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 hellhound 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 The two warriors were silent and withdrawn, their eyes hooded and shoulders hunched as they fought their silent struggles with the beasts beneath their skins.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 assembled warriors and nodded. Then he struck the cavern floor thrice with the butt 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 Space 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 Space 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 brass 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 Space 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 succumb 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.”
Pandemonium broke out as pack leaders leapt to their feet, shouting angry oaths or denouncing Volt as a liar and a blasphemer. Bulveye sat in silence, brooding darkly over the news. Finally Torvald rose to his feet and raised his axe high. Lightning crackled from the blade and a sharp thunderclap deafened everyone in the cavern. “Sit down!” the Rune Priest commanded, and the pack leaders reluctantly obeyed. Then Torvald addressed Volt directly. “What you are talking about would require enormous amounts of psychic power,” he said.
“Naturally,” Volt replied. “That is why Madox and his lord had to perform the ritual here, in the Eye of Terror. They can draw upon the warp to fuel their sorceries, and then channel those energies through the sigil around Charys. No one, not even Grimnar himself, could resist such a spell for long.”
“And then?” Torvald asked.
Volt’s expression became a mask of dread. “Then blood will flow across a dozen worlds,” he replied. “The Wolves will turn upon the sheep they once swore to protect. I expect millions of Imperial citizens will die, and that would be just the beginning. The Inquisition would declare the Space Wolves excommunicae traitoris, and then there would be war.”
Ragnar felt his guts turn to ice. Volt was right; the Inquisition would spare no effort to hunt the Wulfen to destruction. Virus bombs would fall upon Fenris, and those that did not flee to the outer reaches of the galaxy, or into the Eye of Terror, would be slain. Of course, the Wulfen would not go meekly. By the time the war was over, entire sectors would lie in ruins. The Imperium would need thousands of years to rebuild, provided its foes did not decide to take advantage of humanity’s weakened state and move against it.
“Now we know why the Chaos cultists were taking the progenoid glands from dead Space Marines on Hyades,” Ragnar mused. “Madox needed Space Wolf gene-seed for his ritual.” He frowned as another thought struck him. “But what of the Spear of Russ? What does he need with that?”
Volt shook his head. “I’ve been wondering about that myself, and I can only speculate at this point,” he said. “I believe that Madox required a relic of great significance to bind the ritual to your Chapter. The spear — tainted with the blood of Berek Thunderfist, a Wolf Lord — is the fulcrum for Madox’s ritual.”
Once again, the cavern erupted in wild shouts as Bulveye’s warriors reacted to the news, and this time it took the Wolf Lord himself to end the tumult and bring the council back to order. “It is no surprise that Madox would have chosen the spear for his diabolical spell,” Bu
lveye told Volt. “For we Wolf Lords swore our allegiance to Leman upon that self-same weapon and formed the great companies of our Legion. The most binding oaths of our brotherhood were wrought with it.”
The news stunned Ragnar. Did Logan Grimnar or the priests at the Fang realise the spear’s importance, or had its true significance been lost over the course of thousands of years?
“But how did Leman lose his spear?” one of the pack leaders cried. “It’s inconceivable!”
“Morkai’s black teeth!” Torvald swore, shaking his head. “He was constantly losing the damned thing. You may not remember any more, but I do.” The Rune Priest pointed to Bulveye. “Do you recall the time he drank all that stormwine on Sirenia and tried to throw the bloody spear at the moon? Took us four days to find it afterwards.” He chuckled ruefully and grinned at Ragnar. “Truth be told, he hated that big boar-sticker, but the Allfather gave it to him as a gift, so he was stuck with it. He dragged it out for ceremonies, and then he’d stick it in a corner somewhere and forget about it. Drove his huscarls mad.”
“Never mind how he lost the spear,” Bulveye said, turning his attention to Volt. “You said this sigil had to charge itself before it reached full power. Does that mean we can stop the ritual before it is too late?”
