The Space Wolf Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer 40K

  Ragnar wondered what this signified. Were orks already in possession of the temple? If so, why were there not more of them? If there was an ork army present, the whole place should have reeked of it. Instead he could catch only the scent of these raiders.

  From the distance there suddenly came the sound of random sporadic shooting. Ragnar briefly wondered if his Blood Claw had been detected but the sound was coming from too far away, on the other side of the ruins. It was answered by bursts of fire and the sounds of ork bellowing from other areas.

  What was going on, he wondered?

  The answer came swiftly. The ork aimed his gun into the air and let out a long wild whoop. It was a display of mindless enthusiasm, of delight in noise for the sake of noise, of shooting for the sake of shooting. A senseless waste of ammunition, Ragnar thought, but then the ork went quiet again. An expression of brooding menace passed across its face. The sullen atmosphere of violence suddenly fell on the small group at the edge of the temple.

  As he watched, the gretchin began to caper around their prisoner, until the ork bellowed an order and cuffed the nearest creature on the ear. Instantly the gretchin calmed down, seeming petrified with fear of their huge master. The ork advanced on the human prisoner. A swift open-handed slap sent the wretch reeling to the ground. Blood flowed from his nostrils and he choked out a couple of teeth. Ragnar gathered a new respect for the gretchin. They were tougher than they looked if they could take such a cuffing from an ork.

  ‘Slave!’ the ork bellowed in very bad Gothic. ‘You slave!’

  The monk rolled on to his knees and began to intone a prayer to the Emperor. A boot from the ork sent him sprawling into the dirt again, muddying his tattered robe. Ragnar could smell the man’s sweat and fear, but still he rose and started to pray once more, asking the Emperor to deliver him.

  Ragnar wondered if this were a sign, whether the Emperor had guided him to this place at this time for a specific purpose? That was a dangerous assumption, Ragnar thought. What if they attempted to free the monk and instead gave away their presence here to the ork forces? This was supposed to be a swift and daring mission, and perhaps this would put it at risk. On the other hand, they had come for the fragment of the sacred talisman, and perhaps the monk could guide them swiftly to it. Surely he would have knowledge of where it lay within this huge complex. That would make his rescue worth the risk – provided they could pull it off. And provided the ork didn’t kill them or alert its kindred. Ragnar came to a swift decision: do it.

  He glanced behind him to where Sven lay. He looked at the ork and ran his finger across his windpipe in the universal gesture for slitting throats. Sven nodded his acknowledgement with a keen smile. With the knowledge of imminent action, Ragnar’s mind cleared. Almost as one, he and Sven rose to a crouch. A mere twenty strides separated them from the ork. The greenskin had its back to them, menacing the prisoner once more. The gretchins’ attentions were all on the human’s torment, except for the one who had opened the stone box and was tipping its contents onto the ground, an expression of pained concentration on its face, its greenish tongue protruding through its teeth.

  The key to the success of this was in quick decisive action before any of the alien scum could respond.

  Ragnar charged forward, determined to wait to the last second before activating his chainsword so as not to give away the element of surprise. If possible he was determined to fire no shots. No sense in giving away their location unless they had to.

  Ten strides. Ragnar’s loping pace covered the ground quickly. So far not one of the enemy had noticed them; their attention was riveted to their sport. Ragnar showed his fangs in a feral snarl. He sensed Sven loping along a few paces behind him. Instinct told him that Sven would take care of the gretchin while he despatched the ork. That suited Ragnar just fine.

  Five strides. The greenskin with the open chest looked up from the pile of ceremonial regalia it had turned out onto the ground. It must have caught sight of them from its peripheral vision. Its eyes went wide in startled surprise. Ragnar hoped that it would stay frozen in inactivity for just a few moments longer.

  Four strides. Three. The gretchin opened its mouth to scream a warning to its fellows. As it did so, Ragnar thumbed the activation rune of his chainsword, offering a silent prayer to Russ as he did so. The blades roared to life. As Ragnar took his penultimate stride he was already starting his swing.

