Meanwhile, deep within a snow-capped peak hundreds of kilometers from the primary Hive, a colossal ice cave lay hidden. It was a void so deep the bottom remained a mystery, with an interior expanse vast enough to house ten football fields.
Once the lair of a prehistoric ice-beast, the cavern's occupants had changed.
In the crushing darkness of the cave's lowest reaches, dozens of eyes snapped open simultaneously. Scarlet compound eyes emitted a spectral glow, and a resonant, low-frequency psionic vibration shivered through the stone.
Sarah herself, flanked by her most elite tyranid strains, had awakened from her slumber. They felt the call—it was "his" call. He needed them, his summons fueled by a cold, righteous anger and an overwhelming intent to kill.
Outside the mountain, every native creature within a ten-kilometer radius felt their survival instincts scream. Ice-beasts ceased their howling and fled with their tails tucked between their limbs. A white-winged bird was startled from its nest, disappearing into the blizzard in a frantic flurry of feathers. Even the blind worms hidden beneath the permafrost burrowed deeper into the earth.
Instinct told them the apex predator of the galaxy had awakened.
Sarah stood, her six-meter-tall frame casting a jagged shadow. Her chitinous plates scraped against the ice with a harsh, metallic sound. Her blue-green carapace gleamed, the reinforced segments pulsing as if the armor itself were breathing.
She looked toward the ceiling of the cave. A massive egress existed there, leading directly to the mountain's summit. Though the entrance was choked with snow and the temperature was low enough to freeze blood, she felt no discomfort. The physiology of the tyranid had long ago transcended the limitations of temperature.
She simply missed him.
She missed the warmth of his presence, the feel of his hand upon her carapace, and the gentle strength in his voice when he spoke to her. Though they were bound through a shared consciousness, a link that made it feel as if she were always by his side, it was not enough. She craved physical proximity; she wanted to shield him, to touch his brow, and to stand as his protector.
And now, someone had dared to try and harm him. Someone harbored the delusion that they could strike at Jim Raynor and survive.
In Sarah's compound eyes, a surge of lethal purple light erupted.
SCREECH!!!
A piercing cry, saturated with murderous psionic energy, tore from her throat. It was a mental command that rippled outward like a shockwave. Every insectoid unit within the mountain received the directive in the same heartbeat:
Slaughter.
On the slope of a neighboring peak, a hunting party of two hundred souls trudged through the drifts. Each wore a necklace of fangs—the mark of the Frostfang Clan. Unlike the radical Snowclaws, the Frostfangs were a pragmatic tribe who often aided the Forbidden Wall forces against the Greenskin tides.
They had come to these heights to hunt ice-bears, but Captain Ulf suddenly felt a wave of profound unease wash over him.
"Stop," he signaled, raising a hand. His warriors immediately went to high alert, their eyes scouring the whiteout.
"What is it, Captain?" his second-in-command whispered.
Ulf didn't reply. He pulled off his heavy fur glove and pressed his bare palm against the frozen earth—a traditional method for sensing danger through the vibrations of the ice. Within seconds, his face paled.
"Something is moving!" The ground wasn't just shaking; it was vibrating with a rhythmic, violent force emanating from the mountain's core. It felt as if a titanic beast were stretching its limbs and battering against the walls of its cage.
"Fall back!" Ulf roared. "Move! Now!"
He was too late. The snow at the summit began to shift. At first, it was a mere dusting, but it rapidly expanded into a thundering white tsunami. An avalanche.
But something burst through the waves of snow.
The first figure emerged—a six-meter-long terror of blue-green armor, ferocious bone blades, and a pair of leathery wings spanning twenty meters. Sarah. She beat her wings, and her body shot into the sky like a bolt from a ballista. The downforce of her flight stirred a violent vortex that tore a temporary gap in the descending avalanche below.
More than forty figures followed in her wake. They were half her size but identical in ferocity: streamlined bodies, razor-sharp talons, and wide membranous wings. This was a variant of the "Flying Warrior" strain, meticulously adapted by Sarah at Raynor's request.
Their skulls were elongated and narrow, ending in a snout reminiscent of a predatory reptile. Serrated bony ridges ran from their necks to the tips of their tails. Their wing structures were robust, the membranes covered in fine, scale-like plates. They no longer looked like simple insects.
They looked like Dragons.
The forty "Brevian Flyers" beat their wings in unison, the resulting air pressure causing the snow on the hillside to collapse a second time.
Boom!
A massive second avalanche erupted. Ulf and his men stood paralyzed, certain they were about to be buried. But as Sarah soared at the vanguard, she glanced down. Her compound eyes reflected the tiny, terrified human figures.
She did not halt her ascent, but she tilted her wing-flaps. Her flight path shifted by a fraction of a degree, re-routing the atmospheric pressure. The swirling airflow forcibly diverted the path of the avalanche by ten meters.
The ground beneath Ulf's squad became a miraculous island of safety in a sea of rushing snow. They stood staring upward, watching dozens of dark silhouettes break through the blizzard and soar into the clouds. The creatures gathered in the sky, forming a perfect, disciplined V-formation.
Then, they accelerated.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Forty sonic booms detonated in sequence. The shockwaves created rings of white vapor as the flyers shattered the sound barrier. The mountain summit collapsed for a third and final time, the accumulated snow pouring down like a tsunami into the valleys below.
Ulf's squad was knocked flat by the concussive blast, but they ignored the pain. They scrambled to their knees, looking up at the largest blue-green figure leading the formation through the storm.
Ulf's lips trembled as he recalled the oral histories of his elders. In the ages before the Imperial fleets arrived, legends spoke of the true rulers of the ice plains. They were neither Ork nor Man, but terrifying predators of the sky that fed upon the great behemoths of the wastes. Their breath could freeze rivers, and their roars could bring down mountains.
"The Frost Wyrm," Ulf whispered the name of myth.
As one, the hunters bowed. They pressed their foreheads into the freezing snow, lying prone in a gesture of absolute supplication to the ancient terrors of the sky.