A big red button on the dashboard started things up. The engine roared like a wounded dragon. The air reeked of crude fuel. Its acrid stench assaulted Ragnar’s nostrils. Still, he thought, as the buggy lurched forward, there was something appealing about driving the thing. He constantly fought the urge to stamp down the pedal and go roaring through the streets. Suddenly, he understood exactly why the orks raced so much.
Riding in this juggernaut of hardened steel, it was an almost irresistible urge. Of course, he thought. The orks had designed their vehicles this way. Was this urge to go fast a product of riding in the buggy, or was it a simple expression of the ork desire for speed? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Certainly, it touched something deep within him, and he was not even an ork.
They raced towards the edge of the city, moving all but unnoticed through the massive camp which surrounded it. The vehicle leapt and shuddered at every small bump in the road, and yet Ragnar was surprisingly comfortable. The suspension was good, obviously intended to carry the machine safely over the roughest of terrain, and his seat was thickly padded with leather. Two red cubes dangled from a thong tied to the roll bar.
Ragnar guided the buggy through a wide hole blasted through the thick plascrete of the perimeter wall. The massive burned-out hulks of ancient skyscrapers loomed over them like drunken giants. The air felt colder and yet from somewhere off in the distance Ragnar could smell burning. Perhaps the orks were cooking, he thought. More likely they were using incendiaries.
The night was filled with screams and shrieks. Overhead, starshells burst and red contrails marked the passing of ork rocket planes.
‘Which way?’ he asked Karah Isaan.
‘Keep going the way you’re going,’ she told him. ‘I’ll tell you when to turn.’
They moved on through a night that seemed more like a war.
‘You look like a bloody fool, Ragnar,’ said Sven. ‘That helmet makes you look like an idiot!’
‘Compared to you, Sven, I look like a hero from a saga,’ Ragnar replied. ‘But then you always look like an idiot.’
‘Can you two stop bickering for a moment?’ said the deep voice of Sergeant Hakon from the back of the car. Ragnar flinched. It was not like the sergeant to complain. It was a sign of the tension they all felt. Just at that moment, an ork war buggy roared up beside them. One of the massive greenskins bellowed something in his incomprehensible language. He accompanied his bestial roaring with threatening gestures.
For a moment panic threatened to overwhelm Ragnar. What was going on? Had they been detected? Were these sentries some form of patrol? Beside him, he felt Sven stiffen and reach for his weapon. Ragnar reached out with his left hand to grab Sven’s wrist, immobilising his arm. Now was not the time to start shooting.
He crouched low behind the wheel, hoping that the orks would not see he was human. The orks continued to grunt and bellow and make obscene motions with their hands. They revved their engine and pointed into the air with their weapons. Shots spat upwards into the darkness. Ragnar shook his head in confusion. He did not understand what was going on.
The largest ork, the one behind the wheel, roared a stream of incomprehensible gibberish. Its red eyes bored challengingly into Ragnar’s. Even from here, above the acrid smell of the exhaust and the near overwhelming odour of the engine fuel, he could smell the alcohol on its breath.
Was this some sort of warning or some sort of challenge? He wished he spoke their language. But it was a useless wish; he did not. It was obvious that the orks were becoming increasingly frustrated. Their bellowing grew louder, their gestures more frantic. They continued to fire their bolters. One of them made an obscene gesture and their vehicle roared forwards, pulling ahead of Ragnar’s as if eager to be ahead of him, then dropped back again.
Suddenly, he understood: they wanted to race! They had been challenging him. He knew he had to make a quick decision. What was he to do? Should he race them or ignore the challenge? Which would stand out more? It seemed a common sport among the orks. Might they be insulted if he refused and start a fight? He did not know. It was possible, and the last thing he wanted was to draw attention to himself and his companions.
Instinctively, he put his foot to the floor. The orks in the other vehicle responded with a chorus of jeers and more obscene gestures. Now he felt insulted. He wanted to show these brutes who was best. No Space Wolf was going to be looked down on by a bunch of green-skinned morons!
