"You're in, captain." Merrill announced, her focus already shifting to another more pressing matter at hand; the new ships joining them in orbit. "I'll attempt to hail them and see if they're as friendly as the other Astartes."

"Understood, officer. Carry on." Aristov nodded and took a moment to compose himself, adjusting the collar of his coat and his cuffs, as though the Astartes would be able to see him through the vox. "Lord Lattore of the Relictors, the wolves are minutes away. We're readying our bombardment cannons. You need only direct us and we shall rain death upon the heretics and daemonspawn." He paused for a moment, taking a deep breath as he steadied himself to deliver another one of his lord's stoicisms that only made him feel like a fool repeating. "Also, Lord Tyrfingr requests that you not die before he has a chance to repay his gratitude."

---

"Brothers," Tyrfingr hailed through his vox, interrupted by his own grunt as his claws rended through the body of a particularly large daemon worshiper. "Do you feel it?" The scent of blood was in the air, thick enough that the aura alone permeated his armour and took hold of his senses. "Our greatest battle is only moments away."

The other wolves acknowledge him with their grunts and growls, too focused on the tide of heretics that they continued to cut through to offer an appropriate answer. As they pushed through the undulating mass of heresy, they would find themselves against and again encircled and have to squander precious time culling their numbers once more. The fighting that had come to feel endless had only gone on for mere minutes each time before the wolves had broken their ranks and continued to push forward bearing little more than the pocmarks of their slugthrowers and lasguns. The only fear any of them shared was for what awaited them when they returned to the ship. Sigurd's biting words stung far more than these peashooters.

"By the Emperor," Eiryk said, barely more than a raspy whisper into the vox channel at the sight of the Relictor's and their greatest foes. The writing flesh-beasts of chaos that slammed into them, that even tore apart the nearly heretical astartes. Their bodies looked as though hundreds of men and beasts had been grinded to slush and molded into a creature of agony. As the others reached the edge of the canyon that the Relictor's had set up in, they all took pause beside the hunter and surveyed the carnage, the creatures, and the astartes. "Your command, Askeladd?"

Askeladd watched silently for mere moments, taking in the ferocity of the creatures and the heretics that surrounded the Relictors on all sides. "Claws. Guard Canis with your lives and see that his next storm dwarfs the last. Prevent more heretics from joining the battle, Canis. Worry not about the beasts. Eiryk and I shall assist the Relictors." The claws each slapped their gauntlets onto Askeladd's arms and barked out a salute. "If you must die," Askeladd began, turning to face the final heretics that barred the way between him and the relictors.

"Die well!" Aesir was the one to speak now and sealed his lips, bowing his head as he willed the psychic energies within him to bubble to the surface and build until he'd be read to boil over. Already the Lord and his hunter were cutting into the final heretics in their way and beyond the Relcitor's formation, where the daemonspawn and heretics laid he poured his focus. He could hear the slicing of the Claw's ax and the crunching of bone under the other's hammer, the rumbling of bullets against the storm shields, and slowly everything began to melt away until there was only his consciousness and the place he had planted his focus. The skies above the heretics began to blacken as clouds formed and twisted, moving like writhing snakes in the skies. Lightning burst out from the clouds then, searing the heretics it crashed into and launching others to their feet with the following boom of thunder. Then came the hail which fell like blades and punched bodies and earth all the same, turning the forces of chaos into pincushions.

"Lattore," Askeladd boomed through his vocal channels, "Leave more than scraps for the wolves."