunger for power overwhelms Mordred, and he claims the whole of the kingdom (Imperium) for himself. In the final climatic fight at the Battle of Camlann (the Horus Heresy) Arthur slays Mordred but is mortally wounded, and then Arthur experiences his apotheosis by going to Avalon (much like the Emperor slays Horus and then goes into the Golden Throne).

The fit of Horus into these patterns can be seen as a side-effect of the fact that he fits into the Tragic Cycle of hubris as well as the Monomyth Heroic Cycle suggested by Joseph Campbell. Horus has an unnatural origin born of a god (genetically modified by The Emperor), portents & perils at his birth (the scattering of the Primarchs), then he is refound and given aid (by the Emperor), crosses the threshold into darkness (leaves his homeworld for space). He has distant wandering and the road of trials (the Great Crusade), but sadly he falls to the temptress (Chaos). This leads him to meet gods, become divine, and receive the ultimate boon (the Chaos gods place their powers into him). He goes into a magical flight (the Warp) back to his father, crosses the threshold, and then has the final trial and violent death (fighting the Emperor).

Quotations

• Tell a conquered man he has a new master, and he'll shrug. Tell him his new master demands a fifth of his annual income, and he'll go and find his pitchfork.

Referring to increasing demands by civilian administrators to implement the Imperial tithe

• I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my so-called allies, my [...] allies, they're the ones who keep me walking the floors at night.

Shortly after being wounded on Davin, paraphrasing a quotation attributed to Warren G. Harding

• Let the galaxy burn!

Giving the order to ignite the gases caused by the virus bombing of Istvaan III

References

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