Dark Secrets

Just as some Imperial Inquisitors worked with less extreme Chaos Space Marines or xenos, the Imperial world of Manros, beyond the edge of the Maelstrom, also traded with the Red Corsairs.

The locals traveled to the Ragefang aboard transports.

There were also Space Marine traders aboard Vengar's two ships, hoping to exchange goods, and they came along as well.

The Ragefang's hangar deck was lined with all kinds of goods for trade, turning it into a market.

The pearls on the walls of the Navigator's Sanctuary had all been removed by Onaas's servants and put on display at the stalls. But Carly reckoned that even this trade would only get them a few dozen tons of fuel and food. Anything beyond that would have to be autoguns, a local hive-city specialty.

Carly was good at business, too, so she was in charge of selling the good things from the Navigator's Sanctuary.

Kao, meanwhile, was her bodyguard.

As the Manrosans disembarked from their transports and wandered around the deck, Carly glanced at Kao beside her.

"Little brother."

Hearing his sister call him, Kao looked up.

His fierce gaze and cold expression made Carly shiver.

"What's wrong?" Carly took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from her brother's forehead.

"Nothing... Don't worry about me," Kao said in a low voice.

Carly remembered seeing some of the Angels act just like this when she had been a servant.

The Fierce Angels were quite kind, at least to ordinary people like them.

But every so often, they would act as if possessed, huddling on the ground, drenched in sweat. Anyone who approached would be met with a furious glare.

"Go get Kampa," Kao said to another mortal nearby.

The mortal immediately ran off to fetch another Space Marine to take over.

Kao got to his feet with a dark expression and walked away.

His sister was just about to ask him what was wrong when a customer came to the stall and began admiring the lavish gifts the Navigator family had given its members.

Carly looked up.

A noble sat on a gilded platform, carried by two dozen slaves. The platform and his obese frame were so heavy that the slaves had been augmented until they were almost mechanical.

The noble's eyes shifted from the gemstones to Carly's face.

"What would you like to buy?" Carly forced a smile.

The noble whispered to a slave beside him who seemed to be his steward. The steward stepped forward and asked, "How much would it cost to buy you from this Chapter?"

"If you'd asked that while an Angel was here, he'd have torn you apart," Carly said with a smile, though her words were icy.

Just then, Kampa arrived to relieve Kao, Chainsword in hand.

The noble quickly looked away, pretending nothing had happened.

Kampa leaned on his Chainsword and stared down the customers.

The noble was about to resume browsing the jewels when his eyes darted around and caught sight of a painting stuck to a vehicle behind Carly.

In the painting, a Battle Axe and a Warhammer crossed in front of a towering Space Marine whose armor was battered and whose expression was savage.

The noble shuddered and pointed at the image. "Why have you put that up? It makes me sick!"

"That's our Chapter Master." Kampa approached the noble, Chainsword in hand. "Chapter tradition grants you one chance to repent!"

"Ah! What a mighty warrior!" The noble hurriedly changed his tune and bowed from his gilded platform to give the Aquila Salute. "I'll take back what I just said in exchange for twenty tons of grain."

Only then did Kampa stop.

The slaves had noticed the painting too, but they hadn't reacted as strongly as the noble. Seeing their master shuddering, they wondered what was so frightening about it.

The noble quickly signaled for his steward to take him away.

Several more people came by to buy jewels.

Half an hour later, the steward of the portly noble from earlier returned, looking around furtively.

The steward first glanced around, then asked Carly in a low voice, "What does that painting mean?"

Carly looked back at Lu Jin's portrait and explained, "Because we're so close to the Maelstrom, we're always having nightmares and can't sleep at night. Then someone came up with the brilliant idea of drawing our Chapter Master and hanging his portrait on the wall. And, somehow, we were able to sleep. Peacefully, too."

"To put it simply, it wards off evil," Carly added.

Hanging portraits of Lu Jin had become a new tradition aboard the Ragefang.

It seemed strange and inexplicable at first glance, but the portraits really did help. They let people sleep in the Maelstrom.

They no longer heard strange whispers or felt as if some kind of ghostly creature was following them.

Once the tradition spread among the crew, all sorts of terrifying supernatural rumors dwindled significantly.

"Your Chapter Master looks pretty fierce," the steward said curiously. "Aren't you afraid of him?"

"Why would we be?" Carly countered. "That portrait is from the enemy's point of view. All we see is his towering back."

She remembered the time the Cunning Hounds attacked. The people had taken shelter while Lu Jin stood in front of them, preparing to face the Greenskins.

The steward thought for two seconds, then suddenly took a ring off his finger and offered it to Carly. "Could I buy a few?"

Carly handed the ring back. "They're copies. You can have as many as you like."

Then she took a whole stack of portraits out of the vehicle.

The steward took only one, secretly tucked it beneath his robe, and left.

Carly had no idea yet how profoundly this would affect Manros.

