'Death is the price of disloyalty to me,' he said, and the screens showed his vastly magnified face. 'But know this - if I bring suffering to some it is because I would save you.'

He returned to his ship. His men followed. Sota-Nul was the last aboard. She turned at the top of the ramp, and looked down upon Aspertia's barge. The Stormbird's engines ignited, their jet burn focusing to searing daggers of fire. 'You are the Warmasters now,' she shouted over the rising whine of the ship. 'Do not forget your oaths. Shortly I shall send advisers to you. With the blessing of Kelbor-Hal, await your orders.' The ramp rose. Before it had closed fully, the Stormbird lifted off, turned and accelerated away.

Nineteen

Nineteen

Arrival At Trisolian

Curling tendrils of energy chased the Hrafnkel from the empyrean. Geller shields flickered maddeningly with an excess of energies. Other ships followed in close formation, bouncing on complex gravitic waves. Before they were fully out of the bleed of the warp, the ships ignited their real space engines, adjusted their flight paths and raced for the binary pair.

With reckless speed, the Space Wolves came to Trisolian.

Three suns created a complex gravity map. The Vlka Fenryka entered at the lesser Mandeville on the edge of the binaries' shared-termination shock, well away from the primary star and the traitor fleet moored around its worlds. Far enough away for their warp signatures to remain hidden.

Russ sprawled in his throne upon the command deck. Mortals and legionaries filled the machine pits and crew galleries. Trisolian 2a and 2b dominated the oculus. Russ' fleet were dark shapes coasting on void tinted a dreary red. Reports came in from the jarls of the Legion and the warriors assigned to ship command, announcing safe warp passage. Though their emergence into real space had been smoother than their arrival at Fenris, Russ kept an ear on the chatter around the vox-stations, half expecting high losses from their turbulent journey.

The last report came in.

'The fleet has arrived without loss, my lord,' announced a fleet kaerl.

'A good omen,' said Leman Russ, and he sat forwards. 'Have we been detected?'

'Our vessels are hidden in the electromagnetic envelope of the two lesser stars, my king,' said the kaerl. 'We are as yet unseen.'

'Horus has two eyes,' said Russ. 'One spies into the warp. Rune Priests, have my brother's sorcerers seen us?'

The psykers of his Legion clustered together, heads nearly touching, as they debated the meaning of the runes they cast upon the floor. One looked up. Maet Far-scryer he was called, a priest of Tra-Tra. Russ didn't know him well, but he was more familiar than some who had been promoted to take the place of the gothi sacrificed for his trip to the Underverse.