Wolf's Honour Part 15

The Wolf King's Hall Shouts and b.e.s.t.i.a.l snarls shook the air of the narrow canyon. Fists and blades clashed against ceramite plate as warriors clawed at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s in rage and pain. Ragnar howled in helpless fury, his fingers digging deep furrows in the lifeless earth. It felt as though his body was tearing itself apart from the inside out. His muscles writhed like maddened snakes, constricting around his reinforced bones and bending them with the strain. His eyes burned and his teeth ached to their roots, and it felt as though a swarm of stinging insects was crawling hungrily beneath his skin. Ragnar pitched forward and smashed his forehead against the lifeless ground again and again, trying to drive out the awful sensations with jolts of pure, honest pain.

The Wulfen snarled hungrily within him, setting its teeth deep in his bones. Ragnar tore clumsily at his armour, as though he could reach in and rip the beast from his body. The tips of his fingers ached fiercely, and mindless with rage, he tugged at the gauntlets with his teeth, trying to pull them free.

Voices were shouting all around him, but he could not make any sense of the words. Wolves snapped and snarled, clas.h.i.+ng their fearsome jaws. The air was thick with the acid reek of anger and the sweet, heady smell of blood.

Something small crashed against him, and soft blows beat at his chest and face. A thin, piping sound reverberated in his ears. Shaking his head savagely, Ragnar gripped the flailing object and heard a gasp of fear. Breath ghosted against his face, and his eyes opened in surprise.

Gabriella's face was centimetres from his, her expression stern, but her eyes s.h.i.+ning with fear. His hand was closed tight around her upper arm, hard enough to crack the carapace armour she wore.

She drew back her hand and slapped him hard across the face. The gauntlet came away slick with blood.

'Ragnar!' she cried, her voice sharp and faintly trembling. 'Listen to me! This is dark sorcery, and it feeds on conflict! The more you fight it, the stronger it grows! Don't struggle. Do you hear me? Let it wash over you like a wave, and then it can't affect you!'

The words echoed strangely in Ragnar's ears. He tried to grasp them, but they slipped from his mind like quicksilver. Every nerve was aflame, and he felt as though he was coming out of his skin.

Gabriella struck him again, and he tasted fresh blood on his lips. Ragnar bared his teeth at the blow, and his hands seemed to move of their own accord.

He grabbed the Navigator by the hair and wrenched back her head, stretching the tendons of her pale neck.

'Ragnar, no!' Gabriella cried, her eyes widening in terror.

Fangs glistening, the young s.p.a.ce Wolf lunged for her throat.

A shadow fell over Ragnar at that moment, and an armoured fist closed around his neck like a vice. His lips scarcely brushed Gabriella's skin before he was hauled into the air and shaken like a newborn cub. A powerful voice, deep and sonorous, cut through the cacophony around the young s.p.a.ce Wolf and snapped his tormented mind into focus.

'Forget those soft words little brother, and fight the beast for all you are worth! You must struggle against the wolf in all its forms, as the primarch himself commands. That is the first oath of our brotherhood, and without it we are lost!'

Ragnar twisted his head to see who had seized him. He found himself staring down at a giant of a man, straight from the most ancient tapestries of the Great Wolf's Hall at the Fang. The warrior was tall and lean, cased in ornate armour wrought during the glory days of the Great Crusade. His pauldrons were edged in gold and finely carved with scenes of battle, and the pelt of the largest wolf Ragnar had ever seen was stretched across the man's broad shoulders. Trophies from a hundred campaigns decorated the warrior's breastplate or hung from his wide belt: fearsome skulls and cloven helms, medallions of gold and silver, polished scales and plaques of raw iron. In his left hand the warrior gripped the haft of a fearsome axe, wrought from a metal blacker than the night. Runes glittered like frost across its surface, and it exuded a cold nimbus of dread that chilled Ragnar's very soul. Unlike his kin, the warrior's head was bald, and his blond beard was close-shaven. Fierce blue eyes glittered like chips of polar ice beneath a grim, forbidding brow.

