White Scars : Lords of the Wild Hunt
Once, the scions of the Fifth Legion were the vanguard of the Imperium's advance, the outriders who hunted in the wild regions of space. Even then, their independent streak had drawn suspicion upon them, though whether that suspicion was founded or instead caused their rebellion is unknown. Now, they have become cruel and sadistic predators, preying upon the very population they once protected from the galaxy's many threats. Riding ahead of their armies of walking dead and cannon fodder on their demonic bikes, they seek the thrill of the hunt and the plunder of entire worlds. They reach speed beyond the reach of sane mortals, and some of them have entirely lost themselves to the power of the Warp in return for the ability to defy the laws of the physical universe entirely. But if their tactics of war are well-known, the truth of their betrayal remains still undiscovered to this day by the Imperium.
Origins
During the Solar Exodus, Mankind left its cradle for the first time. Thousands of colonization ships travelled through the stars, entire generations passing before they reached their intended destination. Few of these fleets ever found the world they had intended to reach, but the one that sought the world they had baptized Mundus Planus was one of those.
Isolated from the rest of Mankind, the descendants of the colonists quickly lost the technology they had once possessed, and regressed to a level corresponding to some of the current Imperium's most advanced medieval worlds. The world, which they came to call Chogoris, was rich and fertile, and the population grew despite these setbacks, forming tribes and cities. For countless centuries, life went on and empires rose and fell, until from the stars came the one who would cause Chogoris' rebirth … as well as its ultimate damnation.
One of the twenty sons of the Emperor, stolen from Him by the plots of the Dark Gods, descended upon Chogoris in a trail of fire that was visible for hundreds of kilometers. According to the text that is known to the Inquisition as The Khagan's Rise, at the same time the trail of fire tore the heavens, seers and sorcerers received visions of great portent, and their lords and masters quickly made the link between the two events. They sent men to find what had fallen from the sky, several parties of horsemen hailing from different nations.
The ones to first reach the site of the crash were tribesmen of the Talskars. The Talskars were nomads, living in the region of Chogoris known as the Empty Quarter, arid and hostile to life. They were mostly ignored by the more civilized nations of Chogoris, though sometimes raids were led by one side or the other for glory or plunder. Civilization was, at that time, a relative term on Chogoris : all of its people belonged to one tribe and were led by a Khan, whether they were nomad riders, farmers, or empire-builders.
When the riders saw the child that was already standing amidst the wreckage, they were amazed. They approached him warily, for surely this was no natural infant. The child exulted strength and confidence, even though he was little more than a babe. Charmed, the tribesmen spoke together, and decided to bring the sky child to their khan.
But before they were able to reach the child and bring him with them, they were struck down. Others had come for the child of the stars, and when they saw the Talskars surrounding him, they feared that they were going to kill him. So it was that the destiny of Jaghatai, son of the Emperor, was changed by the shedding of blood. Instead of being taken to the Talskars, he was instead brought before the Palatine, ruler of Chogoris' greatest empire.
Ong Khan, leader of the Talskar tribe, looked at the warriors assembled before him in anger. His men had died, and the sky child had been taken by the enemy of his people. Yet there was more to his anger than the death of his brethren.
The shamans had told him of the great destiny of the child who had come to Chogoris on a trail of celestial fire. He was to be the one who would unite the warring clans of the plains and lead them to glory eternal, yet he had been taken from them. Destiny had been denied, and now the same shamans wept in terror, speaking of a great darkness to come if the child was denied his destiny. They had spoken of ancient spirits who fed on pain and agony coming to steal the lives of Chogoris' people, of great beasts hunting down the tribes and bringing them to extinction to sate their dark appetites. The boy had been the one destined to protect them from that fate. It was still a distant future, many decades or perhaps even centuries had yet to pass, but Ong had not become Khan by not thinking of the future. There was only one possible answer, one course of action. The Khitans could not be allowed to keep the child, to raise him as one of their own, corrupt and decadent.
They would take back the child, and correct destiny's course. No matter the cost.
The Palatine took interest in the child, and arranged for him to be raised in his palace. For a few years, Jaghatai learned all about the tactics of heavy cavalry and phalanx of infantry that had allowed his empire to crush any opposition as well as the many arts developed by the Chogorian over the course of the millennia. The Primarch's growth, both physical and intellectual, was far beyond the norm, and rumors about the mysterious sky child who was being raised by the Palatine spread like wildfire across Chogoris. For some, he was a sign of the Heavens' blessing upon the emperor. For others, he was a daemon clad in human skin, deceiving all around him and waiting for the opportunity to turn on those who had foolishly welcomed him.
What exactly the Palatine had in mind for Jaghatai is unknown. Perhaps, like some of the rulers who became father figures to the scattered Primarchs, he intended to make him his heir. That is unlikely, though, as he already had many children from his wives and concubines. Perhaps the Palatine wanted him to become one of his generals, helping him to maintain his hold over his vast empire.
Whatever the Palatine's intentions were is, however, ultimately irrelevant. As Jaghatai neared adulthood, a massive invasion from the Empty Quarter's tribes tore through the Palatine's domains. For the first time in recorded history, almost a dozen of the plains' tribes had put aside their differences and united against their common enemy. The initial surprise allowed the nomads to advance deep into the Palatine's territories, until the old emperor sent Jaghatai at the head of a quarter of his armies to stop their advance.
Blood dripped from the suspended body. Once, the slab of meat had been a man : a warrior of the Talskar, come along the rest of the Empty Quarter's army to the land of the Palatine, Jaghatai's foster father. But he had had the misfortune of being captured by the Palatine's men. Now, he was a ruined husk, his spirit and flesh broken by the ministrations of the man who now faced Jaghatai's wrath.
'What do you think you are doing, brother ?' hissed the demigod.
He was younger than the son of the Palatine, yet already he towered above him. The fear in the prince's eyes was evident, even to one without the sky child's preternatural perceptions. Jaghatai knew that his presence had that effect on those around him, but it was the first time he was truly angry while exerting it.
'He is an enemy,' pleaded the terrified man.
'Yes,' conceded Jaghatai. 'And if you had killed him on the field of battle, I would have praised you for it. But this ? This is not honorable. It is not right. Torture is a tool for cowards who do not dare face their foe in honest battle, brother. If father knew you were doing this …'
It was then that something in Jaghatai's foster brother's face changed. He looked straight into the sky child's eyes, and said :
'Who do you think taught me ?'
