At the conclusion of the Horus heresy, the mortally wounded emperor succeeded in slaying Horus, both his body and soul, before being taken back to the palace by Dorn and placed upon the golden throne. In the absence of the understandably preoccupied imperials, Abaddon managed to retake Horus’ flagship and flee with Horus’ body. The body was enshrined by the sons of Horus until it was stolen by the emperor’s children, who attempted to use it to clone Horus, and eventually destroyed in the counterattack by the vengeful sons of Horus, that such blasphemy could never be attempted again. The only piece remaining is Horus’ power claw, the talon of Horus, which Abaddon still uses this day.
Amongst the ranks of the traitor legions, this is common knowledge, the shame that caused the sons of horus to dye their armour black and call themselves the black legion, until they would kill the hated emperor and prove once again that they are worthy of calling themselves the sons of Horus. Only very few however, know that the talon of Horus is not the only piece of his armour that survived. A sorcerer of the emperor’s children named Thraxadar managed to steal a less obvious piece of the armour, one that no one immediately would notice to be missing, and wanted to use it for his own unknown but no doubt dark ends. He hid on an isolated planet in the Hermelinus system, but while digging in its surface to build a good old-fashioned subterranean sorcerer’s lair, he accidentally stumbled upon a Necron crypt. The wraiths guarding the crypt turned out to have a vicious morning temper and Thraxadar and his cult were slain, the artifact still resting on the planet and eventually buried by thousands of passing years.
Recently, the imperium established a mining colony on the planet and the artifact was once again unearthed. Due it being such a powerful artifact, its true nature was almost immediately discovered and briefed to the inquisition, who named it the Therachion, because a powerful chaos artifact needs a difficult name, and because it sounds a lot cooler than ‘Horus’s underpants of doom’, which they essentially were. Unfortunately for the inquisition, chaos cultists resided amongst the miner population and the followers of the ruinous powers were quickly informed as well. Full scale war for the possession of the Therachion is certain to erupt soon…
The inquisitor was going over his strategy one last time. Not that ‘overpowering the enemy through sheer numbers’ could really qualify as a strategy, the inquisition could simply not take any chances with a heretical find of this magnitude. The Navigators had read the warp currrents and studied the wakes the enemy left in the immaterium, and they would arrive roughly simultaneously, battle was assured to break out immediately upon arriving, probably starting with a race to the surface. Still, he was not worried. The inquisition had used its authority to commandeer every available imperial asset in the region, ranging from full imperial guard companies over several chapters of the adeptus astartes to even more obscure allies like the adeptus sororitas. It was a display of force not seen in a long time, they could not lose, his forces should outnumber the enemy at least 3 to 1.
The chaos lord was filled with a dark and burning anticipation. This was his moment, an artifact that had once belonged to the warmaster himself within his reach. Most certainly its power would be sufficient to fuel his ascension to daemon prince. The lapdogs of the false emperor were unto it as well, but he was prepared for a fight. He had called in every favour other warbands owed him, and subdued a great many more into joining him by force. Although they undoubtedly planned to betray him and take the Therachion for themselves, he would not let that happen. He had sold the soul of every warrior in his warband three times over to the ruinous powers, striking pacts with several powerful daemons from the warp, and sacrificed millions of slaves in exchange for the power to bring forth a whole legion of daemonic warriors. His army numbered three times the warriors the imperium would bring, his ascension was as good as certain.
The farseer withdrew his mind’s eye from the skein, the great net of threads that showed the past and the future of every being in the universe interweaving with each other, and shivered. He had foreseen a threat to the craftworlds of unprecedented magnitude, all coming forth from the find of a powerful chaos artifact. Once again the mon-keigh had endangered all of existence by their unchecked need to expand their empire and mess with powers beyond their understanding. There was only one place where the artifact would cause no harm, and that was in the care of the white seers of the black library, who would study and if need be destroy it. His visions were clouded by the sheer number of destinies interwoven with the Therachion, and while he had seen the enemies were many, he had been unable to judge their numbers. He would take no chances, and mobilize the forces of 3 craftworlds combined. With such a force, they were sure to be victorious.
‘Finally, some luck…’ thought the archon. He sure could use some luck, his raids had been very disappointing of late, and it had cost his cabal dearly. He had been one of the greatest cabals of Commoragh, but due to his last unsuccessful raids his influence and wealth had been in steep decline. Rather than accept his power dwindling and becoming a more and more insignificant cabal, slowly bleeding out before being picked apart by the other cabals, he had invested all his remaining wealth in a raid of unprecedented magnitude, binding several wych cults, haemonculi covens, spire gangs and even a few lesser cabals to his cause. The first target of his raid had been to enslave the full population of a mining planet, but the mining planet turned out to be the scene of a major war. This suited him marvelously, warrior slaves who could give a good show in the pits had much higher value than simple workers, and his raiding force could undoubtedly handle it, being 3 times larger than usual.
The overlord awoke. He had slept for an age, but now he was roused from his slumber by the presence of the lesser races, apparently more than the wraiths could handle alone. Pure, undeniable rage immediately flooded his mind, disgusted that the younger races would dare to try and claim the tomb world as their own. Had he slept for so long? Had they forgotten their place? No matter, now that he had awoken, he would lead his warriors once more to battle, and reclaim the galaxy that was rightfully his to begin with, starting with this very planet. He had been one of the most powerful Necrontyr during his time, his crypts were the largest he knew of, he had three times more warriors under his command than most other overlords. The thought of losing didn’t even occur to him.
The warboss roared his praise to Gork and Mork, for they had done him a huge favor. Everywhere within the space hulk his tribe had used to travel, the roar of appreciation was echoed. Unable to steer the thing, they had just traveled the warp blindly hoping they would enter realspace close to a whole new planet to trash. And they had. Not just some random poorly defended planet, no. This planet was already in a state of war, countless warriors of a great many species getting ready to fight. And he had arrived just in time to join in. Tears of happiness would have streamed down his face, if he could have afforded to show such weakness in front of his nobs. Instead of just a fight, he would get a GOOD fight. Other orks would hear of it, and his tribe that was already nearing critical magnitude would escalate into a full blown waaagh. It would be the biggest baddest and most unstoppable waaagh in the history of orkdom, and he would be the warboss of it. Well, as soon as he had won at least, but that couldn’t be a problem, his boyz already numbered three times the usual amount orks in a warband. (Roughly, as he had never learned to count past 3.)
The ethereals had ordained that this was the good time to strike, while the enemy was converging on an isolated planet. A quick, decisive blow from the tau at range would dispose of all the enemies in the area at once, and the ethereals would be able to spread the philosophy of the greater good throughout the sector swiftly and unopposed. Many worlds would embrace it happily, freed from the brutal oppression of either the imperium or the ruinous powers. The shas’o could see the wisdom of the ethereals and would do his duty for the greater good. He had mustered enough firepower to destroy the enemies of the greater good 3 times over, he would not fail.
The hive mind sensed the presence of an unusually rich feast of biomass. Not just a lot, but a very diverse feast as well. This was an opportunity he could not miss. Not only would it feed the swarm, the many different genecodes in the pool of nutrients would undoubtedly allow for a great many new and even more lethal evolutions amongst the tyranids. The converging of so many organisms on that planet was like the tolling of a giant dinner bell it simply could not resist, and it directed not 1, but 3 of the tendrils of its hive fleet towards it, so its swift victory would be undeniable.
