[Space Wolf 06] - Wolf's Honour

by Lee Lightner - (ebook by Undead)

  Berek and his men reached the far end of the courtyard in moments. The Wolf Lord climbed the shallow steps of the palace entrance and without breaking stride he smashed his power fist into the ornate wood and metal doors. There was a clap of righteous thunder and the portal exploded inward. Shouts and screams of pain greeted Berek as the Wolf Lord crossed the smoking threshold.

  The nave outside the governor’s audience chamber was once majestic. Soaring arches decorated with winged saints rose high overhead, their carved hands outstretched towards an octagonal ceiling of coloured armourplas that filled the chamber with shafts of jewel coloured light. Square columns carved with the likenesses of Imperial heroes stood at attention down the length of the chamber, their stern features judging the worth of every soul that strode along the marble floors.

  The great space was crowded with a mob of twisted degenerates, gibbering and shouting imprecations to the false gods of the warp. Foul sigils covered the walls and pillars, and many of the carved heroes had been smeared with layers of blood and filth. Naked, rotting corpses lay in heaps at the feet of the columns, their torn faces twisted into masks of horror and despair.

  Hundreds of mutants and Chaos worshippers recoiled in shock and anger from the Wolf Lord’s sudden arrival. They brandished stained cleavers and chainblades, laspistols and looted autoguns, and the air of the defiled nave shook with their bestial cries. More streamed in from side corridors to the left and right, adding to the mass. It was a sight to shake the heart of even a stalwart hero, but Berek looked upon the shrieking masses and was unmoved. He was one of the Emperor’s chosen, a Space Wolf, and he knew no fear.

  Berek clenched his crackling power fist and raised it high. His furious voice smote the unbelievers into silence. “Oathbreakers!” he roared. “I am Berek Thunderfist! Look upon me and despair! The Allfather knows your crimes and has set his Wolves among you.”

  An answering roar echoed Berek from the far end of the nave. An impossibly-muscled, four-armed mutant reared head and shoulders above the rest of the mob and made to answer the Wolf Lord. Berek shot the monster between its three eyes, and with a bloodthirsty howl he leapt among his foes.

  The Wolf Lord swept his storm bolter in an arc before him, cutting a vengeful swathe through the packed throng. At such close range the heavy shells tore through two or even three bodies before their explosive tips travelled far enough to detonate. When he’d emptied the weapon’s twin magazines he swung it like a club, crushing skulls and smashing ribs. His power fist rose and fell, hurling broken bodies in all directions. Clubs, chainswords and cleavers rained against his ancient armour, but none could find purchase. He was a storm of righteous fury, the embodiment of the Emperor’s wrath, and nothing could stand against him.

  Aldrek and the remaining Wolf Guard stormed into the nave behind Berek, adding their strength to the battle. Two Terminators stepped to either side of the broken doorway. One launched a pair of Cyclone missiles down the length of the nave, showering the rear ranks of the mob with red-hot shrapnel. The other levelled his whirring assault cannon and unleashed a stream of deadly shells over the heads of his brother Wolves.

  Within seconds, the battle had transformed into a slaughter. Even the mutants’ fanatical devotion to their new gods was not enough to sustain them in the face of the Space Wolves’ fury. They tried to flee, but their large numbers worked against them as they tried to fight their way to the nave’s narrow side-passages. They clawed and trampled their kin in their desire to escape, while the Wolves continued their remorseless advance, blood streaming from fist and blade.

  By the time Berek reached the far end of the nave there were hundreds of dead rebels heaped in his wake. Aldrek and the Wolf Guard gathered around him, weapons ready. The Wolf Lord eyed the Rune Priest as he reloaded his storm bolter. “What now, priest?” he asked.

  Aldrek took a step towards the audience chamber doors, his hand tightening on the haft of his rune axe. “I smell the stink of sorcery,” he said. “Bredwyr must lie within.” He turned back to the Wolves, his face lined with terrible strain. “There are terrible forces at work in the chamber beyond,” he warned. “The fabric of reality is… unsettled.”

  Berek frowned. “Unsettled? Speak plainly, Aldrek.”

  “This is as plain as I can make it,” the Rune Priest replied, his expression vague and haunted. “Reality is… shifting like sand. Forces are mingling compelled to weave together…” Aldrek shook his head fiercely, trying to drive the image from his mind. “I cannot explain it. I’ve never known the like.”