'Leman gave us the blessings of the wolf so that we would never be defeated by our foes,' he said, 'but his gifts come with a price. As we are born to battle, so are we called to prove our worth time and again, through strength, courage and guile. War within. War without. War unending. That is how we live, little brother. That is who we are.' The warrior shook Ragnar once more, as if to emphasise his point. 'I am Bulveye, axe man of the Russ and lord of this warband,' he said. 'Do you hear what I've said to you?'

Ragnar gritted his teeth and drew a deep breath as he summoned the catechisms of self-discipline he'd been taught as an aspirant. By force of will, he dampened the sensations wracking his body and struggled to clear his troubled thoughts. 'I... I hear you lord,' he said after a moment. 'I hear and obey'

Bulveye nodded in approval and set Ragnar on his feet. The sheer force of his presence seemed to still the chaos sweeping through the camp. He paid no mind to Gabriella at all, turning his full attention to Haegr and Torin. 'What of you, brothers?' he asked, his eyes narrowing in appraisal.

Torin sank to one knee before the giant. His face was wracked with pain, and his eyes had turned yellow-gold, but a brief smile caused his moustache to twitch. 'I am no stranger to this fight, my lord,' he said breathlessly. 'The wolf may howl, but I am unmoved.'

'And you?' the warrior asked, turning to Haegr.

The burly Wolf puffed out his broad chest. 'The mighty Haegr fears no one!' he declared. 'Not even Haegr himself!'

Ragnar was cheered by his fellow Wolfblade's bravado, even as he saw signs of terrible strain around Haegr's eyes, but then he heard a b.e.s.t.i.a.l snarl off to his right, and saw that not everyone had been as fortunate as they.

Harald and his Blood Claws, all of them little more than aspirants, had suffered the worst under the sorcerous onslaught. Their faces were distended, already lengthening to form wolf-like snouts, and their skin was darkening with a fine pelt of fur. They crouched like beasts within a circle of the Thirteenth Company's Wulfen, snapping and snarling whenever the older beasts drew too close. Many of the warriors had tugged their gauntlets free and slashed at the air with thick, curved talons.

The sight stunned Ragnar, and a prayer to the Allfather came, unbidden to his lips. At that moment, the warrior that had been Harald glanced up and met Ragnar's eyes. The young Wulfen threw back his head and uttered a single howl of despair.

Bulveye looked upon the cursed warriors and shook his head sadly. 'Where are you, young priest?' he called.

Sigurd emerged from the pack of stricken Blood Claws. The Wolf Priest's face was ashen with grief. His eyes, once dark, were now a deep yellow-gold.

'Here I am, lord,' he said sombrely.

Bulveye nodded. 'Tend to your brothers, priest,' he said quietly. 'The first hours are always the hardest.'

Sigurd nodded, a bleak look upon his young face. Then he turned, spreading his hands, and began to chant a litany that Ragnar had heard only once in his time with the Chapter. It was the Litany of the Lost, a mournful observance for those who had been taken by the Wulfen.

Another, smaller figure elbowed his way through the snarling mob of wolf-men. Inquisitor Volt looked feverish with shock and fatigue, his eyes wide and his seamed face taut with strain. He caught sight of Ragnar and Lady Gabriella and rushed to their side. 'What has happened?' he demanded, falling to his knees beside the stunned Navigator.

Gabriella reached for the old inquisitor's arm like a drowning man clutches at a storm-tossed spar. Her pineal eye still burned brightly in her forehead, and her face was as white as chalk. 'A wave of psychic force,' she gasped. 'So much power, so much hunger, flowing like molten iron through the aether.'

'The ritual,' Volt said. He turned to stare at Harald and his monstrous packmates. 'Blessed Emperor,' he whispered, his voice filled with dread. 'They've completed the ritual. We're too late.'

The Navigator's gaze drifted back to Ragnar once again, and a look of horrified realisadon drained the last of the colour from her face. 'You would have killed me,' she said, her voice leaden with anguish. 'Had it not been for Lord Bulveye, you would have torn out my throat!'

Ragnar stared speechlessly at the Navigator, struck dumb by the enormity of what he'd nearly done, but the Wolf Lord spoke.

'Allies we may be, Lady Bellisarius, but we are not tame dogs to sniff at your heels,' Bulveye said sternly.

'Even a loyal wolf bites if provoked. You and your people would do well to remember that.' He fixed the inquisitor with his steely gaze. 'The lady I know by the heraldry she wears,' he said. 'Who are you?'

