Battle Of The Fang

by Chris Wraight

  The Land Raider pulled clear, riding out the storm of fire as it picked up speed. Rossek dragged himself to his knees, his ravaged body working hard against the damaged servos of his armour. Only then did clarity begin to return, some sense of what had just happened.

  I killed them.

  Then the amber-eyed wolf within him howled, not with battle-lust or glory, but with the horror of grief.

  Crewman Reri Urfangborn liked the void. Even when the ship was in the strange hiatus of warp travel with all its sickness and nausea, being a crew member on an Adeptus Astartes vessel was a step up from the average life of a mortal within the Imperium. He knew this because he’d seen other worlds and witnessed the horrors and wonders of the galaxy first-hand. He’d seen hive-cities of metal and plascrete that reared their heads through acid atmospheres, enormous agri-combines plagued with dust and ceaseless labour, forgeworlds covered in continent-sized manufactorums, choked with oily smoke and riddled with pollution and disease.

  So, for all its trials, being stationed for a lifetime in the enginarium of the Nauro wasn’t a bad result. It was dark and cold, but then Fenris was too. It smelled bad most of the time, but after a few years you stopped noticing it. The kaerls were rough-spoken and didn’t think twice about landing a punch with a rifle-butt for sloppy work, but were humane enough beyond that – the current ship’s Master had even ordered distribution of demi-mjod, the heavily alcoholic imitation of the Sky Warriors’ sacred battle-stimulant, after the escape from the orbital blockade. That had been good. It had made everybody happier, despite the accidents afterwards.

  In the time since then, the work-rate had been punishing. It was hard to tell how much time had passed – the internal chronos were unreliable in the warp, and only the Navigator had any real sense of how long it had been since they’d reached the jump-point and powered up the warp drives. Certainly days, as least as Reri’s body measured it. The time had been filled more than was usual with work – he’d slept no more than a couple of hours in every cycle before being roused back for the next task. Something was making the commander drive the ship hard, squeezing out more speed even in the face of the damage they’d taken over Fenris.

  As a lower deck-worker, Reri had no real overview of the whole repair process, but he knew something about engines, and they were still in a bad way. There were leaks all over the place, and three of the four major fuel-conduits leading from the tanks to the drives had been ruptured beyond repair. Seven decks were entirely sealed off, making travel between the various levels difficult and time-consuming. That said, the faces of the senior crew had reverted from extreme anxiety to merely grim. Morkai was still hard on their heels, but perhaps not quite as close behind as he had been.

  Which was good news for Reri Urfangborn. He liked life, even more so since Anjia in the quartermaster’s section had finally shrugged off the worst of her diffidence and seemed genuinely willing to spend some time behind the bulkheads with him. He didn’t fool himself that there was much affection there – his hunched frame and grey skin, a product of his life’s work, didn’t exactly make him stand out as paragon of virility – but it was amazing what a near-death experience could do to soften a woman’s resistance.

  He slunk down the service tunnels expertly, conditioned by years of rattling around in the bowels of the Nauro. The light was weaker than normal. Whole sections were liable to be plunged into darkness when the powergrid took a sudden demand from the labouring engines, so he’d strapped two torches on either side of his rusty helmet. As he scuttled, he could hear his own breath, heavy and expectant. It had been a long time, and his palms were greasy with desire and engine lubricant.

  He rounded a corner, bent double in the cramped interior, careful to avoid the protruding clumps of exposed wiring. The metal around him vibrated constantly, driven by the heartbeat of the titanic engines above.

  Just as he reached his destination, a store-chamber buried deep within the labyrinth of service-tunnels, the faint strip-lights fizzed out.

  Reri grinned as he flicked his torches on. The twin beams were watery and flickering, but they exposed the way ahead well enough. He dropped down from the service tunnel into the chamber he’d picked, knocking aside a crate of worn-out bearings as he landed. He looked around, his torch-beams running over the chaotic pile of boxes on the metal-grid floor.

  Anjia was there already, slouched in front of a pile of old machine-parts, waiting for him in the dark, her head lowered. Reri saw her red hair flash in the torchlight and felt a pang of excitement ripple through him.