The two armies met on the Lon-Suen Plain. Seeing the mighty horde assembled against him, Jaghatai called for parley. He admired the martial prowess of the enemy, and wanted to know what could possibly have driven them to such an attack against the Palatine. To him, it was obvious that the tribes had much more to lose than to gain in such an attack – they were too far from their homeland, without support. Eventually, they were doomed to be crushed by the might of the Palatine's armies, and the repercussion on the families they had left behind would be terrible. This made no sense to Jaghatai, and he desired answers.
The tribes accepted his offer of parley, but when the Primarch met their leaders, his troops suddenly charged, breaking the truce promised by Jaghatai. One of his subaltern officers, acting on the command of one of Jaghatai's rivals at the Palatine's court, had betrayed him. Turning aside the blade of the assassin that came for him in the negotiation tent, Jaghatai was furious. Abandoned by his own men and believed by the nomads to have betrayed them, the Primarch tore his way through the assembled armies, forcing the terrified survivors of both hosts to their knees before him.
In all the years to come, never again would the men of both armies see anything like what they had seen that day. That day would become a legend, whispered in fear by all those who any reason to dread the attention of the lord of Chogoris. The wrath of the Khan, they would call it : the moment the child of the sky had shed out his humanity to reveal the demigod beneath.
The screams of the dying had drown out the sound of battle, they would say. The stars themselves were tainted red by the blood of the fallen, and the shrieks of yakshas on the edge of shadows pierced the souls of the hundred thousand men gathered on the battlefield. And at the center, the Khan had stood, holding his blade with both hands, moving like a vengeful spirit amidst the press of bodies, cutting down all who stood in his way, his fury radiating from him like a physical force.
And some would say, after looking around them nervously, that even after the terrified men had begun to kneel before their conqueror, the demigod had continued to kill them even as they prostrated themselves before him, begging for mercy.
He made them swear loyalty to him and only to him, and then marched them toward the Palatine's capital, intend on claiming his revenge. From this moment, he was known to his men and his enemies as Jaghatai Khan, the one who, according to ancient prophecies, would bring unity to Chogoris by the spilling of blood. Using the very dagger that had been meant to end his life – a weapon laced in a poison that could kill a grown man in a few seconds – he ritually scarred both of his cheeks, replicating the mark of the Talskar tribe. While the poison was unable to do any damage to the Primarch's enhanced metabolism, it ensured that the scars never fully healed.
The Palatine denounced Jaghatai as a traitor, and send the remainder of his armies against him. Some of the officers leading these armies deserted to Jaghatai's side instead, pledging their loyalty to the one they knew had been betrayed first. Others fought and died, for none could stand against the might of the Urdu of Jaghatai. As fortress after fortress fell, Jaghatai discovered a darker side of the Palatine's empire : shrines dedicated to yaksha, torture chambers filled with the ghosts of innocents, and witches who used their powers without any restraint under the service of the man the Primarch had come to see as his father. Today, it is believed that the Palatine was corrupted by Chaos and spread its touch to the rest of Chogoris, and that exposition to it is was led to Jaghatai's ultimate betrayal of the Imperium.
More and more tribes came from the Empty Quarter, drawn by the tales of Jaghatai's victories. He learned the ways of the nomads quickly, combining the military lore he had been taught by the Palatine's teachers with the tribes' approach to warfare. He sent the tribes ahead, tasked with scouting and sowing chaos, then withdraw, regroup with the slower, tougher units from the Palatine's deserters, and crush the confused foe before he could recover. Records from that time speak of Jaghatai's own ruthlessness and of that of those under his command. Entire cities are said to have been razed for the crime of opposing the Khan, the skulls of the dead piled up at the gates or carried as warnings for all to see. Finally, after several months of campaigning, the horde of Jaghatai arrived at Cophasta, the capital of the Palatine's empire. Battle is said to have lasted for an entire week, but in the end, Jaghatai's armies pierced through the defenders' lines and burned Cophasta to the ground.
Ketugu Suogo, Khagan of the Khitan and Palatine of the empire he had forged with his own hands, stood before one who had once called him father. All around him, his palace – the last fortress of his dying empire – was aflame.
'They told me you would be my death,' said the old man softly. He knew that he needed not to raise his voice. Jaghatai would hear his every word anyway.
'Who ?'
'The priests. The stormseers. The witches. All those who claimed to speak with the voice of the gods. They told me that it was written in the very stars.' The Khan of the Khitan looked down, and a sad chuckle escaped his lips. 'I fall by your hands, and my empire falls with me. I thought that I could advert it if I was the first to find you …'
'But you weren't,' interrupted Jaghatai. Ketugu looked up to his foster son's divinely wrought face, incomprehension showing in his expression.
'I remember, even now. I remember who first found me when I arrived to this world. I remember how your men killed them. That's why I never really, fully trusted you. You lied to me when you told me your men had found me first, Ketugu. I shouldn't have been surprised, though. After all …'
The Primarch moved, a single leap, a single unleashing of the tremendous power contained within his flesh. His blade sang through the air and pierced the Palatine's heart as easily as if it had been cutting silk.
'… all emperors are liars.'
After the Palatine was slain, the empire he had built collapsed. Jaghatai and his horde began their conquest of Chogoris, toppling one ruler after another, forming new kingdoms in their wake that Jaghatai left to the hands of his most trusted lieutenants. The last of the old Chogorian kingdoms fell less than twenty years after the Battle of Lon-Suen, and for the first time in its long history the planet was finally united. Jaghatai was crowned as the Great Khan, Ruler of All Within the Lands. His hold over the planet was tenuous at best, as ruling a world is difficult enough with modern technology, let alone without even a vox. Still, his rule brought an end to the conflicts between tribes, and with that peace came an age of relative prosperity. For ten years, the Great Khan was content to leave the government of the world to his vassals while he hunted the latest rebel to his ambition. Then, the Emperor arrived to Chogoris. The Master of Mankind descended from the stars with his army of golden giants, and Jaghatai bowed before him, recognizing the figure as the one who had engineered his own creation.
The Great Crusade
Finally meeting his father, Jaghatai accepted the command of the Legion that had been created in his image. Many of his followers chose to come with him, though only a few were young enough to be inducted in the Legion. Nevertheless, many who were too old attempted the trials anyway, and a few even managed to survive. Those quickly rose through the ranks, becoming the Khan second-in-command, to the silent anger of many former officers who saw these ascensions as nepotism but accepted them as the price of being reunited with their gene-sire.
