Blood of Asaheim

by Chris Wraight

She started to walk around it, heading under the cockpit’s overhang.

  Jorundur put the tin down and followed her. He couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or flattered by her interest.

  ‘Four centuries,’ he said, staying close. ‘That’s how long it’s been in service.’

  Callia turned to face him. ‘And will it last a little longer?’ she asked. Her face held a certain sadness, as if she’d long resigned herself to the destruction of all she cared about and now only concerned herself with making a decent fist of the last stand.

  Jorundur rubbed his chin. ‘Perhaps,’ he grunted. ‘Get me some better servitors, I might get it flying again.’

  Callia gave a rueful smile. ‘You have our best already. But I’ll talk to the canoness.’

  ‘Do that.’

  Jorundur turned away from the gunship and looked at Callia. Her armour, though beautifully cared for and polished, bore the marks of recent use. Her greaves and cuirass were chipped down to bare metal. Like her sisters, she had been in action for a long time.

  Callia noticed his gaze and seemed to guess what he was thinking. ‘Burn-team duty,’ she said bluntly. ‘Next rotation in two hours.’

  Jorundur nodded. He’d smelt the pyres.

  ‘Did you get many of them?’

  She nodded sadly.

  ‘Too many.’ She pursed her lips. ‘Your brothers kill faster than we do. I saw them in action. They laughed when they returned, covered in blood they didn’t bother to wipe from their armour.’

  She looked down.

  ‘I cannot laugh. These are my people. A month ago we were ministering to them. We told them a new dawn was coming, the start of a crusade. Even when the plague takes them I mourn that so many must die. I wonder at the way you Wolves delight in slaughter.’

  Jorundur shrugged. ‘Don’t expect us to be like you,’ he said. ‘We were made this way. That’s why you wanted us here, was it not?’

  Callia looked back up at him, unabashed. ‘The canoness wanted you here. Others of us – I will not mention names – were opposed. You have a reputation.’

  Jorundur chuckled. ‘A cultivated one,’ he replied. ‘You speak plainly, Sister. I like that. I’ll return the compliment. Until I got here I thought you were all stuck-up bitches, wearing a pale mockery of our sacred armour and pretending to fight like we do. I thought you were pious and arrogant.’

  Callia suppressed a smile. ‘Stuck-up bitches,’ she said, amused. ‘That’s… candid.’

  Jorundur shrugged. ‘I try to be. And don’t be surprised – our memories are long. Fenris has been attacked by your kind more than once.’

  ‘Not in living memory.’

  Jorundur snorted. ‘In our living memory. You may have forgotten, but we have not. We tell sagas of it. We sing of how we sent your priests home, their robes stripped from their backs and their warships breaking open around them.’

  Callia sighed. ‘I’m sure you do,’ she said. ‘But then you are a warlike people. Fenris has been attacked by the Inquisition too. You make enemies easily, it seems.’

  ‘We make no enemies but Traitors and xenos. If others choose to get in our way, that’s their business.’

  Callia nodded, as if confirming something to herself. ‘Perhaps that is what I meant.’

  Jorundur paused then, suddenly concerned he’d caused too much offence. He wouldn’t normally have been worried, but Gunnlaugur had given them all strict orders to keep the peace.

  ‘But I speak loosely,’ he said, smiling awkwardly and exposing his curved yellow fangs. ‘You understand that? Forgive me. We are just savages – savages from an ice-world that breeds us cold and rude.’

  Callia looked amused again.

  ‘I’m not some prim schola maid,’ she said. ‘But thank you: I had not expected such concern for my sensibilities. Especially as we are all such – what were the words you used? – stuck-up bitches.’

  Jorundur laughed out loud, hacking up phlegm from his dry throat and coughing on it. He clapped Callia hard on the shoulder, and the slap of unguarded flesh against power armour made his palm sting.

  ‘I like you!’ he exclaimed. ‘Blood of Russ, has the galaxy no end of wonder?’

  Callia looked less sure.

  ‘Maybe not,’ she said, moving away from him smoothly. ‘But I do have duties waiting. I’ll talk to the canoness about the servitors.’

  Jorundur bowed, still smiling. ‘It can wait,’ he said. ‘My work is drawing to a close for today.’

  Callia raised an eyebrow.

  ‘You need rest?’

