Just how did Bjorn of the Space Wolves become known as Bjorn the Fell-Handed? Get all the lore behind this iconic figure!
Via our good friends at Lexicanum
When the judgement of Nikaea ultimately led to the Space Wolves being ordered to sanction Magnus the Red and his Thousand Sons, Bjorn was once again present as part of Tra, and took part in the Battle of Prospero. It was during this battle that he is reckoned to have lost his left arm, although the precise circumstances of this event vary from account to account (see Notes). Bjorn also helped rouse Russ from his despair during the Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula, convincing the Wolf King to forge his own path instead of blindly serving as the Emperor’s Executioner.
It was whilst undertaking an attack on the acrid, volcanic world of Gryth that events were to take a tragic turn. Bjorn’s pack had humbled tyrants, butchered aliens beyond counting, and even hewn down their brother Space Marines that had fallen from the Emperor’s grace; yet against the Daemon king, Arvax the Arch-slaughterer, they knew only death. That Bjorn actually survived the massacre of his kinsmen was a testament to his exceptional skills as a warrior, for all others who faced the mighty Daemon of Khorne that fateful day joined Bjorn’s packmates in death.
Though the arrival of Leman Russ saw the Space Wolves ultimately emerge victorious against the daemonic host, it was Bjorn who finally drove the seemingly unstoppable Daemon general from the field.Despite his victory of sorts, Bjorn never forgave himself for the loss of his kinsmen, nor the fact that he alone yet lived having been denied a magnificent death. In the hours that followed the battle, Bjorn became increasingly melancholy, refusing to accept the hearty approval of those that had witnessed his heroic battle against the Daemon king. As he witnessed his packmates burn atop the victory pyres, he gave voice to a long, mournful howl. Kneeling before the bodies of his burning kinsmen, he swore a grave oath of vengeance against their slayer.
To Bjorn’s continued frustration, it was to be five long years before word of Arvax’s location surfaced once more. Russ immediately led his Wolves to destroy the foul creature, determined to personally slay the Daemon king himself and avenge those who had died during their last encounter. Yet in this goal, the Primarch was to be denied, for Bjorn too sought out his nemesis and, as fate would have it, was the first to face Arvax in battle. As the Wolf-King tore through the Khornate horde towards his quarry, he witnessed Bjorn’s duel first-hand. Russ could only look on pride as Bjorn deftly rolled beneath a blow attempting to cut him in half, then clambered up the Daemon’s towering frame to tear out the Arch-slaughterer’s throat with his trusty wolf claw.
In the aftermath of the battle, Russ came to Bjorn in person and exonerated him in front of the entire Chapter, holding his oath fulfilled. Setting a precedent that still exists to this day, the Wolf-King promoted Bjorn to his personal Wolf Guard, naming him the‘Fell-handed’ in honour of his mighty deed. The Skjalds of the Chapter hold that it was the sense of loss and tragedy that Bjorn had already experienced and learned to master that influenced Russ’ decision to leave him behind when he set forth on his last, fateful journey to the Eye of Terror. Of all of the Primarch’s Wolf Guard, he alone had shown such strength of purpose and determination in his darkest hour; he alone would understand the lonely burden of command.
In the Battle of the Alaxxes Nebula that saw the Wolves ambushed by the Alpha Legion in the aftermath of the Burning of Prospero, Bjorn again saw battle. Defending his ship Helridder from Alpha Legion boarders, Bjorn and his pack made their way to Russ’ flagship Hrafnkel where they were narrowly saved from a traitor Contemptor Dreadnought by the Wolf King himself.
Later during the aftermath of the Horus Heresy, Bjorn sought to rebuild the Imperium with such conviction that Leman Russ elevated him to his personal retinue. He was the only member of Leman Russ’s personal Wolf Guard that was left behind when Russ departed for the Eye of Terror, and he still harbors intense feelings of rejection and bitterness when he tells of this day. After Russ’s disappearance, he assumed the Primarch’s leadership of the Space Wolves, becoming the Chapter’s first Great Wolf.
His heroic career at the head of the Space Wolves ended during a raid against a fortress during the Proxima Rebellion in 934.M31, when he was so severely wounded and crippled that he was beyond the aid of the chapter’s Apothecaries, and his paralyzed body was transplanted within a Dreadnought. Over the following five hundred years he remained at the forefront of battle. Eventually however, the long years took their toll on the warrior, and he began spending longer and longer periods dormant in stasis sleep.
