The Space Wolf Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer 40K

  No, Ragnar, said a voice in his head that he recognised as Karah’s. Distract the daemon. Sergeant Hakon can look after himself.

  Ragnar sensed a change in the atmosphere around him. Currents of power flowed through the pyramid now and they were not all directed by Botchulaz and his revolting plague spell. It seemed that the inquisitor had been at least partially successful in using the talisman to tap into the pyramid’s power. It looked like he was not the only one to sense it. Botchulaz’s eyes snapped open, as if he had just become aware of this new threat. He looked down at Ragnar as if capable of reading his thoughts, and then those ancient evil eyes turned in the direction of the entrance to the central chamber. A slow smirk of understanding spread across his inhuman face. Understanding – and perhaps, at last, fear.

  Hope filled Ragnar. He could see another light now in the floor of the chamber, a brilliant ruby and emerald glow that warred with the daemon’s sickly luminescence. It seemed to be coming from out of the walls of the pyramid and swirling inwards to converge on a spot in the exact centre of the chamber, a mandala of light at the hub of which stood the daemonic altar.

  Botchulaz let out a long moan, and muttered. ‘That isn’t very friendly, you know.’

  He raised a bloated paw and prepared to send a bolt of energy lashing out at Karah. An aura of evil light played around his talons. Ragnar knew that if this foul dark energy found its target then the eldar spell would never be completed, and the daemon would be free to do its evil work. It became very clear to him what he must do. As the daemon brought its hand forward to cast the bolt, Ragnar leapt directly at Botchulaz. His heavy armoured form crashed into the daemon’s slimy arm, knocking it to one side, causing the flash of energy to go marginally astray and strike its target only a glancing blow. Karah’s screams were still terrible to hear but the flow of ancient eldar energies had not stopped. At least, their plan had a small chance of working.

  ‘You have no idea, how very, very foolish that was, my little friend,’ rumbled Botchulaz, looming over Ragnar. Suddenly all pretence of humour had dropped away from the daemon, and its massive putrid presence was fearsome indeed. Its shadow fell on Ragnar like the spectre of imminent death. Its eyes glowed with terrible power, and looking into their depths Ragnar felt his soul begun to be sucked from his body.

  For a brief terrifying instant, he caught a glimpse of the pit from which the daemon had crawled. He saw it was only a small fragment of a greater corruption, of the awesome entity known to men as Nurgle, that it had been broken off from its parent and sent out into the universe to work its evil, but that it was still linked to its creator and all the other children it had spawned. For a moment, knowledge of a universe infested with dreadful dark things threatened to invade Ragnar’s brain and crush his sanity. He saw the slow subtle working of decay in everything, even his own living flesh. He saw the way it relentlessly tore at everything, even the work of the other Lords of Chaos. He saw that disease lived in all things, the one invincible unstoppable foe, that could turn even its opponent’s own bodies into weapons against them. He saw the certainty of inevitable triumph that all the fragments of the Lord of the Decay shared, and the horrid humour that spawned. He knew that even if they won this day, Nurgle would win in the end. His victory was inevitable.

  Within him, the barely contained wolf-beast howled in denial. He offered up prayers to the Emperor and to Russ to preserve his sanity as Botchulaz prepared to crush his mind and feast on his soul. An ocean of filthy corrupt knowledge struggled to pour itself into his brain. He vaguely glimpsed the process by which plagues were birthed and the millions of different spores by which they were spread. He saw that they existed microscopic and silent on every world, in every place, even within his own altered frame. He saw himself consumed by a million different diseases, felt the symptoms of countless plagues, writhed in the grip of innumerable slow deaths. This was a torture of the most hellish sort, a spell unleashed by a foe who hated him and all he stood for.

  He knew now that he had just moments to live, and that something worse than the mere extinction of life loomed before him. He knew that part of his immortal essence was about to be drawn into Botchulaz and that for all eternity he would suffer these torments along with the daemon’s mockery. And he saw how much the daemon was looking forward to it.

