His work done, he looked up. His pack-brothers were arranged around him, all fourteen of them. The combat squad was an amalgam of other Blood Claw packs, cobbled together from those who’d survived the gate assaults. As ever, the Claws’ casualties had been high during the fighting, a testament to their headstrong way of war.
Brokentooth had been killed on the retreat, his back punched open by a lascannon beam even as he raced for the cover of the gates. A terrible way to cut the thread, that.
Of course, Brakk was gone too. The one who’d trained them for so long, who’d knocked as much fight-sense into them as had been possible, and who’d led them with such calm, controlled skill. The Wolf Guard had never said much, and almost nothing at all when in the thick of the fighting, but now he was dead the Aett somehow seemed a quieter, emptier place.
His replacement, the glowering giant Rossek, had changed the nature of the pack more than the arrivals from other squads. Whereas Brakk had been gruff and direct, Rossek looked like he’d been teetering on the edge of some bout of madness and barely survived. He too said very little, but Redpelt guessed the reasons for that were different. Brakk had always had the self-confident gait of a predator – controlled, taut, efficient. Rossek, by contrast, massive in his Terminator plate, looked haunted and grim. Something had got to him, had driven out the ebullient, belligerent spirit that had once made him the favourite to lead the Twelfth. In his torporific presence much of the old banter that had once animated the Claws was gone, replaced with a grim sense of expectation.
And then there was Helfist. He crouched a few paces away from Redpelt, his horsehair crest hanging from his helm, his plate still adorned with the figures of Ymir and Gann. On the surface, he’d not changed at all. Despite his brush with the Wolf, he’d retained his juvenile humour and coarse love of the hunt. Alone in the pack, Helfist generated that sense of unpredictable energy that made the Wolves what they were.
Helfist sensed he was being looked at, and his blood-eyed visage turned to Redpelt.
‘Put your damn helm on, brother,’ he voxed. ‘Using that face against them really isn’t fair.’
Redpelt would have grinned at that in the past. Not now. Helfist’s levity was too forced, too conscious. The young Blood Claw had been deeply wounded by the death of Brakk and his brush with the Wolf; he just didn’t have the tools to deal with it.
Redpelt twisted his helm round and lowered it over his slicked-down scalp, slotting the bearings in place and hearing the faint lock of the atmospheric seals as they clamped down. Battle-runes flashed up across the display, indicating defensive formations throughout the Aett.
The principal Fangthane fortifications had been constructed on the broad, two hundred-metre long stairway leading up from the tunnels of the Aett into the main chamber at the top. The defences were arranged in a series of storied barricades, running from the base of the stairs to the summit where Freki and Geri stood guard. The forty-seven Wolves assigned to the Fangthane stairs were reinforced by hundreds of kaerls, all protected by heavy adamantium bunkers and barricade walls. The Sky Warriors were led by Wyrmblade; the mortals by a rivenmaster with an honest-looking face and hollow eyes.
In the very centre of the defensive perimeter, half-way up the stairway, were the mightiest death-machines of all: six Dreadnoughts. The Revered Fallen were huge, towering over Wyrmblade and Cloudbreaker as the commanders stood alongside them. Skrieya led the three packs of Grey Hunters at the base of the slope, lined up with Rossek’s Blood Claws, and Rojk stood with his Long Fangs near the top of the stairway, exuding calm solidity as always.
There were more fortifications beyond at the summit, dug into the floor and walls of the chamber itself, refuges where the defenders could retreat to in stages if needed. All along the gigantic flanks of the Fangthane chamber, fixed guns had been mounted, each capable of throwing bolt-rounds at the enemy far faster than even the Long Fangs could.
It was a devastating collection of firepower, all looked over by the distant statue of Russ himself. The field hospital at his feet had been cleared days ago, moved higher up into the Hould. Now there was only room for the tools of war in the Fangthane. All barrels, muzzles and blades pointed toward the huge, silent gates at the very base of the stairway, the portals through which the enemy would have to come.
It was a space less than a hundred metres wide. The killing ground.
