Stormcaller

by Chris Wraight

  Olgeir drew in a long breath. ‘How many regiments did you evacuate?’ he asked.

  ‘Four. Five, perhaps, if those carriers clear orbit in time.’

  Olgeir forced a smile. Despite everything, Annarovea had done well. Kefa Primaris had done well. The forces already void-lifted were worth having – an Imperial commander could make use of such numbers.

  ‘Then we’ve done all we were asked to,’ he said.

  ‘There’s nothing else?’ Her voice betrayed quiet desperation. ‘Nothing at all?’

  Olgeir crossed his arms, and watched the icons tick across the visual field. He thought of Gunnlaugur, and Ingvar, and the rest of the pack, and how much he would have preferred to be fighting alongside them. If they still fought, that was.

  ‘Nothing, governor,’ he confirmed. ‘Now all we have to do is wait.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Ingvar and Jorundur raced to the location shunted to them by Harryat, streaking through chambers thick with incense and fogged in confusion. Ecclesiarchy officers stared at them as they passed, paralysed by shock. Callia’s orders had been issued, but still a few looked ready to fight them, as if the whole thing were some kind of elaborate sham.

  Ingvar ignored them. The two Wolves tore down transit shafts and barrelled along corridors. As they went, warning lumens kicked in, heralding the imminent launch of the life-eater missiles. The entire structure around them shuddered as, somewhere below them, vast void-doors opened up ready to expose the launching tubes inside.

  Ingvar swung around a right-angle corner. Twenty metres ahead stood two thick blast-doors chevroned in yellow and black.

  ‘Krak charges,’ voxed Ingvar, pulling two from his belt while still running. ‘Zero delay.’

  Jorundur did the same, and they hurled the four grenades directly at the doors. The charges went off as they hit, exploding in a hail of splinters, doing just enough to weaken the structure. Ingvar and Jorundur smashed into it, travelling at full tilt.

  The door’s centre-line crashed open, sending both panels barrelling inwards. The control chamber was small – about fifteen metres across – and octagonal. Each wall was lined with cogitator equipment and towering pict screens glowing with pre-launch runes.

  Klaive spun round to face them, his face even paler than usual. He reached for the lever that would complete the launch protocol.

  By mortal standards, his movements were quick.

  Jorundur’s bolt-round hit him on the shoulder, sending him slamming into the far wall. Jorundur followed up quickly, reaching for a knife. He grabbed Klaive’s tumbling body and plunged the knife down, pinning the confessor to the floor with the blade.

  Klaive screamed, twisting like a fish out of water. Ingvar made for the control panels. He shut down the launch orders one by one, restoring the safety protocols and issuing the commands to close the launch tubes.

  ‘This is the Emperor’s holy work!’ shrieked Klaive, his features twisted by anger rather than pain. ‘The Cardinal ordained it! You will burn for this!’

  ‘Certainly,’ muttered Ingvar, closing down the last of the launch systems and walking over to where Klaive lay prone.

  The confessor’s face showed nothing but fury. His red-lined eyes bulged, and he strained against the pin of the dagger, robes darkening with the stain of his blood.

  Then the noise of running boots echoed down the corridor outside. The Vindicatus’s crew was catching up, and a dozen soldiers in crimson carapace armour formed up beyond the wreckage of the blast-doors.

  Jorundur pulled his dagger free of Klaive’s shoulder and walked slowly back towards the exit. As he did so, he hefted his bolter casually in the other hand. ‘Get back,’ he warned the guards, his voice catching with a low threat-note.

  ‘They won’t let you kill me,’ spat Klaive, gazing up at Ingvar with perfect contempt. ‘You can’t take on the entire ship.’

  Ingvar grabbed him by the throat and hauled him to his feet. ‘You really think that?’

  Jorundur activated the private channel to Callia, still functioning despite all the damage his armour had taken. ‘Sister. Your life-eaters are disabled.’

  ‘Good,’ Callia replied, her voice distracted, as if uneasy about what she had to say. ‘Then you will return to the bridge.’

  Jorundur looked at Ingvar. ‘The bridge?’

  Ingvar checked his chrono, and suddenly understood. ‘The Festerax,’ he said.

