The Burden of Loyalty

by Various

  ‘If you wish for the truth, it is this. We were sent to this place by Caliban’s protector, following shameful orders that were obsolete before they were given. It is he who we follow, and it is by his will that you live or die.’ Ormand smiled coldly. ‘Best you know this now, priest. You are among Luther’s army now.’

  Russ and Bjorn entered the command bridge just as the tunnel intersection drew within five thousand kilometres. For a moment, none but the guards at the gates noticed them, and all other eyes remained fixed on the forward oculus, the hololith projections and the fleet position indicators on the tactical screens.

  Russ waited for a moment, amused, standing with Bjorn and the two true-wolves in isolation. Lord Gunn was the first to pick up the scent, and twisted around. The others followed, greeting the primarch’s return with a mix of shock and relief.

  ‘What is this then, Gunn?’ asked Russ, swaggering up to the throne. ‘The last I heard you were on Ragnarok, where you belong.’

  Gunn glared back at Russ, still with one foot on the command throne dais. ‘There is a way out, lord. The void beckons.’

  Bjorn remained at Russ’ side, keeping close watch on the other warriors. The bridge hummed with an air of tight expectation – they were sniffing around one another, tasting the potential for violence. Aesir and Skrier drew closer to their liege lord; Grimnr and his followers shadowed them.

  ‘A way out,’ said Russ, musingly, looking at the projections. ‘And a way in. It seems we have a choice.’

  Gunn’s face flickered with exasperation. ‘You are jesting, of course.’

  Russ gazed around the bridge. His ruddy skin glowed with amusement, but there was a hard undertone to it.

  ‘I think the time for jesting has gone now, Gunnar,’ he said, flanked by Freki and Geri. He glanced at the tactical displays glimmering above them in hololithic translucence. ‘We will take the turn. We will go deeper in.’

  ‘No!’ Gunn’s outburst was involuntary, an expression of pure frustration. ‘There is another way.’

  ‘We have tried that, have we not?’ Russ’ voice dropped, as if offering the jarl a way to back down without confrontation. ‘Gunn, no one doubts your valour. But this time, believe me, it will not be enough.’

  Gunn glanced up at the intersection, now rapidly approaching. ‘The movements have been planned,’ he insisted.

  ‘They can be changed.’

  ‘Not now.’ Gunn’s face twisted into anger – as his stratagems dissolved, he was losing the fight. ‘Where have you been, lord? The orders have been given.’

  ‘You should have learned trust by now. We will not leave the cluster. We will take the route deeper in.’

  ‘No, we will not.’ Lord Gunn’s fangs were bared. The old warrior was scarcely less imposing than his primarch – a head shorter and less bulky in armour, but with the scarred, hook-fanged mien of the seasoned fighter. ‘I care not what the runes say – we have fled for long enough.’

  That was an open challenge. Bjorn felt his lightning claw twitch almost involuntarily, and heard the throaty snarls from the true-wolves. All across the bridge, warriors silently prepared themselves.

  Russ, though, reached for no weapon. He strolled over to Gunn, casually, his hands open and held loosely. ‘It has been hard for you,’ he said, his voice still soft, ‘but I warn you – check yourself. I will need my shield-bearer at my side.’

  ‘He already is,’ said Gunn, witheringly, his eyes flickering towards Bjorn.

  Russ’ gaze darkened. ‘Go back to the Ragnarok. Take the order.’

  By then the two of them were just a hand’s breadth apart. Lord Gunn looked up at the Wolf King, his expression unreadable.

  ‘This is how it starts,’ the primarch said to him. ‘Resentment, real or imagined. It grows, and there are powers ready to feed on it. Do you think it was different with Horus? He made a mistake, one mistake, and that was the end. Do not be like him, brother. Remember your vows.’

  ‘We were made to fight,’ hissed Gunn, his defiance bleeding into something like desperation.

  ‘True enough,’ said Russ, reaching down, placing a gauntlet on his shoulder. ‘But this is what divides us from the Twelfth Legion – we pick our battles. I will need you, Gunn. This will be your triumph.’