Part of him realised how foolish he was being. But something compelled him to race on. The buildings flew past. The night was alive with screams and roars. He could see ork faces flash by in the gloom. Ahead of them, one of the orks stood poised on the rear of the buggy. He had dropped his trousers and waggled his buttocks at them. It was not an appealing sight.
‘I’d like to put a bolter shell up his arse!’ Sven grumbled.
Ragnar understood. The ork’s crude humour was an insult. He pushed the gear lever forward. The engine roared in response. The buggy bounced over the rough roadway. The wind rushed past his face. Transparent membranes slammed into place over his eyeballs, to protect them from the wind. Their speed increased with every notch he pushed the lever forward. His heart beat faster with excitement. They were gaining on the orks.
Suddenly from behind them came more roaring. Ragnar risked a glance back over his shoulder. He could see there were more buggies joining in the race. What had he started?
There were several more of the crudely built racers. They were massive vehicles, barbarically painted, adorned with spikes, covered in blocky ork script. Grinning ork faces leered at him from behind their controls. He could see that there was no getting out of this now.
‘Watch out!’ he heard Sven shout. Swiftly Ragnar turned. Ahead of them, the road was blocked by the wreckage of a massive ork truck. Swiftly he wrenched the wheel to the right. Tyres squealed as the vehicle responded. Ragnar was thrown back in his seat by the sudden movement. He felt another bump as the buggy ran over something solid.
‘That’ll teach him to waggle his arse at us!’ Sven roared. Ragnar realised that the ork must have fallen from his vehicle and then been crushed under their wheels. Looking behind them, he could see it starting to climb to its feet. It stood there for a moment, a foolish grin on its face, caught in the headlights of the pursuing vehicles. Then, with a horrible squelching sound, it was hit by the leading buggy.
‘And that’s the end of that,’ said Sven with an evil grin.
Ragnar wondered if that was case. The ork already survived falling from a moving buggy and being run over by Ragnar’s own vehicle. It was perfectly possible that it could endure being struck by another. On the other hand, it seemed unlikely that anything could survive being run over by the succession of vehicles which pursued them. Then it was too late to wonder about such things. The crushed ork was already a long way behind them.
The road ahead came to a junction. More and more ork vehicles moved in from left and right with no apparent order. The race leader wove through them, causing several to come to a screeching halt. Sparks flew, metal ground against metal, as cars collided. Orks brandished their fists in the air, several reached for weapons.
‘Whose bright idea was this?’ asked Sven.
‘It was their’s,’ Ragnar said, pointing at the orks ahead of them. He wrenched at the wheel, narrowly avoiding a collision with the vehicle in front of them. ‘Keep your eyes peeled for a way out,’ he told Sven. ‘Look for a side street with nothing on it.’
‘Some chance,’ said Sven. ‘This city is crawling with the greenskin scum.’
‘Just do your best!’
‘I always bloody do!’ said Sven. From behind them came the sound of an appalling multi-car pile-up. Ragnar guessed that for many of the orks the race was over.
Ahead of him, he could see several orks making faces. The distance was closing between the two vehicles. Ragnar was gaining on them – and up ahead of them, the road was clear. Seizing his opportunity, Ragna
r pushed the gear lever forward to the last notch. The buggy surged forward. Elation filled Ragnar. He was going to catch them.
Ten yards separated them now. Ragnar could make out every detail of the vehicle ahead. He could see every rivet and bolt on the metal plating. He could even smell the orks themselves; the night breeze wafted their scent to his nostrils. He could never get to like such a stink.
‘We’re gaining on them,’ said Sven.
‘Nothing gets past you,’ said Ragnar. He was leaning forward on the gear lever, even though it could go no further, and unconsciously he was willing the buggy to go faster, ever faster.
There was only five yards in it now. The orks stuck out long black tongues at their pursuers. They put their fingers in their ears and twisted their faces into obscene grimaces. One or two of them brandished weapons. Ragnar wondered if they were going to shoot, or if this was mere posturing. With this free hand he reached for his bolt pistol.
