The eighth and final dagger was forged for Erebus himself.Įach of these servants of the Dark Gods could feel the untapped power that emanated from the blades. The seventh was to be carried by Sergeant Kolos Undil, the leader of Erebus' cadre of bodyguards. Six daggers were forged from the metal taken from the Anathame for those Word Bearers officers who would lead the assault against the Ultramarines Legion on Calth during the Horus Heresy the Dark Cardinal Kor Phaeron, Chief Librarian-Sorcerer Quor Vondar, Phael Rabor, Morpal Cxir, Foedral Fell, and Hol Beloth. The diminished blade would be disposed of as the Dark Apostle had originally been instructed. The fracturing of the Anathame was but the first step down a longer path. Then they were grown in the blood of the Neverborn, and fashioned into fine, dagger-like implements - each alike, but no two exactly the same. The shards had been knapped from the blade by his own hand, in accordance with the old rituals. Seven more times did Erebus break the dark blade seven more shards were commended to his Warpsmiths, until finally he was done. Though diminished, the Anathame was yet whole. With each dolorous hammer blow, the Dark Apostle was able to break off a finger-length sliver of the blade's weird alloys. Utilising a rune-inscribed hammer from an apprentice Warpsmith, Erebus brought the hammer's head down and began to reforge the baleful weapon into its new forms. Though it seemed a sacrilege to the Ruinous Powers to do what he intended, he knew the weapon had already served its purpose - in its original form, at least. He had the doors to this chamber barred and his bodyguards standing watch outside.Ĭowled artisans stood ready at the Dark Apostle's side - Guldire, chief among Erebus' Warpsmiths, shadowed by his foremost apprentices. Within his personal chambers aboard his flagship, the Destiny's Hand, Erebus presented the sword to the statues of the four Ruinous Powers, calling out prayers and incantations, saluting the dread lords of the Warp, each in turn. The Dark Apostle took the Kinebrach Anathame, the daemonic blade that had mortally wounded Horus and begun his corruption by the Chaos Gods in the Temple of the Serpent Lodge, and prepared to perform an ancient ritual. To further the cause of Horus' rebellion, the Word Bearers' First Chaplain Erebus had interpreted the will of the Chaos Gods and devised the means to achieve his lofty goals. The whereabouts of the eight true athames following the Battle of Calth is unknown, although one athame is believed to have been used by the Inquisition during the Pandorax Campaign's Battle of Pythos to seal the Damnation Cache, and another, known as the Shard of Erebus, may have been wielded by Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, to slay the Daemon Prince M'kar during the Invasion of Ultramar in 999.M41. Several of the XVII th Legion's mortal Chaos Cultists on the surface of Calth also utilised ritualistic weapons known as athames, though these were rather small, mundane versions of the weapon, which was made out of flint or crude metal.īlessed by the Dark Apostles themselves, these daggers were considered a mark of high status within the ranks of both the XVII th Legion and its allied Chaos Cults. Unknown to the Dark Apostle Erebus of the Word Bearers, the athames could even allow their users to travel multiple millennia back in time. These eight daggers were esoteric weapons crafted from shards of the daemonic Anathame that had mortally wounded the Warmaster Horus on the plague moon of Davin and had facilitated his conversion to the service of Chaos in the Temple of the Serpent Lodge.Īthames possessed special properties that enabled them to rend the skein of reality, allowing the wielder to step through the Immaterium and cross vast distances in realspace, whether aboard a vessel traveling through the Warp, or even onto another planet in the galaxy. Kor Phaeron attempts to kill the Ultramarines' Primarch Roboute Guilliman with his athame ritual knife during the Battle of Calth.Īn athame was a unique ritualistic dagger made from crude metal or flint that was blessed by the Dark Gods and possessed the ability to alter the very fabric of reality.Įight athames were utilised by the Word Bearers Traitor Legion during the Battle of Calth in the opening days of the Horus Heresy in the early 31st Millennium.
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