Ragnar glanced back at the barrier. Torin was there, beckoning with his blade. “Come on!” he shouted over the hammering blasts of the heavy bolter.
Explosive shells burst in staccato flashes across the nose and glowing viewports of the Chaos ship. Suddenly there was a larger blast farther aft, and the attack craft was haloed in a nimbus of burning gas and electrical discharges. The ship seemed to stagger in midair, and then plummeted like a thunderbolt towards Ragnar and the Blood Claw gunner.
Ragnar saw the danger at once, but the gunner continued to fire at the diving craft. “Run!” the young Space Wolf yelled at the Blood Claw, but the gunner didn’t seem to hear. He was still firing, the barrel of his heavy bolter glowing red with heat, when the fighter smashed into the roadway and crushed him beneath its skidding, tumbling bulk.
Cursing, Ragnar spun on his heel and raced for the combine’s metal barrier as quickly as he could. He could hear the grinding, crashing screech of the attack ship disintegrating along the roadway behind him, growing closer with every passing second. At the last moment, Ragnar gathered his strength and leapt for the barrier. Something hard and unyielding smashed into his back the moment his feet left the ground, cracking his backpack and hurling him through the air. Tumbling, he struck the dark earth hard and rolled for several metres, flattening the morbid stalks, and digging furrows into the ground.
The attack ship spent the last of its energy against the combine’s metal barrier, scattering steaming debris across the dreadful field. Twisted hunks of red-hot metal landed all around Ragnar, the pieces hissing against the dark ground. Within moments, Torin was at his side, all but dragging the young Space Wolf to his feet. “I saw more thrusters burning off to the south,” Torin said. “They’re coming this way. Looks like those two were escorts after all.”
Ragnar climbed to his feet. His hands seemed to move of their own accord, dropping the empty bolt pistol magazine and slapping in a fresh one. “Where’s Gabriella?”
“Somewhere in this cursed field,” Torin replied, glancing warily to the south. “She’s with Haegr and Volt. The inquisitor told everyone to make for the buildings to the north.”
The young Space Wolf scowled at the news. “We can’t afford to get hemmed into a static defence,” he said. “We’ve got to stay on the move or we’ll be overwhelmed.”
“Tell that to Volt,” Torin said ruefully.
“First things first,” the young Space Wolf replied, breathing deeply of the dry, musty air. He tasted Gabriella’s scent and felt his pulse quicken. “Let’s go find them.”
The two warriors dashed deeper into the sacrificial field, forcing their way down narrow rows carved between the dark green furrows. Slick, waxy leaves slithered against the plates of their armour and across their faces. When they brushed against his ears Ragnar thought he could hear the plaintive whispers of the souls trapped within.
He focused instead on the sounds of pounding feet echoing from the field in a wide arc ahead of him. It sounded like the Blood Claws had fanned out, or perhaps they had simply been separated by the field’s endless, identical rows. Ragnar keyed his vox-bead and his ears were filled with a harsh, atonal sound, rising and falling like the howl of a demented wolf. He called to Haegr or Volt, but got no reply He gave up after a few tries and concentrated instead on loping after the Navigator’s scent.
Ragnar heard the approaching ships before he saw them, a rising crescendo of shrieking thrusters coming in low from the south. A dark shape roared overhead. Ragnar glanced up at a black, angular hull that glistened like polished iron and was studded with rows of curved spikes and jagged blades. Open portals gaped like mouths along the underside of the ship, and the young Space Wolf saw armoured, red-eyed figures crouching at their rims.
The assault ships thundered past Ragnar in a staggered line four abreast, riding boiling plumes of smoke and steam. More than a score of dark shapes leapt from the speeding craft, falling like stormhawks on shrieking pillars of superheated air. Ragnar saw at once that they were Chaos Space Marines, but their desecrated suits of power armour were fitted with bulbous, turbine-driven backpacks. They carried ornate bolt pistols and chainswords in their hands, and long trophy cords strung with human scalps hung heavily at their waists. The young Space Wolf recognised them with a surge of frozen dread: Chaos Raptors, the shock troops and flesh hunters of the Traitor Legions. They plunged like arrows into the field around the running Wolves, filling the air with their bloodcurdling shrieks.
