Event · M30–M31
Death of Horus
The Death of Horus was the climactic duel of the Horus Heresy, fought aboard the battle-barge Vengeful Spirit in orbit above Terra. Horus, Warmaster of the Imperium turned arch-traitor and vessel for the Chaos gods, had led his rebel forces in a prolonged assault upon the Imperial Palace. The Emperor of Mankind, forsaking the defence of his throne world to confront his former favoured son directly, boarded the Vengeful Spirit accompanied by a small retinue of Custodian Guard. In single combat the Emperor and Horus fought with blade and psychic might alike, each grievously wounding the other before the Warmaster was struck down. The victory came at ruinous cost: the Emperor, gravely injured and his mortal body failing, was borne back to Terra and interred within the life-sustaining mechanism later known as the Golden Throne. With the Warmaster slain, his rebel fleet and armies fell into disarray, and the surviving Traitor Legions withdrew from the Sol System toward the Eye of Terror, bringing the Horus Heresy to its end. The Emperor’s incapacitation nonetheless left the Imperium under regency, and the age that followed was shaped as much by his absence from active rule as by the war’s conclusion.
See where Death of Horus occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.