Event · M31

Battle of Catallus

The Battle of Catallus was a major engagement of the Horus Heresy, fought in about 011.M31 at the Catallus Rift in the Ultima Segmentum, and stands as the climax of the White Scars’ attempt to force a path to Terra after years of hit-and-run war behind Traitor lines. The Catallus Rift is a warp rift rather than an ordinary inhabited world; over it stood the Dark Glass, a Dark Age machine associated with the Navigator house of Pieter Helian Achelieux. The battle belongs to the sequence remembered as the Path of Heaven, and it follows the Battle of the Kalium Gate, where Keshig Master Qin Xa died leading a feint in the primarch’s armour while Jaghatai Khan sought Achelieux elsewhere. After a council of war in which the Khan proclaimed his intent to stand on Terra rather than die uselessly in the void, the White Scars concentrated some four-fifths of the Legion and moved on Catallus. Achelieux was long dead, but the Dark Glass endured as a tester-throne and mirror-shell over the rift. While Stormseers and Techmarines examined the device, a combined Traitor fleet of Death Guard and Emperor’s Children under Mortarion and Lord Commander Eidolon translated in. Suicidal detachments of the Sagyar Mazan and a covering fleet under Shiban Khan aboard the Kaljian sought to hold the Traitors at bay. Vicious void fighting followed across the rift approaches. Emperor’s Children Apothecary Von Kalda summoned Slaaneshi daemons led by the Keeper of Secrets Manushya-Rakshsasi. The daemons possessed the crew of the Emperor’s Children warship Ravisher and turned upon Jaghatai. Seeking to settle the score with Mortarion begun on Prospero, the Khan prepared to drive his flagship Swordstorm into the Endurance for a final boarding. Inside the Dark Glass, however, Chief Stormseer Targutai Yesugei failed to prevent the Navis Nobilite agent Veil from attempting to wreck the machine; discovering the throne at its heart, Yesugei sacrificed himself to open a portal into the webway toward Terra. Determined that Yesugei’s death should not be wasted, Jaghatai chose escape over a last duel. The Swordstorm was abandoned to Torghun Khan and the remaining Sagyar Mazan as a delaying fuse. When Mortarion and his Deathshroud boarded, they were ambushed and the ship set to self-destruct; Mortarion massacred Torghun’s warriors and escaped before the detonation, but the delay let the Scars enter the portal with only light pursuit. Daemon elements came with them. Aboard the Lance of Heaven the White Scars and their mortal crews held the bridge while Revuel Arvida, the Thousand Sons survivor travelling with the Legion, guided the fleet through the webway; Jaghatai slew Manushya-Rakshsasi in personal combat. Arvida brought the battered fleet out over Terra, where the Fifth Legion would prove decisive in the Siege that followed. Catallus thus records both the cost of the Path of Heaven — Yesugei, Qin Xa, Torghun and many thousands more — and the moment the White Scars regained the road to the Throneworld. Mortarion and Eidolon failed to destroy the Legion; the Dark Glass, once opened, was not again the Scars’ concern. Later map catalogues place the battle at Catallus rather than on Chogoris or at the Kalium Gate, with which older stub entries sometimes confused it.

See where Battle of Catallus occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.

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