  Desperately he tried to cast the daemon forth, but he was not strong enough. He was but one mortal man pitting himself against a thing whose life span was measured in millennia and whose power was immeasurable in mortal terms. He sensed the triumph that filled Botchulaz at this prospect, obscuring all other desires for one brief moment – then he felt something else, a cold clean power that was part human and part something else scything into his brain and freeing him from the daemon’s grasp. For a second he felt as if he were surrounded by others. He sensed the presence of Karah, and thousands upon thousands of other souls. These were alien presences, as undying as the daemon, eldar warriors who had been bound within the pyramid to prevent the daemon’s escape. They moved forward to do battle with the daemon and briefly Ragnar felt himself hugged by Karah; her words of soft farewell passed into his mind.

  Suddenly his eyes were open and he was falling free of the daemon’s clutches. In one glance he took in the scene. Botchulaz writhed on the altar. His flesh was opening and reuniting again as if he were being cut with thousands of invisible blades. He seemed to fight against a shadowy host, and from the corner of his eye, Ragnar thought he could make out many invisible presences. The cultists shrieked in terror as the eldar ghosts moved among them. Many died without any physical hands being laid upon them at all.

  The traitor Gul fell at the feet of Sergeant Hakon, his head separated from his body by one mighty blow from the sergeant’s sword. He saw Strybjorn and Sven fighting back to back against a few cultists. He saw the walls were coruscating with green and red and gold, and the air itself seemed to shimmer as the eldar’s ancient binding spells were reinstated. He looked around and saw Karah sprawled in the dirt, and he knew from her posture that she was already dead, her soul unbound from its body in the final effort to unleash the power of the talisman. He felt a great explosion of hatred and fury pass through him, and he wanted to dive into the mass of his enemies and slay them out of hand. Even as he landed and prepared to spring forward he felt a powerful hand grasp his shoulder, and he turned snarling to look into the burning eyes of Sergeant Hakon.

  ‘Time to go, Ragnar,’ he said. ‘Time to do our duty, just as she did.’

  In his hands the sergeant held the Talisman of Lykos. It looked dim and dormant now, drained of all energy, but nevertheless Ragnar knew it was best that it be taken away from this place. It would not do to leave the key to the prison within the daemon’s grasp. Ragnar nodded and moved to join his battle-brothers.

  Together the Blood Claws fought their way out into the night.

  EPILOGUE

  Ragnar looked out on the wastes of Hesperida and thought about the words of the Chaos-worshipping sorcerer he had killed earlier.

  Botchulaz sends his greetings.

  Had the daemon escaped? Ragnar doubted it. The ancient eldar spells still held it, he was sure. Perhaps its thoughts had simply trickled across the warp and allowed it to contact his worshippers, as it had once contacted Gul and his predecessors. Or perhaps it was all a trick. Who could tell with the worshippers of Chaos. Certainly, after the pyramid was sealed again, the plague had died back. The infected victims had simply keeled over and died. They had been buried in huge plague pits hastily bulldozed in the ground.

  At least some things had ended happily. Brother Tethys had found his way back to Galt. Ragnar had met him again in better circumstances many years later. And the Light of Truth had taken the surviving Space Wolves and the Talisman of Lykos back to Fenris. As far as Ragnar knew, the thing was still there in the vaults of the Fang, just one more trophy among millions.

  He heard the voices of the Blood Claws below him, and felt less envy now. Memory had tau
ght him one thing this evening. Even at their age life had not been so simple as he had wanted to believe it had. He felt more sympathy for them now, remembering his own losses, long-past: of Nils and Lars and Sternberg – and most of all of Karah, who had given her life to hold the daemon imprisoned and whose spirit was bound into the pyramid as surely as those of the eldar ghosts and Botchulaz himself.

  He pushed the memories aside. Tomorrow was a new day, with new battles to be fought and new foes to be overcome. He knew he had better make ready.

  PROLOGUE

  Ragnar raced forward through the hail of enemy fire. Overhead, lightning split the night, turning the clouds an eerie electric purple. Moments later the thunder spoke, even its god-like voice unable to drown out the roar of small-arms fire. Rain the colour of blood, tainted by chemical pollutants and oxidised iron, pattered off his armour. Around him, las-fire ripped the night. Here and there grenades flared, bright as the lightning stroke and just as brief.