Under their Primarch's command, the legionaries took the name of White Scars, marking themselves with the same mark that the Talskar had. With the Emperor's permission, they took as their emblem the lighting symbol that had once been that of the Master of Mankind, before the aquila replaced it. Many of the traditions of Chogoris were adopted by the Legion, and in the years to come more and more of its recruits would come from the Khan's homeworld rather than from Terra.
Little is known of the White Scars' activities during the Great Crusade. The Khan took his Legion to the edge of the Imperium's advance, not hesitating to risk being entirely cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Furthermore, unlike most of his brothers, he mostly kept the White Scars gathered together, only sending a few companies to other Expeditionary Fleets. This caused the White Scars to develop a reputation for secrecy, which according to what few records have survived what quite unfounded. Far from the Imperium, however, the White Scars were unable to deny the rumors that spread about them, and in this may lay another reason for their ultimate fate.
For many years, the Fifth Legion continued waging its own battles unknown to the greater part of the Imperium. Rare were the Army units that were assigned to them – after all, with nearly the whole might of an Astartes Legion under his command, the Khan had little use of mortal auxiliaries. Entire alien empires that would have been considerable threats to the main forces of the Great Crusade once it reached them were destroyed without the rest of the galaxy noticing.
Isolated from the rest of the Imperium, the Khan was a mysterious figure even amongst his fellow Primarchs – which was reflected in how his sons, in the rare occasions where they met their cousins, acted in their presence. He was friend with Magnus and Sanguinius, who shared his belief in what the rest of the Primarchs would have called superstition but that they called mystic – the Cyclops because he had seen it with his own eye, and the Angel because he knew of it intimately. Together, they created the first Librarius amidst the Blood Angels, reflecting the Stormseers of the Fifth Legion and the cults of the Thousand Sons. Soon, the practice spread to the rest of the Legions, who saw the advantage in having psykers in their ranks to face the more exotic enemies they met in the prosecution of the Great Crusade.
Other rejected the Librarians, Russ first of all. Stormseers from the Fifth Legion tried to explain the idea to those who, to the eyes of most outsiders, were their equivalent in the Sixth Legion, but were rebuked. This, combined with the image that the barbaric Wolves gave and that had, over time, spread to his own Legion, made Jaghatai quietly angry with his Fenrisian brother. But, like most of the Primarchs, the Wolf King mostly ignored the Khan. In fact, many remembrancers, historians, and even important figures such as the Sigillite recorded opinions that perhaps there was something in the Khan's genesis that made him 'so easily forgotten'.
Of all his brothers, it was only with Horus that the Khan had any real relationship. The two saw each other as kindred spirits, both being warriors first and foremost. That link between the two, and Jaghatai's expertise in the destruction of xenos empire, was the reason why, when needing help in bringing down the Ork world-fortress of Ullanor, Horus called upon the Khan. Together, the Sons of Horus, the Custodians of the Emperor, the White Scars and the Iron Warriors launched the Ullanor Crusade. Three Primarchs and the Master of Mankind, gathering their might to crush the empire of one of the Great Beast most dreaded warlords of history : Urlakk Urg never stood a chance.
The White Scars earned much honor in the Ullanor Crusade, with remembrancers from the other Legions involved writing down many of their heroic deeds – records which, of course, would be utterly erased in the dark years that followed. The help of the Khan was instrumental in bringing down the Warboss, and the Khan's Legion was given a place of honor in the Triumph that followed – for many of those present, it was the first time they saw the White Scars, let alone their mysterious Primarch. This was also the last recorded time Horus met Jaghatai – and it is highly unlikely that they ever met again in the course of the Heresy.
When the beastial empire was finally beheaded, however, many pockets of resistance remained across the sector. One of them in particular worried Horus, even as he was still struggling with the new responsibilities his father had suddenly dropped in his lap before returning to Terra. If left alone, it could in time become a rallying point for the billions of Orks that remained from the Ullanor empire. But it was far away from Imperial territory, and as the Warmaster, Horus couldn't go there himself. So, he asked for Jaghatai to go there in his stead and finish what they had started by removing all possibility that the system, which was known as Chondax, could become a threat to the Imperium in the future.
Chondax : the Blade in the Shadows
'All emperors are liars.'
Attributed to Jaghatai Khan, Primarch of the Fifth Legion.
For millennia, the Inquisition has sought to unveil the mystery of what happened in the Chondax system. What is recorded in standard archives is simply this : the Khan gathered his whole Legion, leaving only a few behind in the other Expeditionary Fleets, and journeyed to Chondax. The system was far from Imperial lines, which was one of the reasons Horus had chosen the Khan for this duty : the newly appointed Warmaster knew his brother didn't have a problem with fighting far from support. In the years that followed Ullanor, the White Scars almost entirely dropped off the map, with only superficial astropathic reports that quickly stopped altogether. At that time, no one thought anything of it : it was common for entire fleets to be cut off by the tides of the Warp, and the White Scars were the most liable to forget to report entirely.
The only fiable information about what transpired between the departure of the White Scars from Ullanor and their arrival at Isstvan V comes from a single file, deep in the archives of Titan. Its origin is unknown, and Inquisitors across the ages have tried to pry this secret from the Grey Knights – in vain, as the Ordo Malleus' warriors are in some instances even more protective of their mysteries as the Holy Inquisition. The file is an audio recording, from which many details have been erased – at least in the version that is accessible to the Lords of the Inquisition.
'The White Scars died at Chondax. Whatever events transpired that I did not learn of, whatever lies were spoken that turned the Khan against the Emperor and the Warmaster, whatever plots were engineered to make that betrayal even possible, it does not matter. I felt it then, and I still feel it now. A scream echoing across the Sea of Souls, the agony of a thousand futures that will now never come to pass. The dream died at Chondax, and the Fifth Legion died with it. What remains behind is nothing but its corpse, kept in motion by the cruel whims of the Yaksha Kings.'
