The Space Wolf Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer 40K

  These reflections had taken less than five heartbeats perhaps. In the midst of battle, Ragnar’s mind worked at a speed far beyond the merely human. He realised he had only been keeping himself occupied until his troops were massed in position for the final assault. He focussed his mind back on the problem at hand, selectively editing the memory of the scene he had just witnessed, using his superhuman abilities with a skill born of long decades of practice.

  Using ancient meditation techniques taught to him in the fortress-monastery of his order, he concentrated upon the impression of the one part of the battlefield that was currently important to him: the rebel position directly ahead. He consciously selected all the crucial details. The walls of sandbags hastily thrown into position to plug the gaps in the building walls. The heavy bolter team ensconced in the twisted wreckage of a tank just in front of the building. The edge of a peaked cap which marked the presence of a rebel officer glaring out of the barred windows on the remains of the second floor. All was more or less as he had expected it to be when he had surveyed the enemy stronghold earlier. There had been no important changes in the heretics’ disposition. His basic plan remained sound.

  It would simply be a matter of hitting them at their weakest point, blasting the sandbags out of the way and then scouring the building of every last Chaos-worshipping wretch. Nothing too difficult, he thought – even though his force was outnumbered at least five to one. Such numbers did not really matter, Ragnar knew. In battles such as this, the quality of the troops counted for far more than the quantity. His men were Space Marines, Adeptus Astartes, hardened warriors drawn from a world of fierce fighters, put through the toughest testing regime ever devised, then subjected to a process of genetic re-engineering which had transformed them into supermen, many times faster, stronger and tougher than mere mortals. They were armed with the best weapons and equipment the Imperium could provide. They lived lives of monastic discipline; when they were not fighting in the Emperor’s service, they trained to fight. They were the best troops the millions of worlds the Imperium of Mankind could produce.

  And their opponents? Scum, pure and simple. They were conscripts, pressed into the service of a rogue planetary governor; men so lacking in faith that they had forsworn their oaths of allegiance to the Emperor, and given themselves body and soul to the dark powers of Chaos. Of course, they had some military training, and they were not without a certain desperate bravery, but there was no way they could withstand an assault by the Space Wolves.

  Ragnar knew the rest of his force was in position. He sensed that the Blood Claws, ferocious young assault troops, were in cover in a shell crater not too far from him. Within moments Brother Hrothgar’s Long Fangs would open fire and that would be the signal for the assault to commence. Ragnar smiled wolfishly, lips curling to reveal the huge canines that were the genetic marker of his Chapter. The coming few minutes were always the times he loved the most, when combat was up close and personal, and a man could take the measure of his foes, hand to hand.

  A flickering vapour trail was all the warning he needed that Brother Hrothgar had opened fire. The enemy heavy weapon vanished in a sun-bright explosion as the missile launcher did its work. The staccato roar of bolters filled Ragnar’s ears as the remainder of his men opened up on the enemy position. They were throwing down a curtain of fire in the way that only Space Marines could, shooting with a speed and precision unknown to lesser warriors. Ragnar risked another glance up and saw huge chunks of masonry being shattered to stone chips by the torrent of bolter shells. He could hear the screams of the enemy wounded and dying, smell the blood and the sour stink of spilled guts. The enemy were well and truly suppressed, pinned down by the unexpected hail of shells, unable or unwilling to stick their heads over the parapet and risk having them blown off. Ragnar knew that this would not last for long, that soon they would regain their courage and return fire – or at least, they would if they were given the chance. Ragnar was not about to allow them that.

  Now was the moment to attack.

  The Space Wolf sprang lightly to his feet, the servomotors of his centuries-old power armour whining inaudibly to all but his own razor-keen senses. He leapt towards the enemy position, confident that his own highly trained troops would recognise him and hold their fire. He knew that the pack of Blood Claws, twenty strong, was forming a flying wedge behind him. They were directed at the pile of sandbags in the breached wall, the weakest part of the enemy line. In another moment, the Wolves had ceased firing at that area and concentrated their shells on the defences surrounding and overlooking it. For a few brief moments, Ragnar and his assault troops had a clear run up to their objective, a safe corridor through the rain of fire.