  ‘So you came,’ he said greedily, scampering over to her.

  She made no reply, and Reri hung back for a moment. Was she ill? Having second thoughts? He crouched down in front of her, gingerly extending his scrawny hand to her fringe. He hesitated, fingers trembling. She was sitting awkwardly.

  ‘Anjia?’

  He pulled the hair back, exposing her pale face. Where her eyes had been, there were black holes, running with lines of blood like tear-tracks.

  Reri screamed, leaping up and away, blundering wildly into the wall at his back.

  Except it wasn’t a wall. It was a metal giant, a monster with gilded power armour and a high, crested helm. The behemoth reached down and grabbed him by the shoulder, squeezing the flesh until the blood welled up.

  Reri kept screaming until the other one emerged. The second monster had long flowing robes draped over similarly ornate armour-curves, though he limped and stooped as if badly injured. His helm had been carved into the likeness of a cobra-head, surmounted by a hood of gold. The one with the robes gestured casually and Reri found he could no longer scream. His open mouth made no sound at all, even through the screaming continued inside his head. He struggled, more out of instinct than anything else. He’d begun to recognise the figures for what they were – some kind of debased Space Marine. That told him all he needed to know about his survival prospects.

  The one with the robe loomed up over him. Reri’s torchbeams flickered across the gold cobra-hood, sparkling from the jewels studded in the metal. Like some half-remembered nightmare, no sound would come out of his mouth. His facial muscles gradually relaxed, until his features took on an expression of mild boredom.

  The one with the robes said something to the silent one, but it wasn’t in a language Reri could understand. Then the golden helm turned to Reri.

  ‘I am glad you came,’ said cobra-mask, this time speaking in strangely accented Fenrisian. The voice was surprisingly soft. Kind, even. ‘Your friend did not survive this process. I assume that you are made of stronger stuff.’

  His two gauntlets rose. In one he carried a curved scalpel. In the other were two orbs, glistening with an unholy, pale-green light. Aside from the sheen of witchery, they looked a lot like eyes.

  Reri kept screaming. He kept screaming as the torchlights were doused, and he kept screaming as Master Fuerza went to work, and he kept screaming until the Thousand Sons sorcerer-lord had finished. Indeed, though his features remained slack and emotionless, locked into surface equanimity by magicks more powerful than he’d ever be able to comprehend, there was a part of Reri Urfangborn that would never stop screaming again.

  Helfist leaped high into the air, the dying light glinting from his armour, snow showering from his body in heavy slabs.

  ‘The Wolves are among you!’ he roared, breaking the long, patient silence.

  Five metres below him, the column of marching mortals spun round, staring up in comical terror. It had been foolish of them to march so close to the ledge, so enticingly swathed in deep drifts and well-situated for an ambush.

  Two metres to Helfist’s left, Redpelt burst from the snow, roaring with his own note of feral enthusiasm. The rest of the pack broke out with him, led by the bellowing shape of Sigrd Brakk, a looming nightmare of blade and armour in the gathering dusk. The Wolves dropped together like a landslide, crashing into the unprepared forces below.

  Las-fire cracked up at them as the mor
tals raced to withdraw, out from the shadow of the ledge and over the broken, treacherous ground beyond. Many stumbled, breaking ankles and wrists as they fell among the knife-sharp rocks. There must have been over a hundred of them, all well-armed, all well-armoured. For mortals.

  Helfist landed heavily, crushing the spine of a retreating trooper with his power fist, now crackling with its blistering disruption field. He swung round, taking another two clean off their feet, tearing open their masks and leaving them to choke on the thin air. With his free hand, he unleashed a stream of murderous bolter fire from his pistol, carving a corridor of blood through the close-packed soldiers, then bounded after it.

  ‘The wrath of Russ!’ Helfist whooped in kill-pleasure, picking his targets among the morass of turning, running figures.

  By then Redpelt and the rest of the pack were in the midst of them too, hacking and chopping, releasing short, precise bursts of bolt-rounds. Muzzle-flares and energy-fields lit up the gloom of the dusk, outshining the wayward las-beams as the enemy did its best to do more than expire under the onslaught.

