40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 408 137. Interlude: The wolves return to their dens (4.5k)

Ruth walked across his deck.

No one nodded to him, beat his chest or beat his chest, gritted his teeth and issued a cry of surrender and respect from his throat. There was no invitation to drink or fight, nothing.

The wolves were focused on their own affairs, and they did not notice his arrival. The Fenrisians felt a burst of laughter at this - but they could not let them know that he had this ability, otherwise there would be endless trouble.

The wolves will swoop in on him until he gives it to them. But he doesn't know how to teach. This is Conrad Coates's patent, a wonderful skill that he learned from his adoptive father's abilities and his own nature.

Different from what Corvus Corax has mastered, although they are all skills of walking in the shadows, Corax's kind... has gone beyond the scope of learning.

Ruth has always been eager to learn, but he also knows how to respect his teachers. Therefore, if his brother didn't explicitly nod his hair, he wouldn't have taught this technique to anyone, not even his pack.

Holding the emblem in one hand and the black book in the other, he stepped into the darkness of the Herakfennir.

He was thinking a lot at the moment, which he rarely was. The Allfather—his Father—asked him to become an executioner. Ruth agreed. He had no room for refusal, and he didn't want to refuse.

And if you want to become an executioner, first of all, the first thing you have to do is to always think less and do more.

Staring into the eyes of the dead for a long time would put the living in a bad situation. He never liked to think about why those people died and why they could live. He did what the Emperor told him to do - and that was no blind obedience.

Leman Russ knew what his father could see, and when the snow fell on Fenris, people would seek the elder's advice in trying to survive the winter. Russ had learned this well, the Emperor was an old man who saw further than everyone else, so he listened to him, that was it.

But it doesn't work now. Now, the executioner's thoughts are very confused.

First, he thought of Hawser.

Kasper Ansbach Hauser, or Ahmed ibn Rusta. Bard of the Third Great Company. As a poet, he is absolutely qualified and very good.

Being a bard is a chore, and yes you can tag along with the wolves, but that usually means extreme danger. The wolves will not rush out rashly. Only when the father needs it, they will rush out of the blizzard and show their fangs.

Hawser survived one war after another, and then began to fulfill his original job-telling stories for the wolves. He did this very well, too.

For example, at the farewell ceremony for the rune priest Heoros Tusk, he prepared four hundred and twenty-three stories, all from the mouth of the wolf.

He told it well, and in the grand and calm story, he had finished the whole life of Tusk, although the ceremony was interrupted, and he still had sixty to go.

Then he died.

Just after Ruth promises that they will set foot on Prospero to find the truth that has been blurred in his memory - he dies, as soon as he sets foot on Prospero.

And Ruth stood beside him. He watched the poet's body emit blue light, watched his skin melt, his flesh twisted, and watched him scream.

He still remembered his last words.

"My story—" he said.

Your story? Ruth smiled.

Yes, we will tell your story, Hawser, at your farewell ceremony.

The wild bear that shot you from the sky will speak, everyone in the Third Company will speak, and I will speak, and I will start your story with a bane star streaking across the sky of Fenris.

But end with what?

The smile on the alpha wolf's face gradually calmed down and he stopped smiling. He returned to his lair, which was decorated with bones, ivory, and wood and made a great gathering place.

There were countless days and nights where the wolves carnivaled with him. Russ narrowed his eyes and glanced at his throne. He stared straight at it, as if he saw some kind of end point.

"See you in the winter, Casper Ansbach Hauser."

He whispered a farewell and turned away, walking deeper into his lair. A quiet room, a quiet and undecorated room sealed by stone.

He sat down cross-legged, and the armor that had been honed by battles naturally exuded a majestic air when he was walking or lying down. He lowered his head, placed the black book on the ground, and placed the emblem on top of the black book.

His breathing was very calm, but his mind was not.

Ruth stared straight at the book, and for a moment, he wasn't here. It's like a holographic projection. He looks here, but he's not.

The real Leman Russ is in another place, where the climate is cold and the snowy needle pine trees stand straight into the sky. Next to it was the snowy field, with a herd of howling cows running past. Not far away, there are broken glaciers that are blown by the wind and make a whirring sound.