  One of the enemy officers, wearing the peaked cap and long greatcoat of a lieutenant, dared to stick his head above the parapet, obviously wondering why bolter shells had ceased to impact on his part of the line. A look of surprise and fear flickered across his face as he saw the oncoming wave of Space Marines. Ragnar gave credit where credit was due: the heretic did not remain frozen for long. After an instant of hesitation he turned his head and began screaming instructions to his troops.

  It was a mistake. Without breaking stride Ragnar raised his bolt pistol and put a shell through the man’s head. It exploded like a melon hit with a sledgehammer, a puddle of brains and blood filling the peaked cap as it fell from his head. Shouts of confusion echoed from behind the wall of sandbags, then a few heretics, braver and perhaps more experienced than the rest, stuck their heads up in order to take shots at their attackers. But a wave of withering fire from the Wolves behind Ragnar scythed through them, sending their corpses tumbling back amongst their comrades.

  With a single mighty bound, Ragnar cleared the wall of sandbags and dropped into the rebel position. It was dark but his altered eyes adapted instantly and he took in his new surroundings in a glance. All around were the enemy, clad in the crumpled and filthy uniforms they had once worn so proudly as part of the Imperial levies, but their insignia had been ripped off and hastily replaced with the evil symbol of the Ruinous Powers, eight arrows radiating outwards from a single watchful eye. The stink of disease was strong, more powerful even than the reek of unwashed bodies and death. All of the heretics looked emaciated and unclean. Some showed the signs of something far, far worse. Most of the men looked superficially human, only slight bulges and blisters indicating where they were about to change. A few, however, were more twisted and warped, corrupted by the evil power they served.

  One mutant close to Ragnar had scaly skin and clutched its lasrifle with fingers that resembled small tentacles; his eyes extended on long, slug-like stalks. A second heretic was huge: his chest barrel-like, his arms as thick as a normal man’s thighs, his fingers ending in long cruel talons. His face was pockmarked with craters of glowing, greenish fungus, which wept an oddly luminescent pus as he opened his mouth to shout a warning.

  Ragnar thumbed the brass ignition switch on his chainsword and the mighty weapon leapt to life, shuddering in his hands as the potent microengine in the hilt brought the rotating blades up to speed. Without thinking, he snapped off a couple of shots, sending the taloned giant straight to hell with a hole in his guts big enough to put a fist through. The force of the second shot blasted Slugeyes backward three yards into the wall. Ragnar snarled in satisfaction, then ducked as two of the rebels regained their wits enough to fire at him. The glittering trails of laser fire passed over his head. Screams sounded behind him as the beams seared the flesh of other heretics who had been attempting to sneak up on him.

  He threw himself forward, bringing his chainsword around in a long sweep, beheading one mutant and hacking the arm off a second, before burying the duralloy blades deep within the chest of a third. With one swift kick, the Wolf dashed the corpse from his blade and raced on, heading for the chamber’s exit. Triumphant howls and despairing cries from behind told him that his fellows, the Blood Claws, had arrived and had already begun the bloody work of butc
hering their foes.

  Ragnar raced into the corridor. The head of a heretic officer appeared round a door. ‘What is going on?’ he shouted, in oddly accented Imperial Gothic.

  The man’s face was pale and he looked ill. His body had the lean look of one who had suffered a long sickness; his eyes burned with a feverish light. He obviously had not recognised Ragnar for what he was. Ragnar took his head from his shoulders with a sideways cut of his blade. Blood fountained, splashing the ceiling with red. Ragnar heard screams as the corpse tumbled backwards into the room beyond. Swiftly he holstered his pistol and tapped the hilt of the microgrenade dispenser on his belt. The small oval disk of a frag grenade dropped into his gauntleted fingers. He pushed the timer three times to set the detonator to go off in three seconds, then lobbed the grenade into the room. He doubted that the terrified men within even realised what was happening until, a few heartbeats later, they were torn apart by the force of the explosion.

