‘Skítja,’ he spat. ‘This is going to–’
He plummeted like a stone, barely registering the explosion above him as two of the gunships collided with the stricken drop-ship and the sky was lit with a vast, thundering ball of igniting fuel and ammunition.
‘–hurt.’
He hit the rock before rolling away from the impact and skidding across the ice. Both knees blazed with pain, even protected by his power armour, and he felt a sharp, hot whipcrack run up his compressed spine.
He lay immobile for a second, dazed from the heavy impact. Then his vision cleared. Grimacing, Redpelt hauled himself to his feet, ignoring the warning runes indicating muscle damage and a fractured tibia.
Dimly, he was aware he should be paying attention to something else.
‘Run, you stupid bastard!’ voxed Helfist from somewhere close by.
Then he realised what it was. He broke into an agonised sprint, tearing across the rock as the ball of fire in the sky swung down to his position. The broken drop-ship, directionless and ripped open by the gunship collisions, was slewing back to earth again, streaming flames like an earth-bound comet as its engines gave up the fight to stay airborne.
He ran. He ran like a raging skeiskre, pumping his damaged limbs, feeling endorphins pulse through his battered frame.
Russ, you’re slow.
There was a crunching, earth-shaking boom as the metal shell thudded into the rock behind him, crushing any residual survivors within and spraying slivers of red-hot metal across the whole battlefield. The ruined ship kept rolling, toppling like a downed beast on the plains, roaring in its death-throes and igniting fresh explosions within its bulbous carcass before it finally, grindingly, painfully, came to rest.
Only then did Redpelt stop and turn, looking over the devastation he’d triggered, aware that his second heart had kicked in and was hammering hard. Pain-deadeners had started work as his stressed bones began to re-knit, but the strongest drive within him was the inner wolf, raging and tearing. He felt the rush of the kill-urge sweep over him, a heady mix of adrenalin and gene-rage.
‘Fenrys!’ he roared, whirling his chainsword in a huge loop around his head, glorying in his triumph. ‘Hjolda!’
Then there was another presence at his side. Helfist slapped him hard on the back, laughing harshly over the comm.
‘Morkai’s arse, you’re as thick as an ungur,’ he said, giving away the wolf-rage within him too. Even through his armour, Redpelt could pick up the kill-pheromones spiking the air. ‘Tough as one, too.’
Then Brakk was there too, and the rest of the pack, looming against the burning shell. The las-fire had ceased. No Spireguard had lived to see the drop-ship come down, and the surviving gunships were still coming back round for another attack run.
‘Next time just use grenades,’ the Wolf Guard growled irritably. ‘Next target’s north, and they’ve established a bridgehead. Move out.’
The pack broke into a run instantly, loping across the shattered rock as one, sweeping over it like a grey fluid sliding into the shadows. Power fists were shut down and chainblades were stilled, and once more the Claws drifted into the ghost-like stealth that was the terrifying mirror of their battle-rage.
By the time the gunships came back, flying low over the dropsite, all that remained on it were the guttering flames, the twisted metal, and the already frozen corpses of those unwary enough to bring war to the world of the Wolves.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Auries Fuerza of the pavoni cult-discipline leaned back against the bulkhead, flexing his pain-drenched limbs. He’d seen death staring at him, the final embrace of the flesh-change, and it had been horrifying. Even now, having finally thrown off the horrors of warp-delirium, he could feel his hearts labour, thumping against his ravaged ribcage like animals trying to claw their way out. How long had he been out cold? Minutes? Hours? Days? In the warp, it was always hard to tell.
Transportation through the malignant currents of the aether was physically demanding at the best of times, but to make a leap at such notice and under such conditions was both painful and dangerous. When he’d seen the Dog vessel hurtle toward his stricken ship, he’d only had seconds to make the decision. Thankfully, the preparations for evacuation had already been made due to the heavy fire the Illusion of Certainty had taken. Even so, scrying new warp-vectors in the middle of a ferocious void-battle had been far from trivial.
Fuerza could take a certain level of pride that he’d not sent himself directly into the structure of the recipient ship. The fact he was breathing air and not metal struck him as more proof that the pattern of the universe had a design, and one that included him in it.
