Rune Priests Bring The Pain !!!

I have been reading Battle of the Fang by Chris Wraight in my spare time, and it is awesome.  This is a must read for any Space Wolf fan.  It is the story of how the Thousand Sons executed a sneak attack upon the Fang on the Space Wolves home world of Fenris, shortly after the demise of Prospero.
I just finished a chapter where the Thousand Sons are advancing on the front gates of the Fang, and the Rune Priest Odain Sturmhjart unleashes his psychic fury upon them.  Sturmjhart summons a tempest that sends countless enemy infantry, and their tanks and transports, hurling to their deaths off of the cliffs of the Fang. The description given was so bad ass that I blurted expletives out loud.  It made me enjoy running a Rune Priest in my army so much more.  Here is the excerpt from the novel that I found to be awe inspiring:

"Feel this.  Feel the coming of the world-soul.  This is power the like of which no witch will ever wield."
Sturmhjart screwed his eyes shut, clutching the staff tight.  His second heart broke into a steady rhythm.  The summoning was painful.  He relished the pain.  Like the searing of irons, it cauterized the deeper pain within.  More clouds rolled into being, tumbling from the crown of the mountains to the north, their skirts flickering with lighting.  In their shadow came the hail, a sweeping wall of ruin, slamming and bouncing into the ground below.  

"Raise your eyes to the heavens, Traitors." 

He saw the sorcerers amid the hosts of the enemy like stars, their psychic essences standing out even through the noise and confusion.  They were powerful, steeped in sickening energies.  He could see their arrogance, their confidence.  Some were physically corrupted, giving in to the terrible flesh-changes that blighted all their kind.  One of them, the brightest star of all, was far down the roads of ruin.  

"You are many, and we are few.  But this is our world, and we wield its power."

The storm spread, breaking across the summits, sweeping toward the Fang in a howling, screaming gale.  The sky had darkened, making the explosions around the mountain look like embers in a fire pit.  The hail hammered down, cracking and bouncing on the stone.

"You think we will succumb to witchery as you did" 

Sturmjhart felt the blood well in his mouth, trickling down to the mass of his slicked-down beard.  He ignored it.  The sharp pain was lost in the whirlwind of psychic power flooding his body.  He was nothing more than the conduit, the vessel through which the untamed fury of the maelstrom passed.  The raw howl of the wind became a bellowing roar.  The flames around the Fang were lashed and pulled into dazzling flares of energy, ripped across the air by the scouring gales.

"You are wrong"

The sorcerers responded, guarding what vehicles they could, sending flickering lightning and translucent kine-shields of their own to combat the danger from the skies.  They were mighty, and there were dozens of them.  Even so, they struggled against the elements, and the assault faltered.  Gunships blazed to the ground like comets, torn apart by the electric sky.  The screams of the dying and the terrified echoed through the rippling currents of the storm.

Sturmjhart relished in the cries.  They fed his power.  They fed the planet's power.  The invaders had brought maleficarum with them, and righteous punishment was the consequence.  

Even as they bled and scrambled for cover, the witches were learning a lesson: the same lesson that had been learned by every Rune Priest since the Allfather had first brought the way of the wyrd to the frozen death world.

Sturmjhart knew it.  He had known it for centuries, and took delight in making it as clear as the ice itself to those who dared defy him.

"We do not defend Fenris.  Fenris defends us.  The world, the people, are one.  We share a soul, a soul of hatred, and now it comes to you, dark on the wings of the storm.  Learn it well, for soon this truth will kill you." 

 Now how awesome is that!?  This is but a taste of the amazing story in this book.  Like I said, it is a must read for any Space Wolf Fan.  I can't wait to finish it because it keeps getting better the deeper I get into it.

I hope you all enjoyed this post as much as I did, and as always .....

Thanks for tuning in ....

-The Man Behind The Mask-