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Maloghurst With Possessed Retinue

Maloghurst "the Twisted", equerry to the Warmaster Horus

Maloghurst, also known as The Twisted, was a Veteran Astartes of the XVIth Space Marine Legion, the Luna Wolves, later renamed the Sons of Horus in honour of its Primarch Horus' elevation to the esteemed rank of Imperial Warmaster.

Maloghurst was known for his shrewdness and his talent for intrigue and intelligence-gathering, which were unusual amongst the Legiones Astartes, who tended to be forthright in battle and to disdain such shadowy activities.

During the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium, Maloghurst served as the equerry to Horus. He acted as the public voice for the XVIth Legion and carried out the Warmaster's will in his capacity as the Sons of Horus Legion's chief enforcer. He was essentially Horus' spymaster and secret police chief after the Heresy began, the traitorous counterpart of Malcador the Sigillite.

Maloghurst's nickname came not only from his personality but also the physical damage to his body.

Maloghurst had been badly wounded on the world of Sixty-Three-Nineteen during the final days of the Great Crusade, and his spine had been deformed and twisted, making him unfit for active combat duty but still quite effective at the tasks of propaganda, spying and assassination which Horus set him to accomplish.

Maloghurst met his death near the end of the Horus Heresy when he sacrificed his life to free a fragment of Horus' soul from the Warp where it had been resisting the enslavement of the Chaos Gods.

The equerry entered the Immaterium using his own sorcery and ultimately convinced the Horus soul-fragment to continue his rebellion against the Emperor and initiate the climactic Siege of Terra.

History[]

Maloghurst Remembrancer Sketch

Ancient Remembrancer sketch of Maloghurst the Twisted during the Great Crusade.

Great Crusade[]

Born on the Mining World of Cthonia, Maloghurst was inducted into the Luna Wolves Legion and took part in numerous campaigns during the Great Crusade. A Veteran warrior amongst the ranks of the XVIth Legion, he served as a company captain, and might have even risen to the first captaincy of the Legion had he not been promoted to the office of equerry.

As a shrewd and experienced individual, it was his job to protect the Warmaster politically, guiding and advising, blocking and out-playing all opponents. He made it his business to be aware of, and perfectly sensitive to, every political nuance and current that ran through the military and civilian ranks of the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet.

Maloghurst was not a well-liked Astartes among his brethren, and was a difficult man to get close to, even by the intimidating standards of the Astartes. Most of his fellow battle-brothers thought of the Warmaster's equerry as a facilitator, loyal only to Horus himself, though no one was ever foolish enough to underestimate him.

During the Imperial Compliance of the world designated as Sixty-Three-Nineteen, Maloghurst was despatched by the Warmaster to the planet's surface to parlay with the false leader of this world who called himself the "Emperor of Mankind."

Unfortunately, Maloghurst's Stormbird was shot down and he was horribly wounded after it crash-landed on the planet's surface. His body was mangled and his spine horribly twisted, making his physical appearance as warped as his foul mind.

Though no longer able to serve the Legion on active combat duty after his injuries, when selected by his primarch to serve as his trusted advisor, Maloghurst proved more than willing to follow the Warmaster in anything -- including treachery against the Master of Mankind and corruption by the Dark Gods of Chaos.

He also once boldly stated to his fellow Astartes that he was aware of his nickname of "the Twisted" amongst the rest of the Legion and had no wish to abandon it: his mind was as agile as ever, and if his body was now twisted to fit it, then so be it.

Horus Heresy[]

Traitor[]

Maloghurst the Twisted

Maloghurst during the Horus Heresy.

After Horus' corruption by the Chaos Gods, following his miraculous healing in the Temple of the Serpent Lodge on Davin, he conspired to overthrow the Emperor and install himself as the new Master of Mankind. It was Maloghurst's job to ensure that the Warmaster's orders were carried out in his capacity as the chief enforcer of Horus' will.

To this end, early on he employed the services of the mute assassin Maggard after he was freed from service to his overbearing Remembrancer mistress Petronella Vivar and then was chemically and surgically enhanced at the Warmaster's orders to make him more like a proto-Astartes.

Shortly before Horus initiated his rebellion against the Emperor, Maloghurst became suspicious of the loyalties of Captain Garviel Loken, one of the members of Horus' Mournival, and placed a Warp-eye spying ritual on the Remembrancer Mersadie Oliton before erasing her memory of it. This was so that he might learn more about Loken as the captain interacted with Oliton, since he was known to be friendly with several of the Remembrancers in Oliton's clique aboard the Sons of Horus flagship Vengeful Spirit.

Unknown to Maloghurst, several years later this same summoned Warp-eye still in effect on Oliton was used by the Daemon Samus as a gateway into realspace so that it could manifest in the bowels of the Imperial Fists' flagship Phalanx during the Solar War.

During the campaign to exterminate the remaining Loyalists of the first four Traitor Legions on Isstvan III, the Loyalist Death Guard Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro seized control of the frigate Eisenstein to bring a dire warning to the Emperor of the Warmaster's treachery.

It was Maloghurst who directed the Death Guard's First Captain Calas Typhon aboard his ship, the Terminus Est, to intercept and prevent the Eisenstein from escaping before it could warn the Emperor of Horus' treachery.

Sorcerer[]

As the years of the Traitors' drive on Terra passed, Maloghurst began to delve more deeply into the lore of Chaos with the aid of First Chaplain Erebus of the Word Bearers. Maloghurst soon became quite an adept practicioner of the occult and a master of Daemonology as the Heresy ground on.

Serghar Targost, the captain of the 7th Company of the Sons of Horus, and master of the Legion's warrior lodge, began to suspect that through his practice of sorcery Maloghurst had grown more powerful and had healed himself of his old wounds. Targost thought he had begun to feign his incapacity, to make others believe him to be far less dangerous than was the truth.