Extract from the Chondax Record (translated from Chogorian)
According to this file, a campaign that should only have taken a handful of weeks, especially with the full might of a Legion engaged, dragged off for years. The first signs that all was not as had been anticipated were the storms of the Warp. It took years for the fleet to even reach the Chondax system, losing many ships to the Sea of Souls – some of which would reappear across the centuries, their crew horribly twisted by the unholy powers of the Warp. Astropathic communication became more and more unreliable, and the choirs soon had to be placed in stasis to preserve them from the madness raging outside the Geller Fields. By the time the White Scars finally arrived at Chondax, the storms had risen to the point that turning back was all but impossible. The Fifth Legion was trapped in the system with the Orks.
The Orks were present in far greater numbers than the Imperial tacticians had anticipated, spread across the entire system and well dug in. Apparently, the same storms that had harassed the Astartes had dragged much of the Ork refugees from Ullanor to Chondax, and they had colonized the system with the stubbornness typical of their species. Still, the Fifth Legion had no choice but to fight them – if only so that it could survive until the storm abated.
In the course of the war, the behavior of the Khan is reported to have changed. He became more and more withdrawn, spending long periods alone in his chambers, leaving the prosecution of the war to his Noyan-Khans, the highest ranked officers of his Legion. It is apparently during that period that he was corrupted by the Dark Gods, their whispers slowly eroding at his loyalty as well as his mind. This only went worse as time passed, until the breaking point of a Primarch's mind was finally reached.
'I could hear the whispers back then. Shadows from beyond the veil, speaking to all who would open their ears. But I didn't listen. I knew that if I did, I would go mad. The lies of the Warp are not to be listened to : that is one of the first thing any Stormseer learns.
Perhaps I should have. Perhaps if I had, I could have prevented it. But I doubt it. Others did, I know. And they joined him in the madness when he made his decision known to us. The Legion would be purged, he told us. We had been betrayed, abandoned, but there was one lord to whom our loyalty could go, one who would never try to bind us in chains. The path would be hard, he told us, but it had to be walked. For we were White Scars, and we always chose the hard path.
But it was all lies, fed to his mind by the nightmares of the Yaksha Kings. They had twisted his mind, turning him against those he had once loved most, quelling all rational thoughts and fanning his anger at being always ignored. I could see it, and if any of my peers had not been similarly twisted they would have been able to see it too.
I fled on that night. I couldn't trust any of those of my brothers – and this was the last time I truly thought of any of them as brothers – remaining in the fleet, but there were a few mortals I knew I could still trust. With their help, I went to my ship, I sent a last message to those who were about to be betrayed and I ran. I am not proud of it. While we ran, I heard the screams of those I had left behind as they died betrayed, slain upon their brothers' blades. But I had to warn the rest of the Imperium. I was too late in the end, of course – the Warp raged and roared around us, casting us across the galaxy in a dozen different places before, in the end, the Imperium found us. But I had to do it.
I had to do it !'
Extract from the Chondax Record (translated from Chogorian)
Several years after the beginning of the Chondax Crusade, only one fortress remained to be purged – but it was the most formidable of its kind, built by the Orks specifically to resist the White Scars tactics. The greenskins had learned much during their desperate struggle with the Astartes, and they had begun to build one of the first Gargants in recorded history – the grotesque equivalent of our noble Titans. The Khan, who clearly had already turned his back on the Emperor at this point, designed a plan that would enable him to prepare his Legion for the betrayal to come.
In an imitation of Guilliman's own scheme at Isstvan III, he sent the elements of his Legion that he knew wouldn't follow him in rebellion on Chondax. Most of them were Terrans, legionaries from before Jaghatai had joined his sons or who had been inducted before the influx of recruits had come only from Chogoris. A few were Chogorians whose minds and loyalties were too strong to be bent to the Khagan's will. These troops found themselves isolated, without support, facing the last remnant of the mighty Ullanor Ork empire. Thinking that something had happened to the fleet, they fought alone against the Great Beast, and claimed victory, though the cost was high, as their treacherous master had denied them the heavy machines they would have needed for a conventional assault on the xenos keep.
As they waited in the ruins of the Ork fortress, trying to reach the rest of the fleet, the loyal sons of the Emperor saw hundreds of drop-pods and transports descend from orbit. At first, they thought that their brothers had come to bring them back aboard the fleet, though the numbers were a bit too much for that – especially considering the losses they had taken. But in reality, Jaghatai had come with those of his sons who were ready to follow him in Hell for another reason. He had come to finish what he had started, and kill all those of his own Legion who would not stand with him in betrayal of all they had ever held dear.
He was wandering amidst the darkness. Pain burned in his chest, where the blade of Thorgun had pierced his armor and flesh. Somehow, it seemed that it shouldn't have been possible. He was stronger and faster than the Khan of the Brotherhood of the Moon could ever have hoped to be, and his armor had deflected blows from much more powerful and skilled attackers. But he had been … slow. As if something important, something vital had been drained from him when he had killed his own sons.
His sons ? He had killed his sons ? Why had he done that ? Why …
The shadows around him thickened. He could hear voices, now, whispers that called his name. These were not the voices he had heard before, though. They had revealed him the truth, showed him just how Horus had laughed behind his back when he had sent him to this lost place, showed him how the rest of the Imperium mocked him and his Legion, linking them to that barbarian Russ and refusing to see that they were just as civilized as it was possible for an army of living weapons to be ! They had shown him how he was chained, how the Emperor had bound him to His service, denying him the freedom that was rightfully his and the glory his greatness demanded. And then, they had told him how to claim his revenge and regain his freedom. That was why he had killed his sons … but what he heard now weren't these voices.
The voices cried out in anger at him, and he recognized them. These were the voices of his sons he had killed, the voices of those he had betrayed. One of them was female, the woman who had warned the betrayed of what was to come, giving them time to seek shelter from the orbital bombardment and forcing him to descend and do it himself. Her name … her name was Ilya. Ilya Ravallion, and he had killed her for turning against him and daring to call him mad …
The pain flared hotter in his chest, and he cried out in anguish for the first time since he had opened his eyes under Chogoris' sky. He felt his very soul being torn apart as the shades of those he had betrayed clawed at him, ripping out part of his self, and then …
A voice, a chorus of calls, drawing him away, drawing what remained of him back, back to the world of flesh and bone, back to those who were loyal to him, back to a life that contained nothing but more treacheries and betrayals yet to come …
Jaghatai closed his eyes in the Sea of Souls, letting true darkness take him. In a room deep within the Swordstorm, surrounded by dozens of Stormseers and hundreds of mortal acolytes – most of which were in the middle of dying, their lives sacrificed to claw the Primarch's essence back from the hungry void – a thunderous boom of power resonated. They had not let him die. They were dragging him back, using every source of power they could, drawing upon forces that should never be used, letting their cores being rewritten in return for the strength to return their father to life.
