Freeblade - Rival Freeblades: During the long history of the Imperium there have been tales of rival knightly houses that have fallen to skirmishing and even full-blown war. Just as the houses of Knight Worlds can come to blows over differences of honour or creed, so too can the same fate befall the Freeblade. There are rumours among the Nobles and their kin of long-running feuds between certain Freeblades, often those that are forced to fight in the same warzone or find that their own personal quests come to cross purposes. Examples of these rivalries are scattered through the annals of the knightly houses and the Forge Worlds which keep histories of such things.One recording tells of the personal war between the Freeblades Emperor's Voice and Fires of Wrath. During the Xalan Apostasy the pious Freeblade Emperor's Voice became a bitter foe of another Freeblade, known as the Fires of Wrath. Fires of Wrath considered all those touched by the Apostasy to be enemies of the God-Emperor, while the Emperor's Voice saw that some were worth saving. During the battle of the Illuminated, when the Saint's Own regiment sided with the Imperium, it was the Emperor's Voice that accepted their defection from the enemy while the Fires of Wrath still considered them Traitors for ever siding with the Apostate armies. Neither willing to back down, the two Freeblades squared off against each other. Though neither fell that day, hundreds were killed as they clashed, and their feud would become a reflection of the war and a warning to others of the unwavering principles a Freeblade can possess.Another legend sheds light on the centuries after the Horus Heresy, a time of great suspicion between the Imperium and its allies, when some Knights stood on the brink of turning Traitor or were discredited and defamed by their rivals. The fates of the Freeblades Truth of Mars and Dauntless Valour illustrate the distrusts of these times. These Nobles had become rivals over a perceived slight during the Allax Crusade victory processional, as to which of them was to be given the honour of marching first through the Arches of Triumph on Petrum V.Though both were staunch Loyalists, and continually tried to outdo the other with their acts of devotion and piety, this incident would consume them both. In the standard years that followed they levelled accusations of treachery and heresy at the other, playing a cruel game of lies and defamation. Numerous times they even traded blows in battle, each citing the attacks as evidence of weak moral fibre and festering treachery in the other. Ironically, in the end the Freeblades were forced to fight and fall as one when their dire reputations drew the attention of the Inquisition and an attempt was made to bring them to justice.The famous Freeblade Amaranthine was almost unwittingly drawn into a similar conflict in the closing years of the Tiberius Wars. The mysterious Freeblade was ever at the forefront of the Emperor's armies as they purged the Heretic hordes and pushed back the malign influence of the Tzeentchian Daemon that wore the skin of Tiberius. Amaranthine's reputation for never speaking and for his brutal efficiency was a chink in his armour that the Daemon would use to discredit him. Through a web of lies and deceit, the Daemon spread rumours that Amaranthine was in fact an agent of the Dark Gods, a war machine possessed by a Daemon and sent from the Warp to do the will of Chaos.When the Freeblade purged a city of heresy, or destroyed a powerful warlord or fortress, the Daemon would spin the story that the Freeblade was killing innocents, sacrificing them to his Daemon lords, or that he was actually allowing the true villains to escape each time -- after all, why else would another foe always arise in the wake of his victories? The Daemon cited the Freeblade's silence as further proof of possession or compliance with the Ruinous Powers, saying that if Amaranthine were to speak, his true nature would be revealed in a second. So pervasive were these lies that several Inquisitors were drawn into the Tiberius Wars and onto the trail of the Freeblade to try to discern the Knight's true nature, though none risked outright conflict.In the end, Amaranthine's actions were to be the answer he would give to these vile lies. When he clashed in epic combat with his ever-changing foe, none of the Imperial Guardsmen, Space Marines or other Imperial warriors that fought at the Freeblade's side could doubt his conviction to the Emperor's cause. When Amaranthine finally destroyed Tiberius' Daemon-form, he put paid to any other dissenters, and the Tzeentchian lies were banished for good along with their author.