Volt rose to his full height and met the Wolf Lord's eyes. 'Inquisitor Cadmus Volt of the Ordo Malleus,' he said coolly.

Bulveye's craggy brows knitted in consternation. 'Inquisitor?' he asked. 'Is that anything like a remembrancer?'

The old man was taken aback by the Wolf Lord's reply. 'Certainly not,' he stammered.

'Good. Then I won't have to feed you to my wolves,' Bulveye replied gruffly. 'Now tell me of this ritual.'

The old inquisitor recovered his composure quickly and shook his head. 'First, tell me what this is,' he said, pointing to the Wulfen. 'At first, I thought your warriors had been twisted by exposure to the warp, but now I wonder if this is something deeper. The Inquisition has long suspected that there were flaws in the s.p.a.ce Wolf gene-seed. Is this true?'

The Wolf Lord's eyes narrowed coldly. 'I was wrong,' he said quietly. His hand drifted to the pistol at his hip. 'It appears I'll have to kill you after all.'

'It's the curse!' Ragnar snarled, overcome with horror and shame. 'I can feel it, like a hot coal buried in my brain. Madox has cast a spell to awaken the Wulfen in all of us.' He stared up at Bulveye. 'Even you, my lord! Surely you must feel it as well.'

The Wolf Lord set his jaw stubbornly, but there was a glimmer of doubt deep in his eyes. 'How do you know that thrice-cursed fiend, Madox?' he asked.

'There is a blood feud between us,' Ragnar answered. 'He has stolen the Spear of Russ, and I have sworn an oath to get it back.'

The news struck the Wolf Lord like a physical blow. 'Morkai's teeth!' he snarled, his eyes widening. He turned, seeking out the hulking form of the Rune Priest. 'Torvald! Did you hear-'

'No need to shout,' the Rune Priest said, making his way through the crowd of warriors towards Bulveye and Ragnar. 'The pup speaks the truth, lord. I've told you for some time that the air here stank of sorcery, and now I know why. I curse myself for a fool for not suspecting it sooner.' The bearded warrior gave Bulveye a meaningful look. 'And now these tidings of Madox and the spear. You see? The runes did not lie!'

'They may not have lied, but they tell their truths sidewise,' Bulveye said. He raised his head to the empty sky, and for an instant Ragnar saw an enormous weariness etched into the lines of the Wolf Lord's face. Then it was gone, so quickly that the young s.p.a.ce Wolf could not be certain he'd seen it at all, and Bulveye surveyed his warband with a commanding gaze.

'Torvald, summon the pack leaders,' the Lord of the Thirteenth Company said. 'It's time we held a council of war.'

For a fleeting instant, Mikal Sternmark was gripped by the jaws of a dragon. Fierce heat and a thunderous concussion buffeted him, and red-hot shrapnel raked at his face and neck. He staggered beneath the blow, but did not fall.

A shower of dirt and stone rained down all around him. Smoke curled from the surface of his Terminator armour, but he was still alive, and Redclaw still pointed defiantly at the sky.

It took several long seconds before Sternmark understood that he'd been spared. He looked around, dazed, and saw the stunned figures of his bodyguards, all of them battered and bloodied, but nevertheless alive. Among them, Sven and his battle-brothers were picking themselves up off the ground and looking off to the east in amazement. The battle cannon sh.e.l.l had landed just a few metres short of its intended target, gouging a deep, smouldering crater in the ground behind the Wolves.

Moments later the first cheer went up from the Imperial lines. A priest who'd been watching the scene from a nearby gun pit clambered atop the trench line and raised his arms to the sky. The Emperor protects!' he cried, and soon the Guardsmen took up the cry as well.

'The Emperor Protects! The Emperor Protects!' The shout echoed across the killing field, and men took heart again after the bitter retreat from the capital.

One by one, the Wolves turned and walked the last few metres into the Imperial fortifications. Sternmark waited until the last, his sword still gleaming in the sun's dying light. Then he turned his back on the traitors of Charys and joined his brothers in the trenches.

