One amongst the Death Guard knew full well though, his name was Typhon and he had been recruited like so many others into Mortarion's forces on the feral world of Barbarus where the Primarch had grown up. Barbarus was home not only to men but to inhuman overlords that preyed upon them. Typhon had some of their blood in his veins for he was possessed of formidable latent psychic powers that made him especially valuable as a recruit. Even as Mortarion led his Death Guard on the Emperor's Great Crusade Typhon communed with the Dark Powers.

Typhon rose to the rank of Captain, commander of the battleship 'Terminus Est' and a full company of the Death Guard. When the Heresy burst into bloody life with the Isstvann massacre he delighted in bombarding the embattled loyalist forces from above. It was he who slew the Death Guard's Navigators claiming their loyalty was still to the Emperor. It was he who promised Mortarion that his powers could lead the Death Guard through the Warp to Terra. It was he who led them to damnation, becalmed in the Warp, adrift and helpless.

When the Destroyer came and the Death Guard for all their resilience were struck down Typhon received his reward from his true master, Nurgle, Lord of Decay. Like his comrades he was struck down but unlike his comrades he welcomed it as the conclusion of a bargain struck long before. As the last member of the Death Guard fell the full power of this most terrible plague fell upon Typhon who absorbed it within himself. His body became a vessel for the ultimate corruption, his armour became a hive of pestilence. He was Typhon no longer, now he was Typhus, Herald of Nurgle and the host of the Destroyer Hive.

There was no time for recriminations before the Death Guard plunged into the Battle for Terra where many more of them would have perished but for Typhus' skilful management of their evacuation and retreat into the Eye of Terror.

In the Eye of Terror Mortarion shaped his daemon world to resemble Barbarus. Typhus was sickened by the sentimentality. His loyalty was to Nurgle and Nurgle waxed strong when mortals feared death. Taking his ship and his followers Typhus returned again and again to the mortal realm and the legend of the traveller, the Herald of Nurgle was born. The rewards granted him by Nurgle are testament to a score of blighted worlds and countless damned souls.

ime flows differently in the Warp. None aboard the Death Guard battle barge 'Terminus Est' could reckon how long they had been becalmed along with the rest of their fleet. There were few of them left now, one by one the Death Guard had been afflicted with a plague so virulent that their Omophagea and Oolitic Kidney were unable to protect them. They remained conscious but were paralysed and helpless to do more than endure the burning pain that filled their bodies. Only their unquenchable instinct for survival preserved them.

That instinct was pushed to its very limit before the background hum of the warp shield generators died to be replaced by a distant vibration that grew steadily more intense. Suddenly it turned into the buzz of a million wings as countless black, bulbous, warp-spawned flies poured through every bulkhead. This was the Destroyer, foulest of Nurgle's plagues. They swarmed over the paralysed Death Guard, feeding off their sweat, infecting their wounds and infesting every orifice. Throughout the vessel each body twitched uncontrollably as the plague flies laid their eggs within them. Flesh and armour swelled as the corruption filled them, bloating and distending until it burst leaving entrails and pus-filled lesions hanging from their wracked bodies.

On the bridge of the 'Terminus Est' the ship's master, Typhon, was the first to stir, through a miasma of death he rose to his feet. From deep within him came a rattling, phlegm-laced roar.

'More'.

Throughout the vessel the plague flies left their hosts and flew or crawled to him. The tide washed over and into him without cease until it was all gone. Impossibly the giant figure still stood, no longer Typhon, now he was host to the Destroyer Hive, the favoured son of Mortarion. Now he was Typhus.

Back: The Death Guard

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Typhus, Herald of Nurgle