Fenris, he was in Fenris.

Although only for a moment, he did go back and take something he needed from it.

Ruth slowly opened his right hand, and a touch of cold moisture began to spread in his palm. Where it had once been a clump of snow, now it was just some spreading water stains.

In addition, there lay in the palm of his hand a knife that was not the size of an Astartes or a Primarch.

It looked like it was meant for mortals, and was just a knife for skinning. Everyone on Fenris knows how to make leather, and this tradition has been going on for a long time, and it still continues to this day.

Russ looked at the knife. It had been buried deep in the snow. To be precise, it was buried deep under the snow along with someone's helmet according to someone's last wish, so the whole knife looked wet.

The blade was somewhat damaged, looking like broken saw teeth, and dark blood stains were wrapped around it. The handle of the knife wrapped with rope was carefully stamped with paint to reveal a straight, bloody blade.

Printing the knife on the knife is really unnecessary.

Russ grinned, his fangs gleaming in the air, and he looked like he was smiling.

This sword once belonged to King Tenkiel. Before Leman Russ ascended the throne, he was the only king of the Russ tribe.

And a long, long time ago, so long ago that Leman Russ had not yet received this name and was just a wild and untamed wolf child, this knife was once held against his throat by King Tenkiel.

With deep hatred.

It was a bitter winter, and Ruth's wolf pack invaded a village.

At first, they just grabbed food to survive the winter. But Russ didn't know what was enough. He didn't even know what to say. The villagers fought back for their own food, so he instinctively waved his arms and killed many people for the wolves.

It was King Tenkil with his warriors who fought off the wolves and captured Rus. At that time, his limbs were tied, his mouth was gagged, and he was thrown under the king's throne covered with thick fur.

King Tenkil put the knife to Russ's throat and spoke to him in an ancient language that no one could understand. Only on his deathbed did he tell Ruth what he meant.

"I will avenge myself with my sword."

He never did, and that was the only time Ruth ever saw the knife, but he remembered it. He was a Primarch after all, and now.

Riemann from the Russ tribe sighed deeply, feeling an impulse in his heart. As he leafed through the books, he came across many rituals, one of which intrigued him—or rather, his intuition.

After thinking for a while, Russ finally grabbed the emblem and held it in his left hand.

The next second, the black book suddenly opened automatically without any wind. Its hard cover hit the stone floor with a sound almost deafening.

The pages of the book began to be turned over automatically, as if an invisible hand was carefully separating each piece of ancient paper to find the truth inside.

Ruth's eyes were never focused, and the focus of his gaze was not on the books - until the sound of flipping through stopped, until two dark red pages, as if soaked in blood, were spread out in front of him.

There is no word on the first one, just a sharp blade dripping with blood painted in thin strokes. The second page is filled with densely packed small characters, line after line, with no gaps between words. The writer seems to have fallen into a state of insanity.

Ruth stared at the book and slowly raised his left hand.

He began to exert strength and clenched the emblem in his hand with all his strength. The mundane metal should have been instantly reduced to powder by the full force of a Primarch, but it did not. In fact, it was so strong that it even stabbed the Wolf King's palm that was filled with Fenrisian snow water.

A few seconds later, sticky blood dripped down between Russ's fingers, mixed with snow from Fenris. They all dripped onto the pages of the book, and the next second, a violent gust of wind suddenly blew in the windless quiet room.

Ruth smiled with satisfaction.

"I, Riemann of the Russ tribe—" He turned his head and looked at the knife in his right hand. "——I will refuse to do this."

He suddenly stopped speaking, raised his eyebrows, and his smile began to widen.

"I swear to Khalil Lohars that I will avenge my brother Magnus with this blade," he said cheerfully. "I'm calling him here, will he accept it?"

The pages of the book danced wildly, the temperature dropped sharply, and the turning of the pages began to become more violent. A burst of dark light emerged from it, and blossoming flames spread out and quickly surrounded the quiet room.