  Berek raised his storm bolter. “Then let us see for ourselves,” he said, and put his power fist to the door.

  The portals swung open silently. A wavering nimbus of light washed over the wary Space Wolves, and unseen energies clawed invisibly at their minds.

  The Wolf Lord strode forward into the dimly lit chamber. His boots crunched on brittle bones. The entire chamber was littered with human skeletons and cast-off husks of withered skin. The air was hazy with foul incense, streaming from tall, wrought iron braziers placed apparently at random along the room. Sheets of bloody skin had been tacked to the tall pillars by the hundreds, each one carved with intricate patterns of blasphemous runes. It was these runes that filled the room with its tenebrous light.

  Berek strode through the detritus of scores of sacrificial victims. His brain felt as though it was on fire. The Wolf Lord passed unheeding through the blasphemous tableau, his gaze fixed dreadfully on the abomination that reared behind the governor’s broken throne.

  The wall behind the throne was fifteen metres tall and ten metres wide, and in the days of the palace’s construction it would have been carved with the likeness of the holy Emperor. Now, the wall was covered in glistening flesh and pulsating organs, stitched together by some form of silver wire that shone like liquid in the sorcerous light. Veins and arteries throbbed, and hearts clenched and unclenched, driving blood through the vile mass. Berek glimpsed naked brains trapped in webworks of palpitating muscle, and eyes rolling in gelid masses of fat. Intestines writhed like snakes across the surface of the towering mass, bound in place by silver wire. Vast and unnatural energies radiated from the thing, like heat from a forge. The abomination was alive, somehow, and on some deep, primal level Berek also knew that it was not some maddened act of depravity. It had been built to serve a very particular purpose.

  “Blessed Allfather,” Aldrek gasped, his face turning pale. “We’ve found Bredwyr and his entire household.”

  Gritting his teeth, Berek raised his storm bolter. “Then let’s finish what he came here to do.”

  The Space Wolves fired as one, pouring streams of explosive shells into the horrid mass of flesh. Berek watched with revulsion as the construct writhed beneath the storm of fire. A pink haze of vaporised blood and flesh filled the air around the abomination, but, almost as quickly as they were made, the shell holes sealed shut again.

  A wave of unholy power radiated from the construct and swept over the Space Wolves. Vertigo washed over Berek, overwhelming his enhanced senses. It felt as though the room was expanding in every direction, stretching away into the vastness of space. Reeling, the Wolf Lord turned to Aldrek. “Priest!” he cried. “Your axe!”

  Aldrek had been driven to one knee by the force of the constructs power. His eyes had rolled back in their sockets, and tendrils of smoke curled from the silver and brass connections wired to his skull. And yet, the heroic priest heard Berek’s call and nodded. He tried to speak, but only a guttural growl escaped his bloody lips. With a mighty effort, Aldrek rose to his feet, raising his rune axe high, and a black blade carved with blasphemous, glowing runes burst from the Rune Priest’s chest.

  A towering figure clad in ornate blue and gold armour had appeared behind Aldrek, as though coalescing out of the shadows. The Chaos sorcerer pulled his hellblade from Aldrek’s body, and the Rune Priest staggered, blood pouring from his open mouth. With a strangled roar, Aldrek spun about, swinging furiously with his
axe, but as he did so two more armoured giants materialised like ghosts to either side of him and drove their swords into the Rune Priest’s chest.

  More figures were taking shape from the darkness: dreadful warriors clad in baroque versions of power armour eerily similar to those the Space Wolves wore. Berek recognised their blue and gold heraldry at once, and fought back a surge of righteous revulsion and dread. Every son of Russ knew the colours of the Chaos Marines known as the Thousand Sons. Twisted nightmares of muscle and flesh emerged alongside the Traitor Marines, and reached for the Space Marines with glistening ropy tentacles and fanged mouths.

  The ambush had caught the Wolf Guard unawares, but their surprise lasted only an instant. “For Russ and the Allfather!” Mikal Sternmark cried as the sorcerers and daemons rushed in from all sides, and the air rang with the thunder of bolters and the clash of blades.

  Aldrek had fallen to his knees, blood flowing from his wounds. As the sorcerers closed in again, he slashed at one with his rune axe, but the Chaos warrior parried the blow with his hellsword and knocked the axe from Aldrek’s bloodless fingers. The Rune Priest howled defiantly at his foes, but the sorcerers laid their hands upon him, and they vanished as swiftly as they appeared, taking Aldrek with them.

