Within the hour the orders were transmitted to the rest of the fleet. Thrusters glowed to angry life, and the Space Wolf ships put on speed. Belowdecks, Iron Priests garbed themselves in leaden robes and began the Rites of Atomic Redemption, unlocking the great seals that would waken the ship’s cyclonic torpedoes. There was little time to waste.
The Holmgang would reach Charys in less than four hours.
Bulveye’s plan was simple and direct. After issuing a few curt commands to Torvald, the Rune Priest left the cavern to set events in motion. Then there was nothing left to do but wait.
The Wolves passed the time in the same way as their ancestors of old, telling tales of the campaigns they had fought and the foes they had bested. Bulveye and his warriors spoke of the Great Crusade and the battles they had fought alongside Leman Russ. Their stories were told in the old tongue of Fenris, shaped in the chanting cadences of the ancient sagas. Ragnar learned of lost civilisations and long-dead races. Bulveye was a gifted storyteller, and painted vivid tales of fiery combat drops and titanic land battles, of desperate struggles and heroic stands fought for the sake of a young and hopeful Imperium.
They spoke of Russ himself, not the blessed Primarch Russ, but the black haired, flame eyed warrior who was more wolf than man. They spoke of his rough manner and intemperate heart, of his wild oaths and petty rivalries, of his melancholy nature and his merciless rage. “He drove us all to distraction,” Bulveye said ruefully. “I remember one time when he’d got Horus so worked up I thought they were going to come to blows. The Allfather got between them, and Leman punched him full in the jaw.”
Ragnar’s eyes widened. “What happened then?”
Bulveye laughed. “The Allfather hit Leman so hard he was unconscious for a month. Spent the rest of the campaign flat on his back aboard the battle-barge.”
One of Bulveye’s pack leaders, a warrior named Dagmar, shook his head and chuckled. “That was the quietest month we ever had,” he said, and his companions laughed along with him.
“Leman didn’t speak to the Allfather for almost a year, but eventually they came around,” the Wolf Lord said with a grin. “That was how they were, like a jarl and his sons, always squabbling about one thing or another, but they never forgot the ties of blood and kin.” Bulveye paused, and his smile faded. “Well, not until the end.”
Torin leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. His eyes shone yellow in the cold firelight, and there was a troubled look on his face. “The legends say that Russ sent you into the warp to finish what was begun back on Prospero.”
“Is that so?” Bulveye replied conversationally, but there was a guarded look in his blue eyes. “That sounds like an interesting story. You will have to tell it to me sometime.”
Silence fell around the fire. Ragnar glanced sidelong at the Wolf Lord. “You came to this world because Torvald cast the runes and drew the Spear,” he said. “What were you expecting to find?”
The Wolf Lord considered the young Space Wolf for a long moment. “You’ve already answered the question,” he said carefully. “I came looking for the spear, and now you’ve helped me find it.”
“It wasn’t just the spear, though, was it?” Ragnar said. “You had no idea that Russ has been lost for ten thousand years, and that he’d left his spear behind on Garm. You expected him to be here.”
Bulveye gave Ragnar a wolfish smile. “Leman is no more lost than we were,” he replied. “I don’t know where he’s gone, but I do know this: he swore an oath to us a very long time ago, and one day he will keep it.”
“How can you be so sure?” Torin asked.
The Wolf Lord chuckled. “Because, little brother, Leman of the Russ was a scoundrel and an axe-bitten fool at times, but he always kept his word, regardless of the cost.” Bulveye held out his right hand. “When last we met, he clasped my wrist and swore that one day we would meet again.” The Wolf Lord lowered his arm and stared into the ghostly flames. For a fleeting instant Ragnar saw the terrible weariness once again in the warrior’s blue eyes. “In time, that day will come.”
A faint clatter of armour drew the attention of the assembled warriors. Torvald had returned to the cavern, and now strode quickly into the firelight. “It’s done,” he said curtly, returning to his bench.
Ragnar scowled at the cold, blue flames. “How can you be sure the Thousand Sons will take the bait?”
