“Lupercal!”

Januri Kharoghast, ‘The Last Luna Wolf’, in the wake of the Luna Wolf First Company’s successful assault on the throne room of the Ork Warlord Urrlak Urg.

THE LAST LUNA WOLF

The scrubbed honour roles of Januri Kharoghast were extensive, mentions and decorations from well over a century of the Great Crusade, each citation and accomplishment greater than the last. A born killer and natural leader, it was not long before he rose to the rank of Sergeant in the expanding Legion. Noted by superiors for possessing a zeal and determination greater than even the usual psycho-indoctrinated Astartes, Karoghast always sought to be first into a fight, whether that be by drop-pod, stormbird or teleportation strike. The spear-tip was the XVIth Legion’s way of war, and Kharoghast saw himself as its epitome, a finishing strike before the battle had even begun.

Kharoghast’s drive was recognized during the conquest of Orphidia Delta, when his company was devastated during the assault on the planet’s capital hive. Standing over his wounded captain, he threw back the vat-grown abominations that swarmed the Legionaries’ position, taking horrific wounds to ensure the company’s banner never fell into enemy hands. Taking the standard from the dying hands of its former bearer, he rallied the surrounding Luna Wolves and led them in a counterattack. After three days of grueling fighting, the ragged Wolf-head banner of the 40th company would fly from the hive’s tallest spire.

For this action Kharoghast’s heroism and martial skill would be recognized by his elevation to the Justaerin, Horus’s personal bodyguard of Terminator shock-troops. Leading a squad of the XVIth Legion’s elite, he would rack up countless battle honours, including the vaunted Aquila Imperialis, the sigil inscribed upon his armour in recognition of serving alongside the Emperor of Mankind on the battlefield.

On Ullanor, Kharoghast would join Horus Lupercal and Ezekyle Abaddon in the First Company’s assault on the throne room of the Ork Warlord Urrlak Urg. Leaving the Primarch to fight the oversized Ork leader, the Justaerin threw themselves at the Warlords bodyguard, a mass of armoured Orks, each dwarfing even a space marine in size.

But they were Luna Wolves, and no foe could stand in their way. With crackling blades and torrents of bolts they slaughtered their way into the mob, ensuring that no xenos got a chance to distract their Primarch.

These were no mere Ork brutes though, unlike their kin butchered by the billion by space marines across the galaxy. Urg’s bodyguard was made up of the most powerful of their breed, hulking masses of muscle covered in slabs of armour as thick as landraider’s hide, brandishing the most lethal weapons their brutish race could fashion or loot. They had killed every foe they had ever fought, be they human, xenos or other Orks.

It was a slaughter. Although the Justaerin hacked down dozens of the beasts, power claws rent even their terminator plate, tearing open their bodies and spilling their insides upon the filthy floor. The Luna Wolves fought on ferociously as one by one they were dragged down by the weight of bodies and strength of their opponents.

Kharoghast was among the last standing, his empty bolter long discarded, his gladius abandoned hilt-deep in an ork’s brain. He fought with his powerfist, back to back with Abaddon, smashing the life from any Ork that faced him.

Yet there were still too many for him to fight. Flame wreathed him as one of the last Orks sprayed him with a crude flamethrower as its comrade grasped at him with a power claw. Swiping blindly Kharoghast removed its jaw, before feeling a searing pain in his midriff as another Ork plunged its weapon between two damaged plates. He went down fighting, grasping with his fist, feeling armour, flesh and bone crush. But they were on top of him, smashing, stabbing and howling.

It was Abaddon that saved him. Killing three Orks in as many seconds, Kharoghast barely even saw the First Captain move, such was his skill at arms. His claw smote and sword cleft, leaving nothing but butchered meat and black blood.

Too injured to move, Kharoghast still spluttered “Lupercal!” as Horus threw the broken form Urg from the battlements. Ullanor was won, a crowning achievement for Horus and his Legion.

In the wake of the Triumph and Horus’s promotion to Warmaster, Kharoghast received a unique honour from his Primarch. In recognition for his decades of service to the Crusade, Legion and Horus himself, Kharoghast was offered an assignment to Terra, to represent the Warmaster as part of the Crusader Host, a mostly ceremonial body of the Legiones Astartes upon the homeworld.