  Berek Thunderfist let out a furious bellow. “Stand fast, sons of Fenris!” he cried, blasting a pair of daemons into gobbets of protoplasm. “Our brothers are coming,” he said, knowing that Einar and the rest of the Grey Hunters could not be far behind them.

  “Indeed,” said a silken voice behind the Wolf Lord. “As a matter of fact, my plan depends upon it.”

  Quicker than the eye could follow, Berek spun on his heel, his power fist reaching for the source of the voice, but the gauntlet closed on empty air.

  A fearsome impact struck Berek in the chest. Terrible pain, cold and black as the abyss, spread beneath his ribs.

  The Chaos sorcerer stood just out of reach. His ornate power armour was wrought with blasphemous sigils of power, and decorated with the writhing skulls of serpentine gargoyles. Terrible, inhuman intelligence burned from the eye slits of the baroque, horned helmet.

  With a single, fluid motion, Madox drew the Spear of Russ from Berek’s chest. The Wolf Lord felt his strength leave him all at once. His legs failed him, and the Space Wolf fell to his knees.

  Madox raised the tip of Russ’s spear to Berek’s face, showing him the blood dripping from the point of the sacred relic. “The fate of your Chapter is sealed, Berek Thunderfist,” the Chaos champion said, as darkness filled the corners of the Wolf Lord’s vision. “When you go to stand before your false emperor, tell him that you are the one to blame.” As the sorcerer spoke, his armoured form blurred before the Wolf Lord’s eyes, fading from view as if he were a ghost.

  The last thing Berek heard was the sound of triumphant laughter, as cold and cruel as Old Night itself.

  A moaning wind keened ceaselessly in the crimson temple that Madox had built. Ruddy light seeped from the very stones, and the unnatural wind plucked at the corners of the bloody scraps of skin nailed to the temple columns. The runes inscribed on their surface were black as the void, drawing in the energy that surrounded them.

  The blood of the Wolf Lord ran in thin rivulets down the haft of Russ’s Spear and across the sorcerer’s knuckles. As Madox watched, the insubstantial figures of Berek’s Wolf Guard withdrew from sight, dragging the body of their lord through the piled bones and skin that littered the chamber in the physical realm.

  Where the governor’s throne had stood in the audience chamber, Madox had placed his temple’s altar, a single block of black stone carved with runes of power. Offerings covered its surface, gleaming like rubies in the hellish light.

  A trio of sorcerers approached Madox, dragging the body of the Rune Priest. The Space Marine still clung to life, despite his terrible wounds. The Chaos sorcerer smiled. “Hold him up,” Madox commanded.

  With inhuman strength the Traitor Marines lifted Aldrek nearly to his feet. Madox placed a taloned gauntlet over the rent in the Space Wolf’s breastplate and thrust it within. The Rune Priest stiffened. Pure agony focused Aldrek’s gaze on the sorcerer.

  Flesh ripped, and Madox tore his hand free. The Rune Priest slumped, eyes glazing in death as the sorcerer showed Aldrek what he held in his hand. “Now the circle is complete,” he said, and laid the progenoid glands on the altar beside nearly a dozen more.

  Aldrek’s body fell to the bleeding stones with a lifeless clatter as the sorcerers raised their hands and began to chant. Madox felt the power of the great ritual begin to take shape, and turned to face his master.

  Madox held up the Spear of Russ to the blazing eye that hovered in the air before him. “The end of the Space Wolves is at hand,” he said, showing the Wolf Lord’s blood to his dreadful master.

  TWO

  Alarums and Excursions

  The narrow blade scored a thin cut across Ragnar’s powerfully muscled chest as he pivoted to avoid the killing thrust. Baring his teeth in a feral snarl, he brought his iron sword around in a blurring arc and chopped down hard on Torin’s exposed neck.

  It was a blow that would have hacked a normal man’s head clean off. Instead, Torin pivoted on the ball of his right foot, nearly too fast for the eye to follow, and Ragnar’s heavy blade rang against the Space Wolf’s reinforced collar-bone. The dulled sword split the skin in a pressure cut a quarter of a metre long across Torin’s chest, drawing a hiss of pain from the older warrior, and filling the air of the practice arena with the coppery scent of blood. At virtually the same instant, Torin’s sword swept down and struck lightly at Ragnar’s left thigh before the Space Wolfs lunge carried him past his opponent, opening the distance across the sandy training ground.

