United and Renewed

The sun was setting and the howling winds tore across the glacial plains as the wolves regrouped. They had suffered heavy defeats at the hands of their adversaries, but their spirits were not broken. Ferrus stood apart from his packs, his wolf companions close by watchful of any predators. Ferrus was grateful for their presence. For had it not been for these wolves Ferrus would’ve undoubtedly been just one of the many corpses that littered the battlefield, for that he felt a sort of kinship towards them, they were now a part of his pack too.
The closest wolf, grey with darker markings, turned its head whilst its ears twitched as if trying to pick out something far off. The second, white wolf joined in this attempt, however it seemed far less concerned by the noise and merely lay with its head up and its ears similarly twitching. For a moment Ferrus couldn’t hear anything in spite of his augmented senses, then he heard it over the howling wind was something heavier, something more and yet less than the wind. In a matter of minutes the sound became a rob blot on the horizon, swiftly becoming recognisable as one of the Thunderhawk transporters from Ferrus’ battle barge still hanging in orbit.

The Thunderhawk made two passes, before landing on the third. The front docking ramp slowly lowered and an immense figure blotted out the light coming forth from the Thunderhawk. Ferrus slowly advanced towards the ramp, holding up his hand to shield his eyes from the light. As he moved closer the figures features became clearer, the short grey hair and braided beard, not to mention the larger staff topped by a wolf skull with various fetishes adorning it. Ferrus offered out his hand to the figure, who shook it with a stern smile upon his face.
“Well M’ilord it would seem that you are missing Fenris a great deal. Why else would you choose here to crash?” There was a brief pause before both men laughed. Ferrus placed a hand on the man’s shoulder, clutching his chest while doubling over in laughter.
“Ah Tor my good friend, I have missed your jests almost as much as I have missed saving your carcass from being torn apart by the many whelps you fail to defeat with your hands, it’s almost as if you use your staff to keep them all at arms length.” Once more they laughed until they were interrupted by a deep gruff cough.
“As warming as this reunion must be for you both, might I suggest we get to the business at hand?” Ferrus grinned, the voice that spoke belong to none other than the veteran Long Fang squad leader Leif Frostfang. Tor turned to Leif, also slightly grinning, then returning to his stern face.

“Aye, you see Ferrus, we’ve been conducting sweeps and scans of the local area, matching up the stars to charts and such.” Ferrus nodded and turned to walk down the ramp, Tor and Leif following half a step behind. “Ultimately we have concluded we are not even close to our intended location.” Ferrus turned to Tor.
“Then where exactly are we?” Tor paused for a moment looking to Leif, who carried on walking past them, followed by his Long fang pack, each bearing their rocket launchers and heavy bolters. Then Tor’s gaze returned to Ferrus.
“The question, my lord, isn’t where are we so much as when are we?” Ferrus stood still for a moment attempting to understand what he was being told. “Allow me to explain.” Tor pulled a small device from an ammo pouch on his thigh. Pressing a button on the side a small hologram of the known Imperium spun in front of them, pointing to an area on the holo Tor zoomed to an area of space, with 4 planets orbiting a sun. “As you are aware this was our intended destination.” Once again Ferrus simply nodded. Tor touched the holo with a closed fist opening it to zoom out of the map before pressing an area far from the previous system. “This is our current location, the Forge world Orpheous.” Ferrus examined the map closely throwing Tor a puzzled look.
“But that can’t be the stars are in completely the wrong place, and also this map shows no tundra like areas such as this one.” Tor rested on his staff for a moment pressing several buttons on the device and suddenly the planet on the display started moving through the hologramatic galaxy before them, the digits in the top right of the display spinning wildly until Tor once again pressed a further button, stopping the digits at a number that Ferrus couldn’t comprehend.
“Is the instrumentation accurate? There are no faults or any damage?” Tor shook his head.

“I conferred with the navigators, the instrumentation doesn’t lie. We are currently standing on the planet Orpheous in the latter part 41st Millennium.” Ferrus was dumbfounded, he was bred for fighting for the feel of steel on steel, simpler things than this, what Tor was describing was almost alien to him. “However, the signal we received was Imperial, so I’d suggest we keep following that signal and figure out the riddle of the hows and whys at a later point.” Ferrus nodded, grinning and bearing his fangs as he did. The rush of battle was once more filling him, he ached for another bout with the Dark angels or the monstrous bug creatures they had encountered previously. “Oh and one further thing, Hald has been forging this for the past few days and I feel that given the recent battles we have faced it’s best for you to put it to use.” Tor reached over his shoulder, and produced a broad Frost axe, it’s surface looked to be covered in ice, it’s deep blue veins travelling to the axes head, light pulsating along it’s surface. “It is called Rök, Hald said it was his finest work to date and you know well from Fang what his skills can bring out of such weapons.” Ferrus took Rök in hand swinging it from side to side, then swinging it with his fingers, throwing it in the air only to catch it by the handle again.
“Aye, it’s a fine weapon, truly it shall soon taste the blood of a foe worth enough to face a weapon such as this.” Raising the axe and turning to his brother marines he howled. “For the All father and for Russ, we shall take the day in his name.” The reply came back.
“For the All Father!” Ferrus could feel it in the air once more, the rush of battle. The Great company of Ferrus Stormwolf would meet it head on.