Death is nothing compared to vindication.". Corax advocated instead that the Loyalists should do whatever they could to make good their escape from the slaughter as the battle was lost. Peace, at the cost of surrendering all choice, all freedom. The Traitors had carried the day and dealt the Emperor and the Imperium a grievous blow. The purpose of these operations was to cull and cause as much collateral damage as possible. Neither Primarch could agree with the other, and so Corax turned from Vulkan and ordered his Legion to retreat. The other ate fear!". Somehow, the remaining Night Lords managed to affect their escape and fled into the void. The Loyalists waited for the second wave of "allies" to make planetfall, believing they would be reinforced for their final advance. It was the Night Haunter. He began by killing those who crossed his path. The Traitors, the bloodied and battered Legions loyal to Horus, fell into a fighting withdrawal without hesitation. [1a] Plagued by both systematic corruption and endemic violence, Nostraman society was radically altered and pacified by the actions of the Night Haunter, at least for a time. The Emperor had watched the way that Nostramo worked from His divine auguries. Vulkan had been revealed to be a "Perpetual", a being who was capable of continuous cellular regeneration and therefore was effectively immortal, much like their father, the Emperor of Mankind. "I have seen darkness, witnessed it in my dreams. And on Istvaan V the purge would begin. But kill a single man, and they will see monsters and devils in every shadow. This resulted in the death of all but a dozen of the Atramentar and the capture of Sevatar and the remaining survivors. Even should Lorgar somehow manage to escape his ultimate fate this day, he would bear these scars until the day he died. He introduced himself as Fulgrim. When the Emperor's sons were cast into the Warp and ended up in the distant reaches of the galaxy, from birth they were destined to grow into their own distinct personalities. The Word Bearers and their allies believed that the Imperium had failed them by being flawed to its core, imperfect in its pursuit of a perfect culture, and in its weakness against the encroachment of xenos breeds that sought to twist humanity to alien ends. [2], Now without a leader, the Night Lords eventually fragmented into disparate warbands largely built around their original legion company structure and relocated to the Eye of Terror.[2]. In his cauldron of sin he learned, his mind taking the whispers of thoughts from the flesh he ate, leeching speech and the arts of murder from those he watched. The Word Bearers Legion had taken up landing positions on the west of the field, ready to sweep down and engage the Raven Guard from the flank. According to the heretical handwritten chronicle of his life, entitled simply The Dark, the Primarch Konrad Curze's earliest memory was of descending from the heavens in a crackling ball of light to the night-shrouded planet of Nostramo. They were creatures of the dark, harnessed to the will of a father wracked by righteousness and foreboding; what else could have been their fate but to fall back into the night from whence they came? For years the VIIIth Legion had existed on the border between sanction and censure, fighting its own wars of terror like shadows within the forces of the Great Crusade. We all bear witness to a final truth -- our way is not the way of the Imperium. Mankind is in its ascendancy, and with ten thousand claws we will lay claim to the stars themselves.‘". Over the span of several months, the Night Haunter took sadistic pleasure in attempting to break both Vulkan's body and mind, or kill him outright. They rarely made any attempt to hold its ground, most often departing after their brief but vicious onslaught. Dorn then confronted Curze over what he saw as this dishonourable besmirchment of the Emperor's name; the conversation came to blows, with Curze beating his brother bloody. Beam after beam of incandescent light joined the fusillade, all concentrating upon the same point, a weak spot in Nostramo's adamantium crust theorised to be left by the Primarch's initial landing in his gestation pod when he first arrived on the bleak world. Stir within their hearts the gift of truest terror, and all their plans are ruined in the desperate struggle merely to survive. The nobility kept the best warriors for themselves for use in gang warfare on Nostramo. In the anthology "Shadows of Treachery" in the short story "Prince of Crows," Ch. Even after trying scores of times to map the labyrinth, an individual would only manage more than a handful of turns within its twisting corridors before it all stopped making sense. The mighty Titan war engines of the Machine God walked the planet’s surface and death followed in their wake. He introduced himself as Ferrus Manus. [34b], Since the death of their Primarch, Konrad Curze, the Night Lords have been shattered as an organized legion. Even as terrifying carnage was being wreaked upon the Loyalists below, the retreating forces of the Warmaster turned and brought their weapons to bear on the enemy warriors within their midst. Then simultaneously, the Lances and mass drivers of Night Haunter's flagship Nightfall opened fire upon the planet. [16], Meanwhile the splinter fleets of Night Lords forces scattered during Thramas continued to wreak havoc across Ultima Segmentum. The Loyalists' supposed "allies" opened fire upon the Salamanders and Raven Guard, killing hundreds in the fury of the first few moments, hundreds more in the seconds following, as volley after volley of Bolter fire and missiles scythed through their unsuspecting ranks. I never care what the enemy intends to do, for they will never be allowed to do it. [6] Night Lords have also been known to abduct infants to help replace fallen Astartes and choose recruits from conquered worlds.