Shortly before the Battle of Molech began, Maloghurst performed a ritual where he violently sacrificed captured mortals to the Ruinous Powers and summoned the Daemon Tormageddon into the body of the brain-dead Sons of Horus Legionary Ger Gerradon. Maloghurst intended this Daemonhost to be the first in a new army of Possessed Chaos Space Marines: the Luperci.

Maloghurst played his next major role in the Heresy when he advised Horus during the Battle of Molech.

Following the brutal wounding of Horus aboard the Vengeful Spirit at the Battle of Trisolian with the Spear of Russ by the Space Wolves Primarch Leman Russ, the Warmaster fell into a coma during the Battle of Beta-Garmon as the Ruinous Powers in the Warp fought over control of the fragment of the primarch's soul that had remained within the Immaterium after he had passed through the Warp Gate present on Molech.

In the absence of Horus' daily presence, the drive of the Traitors upon Terra began to bog down in constant in-fighting amongst the Traitor Legions and their increasingly corrupted primarchs. Maloghurst soon found himself desperate to revive his master lest their rebellion against the Emperor collapse.

Dark Martyr[]

Maloghurst Sons of Horus Forge World miniature

Maloghurst carrying the standard of the Warmaster Horus and the Sons of Horus Legion.

Maloghurst eventually agreed to accept the aid of the Primarch Lorgar and his fellow Word Bearer Zardu Layak, who worked with Sota-Nul, a high-ranking magos of the Dark Mechanicum, to gain access to where Horus' body sat upon his throne in the Lupercal's Court of the Vengeful Spirit without the permission of Falkus Kibre, the Sons of Horus captain who fiercely guarded the comatose Warmaster.

Once before the Warmaster's body, Maloghurst invoked a sorcerous blood ritual similar to that once used by Erebus on Davin to enter the Warp by slitting his own throat. Once within the Immaterium, Maloghurst sought to use the Daemon Amarok as a guide to find the fragment of Horus' soul still trapped within the Warp.

Though Amarok sought to take the equerry's soul in payment for this service, Maloghurst turned the tables on the Daemon and used his sorcery to bind the Neverborn to his will.

With Amarok's aid, Maloghurst discovered Horus' soul-self on an immaterial battlefield where he was combatting enemies across a landscape constantly shifting in space and time.

Despite Maloghurst's desperate entreaties, the Warmaster refused to leave the fight, and before the equerry could further make his case his own soul was pulled back to reality as he was woken up by the Sons of Horus' Justaerin Terminators and hauled before an enraged Captain Horus Aximand, who had deeply disagreed with Maloghurst's proposed course of action to awaken the Warmaster.

Aximand explained to the equerry that a sudden surge in the Warp had seen the Vengeful Spirit and the Traitor fleet unexpectedly translated from the Immaterium before the Fortress World of Heta-Gladius which was held by a substantial force of Blood Angels. Aximand planned to assault the world, though he knew that such a battle would be largely futile and cause massive casualties to the Traitor fleet.

On Aximand's order, Maloghurst was jailed within a maze whose walls constantly moved to prevent its occupants from finding the way out, and a Warp-nullifying restraining collar was placed around Maloghurst's neck to prevent him from using his sorcery to escape. With no other options, the equerry could do nothing but wander the maze's blind corridors.

Maloghurst was eventually freed from the maze by Captain Kalus Ekkadon, the commander of the Catulan Reavers, and was able to reach the Lupercal's Court and Horus' throne once more. As the pair made their way, there were attacked by both other Sons of Horus and squads of Blood Angels from Heta-Gladius who had managed to board the Vengeful Spirit during the battle.

Once before the Warmaster's comatose form once more, Maloghurst once more conducted his ritual and had his soul enter the Immaterium, where he once again discovered the fragment of Horus' soul locked within a tormented landscape created from his own memories, this time of the battle on Ullanor before the Triumph.

In truth, the portion of Horus still within the Warp was that fragment of his psyche that recognised that his fall to Chaos had transformed him into a puppet of the Chaos Gods. His constant combat in the mental landscape was actually an expression of the part of Horus that had become anguished by his choice to turn on the Emperor as a result of his wounding by the Spear of Russ which had partially broken the Ruinous Powers' grip on his soul. He was determined to never submit to their foul ends and become their slave.

But Maloghurst urged Horus to finally submit fully to the wishes of the Chaos Gods, for he had gone too far down the path of rebellion to now turn back. Maloghurst also claimed that no matter what happened, Horus could never be their slave for he had chose this course of his own free will. He must return to reality, for only ending the war with the Emperor could truly bring victory.

Realising what he had to do to free Horus, Maloghurst took his knife and plunged it into the wound in Horus' side that had been made by the Spear of Russ and was still represented in the Warmaster's soul-form.

This action sacrificed Maloghurst's own life, but the fragment of Horus' soul was reunited with his body. The Warmaster immediately regained consciousness and took up command of the Traitors' drive on the Throneworld once more. The Siege of Terra began soon afterwards.

But now Horus was wholly in the grip of the Chaos Gods, filled with their terrible power and purpose.

After his death, Maloghurst was replaced as Horus' equerry by Kenor Argonis, another Sons of Horus Astartes.

Wargear[]

Sources[]

  • The Horus Heresy - Book Two: Massacre (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 212
  • Horus Rising (Novel) by Dan Abnett
  • Flight of the Eisenstein (Novel) by James Swallow, Ch. 10
  • Vengeful Spirit (Novel) by Graham McNeill
  • Slaves to Darkness (Novel) by John French, Chs. 6, 17-19
  • The Solar War (Novel) by John French, Ch. 19
  • Meet the True Power Behind the Warmaster's Throne (Images)
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