  Ahead of him the fortress loomed, a massive structure of plascrete sheathed in steel. Once it must have been the local headquarters of the Imperial levies, or perhaps a sector house of the Arbites. Now, it answered to a different master. Banners bearing the hideous eye of Chaos fluttered in the rising wind. Someone had painted baleful runes down the building’s bristling sides, creating an inscription in the language of evil gods. Was it a prayer or curse? Perhaps both.

  The earth shook as Ragnar scrambled into position behind the tumbled remains of a wall. Shattered brickwork lay near him. Close to his hand he could see where stonework had run like water under the infernal blast of energy weapons. He smelled the air: it stank of explosives, chemicals and technical unguents from the huge machines all around. He caught the scent of his battle-brothers, all hardened ceramite and altered flesh of Fenris. He looked backwards and saw them racing forward through the night, man-like shapes, though larger by far than any normal man, garbed in powered armour inscribed with the wolf sigil of their Chapter. Bolters bristled in their massive fists. A few carried rocket launchers and other heavy weapons. They moved through the rain and the mud with perfect confidence, an unstoppable tide rolling towards the enemy fort.

  Behind them, in the distance, he could make out the unimaginably huge shapes of the Titans. They looked like men but seemed the size of small skyscrapers, an impression heightened by the storm of battle, the clouds of dust and his own knowledge of how powerful the mighty war machines were. Beside them, all other armoured vehicles looked puny.

  Now they loomed out of night and storm like ancient gods of battle woken by the thunderous drumbeats of war. The glow of their shields was faintly visible even amid the clouds of dust surrounding them. When their weapons fired, the muzzle flare flashed brighter than the lightning, throwing the entire war-blasted landscape around them into flickering relief for a few seconds. At their feet, lesser vehicles scurried, weapons blazing, sending salvo after salvo scorching towards the fortress walls. The earth around them spurted upwards as the massive guns of the fortress replied.

  Ragnar breathed in the shuddering air. He smiled, showing two enormous protruding fangs. He could smell terror coming from the Imperial Guard units around them, and a dim distant part of him understood it. Many a night, as a boy on his home world of Fenris, he had lain awake shivering as he listened to the thunder’s rumble and saw the lightning’s flare. It was on such nights that wolves of war were said to come forth to hunt, and ancient terrifying beings bestrode the world.

  The scene surrounding him might have been ripped from his boyish imaginings, but in reality was a thousand times more fearsome. Yet, now, he himself felt no fear. He felt alive, every sense stretched to the maximum, every tendon of his altered body taut and ready to spring into action. All around him the pack that were his brethren and his liegemen awaited his commands.

  He poked his head up and surveyed the massive walls of the fortress ahead of them. So far so good. The small postern airlock the Scouts had reported was just ahead. Over it turrets bristled, but their weapons were trained on the distant attackers, distracted by the mass of Titans and armour, and the hordes of waiting Guardsmen. Mikko’s Blood Claws were already in position, ready to swarm through the gates to take out the plasteel lock and hold the entrance at his command. A good leader, Mikko, Ragnar thought, about ready for promotion to Grey Hunter. He shook his head. Now was not the time to let organisational details distract him.

  The heretical defenders were unaware of the closer threat. Good. For Ragnar, it was just a matter of crossing the fifty metres of killing ground and they were in.

  Suddenly the landscape erupted. Tonnes of earth and broken paving hurtled into the sky. Ragnar flinched for a moment, wondering if they had been spotted. His body tensed in anticipation of explosions or raking fire strafing their position, but nothing happened. It had been a near miss, a miscalculated shot from the distant support force. Ragnar glanced back to make sure none of his men had been caught in the blast and saw no sign of it. He offered up a prayer of thanks to Russ and the Allfather. That had been a little too close for comfort, the sort of mistake that happened on a battlefield, all too often and all too fatally.

  Brother Einar, Brother Anders and the rest of their Blood Claw packs had formed up around him. Their young faces looked tense, strained and eager for the kill. Briefly Ragnar wondered if he had ever looked as green as that to his superiors, and knew the answer was a resounding ‘yes’. That had been a very long time ago though.

