Wolfsbane

by Guy Haley

  Russ suddenly halted at the edge of a dusty bridge. He sniffed the air suspiciously, and waved his men back. The primarch looked up at the metal cliffs of the far side, scanning the open transitways and foot galleries for movement.

  In the gloom there, metallic sea-green flashed between thick support pillars.

  'I see them. They are coming. Take up position there.' He directed a group into the transit tunnel on the near side of the road, away from the advancing Sons of Horus. 'And you, get up into the upper galleries. Cover the far side, they will come at us in force here.'

  The Vlka Fenryka's vox-net, near silent for a while but for distance count-offs and report calls, burst into sudden life.

  Gunfire exploded from the far side of the canyon. Their ambush anticipated, the Sons of Horus attacked.

  Horus' warriors approached in three trident prongs. The lead attack was offset from the other two, coming from the stem on the same side as the Rout along a wide, hexagonal supply route whose outer edge was open to the chasm. The route's rail trades were rusting, and detritus had been dumped in heaps along its length. Radioactive contaminants in the waste upset augur scans, so the traitors had been able to draw close without alerting their quarry. The first notice the Rout had of their presence was a sheeting blaze of reaper cannon fire that hammered two Wolves down, scattering their remains in a hail of white-hot shrapnel and blood. A trio of Contemptor Dreadnoughts moved steadily up the tracks, laying down such a volume of fire the junction quickly became impassable.

  Ceramite slammed into plasteel as the Rout made use of the junction's meagre cover. With Russ caught between the bridge and the safety of the deeper ship, two more groups of traitors moved in. They came head on, one straight down the corridor towards the bridge, the other taking up position in a high transitway opposite so they could fire down on the Rout. Boltgun fire exploded all around Leman Russ' position, blasting shiny craters into the corroded walls. The primarch wrinkled his nose at it like a wolf scowling at the rain. The noise of heavy guns joined the racket as their operators got them set up and aimed. Russ still did not retreat.

  'My jarl! Get back!' said Grimnr.

  'They will try to break us up and deal with us piecemeal,' said Russ. 'Fall back and consolidate.'

  'They're trying to isolate you,' said Grimnr. 'We are ambushed!'

  'I was counting on it.' Russ hefted the Emperor's Spear. 'I'll not be nursemaided by you, Blackblood. This is what I wanted. Horus has taken the bait.'

  'We are the ones in the trap, my lord!'

  'That is what he thinks. Varagyr, form up on me.'

  Russ' Wolf Guard drew closer to him. Bullets and las-beams screamed off the energy fields of their Cataphractii armour. Howling and the firing of heavy weapons boomed up the transitway leading to the bridge. A fire support team had moved up, taking casualties in the process. The dead lay in scattered, broken pieces around the junction, but many others had survived and were ensconced in heavy cover. Among the howling Vlka were two warriors readying multi-meltas to fire on the Dreadnoughts.

  The giant war machines broke into a run, thundering up the transitway towards the junction. The melta-gunners would not be ready in time. Behind the Dreadnoughts came dozens of Horus' sons, snapping off opportunistic fire as they pelted towards the Rout. Warriors, Bjorn among them, threw themselves into the corners where bridge met wall and aimed upwards at the groups occupying the higher ground on the canyon's other side.

  'You must fall back, my lord,' shouted Grimnr over the roar and boom of incoming bolts. 'We are trapped. I will summon reinforcements from Sepp and Tra, they are near enough - in greater numbers we can take the fight to them.'

  Russ cut Grimnr off with a chop of his hand. 'Do what you want, Grimnr. I will fight them now. I will not wait. I will kill them. I will not relent - not until the slaughter brings Horus out.'

  'That is no plan, my lord!' snarled Grimnr. He shot a burst of three rounds upwards. A Sons of Horus legionary fell screaming to his death.

  'The bear is roused,' said Russ. 'It must be speared, or the hunters shall become the prey. That is the way of the hunt. The time for plans has passed - this is the time for deeds.' Russ brandished his spear overhead. 'Fenrys hjolda!' he bellowed.

  'Fenrys hjolda,' Grimnr said. The battle cry was taken up by the rest.

  Pounding, heavy iron footsteps echoed up the transitway. The first of the Dreadnoughts burst through into the junction. Mass-reactives turned its front quarter into a stunning display of ricochet sparks and micro-detonations. One of the melta gunners leaned around the corner, and opened up with his heavy weapon. The air shimmered and roared. The Dreadnought following the first took the blast full in its chest and fell down with an almighty bang, amniotic fluids boiling off the molten metal pouring from the wound. The lead machine swung round, pulverising the threat before he could fire again with a swipe of its fist.