Sven and the others were waiting for him, surrounded by a ring of awestruck Guardsmen. The Wolves were joking with one another, the raw edge to their laughter betraying the tension of their brush with death. There was something almost feral in their wide eyes and rough-edged voices, raising the hackles on Sternmark's neck. His scalp p.r.i.c.kled, and it felt like a swarm of hungry insects had crawled beneath his skin. 'Take half an hour to eat and replenish your ammo,' he snapped, 'then return to the line.'

The Wolves were startled by the harsh edge to their leader's voice, prompting a chorus of deep growls and a narrowing of eyes. For a fleeting instant, the air was charged with tension. Sternmark's hand tightened on the hilt of his blade, but then a powerful voice broke the deadly spell.

'That was boldly done, my lord,' Morgrim Silvertongue called as he moved through the throng of admiring troops. 'When you disappeared earlier in the day we feared you had been lost.'

Sternmark turned to the skald as though in a daze. The red tide was rising once more, threatening to overwhelm the last vestiges of reason he had left. His hands and fingertips ached, and abruptly he felt smothered inside the weight of his Terminator armour.

A sharp challenge rose to the Wolf Guard's lips, but it was Sven who spoke first. 'Another few moments and we might well have been, Silvertongue,' the Grey Hunter said grimly, and then pointed out across the killing ground. 'Look.'

Sternmark turned. Something was happening along the rebel lines. The very air seemed to thicken and deepen in hue, and purple lightning flickered above the traitors' heads. Cries of adulation and terror echoed across the killing ground as s.h.i.+fting, luminescent forms appeared among the rebel Guardsmen.

From the gun pit nearby the regimental priest made the sign of the aquila and began the Litany of Detestation in a harsh, trembling voice. Men clutched their weapons and pressed themselves fearfully against the packed-earth walls of the trench lines as hundreds of daemons howled a chorus of blasphemous curses at the Imperial defenders.

Still worse to Sternmark was the clas.h.i.+ng, rhythmic sound of armour, rising and falling like a dirge beneath the cacophonous, otherworldly cries. He stepped to the trench parapet and studied the rebel positions carefully until he spied the first glimmer of blue and gold.

They towered over the cringing traitors in their baroque armour, their boltguns held at port-arms in perfect unison as they marched towards the battle line. Rebel soldiers flinched from the sound of their dreadful tread, parting like smoke before the Thousand Sons' inexorable advance. The heads of the towering warriors turned neither left nor right. No human curiosity shone from the glowing depths of their ornate helms. Their bodies had been consumed by sorcerous fires thousands of years ago. Nothing remained inside those armoured sh.e.l.ls but spirits of pure, immortal hate and murderous skill. Fell sorcerers marched alongside the ghostly Chaos s.p.a.ce Marines, driving the warriors onward with fierce oaths and imprecations to their abominable G.o.d.

Sternmark counted almost two hundred of his Chapter's arch foes. In all his years of campaigning he'd never seen so many of the spectral troops a.s.sembled in one place. Even without the howling daemons and rebel battalions at their command, they could crush the starport defenders in an implacable, armoured fist.

Morgrim joined the Wolf Guard at the parapet. 'It seems you arrived not a moment too soon,' he said quietly.

'I wonder if the rabbit thinks the same thing as he sticks his head into the snare,' Sternmark hissed. He found himself thinking of his fallen lord Berek, and the melta charges laid beneath his bier. The cold demands of duty focused his mind somewhat, helping him ignore the awful sensations wracking his body. He bared his teeth, tasting the strange scents around him. 'How many of our brothers remain?' Sternmark asked.

The skald folded his arms thoughtfully. 'It's hard to say,' he answered. 'We've Gunnar and Thorbjorn's Long Fangs here at the starport, as well as half of Thorvald's Grey Hunters.' He paused, his lips pressing into a grim line. 'But we've lost contact with the rest.'

'Lost contact?' Sternmark gave the skald a hard look. 'What does that mean? Are we being jammed planet-wide?'

'There is some jamming yes,' Silvertongue replied, 'but some packs have simply stopped responding to our calls. We aren't sure what's happened to them.'

'Not sure?' the Wolf Guard snarled. 'They're dead, Silvertongue. What other explanation could there be?' Sternmark brought his fist down on the ferrocrete parapet, sending up a spray of broken fragments. The rage was rising within him once more, and it was getting harder and harder to find a reason to fight it. He looked out across the killing field. 'What are they waiting for? Let's get to the b.l.o.o.d.y business of the day and be done with it!'

