by Various
A thrill rushed through Ulrik’s veins, the primal eagerness and anticipation of battle that had been with him ever since he was a Blood Claw. The sensation was dulled beneath the layers of restraint and experience he’d acquired over his many centuries of service to the Chapter. Impulsiveness and instinct didn’t control him. They were tools, assets to be tapped into and focused towards the objective at hand.
Sathar the Undone. Ulrik’s lips curled back in a snarl as he contemplated their prey. He could still remember Svane Vulfbad, the turn-pelt renegade who’d betrayed the Space Wolves and taken much of his Great Company down the path of Chaos. It was easy to appreciate how fiercely the Dark Angels despised traitors. Yet their hate hadn’t been enough to catch their enemy, any more than the Space Wolves had been able to visit justice upon Vulfbad. That was why Ulrik had advised Krom to stage an immediate assault on the crematorium. The Dark Angels might have displayed more caution, waited until they were certain of catching Sathar before committing themselves. That would give the traitor time to prepare. With a sudden assault, Sathar might be caught off-guard.
The Drakeslayers stormed the sanctuaries and chapels that ringed the reception hall. Each chamber was filled with crowds of mourners, come to offer prayers for departed family and friends. Ancient pews groaned under the weight of the sombre throngs while still more hive-serfs stood in the aisles and along the walls to make their representations. Waxen seals affixed to each mourner’s forehead proclaimed the serial number of the casket that had received the departed they had come to honour. Scrolls pinned to their sleeves displayed the amount of their contribution to the Ecclesiarchy’s coffers to petition a personalised eulogy for the deceased. Behind the stone altar at the fore of each chapel, a lay-priest chanted a litany for the dead, sometimes pausing in his droning chant to utter a special commendation for the spirit of someone whose grieving family had been especially generous in their tithe.
When the Space Wolves intruded upon these chambers, disrupting the mortuary rituals, mourners and lay-priests alike were thrown into alarm and confusion. It took but a single snarled command to send them rushing out into the reception hall and from thence into the streets beyond. Seeing the hurried exodus, Ulrik noted cloaked figures emerging from shadowy alcoves. Obscure and sinister in their aspect, the lurkers made no move to obstruct the Drakeslayers. He could guess their purpose – guards to monitor the funerary ceremonies and report anything suspicious to their dark master. It was likely they’d already informed Sathar that the Wolves had come. The best way they could serve their master now was to delay the Drakeslayers by arousing their suspicions. It would be no small effort to extricate the sentries from the mass of frightened mourners.
‘Forget Sathar’s rats,’ Ulrik voxed the other Space Wolves. ‘If we need to find them later, we’ll set the wolves on their track. For now we hunt bigger game.’
Behind the crematorium’s outer chambers lay the Halls of Eternal Dreaming. The contrast was that of day and night. From the sombre sanctuaries and chapels, the Halls expanded into a vast cavern of machinery, a cathedral of industry rather than spirit. Rotating belts slithered between great vats and presses. Hooks and mechanical claws swung above, their gruesome talons poised to seize the bodies that were laid out upon the belts. Immense oven-like furnaces squatted at the far end of the hall, flames crackling behind the steel grilles. Huge pipes pumped fuel into the furnaces, drawing promethium and other incendiary chemicals from mammoth tanks clustered about the opposite side of the building. A brigade of pallid servitors shuffled around the machinery and the furnaces. With the aquila branded into their foreheads and their bodies covered in strange cloaks that at once suggested the coverall of a labourer and the cassock of a pilgrim, the servitors were twisted parodies of the human form. Arms replaced with grasping claws of iron, legs substituted for whirring treads of steel, each of the attendants was part machine, programmed to perform his duties with neither complaint nor fatigue. They didn’t react even as the first of Krom’s Blood Claws came loping into the factory, simply continuing to operate the machinery they had been assigned.
‘Damn this incense,’ Krom cursed behind his helm. ‘It’s enough to set the oldest Long Fang on edge!’
With the incense saturating the air, the Space Wolves found their vision murky and their sense of smell overwhelmed. Ulrik had expected the incense to be an obstruction, but he hadn’t anticipated it to have such a pernicious effect. For the first time a troubling thought came to him. He had tried not to underestimate Sathar or to let contempt for the traitor cloud his judgement. Even so, he wondered if he had given their prey enough credit.