Only barely, though. His palms had been stripped of skin and now shone like glossy sides of meat in the dark. His breath came in sharp, rattling gasps, and under his mask he could feel the damage done to his face.
There had been four rubricae with him in the warp bubble, but only one had made it intact. Two must have been lost in the jump, ripped apart by the capricious currents of the Ocean. A third had materialised within a heavy adamantium strut, and black metal rods impaled the soulless creature fast. Flickers of warp residue ran across its broken breastplate, still trying to knit the form of the Thousand Sons warrior back together.
It was hopeless. A rubricae was one of the toughest mobile structures in the galaxy, immune to pain and despair, able to keep operating even after massive structural damage, but being fused with the hull of a loyalist interceptor had destroyed the integrity of the Traitor Marine’s armour-shell. As Fuerza watched, too weak to intervene, the pale light in the broken rubricae’s helm guttered and died. The spirit of the warrior, such as it was, had failed.
Fuerza felt a profound sadness, an echo of psychic pain within his physical agony.
So few. Now one fewer.
He turned, slowly and with spasms of torment shooting up his compressed spine, to face the survivor. It stood impassively, unmoving. It didn’t betray the slightest interest in the fate of its comrades. Not for the first time, Fuerza wondered what kind of attenuated existence the rubricae had. Did they see the runes running across their helm-displays like he did? Did speech register with them as it did with mortal men?
Impossible to tell. Ahriman, curse his black name, had made them as cold and unfeeling as the graven images of Neiumas Tertius.
For all that, it was an impressive statue. Huge and dominating in its sapphire and bronze battle plate, the rubricae still held the ornate bolter it had carried into battle on Prospero as a living, breathing Space Marine. Its breastplate displayed the delicate images of serpents and dragons, of constellations and astrological symbols, of obscure sigils and ancient glyphs of power, each a piece of stunning artistry.
The images changed. Fuerza didn’t know how, or even notice when, but they were rarely constant for long. The only thing that remained was the Eye, the one symbol that they wore at all times.
‘So, brother,’ Fuerza croaked, looking around him warily, feeling the blood run down his chin and over his damaged chest. ‘What shall we make of this?’
The two of them had rematerialised in a dark corridor that stretched into shadow in either direction, Fuerza slumped against the wall, the rubricae standing. The walls were formed of exposed machinery and pipework, unadorned and brutal. The floor was a metal mesh, the ceiling a morass of power cables, coolant tubes and boxy life support modules. It was dark and almost freezing.
Fuerza guessed they were down in the lower levels, since the rumble of the engines felt close. The noise of the warp drives sounded healthy enough, but even in his critical state Fuerza was enough of an empath to detect the hurt the vessel’s machine-spirit had suffered. From far above them, there were faint cries, and heavy, resounding crashes. The crew was doing its best to keep the ship from coming apart.
‘We’re in the warp,’ mused Fuerza, licking his dry, cracked lips. ‘For all we know, this is the only ship that escaped Aphael’s blockade.’
He looked up at the helm of the rubricae, watching the way the polished ceramite of its crest caught the faint interior light and turned it into a thing of beauty.
‘A Wolves vessel,’ he continued, trying to construct a mental picture of how the ship would be laid out. ‘There may be many of them on board.’
He smiled, suppressing the coughing-up of more blood, and laid a trusting hand on the rubricae’s vambrace.
‘No matter, my brother,’ he said. ‘I can recover from these wounds. You will be my protector in the days to come. By the time this ship leaves the embrace of the Ocean, we will be the only living souls within it.’
For three days, the landings in the mountains of Asaheim continued. For three days, the hunting packs disrupted and burned them, launching attack after attack across the ice. For three days, they racked up victories, preventing permanent footholds, scouring the rock clean of the taint of the invader. Many drop-ships were destroyed before landing by clusters of Long Fangs, more were knocked out soon afterwards by the roaming packs.
