Editing Blood Jaguars (section)

=== The Long Night and the Coming of C'rtez ===
Tenocit’s peaceful history was shattered in 427.M35, when a warpstorm engulfed the planet’s star system, isolating its inhabitants from the Imperium. When the storm commenced the stars went dark, and the Sun’s light dimmed. Given that the Sun holds deep significance for the people of Tenocit, as they believe it to be a representation of the God Emperor, there was mass panic. Thousands were sacrificed on the sacred altars to appease the angry gods, but they remained silent. Tenocit remained in perpetual dusk, the wan rays of the Sun only barely able to maintain life. 

Catastrophic famine was all but certain if order failed. Hectares of jungle were cleared for agriculture and vast numbers of citizens went forth into the wilderness to find food. With communications even between Hives failing, each settlement soon became largely autonomous. Population levels steadily decreased, mainly through violence, hunger and the ever-constant sacrifices. It is said that the blood never dried on the great Altar of the Sun in Technochtitlan during the whole Long Night, such were the numbers of those offered up upon it. 

With the Sun fading, it was perhaps inevitable that some citizens would turn to darker powers. Tenocit had always walked a fine line between faith and heresy thanks to its practice of human sacrifice, and with the coming of the Long Night, the line was crossed. Whispers spread that the Sun was darkened because the Emperor had died, and his light was fading. Hope, fear and desperation drove thousands into the worship of the Ruinous Powers. Hives began to discover hidden altars in the depths of their structures, where citizens had been sacrificed upon and their hearts offered to Chaos. Acts of terrorism against Imperial officials and offices sharply increased. 

To maintain order, the Blood Jaguars were called upon to purge the Hives. The reputation of the Chapter was well known to Imperial officials on Tenocit, but they felt they had no other choice. The first hive to be cleansed was Technochtitlan. Level by level, hab by hab, the Blood Jaguars relentlessly sought out any trace of corruption. The cults present in the Hive made the suicidal choice to engage the Blood Jaguars openly, attacking the Astartes in a great battle on the holy square before the Temple of the Sun. They believed their dark gods would grant them victory. They did not. 

After the massacre at the Temple, the remaining cultists on Tenocit began to slip away from the Hives, sensing that remaining hidden from the Blood Jaguars would be impossible. They sought the protection of the deep jungles and began to rebuild their numbers. The Astartes purge continued for eleven years before finally being declared successful. The comparatively small number of cultists caught in the later years was considered proof of effectiveness. But the Blood Jaguars were not convinced. They sensed that the battle was far from over. 

Evidence for the cult’s continued existence was dramatically revealed in 484.M35 when a vast horde of screaming cultists swept out of the jungles and besieged the Hive of Heuxotla. Taken by surprise, the few Imperial defenders, mainly Arbites units, were slaughtered in the first few hours. The cultists proceeded to butcher nearly three thousand citizens on impromptu altars to appease their patron gods. Yet as quickly as they arrived, they departed, melting back into the jungles. The Blood Jaguars were unable to respond fast enough. 

Time and time again, the cultists followed this pattern. Small groups would instill terror by snatching captives from farms or outposts, whilst larger groups raided settlements and even Hives. The Blood Jaguars seemed powerless to stop this method of attack. Their numbers were too few and their communication lines severed due to the Warp storm. Punitive raids into the jungle netted few cultists, as the Astartes formations were too obvious. The Codex Astartes called for strong defences and surgical strikes to defeat this type of attack, but neither option was viable. New tactics were called for. 

Captain Xipet T'otec of the Third Company was the first to suggest new methods. He argued for turning the terror tactics of the cultists against them. Instead of combat squads, individual brothers should be trained to operate independently, using the jungle as cover and sowing terror and disruption in the heart of the enemy. In the dense jungles, long ranged weaponry would be useless, so the Blood Jaguars should focus their training on hand to hand combat. T’otec faced great resistance from within the Chapter, but the Captain was given permission to follow these new tactics. Results at this point were more important than doctrine. 