‘Watch yourself, when they’re here,’ said Redpelt, speaking over a closed channel to Helfist.
Helfist laughed.
‘Going soft on me, Ogrim?’ he asked.
‘The Wolf is close behind you.’
‘He’s close behind us all, brother.’
Helfist drew his bolt pistol and checked the magazine for the twelfth time. As the wait dragged on, they all looked for displacement activity.
‘And you shouldn’t worry about me,’ he added casually. ‘Worry about yourself. Being so damn slow, and all.’
Redpelt tried to think of a reply, some suitable put-down. Nothing came to mind.
Then, from far below, came the sound of huge, resonating crashes. There were stronger booms after that, echoing up the tunnels. They were distant, clouded by kilometres of snaking corridors, but distinct enough. They didn’t stop.
‘Warriors of the Aett!’ came Wyrmblade’s dry old voice. He’d drawn the mighty power sword with the dragon device on its blade, and the energy field shimmered in the semi-dark. ‘Now fate falls a final time! The tunnels are opened. Steel yourselves, stand firm, and kindle your hate!’
He took a great stride forwards, raising the glowing edge of his weapon high.
‘For Russ! For the Allfather! For Fenris!’
The defenders replied as one.
‘For Fenris!’
The echo of the massed roar ran around the empty shell of the Fangthane approaches, gradually sinking into the stone.
Redpelt drew his own pistol, gripping his chainsword in his other hand. The kill-urge began to cradle in him. As soon as the first of the Traitors came through the gates, he’d become the snarling, slavering exemplar of war he’d been bred to be.
‘Russ be with you, brother,’ he said to Helfist.
‘And with you,’ replied Helfist, a little too quickly.
And it was then, for the first time ever, that Redpelt heard trepidation in his comrade’s voice. The bravado, as impressive as it seemed, was only armour-deep.
Helfist was deeply troubled by something, and it wasn’t the coming enemy.
The rock wall glowed red, then orange, then harsh white. On the far side of the collapsed tunnel, enormous energies were being applied. The barrier held for a little longer, bowed out, then exploded.
Huge chunks of semi-molten stone were hurled across the Chamber of the Seal, smashing into the far wall a hundred metres distant. In their wake, las-beams the width of a man’s arm lanced through the air. Massive shapes lumbered through the gap, hacking at the edges of the breach with steaming drill-arms.
More cracks appeared, and a huge section of melta-fused stone toppled, crashing to the ground and sending rubble skidding across the floor. More las-fire flickered through the clouds of dust, flying harmlessly into the far walls of the chamber, hitting nothing.
There was nothing to hit. When the Thousand Sons broke into the heart of the Fang, there were no gun-lines to meet them, no ranks of kaerls ready to sell their lives in a desperate defence. The Cataphracts, still operating according to their simple machine-spirit instructions, lumbered into the open, shaking off their mantles of dust and charging up plasma cannon arms to fire.
‘Cease!’ roared a voice from the tunnel beyond.
Flanked by Terminator Rubricae, Aphael clambered through the breach. Kine-shields shimmered around him, distorting his image behind shifting curtains of warp-energy.
More Rubricae emerged, striding out into the chamber and hefting boltguns. Among them was Hett, flanked by his own retinue and similarly cocooned in heavy shielding.
‘Se
nd them forwards!’ he urged, letting his sorcerer’s staff blaze with eldritch power.
Aphael shook his head.
‘They know we’re coming,’ he said, looking out across the chamber warily.
He crouched down and picked up a chunk of rock the size of a man’s head. Lifting it as easily as a mortal might lift a pebble, he threw it across the chamber towards the tunnel on the far side. As it sailed into the dark, the space was rocked by massive explosions. The rock was blasted apart in an instant. From somewhere hidden deep in the recesses of the tunnels, autoguns thundered, sending a storm of ammunition screaming toward the Thousand Sons vanguard.
Aphael flicked a finger and the kine-shield bloomed outwards, enclosing the Cataphracts in a web of energy. The autogun assault detonated against the barrier in a rippling wave of fire.
‘They’ll need to do better than that, though,’ he said, lifting his staff aloft.