Silvertongue eyed the Wolf Guard warily. 'I expect they are still waiting for their heavy artillery,' he said. We have enough heavy weapons left to make a frontal a.s.sault very expensive, and before he left Inquisitor Volt instructed the priests to lay a series of wards that will keep the daemons at bay' The skald peered closer. 'My lord? Your eyes... they've changed-'

The Wolf Guard seemed not to hear him. 'Wards?' he spat. 'Those won't last long with all those sorcerers out there.'

'Aye, that's true,' Silvertongue replied carefully, 'but we only need a few more hours.'

Sternmark glared at the skald. 'What in Morkai's name are you talking about?' he demanded.

Something in the Wolf Guard's face took Silvertongue aback. He recoiled slightly from Sternmark, as though suddenly confronted by a snarling Fenrisian wolf. 'I... I thought you'd been informed,' he said quickly. 'Lady Commander Athelstane has ordered every available s.h.i.+p made ready for launch. She believes that there are enough transports still able to fly to evacuate the entire starport in one go-'

'Evacuate?' Sternmark spat, the word bitter on his tongue. 'She would have us abandon our honour and slink away like whipped dogs?'

He staggered, overcome with fury. The red tide surged, angry and wild, and swallowed him up entirely.

Silvertongue shouted something his voice urgent, but the Wolf Guard did not hear. He was gone, running like a shadow ahead of the crimson sunset towards the distant command bunker.

Bulveye led Ragnar and his companions into the dimly lit cave, setting his wolves to guard its threshold once more with a quick gesture and a few whispered commands. Beyond the entrance, the cave narrowed quickly into a long tunnel that meandered for several dozen metres into the side of the mountain. To Ragnar's keen night vision the pa.s.sageway seemed shrouded in twilight. Veins of dark ore ran in serpentine paths through the rough stone walls, and runes of warding were chiselled at every corner to foil the questing spirits of their foes.

Finally they came around another narrow turn, and Ragnar's eyes narrowed at a sudden blaze of firelight. The pa.s.sageway emptied out into a large, high-ceilinged cavern almost twenty metres across, laid with furs and rough stone benches in the style of a lord's feasting hall. The warriors of the Thirteenth Company had felled some of the strange trees that dotted the foothills at the base of the mountain and had piled the logs in a crude pit at the centre of the cavern. The wood burned without sound or smoke, giving off a fey, otherworldly blue light.

At the far end of the cavern, ailing servos creaked and whined, and a pair of careworn servitors struggled upright at their master's arrival. Bulveye turned and addressed the newcomers sombrely. 'Enter my hall with the blessings of the Allfather,' he said, and beckoned to the servitors.

The Wolf Lord welcomed them according to the ancient tradition, with handclasps, bread and salt. The gesture was both strange and oddly rea.s.suring. Custom and tradition are all they have left, Ragnar mused, as Bulveye bade them sit by the fire, and then strode off to a far corner of the cavern. He returned with guesting gifts: a gold ring for Gabriella and iron daggers for her Wolfblade. The weapons had been forged on Fenris, Ragnar noticed, and beautifully made.

Another piece of home, he thought, turning the blade over in his aching hands. He realised, for the first time that he would never see Fenris again, and a terrible melancholy stole over him.

A few moments later the first of the pack leaders filed into the cavern. They were silent, implacable figures, marked by ten millennia of warfare: the pauldrons of a World Eater champion sat on the shoulders of one warrior, while another wore the breastplate of a fallen lieutenant from Abaddon's infamous Black Legion. They wore cloaks of daemon hide or necklaces of h.e.l.lhound teeth, and the twisted skulls of those they'd slain were spitted on iron trophy spikes jutting from their backpacks. The pack leaders took their places around the fire, each according to his position within the warband, and they spoke quietly amongst themselves as they waited for the council to begin.

Sigurd stole quietly into the hall shortly afterwards, his expression solemn. Rather than take a seat among the warriors he kept to the shadows at the back of the hall, arms folded, and deep in thought.

