Brotherhood Betrayed As the great crusade continued like an unstoppable juggernaut, expanding the boundaries of the imperium and reclaiming systems for humanity, each legion had its own share of victories and honours. The fame of the Dark Angels and their primarch grew rapidly as Jonson's tally of victories was second only to Horus. This was no mean feat considering that Horus had been elevated to warmaster and given overall command of fully half the legions. Jonson led his beloved Dark Angels with a tactical cunning and strategic genius that was second to only the emperor. The legion suffered relatively small numbers of casualties, while causing such single-minded destruction of the emperor's foes that their persistence and stubborn execution became legendary. Where possible the primarch was always there to lead or direct his brethren personally to victory. As the emperor's sons pushed on with their holy crusade, the powers in the dark contemplated the threat they faced. Subtle manipulations had already begun to take effect as the convoluted machinations of the dark powers sought to undermine humanity's advance. Jonson had come to trust Luthor implicitly. The latter had saved his life in the jungles of Caliban where he had been discovered and had fought at his side ever since. They had been brothers-is-arms and had faced many dangers together. The taciturn and contemplative Jonson complimented the outgoing and lamboyant Luthor. What Jonson accomplished in deeds Luthor would match with his oratory. They matched and complimented each other perfectly and commanded the elite warriors of Caliban together. But when Jonson left on the great crusade with the vast majority of the Dark Angel legion after their refit on Caliban, he left Luthor behind to guard his home planet and lines of communications. To Jonson this was an extrememly important mission that he could not entrust to any one else. He needed a dependable and trustworthy friend to be in charge. However, Luthor's pride and martial honour were to undo everything friendship had built. The one constant fact in mankind's existence was the capacity of the dark powers to find each mans weakness in order to manipulate it. The warrior's pride was set upon with constant and unremitting whispers from the warp. As Jonson's success grew, so did Luthor's jalousy. He felt that Jonson and therefore by extension the emperor had foresworn them by ignoring him and his brethren on Caliban. Luthor's oratory was dynamic and flamboyant. Gradually, day by day and month by month he slowly bent and twisted the Dark Angels left behind to his way of thinking. Instead of celebrating their brethrens every accomplishment they detested them. Anyone not so turned was quietly murdered. The few chaplains of the legion were the first to die, as even Luthor knew they would resist his influence upon the legion. As the ruinous powers quietly exerted their grip over Luthor, so they manipulated the emperor's greatest champion, Horus. On the feral planet of Davin, he was taken ill by a virulent illness. For a primarch's superhuman constitution to suffer an illness was unheard of and could only have been due to a direct manifestation of the chaos god of decay, Nurgle. As he recuperated he joined the local warrior lodge as was his custom, to encourage the imperial edict to be passed on. That the warrior coven was but a front for a chaos cult and that he was utterly possessed by a daemon has gone in to the history of mankind as one of its greatest tragedies. Possession by a daemon did nothing to blunt Horus' forward planning and cunning stratagems. He was a great judge of character and was able to size up anyone in a moment. Having carefully gleaned the weaknesses and strengths of each brother primarch he set about slowly distancing the staunchly loyal ones away from the emperor. In the meantime the emperor was conducting the great debate on the use of sorcery and study of the arcane arts on the planet of Nikea. The proponents of the use of sorcerous ways, namely the cyclopean Magnus, primarch of the thousand sons faced their detractors, amongst whom stood Leman Russ, primarch of the Spacewolves. At the end of the debate, on the advice of the greatest spacemarine librarian, the emperor decreed that human psykers be trained and sanctioned scholastica psykana under supervision and that all other by the imperial conduct of sorcery be outlawed. The outraged and disappointed Magnus returned home looking for vindication. His ability to look directly in to the depths of the warp allowed his to see the terrible