Angron beats up Russ

‘I had him, Lorgar. My boot on his throat, at the very end. I stood above him at last, and Russ…’

‘Do you see?’ he said. No, he barked it. He barked it not like a simple beast, but with human passion backed by canine ferocity. Conviction burned in his eyes – the same instinctive viciousness of a dog defending its family. ‘Look, damn you. Look around you. Do you see what you’ve done to your sons?’

At the battle’s core, sense pierced Angron’s aching sight long enough to leave him speechless. The axe in his hand lowered, and he looked out at the ranks of Wolves facing him with their bolters raised. They came in ragged packs, abandoning the warfare to form a ring around the primarchs. Wolf after Wolf – close enough for Angron to make out the individual totems and talismans rattling against their storm-grey armour – moving to stand in ragged ranks with their brothers.

One of them, a tribal leader of some kind, stood out by the elaborate blue pack markings over his faceplate. ‘It’s over, Lord Angron,’ he said.

‘Russ.’ Angron turned to his brother, and pointed with one bloody hand over the encircling wolf packs, to where the Legions still fought across the rest of the battlefield. ‘Your Legion is bleeding.’

Russ didn’t deny it, for it was true. Beyond the encircled primarchs, the World Eaters were tearing through their cousins’ grey regiments, fighting without sign of formation, just as they fought without any regard for their primarch. Even in those early days, they were used to Angron fighting alone, and their fresh implants stole any hope of cohesive battle planning. Their stunted brains wouldn’t let them bring order to the chaos.

The few World Eaters in possession of their senses – Lhorke’s towering ironform was one, Angron noted through narrowed eyes – were throwing themselves at the Wolves entrenched around the duelling primarchs, but they lacked the numbers to break through Russ’s defensive packs.

‘My men are dying,’ Russ admitted. ‘Yet here we stand at the battle’s heart, and only one Legion is about to lose its primarch. Do you see why I came? Do you see how you’ve broken your sons?’ He threw an arm to take in a wide pass of the battlefield. ‘The Wolves are soldiers taking an objective. They fight to win, while your World Eaters fight only to kill.’

‘Victory comes,’ Angron smiled, showing a crescent of bloody teeth, ‘to the last man standing.’

‘That is true in the gladiator pits, Angron. But our father desires soldiers and generals. Not gladiators. Death is a necessity – it comes for our foes, and it comes to our own soldiers when we cannot spare them. You spend your Legion’s lives like a lord spends coin. It cannot continue.’

Angron had followed Russ’s glance, but where the Wolf King gave the battle a mere glimmer of attention, Angron was paying full and amused attention.

‘War is only won when every enemy is dead. A pacified enemy is still an enemy.’

‘More gladiator wisdom, Angron. Look at my men surrounding you. Have you honestly learned nothing from this?’

‘Your men are losing, Leman.’ He grinned at his brother. ‘Let’s take this to the last breath, eh? Let the bloodshed play out with the dance of cutting blades. We’ll see which Legion still stands.’

‘Neither will stand. But you die the moment my men open fire.’

‘Death holds no sacred mystery to me, Russ. It holds no terror.’ He laughed then, through the Nails’ pain, laughing hard enough that his eyes watered. ‘I may even welcome it! Are you empowered by our “beloved” father, dog? Can you really give me death, or has your posturing already gone too far?

He nodded over the battlefield again. ‘And I say once more – your men are losing. You know why? Because yours have something to live for. They care. Mine fight for pleasure, knowing any life outside of war is denied to them. Their own lives are as meaningless to themselves as they are to me, and that is the gift given by the Butcher’s Nails. Warriors, not soldiers. Warriors with no fear of death, and no caution to guard against it. They don’t protect, they kill. They cast aside all thoughts of their own lives in the hunger to end others’. Remember that, Russ. Remember it well.’

Betrayer