  ‘No, no. My brothers have had the hunting in this city all to themselves. They will be heading out into the dark soon, and it is time I took up the burden on their behalf.’

  Callia looked at him distastefully.

  ‘You will relish killing our people as much as they.’

  Jorundur gave her a crooked, semi-ashamed grin.

  ‘Maybe more so,’ he confessed.

  Ingvar watched Gunnlaugur intently. The Wolf Guard spoke to them all but wouldn’t meet his gaze. He’d look at all the others, but not him.

  He’s putting something off. Something he doesn’t want to tell me.

  Ingvar felt his hearts sink. He’d hoped the exchange in the Halicon, as difficult as it had been, had cleared the air between them. A state of continued tension suited nobody.

  But then Gunnlaugur had always been proud. He was a born warrior, only happy with bolter in hand and prey in sight, never knowing how to handle anything but combat. It wasn’t so much that the Wolf Guard didn’t tolerate differing points of view, more that he didn’t understand how they could exist. The way of Russ, the brutal life of the hard ice, the exalted state of the Sky Warrior, that was all there was for him. Just as the Sisters fervently believed in the perfect godhood of the Emperor, so Gunnlaugur believed in the perfect heritage of the primarch, frozen into the annals of Fenris and sanctified by millennia of war.

  Ingvar couldn’t blame him for that. He’d thought the same once. It had taken a lot to shake that faith.

  Tyranid-breed xenos, millions upon millions, turning the void into a living hell, burning with hive-malice, dousing the light of Terra. The ships! They are like worlds, vast and swollen, disgorging living contents in columns of twisting, slavering frenzy.

  We cannot fight them. They will come at us, again and again. There is no end to it. Callimachus, there is no end to it!

  Ingvar forced himself not to remember. He forced himself not to see the Ultramarine’s face turning towards him, stoic to the last, ready to enact the order he’d been given by Halliafiore. He forced himself not to see the agony in that face, hidden by Callimachus’s peerless conditioning, his reserve, his unimpeachable honour.

  The things they made us do.

  He curled his fingers together, concentrating on the present.

  ‘The canoness has restored partial mid-range auspex scans,’ Gunnlaugur was saying. ‘We have readings coming at us from all directions. The city is at the centre of a closing circle. Numbers are hard to estimate.’

  ‘Take a guess?’ said Olgeir.

  ‘Thousands,’ said Gunnlaugur sourly. ‘Many, many thousands. The plague has spread. De Chatelaine thinks most of their troops are defenders who’ve succumbed and then mutated. That’s why this thing’s happened so fast. Every city they’ve taken has swollen their ranks. They conquer, they get stronger.’

  ‘She was right: they do not wish to destroy this world,’ said Baldr. ‘They wish to possess it. For what?’

  Gunnlaugur looked at him irritably.

  ‘We don’t need to know.’ Still he avoided Ingvar’s eye. ‘Survival is the first task, vengeance the next. The armies have fractured as they near the city. Discipline is weak on the fringes, and one armoured column has come too far up the defiles to the south. That’s the one we’l
l take.’

  Olgeir grunted. ‘What are we talking about? Mortals? Plague-bearers?’

  ‘Both. Perhaps more.’ A glint of anticipation lit up Gunnlaugur’s features, sparking in his amber eyes. ‘De Chatelaine picked up strange readings, ones they couldn’t decipher. Something… interesting travels in that column.’

  Ingvar felt mounting unease. A raid was one thing – taking out enemy troops before they could take up position made sense. Going after unverified targets was another.

  He said nothing. It would only antagonise Gunnlaugur. The Wolf Guard had taken a blow to his prestige by losing the Undrider; a feat of arms against a worthy foe would redress the balance.

  ‘How far?’ asked Hafloí, flexing his fingers absently. His voice gave away his eagerness – he was chafing at the leash already.

  Gunnlaugur gave him an approving look.

  ‘If we leave now and move fast, we can engage before dawn.’

  ‘No speeders?’ asked Olgeir.

  ‘Nothing that could carry us. We’ll run.’ Gunnlaugur grinned. ‘Think of it brother: close pursuit, under the stars, nothing but the scent of fear between you and the enemy.’

  Olgeir nodded slowly, a smile creeping across his scarred, ugly face.

  ‘Pure,’ he murmured.

