‘And that, too, would be a victory for the spawn of Nurgle,’ Karah said grimly. ‘If all who are strong-willed enough to resist his power feel the same way, soon there will be none left to resist him. Be assured that this, too, is just another manifestation of the daemon’s Chaos-spawned power. To give in to it will grant him victory as surely as falling to his plague spores.’
He saw the others look at her blankly, then slowly understanding dawned in their eyes. They realised that their dark mood was also a product of the evil spell. Ragnar sensed their spines stiffen as they prepared to resist it. He realised that he, too, could do no less.
By Russ, how his joints ached, though. And now his nose had started to run. He heard Sven stifle a sneeze. Heard Strybjorn clear his throat of phlegm. Even Sergeant Hakon coughed. This was not good. How could four weakened Space Marines and one weary psyker overcome the power that has created such a potent disease? He tried to dismiss the thought, to tell himself that it was merely a product of Botchulaz’s wicked spell, but he knew that it was not so, that the despair that gnawed at his heart was only too real.
Muttering a prayer to the Emperor he lengthened his stride, moving ever closer to the heart of the darkness that festered at the core of the pyramid.
From up ahead he could hear chanting. It was an unclean sound, so unlike the pure plainsong that filled Imperial temples. It was not like the guttural war cries of orks. It was something far worse. It was like the roaring of a sea of phlegm. It was the sound of hundreds of voices bubbling from froth-corrupted lungs. It was the pained murmuring of men lashing out in fever dreams. It was the sound of a throng which had given itself over wholly to the worship of Nurgle.
The stink was worse here. The walls were caked with filth. Huge gobs of greenish spittle stuck to his boots as he moved. Puddles of rank urine glittered in the greenish glow. A stench like that from festering wounds reached his nostrils. His skin felt obscenely warm and moist with his own fever sweat. He did not know if he could force himself to go on, and yet he knew he had to.
‘Sounds like they’re having a big bloody festival up there,’ said Sven. ‘Wonder what they’re celebrating?’
He paused as if expecting some reply, and then glanced around. Ragnar knew without being told that he was waiting for some disparaging reply from Nils, a reply that would never come. He saw the pain in Sven’s eyes when that realisation dawned, and he realised that it was a pain he himself shared. In the centre of his being a small bright spark of anger was fanned. It lent him strength to resist the sickness. It gave him the power to carry on.
‘Let’s go and interrupt them,’ he snarled. ‘Let’s show them they haven’t won yet.’
‘Good enough,’ said Sven.
Sergeant Hakon nodded agreement. Ragnar sensed that Karah and Strybjorn shared his renewed determination. Briefly he permitted himself a smile, wondering whether they were all mad. Not that it mattered much, he thought, mad or no, this was a battle it was unlikely any of them would be returning from.
The central chamber was full of sickening worshippers of the Lord of Disease. They were wrapped in cowled cloaks of sickly green, belted with yellow sashes; odd stains marked the coarse fabric. A sickly sweet scent of corruption filled the air. Ragnar saw that each of the worshippers bore a weapon, and he knew that these were the secret masters of the plague cult come to pay homage before their master. A strange buzzing filled the air. Standing upright before an altar that looked as if it were made of hardened snot was Gul, his face blotched, his bloated arms raised as he guided the cultists in their worship. On the altar sprawled Botchulaz. A web of sorcerous energy emerged from his body and vanished into the altar and the walls of the pyramid. Ragnar did not doubt that this energy was being used to power the plague spell across the worldcity.
As Ragnar watched the plague daemon let out his long tongue. It snaked up his face and entered his nostril, emerging caked with a thick moist blob of mucus which it slurped back into its mouth. As if sensing their presence, Botchulaz raised its gaze to meet Ragnar’s.
‘Oh, there you are,’ it sniffed. ‘Jolly good. I was wondering when you would be back. Nice of you to show up, actually. Saves us the trouble of going looking for you.’