  ‘Come to my blades, traitor scum!’ bellowed Redpelt, barrelling over the rocks as sure-footedly as a true wolf. ‘Feel my–’

  A lucky las-beam hit him full in the chest, upending him and sending him sprawling on his back.

  The Blood Claws roared with laughter as they swept past him, butchering the mortals beyond with a casual, chilling abandon.

  ‘Feel your what, brother?’ taunted Helfist, eviscerating a trooper with his bolt pistol before seizing another in his power fist to crush.

  Brokentooth chortled even as he whirled his chainsword through a whole cluster of terrified, crawling soldiers, the monomolecular edges slicing apart the plate armour as if it were fabric.

  Redpelt clambered back up heavily, emanating embarrassment and fury. Smoke rolled from the black burn on his breastplate.

  ‘Who in fekke was that?’ he roared, striding back into range, his booming voice rising above the screams and gasping sobs of the fleeing mortals. He sprayed bolt-pistol fire in vicious swathes, cutting down the soldiers by the dozen. ‘Try that again. Try that again.’

  Helfist grinned as he punched a soldier’s faceplate in and spun round to pick off more with his pistol.

  ‘I wish someone would,’ he said over the mission channel. ‘We’re running out of things to kill.’

  It was true. Brakk had cut a swathe through the enemy, killing with a precision and skill that surpassed even that of his Blood Claws. As ever, the Wolf Guard had remained grimly silent during the butchery, letting the young bloods get the savagery out of their system while he ensured no escapees. By the time he’d swept round to close on Helfist’s position, the terrain was strewn with quickly freezing bodies. The last of the standing enemy were cut down with disdain.

  ‘Enough,’ barked Brakk once the tide of murder-make had subsided. He slammed a fresh clip into his boltgun. ‘That’s completion. We’re heading back to the Aett.’

  Redpelt was still bristling.

  ‘Why?’ he spat, letting his chainsword continue to whirr. ‘We could fight all night.’

  Brakk snorted. Unlike the other packleaders he’d remained in standard format power armour rather than the bulkier Terminator plate, but somehow he still dominated the warriors around him.

  ‘We’re not staying out here for you to fall on your arse again,’ he snarled. ‘I’ve got recall orders from the Aett – we’re going back.’

  Helfist drew alongside Redpelt. His body was still flooded with endorphins. The blood-tally had been high, though the quality of kills had been low. There was still work to do, and being dragged back to the lair was insulting.

  ‘We should stay,’ he said, almost without meaning to.

  The pack fell silent. Brakk slowly turned to face him.

  ‘Really? And what piece of tactical genius makes you say that?’

  Helfist was stung by the sarcasm. He felt retorts running through his mind, sentiments he’d been bursting to express for months.

  Our Wolf Lord is too cautious. His blood does not run hot. He keeps us from glory, and makes us the whelps of the Chapter. It should have been Rossek. He would have thrown us at the enemy, unfurled our claws, given us the murder-make we need.

  But no words came. Brakk was an old Wolf Guard, adamantium-hard and broken over the anvil of countless campaigns. He was the apex predator, the undisputed master of the pack. The Blood Claws were free to mock that power when their youthful passions drove them, but they would never defy it.

  So Helfist bowed in submission, feeling his cheeks burn as he did so.

  ‘There are witches among the Traitors now,’ explained Brakk, addressing the whole pack. ‘So far from Sturmhjart’s wards, we’re vulnerable. So we fall back to where we can fight them better. The Jarl knows what he’s doing.’

  The pack stowed their weapons then, preparing for the loping run back to the Aett. One by one, keeping close together, they broke off, streaming across the terrain as the last of the dusk light faded.

  As Helfist made to follow, Brakk came up to him. He laid a gauntlet on the Blood Claw’s arm. Not gently.

  ‘I know how you feel,’ he said over a closed channel. ‘Your fire commends you, Kyr Aesvai. There will be more killing yet, and the glory you crave.’

  The grip tightened.