  ‘Lords, your place is here,’ Callia went on. ‘I shall look forward to your presence beside me as we end this.’

  ‘They have detected the plague-hulk,’ repeated Ingvar. ‘It still lives. If we leave this chamber, they will rearm the life-eaters.’

  Outside the doors, the Ecclesiarchy troops waited. More were joining them each second, unclamping weapons as they took up position along the length of the corridor.

  ‘It is the only way,’ urged Klaive, whispering into Ingvar’s earpiece as if he could be swayed by rhetoric. ‘You know it, and Callia knows it. The Stormcaller has failed. Loose vengeance on the world below! Better to burn than be damned.’

  Jorundur cut the link to Callia, then took up position standing across the broken doorway. He emitted a low growl, vox-augmented, making the Ecclesiarchy troops back away a few paces.

  But they didn’t withdraw. They kept their weapons lowered, and held position.

  Ingvar ran through the options. If the Festerax still burned through the void, if the Wolves kill-team had been destroyed, then Callia was right. Delvaux had broken the oath by disengaging early, but the fate of Kefa still hung by a thread.

  ‘Don’t even think of it, brother,’ warned Jorundur, facing outwards at the gathering squads of crimson-armoured troops. ‘Olgeir is down there.’

  Klaive began to chuckle softly.

  ‘You won’t hold out forever. They’ll break in eventu–’

  Ingvar punched Klaive, breaking his nose and knocking him out cold. The confessor slumped in his grasp.

  Ingvar hadn’t been plagued by visions of the Deathwatch for a long time, but he remembered Callimachus then. He remembered the agonies they had unleashed to strip worlds of life in the face of the oncoming hive-fleets. He remembered when the order had come in, and how long he had struggled over it.

  Back then he couldn’t have prevented it even if he’d wanted to. It had been their mission, the one they’d sworn to execute. It was abhorrent, and even the Ultramarine had blenched, but it had been the mission.

  This was different. Ingvar had seen what happened to those on Ras Shakeh. The Ministorum, for all Delvaux’s sadism, was right about Kefa Primaris – the world could not be allowed to incubate an army of trillions.

  Jorundur looked over his shoulder. ‘Gyrfalkon?’

  Ingvar shoved Klaive to the floor, placing him well back. Then he unlocked his bolter.

  ‘Njal will do it yet,’ he said, defiantly, joining Jorundur in standing guard over the doorway. ‘Until then, this chamber is ours.’

  ‘Good,’ Jorundur said, checking his ammo-counter. ‘For a moment there, brother, you had me worried.’

  For the first time since Baldr had awoken, he witnessed surprise on the face of the Mycelite. The Plague Marine’s shock was quickly followed by an elated smile, as if he had got used to a nigh-eternal life of utter certainty and was now pleased to find that some unexpected events were still possible.

  Njal’s expression was unreadable under his helm. The Rune Priest’s armour was dark with burned-on blood and slime. The heavy covering of animal skins had been ripped away, and the skulls hanging from chains at his waist were black with the patina of war.

  Baldr could hear Njal breathing heavily through his vox-grille. His psyber-raven still accompanied him, hovering accusingly over his shoulder-guards in what looked like an oddly protective formation.

  How had he fought his way to t
his place? What hunt-sense had he used to navigate through the endless dark of the hulk? From his mind-excursions through the plague-ship’s interior, Baldr knew better than perhaps anyone just how huge and labyrinthine the Festerax was.

  Then he remembered his forced actions at the enginarium, and guessed the cold truth.

  ‘The Priest,’ remarked the Mycelite, backing away slowly, clutching his staff two-handed as if it were some kind of shield. ‘You have been gnawing through my ship like a cancer, and now you’re here.’

  Njal circled the sorcerer warily. His gaze flickered up at Baldr briefly, and the movement halted.

  ‘You no longer have any claim on him,’ the Mycelite said. ‘You waste what you do not understand.’

  Njal gripped his staff more tightly. Baldr felt the build-up of storm-power, making the air thicken and shudder.

  ‘This ends now,’ said Njal.

  The Mycelite lost his smile. ‘You are weakened, Priest. You have poured your soul out in my kingdoms, and now you have nothing left.’

