Editing The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Fourteen (section)

==4-117-001-M42==
“So I stabbed the fucker and took his mints,” Russ said, leaning back in his leather chair, telling outrageous lies to the assembled Rune Priests. He looked wistfully at his empty tankard, and a few serfs nearly fell over themselves refilling it. “And…well, that’s the story of how I met Roboute Guilliman.”<br>
“Dare I ask how he would tell the story?” Bjorn asked from the corner of the room.<br>
“Nope,” Russ said cheerfully.<br>
“Aw. You never did let me have any fun.”<br>
“Well, if you want to have a go at it,” Russ said, gesturing expressively at the crowd of Wolf Brothers.<br>
“No, thanks,” Bjorn said quickly. “I’ve had enough storytelling for one decamillienium.”<br>
“Well, then I guess the next one I should tell is the time Sanguinius and I fought against the largest Ork in recorded history,” Russ said, lining up the memory. “It was late in the Crusade. Very late. Maybe forty months, at most, before Lorgar went bad. The Emperor had left the Crusade for Terra, Horus was running the show, and there were almost ten thousand Space Wolves…” he started, as the younger Initiates leaned forward to listen, and the older Brothers tried not to. Bjorn’s optics drifted across the small hall in which they were gathered, looking over the changes Russ had wrought since his return. He had to approve.<br>
Gone were the petrified wolves and pelts that had decorated the walls. Russ had declared them “macabre.” In their place were banners of the Subsectors in which the Wolves had won at least one battle during Bjorn’s lifetime. There were a lot of banners.

The ceiling was decorated with tiny blue chips of glass and metal, taken from one of the trophies in Russ’ room. They were relics, he had declared, of a prize he had wrested from the grip of Mortarion less than fifty years after the Heresy. What, precisely, that prize was, he had never made clear. Bjorn suspected that Russ simply liked the way they looked like stars.<br>
A downright maudlin portrait of the Emperor (in his original body) and Russ standing together on the steps of the Palace with Rogal Dorn was tucked away in one corner, over a roaring fireplace. Several of the other rooms of the Fang (including some of the great Halls of the Wolf Brothers) had been nearly stripped bare, though of course Russ had been tactful enough to simply “request” that the offending decorations be replaced to his liking. In their place were coming new decorations, including an intact Eldar shuttle that Harald Deathwolf had captured during his glorious reign as Great Wolf; which would have had the Mechanicum spitting nails if anyone had bothered to tell them.<br>
“…well, he jumped about ten feet straight up, not that that means much when he could fucking fly, but, details…” Russ continued, holding his audience rapt. Bjorn glanced through the door of the hall into the much larger room beyond, one of the Galleries of the Fang, where entire Great Companies could be fed or equipped as needs demanded. A ruckus from beyond caught his ear, and he trod over to the door to see what the commotion was.

A fistfight between two Blood Claws was well under way, with several others quickly forming a ring around them, passing slips of paper to one who seemed to be in charge. The two Claws grappled until one managed to get the other in a headlock and twist, the other feebly thrashing before slamming their hand on the floor in defeat. Bjorn watched from his second-floor viewpoint as the seeming leader of the pack passed out the paper slips again, the losers grumbling and the winners exultant.<br>
“Something wrong, old friend?” Russ called.<br>
“Just Blood Claws in a scrap. Nobody’s dying,” Bjorn rumbled back.<br>
“All right.” Russ turned back to the group of Wolf Brothers. “So, the greenskin’s nearly as tall as a Titan, because Orks get bigger as they get older, you know, and the green filth had controlled that chunk of space for fifteen million years. ‘Course, that was his weakness too. He was fast as hell, but he had a blind spot so huge you could park a truck in it. So, we did, basically. Sanguinius danced out of range, slashing at him to provoke him, while I dragged a multi-melta into position behind him and cook it off. Didn’t kill him, though, just baked off a few meters of green. So he turns around, screaming in rage, and Sanguinius actually lands on the fucker’s back and drives a sword through his brain. That offed him good enough.”<br>
“Amazing. Are there still Orks that big?” one Long Fang asked.<br>
“Within the realm of the Astronomican? Hell no, they were easy to detect from range with a Waaagh imprint that huge, we just killed them from space or in tank battles,” Russ said dismissively, waving his hand. “Outside the Imperium? Sure.”

