Blade of the Laer - The Horus Heresy: The great dream and ideals of the Great Crusade died when the Warmaster Horus, Primarch of the Sons of Horus and most favoured son of the Emperor, was corrupted by the corrupting influence of the Ruinous Powers. He revealed his perfidy during the treacherous military campaign on the world of Istvaan III, that served both to amass those forces loyal to him without suspicion, and also cull those elements within the ranks of the Traitor Legions whose loyalties he suspected as remaining true to the Emperor of Mankind. After the news of the Istvaan III Atrocity was brought to the Emperor of Mankind by the Loyalists aboard the Death Guard Frigate Eisenstein, He ordered the combined forces of seven Space Marine Legions to assault the positions of Horus and his Traitor Legions in the Istvaan System. During that assault on the world of Istvaan V, three Loyalist Astartes Legions -- the Iron Hands, the Salamanders and the Raven Guard -- were betrayed by the 4 other Legions of the Loyalist second wave -- the Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Iron Warriors, and a large contingent of Word Bearers -- who they had believed were loyal to the Emperor of Mankind, but in fact had already betrayed the Imperium and secretly turned to the service of the rebellious Warmaster Horus and Chaos. As the Loyalists retreated back towards what they believed were friendly lines, the hidden Traitors revealed their allegiance by opening fire upon the Loyalists, catching them between a Traitor hammer and anvil and nearly destroying all three Loyalist Legions.During the height of this conflict, the daemon-corrupted Fulgrim was confronted by the enraged Iron Hands' Primarch Ferrus Manus. Ferrus Manus turned to face Fulgrim, his teeth bared with the volcanic fury of his homeworld. The two Primarchs leapt at one anther, Ferrus wielding the sword Fireblade and Fulgrim holding the warhammer Forgebreaker. Their weapons had been forged in brotherhood, but were now wielded in vengeance, meeting in a blazing plume of energy. The two Primarchs traded blows with their monstrously powerful weapons, Ferrus Manus wielded his flaming blade in fiery slashes, his every blow defeated by the ebony hafted warhammer he had borne in countless campaigns and which Fulgrim had stolen from him they day the Emperor's Children Primarch had sought to turn his brother unsuccessfully toward the service of Horus. Both warriors fought with the hatred only brothers divided could muster, their armour dented, torn and blackened by their fury.The two Primarchs traded terrible blows, wounding one another deeply during their fierce struggle. As Ferrus pushed himself to his feet and staggered towards the wounded Fulgrim, he cried out as he brought the flaming blade towards his brother's neck. But Fulgrim lashed out as he drew the single-edged, daemonically-possessed sword he had taken from the Laer temple and blocked the descending weapon. With the power of Chaos streaming from the blade, diabolical strength flooded Fulgrim's limbs as he pushed against the power of Ferrus Manus, feeling his brother's surprise at his resistance. Fulgrim managed to surge to his feet and lashed out, his silver blade biting deep into the breastplate of Ferrus' armour, and the Primarch of the Iron Hands cried out, falling to his knees once again. Fireblade slid from his grasp as he gasped in fierce agony. As Fulgrim raised the silver sword in preparation of delivering the deathblow to Ferrus Manus, he found that he did not possess the fortitude to deliver the killing blow. In an instant he saw what he had become and what monstrous betrayal he had allowed himself to be party to. He knew in that eternal moment that he had made a terrible mistake in drawing the sword from the Temple of the Laer, and he fought to release the damnable blade that had brought him so low.His grip was locked onto the weapon and even as he recognised how far he had fallen, he knew that he had come too far to stop, the realisation coupled with the knowledge that everything he had striven for had been a lie. As though moving in slow motion, Fulgrim saw Ferrus Manus reaching for his fallen sword, his fingers closing around the wire-wound grip, the flames leaping once more to the blade at its creator's touch. Fulgrim's blade seemed to move with a life of its own as he swung the blade of his own volition. Fulgrim tried desperately to pull the blow, but his muscles were no longer his own to control. The daemonic blade sliced through the genetically-enhanced flesh and bone of one of the Emperor's sons. The Iron Hands' Primarch fell to the ground, his head decapitated. Ferrus Manus was dead by his brother's own hand. And in that moment of maximum horror and terrible weakness, the daemon within the silver blade seized control of Fulgrim's body, relegating the corrupted Primarch's soul to a shadowed corner of his own mind.After the events of Istvaan V played out to their bloody, inevitable conclusion, the Astartes of the IIIrd Legion had no idea that their beloved leader was clawing ineffectually at the bondage of his own mind where he now found himself a prisoner. Only Lucius, Captain of the 13th Company, had appeared to realise that something was amiss with Fulgrim, but even he had said nothing. The Daemon-Fulgrim sensed the burgeoning Warp touch upon the swordsman and had presented him with the silver daemonblade within which the Laer had originally bound a fragment of the daemon's essence, as he now wielded the far more potent Kinebrach Anathame, a gift from Horus. Though the Blade of the Laer was now bereft of its animating daemonic spirit, there was still power within the Chaos blade, power that would strengthen Lucius in the years of death to come.