Captain T’otec’s ideas bore fruit. Over the next two years his Company successfully managed to eliminate three cultist groups in his assigned area, and attacks on Imperial citizens dropped by 57%. Intelligence gained from captives indicated that the terror tactics were working, as cultists were fleeing to other regions, terrified of T’otec’s "Jungle wraiths". Following this success, other Blood Jaguar companies began to follow T’otec’s doctrines, but it was only after the catastrophic Battle of the Monastery that they were adopted large scale. 

Realising that the Blood Jaguars were proving to be far more troublesome foes than originally thought, cult leaders planned to go after the source, and planned a massed assault on the Blood Jaguar’s Fortress Monastery. Five separate cults, each dedicated to one of the major Chaos Gods, came together for the attack. The Blood Jaguars present at the Monastery included Chapter Master Tlacaelel, the whole of Fourth Company, and the majority of the company’s vehicles and Techmarines. 

The attackers did not achieve complete surprise; Third Company intelligence had hinted at a major attack in the sector and the Blood Jaguars were on the alert. Nevertheless they did not anticipate that the cultists would be so bold as to attack the Monastery of the Gods. When the attack began, calls for aid were sent out to all Blood Jaguar forces on Tenocit once the scale of the assault became clear. The defence of the Fortress would have been far more effective had the Fourth Company not fallen to the Black Rage. Disdaining their superior positions in cover, they swept out to engage the cultists in close combat. Every Brother who fell claimed a hundred cultists, but numbers were on the side of the attackers. By the time re-enforcements from the Third Company arrived under Captain T’otec, the Monastery had fallen. Rushing inside, the Third Company commander was just in time to see the heart of Chapter Master Tlacaelel being offered as sacrifice to an unspeakable warp entity. Such was the strength of the offering that a Daemon Prince began to manifest, but T’otec ripped the cultist priest apart and disrupted the ritual. The Daemon screamed in defiance as the warp reclaimed it. T’otec stared into its eyes with pure hatred. 

With their Chapter Master dead and their Monastery in ruins, the Blood Jaguars turned to the one Brother who had managed to defeat the cultists. Captain Xipet T’otec was made Chapter Master and his new tactics were put into full effect. Having lost their vehicles and most of their Techmarines, there was little other option. T’otec refused to rebuild the Monastery, declaring that until the Long Night ended, the Blood Jaguar’s place was in the field, holding off the forces of the Ruinous Powers. 

Perhaps when Master T’otec made his declaration, he did not expect the storm to last as long as it did. For two hundred years, Tenocit was cut off from the Imperium. During this time, the Blood Jaguars put T’otec’s teachings into full effect, disdaining the Codex Astartes. Cultist numbers slowly decreased as their hidden strongholds were purged. By 631.M35, the Blood Jaguar victory seemed complete. And yet, the Long Night remained. Clearly there remained some final act left to play. 

The climax of the Long Night struck late in 631.M35 when a hidden cult in the Hive of Xolotl enacted a blasphemous ritual. Desperate to end the Long Night, they seized the governor of Xolotl and offered his heart in sacrifice, along with the lives of every cult member in the Hive. The ritual succeeded, but not in the way the cultists expected. Instead of the Warp storm vanishing, reality was torn asunder and a Daemonic horde poured forth into Xolotl Hive. At its head was the Daemon Prince C’rtez, the same who had nearly been summoned in the Monastery of the Gods. 

The Hive’s population stood no chance. Warp spawn slaughtered every citizen, but their lust for killing allowed the Blood Jaguars enough time to reach the Hive. What followed was a battle that entered into legend. It culminated in Chapter Master T’otec ripping out the heart of C’rtez atop the Hive spire. As he stood there and offered the heart up to the Sun, the skies cleared, and the light of the Sun Emperor flooded back. Although at dreadful cost, the Long Night was ended. 

Imperial authorities were astonished when Tenocit emerged from the Warp storm. The Blood Jaguars themselves were equally amazed when they were informed that the Imperium had written off Tenocit as lost, as the Warp storm had lasted for over two thousand years. Imperial authorities on Tenocit explained that the Long Night had for them lasted merely two hundred years, a fact which the Inquisition went to great lengths to examine, before finally attributing the time dilation to the nature of the Warp itself.