  ‘We kill them all,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘Destroy everything. Hit hard, then withdraw. Allfather willing, that’ll give the bastards pause. They already know something destroyed their ship – we can work on that doubt. It might even slow them, give us more time to cleanse the city.’

  ‘They won’t slow,’ said Ingvar. The words came out of his mouth unbidden; he hadn’t meant to speak. Immediately his eyes flickered up towards Gunnlaugur, but the Wolf Guard still avoided contact. Váltyr, standing to Gunnlaugur’s right, looked uncomfortable.

  ‘It’ll hurt them,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘And what’s the alternative? Hole up here until they’re clawing at the walls? Not the way of the Fenryka.’

  Olgeir and Hafloí both growled in agreement. Ingvar could almost smell their hunt-readiness.

  Gunnlaugur pulled himself to his full height. The runes on his armour flickered in the soft lights of the city, playing over the ceramite like tongues of flame. Despite the blood and slime that still caked his battle-plate, he looked savagely magnificent, the very embodiment of a vaerangi.

  ‘We were brought here for a reason, brothers,’ he said. ‘Time to show them what it was.’

  ‘And Jorundur?’ asked Ingvar.

  Only then did Gunnlaugur look directly at him.

  ‘He’s staying here,’ he said. ‘As are you, Gyrfalkon.’

  For a moment, Ingvar didn’t believe it. He felt sure he’d misheard.

  ‘You mean–’ he started.

  ‘I mean you’re staying here.’

  Gunnlaugur’s voice was cold. His amber eyes didn’t waver.

  Ingvar felt sweat break out across his palms. For the space of a heartbeat he couldn’t say anything, sure that if he tried he’d unleash something he’d regret.

  ‘Why?’ he asked thickly, keeping himself under control with difficulty.

  ‘The plague worsens. The Sisters need help.’

  That was ridiculous. The Sisters had been trained for such work; they were very, very good at it.

  Ingvar looked over at Váltyr. The blademaster averted his eyes.

  ‘Is this your doing?’ he spat. The anger in his voice rose to the surface.

  Váltyr stirred then, looking like he wanted to rise to the challenge. He was cut off by Gunnlaugur.

  ‘Enough,’ he said, letting threat-notes bleed into his speech. ‘The city is burning. I will not abandon it.’

  Ingvar crushed his fists into tight balls.

  It was a humiliation. Punishment for what happened on the plague-ship.

  I need to know that you will follow an order.

  Or a test.

  Ingvar stared directly at Gunnlaugur. For a moment their eyes met, one pair golden, the other as grey as winter sleet. When he spoke next, his voice was sharp with bitterness.

  ‘You want me to waste my blade here on filth that can barely stand? So be it.’ Ingvar raised his chin, looking proudly back at the Wolf Guard. Jocelyn himself could not have expressed such disdain. ‘I will scour the citadel. When you return, expect to find it cleansed and ready for your arrival.’

  He swept his gaze across the rest of the pack. Olgeir was dumb with surprise; Baldr almost distraught. Hafloí returned his gaze coolly. Váltyr looked torn between shame and defiance.

  Then he turned, not waiting for Gunnlaugur to dismiss him, and strode away from the pack, back towards the defence tower. He could feel his cheeks burning from the fury that coursed through him, bubbling under the surface like magma under a thin crust of rock.

  After he’d ducked under the doorway and started to descend the stairway down to the next level he heard footsteps clattering on the stone behind him. For a moment he thought, or hoped, they were Gunnlaugur’s. When Baldr grabbed him by the shoulder it was a disappointment.

  ‘You have been wronged,’ said Baldr.

  Ingvar twisted round to look at him. Baldr’s face was white with shame. His eyes looked sunk deep into his flesh and an unhealthy pallor hung in their shadow.

  Ingvar wondered how he’d not noticed that earlier.

  ‘It is nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Olgeir is arguing with him. Come back. Fight with us.’

  Ingvar smiled, despite himself. He could hear Heavy-hand’s booming voice from the parapet above, remonstrating futilely.

  ‘You are my true brother,’ he said. The worst of his anger subsided, giving way to a low, sullen feeling of misuse. ‘But do not do this. He is vaerangi. It is his judgement, and his anger is with me, not with you.’

  Baldr looked pained. ‘It is unjust.’