  Ragnar poked his head around the doorway and surveyed the mangled corpses. Amid all the ruin one man still moved, frantically trying to bring his lasrifle to bear on the Wolf, his breath coming from his ruined chest in horrible gurgles. Before the wounded cultist could draw a bead on him, Ragnar whipped his bolt pistol from its holster and put him out of his misery with one swift, precise shot, before he could even offer a prayer for aid from his Dark Gods.

  The Space Wolf paused for a moment to listen. All around he could hear the sounds of combat and death spreading through the building, like ripples in a pool after a heavy stone has been dropped into it. He knew that all through the building his warriors were passing like a cleansing flame, scouring out the dark taint of heresy. Nothing could resist their relentless onslaught.

  His nostrils caught the stink of burning flesh and opened wounds, of blood and spent bolter charges, of bone marrow and brain tissue. The convection currents in the air brought him other subtler scents: the faint pheromone traces of fear and anger, the distinctive scent of his battle-brothers, the foul taint of Chaos-contaminated flesh and once again the sour tang of some strange disease. He knew without being told that victory was within their grasp.

  The scent of Brother Olaf reached him, approaching fast from the rear. Olaf was the youngest of the Blood Claws and the least stable. Of them all, he had come closest to devolving into a Wulfen during his transformation into a Space Wolf, and he shared with those cursed men-beasts a terrible rage and an unslakeable thirst for combat. Ragnar knew that with time, the young man would settle down and make his peace with the beast within him. All Space Wolves did eventually – assuming they survived all of their initiation.

  Ragnar risked a glance back over his shoulder and saw that the beast was almost in control of young Olaf as the young warrior charged up behind him. His eyes were wide, the pupils dilated; froth foamed from his lips and spittle drooled from his mouth. His neck muscles writhed like great cables as he howled his fury and bloodlust like a challenge. At this moment, he was definitely out of control. The spirit of the Wolf was in him.

  Ragnar stepped aside to let him pass and the Blood Claw raced past down the corridor towards another wave of heretics drawn by the sounds of battle. Ragnar followed in his wake, content for the moment to observe, to intervene only if the youngling got himself into more trouble than he could handle.

  Not that it looked likely. Olaf’s bolt pistol spat death at the leading heretics and moments later he sprang across the corpses of his targets to wreak havoc on the survivors with his blade. Cutting and stabbing relentlessly, he drove the heretics back down the corridor. It was only as he passed an open doorway that the trap was sprung on him.

  A huge arm emerged and a fist the size of a shield closed around Brother Olaf’s head. Almost at once Ragnar caught the scent of ogryn, one of the giant abhumans who were sometimes attached to the Imperial levies, mutants suffered to live by the Imperium because of their toughness, loyalty and strength. Unfortunately they were also very stupid and would follow their officers into heresy without the slightest thought of the consequences. Now one of them had Brother Olaf in a grip strong enough to crush even the reinforced bone structure of a Space Marine skull by merely clenching its fingers.

  Ragnar was not about to give it the chance. He sprang forward and with a mighty cut severed the huge boil-covered hand at the wrist. It dropped to the floor and for a moment the fingers flexed in nervous reaction so that it seemed to scuttle like a huge spider. A bellow of rage and pain rumbled from behind the door. Ragnar took a step forward and peered within. A massive face glared down at him, mouth distended in shock and anger. Even the ogryn’s features showed traces of disease. Enormous blisters filled with pus marred its cheeks and neck. It sounded very unhealthy, air rasping through lungs filled with phlegm. Even so, it showed no sign of weakness, only an unrelenting urge to maim and slay.

  Ragnar raised his pistol and sent a bullet through one of the ogryn’s eyes. Still it did not fall, but reached out for him with its remaining good hand. Was the creature simply too stupid to die, Ragnar wondered, or was some dark sorcery at work here?

  Not that he cared. Pushing Olaf out of the way of the creature’s blow, the Wolf dived to one side himself. The ogryn brought its fist down as if swatting a fly. Even off balance, Ragnar had the co-ordination to lash out with his chainsword. It bit off two of the monster’s fingers and embedded itself in the palm of the beast’s hand. Like a child recoiling from a scalding stove the ogryn sharply withdrew its hand with a hiss.

