Battle Of The Fang

by Chris Wraight

  Bjorn grunted again. Even the smallest of his gestures produced some rumbling sound from deep within the arcane machine-body.

  What strength does the enemy possess?

  ‘Many Traitor Marines. Perhaps six hundred, although we killed several squads during the first landings and the approaches. Their mortal troops are, to all intents and purposes, inexhaustible. The armoured divisions far exceed anything we can field, though that will not avail them in the tunnels.’

  And there is no communication beyond Fenris?

  ‘None, lord,’ said Sturmhjart. ‘Our astropaths were killed by remote means. Local-space comms are jammed, and attempts to penetrate the barrier above us have failed.’

  What could do that?

  Sturmhjart looked uncomfortable.

  ‘The witches have many dark powers, lord,’ he said, unconvincingly. ‘Whatever the cause of it, we do not have the power to defeat it. Anything short of a full battle-fleet would be annihilated by the blockade above us. We are alone.’

  And the Great Wolf?

  ‘His thoughts are concentrated on Magnus, lord,’ said Wyrmblade. ‘If it occurs to him to make contact, it will not be beyond the powers of our enemy to make it seem as if all is well here. They drew him away by design, and would not have neglected to consider all the ways of keeping him away.’

  At that, Bjorn sank into thought. The Chamber fell silent, save for the distant, muffled sounds of clanging from far below. In the Jarlheim, preparations for invasion continued unabated.

  All eyes remained fixed on the Dreadnought. The veneration he was held in remained absolute, and none would speak until he did.

  They will make for the reactors, Bjorn said at last. The greater number of troops must be stationed at Borek’s Seal.

  ‘And what of the Hould?’ asked Wyrmblade.

  It cannot be defended. Too many tunnels. The Jarlheim must be held from the Fangthane.

  ‘That means dividing our forces,’ said Greyloc.

  Indeed. But we can cede neither objective. If the reactors are taken, then the Aett will be destroyed. If the Fangthane is breached, then no other part of the upper citadel can be defended. They are the two choke-points, the two places where a small army can stand against a larger one.

  ‘There are other considerations, lord,’ said Sturmhjart. ‘There are wards across this place. The mightiest were at the gates, but they are gone. For as long as even the lesser runes are defended, the power of the sorcerers within the mountain will be limited. If the sacred places are defiled, then their power will wax.’

  You need not instruct me on their power, said Bjorn, and there was a sudden note of fervour in his rumbling voice. His claw twitched as if in memory of some ancient pain. The wards will be protected where we can. But there must be sacrifices. If we attempt to salvage everything, we will lose everything.

  ‘It will be as you command,’ said Greyloc, bowing his head. ‘We will make the bulwarks into killing-places. But there will be resistance at the places where they must emerge. I would not have their first steps inside the Aett to be blood-free.’

  Bjorn gave a cumbersome nod of approval.

  Then we are agreed. I will stand at Borek’s Seal with my Fallen brothers. Combat will come there the swiftest, and it has been too long since I felt the kill-urge in anything other than dreams.

  The Dreadnought inclined his massive profile to gaze at the central device on the Annulus, the rearing wolf amid a field of stars.

  I was on Prospero, brothers, he said. I was there when we burned their heresy from the galaxy. I saw Leman Russ lay waste to their cherished places. I saw Traitors weep from corrupted eyes as we turned their pyramids of glass into barren wasteland.

  The council listened intently. Bjorn’s fragmentary accounts of distant days were seized on whenever he chose to offer them.

  That will not happen here. They were made weak by the knowledge of their treachery. We are made strong by the knowledge of our fidelity. Where Tizca fell, the Aett will stand.

  The Dreadnought’s voice was growing stronger. As the days passed, he was remembering himself, becoming once more the god of war the skjalds spoke of in their hushed voices. Amid all the desperation, that was cause for hope.

  Though it may cost the lives of us all, Bjorn growled, the words made machine-harsh by the vox-generators within him, the Aett will stand.