“Yes, I believe so,” the inquisitor replied. “We must find a way to reach the temple at the centre of the city and wrest the spear away from Madox. Without that focus, the ritual energies will dissipate.”
Ragnar clenched his hands around Bulveye’s iron dagger. He could feel his fingertips changing as thick talons began to take root. “What about our brothers who have already succumbed?”
“If the ritual is disrupted before it causes too much corruption to the gene-seed, they may revert to normal,” Sigurd said, “but every moment brings us closer to the point of no return.”
The young Space Wolf leapt to his feet. “Then we must attack at once!”
Ragnar was greeted with loud roars of approval from the pack leaders, but Bulveye glowered at the warriors. “Shut up, for the Allfather’s sake!” he bellowed. “We’ve been watching the enemy come and go from that city for a long time. It’s more than a day’s march away, and the streets are guarded by an army of cultists and Thousand Sons.” The Wolf Lord paced in front of the fire. “If we had the whole company here we could just charge right down their throats and dare the bastards to stand in our way, but there is only us.”
“What can we do, then?” Ragnar asked.
The Wolf Lord studied the faces of his pack leaders, and then stared thoughtfully into the cold flames. “We must bring the enemy here,” he said.
EIGHTEEN
Wolf’s Honour
The first heavy shells began to fall on the Imperial defences as Mikal Sternmark reached the command bunker complex. No barrage siren wailed this time as the earth shaking blasts pounded the fortifications to the east. The augur crews and communications staff were loading all the equipment they could carry on a trio of heavy cargo haulers as Sternmark came charging out of the twilight. Soldiers and technicians scattered out of the Space Wolf’s path, intent on making good their escape from the impending rebel assault. The stink of defeat hung heavy in the air, stoking his rage even further.
No sentries remained to challenge Sternmark at the command bunker’s entrance, but the narrow passageway beyond was filled with a procession of near-panicked Guardsmen carrying boxes of documents and crates of equipment. They recoiled before the grim, blood-spattered visage of the Space Wolf, flattening themselves against the ferrocrete walls as best they could to allow his armoured bulk to pass.
The burning beneath his skin had turned to a sharp, pulsing ache that reached down into his bones. Sternmark tasted blood on his lips, and a steady, agonising pressure was building behind his eyes. He lashed out like a maddened beast as he lurched down the corridors of the bunker, gouging craters in the reinforced ferrocrete with blows from his armoured fist.
A technician was hurrying out of the war room with a portable logic engine in his arms as Sternmark arrived. The man froze at the sight of the wild-eyed giant, and the Wolf Guard hurled him backwards into the chamber with a brutal shove. He hit the floor with a crash and a shout of pain, his arms still wrapped protectively around the precious machine.
Most of the equipment in the large chamber had already been removed, and a score of soldiers and staff officers were hard at work unhooking and packing up the rest. Heads turned at the sudden commotion, and the frenetic buzz of conversation in the room fell silent. Several of the Guardsmen took one look at Sternmark’s horrific appearance and surreptitiously laid their hands on their las-guns.
Lady Commander Athelstane was standing on the stage at the far end of the room, surrounded by half a dozen of her senior officers. The men were carrying despatch cases bulging with maps and data-slates, and looked ready to depart at a moment’s notice. They all turned at the Wolf Guard’s sudden arrival, hands drifting to the butts of their laspistols.
Athelstane scowled at the blood-stained Wolf. “Have a care with my equipment,” she said coldly. “Those logic engines are difficult to come by.”
Sternmark bristled at the general’s cynical tone. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.
“I should think the meaning would be obvious!” Athelstane snapped. “The enemy has driven us from the capital and is preparing for a final assault against the starport. Now, I must concern myself with preserving as much of my command as possible while there is still time. If you’d bothered to answer any of my vox transmissions you would have known about this hours ago.”
“You’re fleeing from the enemy!” Sternmark roared. The savagery in his voice stole the colour from the Guardsmen’s faces, but Athelstane was made of far sterner stuff.