Angry howls and the crack of bolt pistols echoed among the shifting stalks as the Raptors closed in from all sides. Ragnar howled a challenge of his own and drew his frost blade from its scabbard. Just as the rune-marked blade whirred into deadly life a dark shape burst into the narrow row ahead of the young Space Wolf. The Raptor spun on his heel, his trophy lines fanning out in a dreadful display as he brought his weapons to bear.
The Raptor’s bolt pistol boomed and a mass-reactive shell flattened against Ragnar’s breastplate. Snarling, the young Space Wolf broke into a full run, snapping shots at the foe as he came. The bolt pistol shells rang harmlessly off the Raptor’s armour, and an answering shot ricocheted from the side of Ragnar’s knee. With a fierce shout, Ragnar raised his sword and slashed at the Raptor’s neck, but the Chaos warrior was a blur of motion, parrying the stroke with a sweep of its chainsword. Sparks flew from the clash of blades, but the attack was only a feint. Ragnar took another step forward, put his bolt pistol against the Raptor’s left eye and pulled the trigger. The heavy shell burst the helmet apart, and Ragnar leapt over the foe’s collapsing form.
Sounds of confused fighting echoed all around Ragnar as he tried to focus on Gabriella’s scent. Las-bolts hissed through the air, and stray bolt-rounds carved paths through the dense rows of sacrificial stalks. Off to Ragnar’s right, a man screamed in agony and a volley of wild las-bolts tore through the air. Bolter rounds rang off armour to the young Space Wolfs left, and then came the unmistakeable sound of a chain-blade rending flesh.
Gabriella’s scent was growing stronger. She was close by, and Ragnar’s pulse quickened when he realised that her trail led into the midst of a fierce battle that was raging just ahead. He was so intent on the sounds of battle that he didn’t see the Raptor coming, until it leapt at him through a screen of rustling stalks to his right.
A chainsword roared through the air, slicing through the tall, green plants and scraping against Ragnar’s right pauldron. The blade’s whirring teeth sliced open the skin along his jaw, cutting the young Space Wolf to the bone. He whirled, bringing up his frost blade, but the Raptor blocked it with its snarling blade and raised his bolt pistol for a shot at Ragnar’s unprotected neck. But before either Wolf or Raptor could react, a slim blade was buried deep in the attacker’s neck. The Chaos warrior collapsed in a flood of steaming ichor as Torin pulled his sword free.
There was a sound like a thunderclap a few dozen metres ahead, and a bellow like that of an enraged bear. “That would be Haegr,” Torin said with a grin. Ragnar nodded curtly and broke back into a run.
Within moments, they found themselves at the edge of a trampled clearing of sorts, where blades, bodies and tramping feet had flattened a rough circle within the blasphemous field. Gabriella, Volt, and Haegr stood back to back in the centre of the clearing, shooting and swinging at the pack of Raptors that encircled them. Bodies lay everywhere. Half a dozen armoured Chaos warriors were sprawled across the dark earth, close to the broken bodies of two of the Thunderhawk’s gunners and Harald’s one-armed Blood Claw. At the far end of the clearing the Thunderhawk’s tech-priest was on his knees, choking for breath as he pressed red-stained hands to his torn throat. Haegr was trying to reach the mortally wounded bondsman, keeping the Raptors at bay with mighty sweeps of his thunder hammer.
Inquisitor Volt levelled his bolt pistol at one of the Raptors and fired. The shell took the armoured warrior square in the chest, and powerful blessings worked into the ammunition punched right through the armoured
breastplate and consumed the man inside in a sheet of silvery flames. The inquisitor’s armour burned bright with the glowing tracery of potent wards, and his unsheathed sword glimmered with pale blue lightning similar to a Rune Priest’s blade. A Raptor’s gun barked, and a slug smashed into Volt’s shoulder, knocking the old man off his feet. Three of the Chaos warriors rushed forward, leaping high on jets of shrieking air and plunging like falcons upon their prey.
