The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up

A Wolf's Rage

"And Remember Bjorn."

He felt a massive hand land upon his shoulder as he looked up to see the grinning face of his Primarch. He felt calm. At peace…how strange for an astartes.

"Never forget what you are, never forget our duty. And never forget the your comrades. For in your darkest hour they will be your strength."

*Crash* another impact shook the ground as the Despoiler's fleet continued its bombardment of Garm, as the shattered remains of the Space Wolves fleet rained down upon them. Vessels that had carried the Vulka Frenyka for thousands of years falling beautifully to earth.

"Tohral, how long until the Revered One wakes!?" A bleeding, dying space wolf came charging into the hall of the Iron Wolf. Here there should be the remains of hundreds of ancients, ready to join in battle once more. Now there was only one.

"Not much longer now, though the fight with the Red Giant weakened him!" The Eldest. The Fellhanded. His great body had been scared and wracked by great gorges and tares, inflicted upon him by their oldest foe. For a second time he had taken the field striving against the Red Giant and for a second time he delayed him, keeping him back holding the line. But, Magnus had grown even stronger while the oldest Child of Russ was still bound. This time the battle was not the same, he was weaker, and Magnus had hefted his carapace above his head to break him over his knee, like his father did to him so many years ago, in the blaze and burning of another world.

Only the intervention of either a traitor thrice damned, or a hero willing to sacrifice everything saved him, the strike from the back bringing the red giant to his knees as the traitor wolf brought both himself and Magnus back to the warp with his final act of betrayal.

But the Eldest was wounded, and the wolves of Fenris had no time, the Despoiler had come soon afterwards, and they needed his wisdom…no not his wisdom they had no time for that. There was no glorious strategy to save them. They needed only to get him on his feet so that he could die well like they all should. That he should burn a memory that would be remembered forever blazing out in the eyes of the Despoiler.

"Systems activated, running final checks. Welcome back user." He grunted within his amniotic tank. He'd initially started hating that voice, so bright and cheerful as it kept him trapped within this…cell of iron, but over time he'd started to appreciate it. At least it was consistent. He groaned feeling the aches and pains that had built up over time starting to reappear, but he did not administer sedatives. He never would, he'd never give up like that.

"My lord." Ah one of the Rout, good, it seemed Mangus had been driven back after all. Then he felt an explosion rock the halls.

"Iron Priest, what is the meaning of this?" The wolf, Torek he remembered…he'd been the one to awaken him to fight Magnus. He still looked the same, more scars of course, but that meant that…

"I am sorry Lord Bjorn…the Despoiler has come." Abaddon. Even now that name still inspired a certain level of dread within him. That name was legend among the astartes during the great crusade and now he had come…to burn their world to ash.

"We…are not on…Fenris." The Iron Priest shook his head and laughed. "No lord we've managed to keep him focused on Garm for now. He wants to ensure our humiliation is final before he destroys Fenris. That's why he won't use the Planet Killer to speed up our death's." With that the Iron Priest turned and sent him one final grin over his shoulder.

"DIE WELL OLD ONE!" And with that he charged, a snarl and laugh on his lips.

Torek Thunder Claw was the last high Iron Priest of the Space Wolves. He had fought for over seven hundred years against Chaos. It was he who had sabotaged the reactor of the Imperator Titan Blood Rain, he who beat the Chaos Lord Akematec to death at the very moment of his ascension to demonhood the sacrifice of three sectors empowering him and it was him who led the strike force that had managed to delay the Despoiler for months by crashing one of his subordinate's battlebarges into the Planet Killer, delaying the fleet leaving while also ensuring Abaddon turned upon the Lord who owned the ship, slaughtering him in recompense for the humiliation.

And so, when he emerged he died well. His lightning claw was over charged, his plasma gun fired without thought for the potential detonation and with every motion he killed. He charged forwards heedless of the odds facing him, lesser cultist being reduced to red mush before his armoured charge, even the traitor chaos marines falling like Fenrisian Chickens before him as he gutted them.

Ever onwards as he charged he saw the remains of his fallen brothers, Helm Hammer hand, slumped on a mound of black clad bodies, his hammer shattered remains buried within the head of a Chaos Lord in fell terminator armour, Narrick the Bloody Laugh, his face frozen in his last grin, biting the throat out of a nurglish plague marine. Resla the Blackmane the first in centuries to be given that title his frost saber still visible beneath the mountain of corpses at the front of the gate.

Their brothers had all sold their lives dearly, the Skjalds falling singing songs even as they threw themselves upon the Black Legion to ensure their lives were not lost in vain, as the serfs driven to such fury at the sheer corruption the traitors brought threw themselves forwards with glee. They died to the last man, but they were heros worth twenty astartes, and he would do his best to honour them all.

And so, he cut himself through, his terminator armour chipped and battered by continuous impacts and fought on and on and on.

"So! You are the source of my troubles." A voice like a knife cut its way into his mind as he turned. He had fought his way out of the fortress carving a trail of destruction and death past the lines of chaos.

And before him stood the Despoiler. The archfiend. The Destroyer of Wolds. In one hand was a thorn in reality and in the other the Claw of Horus that had spilled the blood of the All Father so long ago. In front of him stood hundreds of terminator armoured astartes, each blessed to be equal with a major chaos lord, all bound to the service of one being.

