"War does not have to last forever. We are plentiful in number. Let us spend time carving out a solid, permanent existence. Let us stop the ceaseless wandering. The Schwarzvolf are acknowledged as the greatest tribe in the north. Let us revel in that for a time."
- — Hepsus' speech as leader of the Schwarzvolf
Hepsus was a Norscan warrior who was a member of the legendary Schwarzvolf tribe. He was one of the Chieftain Merroc's favourite warriors, a vicious man in his early twenties when Valkia ascended to become the chieftain of the tribe.
Hepsus had served Valkia faithfully, despite an initial dislike for the Schwarzvolf princess. Over the years, he would come to respect her, but that respect was shattered when Valkia murdered Hepsus' young son during a duel with the Daemon Prince Locephax.
History[]
"The Blood God? Where was the Blood God when were fighting for our lives in the North? It was because of a misplaced belief in a mad god that your mother died. Do not forget that."
- —Hepsus, responding to Eris' rage
Originally a simple warrior, Hepsus was one of the men who competed in the Circle of Blood to win the rank of the tribe's warspeaker. This role had been recently vacated by Radek following his execution by Valkia, the new chieftain of the Schwarzvolf tribe. Shortly after winning his place among the other warriors who participated, Hepsus was dispatched by Valkia to treat with the Bloody Hand, another tribe that had come to Valkia's attention after the slaughter of the farmer Eraich's people. This interaction eventually resulted in an alliance between the two Norscan tribes and a marriage between Valkia and Deron, the son of the Bloody Hand's chieftain. With their combined forces the Schwarzvolf and the Bloody Hand soon subjugated all of the surrounding tribes.[1a]
Hepsus serves Valkia loyally at first, siring and raising a son named Aric during her tenure. However, the strength and power of the Schwarzvolf and its fervent worship of the Blood God Khorne brought the Daemon Prince of Slaanesh, Locephax, into the tribe's encampment one day. He sought to steal the Gorequeen away from Khorne's embrace and deliver her instead to his master, the Prince of Pleasure, but Valkia refused. She demanded a battle with the Daemon to address the insult to her honour, which Locephax accepted.[1b]
Valkia won the duel, but the lustful aura of the Slaaneshi Daemon drove some of Valkia's tribesmen mad, which Locephax used to his advantage. He enraptured Aric, the son of Hepsus, into attacking Valkia while they duelled. The Gorequeen slew him and several other Schwarzvolf tribesmen in the midst of her berserker rage. Though the boy's death was an accident, Hepsus never forgave Valkia for his son's murder and a deep schism formed between the chieftain and her warspeaker.[1b]
Edan, the younger half-brother of the Gorequeen who served as the tribe's godspeaker, saw this anger and stoked it as part of his own machinations against his half-sister. When Valkia declared she would take Locephax's head to the Chaos Wastes and personally deliver it to the Skull Throne of Khorne, Hepsus decided that this insane quest would present the perfect time to be rid of her.
The tribe's godspeaker and warspeaker both accompaned Valkia for most of her journey, but abandon her at its end: Kormak, a young, warrior of the tribe who had lost one of his arms to a vicious attack earlier in the quest, was the only member of the tribe who remained loyal to Valkia to the end of the quest.[1c]
Edan and Hepsus returned to the Schwarzvolf encampment, claiming Valkia had been slain. They further claimed that, with her dying breath, she declared Hepsus the new leader of the tribe over the claim of her twin daughters Eris and Bellona. Eris was willing to argue the point, violently if need be, but Bellona did not support her, instead looking for a more diplomatic solution. For a time, Hepsus' rule as the new chieftain went unchallenged.[1c]
But Edan had little use for Hepsus, just as he had had little love for Valkia. He began to circulate rumours throughout the tribe that Hepsus was the one who had really killed Valkia, turning the political tide against the new leader. Hepsus himself had made radical changes to the tribe within a short time and these changes had done little to endear the Schwarzvolf to him.[1d]
As the tribe shifted its lifestyle from the traditional way of warring and reaving for their sustenance towards a more settled existence as farmers and pastoralists, Eris grew irate. At a meeting of the tribal council known as "the Circle," she drove a blade into Hepsus' skull, killing him and ending his reign. Eris and Bellona then became the co-chieftains of the Schwarzvolf in his stead.[1d]