They set out at dawn from the Sunrising Gate, as the Wolfs Eye was making its move against the world. The gate was only a third of the way up the Fang, but from the causeway leading down from the mountain the curve of the world was visible, and the Volda Hammarki bent across it like a brigandine of studded plates wrapped around a barrel-chested warrior. A rim of fire emerged over the peaks as the gates opened, white and vicious, an arc that filled a quarter of the horizon. So close was the sun during the Season of Fire that its edge lost constancy, and writhed with the serpents of coronal ejection. A king standing over his defeated enemy the Wolfs Eye rose over Fenris, and the earth quaked in response. Valdrmani, the wolf moon, skulked on the opposite horizon, blanched by the sun's ferocity.

Storms sped over the lower mountains, lashing the slopes with vicious squalls. The snow of winter had gone, and all but the very largest glaciers were undergoing violent summer melts. Water raced through every gulley, brown as ale, whetting the blades of the mountain ridges with their erosive force. Lightning crackled around the mountaintops. All the while the earth shook and rumbled.

At Kva's command, Bjorn was first out into the morning, dressed in his tribal leathers. He squinted into the dazzling light of the home star. Though his occulobe compensated for the glare, he wore a pair of goggles made from slitted hide, and his view of the world was restricted to a narrow band.

Leman Russ strode past him without comment. An escort of ten Wolf Guard followed, led by Grimnr Blackblood. Then Kva at the head of a party of gothi. They were eight all told, the oldest and the most powerful of the Rune Priests, grizzled grey-hairs, their long fangs flashing ivory in the dawn.

None of them wore power armour. They were garbed like Bjorn in ritual leather gear and masks. Out of his battleplate, Kva was all but helpless, and was carried by his twin guardians in a chair fashioned from mammot ivory. Plates of bone and horn dangled from every neck, wrist and waist, carved with potent runes of protection.

Russ stopped at the brink of the causeway and drew in a deep breath. The air was dry and warm. In the lower reaches the temperature would be as high as the tropical norms of Old Earth, even at the pole. At the equator it rose so high as to be dangerous to human life. 'A fine summer's day,' said Russ.

Kva's bearers brought him to a halt by the king.

'The beginning of the end,' said Kva. 'At midnight, Fenris begins his journey away from the Wolfs Eye. He has warmed his hands too close to the fire, and snatches them back. Winter will follow shortly after.'