In the dimness, the dome towering into the darkness was staring at them. It was silent and cold, with only a tiny glimmer of light left.
The faint light came from Lupercal Horus, from the wolf-god's body, and from the chirping and jumping little birds.
For some reason, Leman Russ felt a mixture of uneasiness and disgust towards the birds, and he wished they would leave his brother alone.
The wolf king swallowed and looked at his brother cautiously. He felt a chill in his palms and the golden spear shaft was pricking his palms.
After a brief assessment, Rus naturally sat opposite Horus, placing the Spear of Dionysus beside him where he could reach it at any time.
Horus ignored Rus's caution.
[Why are you here, Horus? I remember you were supposed to be in the Ultramarine, near Baal? ]
Horus smiled.
[Don't you understand, my brother? This is a dream. Of course you can go to all kinds of places in your dreams.]
The wolf king frowned.
[This is not a dream, Horus, I am real, there is something wrong with you - what kind of winter have you been through? ]
Horus curled his lips and touched the blue-glowing little birds under his command.
[It doesn’t matter,]
Horus said,
[Dreams and reality make no difference to me. You are not the first person to say this to me, and you will not be the last, my brother.]
An indistinct roar came from the wolf king's throat, and Russ bared his fangs.
[Okay, so what are you doing here, Warmaster?]
The Wolf King saw it very clearly, and the word "Warmaster" made Horus pause for a moment.
Horus paused, raised his eyes, and looked at his brother sincerely. Rus saw the chaotic colors in Horus' eyes.
[… I… I don’t know, or maybe I just wanted to come and see you. ]
Horus turned his head and glanced at the huge alien building behind him.
[It’s beautiful, isn’t it?]
Horus said without thinking,
[Alien technology—perhaps Eldar, perhaps even older.]
Rus gritted his teeth. He didn't understand what Horus wanted to say. He opened his mouth.
[I never knew there were such buildings on Fenris.]
Horus turned his head and glanced at Rus.
[This is... fate.]
The Warmaster said,
[Russ, you are the second Primarch to be found after me.]
The Wolf King moved his hand to the spear imperceptibly. He stared at Horus. He would never forget the scene when he first saw Horus. At that moment, Leman Russ saw something beneath the shell of Horus - this guy was going crazy because he was not the only one of the All-Father.
As the first Primarch to be found by the Emperor after Horus, the Wolf King was the only one who truly saw Horus's twisted attitude towards the Emperor.
Horus just stood there, staring at him fiercely, and Russ, who had the intuition of a wolf, could certainly feel it—although that emotion only lasted for a moment.
After him, Horus hid himself well and turned himself into a qualified elder brother to share the responsibilities of a father.
Ruth felt his mouth dry, and he spoke,
"What does that mean? We both know what the All-Father thinks of you and me—you are the Warmaster, and I am his sword."
Horus smiled.
[I envy you.]
Russ felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Anyone could say this except Horus.
[Wh…what do you mean?]
Horus explained patiently,
[He knows that you don't think about his orders, you just follow them - I envy you for that.]
The wolf king slowly, slowly leaned back.
[This is not something to be envious of, my brother.]
He bared his teeth unconsciously, revealing a ferocious expression like a threatened dog. Now Leman Russ also felt that all this was a dream - at least the Horus he knew would never say this.
The Space Wolves have always been the Emperor's executioners, so why should they be envious
Horus was silent. He lowered his eyes, crossed his hands, and spoke hesitantly.
[Leman Russ, let me ask you - if he ordered you to kill him, what would you do?]
[The All-Father ordered you to do this?! Horus? ! ! !]
The Wolf King stood up suddenly. He drew the sword from his waist without hesitation and put the tip of the sword against Horus' throat.
Horus did not resist at all. He even stared at the Wolf King with a smile and slowly raised his hands.
[Please repeat what you just said.]
The wolf king said incoherently,
[What did you just say?]
[Things are far more complicated than what I said.]
Horus said, feeling the chill on his neck.
[But I am not surprised by your reaction.]
The Warmaster smiled and said, "I swear my loyalty to him. Can you put down your sword and listen to me now?"
The wolf king stared at him intently, then the cold light disappeared in an instant, and Russ sat down in silence.
This time he made no attempt to pass himself off as a mindless creature, and Horus smiled as he thought that he, only Horus, had seen the true face of Leman Russ on the day the Wolf King returned.
A man disguised as a wolf.
Horus looked at the Wolf King, his eyes sliding across the Spear of Dionysus in Rus's hand... That was a gift given to Rus by his father... What a luxury, he gave a Spear of Truth to a man pretending to be stupid.
This is the webway.
Horus turned his head, and the wolf king's gaze fell on the webway behind him.
There was no emotion in Horus' tone.
He left the Great Crusade, left us—for this.
[Alien technology? ]
Rus asked in disbelief. Across from him, Horus smiled, but it was a mocking smile.