  Ragnar held onto the hilt of his chainsword and was lifted clear of the ground. He felt himself start to fall as the teeth of the chainsword ceased to find traction. Yet for a moment he had another clear shot at the monster, so he put a bullet through its other eye, convinced that blinding it at least would give him all the advantage he would need in the coming fight. It was more than enough. This time the bullet passed clean through the abhuman’s thick skull and blew its few brains over the wall of the chamber. The massive corpse toppled like a falling oak. Ragnar landed on his feet and glanced around to see that Brother Olaf had continued down the corridor, leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake. Under the circumstances, Ragnar deemed it advisable to follow.

  Olaf had made his way to a wide hall. The ceiling was half blown away and broken ceramic tiles strewed the floor. Exposed pipes erupted from the floor and electric cables writhed like snakes from the remnants of the walls. The heretics here milled around in confusion, unable to decide whether to advance or flee the building. The indecision cost them their lives. Olaf charged right into the middle of them, lashing out left and right with his blade, killing with every stroke. His howling battle cry echoed around the furthest reaches of the hall, like the call of some avenging spirit. Ragnar was but two strides behind him and, if anything, was even more lethal. He fought with an easy grace and precision, not a movement wasted, not a blow going astray, smiting around him like a warrior god sprung to life from ancient legends. Before they even had time to realise it, half the heretics were dead. The others turned to flee but Ragnar pumped bolter shells into their backs before they could reach the exit, unwilling to stain his blade with the blood of such cowards.

  Olaf glared around him, a blood-maddened wolf seeking new prey. None was visible but that did not matter. He threw back his head, nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air for the scent of heretics. He seemed to catch something, for he cocked his head to one side and listened for a moment – before striding for a metal door set at the rear of the chamber.

  Before the Blood Claw could reach it, the door was thrown open and a man emerged. He was tall and cadaverous, his skin pale as parchment and his eyes glowing with a sickly green internal light visible in the gloom of the chamber. He wore the uniform of an officer of the planetary levies but he was obviously something more than that; more than that and worse. Around him buzzed a huge cloud of flies. They crawled over his flesh and covered the upper part of his skull like a helmet. As they writhed and buzzed, patches of leprous
white flesh became visible beneath them. It was a sight somehow more obscene than the insects themselves. The man’s face was lean and almost fleshless. His cheeks had sunk, and his lips had drawn back to reveal teeth and gums marred by massive white abscesses. The man’s appearance reminded Ragnar of a skull, but the living flesh that still clung to this skull made it far more horrific than the bones of the dead.

  The stink of disease was so strong that Ragnar knew at once that here was the source of the contagion which had infected the heretics in this building. Ragnar fought down a shudder, for he recognised the presence of evil magic. This one was a powerful sorcerer, no doubt sworn to the Chaos power known as Nurgle, the Lord of Pestilence.

  Olaf did not care. He raced towards the newcomer as if he were just an ordinary trooper. The sorcerer grinned, exposing rotten teeth, then made a sweeping gesture with his hand. A nimbus of dark power boiled around his taloned fingers, becoming a ball of glowing green fire as he finished the gesture. The ball of tainted energy swept outwards towards Olaf, emitting a buzzing like the flies, catching him on the chest. For a moment nothing happened, then a yellowish glow limned Olaf’s form, spreading around his body until it encased him. Then a cold fire seemed to consume him. There was no heat, no stench of burning, no sign of anything at work except potent magic. His armour bubbled and blistered and began to run like liquid, taking the flesh below with it. For a moment, Ragnar had a glimpse of the reddish augmented muscles of a Space Marine. Then these too were consumed, rotting to black pus, flowing to the ground like water and evaporating away. In another instant only Olaf’s skeleton, so like and yet so unlike that of an ordinary man, remained. Ragnar had a clear view of the heavy bones, the reinforced joints, the unnaturally thick skull, and the mighty fangs… then that too decayed, leaving only a swiftly fading, glowing outline hanging in the air. Olaf was gone as if he had never been. The glow that had surrounded him coalesced into a ball of fire once more.