Ruth clicked his tongue and carefully began to avoid them. He stood up, walked around the book, and began to think about whether he succeeded or failed in doing so.

"Don't you value your oaths very much?" the Fenrisian muttered to himself, staring at the dark red flames. "Now that I have sworn, do you accept it, or do you not accept it?"

A voice came from behind him.

"I accept that, He doesn't."

The Wolf King turned sharply, and Khalil Lohars was standing behind him. Wearing the Skeleton Mask, gloomy dark clouds were escaping from between his ribs, and his words were no different from the sound of thunder.

"You're taking advantage of this, Ruth," Khalil said slowly. "He will not respond to any expectations, nor will he do anything unnecessary. You have hatred, Magnus has hatred, and so do the demons."

"He will not give any extra power to either side. If both sides hold swords, then fight to the death. The winner will continue to face other revenge seekers. This is the spiral of hatred."

Ruth listened to his words carefully, but did not answer. He just raised his hand and showed the skinning knife and the emblem.

The angry flames in the skull's eyes flashed twice, and he nodded: "Interesting, it seems that this belief about Him has been circulating for many years, and it only belongs to the evil god of revenge in the barbaric era."

He laughed, lightning struck, and the floor of the quiet room began to crack. Under the stone were countless exorcism charms, which came from the ancient legends circulated in Fenris. They seemed absurd, but they really worked.

"Don't you know these things yourself?" Rus asked.

"You have to know that a few decades ago, I thought I was an ordinary person who would die soon."

The skeleton lowered his voice and restrained his posture. He pointed to the cracked ground. Rus glanced at it and shook his head indifferently.

"Then you might want to take a look at that book." Rus said. "It records a lot of things about you."

"Not me, Rus." The skeleton sighed. "It records a god, not me - so, what exactly do you want to do by calling me? This is very dangerous, even if I am a biased god."

"I want to know what Magnus did."

The skeleton pondered for a while, and his eye sockets burst into a terrifying light in the darkness. The temperature began to drop further, and pieces of darkness spread from under his feet, and many pale faces flashed by.

They stared at Russ without blinking, their eyes like two black holes. I don't know if it was the sound of wind or wailing, and Russ instinctively bared his teeth, and had the urge to roar back.

".He did a great thing."

Finally, the skeleton spoke like this.

"You can probably guess how dangerous the current situation on Terra is without me saying it. The evil in the subspace is endless, forced by their masters to cross the boundary between virtuality and reality and arrive on Terra, consuming our living forces. There are many civilians, soldiers and Astartes on Terra. In the long run, they will definitely drag us down."

"Wait--"

Russ frowned suddenly, and his intuition provided him with a doubt that was almost impossible to detect. This doubt did not exist in Khalil's words, but under that terrifying skull mask.

It fits tightly on the face of Caryl Rohals, but it looks illusory, as if it is not worn, but already exists, as if it is his face.

As if it has always been like this.

"- Your face?"

The skeleton kept silent.

Russ gritted his teeth with a horrifying expression, and continued to ask after a moment.

". Does Conrad know?"

"He will know soon." Caryl answered Russ in a whispering tone. "But I can continue."

"What to continue?" Russ asked sharply.

Caryl tilted his head and raised his left hand. A bright golden light flashed on the tip of the sharp and pale bone claw.

Russ's eyes widened.

"Humans should support each other in battle."

Caryl calmly withdrew his left hand, as if he had expected Russ's surprise.

"But he can't help me for long. The current situation is too bad. There are my altars all over the galaxy. Terra is the largest one. Ah, and Magnus. I remember that you called me for his whereabouts."

"What happened to him?"

"You are going back to Terra, right?" Khalil asked.

"Yes."

"Then you will see him in the warp." Khalil said. "Lord Prospero is leading countless dead in the warp to stop the demons for the people on Terra. I should go, Russ."

As soon as the voice fell, the wind whistled immediately, even to the point that the wolf king could not open his eyes. He clenched his hands, roared in the wind, and roared a sentence.

"Goodbye Terra! Khalil Rohals! I hope I can always call you that!"

He didn't get an answer.

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