To Ragnar’s horror, Lady Gabriella rushed to protect the fallen inquisitor. She levelled a sleek-looking silver pistol at the lead Raptor and fired an indigo-coloured beam that burned a glowing hole clean through the armoured foe. The warrior collapsed with a screech, but before his companions could react, the Navigator slashed at them with a sweeping stroke of her sabre. The master crafted power blade glimmered like white-hot steel as it sliced through the legs of one Raptor and cut the thigh of the other. The wounded Raptor let out a sharp hiss and staggered backwards, shooting Gabriella twice in the chest. She pitched backwards and fell without a sound.
Ragnar charged into the clearing with a wild howl, sword ready and bolt pistol blazing. Two Raptors toppled, their throats blown apart by mass-reactive shells, and another had its chest split open by a stroke from the young Space Wolf’s blade. Torin followed in Ragnar’s wake, snapping off precise, deadly shots at the foemen near Gabriella’s prone form.
Two Raptors spun around at the Wolves’ sudden assault and slashed at Ragnar. The young Space Wolf took their raking blows against his battle worn armour, and struck off their heads with a single sweep of his sword. He stepped past their collapsing bodies and buried his sword into the side of another onrushing Chaos warrior. The Raptor’s sword raked at the side of the young Space Wolf’s face and cut deep into his neck before his lifeless form sank to the ground. Ragnar hurled the Raptor’s body away, and with two more steps he reached the Navigator’s side.
His enhanced senses told him at once that she was still alive; he could hear her heartbeat hammering in her chest. She sat up with a grimace, letting go of her sword and pressing her hand to the two slugs that had flattened themselves against her breastplate. “I’m all right,” she said breathlessly. “Help me up.”
Taking her at her word, Ragnar lifted Gabriella to her feet, while Torin helped Inquisitor Volt. Haegr whirled around, raising his stained hammer, and then his beady eyes widened as he recognised his brothers. “Torin! Ragnar! Where the devil have you two been? I’ve been fighting the whole damned horde single-handed!”
“Never mind that now,” Ragnar snarled. “How much farther to the buildings at the centre of the combine?”
Haegr straightened, peering over the tops of the sacrificial plants. “Three hundred metres or so,” he said. A stray bolt-round whickered past the Wolfs shaggy head, causing him to duck down again.
“Let’s go,” Ragnar said. “I’m on point. Torin on the left, Haegr on the right. Lady Gabriella, Inquisitor Volt, you’re in the middle. Now move!”
They set off once more down the narrow lanes between the sacrificial stalks, weapons held ready. The fighting seemed to be tapering off, and howls echoing back and forth from the fields ahead told Ragnar that at least some of Harald’s pack still lived. As they ran across the remainder of the field, they stumbled over more trampled scenes of carnage, strewn with blood and scorched earth from the Raptor’s jets.
Ragnar and his companions came upon Harald and his warriors all at once, nearly falling over them as they crouched behind a metal barrier at the north end of the field. The pack leader was studying the complex of darkened buildings ahead. Lightning flickered, banishing the shadows around the structures for a tantalising instant.
Harald shook his head. “Gunther thought he saw movement behind one of those buildings, but with all the lightning it’s hard to be sure.”
“Well, we can’t stay out here,” Volt said hoarsely. “We need to get somewhere defensible before those ships come back again.”
“No, we need to keep moving,” Ragnar said flatly. “If we hole up in these buildings the enemy will surround us and wear us down. Time and numbers are on their side.”
“We agree on that much at least,” Harald growled.
The old inquisitor studied the buildings almost wistfully. Ragnar sensed that the man was exhausted, and Gabriella was not in much better shape, but Volt finally nodded. “All right, we stay on the move,” he said, and then pointed at the buildings. “We’ll cross the compound and disappear into the field on the other side. That’s the most direct route to the mountains north of us.”
Ragnar and Harald exchanged glances and rose to their feet as one. Weapons sweeping the open ground beyond the barrier, the Space Wolves emerged warily from the field. Lightning glittered across the surface of their ice-blue armour and on the whirring teeth of their chainblades.
The buildings were low, ferrocrete bunkers, most of them built to house the agri-servitors that tended the fields, plus a generator station and a logic hub. Four tall granaries towered from the centre of the compound, rising more than forty metres into the air. There were no lights, nor were there doors set in the buildings’ doorframes or glass panels in the windows. Evidently, the structures alone were enough to make Madox’s geomancy possible.
