Horus Lupercal – The Arch-Traitor and Warmaster of Chaos
Horus Lupercal, known to many simply as the Warmaster, was one of the 20 superhuman Primarchs created by the Emperor of Mankind to lead the Great Crusade and reunite the scattered worlds of humanity under the banner of the Imperium of Man. Raised to be the Emperor’s favoured son and greatest commander, Horus’ betrayal and rebellion would nearly bring the Imperium to its knees, and change the galaxy forever.
This is his tragic tale.
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Key Takeaways:
- Horus was the greatest of the Emperor’s Primarchs
- Corrupted by Chaos, Horus rebelled against the Emperor
- In the climactic duel, the Emperor was forced to slay Horus
Early Life and Rediscovery
Like all the Primarchs, the infant Horus was scattered across the galaxy by the machinations of the Ruinous Powers of Chaos. His gestation pod would come to land on the war-torn Hive World of Cthonia, located near the Sol System.
There, he was raised by the tyrannical tech-barbarians of Cthonia. The first Primarch to be rediscovered by the Emperor, Horus quickly grew into the Emperor’s most favoured son.
Some accounts claim Horus grew up on Terra by the Emperor’s side. Others state he was found on Cthonia as a young man leading a revolutionary force against the cruel rulers of that world.
Whatever the truth, Horus and the Emperor soon developed an incredibly close bond as they fought to unite the galaxy.
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The Great Crusade and the Ullanor Triumph
Horus led his Luna Wolves Legion from the front, proving himself a tactical and strategic genius time and again. His greatest hour came during the Ullanor Crusade against the largest Ork empire ever encountered.
After the decisive victory, the Emperor promoted Horus to the esteemed rank of Warmaster, Supreme Commander of the Emperor’s forces.
The Emperor then shocked Horus and the other Primarchs by announcing he was returning to Terra, leaving Horus in charge of the Great Crusade. Though Horus was honored, seeds of bitterness and jealousy were also planted.
The Emperor had not confided in Horus his reasons for retiring to Terra or the true nature of his secret project—the Webway.
Many of the other Primarchs also resented that Horus was placed above them. The removal of the Emperor’s direct leadership caused a slow rot to take hold across the Imperium. Worse still, it gave an opportunity for the Ruinous Powers to enact their foul plan to corrupt Horus.
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Horus’ Wargear and Abilities
As the Warmaster, Horus was equipped with some of the finest wargear in the Imperium. His most iconic weapons were his massive power maul, Worldbreaker, and his deadly lightning claw, the Talon of Horus.
Worldbreaker was a mighty power maul crafted by the Emperor himself as a symbol of Horus’ authority. With a single blow from this massive weapon, Horus could shatter even the strongest armor.
It’s spiked head was wreathed in a crackling disruption field that allowed it to pulverize stone and metal alike.
In his other hand, Horus wore the Talon of Horus, a unique lightning claw with a built-in combi-bolter. The Talon’s razor-sharp adamantium blades were sheathed in a matter-disrupting energy field, allowing them to rend flesh, bone, and armor with terrifying ease.
Like all Primarchs, Horus was a physical and mental demigod. Taller, stronger, faster, and smarter than any Space Marine, Horus was a peerless warrior and strategist.
But his greatest gift was his superhuman charisma and leadership. Horus had a way of inspiring intense loyalty and fellowship among his followers, which is what made his betrayal sting all the more.
Combined with his gene-enhanced physiology and formidable wargear, Horus was one of the deadliest beings in the galaxy even before his fall to Chaos.
Corruption by Chaos
The Chaos Gods had long been setting the stage for Horus’ corruption. They saw in the Warmaster a powerful tool to strike at the heart of the Imperium.
Through subtle manipulation and the machinations of the Word Bearers Legion, who had already fallen to Chaos worship in secret, the Ruinous Powers slowly poisoned Horus’ mind against the Emperor.
The tipping point came on the moon of the world Davin. There, during a brutal campaign against insurgents, Horus was mortally wounded by a Chaos relic blade wielded by the traitor Eugen Temba.
The wound resisted all attempts at healing, even Horus’ own superhuman physiology. In desperation, Horus’ Mournival – his closest advisors – turned to the Davinite priests for aid.
But these were no mere priests. They were servants of Chaos, and they used sorcery to poison Horus’ mind as they healed his body.
In a fever dream, Horus was shown a vision of a bleak future where the Emperor was worshipped as a god and the Primarchs discarded as tools that had outlived their usefulness.
Horus saw himself and his brothers cast aside, their sacrifices and achievements forgotten.
Erebus of the Word Bearers, a hidden acolyte of Chaos, whispered poison in Horus’ ear. He played on the Warmaster’s pride, his jealousy, his fears. The priests, Erebus claimed, had shown Horus the truth – that the Emperor cared nothing for his sons, that he intended to abandon them and ascend to godhood.