With a single word, the kine-barrier suddenly hurtled forwards, sweeping across the chamber and transmuting into a wall of consuming electricity. Lightning flared out and snaked into the shadows, tearing up stone and blasting it open. The surge of energy slammed into the fixed guns, knocking them from their positions in a series of thumping detonations.
The explosions gradually gave out, and the lightning crackled into nothing, leaving a score of burned-out gun carcasses. Smoke drifted across the tunnels.
‘Now we advance,’ said Aphael coolly.
The Rubricae began to march. In silence, their eyes glowing softly in the dark, the last warriors of the XV Legion stalked forwards, clad in lash-curling trails of aetheric protection. In their wake came the Cataphracts, their massive claws cracking the stone beneath them as they moved.
From behind the vanguard, still in the tunnel leading to the gates, there was a vast, nebulous sound. It was the thud of thousands of boots striking the earth in unison, the sound of thousands of weapons being made ready, the sound of thousands of whispered prayers to the Masters of Sorcery.
It was the sound of the doom of Fenris drawing closer.
From the Chamber of Borek’s Seal, dozens of corridors branched off into the interior of the mountain. All were as dark as oil, kept in shadow, their hearth-fires long since kicked over. They curved and doubled back, leading the unwary a dance into choked dead-ends or taking them directly to the vast shafts that led to other levels. Even the kaerls didn’t know all the myriad ways of travel through the Aett, and stuck to the ancient paths, hugging the light of the fires and avoiding the deeper dark. They knew, as all knew, that the Fang would kill you quicker than a crevasse if you crossed it.
The Rubricae swept through the shadowed paths, their preternatural sight guiding them in the utter occlusion. They moved fluidly, sweeping gun muzzles across junctions with a calm, focused efficiency. The sorcerers came behind them, many metres back, herding them like distant, bronze-armoured shepherds.
They didn’t go unwarily. They knew the extreme danger. But they also knew they were the elite servants of the Red Primarch, warriors almost without peer. They were stealthy, whisper-quiet and eerie. Many a mortal force had been taken by surprise by them before, expecting raving hordes of fanatics only to be ambushed by the terrifying, dust-dry approach of the soulless ones.
But the defenders were no mortals.
Crouched against the stone of the corridor wall, his Helix-enhanced senses making him sensitive to the slightest variation in air-density, Greyloc heard the first squad coming from hundreds of metres away. He narrowed his eyes, gauging their numbers and formation, pressing his fingers against the sheaths of his wolfclaws, feeling the ancient devices respond to his touch. The talons were dormant, invisible in the gloom, but would ignite with a thought.
Behind him, his troops did the same. Four warriors, all that was left of his original Terminator retinue, all equipped with close combat weapons, their armour powered down and as black as the air around them. In their midst was Sturmhjart, his head bowed. Though his helm masked his features, Greyloc could sense the Rune Priest’s concentration. Sturmhjart kept the whole pack shrouded, safe from the prying psychic eyes of the sorcerers. The runes on his armour were sunken and dull, like lines of onyx set in the ceramite, but they were burning inside.
The long corridor ahead of them was empty, free of the booby traps and fire pits that rigged the higher levels. Greyloc watched intently, hearing the muted boot impacts of the Rubric Marine squads grow closer, waiting for the first sight of the enemy.
When it came, it was like a vision of a mortal’s nightmare. Lime-green points of light bobbed into view at the end of the tunnel, the gleam of the Rubricae’s unholy helm lenses. There were many of them, marching in close formation, coming confidently but carefully.
Greyloc felt the first stabs of hatred spike into his hearts.
You come here. To my realm. To despoil my people.
More green lights emerged. The squad was drawing closer, completely unaware of the welcome that awaited them at the far end of the corridor. Sturmhjart gave out a low growl, below the hearing of any but the Wolves, working hard to maintain the protective shroud about them.
I will shatter you. I will drive your corrupted souls into damnation. I will break you open and throw the dust of your souls to the dirt.