The Khagan opened its eyes.
The Titanic audio file does not detail what happened then. Whatever its source, he wasn't there in person. What is known is that the purge was completed, and the White Scars fully committed to their treacherous course. With the loyalists purged from his Legion, Jaghatai was ready to answer the call from the Warmaster to go to Isstvan V. The Warp storms cleared when the news of Isstvan III spread across the galaxy, allowing the White Scars to travel to Isstvan with all speed.
The Heresy
Records from the three loyal Legions that were present at Isstvan V indicate that the Khan was not at the meeting that took place before the Dropsite Massacre. Perhaps he was present at the conclave of the four renegade Primarchs as they planned their vile betrayal. In his stead, Hasik Noyan-Khan, who had once been one of Jaghatai's generals back on Chogoris, came to represent the White Scars. The fleet of the Fifth Legion was battered, clearly just coming back from a battle of great intensity, but the Legionaries refused to answer their cousins' questions – claiming that what had happened on Chogoris was of no importance compared to the treason of Guilliman and his cohorts.
On Isstvan V, the White Scars, as part of the « second wave », took part in the butchering of the three loyal Legions. In the days that followed the initial confrontation – the initial butchery at the Urgall Plateau, where Konrad Curze died alongside almost all of the Death Guard and thousands of Alpha Legionaries – the sons of the Khan hunted the surviving loyalists. While Mortarion led hundreds of survivors toward their transports and then back in orbits, thousands more remained stranded on the planet, trapped with the hordes of traitors. Very, very few managed to escape, but by all such accounts, the White Scars were the cruelest and the most relentless in their pursuit.
Death surrounded them. On the sterile ground of the Urgall Plateau, a million demigods had died in the fires of treachery. Their purified blood, tainted by dark sources for so few of them, dripped on the cold rock, forming pools of crimson that shined under the light of the uncaring stars. Broken armors and shattered blades decorated the graveyard of the Imperium's future, and he stalked amidst these ruins like the Grim Reaper of the legends of Old Earth. His sons – so few of them now – were ahead of him, preparing for their last-ditch attempt at escape. They had to get out, to warn the rest of the Imperium that the unthinkable had been done, that the impossible had happened.
A shadow emerged from the wreckage. Once the shadow had been a hunter, a mighty lord of war. Once, it had been a brother to the Reaper. Now, it was a monster. Darkness and smoke the color of blood clung to its armor, and in its eyes blazed the same fires that had slain the ideal of the Great Crusade. The Reaper had seen its ilk before, when he had faced the many horrors of his homeworld, but never before had he seen one as mighty as this. Still, he felt no awe. Only horror, and resolution.
'I shall free you now, my brother,' said Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard, to the walking corpse that had once been his brother Jaghatai.
After Isstvan, the White Scars followed Guilliman in his advance for Terra. However, the Night Lords and Alpha Legion forces had dispersed all across the galaxy, rallying entire worlds to the cause of the Imperium and slowing down the progress of the Traitor Legions to a crawl. In order to prevent being attacked from two sides once he reached Terra, Roboute ordered the Fifth Legion to hunt down the survivors of the two loyalist Legions. Whoever was in command of the White Scars at that point in time complied, eager to inflict further humiliation on those they believed they had broken at the Massacre.
On the bridge of the Sickle Moon, Yesugei didn't move. For a long moment, he stayed still, the pistol of the grey-clad Astartes still aimed at his head. There were many things he ought to say. That he wasn't a traitor. That he had tried to warn his Khan away from the path of darkness and treachery the White Scars now followed. That his Legion had been deceived, and shouldn't be blamed for the choice their Primarch had made. But he didn't say anything. He waited for the trigger to be pulled, for his life to end, just like the dream had died in the ashes of betrayal.
Yet the moment didn't come. Then the warrior in grey, whose nameless ship had found Yesugei in the void and bore the emblem of the Sigillite, withdrew his gun.
'You are a loyal son of the Emperor, Targutai Yesugei. Even now, with your life at stake, you do not turn your power on me. That is good. Hear me : I have come to bring you with me to Terra. Malcador is gathering an order of those like you and I, whose loyalty is to the Throne above all else. You will still serve the Imperium and the Emperor, zadyin arga.'
Yesugei lifted his head, not able to believe what he was hearing.
'Who are you ? You know my name, cousin, but I do not know yours.'
The knight-errant removed his helmet, exposing a face the color of ebony with red embers in its sockets. When he spoke, without the corruption of his helmet's speakers, his voice was deep and warm – and, unlike any of Vulkan's brutal sons Yesugei had ever met, not without kindness.
'My name, weather-maker, is Xa'ven.'
But the Eighth and Twentieth weren't broken. They were furious. For the first time, Astartes fought Astartes without the traitors possessing the advantage of surprise, and the White Scars paid a bloody tally. The Night Lords hid on worlds that had turned to the cause of the traitors, bringing retribution by sowing death, confusion and terror amidst their mortal allies. The Alpha Legion built up resistance groups and gathered priceless intelligence on the traitors' assets, sending it to the rest of the loyalist troops. These were the enemies that the White Scars were dispatched to destroy, and they had to hunt their quarries across entire sectors each and every time. In the centuries to come, all three Legions would come to call this the Shadow Wars, fought in the darkness of the Heresy while the Ultramarines and the rest of their allies burned their way toward Terra.
Kernax Voldorius, Strikemaster of the Alpha Legion, looked at the field of battle before him. Now, finally, it had come to this. After ten years of hunt, of leading the White Scars and their allies of the Nineteenth Legion through trap after trap, ambush after ambush, it was finally his turn. He could no longer escape, no longer deceive his foes. They had caught him, as he had known they would eventually. All that remained was to fight with everything he had and die a good death.
Quintus was a good world to make a last stand. It was heavily defended, and its population had remained loyal to the Emperor to a man. His ship had been destroyed, stranding him and the hundred remaining warriors under his command here, but he regretted nothing. Each day they had bought had been one more for the Praetorian and the Warmaster to prepare Terra, each traitor they had slain had been one less soldier the forsworn could hurl at the Imperial Palace.