“Because we’ve been a dagger in their side for ten millennia,” Torvald answered. “Their sorcerers are always sniffing at our trail, waiting for the slightest mistake that will give our presence away. Now I’ve given them one. I allowed the wards concealing the camp to go out, for the briefest instant, before energising them again.”
“But how can you be certain they noticed the lapse?” Ragnar persisted.
The Rune Priest let out a snort. “Who do you think we’re fighting here, little brother? Of course they noticed!”
“And they will send every warrior and daemon they can muster,” Bulveye added.
“Then why are we still here?” the young Space Wolf asked in exasperation.
“Why, to fight them, of course,” Bulveye answered. “If their warband arrives and finds the camp deserted, they’ll suspect a trick and return to the city as quickly as they can.” The Wolf Lord raised his ebon axe and laid it across his knees. “So, we’ll let them spring their trap, and keep the devils busy while you fight your way into the temple and get back Russ’s spear.”
The news stunned Ragnar. He glanced quickly at Haegr and Torin, noting their looks of shock. He’d expected that Bulveye and his more experienced warriors would claim the privilege of confronting Madox and reclaiming the artefact. “This is a great honour, lord,” he managed to say.
“It’s nothing of the kind,” Bulveye replied irritably. “I’d like nothing better than to tear Madox apart with my bare hands, but if I’m not seen here with my troops the enemy might still see through our ploy.” He stared appraisingly at Ragnar and his companions. “As far as we can tell, Madox doesn’t know any of you are here. That’s why you’re staying in this cave until the attack is well begun.”
Ragnar’s brain was whirling trying to puzzle out the hidden elements of the Wolf Lord’s deceptively simple plan. “If we’re still here when the attack begins, how in Morkai’s name are we supposed to reach the city undetected?”
The Wolf Lord’s eyes glittered with cold amusement. “By the Allfather, you ask more questions than a Blood Claw!” he said. “Suffice to say that we’ve got a few secrets that not even the Thousand Sons suspect.” He beckoned to Sigurd. “Gather your charges, priest, and bring them here,” he commanded. “We will not have much longer to wait.”
Sigurd nodded silently and left to find Harald and his packmates. After he had gone, the Wolf Lord turned back to his guests with a faint smile. “Now, little brothers, speak to us of distant Fenris. Tell us tales of our home.”
Ragnar was taken aback by the sudden request. He’d never considered himself a storyteller, and as he felt the eyes of Bulveye and his pack leaders focus on him, his mind went utterly blank. An awkward silence hung in the air as the young Space Wolf groped for something worthwhile to say, but then Torin drew a deep breath and began to speak. At first his voice was rough and awkward, tainted by the beast inside him, but as he spoke of the tall cliffs and crashing salt waves of the islands, a change came over him. His tone grew stronger and more polished, falling into the smooth cadences of a skald, and the old warriors listened, rapt, as he told them of all that had transpired since the days of the Heresy.
Bulveye and the warriors were shocked to hear of all the changes that had befallen the Imperium in their absence. Their expressions turned grave as they heard how their glorious Legion had been reduced to a mere Chapter in the wake of Horus’s rebellion, and they glanced thoughtfully at one another when they learned of Russ’s departure. But the tales that gripped the warriors most of all had nothing to do with wars or strife. They wanted to hear of their homewo
rld, of the heaving seas and the tall mountains, of the Time of Ice and the Time of Fire. They asked how the fishing was off the Kraken Isles, of which clans had prospered and which had disappeared over the course of the centuries. They asked after villages and peoples that had vanished ages past, of legends that no one could now recall. Ragnar listened and watched the old Wolves, and saw the sense of loss etched on their faces.
Before long Sigurd returned, leading a shuffling pack of wary beasts that had once been men. Ragnar watched them gather around the priest a respectful distance from the fire, and heard the priest speaking to them in low, soothing tones. Inquisitor Volt and Gabriella had retreated from the circle, and sat cross-legged on a pile of rugs at the far end of the cavern. The Navigator’s head was bowed and her eyes were tightly shut. For a moment, he considered going to her, but then he remembered the look of horror on her face when she’d glimpsed the Wulfen inside him. We are all of us forsaken, he realised bitterly. All of us have lost our way.
