The Space Wolves' gladiatorial bout that Lox had been looking forward to never happened.
Those Wolf Lords who had truly been itching to spar with their brothers were each brutally slapped to the ground by Leman Russ, one by one, and told to calm down properly.
In Russ's own words, anyone who made him lose face in front of Lox could forget about ever going out to fight again. They would stay on Fenris forever and guard the homestead.
That immediately seized the Space Wolves by their weak point. The Wolves feared neither heaven nor earth; they only feared having no battles to fight.
The Fenris system was not far from the Solar System, which meant that most of the time, there simply were no enemies in the Fenris system.
Only at the edges of the Space Wolves' fiefdom, such as the borders shared with the Dark Angels and Iron Hands Legions, might there be xenos, pirates, or enemies of Chaos whose living space had been steadily squeezed away.
For the Wolves, being sent out on missions was one of the few opportunities they had to vent their desire for battle. If that avenue were cut off, they likely would never get another chance to fight for the rest of their lives.
Leman Russ personally selected his troops, taking the Iron Wolves Great Company and Storm Wolves Great Company under his command.
The Space Wolves of these two Great Companies were particularly skilled at operating heavy weapons, using armored torrents and bombardments to eliminate their enemies.
If the situation spiraled out of control, Russ would order them to utterly destroy all of Midgardia and cast it directly into the Warp, annihilating the Burner's shard.
Once the arrangements had been made, Lox and the others boarded a Stormbird once more and