  For a creature so large, the ork responded with surprising quickness. Its head swivelled on its shoulders to look back in the direction of the noise, then its whole body pivoted to face the new threat, its chain-axe starting to rise in a parry. But it was already too late. Ragnar brought his chainsword down like a thunderbolt from the heavens. It cleaved right through the ork’s neck just above the neck guard of its armour and separated the head from its body in one flickering stroke. As if unaware that it was already dead, the ork’s torso kept moving. The axe continued to rise before flying upward from the ork’s nerveless hand. Fingers clutched around the trigger of its bolter in a final futile response to death, the crude weapon sending a flurry of shells into the ground. Each impact raised a small fountain of dirt around its feet. Blood flew from the severed neck. The helmeted head rolled to the ground and glared at Ragnar with undiminished hatred. The eyes still moved, following his flickering motion.

  Sven, meanwhile, had ignored the gretchin with the treasure chest and piled into those around the prisoner. They were much slower than their ork master and just as equally doomed. Sven took the head off the first with one sweep of his blade, buried the chainsword to the hilt in the chest of the second and sent the third tumbling to the ground with a brutal blow from the butt of his bolt pistol. It rose to its feet trying to swing its autorifle to bear. The gretchin with the chest meanwhile let out a long panicked shriek and turned to flee. Ragnar wasted no mercy on it, impaling it on his chainsword from behind. The force of his blow lifted the small body right off the ground for a few moments until the rotating blades chopped it in two and the partially bisected corpse flopped to the ground, watering the earth with its foul greenish-yellow blood.

  Ragnar glanced around quickly to see Sven finish off the last gretchin. It raised its autorifle in a futile effort to parry the chainsword which was even now heading for it. Sparks flew as the blades bit into crude gunmetal, then the autorifle parted into two sections and Sven’s chainsword crunched into the gretchin, killing it instantly. A swift glance around and a sniff of the air told Ragnar there were no more threats in the immediate vicinity. He strode over to the praying monk, who looked up at last as he noticed the Space Wolf’s shadow pass over him. A look of surprise and fear passed over the man’s face as he saw the unexpected apparition of a bloodstained Space Marine looming over him.

  ‘On your feet, brother!’ Ragnar ordered him. ‘The Emperor has answered your prayers and delivered you.’

  The monk fainted dead away.

  Ragnar glanced around, checking all was safe. The light of life had finally faded from the dead ork’s head. The brief, brutal struggle was over.

  ‘Get up, man,’ Ragnar insisted impatiently. He tapped the monk as softly on the face as he could. The slap of his ceramite gauntlets on flesh still sounded harsh but right now they had no time to be gentle. Ragnar looked around in exasperation as the monk remained comatose. They stood in the chamber from which the prisoner had been taken by the gretchin. Sergeant Hakon, the two inquisitors and Sven were also present. The other Blood Claws had taken up their positions, forming a defensive perimeter around the area. The greenskin corpses had already been dragged out of sight into the woods.

  ‘Stand aside,’ said Inquisitor Isaan, brushing past Ragnar and standing over the recumbent monk. She passed her hand over the unconscious man’s face. Ragnar felt a prickling at the back of his neck which told him that she was bringing her hidden powers to bear. The monk’s eyelashes flickered. He groaned, then sat bolt upright.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked in a cracked voice.
Both his tone and his scent told Ragnar that he was very frightened.

  ‘Do not be alarmed,’ Isaan said as levelly as she could. ‘You are safe. I am Inquisitor Isaan, on the Emperor’s service. This is Inquisitor Sternberg. These men are Space Wolves of the Astartes. We are on a mission vital to the security of the Imperium. Who are you?’

  ‘I… I am Brother Tethys, a scribe… of the Order of Perpetual Bliss. I thank you for saving me from those horrors. They would have killed me or made me a slave but for your intervention.’

  ‘Is that what happened to your brethren here?’ Isaan asked in a sympathetic voice. The monk nodded. His thin ascetic face looked on the verge of tears. He held one gaunt, bony hand up in front of his face. Ragnar could see that it was shaking.