As his wounds would prevent him from serving in the Justaerin for many months, Kharoghast accepted the assignment. Horus promised his stay on Terra would not be permanent, as warriors such as he were needed upon the frontlines. But as the bureaucrats and morta lLords of Terra were starting to play an ever-greater role in both the Great Crusade and Imperium, Horus was keen to have someone he knew personally and could trust upon the Throneworld, someone who knew the values they were fighting for and the realities of the galactic campaign.

And so it was that at the outbreak of the Horus Heresy, Kharoghast was dragged to the dungeons under the Imperial Palace. Mercilessly interrogated by agents of the Imperium, he endured months of torture in the dark.

At first he refused to believe what he was being told. It was inconceivable for him that any Astartes would turn against the Emperor, against all they had built, let alone Horus Lupercal. Kharoghast’s faith in his father was unbreakable, and he cursed his jailors for sullying the Warmaster’s name.

After years in the Emperor’s dungeons, it was clear that the taint that had infected the Sons of Horus was not present in Kharoghast, for he had been assigned to Terra before events on Davin, and had never been a member of the corrupting Warrior Lodges. He was pure, but his undaunted loyalty to his fallen father was problematic for any future purpose the Emperor would have for him.

Although the torture and interrogations stopped, he was confined to his cell. He was given dataslates and pict capts, evidence of the Warmaster’s crimes. Slaughtered civilians, burning cities. He wept as he looked over vid-feeds of Legionaries in the livery of the Sons of Horus performing disgusting acts and rituals.

Alone in his cell, he wrestled with his shattered worldview. Horus and his Legion had been his life. And what a life, bestriding the stars as the pinnacle of humanity, cleansing them of darkness and tyranny. And now it seemed that his brothers and father had become what they had strived against.

But it could all be lies! He knew nothing, all the information fed to him could be false, a cunning deception. There was no way knowing, not here, deep underground caged like an animal.

Though shaken, his loyalty to the Emperor and humanity remained. He had witnessed the Master of Mankind’s golden light, and it had been difficult not to fall to his knees in awe. The sheer sense of purity and benevolence in that light had warmed his soul, assuring him that his purpose was righteous.

Unquestioning loyalty to Horus and the Emperor had been one and the same. That harmony had been cut in twain, and he must choose. He could rot in this cell for eternity, or take the offer that the grey-armoured Astartes of the Sigillite gave him.

His destiny would be his own, and it would be in the service of humanity. For that is who the Legions had all fought for, those that could not fight for themselves.

Kharoghast took his oaths to Malcador the Sigillite, the Emperor’s right hand and Master of the Knights Errant. Unfettered from their Legions and Primarchs, the unmarked Astartes journeyed throughout the galaxy on clandestine missions, a scalpel working where the hammer of armies could not, ensuring the Imperium’s survival and impeding the Traitor’s advance.

After years cooped up, it felt exhilarating to be a wolf on the hunt again. There was no hesitation when he was faced with Traitors on the other end of his boltgun. He killed them all, Astartes, mortals or Dark Mechanicum abomination. It was only when he took part in a mission against the Sons of Horus themselves that he noticed a flicker of regret.

He still killed his former brothers, cursing them for their treachery as he pulled the trigger. But he felt it, the sorrow, the longing, as he watched a squad of the XVIth Legion massacred in an ambush. They were as admirable as he remembered, standing firm against impossible odds, the familiar war cries on their lips as they died.

He kept his feelings hidden from his Knight Errant comrades. They would not hesitate to put a bolt-round through his skull if they suspected a hint of treachery. And he was not a traitor! Kharoghast would fulfill his duty to the Imperium until his dying breath, no matter how many former brothers he must slay.

It was on a mission to Keria Mundi that fate took another turn for the former Luna Wolf. Whether by treachery or ill-luck, Kharoghast’s kill team were compromised. It was now their turn to be ambushed, trapped and slaughtered.

An Emperor’s Child, an Iron Hand, a World Eater, a Death Guard and a Luna Wolf. Fatherless and forgotten, no one would ever know their fate, abandoned in the bowels of a hive city, penned in from all sides. With no way out, they resolved to sell their lives dearly.

They needed no remembrance. They were the last crusaders, knights who fought where no others would. They needed no legacy, for they had their honour.