  After the Council had ended, Rossek watched Bjorn clump down the corridor outside the Annulus with Greyloc and the other senior commanders in tow. He hung back, staying in the shadows, eager to avoid contact. He hadn’t spoken during the deliberations. Indeed, he’d barely shared two words with Greyloc since the withdrawal from the landing sites. Several times he’d tried to approach his old friend, but the Jarl had avoided anything other than routine exchanges.

  Perhaps that was for the best. Rossek didn’t even know what he’d say if he had the chance.

  That he was sorry? Apologies were not for the Wolf Guard.

  That he saw the faces of the warriors he’d killed every night in his tortured dreams? That was true, but would change nothing.

  Contrition did not come easily to a son of Russ. For a few blessed moments, while Rossek had had the blood of enemies flowing across his claws, he’d shaken off the cloud of torpor and remembered his savage inheritance. He’d willed the assault on the gates to last for much, much longer. For as long as he fought, the guilt was less acute.

  But it always came back.

  ‘Wolf Guard Rossek.’

  The voice was iron-dry and sardonic. Rossek knew who it was without having to turn. Wyrmblade must have stayed behind, waiting for the rest to leave.

  ‘Lord Hraldir,’ acknowledged Rossek. His voice sounded surly, even to him.

  Wyrmblade emerged from the gloom of the Chamber’s apse and into a pool of firelight. His black armour was perfect for blending into the shadows of the sparsely-lit places. The bone devices across his battle-plate were chipped and scarred by plasma-burns, and the ragged pelts he’d once draped over the ceramite had been ripped away. His golden eyes still glowed as they ever had done, locked within that desiccated old face like amber jewels beaten into leather.

  ‘You are not yourself, Tromm,’ said the Wolf Priest, his mouth breaking into a crooked, mirthless smile.

  Rossek towered over Wyrmblade in his Terminator plate, but somehow still seemed the lesser figure of the two. That was always the way. The Wolf Priests had a grip of authority over the entire Chapter, one that transcended the normal patterns of command.

  ‘I long for combat,’ replied Rossek, which was truthful enough.

  ‘So do we all,’ said Wyrmblade. ‘There isn’t a Blood Claw in the Aett who doesn’t. What makes your mood special, Wolf Guard?’

  Rossek narrowed his eyes. Was the old man goading him? Trying to provoke some kind of furious response?

  ‘I claim no special privilege. Just a desire to do what I was bred for.’

  Wyrmblade nodded.

  ‘So it has ever been with you. I remember when I brought you off the ice. You were a monster back then, a bear of a man. We marked you for greatness from the beginning.’

  Rossek listened wearily. He wasn’t in the mood for a prepared homily. Any reference to his potential, to his destiny within the Chapter, had become loathsome to hear. He’d coveted the Wolf Lord position for years, however much he’d tried not to, and had always resented Greyloc’s elevation at his expense, but now the proof of his inadequacy had been painfully exposed.

  ‘Well, perhaps you were wrong,’ he said, casually.

  Wyrmblade shot him a look of contempt.

  ‘Do I hear self-pity? That’s for mortals. Whatever guilt you’re carrying with you, shed it. You cannot bring your brothers back, but you can remember how to fight.’

  Rossek started to reply, so missed the uppercut.

  Sharp as a jaw-snap, Wyrmblade had let fly with his left fist, connecting cleanly and sending the Wolf Guard crashing to the floor. An instant later an
d the Wolf Priest had him pinned, his gauntlet fixed on the exposed flesh of Rossek’s neck, his curved fangs bared.

  ‘I wanted to have you disciplined for what you did,’ hissed Wyrmblade, his face only centimetres from Rossek’s. ‘Greyloc prevented it. He said your blades would be needed. Blood of Russ, you’d better prove him right about that.’

  By instinct, Rossek primed himself to throw the Priest off. He was capable of doing it. His armour was more than twice as powerful as Wyrmblade’s, and the Wolf Priest was old.

  Even so, he couldn’t do it. The sacred power of the Priesthood was too strong. Wyrmblade’s face had been the first one he’d seen on entering the Aett as a daunted aspirant. It was likely to be the last face he saw before leaving for the Halls of Morkai, too.

