Event · M31

Russ departs on the Great Hunt

Russ’s departure on the Great Hunt was the occasion, dated 211.M31, on which Leman Russ left the Fang on Fenris for his last Great Hunt into the Eye of Terror. The date is also remembered in Space Wolves tradition in connection with the 211th Feast of the Emperor’s Ascension. At a great feast with his Legion in attendance, Russ stood and declared that he would return for the final battle, for the Wolf Time; he then left the Fang accompanied by his personal retinue save one, Bjorn the Fell-Handed, who remained on Fenris and later held the role of Great Wolf. The Fang is the mountain stronghold of the Space Wolves on the polar continent of Asaheim. Fenris is the Chapter’s death-world home, a planet of ice, volcanoes and a world-ocean that remakes its islands with each season. Bjorn, afterwards the oldest dreadnought of the Chapter, retells the tale of Russ’s disappearance every thousand years. From time to time the Space Wolves mount a Great Hunt to search the galaxy for their missing primarch; no confirmed rediscovery is recorded. Many within the Chapter hold that Russ sought the Tree of Life to restore the Emperor to health. Separate, non-general accounts associated with a Canadian Games Day narrative event have placed Russ still on Fenris or in Tyranid captivity; those accounts do not settle his fate. Magnus the Red is said in some sources to know Russ’s whereabouts and to keep that knowledge secret. The departure itself remains the last firmly dated public act of the Wolf King in Imperial record.

See where Russ departs on the Great Hunt occurred on the galactic map during the Horus Heresy.

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