  Its rampage was cut short by the primarch. Drawing his arm back, his own armour alive with dancing bullet impacts, Russ cast the Spear of the Emperor into the back of the Contemptor. It pierced the armoured cowling of the machine's power plant. Initially, it appeared to have no effect; the machine continued to slaughter warriors at the command of the traitor who dwelled inside it But then there came the add taste of maleficarum, and purple lightning crawled all over the power plant. Black smoke and fire belched from the exhaust stacks. A grinding howl sounded from the mechanism, and it detonated, destroying the Dreadnought completely. The Vlka Fenryka were thrown aside by the blast Close by Russ, Bjorn ducked as a leg flew over his head, spinning so fast it beat an uneven thrumming from the air. The third Dreadnought stamped through the wreckage, roaring wildly, but it was skewered and felled by four lascannon beams fired from further up the transit tunnel, and slumped noisily into the wall.

  Leman Russ pulled off his helmet threw back his head and howled. There was no sound like it in the galaxy: a full-throated animal call steeped in nature's music, it strengthened the soul of every member of the Rout and drove spikes of fear into their enemies. He howled again, and the fell spirit of the ship recoiled from its purity.

  From all around their position, answering howls rang.

  'Now the real fight begins,' said Russ. 'Slaughter them, then cross the bridge. We drive on, for the Emperor and the Imperium!'

  Russ ran to fetch the spear, pulled it out of the smoking carcass of the Contemptor, and led his warriors in a charge down the tunnel.

  Grey and green armour met in a resounding crash. Bjorn was forced to take cover, and only belatedly followed after, his back ringing to the impacts of bolt-rounds fired from above.

  Russ was there by then, fighting at the front.

  Bjorn had seen his gene-father fight at close hand before. He had seen him dismember a Contemptor Dreadnought aboard the Hrafnkel He had witnessed him break Magnus the Red's back before the great pyramids of Tizca. He had seen him fight on a dozen worlds, and had seen the terrifying evidence of his battles on a hundred more.

  But never had Bjorn seen Leman Russ fight with such savagery.

  A wolf fights hard, but it fights carefully. Injury to an animal is a death sentence. Ordinarily Leman Russ fought like a wild animal fights, with savagery that was nevertheless tempered. Upon the Vengeful Spirit he abandoned restraint completely. He fought like a baresark. He wore his fury and his pain openly. For the first time since Horus had spat on his oaths of loyalty, Leman Russ faced the treacherous sons of his brother. The Spear of the Emperor buzzed through the air in wide, deadly sweeps, its leaf-bladed head opening armour like paper and destroying the bodies beneath. He cast it with such force it pierced its targets, killing them instantly, and always he ran forwards right into the enemy's guns to retrieve it, as if this once much-hated weapon had become dear to him.

  His sons followed, slaughtering everything they came across, The Sons of Horus still fought with the caged ferocity they had been known for, methodical and deadly, but there was a new, frenzied edge to their battle craft, and i
n them the Rout found warriors every bit as deadly as themselves.

  Hate flowed along with blood. The howls of the wolf kin were thick with outrage. Sorrow mingled with their anger, sorrow at the scouring of Prospero they had been tricked into, and sorrow that the dream was over. They were close to the source of all the Imperium's ills and of their own humiliation. There was too much poetry in the soul of the Fenrisians not to feel the stab of woe.

  As Russ butchered his way through the outflanking force, the Wolf Guard pressed across the bridge, trusting to their Cataphractii plate to protect them from harm. A torrent of death fell on them, so they were like an ancient testudo of the Romani people assailing a castle gate. Armour can only save a man from so much, and one of the elite warriors fell, his energy field overwhelmed by heavy shot and his helm smashed by a volkite strike. His massive armoured form fell down, the bulk of it half blocking the bridge. His brothers weathered the fire and trudged over, and attacked, their howls amplified to ear-splitting heights by their armour.

  Russ downed the last of the traitor group on the near side of the chasm, pinning the warrior with his spear to the metal of the wall.

  'Follow the Varagyr over the bridge! Into them!' he roared. 'Paint the ways red with their life's ending!'

  And he wrenched his crackling spear free, and bounded away.

  Yelling terrible oaths, the Rout gathered themselves into a single group, streaming down from the higher levels of the chasm and in from halls abutting it, and charged behind the Wolf Guard to the other

  The enemy were swiftly overwhelmed and the Rout left the chasm behind. Russ had enough of a hold of his senses to order the companies attacking the ship to take station and secure a route of escape. A portion of the Knights Errant's targets remained whole, but the battle was moving into its second phase. Time was running out. The wolf fleet was surrounded. Other traitor groups were converging on Momus and the dying Heptaligon. Ships were arriving in system, bursting out of the warp to join the battle. It should have been impossible to reinforce so quickly. It had been a matter of hours since the Rout committed to their attack and revealed I themselves - Horus' other fleets should not even have received notice by that juncture, but the traitors' mastery of the warp was complete. Dark powers hurried them into the fray.