  Then he reached down and whispered something into the jarl’s ear. Bjorn was standing too far away to hear what was said, but it was brief – just a few words. When Russ lifted his head again, Gunn’s expression had changed. It remained hard to read, but the defiance had gone.

  Russ turned away from him and addressed the bridge.

  ‘Deeper in!’ he cried. ‘We have been shown a path – we will take it. Look to the viewers, and see that the enemy knows our mind. Resume full-burn. Realign the fleet to defensive formation. They will come at us now, just as they see what we do.’

  All across the bridge, thralls hurried to enact the new orders. Grimnr’s warriors stood down, withdrawing from the positions they had taken to defend the primarch. Warning klaxons sounded as the new trajectory was entered. The deck shuddered as the plasma drives keyed into a new register, gaining speed again, sliding from one set of instructions to another.

  Lord Gunn stood silently for a while, as if all of that meant nothing. Then, without saying anything else, he turned, beckoning for his two escorts to follow him. Bjorn watched them head back to the teleporter station, though his attention was soon dragged back towards Russ.

  The primarch strode to the edge of the dais overlooking the ranks of his people. His wolves curled and paced around him, no longer sluggish, their fur standing stiffly and their fangs bared.

  Russ was reinvigorated, vital once more, calling out orders with his shoulders pushed back. All around him, the Legion crew raced to fulfil his demands. They went swiftly, surely, happier now that the chain of command was clear again, and their every movement betrayed the same singular fact: the Wolf King has returned.

  It was infectious, and Bjorn was not immune. As the Hrafnkel sheared around, its damaged vastness responding to the new orders, he felt a shiver of anticipation.

  The Alpha Legion were closing. The coming manoeuvre would be tight and bloody, with no surety of success.

  No matter. The hunt called again.

  ‘Now we must move,’ Kva told Ormand.

  The Dark Angel winced and tried to rise. The injuries he’d been given by the Runewatchers were severe, though, and he collapsed.

  Kva hissed with irritation, and reached down to his belt. He emptied some dried herbs from a leather pouch, crushed them between his fingers and forced them into Ormand’s mouth. The Dark Angel chewed, gagged, and nearly spat them out again.

  ‘Throne,’ he slurred. ‘What foulness do you people eat?’

  Kva shot him a wintry smile. ‘It will preserve you.’

  The Rune Priest grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up. Ormand managed to stagger to his feet, his flesh even paler than usual.

  The two of them limped to the doorway, Kva supporting the heavy burden, Ormand struggling to keep his precarious footing. The doors slid open, and the Runewatchers came to their aid, sliding their hands under the Dark Angel’s shoulders.

  ‘The Lord of Winter and War is back on the throne,’ Kva told his servants, inclining his head for a moment, listening, sensing. ‘We do not have much time.’

  ‘Then the choice has been made,’ slurred Ormand, his head reeling as he was dragged along by the two silent Runewatchers. ‘You have no use for me.’

  ‘You know what waits for us if he takes the harder path.’

  ‘It matters not. I cannot help you now.’

  Kva glared at him. ‘You can tell him what lies at the heart of the blood-well.’

  ‘I did not come here to give you counsel.’

  Kva forced the pace. ‘We will see. He can be persuasive.’

  ‘
So you’ll hammer it out of me?’ Ormand coughed out a bloody laugh. ‘Then your reputation is deserved.’

  Kva rounded on him. ‘We keep our oaths. While under my protection you will not be harmed. I will take you into his presence, and you will see for yourself who is worthy of your counsel.’

  ‘It matters little,’ replied Ormand, shrugging weakly. ‘They already know all your secrets – whether you live or die is no longer in your hands.’

  Kva started walking again. ‘That has been the case for a long time, Dark Angel,’ he muttered.

  The Space Wolves fleet shot into the intersection, breaking from the long tunnel and careering through the narrow chamber between the ways. Ahead of them lay the straight path leading to the exterior – a gaping maw amid the semi-stable clouds of swirling red. It would have been easy to plunge straight into that, following the spear-straight road to the open void, but instead all the ships applied retro-thrusters, throwing flare patterns of angry neon ahead of themselves before twisting upwards to face the second opening.