Voldorius understood better than most the philosophy of the Alpha Legion. But even he, who had mastered the thousand lessons of Alpharius, couldn't help but smile at the prospect of finally facing his enemy with nothing but the weapons in his hands and the brothers at his side – and he counted the human soldiers among them.
'For the Emperor,' he muttered as the first drop-pods began to fall from the skies.
After years of such conflict, the White Scars were deeply humiliated when Guilliman traveled to Eskrador and claimed to have slain Alpharius himself. The Primarch of the Twentieth had been the ultimate prey for the Fifth Legion, and had one of the Khans managed to slay him, then surely he would have been able to claim command of the White Scars, now that their Primarch had mysteriously vanished.
In the final phase of the Heresy, many Brotherhoods of the Fifth Legion answered Guilliman's call and gathered for the final assault on Terra. The raids of the White Scars are described in great detail in the chronicles of the Siege : they launched attacks on mutiple positions of the Imperial Palace's walls, forcing Perturabo to keep them all manned at all time when even his genial mind couldn't predict where they would strike next. On no less than three occasions, the Fifth Legion elements actually managed to outthink the Lord of Iron and breach the walls – only to be utterly annihilated by the loyalists within.
The Post-Heresy
When Guilliman fell, the White Scars were amongst the firsts to run. They ran back to their ships and left the Sol system with all the speed they were so famous for, and scattered back across the galaxy, beginning a campaign of plunder and terror that still continues to this very day, though it has much abated in the wake of the Scouring. Unlike other Traitor Legions, the White Scars appeared to have no desire to carve their own empires from the Imperium's weakened hold. They took pleasure in conquest, in breaking their enemy's back and forcing him to kneel, slaughtering all those who resisted. Then they took whatever they wanted from the ruins and left, a trail of ashes and smoke in their wake. For every world that had been lost to the Fifth Legion during the Shadow War, a dozen burned in the Heresy's aftermath. Without any true objective left to unite them, the White Scars moved according to their whims, and no longer sought the most well-defended worlds. For decades, the Fifth Legion remained a blight upon the weakened Imperium, until two of the loyal Legions united to destroy that menace.
After the Heresy, the homeworlds of the Traitor Legions were particularly attractive targets for the vengeful Imperium. Chogoris was destroyed by the combined fleets of the Eighth and Twentieth Legion. Together, the Night Lords and Alpha Legion put an end to the long war that had opposed them to the White Scars, though this act has bought them the eternal enmity of the Khan's sons.
However, the heritage of the world that was once known as Mundus Planus didn't vanish that easily. In the time between Guilliman's death and the arrival of retribution, many Brotherhoods used Chogoris as their home port. When the fleet of the loyal Legions arrived in the system, dozens of ships of the Fifth Legion still hung in orbit of their homeworld. If the traitors had fought back as a united fleet, they may have had a chance at victory – the Fifth Legion's void tactics, virtually unknown prior to the Heresy, had by that time become legendary. But, as befit turncoats and heretics, every Khan only saw his own interests and acted accordingly. Many traitor ships were destroyed in the confusion, some running to the system's edge before jumping into the Warp while others tried to make a stand, either out of some desperate desire to protect their homeworld or just to hold until their assets on the surface had been retrieved.
While the Alpha Legion fleet surrounded the system, inflicting tremendous damage to those who tried to run, the Eighth Legion warships engaged the vessels in orbit and prepared to unleash their punishment on the planet itself. Entire cities were razed from orbits in seconds, wiped from existence by one shot of the might vessels. Finally, to make sure there were no survivors on what had become, by that time, a full-fledged Chaos world, a salvo of cyclonic torpedoes was unleashed from the Night Lords flagship Nightfall.
From the bridge of his flagship, Legion Master Sevatar looked as a world burned. The void battle was still raging, but that wasn't any concern of him. Vandred was taking care of it, and the Captain of the Tenth Company was a genius at such matters.
They had lost ships, of course. Doubtlessly they would lose more before the battle was over. But the result had never been in question. Since even before the attack had begun, the defeat of the White Scars had been inevitable. They were outnumbered, caught cold and most important of all, they no longer possessed any cohesion. It was sad, in its own way, to see a Legion fall so low. The Fifth had once been a powerful warforce, united under the command of its Primarch and fighting as one against the Emperor's enemies, but now … Now it was nothing but a band of scavengers gathering like jackals to form packs. They had fallen from grace the moment they had betrayed their oath to the Master of Mankind, and nothing could save them now. And after today, no one would ever be able to make them a true Legion once more. Disunity, confusion and inner betrayal would rob them of all their potential for greatness, leaving only a dark, twisted shadow of what they may have become. This reflected on what had become of their homeworld.
Sevatar had seen picts of Chogoris from before the Heresy. Compared to Nostramo, it had been nothing short of a paradise. Vast, fertile lands, populated by tribes with a savage nobility to them. But now … Reports from the Alpha Legion's agents on the surface – who had, hopefully, been evacuated before the attack had begun – told a grim story. The madness of the Warp had spread across Chogoris. Witches and daemons walked freely on its soil, and temples to the dark entities of the Sea of Souls had been built with the blood of millions. All over the fleet, astropaths and Navigators had wailed in anguish during the weeks that the journey had taken, and even the Librarians had become uneasy in the final approach. In truth, destroying the planet was just as much of a mercy to its human population that it was a punishment against its transhuman overlords for their betrayal.
Such was the only mercy that could be shown to all of the Emperor's foes. And soon, it would be Nocturne's turn to burn.
With their homeworld destroyed, the White Scars became a fleet-based Legion, ironically gaining the ultimate freedom they sought at the highest cost imaginable. In the centuries that followed, many raids were attempted toward Nostramo to avenge Chogoris (there being no recorded homeworld for the Alpha Legion, the White Scars couldn't aim their revenge at the elusive Twentieth). Later in the Scouring, petty fiefdoms would be discovered, bearing the mark of the Fifth Legion : the domains of those Khans who had abandoned Chogoris before the end, foreseeing its destruction and seeking to rebuild it elsewhere, on worlds shaped to their will by the powers of Chaos. The crusade to purge these nightmarish realms, known as the Purge of the Lost Kin, isn't over : the Legion forces operating in the Ultima Segmentum, where the homeworld of the treacherous Fifth was located, still discover entire worlds where a handful of White Scars rule over millions of enslaved degenerates whose ancestors once walked the soil of Chogoris.