  Dried blood crackled faintly along Ragnar’s brow. The enhanced clotting factor in his blood had already stopped the bleeding from the scalp wound Torin had given him seconds before. Both warriors were bare-chested, clad only in loose fitting breeches, torn and stained from dozens of blows. Most Space Marine Chapters preferred to practise their close-combat skills with automated sparring drones or combat servitors, but the Space Wolves kept to the old ways of their home world: man to man and iron against iron.

  Both Wolves were covered in angry red weals and shallow cuts. They grimaced at the pain from torn muscles and wrenched ligaments. The wounds sharpened their wits and tested their wills in a way no mindless combat servitor could.

  Turin continued to give ground, gliding effortlessly across the black volcanic sand. His iron sword was a little longer and thinner than the heavy broadsword in Ragnar’s hand, lending the warrior a slight advantage in speed and reach. The weapon suited him. Torin was tall and lean, almost lithe compared to Ragnar’s broad-chested bulk. His blade flickered back and forth through the air, more often than not avoiding directly blocking the younger Space Wolf’s more massive blade and leaving Ragnar swinging at empty air. The older warrior’s blows were fluid and precise, striking sharply along leg or arm and withdrawing again, as though intended to goad Ragnar into anger rather than strike a killing blow.

  If that was Torin’s plan, Ragnar had to admit it was working.

  The young Space Wolf lowered his head and charged at Torin with a furious bellow. Gauging the distance carefully, he aimed a fierce blow at the older Space Wolfs temple, and then checked the feint at the last moment and reversed the angle of the blow, slashing hard at Torin’s thigh. Quick as he was, Torin was still faster. Instead of trying to parry Ragnar’s blade or turn aside, he leapt forward and past Ragnar’s right side. The sleek blade scored another shallow cut on the inside of Ragnar’s right arm.

  Snarling furiously, Ragnar spun and lunged for Torin’s retreating back, jabbing the blunt tip against his opponent’s shoulder blade hard enough to draw a painful grunt from the older Space Marine, but not enough to translate into a killing blow. Torin threw himself forward into a shoulder roll across the black sand, coming up facing Ragnar a few metres away with his sword a
t the ready. The older Space Wolf’s lean face quirked into a faintly mocking grin. “Good, but not good enough,” he said.

  “I came down here to fight, not dance,” Ragnar growled. “If you’d sit still for half a second you’d be dead.”

  Torin’s mocking grin deepened. “A compelling reason not to sit still, don’t you think?” he replied.

  “Morkai’s frozen bollocks,” boomed a thunderous voice from the edge of the arena, “will you two quit yapping and get on with it?” A massive figure rose ponderously from a stone bench near the arena entrance, brandishing a gnawed leg bone in his knobby fist like a greasy, gristly club. Rich, honey coloured ale sloshed from an enormous drinking horn clutched in Haegr’s left hand and splashed over his thick fingers. “If I were in there I would have killed the both of you and be halfway back to the mead hall!” The huge warrior’s bushy red whiskers and bristly eyebrows lent Haegr the appearance of an enraged walrus.

  Torin laughed. His voice was light, but his dark eyes never left Ragnar’s face. “Iron sword against ice mammoth haunch? I think I’d like to see you try.”

  “Bah!” Haegr exclaimed, pausing to lick the spilled ale from his scarred knuckles. “The mighty Haegr doesn’t play at fighting Torin. What he fights, he kills. You should know that by now. And if I killed the two of you, who would be left to guard the lady Gabriella besides me?”

  The older Space Wolf rolled his eyes in mock disdain. “Who can argue with wisdom like that?”

  Ragnar nearly had him. Just as Torin spoke, he lunged forward, his blade slashing in a blurring figure of eight. For a fraction of a second, Torin appeared to be caught off-guard. He blocked one cut with a ringing blow that sent sparks flying from his sword and barely ducked aside a brutal cut from the opposite angle. Again, his swift blade flicked out, biting painfully at Ragnar’s groin, but this time the young Space Wolf kept right on coming, hammering at Torin’s head, neck and shoulders. The older Space Wolf back-pedalled furiously, his face growing taut with strain. He was forced to block one blow, and then another. Then a third stroke snapped the thinner blade with a discordant clang. Ragnar’s sword continued along its arc and cracked hard against Torin’s left cheekbone, knocking the Space Wolf onto his back.