Ragnar stole a glance at Torin and Haegr. The two warriors were silent and withdrawn, their eyes hooded and shoulders hunched as they fought their silent struggles with the beasts beneath their skins. Beyond them, Inquisitor Volt and Gabriella sat on a bench to themselves. Volt was sitting ramrod-straight, his gaze moving constantly around the cavern, while the Navigator sat with her arms tightly folded across her chest, lost in some tormented reverie.

Torvald was the last to arrive, striding slowly past the fire and taking a seat at Bulveye's right. The Rune Priest surveyed the a.s.sembled warriors and nodded. Then he struck the cavern floor thrice with the b.u.t.t of his axe. 'The blessings of the Allfather be upon you, brothers,' he said in the silence that followed. 'Our foes gather before us, calling us to battle. Ere the swords sing and the blood flows, hear what our lord has to say'

Bulveye surveyed each of the warriors seated around the fire. 'It was Torvald's runes that led us to this place,' he said. 'He consulted the Fates, and when he took his hand from the leather bag, he was holding Tyr's Rune, the Rune of the Spear.'

One of the warriors let out a sullen growl. 'Yet when we got here, what did we find? A host of enemies and the shadow of an Imperial agri-world,' he said. 'If he was here we would have found him by now-'

'We have been here for some time, trying to puzzle out the riddles of this place,' Bulveye interjected sharply, throwing a warning look at the pack leader. 'Now our distant kin have arrived, with answers to some of the questions we seek.' The Wolf Lord nodded to Ragnar. 'Tell us how you and your brothers came to be here.'

The young s.p.a.ce Wolf eyed his companions and rose uneasily to his feet. As quickly and succinctly as he could, he related the events on Hyades and the Chaos uprising around Fenris, and then told the grim tale of the battle for Charys and their desperate foray to the shadow world. 'The heart of Madox's ritual lies here,' he said, 'within a great temple at the centre of the shadow city to the north.' He paused. 'Inquisitor Volt can tell us more about what our enemy intends.'

Ragnar gestured to the old inquisitor, who raised his head with a scowl and rose slowly to his feet. 'The enemy intends nothing less than the perversion of the s.p.a.ce Wolf gene-seed,' Inquisitor Volt declared. 'And in so doing the Thousand Sons will inflict a wound upon the Imperium from which it may never heal.'

Bulveye glowered at Volt. 'How can you be so certain of this?'

'How? The evidence is sitting right here, before your very eyes!' Volt pointed to the Wolfblade. 'See how they have been changed already by Madox's spell?' He cast an accusatory stare at each of the warriors seated around the fire. 'You all feel it, don't you? Madox is reaching into the very core of your being, warping you from the inside out!'

'You speak of nothing that I and my brothers have not struggled with for ten millennia!' Bulveye growled. 'The warp twists everything it touches.'

'Do not dissemble, lord!' Volt snapped. 'We have no time for denials or deceptions! You saw what happened to Harald and his warriors. Has the curse Ragnar spoke of ever struck so quickly before? Somehow I doubt it.' The inquisitor turned to Sigurd. 'Come here, priest. It's your duty to safeguard the souls of your battle-brothers. Tell us then, are these transformations normal?'

The Wolf Priest stiffened at the mention of his name. Slowly, reluctantly, he stepped forward into the firelight. His eyes were yellow-gold, like two bra.s.s coins. 'No,' he said gravely, 'they are not.'

'There!' Volt snapped. 'You hear it from one of your own priests. Lady Gabriella felt the initial wave of sorcery as the ritual reached its culmination. That energy has crossed the aether into the physical realm, where it will wash over Charys and then down the sorcerous anchor lines until it charges the vast sigil that Madox painstakingly built.' The inquisitor began to pace, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. 'The Chaos uprising was both a cover and a lure to draw the s.p.a.ce Wolves within reach of the sigil,' he said. 'As the sigil becomes charged, every one of the great companies will be affected; even Fenris will be caught within the web of power.'

Sigurd scowled at the inquisitor, but he took a deep breath and spoke. 'The aspirants will succ.u.mb first,' he said, 'then the younger warriors. The senior pack members will hold out for some time, I expect, but slowly, they too will be overwhelmed. In the end, perhaps even the great Dreadnoughts beneath the Fang will awaken in the darkness and howl for innocent blood.'