  Njal’s gaze moved to Baldr a second time, as if trying to fathom whose side he was on, before the staff rose higher.

  ‘We shall see,’ Njal snarled.

  The chamber suddenly filled with the hard clap and grind of thunder. Wind howled through the command bridge, sweeping away the withered fungus that coated the walls. Shards of silver leapt out from the metal underneath, snaking and lashing around Njal’s staff.

  The Mycelite buckled down, crouching low to weather the storm. His own staff surged with a sick green light, and a stench like vomit flared up in the shimmering air.

  Baldr raged at his bonds, desperate to shake free of the shackles that bound him to the throne. Njal angled his staff at the Mycelite, and a corona of neon-white energy slammed into the sorcerer’s hunched body. The light smashed crazily away from him, flaring and bouncing across the bridge’s ruined expanse.

  The Mycelite reeled from the impact, muttering half-heard words as he retreated. Njal advanced after him, and the fusty atmosphere curdled with more electric discharge.

  The Rune Priest was about to launch another bolt when he suddenly stumbled. He whirled around, blazing with magnesium-bright coruscation, to see a grey-skinned cadaver clawing at his armour. Njal slammed the staff down, and his assailant exploded in a spinning cloud of dust and stone-dry flesh.

  By then, the crew of the Frostaxe were moving. They dragged themselves up from their seats and skittered across the bridge decking. They made no sound save for the shuffle of bone on metal, and their milky eyes revealed nothing but a faint sheen of pale green.

  Njal snarled, and hurled fresh bolts of rune-fire into their midst. The corpses burst open in droves, sending severed limbs cartwheeling across the empty thrones. The cadavers kept coming, clustering at the Rune Priest. They clambered up service hatches and dragged themselves through intersection orifices. Soon the bridge was full of them, swarming like bacilli on a plate.

  Baldr kept tearing at his bonds. Powerless, he watched the tide of the dead rear up, clawing at the Rune Priest and threatening to overwhelm him. Njal reaped a swathe with his glittering staff tip, crying out words of power, shattering bones and bursting atrophied lungs.

  As the corpses piled in, the Mycelite summoned up a fresh vortex of foul, green-laced energy. He let loose, slamming a clot of boiling warp-essence into Njal’s breastplate.

  The Rune Priest was hurled backwards through the knots of living dead, crashing into a command station and smashing the ancient cogitator units. The Mycelite’s energy bolt clamped on to him like a slick of oil, worming its way into the cracks of his Terminator plate.

  Nightwing plummeted, going for the sorcerer’s eyes. The Mycelite screamed at it, flailing his staff wildly. The skull-tip connected, sending the psyber-raven careening across the bridge.

  Njal righted himself, sending more crushed corpses cracking into the deck, but his armour was now covered in a writhing cloak of green-black mucus. It smeared across the ceramite, dragging him down, extending slobbering tendrils into every joint. The putrid warp-essence boiled and seethed, growing like a living thing, bubbling and multiplying into a cascade of soul-draining, matter-burning filth.

  The Mycelite hobbled towards Njal, all the time whispering words of ruin. Spectral figures shimmered into life around him, their faces glowing with an unhealthy, ravening pallor. The ghosts launched themselves at Njal, still besieged by clusters of undead and bogged down by the dragging weight of the sorcerer’s noxious bile. They were monstrous and misshapen – every phantasm that had ever haunted the Frostaxe’s corrupted bridge, from the echoes of daemon-kin to the plague-infested troops who had first stormed the Wolves’ ancient defences. They shrieked as they swooped, reaching out for the Rune Priest with translucent arms. Njal’s staff banished them into glassy fragments, but every time they impacted, he weakened further. His enormous shoulders bowed, he dropped to one knee, and his cries of defiance cracked into hoarseness.

  The Mycelite hobbled up to him, his gnarled staff now burning freely with fell energies. Fresh waves of the phosphorescent mucus crashed across the Rune Priest, blistering as the armour corroded beneath it. The undead kept on coming, clawing and tearing, fixed on Njal like predators on a stricken prey-beast.