  ‘So what do you want, lord?’ Rossek growled, tasting his own blood in his mouth. ‘For me to fight you? You would not like the result.’

  Wyrmblade shook his ragged head in disgust, and released his grip. He hauled himself to his feet, leaving Rossek slumped against the wall.

  ‘I wanted to kindle some spirit in you, lad,’ he muttered. ‘To remind you of the fire you’ve had in your blood since you first came here. Maybe I’m too late for that. Maybe you have let failure quench it.’

  Rossek clambered to his feet, feeling the stressed servos in his combat-battered suit whine.

  ‘This melancholy makes you useless to us,’ said Wyrmblade. ‘You think you’re the first Wolf Guard to lead a squad to defeat?’

  ‘I am coming to terms with that.’

  ‘I see no sign of it.’

  ‘Then maybe you should look harder.’

  ‘At what?’

  ‘At the warriors I saved,’ snarled Rossek, feeling anger surge up at last. ‘At the Blood Claws I pulled from under the hammer when Brakk was felled. At the Traitors I killed then and after. At the whelp who was taken by the Wolf, who I brought back from the edge.’

  Wyrmblade hesitated, and looked at him carefully.

  ‘You did that? Without a Priest?’

  ‘I did. And now, with Brakk gone, I will lead the remains of his pack. They need guidance.’ The haunted look returned to his eyes briefly. ‘From one who has learned a lesson in command.’

  Wyrmblade still watched Rossek’s face intently.

  ‘Do so, then,’ he said at last, and his voice had lost its edge of condemnation. ‘But snap out of this melancholy. At the end of all this, I would have Greyloc’s verdict on you proved right.’

  Rossek grunted, eager to push past the Wolf Priest and end the lesson. The practice cages beckoned, and he had frustrations to work out in them.

  ‘One final thing,’ said Wyrmblade, clamping a gauntlet on Rossek’s breastplate to prevent him walking away. ‘The Hunter who lies in my chambers. Aunir Frar. He will live.’

  Despite himself, Rossek felt relief flood through his body at that, and had to struggle not to show it. ‘Thank you for telling me.’

  ‘But you did not bring him to the fleshmakers.’

  Rossek shook his head. ‘A rivenmaster brought him.’

  ‘So I gather. What was his name?’

  Rossek recalled it instantly. The mortal in the Fangthane, the one with the honest, tired face.

  ‘Morek. Morek Karekborn. Why do you wish to know?’

  Wyrmblade looked evasive then.

  ‘For completeness,’ said the Wolf Priest, letting his hand fall to allow Rossek to pass. ‘It’s nothing important. Go now. Remember my words. The Hand of Russ be with you, Tromm.’

  ‘And with us all,’ replied Rossek, before lumbering off into the dark, back into the Jarlheim, back to where the Wolves were preparing for war.

  The beasts prowled in the recessed darkness of Borek’s Seal, hugging the pools of obscurity behind the vast pillars. They went silently, slinking on huge pads and keeping their distorted muzzles low to the ground. Only when they wished to announce their presence did they break cover, with a sudden flash of wide, liquid eyes, or a deep, rumbling growl from within those massive rib-cages.

  It was impossible to know how many had gathered there. At times it seemed like only a few dozen had emerged from the Underfang; at others, like there were hundreds. Something had attracted them to the living sections of the Aett, and whatever it was, it continued to work its magic. Since Bjorn himself had emerged from the Hammerhold with the retinue of snarling horrors in tow, none could deny that they had some kind of bizarre claim to be there. But that didn’t mean that the kaerls liked seeing them, nor that they didn’t make the sign of the spear whenever they were forced to go anywhere near them.

  So the mortal troops stayed far away at the fire-lit end of the cavernous chamber as much as possible. The stairways and elevator shafts leading both up and down were all placed at the western extremity of that space, and so the defences were built there, lit by roaring blazes. As at the Fangthane, gun-lines had been drawn up and barricades erected across the access points. More ammunition, building supplies and armour were delivered with every passing hour, some freshly forged in the angry red depths of the Hammerhold and still hot to the touch.