They fought to the last bolt shell. Unsheathing their blades, they fought on against the sons of the Warmaster, fighting as their armour and flesh were rent and their blood spilled upon the deck. In the fury of the melee, Kharoghast could think only of Ullanor, back to back with comrades, fighting to the death against all odds. A warrior’s death. He howled the war cry of the Luna Wolves, words of the Great Crusade dedicated to the honoured dead slaughtered at the hands of cowards. What better death could an Astartes ask for?

But death was not Kharoghast’s fate, not that day. Brought down by dozens of wounds, his grey armour red with the gore and blood of brothers, his weapons were wrenched from his hands. Awaiting the end, he realized with horror that he was being taken from the battlefield, recognizing Cthonic jeers as he was dragged away.

Stripped of his armour, Kharoghast was a prisoner once again. He had failed, not only in his mission for the Emperor, but to die with honour. He would now likely be sacrificed in a dark ritual or kept alive as a plaything, tortured beyond the limits of sanity. He resolved himself to a grim fate. But as when he found himself in the dungeons of the Khangba Marwu, he would not lose hope.

To his surprise he was not tortured. An apothecary tended to his wounds, treating him as he would any other battle-brother. The Captain of the Sons of Horus Taskforce, Krad Thranus, came to his cell, offering friendship.

Kharoghast spat upon the floor. He would give them nothing. Do what you must, he told them. You can do nothing that I have not already endured. Thranus had smiled, and left him alone.

A few months later, the traitors must have rendezvoused with the Warmaster’s fleet. Kharoghast could recognize the insides of the Vengeful Spirit from its smell alone, though it had changed in the years he had been absent. There was darkness in the ship, a taint.

He was brought before the Warmaster, chuckling as he recognized his Justaerin brothers guarding their liege. Even in their treachery, they were glorious, brutality and regality melded into a force that none could stand against.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was kneeling before the Warmaster. Horus had changed as much as his ship, his white armour of the Great Crusade replaced with black terminator plate that oozed a malice that chilled Kharoghast’s soul. But that bond between father and son was as strong as ever. Horus Lupercal was glory incarnate, everything that Kharoghast had stood for, a godlike lord to be bowed to and worshiped by the unworthy, ungrateful masses. He could do no wrong, to question his will was madness.

Horus bade him to stand, and welcomed him home. Kharoghast did not know what to do, to run, to weep, to attack. His psycho-indoctrination and trans-human gene therapy, performed on him when he was no more than a child, had instilled in him unquestioning devotion to his Primarch. Nothing could have prepared him for this moment. His head was a chaotic mass of emotions.

He knew why he was still alive, what Horus was going to offer him. And to his shame, Kharoghast knew how he was going to answer.

Januri Kharoghast rejoined his Legion. Maloghurst the Twisted, Equerry to the Warmaster, took charge of the former Knight Errant’s reintegration into the Sons of Horus. He had been a wolf without a pack for long years, chained and alone, turned against his Legion by a false master. He was home, amongst his true brothers, ready to once again crusade at his father’s side.

He was aware of chaos, warned of its dangers by the others in Malcador’s service. But he was now taught its true nature. The Dark Gods were terrifyingly real, but their power could be used by the strong and the worthy. Indeed, even the Emperor, in the greatest lie in human history, had utilized the forbidden powers of the Immaterium in the creation of the Primarchs and space marines. They were all of the warp, and they would take their rightful place in the galaxy.

As a former member of the Crusader Host, Kharoghast had diplomatic skills relatively rare in Horus’ Legion during the later years of the Heresy. He became an emissary of Maloghurst, a liaison between the Sons of Horus and their allies, representing the Warmaster just as he had done on Terra all those years ago.

And to Terra Kharoghast would return. Viewing the Throneworld from the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit, his fists clenched as he buried his emotions. He was a Son of Horus, he was where he belonged and he would do his duty.

But nothing could prepare him for the bloodbath during the Siege. As part of the Warmaster’s command cadre, Kharoghast did what he could to ensure the assault upon the Imperial Palace went as planned. But as the situation on the ground fell apart and Horus retreated further into his own mind, Kharoghast’s felt himself despairing. The Ultramarines were at their back, with half the Imperium with them. They must end this fight and take victory before it was too late.