  ‘Were your brethren taken?’

  ‘Most of them. Taken or killed when the temple fell. We tried to fight but there were just too many of them. When the orks burst through the perimeter walls, some of us fled into the hidden passages, hoping to save our scrolls and treasures and perhaps carry on the fight in secret.’

  ‘How many of you?’

  ‘I do not know that. Not many. I saw several hundred of the brethren rounded up and marched off by the ork scum. I watched from one of the spyholes in the Great Temple. They were loaded into some manner of huge landcrawler and taken south. Probably going to the siege of Galt Prime City.’

  ‘How many orks are left in the ruins?’

  ‘Not that many. The ones here seem to have been left behind by accident. Maybe they were drunk or lost when their comrades left. Who can really tell with such brutes?’

  ‘How did they come to capture you?’

  The monk shrugged. ‘I left hiding to try to steal some food from the granaries. Hopeless really: the orks had already taken it. They must have caught sight of me as I returned to this chamber, followed me. Why is this important to you?’

  ‘I am trying to get a picture of what happened here – and, to tell the truth, what sort of witness you are.’

  ‘I am loyal to the Emperor. I did my duty with my brothers,’ Tethys insisted angrily.

  Ragnar was not entirely sure this was the case. Something in the man’s scent suggested both shame and the fact that he was not telling the whole truth. Isaan’s voice was gentle and reassuring. ‘I am sure you were. Who could blame you if you fled when the orks overran the walls? There were so many of them and they were so savage. There were many of them, weren’t there?’

  ‘Thousands upon thousands. A numberless horde. A sea of howling green faces. We killed so many of them but they just kept coming and coming. And they had huge war machines armed with terrible weapons. Where did they come from? I would not have believed there were so many orks on the planet. Or that they could be so well-armed.’

  ‘They came from beyond the heavens. But do not worry. The Emperor will punish them for their misdeeds. The Imperium always triumphs in the end. Now tell me, Brother Tethys, why did the orks attack here?’

  ‘Who can tell why such brutes do anything? They were drunk with bloodlust and the desire to kill.’

  ‘Yet they took prisoners – slaves, you said.’

  ‘Only once the battle was long over and they calmed down. Once they were inside the temple grounds, things were terrible. They swarmed everywhere, killing and looting all as they went. Then their leaders seemed to re-establish some sort of control and they went to the sanctum, and pillaged the ancient treasures. Perhaps that is what they sought – our sacred relics.’

  ‘Sacred relics?’

  ‘There are many such here: the bones of holy men, devices of great sanctity created in ancient days – an amulet worn by the Emperor himself, it is said, broken in some ancient battle. One day it will be repaired and used to resurrect the Emperor.’ Ragnar saw the inquisitors stiffen like hounds which had caught a scent.

  ‘What did this amulet look like? Like this one?’ She gestured to the fragment of the talisman hanging around her neck. ‘Have you seen it?’

  ‘It is a holy thing,’ Tethys said, suddenly circumspect. ‘I should not talk of it to strangers.’

  ‘We are servants of the Emperor, trusted ones. It is our duty to preserve such relics from the claws of those who would defile them. It is your sacred duty to help us do this.’ She made another pass with her hand. Once more Ragnar felt psychic power flow. Tethys stiffened a little and then seemed to relax. ‘Yes. I understand that now,’ he said in a colourless voice. ‘I must do my duty to the Emperor most high.’

  ‘Tell us about the amulet.’

  ‘It is a device of silvered metal on a chain of true silver. Within it is set a green jewel of a thousand facets. It looks on one side as if it had been broken from a larger gem. That side is jagged, not smooth and polished. The high abbot wears it on the night of the Blood Moon when performing the rite of ultimate–’

  ‘It sounds like what we’re bloody well looking for,’ Sven said impatiently.

  Inquisitor Isaan swung her head around and silenced him with a poisonous glare of her dark brown eyes. The meaning was clear: Do not interrupt. She glanced back at the monk, who had opened his mouth to speak once more.