  The outriders were more agile, turning on their axes and angling over to the new course. The manoeuvre was a tougher proposition for the leviathans, which burst into the intersection amid lattices of priming thruster-burn, their massive bulk fighting hard against the sudden application of reverse force. Hrafnkel was first out, having been pushed by Russ to take up the lead position, followed by Russvangum and Fenrysavar. The rest of the fleet ships – frigates, destroyers, gunship carriers, picket vessels – piled in after them, still perilously close to one another, straining like cattle on the stampede.

  The turn was ludicrously tight. It would have been a challenge to execute even without the closing presence of the Alpha Legion hunters. One of the flanking destroyers, a veteran of void war from the earliest days of the Crusade with the ident Svart-sól, took the turn too wide and ran into a vomited corrosion-spur on the sphere’s inner edge. Its dagger-line profile tumbled further in as its plasma drives overloaded and explosions rippled along its flanks. The momentum was unstoppable, and Svart-sól was swallowed up by the shifting innards of the cloud, its void shields crackling crazily, its systems exploding in series.

  Unable to pause, the main fleet powered onwards, sweeping around through the heart of the intersection chamber, taking up new positions, the smaller ships shifting and tacking to avoid the massive vessels on every side of them. A flurry of void-mines was ejected in staggered waves to block the entry point, but little else could be done to slow the Alpha Legion advance – every crew­member on every vessel was fully occupied in bringing the fleet into its new orientation.

  All except one. Ragnarok was the last out, and made no attempt to haul its prow into line. Instead, the battleship rolled into a broadside attitude, standing sentinel over the chamber’s entry point, its guns already primed to fire.

  As soon as Bjorn saw that, watching the encounter unfold from the bridge of Hrafnkel, he knew what had been conveyed.

  ‘Did you order this?’ he asked Russ, unable to take his eyes off Ragnarok’s position.

  ‘I freed him to take his own course,’ said Russ, concentrating on the route ahead, his gaze barely flickering.

  The first Alpha Legion vessels broke through the mine cordon, crashing into the spinning points and detonating trails of plasma along their sides. Two were destroyed in crashing balls of flame, but four got through, then seven more, until the forerunners were surging through the gap.

  Forward lances whined into life, ready to cut through the still-turning heart of the Wolves fleet, but one obstacle lay between them and their prey.

  The Ragnarok opened up with a full broadside volley, its macro­cannons spitting colossal amounts of ordnance into the approaching Alpha Legion offensive front. The fire pattern was that of a commander with nothing to lose – there was no attempt to conserve ammunition, just an unloading of every last scrap of ship-killing potential left in the warship’s battered frame. The whole vessel shook as its wrath was poured out, and the red glow of the clouds was temporarily eclipsed by the supernova of weapons discharge.

  Alpha Legion corvettes exploded instantly, blown apart as their shields were overwhelmed. Follow-up craft were immolated in turn, caught by the expanding waves of solid-round fire that punched through void shields and smashed apart armour-plates.

  ‘He cannot follow now,’ observed Bjorn, watching as Ragnarok dragged itself to a full halt, holding sentinel over the entrance to the intersection and throwing all its remaining rage at the oncoming maelstrom.

  By then Hrafnkel had angled for the escape. Along with the rest of the fleet, the flagship kicked main thrusters back to full power and leapt forwards, accelerating hard for the second of the two apertures, the one that led deeper into Alaxxes. Scattered long-range fire from the lead Alpha Legion ships raked across its flanks, but most was absorbed by the Ragnarok, still interposed between the two fleets, a lone guardian blocking the gate.

  ‘He does what he must,’ said Russ, his jaw clenched tight. The aperture ahead of them was as tight and constricted as any of the others, and bringing the entire fleet through it would be an act of supreme shipmastery.

  Hrafnkel’s structure screamed as the engines ramped up, hurling it away from the battle in a burst of thruster-blaze. The remaining capital ships followed, speeding up to full velocity, their ploughshare muzzles dipping for re-entry. The aperture’s edge raced towards them, ragged, gaping like a maul wound and exposing the contorted tunnel route within.