Kharoghast was in the Strategium of the Vengeful Spirit when the ship was boarded by the mightiest heroes of the Imperium, throwing him into a fight for his life. The Custodes, Sanguinary Guard and VIIth Legion Huscarls tore through the ship in an effort to link up with their leaders, and no Astartes, mortal or even daemon could stand against them.

As he dueled a golden-armoured Blood Angel, Kharoghast knew that this was the end. A dread filled him as he felt the ship around him recoil, and he knew the Emperor was here to finish what he had started. He was going to kill his wayward son.

From where he was Kharoghast could do nothing. Command and control no longer existed, every soul on the Vengeful Spirit was now on their own, pitted against their mortal enemies in a fight to the bitter end.

The golden angel fought well, dealing a series of wounds and roaring his frustration as Kharoghast eventually cut him down. His geneseed would not be returned to Baal, he would be forgotten, his armour would be defiled, his flesh devoured by daemons, his bones ground to powder to be used in the rituals of the lodges. An ignoble end for a brave warrior. As he twisted his blade, Kharoghast nodded to the angel. The son of Sanguinius had done his duty to the end, beyond that nothing else mattered.

As the boarders were pushed back and cut down, word of Horus’ death spread like wildfire through the Vengeful Spirit. Kharoghast fell to his knees in a blood-drenched corridor, once more a soldier without a purpose, a son without a father. He wept, alone in the dark.

In silence, he joined other members of his Legion as they made their way to the bridge. There lay Horus’ body, fallen and still. They mourned him, their fallen father, the only being that had given them a shred of kindness and belonging in a galaxy of cruelty.

The XVIth Legion ran, taking the body of their father with them. They ran to the only safe place in the galaxy where the vengeful loyalists would not follow, the Eye of Terror.

There they suffered, the other Traitor Legions falling upon them in spite. Warriors that fought in the Great Crusade and on Terra’s soil were massacred by those who they had drawn swords with. Mutation and possession tore through the Legion as marines without a purpose gave themselves fully to the service of the Dark Gods. By the time the Emperor’s Children delivered the killing blow on the world of Maeleum, there was not much left of the Sons of Horus.

These times saw a desperate renaissance of Cthonic culture, with the formation of many gangs, centered around a chieftain strong enough to hold his brothers together and defend his warband from attack, be that from predatory Traitor Legions or their own brothers. With his vast experience of war, Kharoghast found himself at the head of one of these splinter bands.

He was a morose warlord, ever in mourning over his dead father and lost purpose. He had given his life to the Great Crusade, and all that remained was ash. He clung to his Legion, his brothers, for that was all that remained. A handful of wolves in a dark forest, where they must kill or be killed. The old Luna Wolves war cry was more true than ever. Kill for the living, kill for the dead.

Details of Kharoghast’s time as leader of the XVIth Legion’s splinter-band known as the ‘Wolves of Horus’ are mostly unknown, as he fled deep into the Eye of Terror after the Legion’s shattering, beyond the reach of his enemies, of which there were many. Upon the ascension of Abaddon as the new Warmaster of Chaos, Kharoghast fully resisted integration into the Black Legion. He still held a great love for the traditions of the Sons of Horus, and would not see them cast away to time, not while he still drew breath.

In the many years of the Long War, the Wolves of Horus would come to blows with Abaddon’s forces as many times as they would fight alongside them, for that was the harsh reality of the Eye. Abaddon needed allies just much as he wanted to crush any vestige of his old Legion, and the Wolves of Horus would sally out of the Eye of Terror on many a Black Crusade, reaving the worlds of the hapless Imperium just as they did in the days of the Heresy.

Upon the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum, Kharoghast has spread his forces wide across what was once the Imperium. Keeping out of the way of the rampaging Black Legion proved relatively simple, for the area of the Imperium cut off from the Astronomicon is beyond vast, hundreds of thousands of worlds open to the predations of the Ruinous Powers.

In recent years the Wolves of Horus have carved themselves a pocket-empire in what was once an Imperial Sub-Sector, now a collection of ravaged systems fought over by opportunistic xenos and chaos marauders. At the head of his armies, Kharoghast readies himself for a new crusade, and woe betide any that stand in his way.