  Freija did her part in the carrying and lifting, though she spent most of her time with Aldr. Like most of the Dreadnoughts, he’d been stationed at Borek’s Seal and now waited grumpily for action. When the enemy came, his guns would be at the forefront, thrust into the inferno again with those of his battle-brothers.

  The Dreadnought had become steadily less strange as the memory of his incarceration faded. The maudlin expressions of discomfort and loss had been replaced by a more reassuring resolve. Freija could tell he was looking forward to the combat. To be awakened from the Long Dark only to face days of preparation and waiting was difficult for him – he’d have preferred to have walked out of the vault straight into a firestorm. Instead, he’d had to wait patiently as servitor-thralls had fussed over him, conducting impenetrable rites and preparing his adamantium sarcophagus for war.

  ‘So what’s it like?’ Freija asked him, chewing on a tough ribbon of dried meat during a rest period.

  What’s what like?

  ‘Having your armour fussed over,’ she said. ‘Can you feel a touch on it, like skin?’

  Freija could sense when she’d irritated him. She didn’t know how – there were no facial cues, after all – but the impression was definite enough.

  This curiosity. This lack of respect. Where does it come from?

  Freija grinned at the Dreadnought’s annoyance. She felt no aura of intimidation from Aldr. Despite his vast killing potential, far in excess of even the Jarl, his moods were strangely immature, and she’d become intrigued by him in a way that she could never have done with a living Blood Claw.

  ‘My mother. She came from the ice, and passed on its crude ways.’

  As she spoke, Freija recalled her face. Heavy-set like hers, blonde hair in messy curls, a tight mouth that rarely smiled, features made harsh by unremitting labour and hardship. But the eyes, the dark, sparkling eyes – they had exposed the bright intellect within, the questioning, rebellious soul that had never quite been ground down. Even at the end, when the punishing demands of the Sky Warriors had exacerbated the illness that would kill her, those eyes had remained alive and inquiring.

  You should learn to control it.

  ‘I know,’ she said wearily. ‘It leads to damnation.’

  Indeed it does.

  Freija shook her head resignedly, and fell silent. The Wolves’ obsession with ritual, tradition, saga and secrecy was something she’d never understand. It was as if the world they inhabited was frozen in some half-forgotten moment, when all the forces of progress and enlightenment had suddenly been snuffed out and replaced by a numb rehearsal of old, tired routines.

  After a while, Aldr shifted heavily on his central drive-column.

  It feels like being alive, and yet not alive. When something touches my armour, I sense it more closely than I could when a living warrior. My eyesight is sharper, my hearing more acute
, my muscles more powerful for being plasfibre and ceramite. Everything is more immediate. And yet...

  Freija looked at the Dreadnought’s face-plate. The slit in the armour was dark, an opaque well into the ruined corpse within. Though there were no visual signals, no possibility of facial expression, she could feel his misery as acutely as if he’d been weeping. For an instant, she caught the image of a Blood Claw racing across the wind-blasted ice, his blades whirling, long hair streaming, caught up in the feral joy of his calling.

  It will never be like that again.

  ‘I’m sorr–’

  Enough questions. There is work to be done.

  Freija dutifully shut up. Already she could see a new delivery of medical supplies and field-rations arriving on the back of a transport, all of which would need to be stowed somewhere. She bowed to the Dreadnought and made her way toward the huskaerl in charge of the consignment. As she did so, she stole a look back at the hulking shape of Aldr, motionless in the shadows.

  She didn’t look long. She felt like she’d violated his privacy enough. In any case, she didn’t like the emotions their conversations were engendering in her. For years, stung by what had happened to her blood-family under the harsh regime of the Aett, she had resented the Sky Warriors almost as much as she had been awed by them. Now that war had come to Fenris, those old feelings were being tested, and in ways that she found surprising.

  She had learned to live with disliking them. She could, perhaps, have learned to live with loving them, as Morek did, or even despising them, as did the Thousand Sons. What she couldn’t resign herself to was the way she felt then. She knew she had to shake those feelings off, or they would compromise her role in the fighting to come. They were alien to her, un-Fenrisian, weak and foolish.

  But it was no good. Try as she might, Freija couldn’t help it.