Horus, his mind twisted by Chaos and his own inner demons, believed the lies. When he awoke, he was a changed man. Gone was the noble warrior who had fought for the Emperor’s vision. In his place was a bitter, twisted warlord who saw only betrayal and treachery in his father’s actions.
The Chaos Gods had found their champion.
Horus’ Relationships with his Brother Primarchs
As the first discovered and most favored son of the Emperor, Horus had complex relationships with his brother Primarchs. He was closest to Sanguinius, Primarch of the Blood Angels. The two were fast friends and Horus considered the Angel his most trusted confidant.
Many Primarchs were jealous of their bond, especially after Horus was named Warmaster.
Horus also shared a friendly rivalry with Fulgrim of the Emperor’s Children. The two would often try to outdo each other in feats of martial prowess and conquest.
Tragically, it was Fulgrim who would deliver the killing stroke to Ferrus Manus, the Gorgon and one of the most resolute loyalists, during the Isstvan V massacre.
On the other hand, Horus always had a more antagonistic rivalry with Roboute Guilliman, Primarch of the Ultramarines. Guilliman was an empire-builder like Horus, and the two often competed for glory and their father’s approval.
When Horus turned traitor, Guilliman became his most implacable foe, swearing to defend the Imperium to his last breath.
Other Primarchs like Mortarion and Perturabo resented Horus’ status as Warmaster and what they saw as the Emperor’s favoritism. This resentment would fester into hatred, making them easy targets for corruption by Chaos and pushing them to betray the Emperor alongside Horus.
Horus Heresy Begins
With his Legion secretly renamed the Sons of Horus, the Arch-traitor began his rebellion in earnest. Under the guise of putting down a rebellion, Horus virus-bombed the loyalist world of Isstvan III.
This atrocity served to purge loyalist elements from the Sons of Horus, World Eaters, Death Guard, and Emperor’s Children Legions under his command. Billions died in moments as the life-eater virus consumed all organic matter on the planet’s surface. The psychic death scream was said to echo across the galaxy.
But this was only the beginning. Horus had already convinced fully half of the Primarchs and their Legions to side with him against the Emperor. At the Isstvan System, Horus set a cunning trap for his former brothers.
He lured the Iron Hands, Salamanders, and Raven Guard Legions to the surface of Isstvan V with the promise of destroying the traitor Legions together. But it was all a ruse.
As the loyal Legions made planetfall and engaged the traitors, Horus revealed his true colors. The Night Lords, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion, and a contingent of Word Bearers arrived in orbit and began to bombard the loyalists.
Caught between the traitors ahead and behind, the loyalist Legions were massacred in one of the blackest deeds in Imperial history, known as the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacre.
In the brutal battle that followed, Ferrus Manus, Primarch of the Iron Hands, was killed by his former brother Fulgrim. Vulkan of the Salamanders and Corax of the Raven Guard were also believed slain, though they would later reemerge. Less than a tenth of the loyal Legions escaped the slaughter. It was a blow from which the Imperium would never fully recover.
With the loyalist forces reeling, Horus pressed his advantage. His fleets ranged across the galaxy, capturing key worlds and shipyards. The Mechanicum was split in two by the Schism of Mars, with many Forge Worlds declaring for Horus.
The Imperium was plunged into a brutal civil war as brother fought brother and whole worlds burned.
Key worlds fell to the traitors like dominoes. At the Battle of Calth, the Word Bearers launched a surprise assault on the Ultramarines, decimating the Legion and crippling its Primarch, Roboute Guilliman.
The Space Wolves were mauled at the Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula, lured into a trap by their long-time rivals, the Thousand Sons.
Even the mighty Blood Angels were laid low, their Primarch Sanguinius barely escaping a daemonic ambush at Signus Prime. Horus had managed to turn the Blood Angels’ own flesh against them, exploiting a genetic flaw to drive them into a maddening bloodlust.
With each victory, Horus’ forces grew as more and more worlds and military units pledged themselves to the Warmaster’s cause. It seemed the Imperium was doomed, and that Horus’ victory was inevitable. All roads led to Terra, where Horus planned to overthrow his father and claim the throne of the galaxy for himself and his dark masters.
The Siege of Terra
After years of total war, Horus’ fleets finally reached the Sol System. The Warmaster’s forces were vast, bolstered by the addition of the Traitor Titan Legions and the Dark Mechanicum.
Horus had also made dark pacts with the Ruinous Powers, who lent their daemonic legions to the assault. Against this apocalyptic host stood the defenses of Terra, mighty and layered, but undermanned after years of civil war.
The initial battle in orbit was fierce, with loyalist and traitor ships dueling amidst the void. But slowly, inexorably, the traitors gained ground. Cracks appeared in the Terran defense grid, allowing Horus’ forces to land en masse on the surface.
Led by the Warmaster himself, the Chaos armies quickly laid siege to the Imperial Palace, the last bastion of loyalist resistance.
For months, the defenders held out against impossible odds.
