Prologue

"Loyalty"... "Honour"... "Pride", these were the things that made Romulus Aredic Greythroat the man he was, they were inscribed on his very skin, the tattoos a lasting reminder of the price of vengeance. His hands now are scarred with the wounds of battle, but not the usual scars of injury. These were scars on his soul, the murder and bloodshed was powerful reason of his current state of mind.

Sitting astride his great Thunderwolf Bloodmaw with his battleaxe gripped in one hand, he gazed out at the snows before him, stained with the blood of his friends, and that of his enemies. Moments before he had been charging forward, next to his battle brother Harridus, then all hell broke loose. The cultists they were charging suddenly melted as a device tore through the fabric of their bodies, and extended to the charging Thunderwolf cavalry squad. It was pure luck that Romulus survived, the energies of the device expended on killing his friends and enemies it had no longer the strength to destroy him as well.

Twin thuds as he dismounts. Snow kicked up as the impact of his heavy body slams into the frozen ground. Romulus slowly walks between the rows of dead, identifying each of his brothers. Behind him Bloodmaw howled in anguish and pain at the loss of their friends and pack members. The sheer emotion rumbling from the Thunderwolf's throat brought tears of anger to Romulus's eyes, this wasn't over yet.

A swish and thud as he swung his axe into the corpse of a cultist, tears falling freely down his scarred
cheeks into his long grey beard. Throwing his head back he adds his own harsh voice to Bloodmaw's lament, the pair of them echoing their grief into the darkening sky. Slowly his voice dyed away to be replaced by a slow hymn sung in an old dialect of Latin that is nearly incomprehensible. Slowly moving between the bodies of his comrades he lays them side by side, arms crossed over their chests and swords by their sides. After this grim task he mounted Bloodmaw once more and slowly rode back to the Space Wolf encampment, the report still had to be made and he now had the life of a lone wolf ahead of him.

Romulus mounts Bloodmaw and slowly he and his old friend begin to head to their base, reaching the outskirts he radios in his position and the situation,
"A Swiftclaw pack will guide you home brother"

tracking his way through the snow he thinks about the information that he recovered at the chaos base, their mission was to find the chaos stronghold on the planet and report back on its location and size.

The base was massive it cleared several hundred acres of land for a massive sprawling complex filled with yelling warriors of chaos and their living vehicles.

It was a true hell, every step showed the cavalry images of daemons and visions of things they had spent their lives suppressing, the whispers of the chaos gods reached out to them even there,

the cavalry nearly lost their minds, and even then Romulus wasn't sure if what he had just seen actually happened. Was it another vision from the chaos gods spaced into a split second? Or did it really happen? Was he dead?

The sounds of the Swiftclaw bikes reaches Romulus shaking him out of his reverie, a group of rowdy Bloodclaws astride the gargling beasts of bikes they were rambunctious as ever making jokes and performing tricks in the snowy ground.

Bloodmaw turns his nose to the approaching bikers and lets out a stiff warning growl

The Bloodclaws, instantly respectful, slow to a stop and yell into the snowy air, "Brother Romulus we have been sent to bring you and the great Bloodmaw home, follow us brother"