‘Bloody hell!’ Sven swore. ‘Are they looking for a fight? If so, I’ll damn well give them one.’
‘You are always ready for a fight, Sven,’ said Ragnar. All the same, he was glad Sven was there. If violence started, he could think of no one better to have at his side.
They were almost alongside the orks now. He wondered if the creatures would notice that they were human. Not that it mattered. He suspected they would be just as hostile to their own kind at this moment in time.
As they drew alongside the ork vehicle, the creature driving twisted the wheel. The buggy crashed into Ragnar’s. Metal shrieked and sparks flew as the two vehicles collided. Once again, Ragnar was thrown around in his seat. It was all he could do to keep his hands on the wheel and their course steady. On the floor between them, Karah Isaan gave a yelp of alarm.
‘Do something!’ shrieked Sven. ‘You’ve got the controls.’
Two could play at this game. Ragnar twisted the wheel and deliberately smashed into the ork buggy. There was a tolling like a huge bell as the two machines crashed together. Ragnar felt as if he could almost reach over and touch the ork beside the driver in the other buggy. Not that he would have wanted to. Suddenly, he noticed two red eyes were glaring into his. A look of surprise crossed the ork’s face. He knew that it had spotted that he was not like his opponent!
Sven had obviously noticed this too. He raised his pistol and put a bolter shell right through the ork’s eye. Its head exploded. The shell passed right through its skull and lodged itself in the throat of the ork driver. He slumped forward over the wheel. The buggy veered off to one side, hit a low wall, then flipped over completely. Its skidded along upside down, sparks flaring from the tortured metal of the roll bar. From inside came the shrieks, bellows, and grunting of the orks trapped within. The buggy hit a wall. A fireball erupted as it burst into flames. The explosion sent shards of shrapnel spraying everywhere.
Ragnar glanced back, hoping that there would be no survivors. He saw nothing crawling from the wreckage. Behind them, other ork buggies veered wildly to avoid the blazing wreck.
‘That was close,’ said Sven. ‘I think they recognised us.’
‘You don’t say? And I thought they just didn’t like us.’
Sven gave him a nasty smile, and glanced backwards. ‘Plenty more where they came from,’ he said. ‘No shortage of orks around here.’
Ragnar was forced to agree. He took a deep breath, muttered a thankful prayer to the Emperor, and exhaled. He felt surprisingly calm all things considered. And there were lots of things to consider. He was driving an unfamiliar vehicle through a city he did not know, surrounded by deadly enemies. This would have given most men pause, he knew. Still, he reminded himself, he was a Space Marine, for whom such strange experiences were almost everyday occurrences.
He gave his attention back to driving. The roads hereabouts were clogged with rubble and the wreckage of burned out vehicles. He was suddenly glad for the sheer simplicity of the ork controls. He shuddered to think what would have happened if he’d been in control of an Imperial Rhino, for example.
Behind them, two more ork buggies had ploughed into the wreckage of the first. Fuel had caught fire and a wall of flame barred the street. One after another, more ork buggies plunged through the conflagration. Ragnar could see one trailing a tail of flickering fire that reminded him of a comet. He grinned at Sven. The chase was on again.
‘I hope you have your weapons ready back there,’ he said. ‘You might have a chance to use them soon.’
‘I hope so,’ he heard Nils say in a quiet but determined voice.
Ragnar kept the throttle open and they raced on through the night.
In the distance Ragnar could hear the roar of engines and the stutter of small arms fire, but around here they seemed to have left the orks behind. He was glad of the respite. The concentration needed for driving at such speed had tired even him, although he had to admit that it was exciting.
At least the race had carried them in the right direction, towards their goal. They had hidden the vehicle in the ruins of a burned out garage. Now they lay sprawled about it. Ragnar could see from the flushed faces of his companions that they shared his exultation. They had been just as excited as he had. Or almost.
‘What do we do now?’ he asked Inquisitor Isaan.
‘We wait here,’ she said. ‘We should all get some rest.’
‘That’s not very exciting,’ said Sven.