[8]. Hunting the Night Haunter (009.M31) - When next they fought, the Dark Angels executed a meticulously planned ambush on the Night Lords' fleet while it was in transit across the sub-sector that saw the back of the Night Lords Legion broken and their Primarch mortally wounded after having faced his brother El'Jonson once again in mortal combat. Curze foresaw the coming of his father, the Emperor of Mankind, for he knew all things. Unfortunately, the remainder of the Night Lords fleet fled the Dark Angels' wrath, while the recently recovered Night Haunter, First Captain Sevatar and the elite Night Lords Atramentar Terminators led a desperate boarding assault action upon the Dark Angels' flagship Invincible Reason. As his mental anguish grew, so did his Legion's dark reputation. He was slain, some believe willingly, by the Callidus Assassin M'Shen on the world of Tsagualsa in the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy immediately following the end of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium. The second wave of "Loyalist" Space Marine Legions descended upon the landing zone on the northern edge of the Urgall Depression. I hate this Legion, Talos. The VIIIth Legion was now composed of warriors who were murderers in the Primarch's own image, yet devoid of his conviction. All across the Urgall Depression, hundreds died with every passing second, the promise of inevitable death a pall of darkness that hung over every warrior. Corax looked to meet eyes as black as his, in a face as pale as his own. Fear became an end unto itself, and its propagation was all the Night Lords desired as they fed upon it. "We have received your offer of surrender and reject it; we did not come to receive your supplication but to enact judgement. The Night Haunter personally beheaded the Salamanders' Primarch, ripped out his throat with a piece of cutlery, stabbed him through the chest and virtually tore him limb from limb with his own wicked claws. The Night Haunter did not fall during the Horus Heresy, and neither did he receive the dark blessing of the Ruinous Powers in the form of apotheosis to daemonhood. They walked in great, grinding phalanxes, different formations wearing armour of black, of gold, of royal purple or earthen grey. The Night Lords have operated as raiding forces ever since, conducting terror raids in much the same style as they did whilst under the Imperial banner, only now fueled by the hate and desperation brought on by the Long War, as well as the malign influences of Chaos. The Loyalist Primarchs could be found where the fighting was thickest: Corax of the Raven Guard, borne aloft on black wings bound to a fire-breathing flight pack; Lord Ferrus of the Iron Hands at the heart of the battlefield, his silver hands crushing any Traitors that came within reach, while he pursued and dragged back those who sought to withdraw; and lastly, Vulkan of the Salamanders, armoured in overlapping Artificer plating, thunder clapping from his warhammer as it pounded into yielding armour, shattering it like porcelain. [1,2] A key aspect of the Eighth Legion's terror tactics is that of dominance; the Night Lords believe in theoretically achieving it before beginning a combat action in the first place, and will go out of their way to gain a superior position over the enemy, using psychological warfare for some time before the attack, or stealth tactics in order to infiltrate the battlefield or set up in ambush. As the Horus Heresy began in earnest, Horus now possessed nine Space Marine Legions and had all but destroyed three of the remaining nine Loyalist Legions. "The Night Haunter" was the fearful name they gave him -- an avenging spirit, an angel of blind justice -- a murderer other murderers feared. Curze looked upon his prostrate brother and ordered him to rise from his knees, disgusted at his cowardice. He saw this warrior crowned in psychic fire, screaming up at a burning sky. Curze's prescient visions were known to have granted him the terrible power to foresee the worst possible outcome to any given series of events. As the treachery of the Drop Site Massacre would show, however, the Night Lords had not forsaken contact with all elements of the Great Crusade, and their need for retribution had led them to become the Traitors and criminals they had once loathed. The Iron Hands had damned themselves by remaining in the field instead of retreating like their fellows. At last, the golden god Himself stepped forwards, His arms wide open. But even this form of sorcerous torture failed to break the resolute Vulkan. Troubled by these dire portents, Fulgrim confided in his brother Rogal Dorn. Many will claim that they - and they alone - are my appointed successor. To increase their effectiveness in this regard, Curze encouraged the Night Lords to decorate their power armour with death imagery. All Primarchs found a mentor in the harsh worlds beyond Terra but one: Konrad Curze. The geneseed of the Night Lords apparently remains surprisingly pure, especially for a legion that has turned from service to the Emperor. None dared to have more than his neighbour and under the shadow of Night Haunter's rule, the city grew well-lit and prosperous. I have arrived, and I intend to take you home. By the grace of the Emperor, Corax somehow managed to survive, but the fate of his brother Vulkan was unknown.