The Primarchs Rogal Dorn of the Imperial Fists, Sanguinius of the Blood Angels, and Jaghatai Khan of the White Scars led a heroic defense alongside the stalwart Imperial Fists, Blood Angels, and White Scars legions. The loyalists made the traitors pay for every inch of ground in blood, staging daring counterattacks and fighting with desperate courage.
But as the siege ground on, the situation grew more dire. The outer walls were breached, then the inner. The Imperial Palace itself came under assault. Traitor Titans dueled their loyalist counterparts amidst the ruins of mankind’s greatest city. Daemons and Warp-spawn rampaged through the streets. It seemed only a matter of time before the Palace fell.
In a desperate gambit, Jaghatai Khan led a breakout attempt to destroy the traitor landing zones, but was repulsed by the superior numbers of the Traitor Legions. Rogal Dorn was severely wounded holding the line at the Eternity Gate spaceport.
Sanguinius was beset by visions of doom and battled a daemonic horde summoned by the Word Bearers to capture the Imperial Palace’s Helios Gate.
Horus watched the battle from orbit, savoring his imminent triumph.
The Warmaster had one more card to play. He lowered the void shields on his flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, inviting the Emperor to teleport aboard for a final duel that would decide the fate of the Imperium. It was a trap, as Horus planned to confront his father with the full power of Chaos at his command.
In a final act of devotion and defiance, the Emperor rose to the challenge. With Sanguinius, Rogal Dorn, and a contingent of Imperial Fists and Adeptus Custodes, the Master of Mankind teleported onto the Vengeful Spirit.
There, he would confront his wayward son and determine the fate of the galaxy.
Horus vs the Emperor
The Emperor, at last, confronted Horus. Father and son unleashed godlike powers and weapons against one another, causing the very fabric of reality to tremble. Initially, the Emperor held back, unable to bring himself to slay his beloved son.
Horus tore the Emperor apart piece by piece and eventually destroyed his mortal form utterly. The Emperor’s body was reduced to a shattered husk, barely kept alive by his psychic might.
Yet the Emperor’s will endured. He gathered his full strength and in one final, galaxy-shattering burst of psychic power he obliterated Horus’ soul utterly so that the Chaos Gods could never resurrect him.
The Arch-traitor was truly dead, but the Master of Mankind was also fatally wounded.
Though Horus failed in his bid to usurp the Emperor, his rebellion came closer to destroying the Imperium than any other threat. To this day, ten millenia later, the Imperium has never fully recovered from the Horus Heresy.
The Emperor is trapped in the Golden Throne, kept barely alive by the sacrifice of untold psykers. The Primarchs have long since vanished and the Imperium is assailed by countless nightmarish threats. Horus’ name will forever live on in infamy, the ultimate arch-traitor and Warmaster of Chaos.
The Fate of Horus’ Remains
After the Warmaster’s death, the Emperor’s Children stole Horus’ body.
They attempted to use Fabius Bile’s twisted genius to clone Horus, but the returning Sons of Horus, now renamed the Black Legion and under the command of Horus’ chosen successor Abaddon the Despoiler, destroyed the cloning facility and Horus’ corpse along with it.
Only Horus’ famous lightning claw, the Talon of Horus, remained and became Abaddon’s most prized relic.
FAQs
Q: Why did Horus betray the Emperor?
A: Horus was corrupted by the Chaos Gods. They showed him a vision of a bleak future where he and his brothers were cast aside by the Emperor. This, along with jealousy and resentment at the Emperor for leaving the Great Crusade, pushed Horus to rebel.
Q: How close did Horus come to winning the Horus Heresy?
A: Horus came incredibly close to overthrowing the Emperor. His surprise attack devastated the loyalists and his forces made it all the way to Terra, breaching the Imperial Palace. If not for the Emperor’s sacrifice, Horus may well have succeeded.
Q: How was Horus defeated?
A: The Emperor faced Horus in a cataclysmic duel aboard Horus’ flagship. Despite being mortally wounded, the Emperor was able to summon his full psychic might and utterly obliterate Horus’ soul so that the Chaos Gods could not resurrect him.
Q: What happened to Horus’ body?
A: After Horus’ death, the Emperor’s Children stole his corpse and attempted to clone him. Abaddon the Despoiler and the Sons of Horus destroyed the cloning facility and Horus’ body. Abaddon claimed Horus’ lightning claw as his own.
Q: What is Horus’ legacy in the Imperium and the 40k galaxy?
A: Horus is the greatest traitor in the history of the Imperium. His name is reviled as the arch-heretic who nearly brought the Imperium to ruin. Ten thousand years later, the Imperium is still a shadow of its former self, wracked by endless war and on the verge of collapse. Horus’ Black Legion continues to be a major threat.
If you want to learn more about the Horus Heresy and its legendary heroes and villains, I highly recommend checking out the New York Times bestselling novel series of the same name from Black Library. This has been a look at the dramatic saga of Horus, the fallen Warmaster. Let me know what other 40k lore and characters you’d like me to cover! The Emperor protects.