[Yes, alien technology. ]
Horus whispered casually that he hoped all of humanity would ascend into some higher race of psychics that could harness the power of the Warp.
Ruth was silent for a moment.
I support this.
The wolf king said simply, "Allfather has his reasons."
Horus sighed long and tiredly, his eyes full of fatigue and worry.
[But he was deceived.]
Did you see that, Ruth
Horus looked up, his eyes seemed to penetrate through the layers of the earth's crust, looking at the bright wolf moon of Fenris.
[Do you see the monster that is about to descend upon Fenris? ]
Horus whispered, his voice suppressed and cold, and Russ was surprised to find that the whole space seemed to begin to darken.
At this moment, thousands of thoughts flashed through the Wolf King's mind. At the same time, Horus' voice still rang in his ears.
[Our father... he was deceived, by Malcador and It.]
The entire alien building began to tremble, as if some huge existence that was incompatible with it was approaching it. Dark cracks climbed up from the corners layer by layer, like the heaving frost before the arrival of winter.
[Ruth, I have seen a lot, I have experienced a lot - I have experienced the betrayal of a close friend, but I do not blame him, I have experienced the rift between brothers, but I know that it was the result of being deceived by treacherous officials - but I did see his death... our... father's death. ]
[What?!]
The floor began to shake, and Russ felt like he was on the back of a leaping giant wolf. He stood up and rocks began to fall from the dome.
The strange thing was that Horus was still sitting there, along with his strange little birds, but he began to flicker like an unstable projection.
[… I can’t stand it.]
Horus' eyes shed tears of blood.
[He personally raised a beast and let it grow up until it was big enough to hurt him - yes, everything here is not friendly to humans, but in this matter, we are on their side. ]
Horus spoke slowly, he spread out his hands,
[The Astronomican is out because my father is hiding from it - we need to help him. As long as the monster is not dead, the Astronomican will never light up again.]
That monster tore everything apart with its own hands, the galaxy, the empire... all of this was the backlash of its actions.
He saw with his own eyes the Emperor being severely wounded and killed by the claws of the beast.
Horus stood up, walked to the side of the panicked Rus, and slowly but firmly held the hand of Rus holding the Spear of Dionysus.
I am not a foolish person,
Horus said, his hand reaching down, sliding down the cold body of the spear, he felt the sharp tip,
[I know very well that things in the warp space are not trustworthy. They are just a tool, a temporary ally, and their words are both true and false - so I came to check the truth myself. ]
[Spear of Dionysus,]
Horus whispered. Rus saw a strange light coming out from those damned birds. The flowing light made the Wolf King dazed for a moment.
[The wisdom of our father, the one who was stabbed can obtain part of his wisdom, and he gave it to you. ]
Horus lowered his eyes.
[I want to see if what I know is true. Nothing is more suitable than the Spear of Dionysus, which is his handwriting.]
[Will he really be hurt by that monster, or even worse?]
Horus showed an extremely tired smile. As a warmaster, he had failed in his duty, but as his heir, he did not want to fail again.
[I failed to protect the empire he gave me, but this time, I will not let him get hurt again.]
[Those abandoned people... they also need the head of that monster to comfort their souls.]
A drop of blood flowed from the sharp tip of the Spear of Dionysus.
Rus roared and reached out to grab Horus, whose figure was beginning to disappear. But as if waking up from a dream, Horus' figure dissipated like mist, and his hand passed straight through the phantom of Horus.
Following the sharp blue light, there was a huge feeling of powerlessness, which was like a curtain falling down. The pupils of the wolf king suddenly dilated, and he felt something familiar -
Magnus's psychic powers.
[Magnus!!!! ! ! ! ]
Leman Russ roared in rage, and at this moment his hypothesis was confirmed - the slashed psyker was using his damn psykers again!
The familiar smell told the Wolf King that Russ was 200 percent sure that the appearance and disappearance of Horus was related to Magnus.
The space was about to collapse in the violent trembling. The Wolf King had no time to think about what Horus had just meant. He realized that he needed to stop the damn Magnus now!
He did not understand Horus - but Magnus was indeed the mission given to him by the Emperor!
Leman Russ's first priority is to keep a fucking eye on Magnus!!!
Intuition and the cold wind pointed the way for him, and without hesitation, the wolf king rushed into the web that was already beginning to crumble.
Something has come here, and two forces are clashing here.
The power he was close to dragged him away, while the power he was unfamiliar with carried him to his destination.
After a dizzy trance, the Wolf King suddenly found himself standing in the violent blizzard of Fenris.
He caught the scent of the Scarlet Sinner at the tip of his nose.
Without any hesitation, the wolf king stepped into the blizzard.
The Wolf King, who was eager to stop the Scarlet Sinner, disappeared in the storm. In the face of the fierce attack of nature on the tiny human figure, everything that just happened really seemed like a dream.
But the tip of the spear behind the wolf king had a trace of dried blood.
Yay!
(End of this chapter)