Despite all of this, the invaders succeeded in establishing bridgeheads. Time wore on, and the Wolves were faced with ever more of the enemy. They could not be everywhere at once, and the battles became fiercer and more protracted. The Thousand Sons established enduring positions at nine points in the mountain ranges around the Fang, landing ever more men and materiel, gradually constructing the stranglehold from which the main assault would be launched.
As dawn broke over the Fang on the fourth day, the fortress was ringed with fire. Oily black columns, generated by promethium spills that would burn even on the ice, formed a vast, kilometres-wide circle across the mountain chain. The leaguer was closing, forged by the sacrifice of thousands of invading soldiers, each one of their deaths buying space for another drop-ship to land, another lascannon to be unloaded, another tank to rumble down the embarkation ramps.
Greyloc’s Thunderhawk, the Vragnek, touched down in the Valgard, swooping hard under the umbrella of exploding plasma where the void shields still resisted the constant orbital bombardment. As it came to rest on the rock floor of the hangar, the crew-bay doors slammed down and the Wolf Lord himself strode back into the Aett, followed by his Terminator-clad retinue. Wyrmblade was there to meet him.
Greyloc’s armour was scorched black across one side and streaked with dried blood. A chunk had been knocked out of his right shoulder-guard, scarring the face of the rune Trysk. His wolfclaws were still fizzing with residual energy, and the crust of gore on his wrists showed that they’d been in heavy use.
‘Good hunting?’ asked Wyrmblade, looking at the signs of battle with approval.
Greyloc removed his helm with a sucking hiss and locked it under his arm. His white eyes burned coldly.
‘Too many of them,’ he muttered, striding past Wyrmblade, forcing the Wolf Priest to turn to keep up with him. ‘We turn the ice red, but they keep landing.’
Wyrmblade nodded.
‘The first rank of drop-ships were to keep us busy. They’ve landed heavy carriers further out. Traitor Marine squads now march with the mortals.’
Greyloc spat a gobbet of blood-flecked saliva and shook his head.
‘Bones of Russ, Thar,’ he hissed. ‘I wanted nothing more than to keep fighting. I could have stayed out on the ice until my claws were rending their cold, dead bones.’
He looked into the Wolf Priest’s eyes, and there was ferocity in his lean face.
‘I wanted nothing more. Do you understand?’
Wyrmblade looked back carefully, his old eyes scanning for the tell-tale signs. He scrutinised long, paying particular attention to the white irises.
‘Righteous rage, brother,’ he said at last, clapping him firmly on the shoulder. ‘As it should be.’
Greyloc grunted, hiding his relief badly, and shook himself from the Wolf Priest’s grip.
‘Then tell me.’
‘We’re surrounded,’ said Wyrmblade. He spoke bluntly, factually. ‘The net’s closed. If you leave the packs out there, they’ll be picked off. There are sorcerers in the ranks of the enemy now, and we don’t have the Rune Priests to counter them.’
‘They won’t be called back easily.’
‘Then they’ll die. I can show you the auspex scans.’
Greyloc remained silent, grimly weighing up the options.
‘We’re hunters, Thar,’ he said eventually. The harsh edge had left his voice as the kill-urge receded. ‘We pursue. They’ve got us cornered. This fighting won’t suit the Claws.’
Wyrmblade smiled, and his mouth hooked like a knife-wound in his old, wrinkled face. ‘Then we’ll learn a new way. Isn’t that what you’re always saying?’
‘I had a vision for it. The Tempering is–’
‘They’ll learn. You have to lead them.’
Greyloc looked at Wyrmblade coldly. His thoughts were evident across his lupine face, and he didn’t bother to hide them.
They do not trust me. I am the White Wolf, the ghost, the bloodless one. They sense what I wish to do, how I wish to transform us all.
‘Call the packs back,’ he growled, rolling his head wearily from side to side, stretching the muscles that had been combat-tense for days on end. ‘We’ll meet the attack here. If nothing else, the passage of the Gates will make them bleed.’
The open sky was streaked with the dirty trails of incoming shell-fire. The enemy had managed to establish firing positions a few kilometres east of Rossek’s hold-out, and now spearheads had begun to advance out of them.