“Have a care, sir,” she warned. “I’m not in the mood for insults.”
Sternmark stalked towards the stage, his power blade gripped tightly in his hand. The pain in his head made it hard to think. It felt as though his very skull was being warped by the pressure. He lashed out with a clenched fist and smashed a table to pieces. Startled, the Guardsmen scattered out of his way and raised their weapons.
“Where is your honour?” Sternmark growled. The words were barely intelligible, as the Wolf Guard’s lips stretched taut over prominent fangs. “Our troops are dug-in. We have heavy weapons, and my men are well supplied—”
“How many of your men are left?” the general shot back. “We haven’t been able to contact anyone beyond the capital since mid-afternoon. My men are exhausted, and their vaunted heavy weapons are nearly out of ammunition. There’s nothing more we can do here except die,” she said, “and I won’t waste the lives of good soldiers on a lost cause.”
Athelstane nodded curtly to her officers and checked her chronometer. “It’s almost time to check in with Holmgang,” she said. “I was going to request that they return to Charys and cover our withdrawal, and then they can bombard the starport and the capital with everything they’ve got. We can at least make the enemy pay for massing so many of their troops in one place.”
She led her officers down off the stage and approached the Wolf Guard. “Now that you’re here, I could use your help convincing the Holmgang to support the withdrawal plan.” As the general drew closer, her eyes narrowed and she studied Sternmark’s face closely. “What’s happened to you?” she said with a curious scowl. “There’s something wrong with your eyes—”
“I cannot let you do this.” The Wolf Guard’s voice was little more than a deep, liquid growl. Redclaw fell with a discordant clang to the war room floor as a wave of agony swept over Sternmark. “Better death than this.”
His words gave way to a terrible howl. Sternmark pressed his hands to his face and felt the bones beneath his skin start to shift.
“Blessed Emperor!” Athelstane cried. “He’s suffering some kind of attack.” She turned to her men. “Go and fetch a priest, quickly!”
“It is too late for priest
s!” the Wolf Guard snarled. Sternmark’s head came up, his face distended into a toothy snout. Powerful jaws gaped at the stunned general and her staff. “Cursed!” he howled. “I am cursed!”
Guardsmen screamed at Sternmark’s bestial transformation and brought up their guns. Bolts of energy detonated harmlessly against the Wolf Guard’s Terminator armour.
Sternmark’s body moved with pure, animal instinct, surging forward and smashing two of the Guardsmen across the room with blows from his powerful fists. Bones shattered. Men cried in mortal pain, and the scent of blood hung in the air.
Lady Commander Athelstane uttered a blistering curse and reached for the hellpistol at her hip. She fumbled open the holster flap and pulled the weapon free just as the Wulfen’s teeth closed around her throat.
Halfway across the Charys star system the Holmgang and her escorts drifted silently through the icy void. For weeks the battle-barge had played a deadly game of cat and mouse with Chaos ships in the asteroid field at the system’s edge, but Holmgang’s wily master reversed his course and slipped unnoticed through the enemy cordon. Since then the Space Wolf ships had been gliding on a parabolic course back towards the embattled agri-world, growing closer with every passing day.
The ship’s master and his lieutenants gathered at Holmgang’s signals room and eyed the minutes ticking away on the chronometer set above the vox station. Tripwire required at least three command officers present to confirm receipt of the scheduled signal. There could be no room for error with the fate of an Imperial world hanging in the balance.
The minutes ticked away. No one spoke. The silence in the signals room was broken only by the quiet hum of the vox-units and the ghostly whisper of static. At the appointed time the officers raised their heads to the crackling vox-speaker and listened.
They waited while the seconds passed, and their faces turned cold and grim. A full minute passed, and then another, until finally the ship’s master could wait no more. With solemn ceremony he stretched out his hand and pressed a switch. The vox-unit fell silent.
[Space Wolf 06] - Wolf's Honour Page 26
