Russ, It's Time to Fulfill Your Promise

Inside the Golden Palace, when the psychic projections of the other Primarchs had all vanished, Nimrod said to Russ.

"Russ, do you still remember that you owe me a promise?"

Leman Russ's ice-blue eyes abruptly turned savage, and his face ached faintly as scenes from Duran flashed through his mind.

Jorin's 13th Great Company, the Wolves' malignant mutations of the Canis Helix; the Duran people had captured the malignantly mutated Wolves and displayed them publicly; left with no choice, he had gone to Nimrod and asked him to keep the secret for him and the pack.

He had agreed to his request, and Russ had kept his promise as well, never again making any statement about him or the "Shadow of Order." The pack had hunted for him on Fenris.

He still owed Nimrod a promise.

"State your demand," Russ said, his gaze like a blade, his voice cold. "I will not accept anything unreasonable."

He put an obvious emphasis on the Gothic word corresponding to "reasonable." He possessed the right to interpret it.

"I want to bury Hannibal, so hand his corpse over to me."

Though Nimrod would not serve as the executioner, he still had to obtain the greatest trophy—the body of a Primarch.

A Primarch's body was itself a treasure vault, and one that had contained so many xenos was rarer still.

When Nimrod had made that request of Russ on Duran, it had been for this moment.

As for the psychic ban of the "Council of Nikaea," its effect would not last long. Wasting the promise there would be meaningless.

Nor did Nimrod believe Russ would change his attitude toward psychic power. That would be an "unreasonable" demand.

His request for Hannibal's corpse was different. Russ would not be defying The Old Man in Yellow's order