Bjorn plodded over to the Wolf Father and hesitated, words weighing on him. “Boss, you have a second?”<br>
Russ cocked an eyebrow, standing and following Bjorn out into the hall. A few men on the floor below stared up at the heroes, gesturing and pointing, but Bjorn’s demeanor was all Russ was watching. “What’s wrong, Bjorn?”<br>
“I’m exhausted, Leman. I’m so tired I feel a bit ill,” Bjorn said heavily.<br>
Russ stared at the Dreadnought, the implications of that statement cutting through his alcohol-induced buzz. “Well...you’ve been awake much longer than Dreadnoughts are supposed to be…”<br>
“I have. So…so much longer,” Bjorn said. “I’ve been up since…well, since Angelos ‘received’ me two months ago. I need to rest.”<br>
“I understand,” Russ said, feeling a sudden sense of loss. “You don’t mean anything permanent, do you? I remember some Venerable-”<br>
“Cutting you off right there, boss,” Bjorn said. “No way. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just…tired.”<br>
Russ nodded slowly, processing that. “Okay. Well…the Iron Priests have their instructions.” Russ squinted at his ancient friend, curiosity getting the better of him. “Do you dream under the needle?”<br>
“No. It’s a deeper rest than that.”<br>
“All right.” Russ struggled to find words. “Can you put it off a few more hours? There’s something I want to show you first.”<br>
“Sure. What is it?”<br>
“Well, it’s Grimnir’s idea, actually. Meet us in the lowest Hall, near the armory, in, say, four hours?” Russ asked.<br>
“All right, then. See you there, I guess,” Bjorn said wearily.

True to his word, Bjorn plodded into the hall in four hours, where Grimnir and Russ were waiting. Joining them were the requisite Iron Priests, to perform the sedation rituals…and nearly all of the other Wolves in the entire Fang.<br>
“What the fuck?” Bjorn asked, before realizing what was happening. “Oh, you didn’t.” Russ shrugged. Grimnir smirked through his fangs.<br>
“What can I say. Lord Father?” he asked of Russ. Russ nodded once and turned to the crowd.<br>
“Lads, this, here, is Venerable Bjorn, the first Great Wolf after me. He’s stood at the helm of the Legion, or Chapter, for ten thousand years. A few months back, he sleepwalked his way to Cadia, where he had a grand old time, blasting the shit out of some of Abbadon’s little pets. Do you think he did a good job? He was half-asleep and all, remember.”<br>
A chorus of laughter, assent, and general insults rose from the throng of Wolf Brothers. Russ shrugged theatrically. “I got there after he did, so I don’t know, but I’m told he made a fair accounting of himself. That said, lads, Bjorn here is feeling, well, a bit long in the tooth. Do you all think he’s lost it? Think he doesn’t have thirteen more Black Crusades – or one Second Great Crusade left in him?”<br>
Thousands of the Wolf Brothers shouted the idea down, shaking their heads and jeering Abbadon's chances of success.<br>
“Lads, he’s ten thousand years old, his hearing’s gone a bit faint. Could you repeat what you just said?” Russ asked mildly.<br>
As once, the seven thousand Marines roared their disapproval, egging Russ on as Bjorn stood stock-still.<br>
“Better.” Russ turned to Bjorn and grinned wanly. “They seem to disagree, my son. You still wanna go hang out with those dirty little kleptomaniacs?”

“…Hell no,” Bjorn said, nearly overcome. He amplified his own speakers, trying to respond to his brothers’ overwhelming support, but couldn’t quite do it. After several seconds of trying, he hung his armored torso in a brief moment of emotion, before straightening up. “My brothers, thank you. I’m glad to hear that. You have no idea what it means to me.” Words failed him again for a moment. “I can go to sleep confident,” he finished.<br>
“There you go then,” Grimnir said. He raised his voice, gesturing silently at the doors behind him into the Fang Crypt as he did so. “Brothers, please show Elder Bjorn the way out.”<br>
The Wolf Brothers cheered uproariously as Bjorn slowly walked through the doors into the crypt. The muted sound of their clamorous applause carried through the door as the Iron Priests tended to the artifice that had sustained Bjorn for nine thousand years. Bjorn turned his speakers back down, his voice synthesizer managing to convey his emotional upswell. “…Thanks, Boss. I really needed that.”<br>
“Thank Grimnir,” Russ said with a grin. “His call. And frankly, old friend, just so we’re clear, if you ever ‘sleepwalk’ over to Cadia or anywhere else again, I will drag you back in irons. Clear?”<br>
“You won’t need to,” Bjorn managed. “I’m…not going anywhere.” Iron Priests worked at the controls, prodding runes and whispering litanies. The sarcophagus slid into place with a metallic *click*.<br>
Russ kept talking. “I’ll be here when you wake up next century, my friend.” The crypt sealed, and the tubes leading into it flooded with their orange mixtures, instantly rendering the ancient Space Wolf comatose. The Space Wolves walked out into the hall, silencing the cheering Brothers out of respect, as the door behind them locked, sealing Bjorn away, until the Space Wolves needed their guardian again.