  ‘It is not.’ Once the first flush of humiliation had passed, Ingvar began to see what Gunnlaugur was doing. It was not the way that Callimachus would have run his squad, but it had a certain, brutal logic. ‘Follow Gunnlaugur, just as you have done. You do not help me by defying him.’

  Baldr hesitated. He looked lost.

  ‘I do not understand,’ he said. ‘You were like blood-kin.’

  ‘We were. We may yet be again.’ Ingvar reached down to the soul-ward at his breast, the sálskjoldur, and lifted it up. ‘But this is the mark of brotherhood. I cherish it. Do not fear for me.’

  Baldr’s eyes followed the pendant as it twisted in Ingvar’s grasp. He looked suddenly wistful, as if part of him regretted losing it.

  ‘This is one raid,’ he said. ‘One raid. After that the true battle begins, and we will come together then: you, me, Gunnlaugur, like it used to be.’

  Ingvar nodded. ‘I yearn for it,’ he said, with feeling. ‘For now, though, let him have his way. Blood the enemy, just as he wishes. He needs a victory, one that will banish the shades of the Undrider. Deliver that for him and he will forget his pride.’

  Baldr reached up for the soul-ward and pressed it back against Ingvar’s breastplate. His grimace was wry. When he looked at Ingvar, the meaning in his expression was plain.

  It should have been you.

  ‘As you command, though it pains me,’ he said. ‘Hunt well, Gyrfalkon.’

  Ingvar bowed. ‘Hunt well, Fjolnir. I will look for you with the dawn.’

  Then Ingvar turned, hastening down the stairs and away from the pack. As he did so, despite his words to Baldr, a part of him hardened, tightening with a resentment that he knew would not easily unravel.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The pack left the outer gate as the first moon rose. It cast a fragile silver sheen over the still-warm landscape. They broke into a run as the massive doors clanged closed, loping easily in loose formation. The city quickly fell away behind them, retreating
into the north as they sped. The five warriors dropped into a steady rhythm, their limbs working in unison, each casting a deep-black shadow on the dust beneath them.

  Gunnlaugur set the pace. He’d strapped skulbrotsjór to his back, lacquered down his straggling hair and beard and donned his helm. Like the others, his battle-plate was still layered with the patina of combat. The rune of destruction, turza, was still visible on his helm’s forehead, cut deep by the Iron Priests and inlaid with iron. In the moonlight it glowed dully, making his snarl-masked visage seem marked with the sign of ancient magick.

  He drove the others hard. The physical exertion helped to clarify his mind. He felt his hearts beating in slow unison, fuelling the huge furnace of his body. He drew air into his barrel-chest in long draughts, feeling the gritty dryness of it drag deep into cavernous lungs.

  The pack went silently. Olgeir was brooding, still angry at Ingvar’s exclusion. Váltyr was similarly unquiet, though he’d voiced no objection. Hafloí was the only one in high spirits. He’d let out a whoop of battle-joy on leaving the city, but hadn’t repeated it after no one else had joined in.

  ‘What’s the matter with you all?’ he’d grumbled once they were under way. ‘Lost your voices when your hair went grey?’

  That had made Baldr laugh, but it had been a stifled sound. After that they had run without speaking. They might have been predators indeed, grey-clad and draped in strange hides and bones, striding out across the wide emptiness in search of victims.

  Gunnlaugur didn’t blame Hafloí for his irritation. Back when he’d been a Blood Claw himself he’d raced into battle with death-oaths thundering from his hoarse throat. He’d laughed as readily as he’d cursed, exuberant at the raw power unleashed within him by the Helix. Hjortur had been the same, and under his leadership Járnhamar had been a raucous, brutish juggernaut of noise and hot blood.

  Gunnlaugur didn’t remember when that exuberance had begun to fade. Perhaps it was fatigue – the pack had been on engagement after engagement for nearly a century with only snatched periods away from the front. Even the furious energy of a Sky Warrior had its limits.

  Gunnlaugur found himself growling as he ran, his hot breath snagging throatily. It was an animal sound, a primeval note of slow-burning frustration. He had found it hard to endure words of reproach from Olgeir, who was the most generous of them, the one most ready to laugh off tension and still dissent with a cuff or a laugh. It had been hard to endure Baldr’s weary looks and Váltyr’s doubts.