The greatest mystery (and potentially, the greatest threat) of the White Scars is their lost Primarch. To this day, the Inquisition is still investigating the fate of Jaghatai Khan. The Primarch was never seen again after Isstvan V, though on some occasion some other individual has claimed to be him in an attempt to draw support from the Fifth Legion. Every single one of these instances, however, has ended up with the usurper being revealed : usually a Legionary seeking to unite the White Scars under his command, sometimes a daemon with some darker purpose. Many White Scars still look for him, though, and if he should reappear, the dispersed warbands could gather once more, forming a truly formidable foe for the Imperium.
Organisation
Without their Primarch to lead them and a homeworld to gather them, the White Scars have scattered across the galaxy. They have formed hundreds of warbands, based on the Brotherhoods that once made up the Legion's structure. Charismatic officers or hunters of renown managed to unite several of those groups and form forces several thousand strong, but no Khan has the ability to command the entirety of the Fifth Legion.
Each warband is led by a Khan, who may have been one of the Legion's officers before the Heresy, or have risen to his station by his deeds (or by murdering his predecessor). Those who command over warbands of great size may take the title of Noyan-Khan, once held by their Legion's circle of elite commanders under the Primarch himself, and delegate command of part of their host to lesser Khans. Whilst loyalty to the chain of command is considered to be absolute, the White Scars' commanding cadre has a well-documented tendency to plot and scheme amongst themselves as they jockey for position. On more than one occasion, this has granted the Imperium an unexpected victory as a Khan used a battle to dispose of a potential challenger to his rule.
Each Khan is advised by the Stormseers – also called the zadyin arga in Chogorian – under his command. They hold considerable influence in the Legion, not just because they are terrible foes on the battlefield but also because they are the one responsible for the preservation of the White Scars' blasphemous beliefs. While they are most often uninvolved in the intrigues of their Legion, they have been reported to act when the disputes between officers reached a level threatening the entirety of the warband.
The Undying
For millenia, the Inquisition has attempted to unlock the mystery of what its members have come to call the Undying. These creatures were first seen fighting alongside the Fifth Legion during the Heresy. At first, it was believed that these hosts of Legionaries wearing the colors of different Legions – traitor and loyal alike – were merely a ruse, an attempt to demoralize the opponent by wearing the colors of the enemy. But their origin was soon revealed to be much more sinister.
An Undying is created when one of the White Scars' Sorcerers binds the corpse of another Legionary into his service. The exact process is unknown, but the Thousand Sons who have beholden one of these abominations claim that the Stormseers capture the soul of the deceased warrior, reduce it to slavery, and bind it into its own corpse. What is created this way is an Undying : a creature that shares some of a Legionary's capabilites and skills, but whose main asset is its capacity to take far more punishment than even one of the Astartes. As it is already dead, and powered only by the forbidden energies of the Warp, an Undying can only be destroyed when its physical body is so damaged that the ritual bindings inscribed upon the rotting flesh can no longer contain the soul within.
Facing a warband with Undying amidst its ranks is one of the few things that can inspire something like fear in Astartes. For them, to watch such desecrations is more than just one more blasphemy against the natural order : it is a promise of what may happen to them if they fall in battle. Chaplains must rouse the righteous fury of those under their charge when that happens, and call for the judgment of the Emperor to be inflicted upon those who would profane His holy work thusly.
Beliefs
'Slaves of the False Emperor, hear my words. I am Hasik Noyan-Khan of the White Scars, and it is by my will that soon all of you shall die.
The Imperium you serve is a tyranny built upon the greatest of all lies. For centuries, you have believed these lies you have allowed yourselves to be deceived by them you have let them cover you like a blanket to protect you from the galaxy's horrors.
Today, we will show you the truth. We will tear the veil of lies from your eyes and force you to face the reality the Imperium has spent ten thousand years hiding from you. You will learn the one thing that is true in this universe :
Nowhere is safe. There is no place in the galaxy, from the cold void between the stars to the Corpse- Emperor's own Palace, where you may truly be protected.
You may run from us. You may hide from us. But we will find you and kill you. You have lived under the false protection of a lie, and now you shall pay for this crime. You chose to live as slaves to a tyrant, and in doing so you have relinquished any right to live you may have possessed.
So despair and cry and lament if you wish. It will not save you. We are the judgment of Heaven, come to deliver your punishment for the sin of cowardice and submission.'
Recovered from the astropathic tower of the now dead hive-world REDACTED where the Red Highway Massacre was performed by Fifth Legion elements.
The White Scars follow the teachings of their now defunct homeworld, though what they have made of them would horrify the Stormseers of old. During the Heresy, their rejection of the Imperial Truth manifested not only by them embracing the superstitions of their Primarch's homeworld fully, but by delving into the very darkness these superstitions warned against. It is told that the White Scars knew of the Warp's true evil long before any of the other Legions, and for decades they took precautions against it, their Stormseers only slightly dipping into the Sea of Souls and not calling too much power into themselves, lest they attract the attention of the yaksha, as their people called the Daemons. Control and harmony were the tenets of their beliefs, the ways by which they were able to wield the power of the Warp without exposing themselves to its corruptive touch.
But such restraint was entirely abandoned during the Heresy. Though the level of corruption of the White Scars vary from one warband to another, many of the sons of the Khan have embraced Chaos as the ultimate freedom, which they believe was denied to them when they served the Emperor. Freedom is one of the core precepts of the Legion, but it is a twisted, corrupted echo of the nobility that the White Scars once possessed, for in their quest to liberate themselves from all shackles, they have unwittingly enslaved their very souls to the Dark Gods.
Now, the White Scars believe that the Emperor was a liar and a tyrant, and that those who rule in His name are the same. They do not seek to liberate those who live under their rule, though : all they care about is their own freedom and glory. In their eyes, those who will not rise and fight for their own freedom do not deserve it anyway.
Combat doctrine
The White Scars warbands have kept to the tactics that served them well during the Great Crusade, though even them have been forced to adapt to the times. They will strike with all the speed they can muster, then withdraw before the enemy can gather its strength, and strike again from another angle. As such, they make extensive use of transports, and their spaceships are faster than anything the Imperium can use – their already overgrown engines further enhanced by dark, forbidden sciences that call upon the power of the Warp.