The groan of heavy chains grinding their way through pulleys thundered overhead. Ulrik swung around, watching as a massive cauldron was hauled across the hall on a suspended rail. The immense metal vessel abruptly lurched to a stop, hanging for an instant above a pack of Grey Hunters making their way along the factory floor. The Space Wolves scattered as the hook supporting the cauldron released it. Gallons of bubbling chemicals slammed into the floor, spilling over the ferrocrete foundation. Noxious liquid splashed across the Grey Hunters, sizzling against their ceramite armour.
Across the crematorium, other mechanisms suddenly developed violent faults. The doors of a furnace swung open and sent a blast of flame searing across the advance of some Blood Claws, forcing them to leap back and swat at the burning wolf-pelts and talismans hanging from their armour. The nozzle of a sprayer meant to bathe corpses in purifying unguents burst and sent a stream of liquid streaking across the hall with enough force that a pack of Long Fangs were knocked off their feet.
‘Damn that traitor! Does he think he can stop us with these petty tricks!’ Krom aimed his bolt pistol at a nearby servitor, exploding the half-machine’s head. The servitor slumped beside the flywheel it had just started to turn, arresting the opening of a furnace door.
‘Stay alert,’ Ulrik warned. ‘Don’t let your warriors lose focus.’
He knew his order would be difficult to follow. The whole of the factory was descending into a bedlam of amok machinery. Hydraulic claws dropped down from the ceiling, scrabbling for the Space Wolves below. Pneumatic pincers slashed at the Drakeslayers from behind banks of pressure gauges and lubricant feeds. The rattle of bolters and the screech of chainswords rose in answer to the rampaging machinery.
Some of the servitors now shambled away from their machines. One, holding a great hydraulic hammer clenched in its metal claws, lunged at a Wolf Guard, the head of its tool-turned-weapon cracking the pillar behind the Space Wolf as he dodged from its path. A kick of the Drakeslayer’s boot crumpled the servitor’s leg, pitching it to the floor. A burst from the Wolf Guard’s bolt pistol exploded its head in a spray of blood and lubricant.
Across the factory floor, the Grey Hunters were confronted by a murderous file of maintenance servitors. Each of the automata had a tank of caustic purifiers bolted to its back, hoses snaking out from the canister to connect with the wide-nozzled sprayer that replaced one of its arms. The servitors sent blasts of acidic granules billowing out towards the Grey Hunters, forcing them to take cover behind a bank of machinery before retaliating with a withering fusillade of bolter fire. Engulfed in a cloud of shimmering granules as the canister burst, one of the servitors was quickly consumed down to the bone as its flesh dissolved.
More servitors moved to the attack, turning a medley of instruments and tools against the Drakeslayers. The whirring abrasives of buffers and grinders scraped across ceramite as automata emerged from storage lockers, surprising one of the Blood Claw packs. The young Space Wolves replied with bolters and swords, tearing through their ambushers in a riot of violence. Servitors with promethium projectors turned against a squad of Long Fangs, sheets of rolling flame sizzling against their armour and blackening their tribal talismans before a missile barrage obliterated their attackers.
Something more instinctive than thought made Ulrik turn away from the fray and towards one of the great presse
s where the ashes of hive-serfs were compacted. Above the gigantic press, standing upon an elevated walkway, was a lone figure.
Gripping his crozius and plasma pistol a little tighter, Ulrik rushed forwards. When the lurker started to climb higher into the maze of gantries and walkways that stretched across the crematorium, the Wolf Priest gnashed his fangs in frustration. If there was some passage connecting the roof of the building to the next level of the hive, their prey could avoid the warriors Krom had left outside. He’d gain a valuable lead. Ulrik didn’t intend to grant the traitor such an opportunity.
The hulking presses loomed before him as Ulrik hurried after his quarry. Leaping over one of the conveyor belts that brought boxes of ashes from the furnaces, the Wolf Priest found himself at the edge of the descending ram. Beyond, he could see the stairs leading up to the walkway. Without a flicker of hesitation, Ulrik sent a ball of plasma searing into the pipes fitted to the side of the press. Oil and fluid erupted from the broken tubes, spraying across the hall. Ulrik dived under the dropping ram, crawling across the bottom of the press. The loss of fluid retarded the descent, causing the plate to lose impetus with each passing second. Just the same, Ulrik felt his backpack squeezing him before he wormed his way free. His boots were barely clear before the heavy ram completed its descent and struck the base with a dull metallic boom.