  Baldr felt his hearts hammer with rage. His bonds fixed him tight, forcing him to watch powerlessly as the Stormcaller was beaten down. His mind strained at its bonds, desperate to do something, and he felt a sudden kick of power unlocking deep within him. The sensation burned furiously, surging into his limbs and locking them rigid in their bonds.

  His collar suddenly flared white-hot, and the pain became agonising. Baldr roared out, and spurs of lightning escaped from between his fangs. Power ramped up within him, out of control, swelling into a pain-filled nightmare.

  He felt a dark presence unravel within his soul – a wolf, black-coated with yellow eyes, vast and silent. He saw its jaws open, and curved fangs glint wetly.

  Why doesn’t it move? Why doesn’t it pounce?

  ‘The collar!’ Baldr cried, forcing the words out as his body was seized by uncontrollable spasms.

  Njal looked up then. His red helm-lenses shone fiercely, staring at Baldr from beneath a swirling tempest of warp-energies. He was stricken, hammered down by the Mycelite’s art and prone for the killing blow.

  The withered plague-sorcerer loomed over him, his staff held high, and a vortex of lurid green aether-matter crackled into life. The emerald plasma leaked pure sickness as it spiralled around the skull-tip, ready to finish what the undead had started.

  ‘The scalp of the Stormcaller,’ murmured the Mycelite, a strain of pure malice entering his soft voice for the first time.

  Njal’s staff-fires, doused by torrents of corroding warp-oil, guttered away. The last of the storm-lightning crackled out across his runic armour. He stared up at the Mycelite, still on his knees.

  He only issued one word.

  ‘Shatter,’ he rasped.

  And with an eye-burning snap, Baldr’s collar broke in two.

  Hafloí could hardly see from fatigue. His limbs worked mechanically, chopping and hacking with automatic, nerve-conditioned skill. He’d long since run out of ammo and so had switched to his axe. If the enemy had been any more potent than the mutant filth that swilled around every bilge of the vast ship, he might have been in trouble. As it was, the killing had become a test of pure endurance.

  He could feel both his hearts hammering at an insane speed. His helm-display listed a whole plethora of red warning-indicators, each one of them screaming for him to slacken his rate of movement. With a grim smile, Hafloí realised the truth – he was fighting himself to death.

  The Grey Hunters around him were in scarce better shape. All carried wounds from the ferocious battle at the enginarium. Two more had been lost, dragged down as they tried to cut their way free of the mutant mobs. S
uch deaths were the worst of all, slain by foes unworthy of anything but contempt.

  Hafloí set his jaw, ignoring the blood running down the inside of his battered helm, and dug deeper. Somehow, his limbs kept working, driven down solely by excess hyperadrenaline and combat-stimms. The Caestus was less than thirty metres away, though it might as well have been on the far side of the solar system – the space between was crammed with swarms of plague-damned, whose only remaining task was to keep the intruders from escaping the Hel they had created.

  Hafloí was so absorbed in the fighting, was so intent on staying on his feet, that he barely heard the first explosion. It was low – right on the edge of his enhanced auditory range, and far, far away.

  The mutants heard it, though. Whether because they were used to the myriad creaks and clangs of the Festerax, or through some warp-bound sixth sense, they responded immediately. What little formation they had broke. Some started screaming, not with their usual battle-rage, but with a frantic fear.

  A second boom rocked the chamber, far louder this time, like the distant grind of thunderheads in the Asaheim peaks. Every structure around them – the corkscrew pillars, the sagging roofline, the rockcrete floor – trembled as if shaken by a giant hand.

  The mutants began to scatter. Some fought on, but many started to scamper for cover, as if there were anywhere to hide from what was to come.

  Hafloí, exhausted, checked his chrono.

  It read zero. Down in the reactor cores, in the heart of the boiling inferno in the enginarium depths, the charges were going off. The fire would be racing after them, boiling up through the infinite shafts and kindling the methane. In his mind’s eye, Hafloí saw the colossal wave of pure destruction welling up towards them, churning and destroying as it came. It would take mere moments to reach them.

  His exhausted head lifted. Urgent energy stirred in his ravaged body once more. He could see the target now – half lost amid the melted panels of the chamber wall and skewed at a steep angle.

  He kicked out, breaking the spine of a mutant who was too mind-addled to retreat, then joined his brothers in the race.