At the front of every assault are their riders, who charge toward weak points in enemy lines and wreak havoc on supply lines and morale. Once the enemy is thrown off its balance by this initial attack, the rest of the Legion advance in heavier vehicles and infantry support, crushing the opposition. In the days of the Heresy and immediately after, the White Scars used to have hundreds of riders, and their forces were almost entirely composed of bikers who would hunt and destroy Imperial targets. But as centuries passed, their ability to maintain their mounts diminished. Without a proper infrastructure, the White Scars were forced to use other methods of war, which they once scorned.
Now, only the elite of the Legion have access to the bikes that made the White Scars' infamous across the galaxy. Without any way to produce more, the White Scars must either steal those of other Legions – a method that has become increasingly unviable as loyalist Legions discarded the use of warbikes, precisely because of their association with the treacherous Fifth – or bargain with daemons to gain the use of a possessed mount. Ownership of one of these engines is often enough to cause duel to the death amongst Legionaries.
The Wild Hunt
Once called the Brotherhood of the Storm, the Wild Hunt is one of the White Scars most infamous warbands. Its members are spread across the galaxy, allying with other groups of Chaos Marines, but their prime allegiance is always to their own cult. Its members are mutants of the most foul and blasphemous kind : they are merged with the bikes they so adore, unable to get down from them. They are more than daemons than Astartes, capable of tearing holes across reality and drive through the Warp itself to emerge somewhere else on the battlefield. In the centuries since the first White Scars made the abominable pact that transformed them, many other Legionaries have joined their ranks, including – to the ever-lasting shame of their brethren – more than a few from loyal Legions. When operating with another warband, the Wild Hunt charges ahead, seeking worthy prey in the enemy ranks – be it a charismatic officer, a renowned champion or, in rare occasions, a target specified by their current employer.
Of all the scions of that debased group, the one whose name is most reviled and cursed in the Imperium is that of Doomrider. Once a Khan of the White Scars by the name of Shiban, he is now a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided, riding ahead of a horde of Hunters and daemons, passing from world to world in pursuit of prey chosen by his own alien, unknowable logic. For many centuries now, the Inquisition has sought to destroy the creature, but it has eluded all of the Inquisitors who have attempted to bring it to justice so far.
Because they were once ignored by the Imperium at large, the White Scars now hunger ferociously for glory. They seek the most valuable targets and have little consideration for the risks involved, wanting their names to echo through the galaxy and freeze the hearts of billions in terror. They will announce their coming to their victims, ordering their agents to spread the news by vox or sending the cries of their astropaths ahead of their fleets. This may seem a tactical blunder, as it gives the Imperium time to react and prepare, but such is the speed of White Scars starships that they can reach their target before the warning has had any effect beyond weakening morale.
After the battle is over, the White Scars will ransack the cities they have conquered and fill their ships with slaves, but only rarely will they slaughter every survivor of their initial onslaught. In fact, they appear to take a perverse joy in letting them live, so that the tale of their heinous deeds will spread further in the Imperium. On several occasions, Inquisitors have purged entire such populations, to keep secret the fact that the servants of Chaos could reach even planets well inside the Imperium's borders.
Recruitment and Geneseed
Among the Traitor Legions, the White Scars are perhaps those whose gene-seed remains the less corrupted. This is probably due to them remaining outside of the Eye of Terror for the most part, though the extensive periods of time their ships spend in the Warp have taken their toll upon their physical integrity. Still, examination of captured corpses has revealed that the White Scars remain able to use all of the nineteen implants of the Legione Astartes. How much of the original process of indoctrination has remained in the Fifth Legion and how much of it has become tainted by the Ruinous Powers or lost to the trappings of superstition and sorcery is unknown, and probably varies greatly from one warband to another.
What is known is that, unlike some of the other Traitor Legions, the White Scars do not have to rely on daemonic pacts and unholy alliances to replenish their ranks. This relative purity enables the Legion to keep inducting new recruits into its ranks. Far beyond the Imperium's reach, it is said that there are entire worlds whose sole purpose is to provide various warbands of the Fifth Legion with recruits. Every few decades, a ship of the Fifth Legion will come to take the young males and put them through trials every bit as difficult as those of loyal Legions. Those who survive are then transformed into new Legionaries and taught the ways of Jaghatai. Since these poor souls come from some of Mankind's harshest worlds, and grow in civilizations filled with the corruption of Chaos, they embrace their new existence with pleasure, as they are at last given the strength they have yearned for their entire lives.
The boy stands alone before the five gods. The others have died long ago, slain by the rigor of the trials or by each other's hands when only a few remained. He is the only one to have made it this time – a mark of honor, so it was whispered by the elders who still remembered the last time the Lords of the Hunt had come to choose those worthy of joining them. It means his is a great destiny, if he has the courage to claim it. If he can survive the Ascension, he will become a god. He will hunt forevermore, across the Great Sea of Stars, alongside the Riders of the Wild and the Masters of the Storms. He will join the Eternal Hunt, receive the blood of the Great Khan, whose spirit wanders the universe still. He will be immortal.
'Forget the life you lived,' says the first of the gods. Like the others, he wears armor of white and black, the emblem of the thunderstrike on his shoulder.
'Shed the name you were given,' says the second one.
'A new existence awaits you with us, in the urdu of Jaghatai,' says the thid.
'A life of endless war, of endless hunting, of endless freedom,' adds the fourth.
'From now on,' concludes the fifth, 'your name shall be Kor'sarro.'
Other warbands take the children of their slaves, training them from birth before granting the survivors the « Ascension » they desire. Like other traitor forces, the White Scars also kidnap the children of the worlds they have conquered and force them into their ranks, breaking their frightened minds with the power of the Warp before reshaping their flesh. Despite the Inquisition's best efforts to suppress them, legends exist across entire sectors of hosts of daemons coming from the darkness between the stars to steal children and make them into more of their own.
Warcry
The White Scars are a greatly varied Legion, and the warcries they use vary accordingly. Some, though, are used by many warbands of the Fifth, such as 'For the Khagan!' or 'Lay low the Carrion Tyrant !' Some amongst the Loyalist Legions that were at Isstvan V even claim that it was a White Scars that first shouted the infamous scream that would later be used by billions of traitors and heretics across the millennia : 'Death to the False Emperor !'