Aboard the Hrafnkel, flagship of the Space Wolves, the Navigator Gianluigi Belisarius boarded the monorail.
The train roared to life, racing past the astropathic district and the astrological district.
He did not get off at the Navigator Sanctum, but kept going onward.
Along both sides of the ship's spinal thoroughfare, a megalithic carving could be seen every few hundred meters, its base grimy with soil from countless worlds.
They were the only remnants of the ruined worlds the wolves had passed through.
The train slowly decelerated, and Wolf Warriors with Masks over their faces and segmented leather garments on their bodies intruded into Gianluigi's world.
Belisarius studied them with interest. When he had first arrived aboard this Gloriana-class Battleship, everything he had seen had looked the same.
But now he could already distinguish the differences between each wolf by their leather garments, which expressed individuality even more than an Astartes' face.
Gray leather garments with fiery-red patterns—like raging flames in war, cold and silent in ordinary times.
Gray leather garments with spiral patterns—violent as the wind, cold as frost.
The train stopped at the command Spire. Belisarius slowly rose, holding a thick book, stepped off the train, and headed toward Leman Russ's throne room—the Wolf Hall.
He walked through the long, narrow corridor leading to the Wolf Hall, nodding in greeting to the familiar wolf retainers—the Wolf Guard—who emerged from dwellings built from enormous tusks.
Belisarius passed through the stifling heat given off by the braziers. Flames exploded in his eyes, burning until his pupils seemed to rise with fire.
He reached the end of the corridor and looked up at the enormous circular ivory gate, where a giant serpent coiled upon it.
Its jaws gaped wide as it bit its own tail. This was the deliberately depicted Ouroboros,