Chapter 259: Might is Right
At last, the crowd was gone. Hades let out a long breath, sank into his chair, and reached absentmindedly for the bread the Death Guards had just left him.
Then, as if remembering something, he jerked his hand back and coughed awkwardly.
He had sworn an oath!
Seeing that Hades was finally free, a weary-looking Garro stepped forward and gave him a brief report on the situation of Planet 4 and 5. Acting on Hades' intelligence, Garro had uncovered several small factions attempting to carve out their own spheres of influence.
Garro looked to Hades for direction. Hades smiled, his voice hoarse:
"I think it would be good if you take charge, Garro."
"Thank you for your trust, Commander."
In the end, Hades couldn't resist. He tore off a piece of bread.
It's delicious.
While chewing, he spoke around it:
"There's no need for secrecy. Let everyone see it—see clearly the price of stirring trouble on Death Guard territory."
"Just think of it as a holiday."
Hades drew a stack of dossiers and clapped them against Garro's shoulder.
"I know you're not fond of noise and spectacle, but it must be done. Both cleansing and education are necessary."
Garro accepted the documents in silence, nodded once, and left.
Hades watched him go, thoughtful. He could already picture the blood spattered across the battle-captain's armor.
To be fair, compared to Vorx, Garro was hardly the man best suited for paperwork and politics. But the Death Guard's command cadre was few in number, and the Galaspar campaign had cost them dearly. Garro knew he had to shoulder the burden.
Hades could still recall how, at the beginning, Garro had his own sharp temper. Now, something had dulled within him—perhaps eroded by endless administration—until that raw edge no longer showed.
Well… once he had trained up the next class of officers, it would be better to let Garro stretch his legs on the battlefield again.
Fortunately, some of the administrators recruited during the Galaspar campaign had survived these years of live trials; a selection of them could now accompany the Legion.
Hades pondered, considering the next steps for Barbarus. He would have to meet those people, take those measures.
The bread was soon gone. Hades brushed the crumbs from his hands, rose, and turned back toward Mortarion.
The Primarch was still staring at the documents, though to Hades he looked more lost in thought than actually reading.
"Mortarion, what was it you wanted me for? I was too busy just now."
From the shadows of his hood, deep-set eyes lifted from the page and fixed on Hades, thoughtful.
"It's nothing," Mortarion said at last, slowly.
He had been listening all along to Hades' conversations with the Death Guards—listening as Hades recounted the development of Barbarus' history to the younger warriors.
And, to the Primarch's surprise, the current state of Barbarus was not what he had imagined.
Most of those who came here did so out of the will to survive—and to find further opportunity. They braved the dangers of the warp, risked passage on hazardous civilian vessels, all to reach Barbarus.
The majority of settlers came from nearby death worlds, or from planets recently scarred by war.
Others were adventurers seeking achievement: some wished to travel with Rogue Traders, some hoped to collaborate with Tech-Priests, and some—perhaps most strangely—came in the hope of joining the Legion itself.
Among the human settlements here, joining the Legion had become a widely held belief.
After all, the mysterious, powerful Grave Wardens who maintained order and security here had, in the years before the Death Guard's recent arrival, already become the silent embodiment of the Legion in the eyes of the common folk.
Mortarion did not want the soft, greenhouse-bred. But those from death worlds… those, the Lord of Death might consider.
Those fleets from earlier had also come to welcome the Legion's arrival.
Mortarion thought irritably: most of them had never even seen, much less understood, what the Death Guard truly did—yet they dared to rush forward so boldly to greet them?
At least they bore no hostility. Perhaps this was simply the recklessness of humanity, so he forgave them.
All except the nobles.
Mortarion had always been at odds with those who hoarded wealth and power. By his own instincts, such people belonged on the gallows.
But the blood-soaked atrocity on Galaspar had taught Mortarion a grim truth: if one sought development—rather than struggling endlessly in ruins—then such people were a necessary evil.
If he still hoped mankind's future would arrive in peace and stability, he could not simply send them all to the noose.
According to Hades' explanation to the younger Death Guards just now, these nobles had gathered here with no clear direction—waiting, bartering with Tech-Priests for technology, trading among themselves—
But their chief purpose was to watch, to see the Legion's stance.
Mortarion recalled Hades' words:
"Those who already hold power fear to be overthrown more than profit. Thus, when they face the armies of the Imperium—forces a hundred times stronger than themselves—most rulers choose to surrender outright, obediently paying tithes in exchange for the stability of their rule."
"But the truth is, when the Imperium's armies conquer, then move on, they leave behind anxious rulers. Their hearts remain unsettled—"
"—until a clear, local power arises. One who represents the Imperium, teaches them step by step how to submit, teaches them the rules of this thing called Empire, and guarantees their safety."
"That presence will be the Death Guard. It will be Barbarus."
"The strong wield privilege. These nobles will watch the Death Guard's every move. They will yield. Up to the very edge of the line they first drew, the Death Guard will hold absolute authority."
"In fact, we can probe their limits, pushing them back step by step."
And with that, Hades had smiled gently at the warriors around him:
"Power and wealth are but by-products of violence. As a Legion, we are the most violent instrument of the Imperium."
Hades had not strung those nobles on gallows—but Mortarion felt he had already sentenced them to death in spirit.
And he was not wrong. Those people would bow to the Death Guard. If Mortarion despised certain traits in them, then they would adapt, change.
Mortarion slowly turned over Hades' words.
Compared to the lofty "justice" taught by the Imperium, the Lord of Death found it far easier to accept a naked, cold truth:
As long as you held the scythe to every throat, all would obey.
Mortarion knew this well. And relations between worlds were no more than an extension of that same principle.
Yet he had allowed himself to be deceived by appearances—entangled in words deliberately cast as complex and obscure, distracted by the smiling faces of rulers—until he had fallen into the illusion that everything was slipping beyond his control.
But it was not. Beneath the chaos of the surface, the underlying logic was simple: Barbarus was the homeworld of the Death Guard. The Death Guard possessed the greatest strength of violence in this region.
That meant the Death Guard could do anything they wished here. And Mortarion, as the Primarch of the Legion, could do anything he wished.
But he no longer wanted to act rashly. The atrocity on Galaspar haunted him, reminding him never again to turn Barbarus into a wasteland.
Perhaps he should go and see for himself, rather than sit here and brood.
Pale and brooding, Mortarion sat. Hades had just urged those young Death Guards to go investigate—perhaps he too should see what was truly happening.
Mortarion cast a glance at Hades, humming cheerfully as he tidied the piles of documents.
A Hades who could speak so casually of power and violence—that was terrifying. Terrifying in another dimension altogether.
Fortunately, Hades was a Death Guard—and harbored no schemes against him.
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