evil being spawned on Davin. He saw the horrible virus bombing of the entire populace of Istvaan IV by Horus as a sacrifice to his dark masters. He clearly saw the vanity of his brother primarchs being manipulated by Horus; The changing loyalties of Mortarion of the Death Guard, Angron of the World Eaters and the seduction of Fulgrim of the Emperor's children; The treacherous trap being laid for Corax of the Ravenguard, Vulcan of the Salamanders and Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands as they arrived on Davin to bring Horus to justice; The treachery of Perturabo of the Iron Warriors, along with Night Haunter's Night Lords, Logar's Word Bearers and Alpharius' Alpha Legion as they planned to strike the unsuspecting loyalist legions in their rear; The decoying away of the stalwart Guilliman of the ultramarines to the eastern fringes, and the misdirection of the loyalist Spacewolves and Dark Angels to the Segmentum Tempestus. Magnus' attempt to vindicate himself in the eyes of the emperor by sending a psychic message backfired as the emperor perceived Magnus to have broken his word in dabbling with the sorcerous ways. Convinced that Magnus had indeed gone over to the dark powers, Leman Russ and his Spacewolves were sent to destroy Prospero. It was likely that the dark powers hid their arrival from Magnus in order to manipulate the cyclopean in to their clutches. The violent sacking of Prospero and the defeat of the Thousand Sons by the Spacewolves finally sent another brother primarch in to the hands of Horus. Quietly manipulating the emperor's trust in him, Horus' last grand move was to direct the Spacewolves and Dark Angels down to the Southern fringes. As he had tended to deploy the two legions to foster their competitive spirit no suspicion was roused. The three loyalist legions on terra, Sanguinius' Blood Angels, Rogal Dorn's Imprial Fists and Jaghatai Khan's White Scars were physically too close to the emperor for Horus to redeploy. Unaware of the impending cataclysm that was about to envelope the imperium the massive combined fleet of the Spacewolves and Dark Angels continued on their conquests as directed by Horus. By this time a few loyalist spacemarines belonging to the Deathguard, World Eaters, Emperor's Children and the Sons of Horus gathered secretly and took over five frigates in orbit around Istvaan. While four frigates sacrificed themselves in a rearguard action to buy time for the fifth, those in the cruiser Eisenstein fled in to the warp and brought word of Horus' treachery to the Emperor. Too late to prevent the near annihilation of the three loyalist legions on Istvaan V they allowed the Emperor to mobilize his loyalists across the segmentum. Horus realised that the bulk of the Imperial forces still remained loyal to the emperor and that the three primarchs on terra were incorruptible. Combined with the steady Guilliman, the tactical genius of Jonson and the sheer ferocity of Russ, the emperor would be unassailable. The escape of the loyalists on the Eisenstein had prematurely exposed his plans. His only chance would be to destroy the emperor by direct assault on terra, quickly and before the ultramarines, Dark Angels or Spacewolves could intervene. The dark powers that aided him continued to interrupt warp transmissions so the eruption of civil war in the segmentum solar and obscurus went unnoticed by Russ and Jonson until they were near the southern fringes of segmentum tempestus. Disturbed by the sparsity of communications coming from terra and rumours of civil war as well as the relatively easy accomplishment of their crusade goals alerted the two primarchs that something might be amiss. Conferring with their closest counsels they considered the fact that the two legions may have been decoyed to the southern fringes. Rampant rumours of an inter-legionary war and civil unrest further strengthened their suspicions and a decision was made to end their crusade and return directly to earth. |
CHAPTER IV BROTHERHOOD BETRAYED Chronicled By ( Shadow Guard ) |
APOCRYPHA CALIBAN |
This entire section is one attempt to describe the long history of the Dark Angels in a linear form. Every known piece of history and event based on GW publications has been written in my own words and linked together in a reasonably plausible manner by additional fiction. This is in no way the official GW version nor is it in anyway an attempt to infringe on their IP. There are many versions of imperial history buried within the sands of time and this is but just one of them. Read on if you dare! |