  Bjorn glanced up at one of the real-view ports, an iron-rimmed window filled with the dark shadow of the Ragnarok. He wanted to call out, or salute, or mark the stand in some fitting way, but all gestures seemed futile.

  The aperture’s lip swept past, and the roiling mass of cluster cloud blurred the port, blocking sight of the doomed battleship.

  ‘Until next winter,’ breathed Bjorn, bowing his head.

  ‘Maintain fire rate!’ roared Gunn, striding back and forth across his bridge, ignoring the showers of sparks and the shrieks of tearing metal. Aesir and Skrier remained at his side, though the rest of the Great Company had taken to the saviour pods and were now surging across to the sanctuary of the Russvangum. Every hand who could be spared had been jettisoned, leaving behind only those required to man the guns, to keep the broadsides hammering, to keep the shield generators powered for as long as possible. Thousands had been saved. Thousands would still die.

  ‘You should go, too,’ he told them.

  Aesir grinned back. ‘No pods remain. In any case, I wish to see this.’

  Lord Gunn grunted, half approving, before turning back to the business of hurling out orders. ‘Hold position – do not drift!’

  The Alpha Legion were pouring through the gap now, spilling out of the tunnel like rats from a pipe. Ragnarok’s assault had accounted for many more of the smaller escorts, which blazed and fizzed like firecrackers, but now the capital ships were emerging, their armoured prows able to weather the storm and their lances glowing hot for the strike.

  The first impact struck halfway along the Ragnarok’s facing flank – a line of searing white that punched through the outer hull and into the decks beyond, shredding adamantium and melting steel. Two more shots scythed inwards, spat out from the looming shadows of the Zeta Telios and Gamma Lycurgus.

  Ragnarok’s bridge rocked, and a buttress crashed down from the roof near the forward-facing oculus. Cracks zigzagged across the deck, followed by the ominous creak of spars flexing.

  ‘Keep firing!’ bellowed Gunn, knowing his voice would be transmitted to all gunnery levels, amplified to all crews still sweating at their stations even as the ship’s decks rippled and cracked around them.

  ‘The hounds have been loosed,’ said Skrier, his voice darkly appreciative. ‘Here come the masters.’

  Ragnarok was losing position now, hammered back by the rain of incoming projectiles. Some escort-clas
s ships had powered on past, swinging upwards to follow the escaping Wolves main fleet, but the tight confines of the intersection chamber made a pass by the bigger ships more dangerous – they would have to destroy the Ragnarok first.

  ‘That is the one,’ said Gunn, striding over to a distorted tactical holo­lith that hissed with white noise, and pointing at a new ident-rune emerging into the intersection chamber.

  It was the Delta, the largest of many of that name. Sleek-jowled and sparse-framed, a hunter-killer of impeccable pedigree, its prow glistening sapphire and its weapon ranks pristine in polished steel. So many of the Alpha Legion ships were in prime condition, laid down last in the long line of Martian foundry orders and unscarred by centuries of war. Not for the first time, Lord Gunn cursed the XX Legion’s place in the Great Crusade – they had not suffered, they had not conquered, and now they were positioned to break the back of a Legion that had done both.

  Aesir was already sending orders to the burning engine rooms. Skrier was commanding the response crews to shore up what bulkheads remained, to limit the spread of the fires that surged down the crumbling network of corridors and shafts.

  Gunn remained in position, watching as the Delta edged closer. Its flanks were already alight, hurling las-beams at Ragnarok’s failing void shields, cycling up for lance-strikes into its smouldering bows. That one battleship could already muster power far in excess of that left to Gunn, and the Ragnarok was also being hit by volleys from a dozen more ships.

  ‘Enact,’ he said, his eyes alight with fervour. ‘Now.’

  The Delta remained at range, hanging over the Ragnarok’s prow and discharging its deadly payload. Its commander planned to cut up his prey from a distance, clinically, harbouring his already overbearing strength for the greater battle to come.

  Ragnarok shuddered as the course-change order filtered down to the enginarium. The blackened prow swept upwards, driving directly into the heart of the storm, and its forward real-viewers were lost in a haze of multicolour as the remaining void shields took the strain.