As Torin spun his tales, Haegr ran his wide hands over his whiskered face and glowered into the fire for some time. After a while he reached a decision and began rummaging quietly through the field bags attached to his waist. Slowly, carefully, he drew out a squat cylinder the size of a melta bomb and cradled it in his lap. Then he reached over his shoulder and drew forth his great ale horn.
Ragnar faintly heard the hiss of escaping air and thought nothing of it at first. Then he noticed a palpable change among the warriors sitting around the fire. The old Wolves were leaning forward, their expressions intent. Even Lord Bulveye had stopped listening to Torin and was watching Haegr’s every move.
By this point Torin had noted the change as well, and his story came to a halt. Haegr, meanwhile, set the empty cylinder on the stone floor and started to raise the foaming horn to his lips.
“Is that ale?” asked Dagmar, licking his lips. His voice sounded almost reverent.
“Aye,” Haegr replied with a broad grin. “Good, brown Iron Islands ale, tapped from the kegs in the Fang’s deep cellars,” he said proudly. “I’ve been saving this one for a special occasion, and this seems like the time! Bringing it all the way from Fenris was a saga all by itself, I can tell you.” He raised the horn to the warriors. “Skoal!”
“We haven’t had a drop of ale in six thousand years,” Bulveye mused, eyeing the ale horn appreciatively.
“Six thousand three hundred and twenty-two years, eighteen days, six hours and twenty-one minutes,” Dagmar said, “give or take.”
Haegr froze, the rim of the horn touching his lips. His eyes flicked from one thirsty face to the next. “Well, I suppose I could offer you a taste,” he said reluctantly, “just a swallow, you understand—”
“That’s fine!” Bulveye said, reaching eagerly for the horn. Prying it loose from Haegr’s fingers, he raised it high. “Drink deep, lads! The next taste we get will be in the Halls of Russ! Skoal!”
“Skoal!” the warriors cried, rising from their benches and crowding around their lord. Haegr watched the frenzy with a stricken grin frozen on his face.
Muffled thunder rolled down the winding tunnel, followed by the faint howl of wolves. Bulveye and the warriors froze, their celebrations forgotten. Then came another rumble, this one staccato and sharp edged, like the hammering of a heavy bolter.
“It has begun,” the Wolf Lord said.
NINETEEN
The Forlorn Hope
Sven crouched low and ran along the trench line, clambering over the twisted bodies of Guardsmen as bolter and missile fire crashed into the firing position he’d just left. Rebel artillery continued to fall, unleashing a storm of shrapnel and churning the earth behind the Imperial lines. The blasts strobed angrily in the darkness, painting the shattered fortifications in lurid colours and long, jagged shadows.
The Grey Hunter worked his way along the trench for a dozen metres, and then popped up and swept his bolter across the crowded killing ground.
The massed assaults by mobs of rebel troops had finally ground to a halt, and scattered platoons of infantry and bands of howling mutants crept their way forward metre by metre over the bodies of their fallen cohorts. Sven caught a small squad of traitors just as they rose from a smoking shell-hole and cut them down with a one-handed burst from his bolt-gun. Twelve rounds left, he thought, keeping the count in his head as he ducked to avoid the storm of return fire that clawed at the battered parapet.
Another salvo of shells crashed into Sven’s section of the line, nearly pitching him forward onto his face and showering him with dirt and broken ferrocrete. The Space Wolf heard a fierce oath further down the corpse-filled trench, and saw a hulking, armoured figure on his knees, one hand pressed to the side of his neck. Teeth bared, the young Grey Hunter scrambled over to the wounded Space Wolf.
It was Gunnar, one of the company’s Long Fang pack leaders. Bright red blood streamed between the old Wolfs fingers and spattered his dirt covered breastplate. Sven’s eyes widened at the sight. “How badly are you hurt, brother?” he asked, shouting over the roar of enemy shells.
Gunnar grimaced and spat a stream of blood onto the ground. “I’ve had worse,” he grated, showing red-stained fangs. A krak missile slammed into the parapet directly over their heads, silhouetting their faces in yellow and orange. Both Wolves ducked as more fragments hissed over their heads. “I don’t think they like us very much,” Gunnar observed.