‘I should think you’d had enough excitement for one evening,’ said Karah.
‘Sven never gets enough excitement,’ said Nils.
‘Not with you lot around anyway,’ said Sven.
‘Are we getting any closer to the ork warlord?’ asked Ragnar.
‘Yes,’ said Karah. ‘I can sense his presence now. It’s like a beacon in my mind.’
Ragnar looked around. He did not feel tired. He doubted that any of the other Marines did either. But Sternberg, Isaan and Brother Tethys were only human, and they needed their rest.
Ragnar sat alone, staring off into the darkness. All around him he could sense the presence of his battle-brothers. The mere fact that they were there reassured him. It was part of the pack instinct that he shared with all Space Wolves. Just the very presence of his comrades calmed some inner part of him. Each of the Claw had gone their separate ways to think and to meditate. Ragnar enjoyed being alone as much as he enjoyed the presence of his friends, but it was good to know they had not gone far.
Overhead, unfamiliar stars blazed down. Ragnar looked up at them in wonder. How far was he from home? What great distance had he come? Would he ever see Fenris again? He did not know. And at this moment, he did not really care. He was happy just to be here, and to be alive. He was happy just to look on these unfamiliar sights.
He smiled as he looked on the ruins of the skyscrapers. Back home there was nothing like these. Their massive presence reminded him of mountains, but these were mountains that had been built by men. And then destroyed by orks, he reminded himself.
He breathed deeply, taking in all the unfamiliar scents. Even the air here smelled different. Of course, there was the reek of ork machinery and the orks themselves. It was everywhere. But underneath it lay another unfamiliar tang: the smell of factories, of industrial pollution, of great furnaces, and of all the things they had once produced. It was amazing to think that humans had produced all these things.
He gazed out into the shadows, searching for movement, for the unfamiliar outline that would tell that a hidden enemy was sneaking up on them. He knew that he was much more likely to hear or smell any foe before he saw them, but nonetheless the force of old habit made him rely on his eyes. He had changed so much in a few short months. He’d almost come to take his enhanced senses for granted.
Ragnar closed his eyes. He listened carefully with the concentration that only a Space Wolf could manage. He could hear the breathing of the humans inside the garage. He could hear the soft, stealthy movements of his comrades. He could hear the distant sound of weapons being
fired and the scuttling of small rodents among the ruins. But he could hear nothing remotely threatening.
He breathed deeply, testing the air for scent. Nearby, all he could sense was the familiar reassuring smell of his battle-brothers, and the humans who accompanied them. Further off, he smelled animals and birds and the smell of effluent from the broken sewers. Once again, no threats.
He turned his awareness inwards, communing with himself as he had been taught back at the Fang. It was like looking inside a vast unfamiliar cavern. The teaching machines had placed so much knowledge within him that he had not had time to assimilate it. It was as if he contained whole libraries that he had not read. He knew the whole history of the Chapter was there somewhere, along with all the technical schematics of his weapons and equipment, and endless reams of knowledge that he might never need but that his tutors had deemed useful.
He became aware of himself as a small spark of light in that huge dark realm. And somewhere out there he sensed another presence lurking, the presence of the beast, of his soul’s shadow, of the monstrous thing that waited within him. It did not frighten him now as once it had. And yet he could not quite come to terms with it either. He knew it was there. He could sense it just as he sensed the presence of his comrades close by. It was a real thing, as real as the dirt beneath his feet, or the armour that encased his body.
Yet he knew it was wrong to think of it as a being separate from himself. It was part of him, just as he was part of it. Now, at this moment, he was in control. He was in charge. He was the master. And it seemed hard to believe that it could ever be any different. But he knew this was not the case. He knew that in moments of stress, the beast would come to the fore, would take control, would live inside his body, inside of him
There had been a time when he found it terrifying that he was not the sole master of his own body. Now it was a thought he’d become accustomed to, as he had become accustomed to so much else about being a Space Marine. He knew from the older warriors that in time he would make his peace with the beast, just as they had.
The Space Wolf Omnibus - William King Page 45