‘Rojk!’ he bellowed into the comm. ‘Where’s that damned heavy support?’
There was a fizz of static in his earpiece. Either short-range comms were being jammed, or Torgrim Rojk’s Long Fang squad had been forced out of combat. In either case, things were getting difficult.
Rossek’s squad had assaulted six dropsites during the night, destroying all of them utterly before moving on. In four days his ten Grey Hunters had yet to take a casualty despite slaughtering huge numbers of enemy troops. Only gradually had the truth become apparent. The first wave of landings had been fodder – poorly trained and badly equipped conscripts sent to absorb the fury of the Wolves while the real soldiers were landed further out. The mountains were now crawling with enemy squads. Hundreds of them.
Like the one they were closing in on now.
‘Frar, Scarjaw,’ he hissed over the mission channel. ‘Go wide.’
The two Grey Hunters responded instantly, breaking left from the squad and sweeping up the slope of valley. Rossek’s pack had pushed far down a long, narrow cleft in the mountains, using the impenetrable rock cliffs on either side to mask their approach. The broken boulders, some the size of Rhinos, gave excellent cover. At the far end of the valley, only a few hundred metres distant, the enemy was making its advance.
Two tanks were grinding their way toward Rossek’s position, guarding a phalanx of marching troops in their wake. The incoming fire was heavy and accurate, shattering the boulders in front of them and sending shards spinning into the air. The vehicles had an unusual pattern. Leman Russ chassis, by the look of them, with autocannons and heavy bolters. They looked like the Chapter’s own Exterminators. Infantry killers.
‘Eriksson, Vre,’ Rossek hissed.
Two more Grey Hunters peeled right, stooping low as they weaved between the shoulders of rock, leaving seven of the pack still in cover on the valley floor.
A huge boulder cracked open several metres to Rossek’s right, blasted apart by a long-range mortar. Heavy bolter-fire from the tanks ran along the valley floor in rows, creeping ever closer to the Wolves’ position.
Rossek checked his helm locator, watching as his troops took up optimal positions.
‘Now,’ he snarled.
The Grey Hunters on the flanks broke cover and raced toward the enemy lines, sweeping across the broken terrain like bolting konungur. They moved incredibly quickly, bounding with assurance across the treacherous landscape. Their boltguns opened up, sl
amming into the flanks of the swaying tanks and exploding across the front ranks of the infantry beyond.
Rossek watched as the tank-mounted heavy bolters swivelled to meet the flank threats, holding for the few seconds needed to draw fire from the front aspect, then clenched his fist tight.
‘Hjolda!’ he roared, leaping from cover.
His Hunters burst out with him, roaring defiance and letting their pelts stream out from their armour. The time for stealth had passed, and now speed took its place.
Incoming bolter rounds flew past Rossek’s shoulder as he weaved toward his destination, his animal senses keeping him one step ahead of the mortals’ reactions. He fired back from the waist – short, sharp bursts of twin-streamed fire from the storm bolter held in his right hand. As he closed on the first tank, he thumbed his chainfist into whirring, snarling life.
The vehicles were powerful but slow, hindered by the uneven terrain. The Wolves leapt and ducked as they raced toward the enemy. Despite their huge suits of power-armour, they went fluidly, fast and low.
Rossek reached the first tank, leaping high on to its roof, boosted by his armour-servos. The turret whirled to face him, but he jammed his chainfist into the metal, carving it open and sending sparks spinning.
Two Hunters pounced on to the other one, with the rest of the squad sweeping past and laying into the supporting infantry. The heavy bark of bolter-fire quickly drowned out the cracks of returning las-beams.
In a single movement, Rossek mag-locked his bolter, grabbed a krak grenade and hurled it into the gap he’d opened in the turret armour, before leaping from the roof through a hail of return fire. The tank’s heavy bolters tracked after him, only to be ripped apart by the muffled boom of the exploding grenade. The tank rocked on its tracks, its armoured panels bulging from within as the explosions blossomed.
Then the other tank blew up, knocked from its tracks when its fuel tanks were breached. Black smoke boiled up from the twin cracked hulls, rolling out of the shattered innards.
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