The thing that was once a man raised its weapon and clicked its tongue as if disappointed. "I expected better." A red rage filled his vision, but he forced it down. Instead he raised his weapon in turn. "FOR RUSS AND THE ALL FATHER." He charged, the terminators did not interfere and, so he charged and fired. He would force the Despoiler back and then he would be satisfied.

"Pathetic." It was over before he even knew it had started. As if in slow motion the Despoiler attacked. There was no enhancement, no cheating, simply pure skill and speed that was beyond what he could even comprehend, his claw was knocked to the side, his plasma pistol batted out of his hand, before the Talon of Horus was thrust into his gut, parting the terminator plate as if it was not even there.

"I expected better." He coughed and hacked as the Despoiler raised him above his head with a single hand, not even straining as he raised the thorn and placed it by his head to behead him. "Die now Space Wolf and know that all you struggled for was for naught."

"Not quite Traitor." With an earth-shaking crash the wall Garm exploded as a giant figure taller than anyone else appeared moving faster than any he had ever seen. A figure that he knew instantly. "He saved me the trouble of forcing you down here!"

And so, he laughed and laughed his final breath as he activated the melta charge that he had long ago replaced his secondary heart with, going onwards to his final death.

The Iron Priest was dead, activating a melta bomb that had sent the Despoiler staggering. Good to know that he was as arrogant as he ever was. He could feel the impact of auto cannons starting to ping off his Iron Shell, but he forced himself on regardless. He had carved his own bloody path through the city as it was looted with abandon. Nearly a thousand of the black legion had fallen in his path already and several hundred other sundry traitor legionaries, champions of the dark gods that had slaughtered entire sectors for the glory of insanity and chaos. He saw faces, the faces of men that he had once alongside. All of them would die.

Now he charged the Despoiler himself as the Bringers of Despair rounded upon him their demon possessed weapons barking and they did nothing. He was the last wolf, but they had made one mistakes. One fatal mistake. A wolf was never more dangerous than when it was alone.

He hit the Bringers of Despair like the wrath of winter itself, veterans of 15 thousand years of warfare splitting open in his passage as his plasma cannon incinerated swaths of them with every shot as his Fellhand split them apart. The chosen of Abaddon advanced upon him and he swatted them away, they were nothing, their sorceries could find no purchase upon him, their strength failed, and their weapons shattered in his coming.

He thrust his claw towards the recovering form of the Despoiler and felt the impact as he blocked. Still reeling from the Melta bomb the Despoiler was still a force to be reckoned with and yet he was nothing.

He struck out again and again, his Fellhand clashing with the Ender of Empires, the Death of Humanity itself while the Talon of Horus crashed and scraped on his body and, yet he was winning. It was a battle of two weary demigods, both two of the the brightest sparks of the Great Crusade both chosen by their Primarch, who both fought for a golden gilded dream. A dream that had become a nightmare.

Both of them were will power incarnate, possessed of a spirit that would never break, of a skill that would never falter, but there was only one difference between them. Where one had abandoned their loyalty, had cursed and spat upon their primarch the other had not. Where one had forsaken everything, honour, duty, comrades for power the other had not. Where one had sacrificed all, the other had had it taken from them and that gave Bjorn strength.

Strength enough to push his body beyond the limits of strength as he caught the Despoiler with his Fellhand. This time Abaddon was the one lifted from the ground by a power claw, but the Last Wolf did not gloat. He brought his nemesis to the floor and struck him again and again and again with both his claw and his plasma canon which glowed brighter than the sun as it melted the power armour of Abaddon.

It took the impact from the volcano cannon of the Imperator titan Mortan to force Bjorn from Abaddon who by that point resembled more a pile of meat, broken and barely breathing, but by a miracle he lived. His invincible will power kept him alive, but within the eyes of archfynde lurked fear.

Before Bjorn could resume his attack his body guard threw themselves at Bjorn even though they threw themselves to their deaths, for despite the fact that half of his upper carapace was destroyed his plasma cannon gone and his tank exposed to the elements Bjorn was unstoppable.

Abaddon fled, utilising the demonic pacts that he had made to flee rather than face the might of the Fellhanded one. Within his inner sanctum aboard the Planet Killer he ordered the destruction of Garm. He would the world destroyed to kill the Space Wolf, within his mind that was the only way to destroy him.

And the Planet Killer the most powerful warship in the arsenal of the Despoiler save for the Black Stone Fortresses obliterated Garm. Over 20 traitor titan legions, 40,000 traitor astartes, two hundred billion assorted cultists were slain in that instant. This was on top of the two legions of titans, the 5000 astartes and 50 billion slaves that had already fallen slaying the 1000 space wolves that had initially defended the world. This was a wound so heinous that his Imperium would be reeling for centuries, which was only worsened by the wounds he had suffered, which would lead to whispers about his skills once again.

And yet still the path to Fenris was clear. He would make the world burn in recompense and he would laugh as he offered it up to the Red Giant.

When the ship of Altonsar the Perfect, a lord of Slaanesh that had made himself famous by the single-handed slaughter of the Wings of Angel's chapter of space marines, over 3000 strong, made contact with the planet killer to gloat he was met by silence. When he docked with the planet killer he found a charnel ship, the crew all slain in the rage of Abaddon. He was soon slain, to calm the rage of Abaddon as the warp storm shielded Fenris from all assault.

A Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one.

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Bah, I'm just going to post it

@Durin I hope it meets your satisfaction and if I can influence a reward I want Bjorn to appear within the high council chambers having been kicked through the warp by the PK's blast