The thunderous impact wasn’t enough to blot out the other sounds that now drew Ulrik’s attention. The rattle of bolters had increased, but there was a difference in the reports now, a shift in quality that warned Ulrik not all of the weapons being fired were from the armouries of the Fang. The Dark Angels – had they come to help the Space Wolves or to contend their right to the hunt? Ulrik cast the question aside. Interrogator-Chaplain Balthus could argue his case after the traitor was caught.
The Wolf Priest charged the stairs, lunging up them in great leaps as he took advantage of the planet’s low gravity, hurtling across the first walkway and rushing up to a second. A lupine snarl of satisfaction rumbled at the back of his throat when he spotted his prey ahead. The lurker had lingered instead of fleeing. He’d stayed to gloat over the Drakeslayers and the confusion his menagerie of traps had wrought. That was a mistake he was going to regret most dearly.
‘Sathar!’ Ulrik cried out in challenge. ‘Your days of mocking the Allfather are over! Justice has come for you on the fangs of wolves!’
The traitor turned. He wore a heavy cloak that appeared stitched from human skin, but the garment wasn’t enough to hide the bulky power armour he wore beneath it or the great leathery wings that sprang from his back. The helm that peered out from beneath the cloak’s hood was pulled out into a beak, the optics fashioned from a yellow transparency that somehow lent them a jaundiced quality.
‘I hear you bark, but can you bite?’ the traitor snarled. Sathar lunged at Ulrik with the jagged edge of his broken blade. Krom had shattered the sword with Wyrmclaw when the two had fought in the governor’s rooms, but the original had been so huge that the remnant was still the size of any normal blade, and just as deadly. The weapon seemed to soak up the shadows around it, blurring its outline as it came slashing towards the Wolf Priest. Narrowly was he able to dodge aside as the blade came smashing down, shearing through the framework and sending a tangle of twisted steel crashing to the floor far below.
Ulrik retaliated, bringing his maul around. He tried to shatter the sword again, but Sathar was too fast, feinting and veering away. A hiss of amusement rasped from Sathar’s helm as the traitor struck at Ulrik once more. This time the blade slashed through the guardrail a few inches from the Fenrisian, the severed length of the rail whipping back at him like a snake.
Bringing his crozius crackling across the walkway, Ulrik sent a mass of torn metal flying into the traitor’s face. Sathar staggered back, his broken sword incapable of fending off the spray of debris.
‘I don’t duel traitor scum,’ Ulrik growled. He leaped across the pit his maul had gouged in the walkway floor, springing at the traitor like a thunderwolf.
Sathar’s sword lashed out, striking at the supports connecting the walkway to the ceiling. The blow sheared through the metal girders. The walkway crumpled, part of its length sliding away to hang forlornly from the rearward span. In an instant, Ulrik found only empty space beneath him. Without hesitating, he hooked the flange of his crozius in the angle between support and walkway, using his momentum to turn his fall into a flip. Pivoting, he flung himself over the guardrail and onto the walkway behind his foe. By his own action, Sathar had trapped himself between the Wolf Priest and a plummet to the factory floor below.
Still there was fight in the traitor. Raising his sword, Sathar rushed towards Ulrik. The Wolf Priest fired his plasma pistol. The impact ripped the weapon from Sathar’s hands and pitched it down into the crematorium.
The traitor took a step back and reached for the bolt pistol holstered at his side. A snarl of warning rose from Ulrik.
‘Balthus wants you alive, but that’s the only thing he said about your condition.’
Sathar moved his hands away from the gun.
‘So you have caught me,’ he said, slowly pointing his hand to the factory below. ‘Or have you? It is a tricky prospect when the hunter finds himself trapped.’
Ulrik could hear the sounds of conflict raging below, the battle cries and combat orders swirling through the inter-squad vox channel. Krom was trying to redeploy his Drakeslayers, to answer the ambush that had suddenly engulfed them. From his vantage point high above the factory floor, Ulrik had a better appreciation of the situation than Krom. He could see how disunited and scattered the traps had left the Space Wolves. More than that, he could see the enemies his battle-brothers now faced. Not a rabble of cultists or rebels, but a force of Space Marines. Even in the fumes of the crematorium, he could tell they weren’t Dark Angels.
