“A strange form to take on a world of mountains,” said Wyrdmake.

“Proof that life can sometimes buck the odds,” agreed Ahriman.

“Aye, you have the truth of it. Just look at Fenris. What sane form of life would choose to evolve on a world so hostile? Yet it teems with life: drakes, kraken and wolves.”

“There are no wolves on Fenris,” said Ahriman absently, remembering Magnus’ words on the subject.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” said Ahriman, hearing the warning tone in the Rune Priest’s voice. “Just a scurrilous rumour I heard.”

“I know the one. I have heard it myself, but the proof is here to see,” said Wyrdmake, running a gloved hand down the wire-stiff fur of the wolf’s back. “Ymir is a wolf of Fenris, born and raised.”

“Indeed,” said Ahriman. “As you say, it is there to see.”

“Why do you attend upon the enemy?” asked Wyrdmake, rapping the base of his staff against the corpse. “They can offer you nothing, or do you now talk to the dead?”

“I am no necromancer,” said Ahriman, seeing the mischief in Wyrdmake’s eyes. “The dead keep their secrets. It is the living who will expand our understanding of these worlds.”

“What is there to understand? If they fight, we kill them. If they bend to our will, we spare them. There is no more to be said. You overcomplicate things, my friend.”

Ahriman smiled and rose to his full height. He was a shade taller than Wyrdmake, though the Rune Priest was broader and more powerful in the shoulders.

“Or perhaps you see things too starkly.”

The Rune Priest’s face hardened.

“You are melancholic,” said Wyrdmake coldly.

“Perhaps,” agreed Ahriman. He looked out over the mountains, his gaze flying to the horizon and the silver cities that lay beyond it. “It galls me to imagine what is being lost here, the chance to learn of these people. What will we leave behind us but ashes and hate?”

“What happens here after we leave is not our concern.”

Ahriman shook his head.

“But it shouldbe,” he said. “Guilliman has the way of it. The worlds his Legion wins venerate his name and are said to be Utopias. Their inhabitants work tirelessly for the good of the Imperium as its most loyal subjects. The people of these worlds will be reluctant citizens of the Imperium at best, rebels-in-waiting at worst.”

“Then we will return and show them what happens to oathbreakers,” snarled Wyrdmake.

“Sometimes I think we are alike,” said Ahriman, irritated by Ohthere’s black and white morality, “And other times I remember that we are very different.”

“Aye, we are different, brother,” agreed Wyrdmake, his tone softening, “but we are united in war. Only Phoenix Crag remains, and when it falls our enemies must surrender or face extermination. Shrike will be ours within the week, and you and I will mingle our blood in the victory cup.”

“Heliosa,” corrected Ahriman. “Its people call this world Heliosa.”

“Not for long they won’t,” said Wyrdmake, looking up as a thunderous howl of engines exploded over the highest peak. “The Wolf King is here.”

LEMAN RUSS: THE Wolf King, the Great Wolf, Wolf Lord of Fenris, the Feral One, the Foebane, Slayer of Greenskins.

Ahriman had heard all those titles and more for the master of the Space Wolves, but none of them came close to capturing the sheer dynamism of the towering wolf in human form that set foot on the cracked stones of Raven’s Aerie 93. The jetwash of his Stormcrow had scorched the pale mountain stone and smelled of burnt rock.

A pack of wolf-clad Terminators armed with glittering harpoon spears followed the Primarch of the Space Wolves, a towering warrior forged from the ice of Fenris and tempered in its freezing oceans. Magnificent and savage, Leman Russ was the power and violence of the Space Wolves distilled and sharpened to the keenest edge. A black-furred wolf pelt encircled his broad shoulders, and clawed fetishes adorned a wolf-stamped breastplate and hung about his neck. His battle-plate was the grey of a thunderstorm’s heart, its every surface scratched and gouged as though he had recently wrestled the two mighty, blade-shouldered wolves that prowled at his side, one silver and one dark as night.

Ahriman’s skin shivered at the presence of Leman Russ, as though an icy wind whistled through his armour. The primarch’s hair was a resin-stiffened mane of molten copper, his piercing grey eyes cold and unforgiving, forever moving and on the hunt. A mighty blade, fully a metre and a half long, was sheathed at his side, and Ahriman saw its hilt had been rune-bound with symbols to draw the frozen ice of winter to its edge.

It seemed impossible that any foe could stand against this warrior. Ahriman saw wild, unchecked power in Russ, a recklessness of spirit that jarred with his own strict discipline and dedication to duty. Leman Russ blazed with incandescent white fire, his aura filled with unnameable colours. So forceful was it that Ahriman shut himself off from the aether, the primarch’s searing presence in the Great Ocean like the first instant of a supernova. He blinked away the glittering afterimages, feeling a nauseous surge of dislocation before his mortal senses adjusted to the sudden absence of extra sensory information.

Ohthere Wyrdmake dropped to one knee, and his lupine companion prostrated itself before the wolves of Russ.

Ahriman felt his body move of its own accord, and the mighty primarch seemed to stretch towards the sky as he knelt before his primal glory. The cold of the mountain air intensified as Russ approached, striding with the easy confidence of a warrior who knows he has no equal. Russ’ swagger was arrogant, but it was well-earned.

Ahriman was used to being in the presence of his primarch; they shared a bond of brotherhood attained through their scholarly mien, but this was something else entirely. Where Magnus valued understanding, perception and knowledge acquired for its own sake, Russ cared only for knowledge that helped him better annihilate his foes.

Ahriman was not intimidated, but being so close to Russ immediately made him feel acutely vulnerable, as though an unknown nemesis had revealed its true face.

“You are the star-cunning one?” asked Russ, his voice coarse and heavily accented. The guttural bark of his voice was like Wyrdmake’s, yet Ahriman’s keen ear detected a studied edge to it. It was almost as though he was tryingto sound like a feral savage from one of the regressed worlds whose people had forgotten their technological heritage and reverted to barbarism.

Ahriman hid his surprise. Was the impression a true one? An ancient Strategos of Old Earth had once claimed that all war was deception. Was the Wolf King’s noble savage a mask to hide his true cunning from those he considered outsiders?

Russ met his gaze, his eyes brimming with barely controlled aggression. The urge to do harm was wrought in every line on Russ’ face, a constant presence that could be loosed in a moment.

“Ahzek Ahriman, my lord,” he said finally. “You honour us with your presence.”

Russ brushed off the compliment, turning his attention to the fire-blackened ruin of the Avenian’s mountain fortress and the smouldering wreckage of those few aircraft that had reached the launch pads.

“Ohthere Wyrdmake,” said Russ, reaching out to tousle the dappled fur of the Rune Priest’s wolf. “Once again I find you in the company of a fellow wyrd.”

“That you do, my king,” laughed Wyrdmake, rising from bended knee and taking his primarch’s outstretched hand. “He’s no Son of the Storm, but I’ll make a decent rune-caster out of him yet.”

The words were spoken lightly, yet Ahriman again sensed a hollow ring to them, as though this were a pantomime for his benefit.

“Aye, well see you keep some of our secrets, Wyrdmake,” growled Russ. “Some things of Fenris are for its sons and no others.”