A solar day passed.

Carly walked alongside Lu Jin, reporting on the trade.

"We got two hundred tons of grain, two hundred tons of daily necessities, and two thousand autoguns."

"The people of Manros really like the Navigator family's ornaments and treasures. Any local noble would happily spend a fortune aboard our ship."

"By the fleet's ration standards, we go through six tons of grain a day. Those two hundred tons will last us a solar month."

"The Navigator's Sanctuary was attacked when the Greenskins rampaged through the area. Huron's people might have looted it when they helped us reclaim the ship, so this was all Onaas had left to sell."

Lu Jin listened carefully and thought it over.

Carly suddenly remembered her brother Kao. Ever since he'd left the hangar deck, she hadn't seen hide nor hair of him.

"Kao's been acting strangely lately," Carly said, voicing her concern.

Some of the Fierce Angels' temperaments changed drastically on certain days.

"Kao's in the brig," Lu Jin said.

"Why was he put in there?"

"Genos locked him up. He said Kao had done something wrong."

"But my brother wouldn't do anything wrong. Sometimes he's just harsh when he speaks. Whether he was a mortal or an Angel, he'd never..."

Lu Jin motioned for Carly to go with him and take a look.

He found it strange, too.

The brig.

It was the darkest place aboard the Ragefang.

The cells used to confine the Space Marines were there.

Mortals only came by now and then to leave food and drink at the entrance to the cells before departing. The Space Marine standing guard would take the provisions to his battle-brother.

As Lu Jin approached, he heard some roaring.

He went up to one of the cells and saw Kao inside, swinging his Chainsword and hacking furiously at an iron dummy.

Just then, Genos entered the cell block carrying a wooden bucket. When he saw Lu Jin and Carly, he froze.

The Ragefang had lost so many crew members to the Cunning Hounds' surprise attack that there weren't enough people left to bring food to the cells. Genos, who was guarding the area, had gone to fetch some provisions, so he and Carly hadn't run into him when they came in.

"What's he doing?" Lu Jin looked at Genos, though he already had several guesses.

He suspected the Fierce Angels' Gene-seed came from neither Guilliman nor some fallen Primarch, but from Sanguinius.

Kao's current state was a lot like the Sons of Sanguinius suffering from the Red Thirst, or from another genetic illness known as the Black Rage.

The Red Thirst made people crave blood and want to drink it, while the Black Rage made them lose control.

If it had nothing to do with a genetic flaw...

Lu Jin thought of the Battle Axe and Warhammer on his back.

Then it had something to do with those two weapons.

But Kao hadn't lost control. He lowered his Chainsword, opened the cell door, and came out to face Genos.

"Are you going to tell him?" Kao asked Genos.

"Tell me!" Lu Jin answered for him.

So Kao, who had come to Genos for advice out of desperation, hesitated briefly before speaking.

Lu Jin and Carly learned the secret of the Fierce Angels' Space Marines.

Sometimes, certain things stirred the Fierce Angels' bloodlust.

They could let it all out in battle, but in ordinary circumstances they could only relieve it in the cells, either by fighting each other or hacking at practice targets.

Taking it out on the Greenskins was better.

But Lu Jin still hadn't allowed anyone to go into the sealed-off section of the ship and fight the Greenskins. He believed a battle could break out at any moment, and losing people because of the tradition of fighting Greenskins would be a terrible mistake.

"Sometimes, we just want to kill," Genos said. "We want to kill anyone, even the mortals in the Chapter. If word got out, it would cause panic. Besides, we can control and relieve it. It's not a serious problem."

Carly's face went pale.

Only now did she realize that the Space Marines whom the mortals saw as guardian Angels sometimes wanted to kill them.

"Could the missing pages in the records have something to do with the Fierce Angels' genetic flaw?"

Lu Jin remembered finding several pages missing when he had read the Chapter records at the Blood Feast.

"I tore them out." Kao raised a hand, then lowered it and rubbed the back of his neck. "We were worried about you then..."

"From now on, you can go kill Greenskins in the containment zone," Lu Jin said. "Carly, don't tell anyone about this. Not for now."

"Understood..." Carly nodded.

Lu Jin took the Warhammer off his back and looked down at it.

Amid the skulls piled along the hammer's haft, all kinds of wraiths—including Ninos—continued to wander.

But to everyone else, the weapon seemed completely ordinary.

Lu Jin sometimes ran into Onaas. He would ask whether she could sense anything unusual about his Warhammer and Battle Axe, but the Navigator said neither weapon had even the slightest psychic presence, so she couldn't sense anything.

These weapons, born in the hands of the Blood God, had brought no taint of Chaos.

And the reason...

The wraiths in the hammer's haft seemed to sense Lu Jin's gaze.

Ninos stopped and looked up, bewildered.

Little Damian and his parents stopped too, and gazed up at Lu Jin.