Sven took a step forward. ‘I’m going to take this chainsword and stick it up your bloody–’
‘I think we get the idea of your intentions,’ Botchulaz interrupted, with a fruity chuckle. ‘Sad to see such hostility in one who is soon to be such a trusted minion. Still, we’ll have all eternity for some pleasant little chats, you and I.’
There was something in the daemon’s rich mellow voice that suggested that any talks he and Sven had would be anything but pleasant. Ragnar suddenly realised what the buzzing sound was. The whole chamber was filled with clouds of monstrous fat bluebottles. The flies crawled all over the worshippers. Only the area around the altar was clear of them. He realised that every fly in the city must have found its way here. Briefly he wondered why. Perhaps they were one of the vectors of the plague. Maybe somewhere in their tiny minds was a spark of the worship of the Lord of Decay. He did not know, and he realised that right at this moment he did not care. All he wanted to do was slaughter his foes, and get to grips with the daemon that had manipulated him and his comrades. As if unaware of their hostility and the fact that his worshippers were rising to snatch up weapons, Botchulaz burbled on mockingly.
‘I’m sure you’ll soon find out the error of your ways, and come to regret all this nastiness. It’s so much easier when people can just get on and–’
The firing of a bolt pistol sounded shockingly loud in the confined space of the central chamber. A massive hole appeared in the plague daemon’s chest, swiftly followed by several more as Sergeant Hakon blasted away. For a moment, Ragnar felt a surge of hope as he looked into the daemon’s disgusting innards but then the wounds closed with a hideous sucking sound.
Botchulaz let out a strange tut-tutting sound and said; ‘Really, there was no need for that.’
The scorn in his words was evident. His worshippers threw themselves forward, blades bared, pistols and lasguns in every fist. A tidal wave of diseased cultists flowed towards them. Ragnar bared his teeth in a snarl. This was the sort of fight he could understand.
‘Just keep them busy,’ he heard Karah mutter. ‘Distract the daemon if you can. I will need some time to remake the spell on the pyramid. Be ready to go when I say the word.’
Knowing what she intended, part of Ragnar wanted to tell her not to do it. But another part of him, the part that was ever loyal to the Emperor and to humanity knew that there was no other choice, and that she would not listen to him, or to anybody else. A sadness filled him that was nothing to do with the loss of his comrades. It was something akin to what he had felt on the day he had watched Ana depart on the Grimskull ships, a sad sorry feeling that he would never see her again, never have a chance to talk to her or touch her…
Savagely he suppressed these feelings as unworthy of a Space Wolf. They were both warriors of the Emperor, and they both would perform their duties, and that was all there was to it. He needed no such distractions at this moment anyway, not with a seething sea of rage-filled plague cultists advancing on him with death in their hearts and weapons in their hands.
He could see too that ectoplasmic energy was emerging from Botchulaz and that the hideous mucoid figures were beginning to extrude from the floor, though the sheer mass of the cultists was stopping them from coming out fully. There was just not enough space for them to seep through. For the moment Ragnar was truly glad of this.
‘Remember, when I give the word, get out of here,’ he heard Karah say again. The depths of concern in her voice wrenched at his heart.
‘I will not leave you,’ he said.
‘You must, you all must. Someone must bear tidings of what happened here to the Inquisition lest it happen again. The more of you who try, the greater the chance that one of you will win free,’ she said grimly.
Ragna
r could tell from the tone of her voice that she did not believe that there was much hope for any of them, but she was willing to give them a chance. At that moment he did not know how he would find the strength to depart from here, or the desire. She seemed to sense his thoughts.
‘It is your duty, Ragnar,’ she said. ‘You were right about that. Don’t forget.’
Sensing the power of the daemon and seeing the number of its followers, he wondered if it mattered. There was only the slimmest chance of their plan working. It relied on so many untested things. Could she really remake the spells that the eldar had woven? Could any human? He could not tell. It was not an area in which he could claim any knowledge.
He simply knew that she would have to try, and that they would have to distract the daemon and its minions while she did. There was only one way he knew that was possible and that was to fight on against the hopeless odds, and pray to Russ and the Emperor that they might succeed. All things considered though, it was not a bad death. At least he would send a few of these lost souls ahead of him to welcome him to Hell. Still, he thought wryly, he might have hoped for a more heroic set of final opponents than these disease ridden, pox-accursed heretics and their burbling master.