  ‘If you seek the amulet it is too late. The orks have taken it. I saw it around the throat of their leader. I am not surprised. Our visionaries claim it is an object of great power.’

  Isaan looked at Sternberg, then at the rest of them. Her face related all that needed to be said.

  SEVEN

  ‘There can be no turning back,’ Inquisitor Sternberg said grimly. ‘We must recover the Talisman of Lykos from those ork brutes.’

  Ragnar and the other Blood Claws stared at him. Ragnar could tell his battle-brothers shared his momentary sense of disbelief.

  ‘The thing is gone, man!’ Sergeant Hakon said. ‘An ork army has taken it.’

  ‘Then we shall retrieve it!’ Sternberg said in a voice that permitted no opposition.

  ‘And how precisely will we find it?’ Hakon demanded. ‘These jungles are swarming with orks. There are ork forces all over the continent. How can we find a single ork amidst them?’

  ‘How did we locate the talisman in the first place?’ Sternberg countered.

  ‘I can use my… gifts,’ Karah Isaan suggested. ‘The link between the two fragments still exists – the closer they are the stronger the link gets. Now I can sense the general direction. As we get closer I will be able to pinpoint it exactly.’

  ‘Could we not teleport back to the ship, perform the ritual once more, and teleport back down?’ Ragnar suggested.

  ‘The Light of Truth has been driven out of teleport range by ork warcraft,’ Sternberg said. ‘It is moving out to rendezvous with the approaching Imperial relief fleet. It will return with the task force in one standard week.’

  ‘You hope,’ Hakon said.

  ‘With the Emperor’s blessing, it will be so.’

  ‘Well if we’re stuck down here for a bloody week anyway…’ Sven started. A stern look from the sergeant silenced him.

  ‘And what will we do when we find the bearer of the talisman? This is no ordinary ork. It is a warlord. He will be in the middle of the horde and well protected.’

  ‘Are you not Space Marines? Is this not the sort of mission you were trained for?’ Sternberg said.

  A silence came over the small group. It was broken by the distant sounds of the remaining orks letting off their weapons. Everyone present looked at each other warily. Ragnar considered the inquisitor’s words. He was certain that if there was a way, they could find it. After all they were Space Marines, the Imperium’s elite warriors. He was just not sure there was a way to do what the inquisitor wanted in the time they had available.

  ‘You are proposing we locate this ork, steal into its camp, snatch the artefact, and then escape?’ Hakon summarised. His tone was one of heavy sarcasm, but from the way he tilted his head, Ragnar could see he was giving the matter serious consideration. The Blood Claw could understand that. If the deed could be done, it
would be a mighty feat of arms, worthy of a saga hero. In fact, Ragnar was thinking, perhaps this would be the way into the sagas for all of them. Their names would ring down the millennia in the annals of the Chapter. If they survived. And if they succeeded. He had to admit they sounded like very large ‘ifs’.

  ‘Precisely,’ Sternberg was saying. ‘That is, if you think you and your warriors can perform this mission. If you can’t, you can wait in the jungle and Inquisitor Isaan and I will proceed alone.’

  Hakon laughed softly. There was no way he was going to allow that. It would not redound to the Chapter’s credit, for its warriors to withdraw and abandon two servants of the Emperor on such an important mission. On the other hand, that mission might well prove to be suicidal. Ragnar understood the sergeant’s dilemma. ‘I would not allow that,’ Hakon said finally.

  ‘You cannot stop me. I am not one of your Chapter. You cannot command me to do anything,’ Inquisitor Sternberg said, his face set.

  The sergeant shook his head slowly. Space Wolves were not famous for their respect of any authority save their own leaders, and that they gave grudgingly to men who had earned it. A leader who made foolish decisions did not remain one long, rarely became one in the first place.

  Ragnar wondered whether Hakon was going to make all of this crystal clear to the inquisitors or whether he would find another, more diplomatic path. The sergeant gestured at the amulet which Isaan wore. ‘I am responsible for the safety of the talisman,’ he said smoothly. ‘I will not allow you to proceed if your actions endanger it.’