‘You aren’t the only one with friends,’ Sathar said. ‘For now, my associates are only trying to keep them busy. It will be much different if they decide to apply themselves in earnest,’ he cautioned.
‘Your traitor friends are outnumbered,’ Ulrik scoffed.
Sathar shook his head. ‘They would surprise you. Besides, they need only hold your comrades long enough for us to talk.’ His voice dropped to an unctuous whisper. ‘I know who you are seeking, who it is you are really hunting.’
Ulrik took a step towards the traitor, his maul ready to strike the turncoat down.
‘You know nothing,’ he snapped, rage boiling within his heart at Sathar’s effort to manipulate him.
‘Logan Grimnar,’ Sathar said, thrusting the name at Ulrik as though it had the bite of his lost sword behind it. ‘That is who you were looking for before you were distracted by Balthus.’
‘You know nothing,’ Ulrik repeated, but even he could hear the lack of conviction in his voice. Sathar had planted a seed of doubt in his mind. Did the traitor really know something? Could he let this chance slip away?
The traitor glanced back down at the factory floor. ‘If the fighting gets much worse, I worry that my associates may want to press the issue. Make your choice while it is still yours to make.’
A sick feeling boiled inside Ulrik’s stomach. To even contemplate a compromise with something like Sathar was an outrage. He would carry it with him as a blight upon his honour for the rest of his days. Yet if there was truly a hope of picking up Grimnar’s trail again, he had to take it. His own honour was small concern beside the welfare of the Chapter.
‘I’ll hear you out,’ Ulrik said. ‘Call off your dogs.’
‘I’ll keep my pistol, just to reassure myself of your sincerity. If you are so inclined, you can try to disarm me once you’ve listened to me,’ Sathar told him. ‘Comrades!’ he spoke into his vox bead. ‘I am captive of the Space Wolves! There is no purpose to further fighting. Withdraw. Withdraw and proceed as planned.’ The traitor swung around to Ulrik. ‘I have called off my dogs, now call off yours.’
‘Lord Krom, I have taken
the traitor,’ Ulrik spoke into his helm’s vox-bead. ‘Do not pursue the others. We must remain committed to our cause and not spend our resources on distractions.’
The Wolf Priest glared at Sathar. He knew whatever the traitor wanted to say would be designed to tempt him. He also knew none of it could be trusted. He’d need more, something he could trust.
‘Send Leoric Half-ear to me,’ Ulrik said. Whatever deceit was in the traitor’s words, the Rune Priest Leoric would be able to sniff out the truth in his mind.
Sathar the Undone led the Space Wolves into a concealed chamber above one of the crematorium’s sanctuaries. Ulrik grudgingly admired the craft with which the traitor had hidden his refuge. Even knowing it was there, he was hard-pressed to spot the break where a carved finial in the sanctuary pivoted to expose the elevator leading up to the room. The niches in the walls and the stone plinths arrayed about the room made it clear that the place had been intended as a mausoleum at one time, a place to inter those too wealthy and privileged to have their remains reduced to fertilizer. Now the mausoleum was given over to Sathar’s use. Light shone down upon the chamber from panels fitted into the ceiling, illuminators designed to mimic the clean light of unpolluted skies long-since extinct above the surface of Stratovass. Flickering through the warm glow of dawn, passing onto the bright blaze of noon, the panels sent a panoply of shadows wheeling about the room.
The walls were adorned with star charts, the niches converted into caches of data-sheets and pict-slates. Upon the stone plinths were assembled curious devices and artefacts – trophies and mementos that must have been claimed by Sathar during his wanderings across the galaxy. Some Ulrik recognised: the narrow helm of an eldar witch-prophet, the severed talon of a giant genestealer, the broken blade of an Inquisitor’s power sword with the grim iconography of that organisation engraved upon the guard. Others were things beyond even Ulrik’s vast understanding. Among these was a three-foot-tall prism of black glass. There was an oily, creeping atmosphere about the object that made the Wolf Priest’s hackles rise. Leoric Half-ear removed his helm and glared at the thing.