Ragnar surveyed the battered group that emerged from the depths of the sacrificial field. None of the Thunderhawk’s gunners or its tech-priest had survived, and three of Harald’s pack were gone. Counting Volt, Gabriella and the Wolfblade, there were only twelve souls left against the might of an entire Traitor Legion.
It will be enough, Ragnar thought grimly. It will have to be enough.
They moved quickly and quietly down dark lanes between the empty structures. Ragnar felt his hackles rise as he watched the open doorways for signs of movement. The lightning played tricks on his eyes, hinting at movement down the dark side-streets.
Within a few minutes they had reached the foot of the towering granaries, and the lanes widened to a large ferrocrete plaza, where the agri-servitors could load and unload grain from the huge silos. Moving cautiously, the Wolves advanced across the open space.
Their boots echoed hollowly across the ferrocrete as they stepped into the midst of the towering granaries. Lightning flashed silently overhead. On impulse, Ragnar looked up at the arcs of unearthly light, and saw the silhouettes of horned helms and hulking shoulders ringing the tops of the four silos. “Ambush!” he cried, raising his bolt pistol, but it was already too late.
The Raptors leapt from their perches atop the silos and dropped heavily among the surprised Wolves. Ragnar guessed that there were perhaps a score of them, attacking the group from all sides. They had been the true threat all along, he realised. The Raptors dropped into the field had been like hounds, driving the prey into the trap.
One of the attackers landed next to Gabriella, but was struck by Torin, Haegr and the Navigator almost simultaneously Ragnar sighted on another Raptor a few metres away and shot the warrior through the neck. Then a pair of attackers rushed at him from the left, firing as they came. One shot smashed into his hip and another took him high in the shoulder, flattening against his armour, but nearly knocking him from his feet.
The sounds of fighting and the cries of wounded Wolves echoed from all sides. Ragnar howled a challenge at the oncoming Raptors and prepared to die like a son of Fenris.
He shot the first warrior between his red eyes, and then parried the sweeping stroke of the second foe-man. The Raptor reversed its stroke in a blur of motion and slashed downwards at Ragnar’s knee. The snarling chainsword found a gap in his armour and bit deep, grating across the bone. The young Space Wolf snarled and hacked downwards, slicing off the foeman’s sword-hand at the wrist.
Then there was a flash of light, and a terrible, burning impact smashed into the side of Ragnar’s head just above the temple. He heard a roaring sound in his ears, like a howling wind or the pounding of a stormy surf, and then he realised he was falling.
Ragnar landed face dow
n on the ground, blood pouring from the wound in his head. Sounds of fighting raged above him. There was a crack of thunder and a shouted oath, and then the roaring filled his ears once again.
No, not roaring howling like a huge pack of Fenrisian wolves on the hunt.
The sound set Ragnar’s blood hissing in his veins. He struggled to get his legs underneath him so that he could stand. He blinked, discovering that he could no longer see out of his left eye.
Something heavy fell on top of him. With a slurred curse, he shoved at the thing grasping dimly that it was the riven corpse of a Raptor. Ragnar rolled awkwardly away from the thing and found himself lying on his back.
A dark silhouette loomed over him. Teeth bared, Ragnar tried to raise his sword, but the figure laid an armoured boot across his wrist and pinned it to the ground. The young Space Wolf raised his bolt pistol, only to find that his gun hand was empty.
The howling continued all around him. Lightning flashed, and in the flickering light Ragnar saw that the figure above him was cased in dark grey power armour similar to his own. Yellowed skulls and leather cords strung with long, curved fangs hung from the warrior’s belt, as well as ancient tokens of iron etched with the runes of his people. A red wolf’s head snarled fiercely upon the warrior’s scarred right pauldron.
The warrior was huge, easily as large as Haegr. His broad shoulders were covered in a black wolf pelt, and his iron grey hair hung in two thick braids that draped heavily across his rune worked breastplate. His shaggy beard was still black as jet, however, and the eyes that shone beneath the warrior’s craggy brow were yellow gold, like those of a wolf. In one hand he gripped a mighty, single-bearded axe, its curved blade marked with the scars of countless grim battles. Fell runes were carved into the dark metal, and it crackled with unseen and deadly energies.
[Space Wolf 06] - Wolf's Honour Page 21