The last of the Rubricae entered the tunnel. Greyloc’s helm-display indicated eighteen targets, plus a slower-moving signal at the rear. That was the sorcerer, the one Sturmhjart would have to deal with.
Because to me you are one thing, and one thing only.
Behind him, he could sense the power weapons of his battle-brothers pre-spike. Their pheromone kill-urge became apparent, thick and pungent. After days of inactivity and sparring, the glory of war had come to them again. Greyloc felt a fierce surge of elation as the endorphins rushed into his bloodstream.
Prey.
The moment came.
‘For Russ!’
His wolfclaws blazed, sending harsh shadows leaping back along the corridor, and then he was charging, hurtling towards the lead Rubric Marine, bathed in streams of storm-fury kindled by Sturmhjart. His guard tore into battle beside him, bellowing with feral abandon, the very image of the maelstrom itself. Sturmhjart was with them too, his armour-runes exploding into angry red life, drenching the tunnel walls with the glowing stain of blood.
‘Hjolda!’ roared Greyloc, slamming into contact, scything his claws through the armour of his first victim, watching the empty plate buckle as the talons bit deep. The corridor was soon filled with the sharp crack, thud and crunch of close combat.
It had begun. The final assault. From that point on, they all knew, the fighting would not cease until the last of the Thousand Sons were killed, or the Fang was taken in flames.
First, the firestorm.
From behind his barricade, Morek watched through a handheld augur as the Thousand Sons’ attack arrived at the Fangthane stair. The volume of fire was both blinding and deafening, a mix of plasma and solid-round weaponry that leapt out of the approach tunnels and slammed into the heavy buttresses at the base of the stairway. He couldn’t see the source of it, as the invaders were still hidden by the low ceiling and curving walls of the tunnel beyond the stairs. They stayed back, remaining in cover, hurling ranged fire at the barricades from afar.
Morek slid down against the cool bulk of the three metre-high, four metre-thick adamantium bulwark he’d been stationed to hold, final-checking his skjoldtar. Around him, crouching low in cover, were the men of his riven. All of them had seen action before, and none had any problem dealing with the barrage of incoming fire. The shielding warding them had been erected over many days, constructed out of siege-grade materials, and was capable of absorbing huge amounts of punishment before failing.
But this was just the prelude, and there was a long way to go before the real fighting took place.
‘Heads down,’ he voxed automatically. It was a superfluous command – his men mostly had their helmets between their knees and were hu
nched at the base of the giant barricades. The rain of plasma and bolt-shells either slammed into the barriers or flew harmlessly over their heads, impacting against the roof of the huge tunnel.
The noise was the worst thing – a disorientating, devastating chorus of hammering and burning that echoed out of the enclosed corridors and bounced off into the massive space beyond. It made thinking difficult, let alone hearing orders over the vox.
Morek blink-clicked a rune on his helm display to augment his auditory feed and compensate for the thundering noise outside. It improved the situation, but only by a little.
From his tactical display, he could see the Wolves crouching down in forward positions, also using the cover of the barricades at the base of the stairway. They were the best equipped troops to deal with the volume of devastation, but even they didn’t just walk blindly out into the torrent. Wyrmblade held them back, keeping the leash on the Blood Claws short, waiting until there were targets suited to their close combat mastery.
Rojk and the Long Fangs remained similarly unused, perched high up at the rear of the defensive lines, surrounded by heavy shielding. They endured the firestorm, letting the barriers take the strain, waiting for the real enemy to emerge.
Only Cloudbreaker was fully active. The Rune Priest, the most potent of Sturmhjart’s acolytes, had summoned up a swirling, missile-devouring storm of turbulence over the portals, using it to misdirect incoming projectiles and explode shells before they hit their target. It was far from perfect, but it spared the barricades from the full, unadulterated force of the enemy’s bombardment.
Morek took a deep breath, tasting the metallic edge of his rebreather filter, letting his heart-rate fall as the initial aural shock of the assault wore off. He’d seen action many times, and knew how to handle himself on a battlefield. Even so, there was no escaping the initial, stomach-twisting lurch of adrenaline when the shooting started.
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