Ancient sketch of Hastyr, the King's Sword, drawn from the Liber Chaotica by Richter Kless, declared insane
The legend of Hastyr, the "King's Sword," is a story told by a far-travelling Tzeentchian Champion of the Hung. It stands alone amongst the anthology of those tales found in the Liber Chaotica, for it is the only story that was not about a man who wielded a Daemon Weapon, but the weapon that wielded a man.
History[]
The full history of Hastyr runs over centuries and is far too lengthy to be reproduced. But in summary it was discovered by warriors of the Hung in a cavern sanctified to an unknown god. Though obviously a dark weapon of great power, the warriors kept it a secret amongst themselves, and instead built a conspiracy amongst the tribesmen to out the reigning chieftain. This they did, but upon acquiring the power their leader declared his comrades traitors and outcast and executed them all personally with the weapon.
Hastyr was made the "King's Sword," a weapon that represented leadership of this particular clan of the Hung, and which was therefore carried by each and every successive chieftain and as each chief cut his own flesh with the sword, Hastyr reached out and captured the man's soul.
Through these slaves, it controlled the clan for generations, using them for its own mysterious purposes before finally being exposed by a hero of the clan named Ana-Mung, who discovered its true existence after his elder brother had become the new chieftain. Ana-Mung revealed the truth and killed his brother, but was ostracised from the clan. After he left, Hastyr cast off its mortal agents and, bizarrely, ruled in its own stead for a further fifty years, a whole clan of barbarians ruled over by a sword.
Finally, Ana-Mung returned from his travels in the northern Chaos Wastes and challenged Hastyr and bested it by plunging the sword into his own body and galloping away on his daemonic steed. Ana-Mung's last command was that the immortal beast never stop or allow him to fall from the saddle. In this way, the sword was imprisoned once more away from mortals...at least for a time.