"Ah—hahahaha! Lorgar!"
A rough, hearty burst of laughter, unmistakably drunken, abruptly shattered the uneasy silence that had settled over the long table after Horus declared his position.
Leman Russ raised his head from his nearly empty drinking horn, glittering drops of mead still clinging to his thick beard.
He grinned, revealing astonishingly white teeth. Clearly, he had arrived at his own drunken interpretation of the serious conversation about "following" someone.
He shook his massive head, extended a hairy arm, and pointed casually at Lorgar, his booming voice full of drunken affection and stubborn certainty:
"I get it now! Heh heh... then I'd choose—to follow brother Lorgar too!"
He drew out the last word as though this were the most natural thing in the world, utterly oblivious to how his remark might be misunderstood in the current context, or to the sudden drop in temperature beside him.
"Uh, Angron."
Almost as soon as Russ finished speaking, Lorgar gave a soft, nearly helpless sigh and called the name of the brother beside him.
He offered no specific instructions. He did not even look at Angron.
"BAM!!!"
A dull impact of flesh against flesh, jarring enough to set teeth on edge, exploded beside the exquisitely carved long table.
Angron moved.
No warning, no roar—only the simplest, most direct violence.
His enormous frame surged from his chair so swiftly that he left only an afterimage. His fist, carrying skills honed through countless trials in the gladiatorial arena and the savage strength of Norsia, slammed squarely into the side of Leman Russ's face like a shell fired from a cannon!
The blow precisely avoided any lethal weak points, yet carried enough force to knock a genetically enhanced Fenrisian great wolf unconscious in an instant.
The smile on Russ's face had not even fully turned to