Pushing that thought from his mind, he sprang forward into the fray like a swimmer diving into waves. Ahead of him loomed cowled cultists. In their hands they carried rusty-looking and mucus-befouled blades. Their pistols and rifles were shoddy and appeared corroded. They moved listlessly, like men in the last throes of some terminal disease. He lashed out with his chainsword and sheared away an arm. Fingers clutched reflexively in their death spasm on the trigger of a laspistol and a beam of glittering light spurted upwards towards the ceiling. Ragnar howled and his long lonely call was answered by his battle-brothers as they prepared to sell their lives dearly. The mocking burbling laughter of Botchulaz echoed through the chamber. ‘Gul, please welcome our new comrades appropriately. Unfortunately, I must return my attention to the great spell of uncleanness. Still, I am sure you can give our friends the reception they deserve…’
As the daemon spoke the web of energy swirling out from the altar intensified, the buzzing of the flies grew louder and each of the insects became surrounded by a halo of sickly light. Their eyes glittered like miniature gemstones and in a cloud they swirled through the air. Ragnar felt their soft tickling against his face, and hastily closed his mouth lest the buzzing creatures find their way inside. He could only guess what foul effect this might have, and he did not want to risk it.
Two more cultists threw themselves at him, bringing their blades down in a flashing arc. In his plague-weakened state Ragnar was too slow to entirely avoid them. One sword rang against his armour but did not penetrate. One clanged against his chainsword blade. Sparks flew where they met. He brought his bolt pistol round and pulled the trigger. One of the cultist’s head exploded as a shot blasted through the bridge of his nose and emerged from the back of his skull. Part of his cowl ripped away as the shell passed through, the remainder of it swelled like a sail catching a breeze as it filled with brain jelly.
Ragnar exerted his strength pushing the chainsword down against the sword. His foe resisted desperately but was no match for Ragnar’s power. The Wolf pushed forward and his blade bit into the man’s chest. There was a shriek as its blades scraped against a hidden chest plate. It slithered around in his grip like a living thing but by the application of all of his strength Ragnar pushed it ever inwards and the armour parted. Blood sprayed against the Wolf’s face as he bisected his foe. Droplets of it hit the buzzing flies, turning them crimson.
The stench was sickening and the feel of the flies against his face was near unbearable. The air thrummed with sorcerous energy as the daemon threw more and more power into its plague spell. Insane visions streamed through Ragnar’s brain. In his mind’s eye, he saw the infirm rise from their sick beds to snatch up whatever came to hand, and turn on those who cared for them. He saw diseased solders open fire on their officers, and sick officers treacherously mow down their men. He saw the plague spread across the cities and the plains like wildfire, and knew that it was unstoppable, that it was pointless to resist, that it would be better to simply lie down and accept his fate.
In his mind the beast howled and gibbered. It did not accept defeat the way Ragnar’s rational mind wanted to. It simply saw a challenge before it that had to be overcome in order to live. It did not care about odds, or evil sorcery, or the power of its daemonic foe. It wanted only to rend and tear its foes, and to fight its way out of this trap or die trying. Its unquenched spirit lent Ragnar strength, and suddenly he felt better. The disease-weakness drained from him, and moment by moment he felt himself becoming stronger and faster. He was reminded of a time, long before he had become a Space Marine, when he has fought against the horde of the Grimskulls with a strength that was near supernatural. He knew better than to fight against this fury; instead he just surrendered to it.
It seemed to him that his foes were slowing down. They moved like men underwater, as if the air itself was thickening around them, and slowing them down. Ragnar knew that this was an illusion caused by the fact that he himself was now moving and thinking faster. He raced forward chopping and cleaving, wanting to fight his way to the centre of the enemy force and confront Botchulaz himself. He had no thought of what would happen when he got there. He merely set his mind to the task and his body obeyed.