  ‘But question an order again,’ he growled, ‘and I’ll tear your cocky throat out.’

  Ahmuz Temekh looked over the chamber. He was deep in the heart of the Herumon, shielded from the void by kilometres of the ship’s structure. The room was nine metres in diameter and perfectly circular, its walls polished to a mirror-sheen. Even Temekh’s eyes, attuned to imperfection in all its forms, could see no flaw on the surface, the result of decades of labour by his neophytes before they’d even been told about the mission to Fenris. The floor was similarly smooth and reflective. The ceiling, some twenty metres distant, was decorated extensively. Zodiacal figures and the five Platonic Solids were picked out in lines of gold and amethyst, all arranged around the central device of the Eye.

  The Eye. When did that become our emblem? Did any of us think about what it says, what it means?

  Temekh looked upwards with his mind’s psi-sight, scrutinising the design. The images, though rendered beautifully, were not mere decoration – they were placed precisely at certain points in relation to the centre of the chamber, points determined by the harmonics they induced within the aether and the resonances that created.

  It was sometimes assumed by practicae and other neophytes that the immaterium and the materium had no precise relationship, and that what happened in one was only imperfectly mirrored in the other. That wasn’t true, despite how hazy those relations could appear to the uninitiated. The causal links were more constant and more concrete than any existing purely in the physical realm, though it look a lifetime of study to see how the infinite elements of the sundered universes harmonised with one another. Even master sorcerers needed symbols in order to make sense of those deep meanings; images were a part of that, as were names. So it was that the chamber also had words of power inscribed across the walls, scripted in atom-perfect lines by machinery long forgotten and forbidden in the mortal Imperium.

  In themselves, the names had little significance. Placed in the proper order, and treated with the proper reverence, the significance could be terrifying. It was all about relationships, connections, cause and effect.

  At the centre of the chamber was an altar, cast in bronze and gilded with more esoteric devices. Temekh stood before it then as he had done for the past twelve hours, motionless, hands clasped, head bowed, in an attitude of silent contemplation. He was high in the Enumerations, as close to disembodiment as he dared to go, mindful of the dangers even as he relished the opportunities.

  Above the altar, something was taking shape. Though his violet eyes were closed, Temekh could see the form of it growing. At present there was virtually nothing to take note of. A shimmer he
re, a flicker there. From time to time, the air would tremble, writhing as if in a heat-haze.

  The task was difficult, despite the long preparation, the painstaking researches, the sacrifices made. Once certain states had been achieved, once a certain degree of physicality had been relinquished, reassuming it was an arduous process. The universe had learned over the aeons to resist the imposition of pure psychic essence. The materium had a soul of its own – this, too, was not widely known – a generalised ability to defer incursions from the other side of the veil. If it had not, then the power of the daemonic would long since have run riot across the mortal galaxy.

  In order to do what his master wished, that power had to be neutralised, to be gently, carefully prised apart. Ahriman had once called it singing the universe to sleep. It was an apt description.

  At the memory of his old friend, Temekh felt his heart slowing, his pulse dropping to a faint beat every hour. The recollection helped him. The procedure was working.

  Above the altar, for a brief moment, a pupil flickered into being, deep as the pits of the void, ringed with red. Then it was gone, just an echo amid the other half-recognised shapes swimming above the bronze and gold.

  They seek you on Gangava, my lord, thought Temekh, letting a part of his mind play over the irony of it. As if you were any longer restricted to physical geometry. They do not know how powerful – and how weak – you have made yourself.

  There was a ripple in the warm air then, a backwash of something like irritation, the trivial inflection of some vast, magisterial being, still capable of being offended, still able to have its wounded pride pricked.

  Temekh reined his thoughts in. Concentration was required. It would be required for many days yet. Every material atom in the chamber would resist him, every law of physics would flex and struggle as it was violated. The materium could sense the enormous outrage he wished to perpetrate, and so it raged in still-potent fury.

  Be still, commanded Temekh, exerting his subtle power across the chamber silently. My voice is law in this place. My will is ascendant. I am here to do the bidding of my master. I am here to put you to sleep.