Sven couldn’t help but grin. “Must have been something I said,” he quipped. “Where is the rest of your pack?”
“Thorin and Mikkal are fifteen metres back that way,” the pack leader said, jerking his head in the direction of the trench line to his left. “I don’t know where Ivo or Jan got off to, but they’d best hope the enemy finds them before I do!”
Sven shook his head. “I’ve lost track of Jurgen and Bors as well,” he said. “One minute they were with me, and the next…”
Gunnar nodded. “I know,” he replied, tentatively pulling his hand from the wound in his neck. “I thought Ivo and Jan might have heard the withdrawal order and pulled back. My vox isn’t working.”
“Neither is mine,” Sven admitted. “Not a single thing is going right, if you ask me.”
“Have you seen Sternmark?”
“He went charging off to the command bunker two hours ago and I haven’t seen him since,” Sven answered.
The Long Fang growled deep in his throat, and then rose above the parapet and fired off a quick burst. Screams echoed up from the killing ground. “Now would be a good time for Berek to get off his death bed and sort things out,” Gunnar said as he dropped back into cover.
“Not likely,” Sven muttered. He readied his bolter and waited for the storm of return fire to pass. Movement from further down the trench caught his eye. “Someone’s coming,” he said, pointing at the armoured figure swiftly working its way towards the two Wolves.
Gunnar peered warily at the approaching figure. “That’s Silvertongue,” he noted. “Maybe now we’ll get some damned answers.”
The skald looked in no better shape than they were. Streaks of blood and soot covered his long face, and shallow craters across his breastplate and pauldrons showed the impact of heavy calibre shells. “Have either of you seen Sternmark?” he asked as he reached the two Wolves.
Sven and Gunnar shared a sidelong look. “We were hoping you had,” the Long Fang admitted.
“Not since he headed off towards the command bunker,” the skald replied. “His Wolf Guard is holding about a kilometre of the trench line back behind me, but I haven’t been able to find anyone else besides you two.”
A rocket made a banshee wail right over the Wolves’ heads, nearly close enough for Sven to reach out and touch it. “There’s something strange going on,” the Grey Hunter yelled. “What’s happened to the withdrawal? I thought we were pulling back to the ships?”
“Athelstane was supposed to give the order more than an hour ago,” Silvertongue replied. “Some of the Guard units have
already pulled back—”
“Pulled back?” Gunnar spat. “They’re retreating all along the line! If we don’t do something soon this is going to turn into a rout!”
As ill fate would have it, screams and shouts of terror rang out along the Imperial line. In the fiery light of the rebel bombardment Sven caught glimpses of dreadful, sinuous forms rearing up from the trenches and scattering torn pieces of meat that moments before had been men.
“Morkai’s teeth!” the Grey Hunter cried. “The wards! The bloody wards have fallen!”
Battered, reeling figures were scrambling and crawling out of the trenches, firing wildly at the unholy monsters that had appeared in their midst. The Guardsmen had finally reached their breaking point, pushed past the point of endurance after a long day of blood, steel and flame.
Then, a dreadful, rolling drumbeat rattled from the depths of the killing ground. Fleeing soldiers staggered or spun about, torn by precise bursts of mass-reactive shells.
The three Wolves eyed one another grimly. They knew that sound and what it portended.
Sven popped up over the parapet and searched for targets. Down in the killing zone marched a thin line of figures cased in blue and gold.
The Thousand Sons strode like iron gods past the cowering rebel troops. Eldritch fires blazed from the oculars of their ornate helms and leaked from the joins in their ancient armour, and their rune-etched weapons spat streams of death at the fleeing Guardsmen.
Breathing an oath to the Allfather, Sven laid his sights on one of the advancing warriors and fired a quick burst. Detonations crackled along the foe-man’s breastplate and blew a fist-sized hole through its helmet. The Chaos Marine staggered, fires licking from the wound, but the warrior brought its weapon around and returned fire in the same motion.
A stream of cursed shells dug craters from the parapet, and burst along Sven’s right pauldron. With a blistering curse, he ducked back into cover, absently smearing blood from a shrapnel wound across his cheek with the back of one hand.
[Space Wolf 06] - Wolf's Honour Page 27