  Brother Hrolf and his Long Fangs were in position now in the nearby crater ready to give them supporting fire if it was needed. The rest of his company’s Grey Hunters stood ready to go in. Ragnar looked over at Brother Loysus. The Rune Priest had been assigned to his company for this mission by Great Wolf Logan Grimnar himself.

  Ragnar’s fingers flickered through his Chapter’s handsign asking the priest if he was ready. It was too noisy for speech, and too close to the sensitive detection equipment within the fortress to risk the comm-net. Loysus gestured in the affirmative. A faint nimbus of light played round his fingers. Ragnar smiled grimly and then gave the sign. It was time to go in.

  ‘Take out the door!’ he told Mikko over the comm-net.

  +Aye, lord!+ The youth’s response was instant. Ahead of them, the bright bloom of explosive charges lit the night. The gate crumbled. Ragnar gave the gesture to move.

  ‘Charge!’ he cried.

  After the sounds of conflict, all seemed quiet. After the dreadful brightness of the storm-lashed night, the sunrise seemed almost dim. Carrion birds fluttered over corpses. Pariah dogs had emerged from their holes to drink the water puddled in craters. The priests went about their business, tending to the wounded, granting final rites to the dying, speaking words of encouragement to the living. Above the walls of the fortress the Imperial banner had been restored. Already work teams from the guard units were scouring the Chaos runes from the side of the building.

  Ragnar sat in the silence, filled with the sense of gloom and anti-climax that often filled him after a battle, and took stock of the situation. The casualties had been light, all things considered. Ten Blood Claws wounded, six dead. Two Long Fangs lost to enemy fire. Four men missing. It was not yet known whether they were dead or if their locator beacons had simply been damaged. Doubtless all would become clearer as the morning progressed.

  Ragnar suddenly grinned, trying to find something that would dispel his black mood. ‘Mikko for Grey Hunter,’ he said suddenly.

  Old Brother Hrolf grinned back at him. ‘Aye, he’s about ready. So are Lars and Jaimie.’

  Ragnar nodded. ‘Talk to the brotherhood. See if they agree to accept them. If they are, I will perform the rites myself this evening.’

  Strictly speaking, Ragnar had no need to consult anybody before elevating a Blood Claw to the ranks of the Grey Hunters. It was his privilege as Wolf Lord to make that selection, but only a fool discounted the opinions of his master sergeant, and the men who would have to fight alongside the ne
wly raised Claw.

  Initiation into the ranks of the Grey Hunters was an important rite for all concerned, not just for the men involved but for the company. It marked the passage from raw ferocious youth to something wiser, more battle-hardened, and above all, less likely to get his companions killed by his eagerness for combat. Blood Claws were furious young men; Grey Hunters had tempered their lust for combat with experience.

  Ragnar saw the sergeant was looking at him, as were all the other warriors surrounding him.

  ‘What is it?’ Ragnar asked, already knowing what was coming. It was part of the personal myth that surrounded him.

  ‘The tale is that you were never a Grey Hunter, lord.’

  ‘Aye, that is so, more or less.’

  ‘I thought it was impossible for a man to become Wolf Lord unless he had been initiated into the brotherhood, lord,’ said Zoran, one of the newest recruits to the company, a man who had been transferred in from Fenris as a replacement for casualties. Zoran had the fresh-faced look of a Blood Claw who had only just been accepted into the Grey Hunters himself.

  ‘I thought every man must undergo the rites to become a Grey Hunter, to be bound into the brotherhood.’

  ‘I did not,’ said Ragnar.

  ‘How can that be, lord?’

  ‘It’s a long tale,’ said Ragnar.

  ‘We have all day,’ came someone’s voice from the background. Ragnar could see they were all keen to hear it, even those who had heard the story many times before. The sagas were one of those things that bound them together as a Chapter, part of what made them a brotherhood. Some of the Blood Claws had approached and were taking their places around the fire. Ragnar looked at their eager faces, and smiled sadly.

  He plunged backwards into his memory, seeking the words that would, this time, enable him to tell the whole terrible tale correctly.