In the distance he could hear the thunder of bolter fire as his battle-brothers fought on. He could smell the scent of heated bone as the chainsword blade cut through it. The stink of death mingled with the corrupt scent of disease. He lashed out, hacking through two foes at once, throwing himself flat beneath a return blow, rolling over, and pumping a bolter shell into the groin of one of the cultists, and snarling with satisfaction at the man’s high-pitched wail of agony. He flipped himself over and rose swiftly, sensing rather than seeing something that reached out for him from the throng.
He realised it was one of the odd conjured things, the mucoid creatures that had slain Nils. He rolled to one side evading its grasp, but even as he did so it followed, attempting to seize him once more. He could see its strange doughy face, the eyes that were like two holes poked in snow, an obscenely gaping mouth the expression of which reminded him of its foul daemonic master.
As he moved, he lashed out with his blade, taking away the legs of two cultists. They fell between him and the monster, but did not even slow it down. Its pliable body stretched around them, and its outstretched claws still reached for Ragnar. With the beast howling within his head, he felt no fear, but the part of his mind that was still rational was uneasy. He did not want to die the same way as Nils. It was a fate similar to drowning, a thing all Fenrisian warriors feared, only worse, for being caught by this sorcerous thing meant to be encased within the flesh of something daemonic. Who knew what might come afterwards?
He holstered his bolt pistol and tapped the grenade dispenser on his belt. A small explosive disk dropped into his hands. As the creature came for him he tossed it. The fuse was set for one second. It exploded in the middle of his pursuer, and blasted it to fragments. Cultists howled as pieces of its flesh scored their faces. Ragnar felt a brief flash of triumph that vanished almost as quickly as it came. Even as he watched the dismembered fragments of the thing began to writhe across the floor towards each other. In a short while the creature would reform, as strong as before and would pursue him once more.
Still, he had earned himself a brief respite. He ploughed on towards his goal, refusing to be distracted, refusing to simply wait for his foe to flow together once more. He had a brief interval in which to kill these Nurgle worshippers and perhaps confront their ultimate master. He had no idea what he would do then, but anything seemed better than waiting to be slaughtered like a lamb.
He raced onwards towards the monstrous altar on which the plague daemon lay like a giant slug. Clouds of glowing flies brushed his face. From nearby he heard a chan
ting that told him one of the cultists was working some sort of evil spell of his own. With a single fluid movement, Ragnar drew his bolt pistol, turned towards the source of the sound and unleashed a bolt shell with pinpoint accuracy. There was a hideous scream as the stricken cultist fell backwards. Tendrils of energy emerged from his body like maggots eating their way out of his flesh. Whatever strange forces he had intended to summon were running out of control, and consumed his flesh like a forest fire devouring dry tinder. A pungent stink filled Ragnar’s nostrils. He chopped down another cultist, and suddenly, shockingly, found himself face to face with Gul. The Wolf’s heart went cold as the deathless warrior reached out to seize him, insane eyes blazing.
‘Good,’ breathed the worshipper of darkness. ‘I have hoped for this moment ever since you slew my agents on the Light of Truth.’
‘Enjoy your last few breaths, traitor,’ said Ragnar, and lashed out with the chainsword. Gul’s parry was deceptively slow. Somehow his blade was just in time to intercept Ragnar. The Blood Claw leaned forward with all his weight, hoping to smash through Gul’s guard as he had done with the earlier Nurgle worshipper, but Gul was strong, far stronger than he had expected. With a flex of his bloated arms, he cast Ragnar back into the crowd. The young Space Marine went flying, to land at the feet of Sergeant Hakon. The veteran Wolf howled a challenge and launched himself at Gul. Their blades flickered almost too fast for mortal eyes to follow as they met in single combat.
Sparks flickered before Ragnar’s eyes as he tried to pull himself to his feet. He felt hands grasp at him, trying to restrain him while others brought weapons to bear. With a roar of fury, he threw them off, and prepared to launch himself into the fray once more. He would aid Sergeant Hakon to destroy Gul and then…
The Space Wolf Omnibus - William King Page 57