  There was no target for Russ' band to aim for, so he led them in slaughter's dance to lure out his brother. The primarch welcomed the ambush. He strode into their trap with the single purpose of smashing it, and he howled for more when it was done.

  They kept together, fighting as one formation. Past the chasm the transverse way broadened out into a series of cavernous holds, their thick walls penetrated by tracks for supply trains. So much of a battleship's space was given over to storage. In the days of the Great Crusade, the expeditionary fleets operated for years away from Imperial space. Now these holds that had once held food and water for the ships' teeming crews, that had brought back wondrous artefacts and art, were full of weapons bound for the destruction of Terra.

  Had the battle been more ordered, the Rout would have taken time to rig the supplies for detonation, but they fought now only to kill. Every force of Traitor Space Marines sent to fight them was greeted joyously, and the warriors of the Vlka gave ironic thanks to their foes for easing the job of war by bringing their bodies to the Rout's blades.

  Bjorn panted lightly, like a canine. His helmet fans burred to keep his eye-lenses free of fogging. The mission count said they'd been fighting for four hours, but that meant nothing. Combat stretches time into strange shapes. Each moment could have been Bjorn's last, and so lasted an infinity, but when each encounter was done it was as if it had taken place in seconds. Many of them did.

  They fought their way diagonally upwards, moving clear across the Vengeful Spirit, and away from the utilitarian areas of the inner ship into the grand spaces between the core and the starboard gun decks. Eventually they emerged into a large ceremonial hall.

  Bjorn took a moment to get his bearings. A run of marble steps sculpted in a beautiful representation of a cataract cascaded from a high golden portal at the prow end. Tattered finely lined the walls, and small, high windows set into a ceiling painted with frescoes of the victory at Ullanor looked out into the void. Bjorn had expected maleficarum's touch to be lighter there out of the dark, where it could be seen. It was in the nature of evil to hide, but signs of Horus' new allegiance were everywhere in the hall. Statues appeared to move when not looked at. Paintings daubed in fluids not ordinarily considered as paint adorned the walls. Braziers burned with strange green-and-blue fires. The decoration of the place, where it was not subsumed into mats of living matter or drowned in the slime seeping from the wall, was cruel. It did not appear to have been altered by human hand; rather, it had changed itself. There were places where Bjorn could see it halfway accomplished, where the sober, restrained flourishes one might find anywhere in the Imperium were growing sharp edges and spikes more fit for a torturer's chamber. Some of them had been employed to inflict pain. Rotting bodies hung in agonised positions from rusting hooks.

  The fell voices were loud in the hall, whispering clearly. The distraction nearly cost Bjorn his life. Battle horns blared a deafening challenge, and the walls opened.

  A Sons of Horus legionary appeared out of nowhere to swing a crackling mace at his head. Bjorn ducked, and the weapon put a dent the size of Bjorn's torso into the wall. He emptied his gun into the chest of the traitor The legionary's breastplate cracked open. Power cabling parted, fizzing with escaping energy, and he staggered back. Bjorn leapt onto the warrior and slammed his lighting claw up through his opponent's chin. The back of the traitor's helmet exploded outwards in a fountain of smoking gore. Bjorn shoved the corpse off his claws with his boot and turned around, I seeking a new opponent, and found himself in the middle of a sudden battle. Warriors were emerging from panels sliding up beneath the corrupt artwork, running into the Vlka Fenryka all along their march. Bolt-fire rang out briefly before deadly blade work began. Warriors grappled everywhere. There were no battle lines. No discipline, only one duel repeated a thousand times, the dark against the light. The sense of unholy pressure grew. The air thickened. Even through his breathing unit, Bjorn felt he was choking on a sewer's filth with every breath.

  Voices laughed and gabbled, issuing loudly from no human throat but seemingly coming from the air. The Sons of Horus fought undaunted by the chorus, but the Vlka Fenryka reeled at its jabbering.

  A temperature gauge blinked to get Bjorn's attention, warning him of a growing chill. Hot air venting from power packs became rolling clouds of steam. Frost gathered on the hooks and spoiled finery, and yet when he glanced at his wrist he found the lead charms drooping with heat. Before his eyes the charms melted into silver streaks that would not set, but flowed from his body to the floor, where they ran against the pull of artificial gravity as if seeking out a route of escape. Without the counter-magics to mute the voices, they grew louder, and louder, tempting Bjorn to cast down his weapons, threatening him if he did not. He did not know the language, but the meaning was horribly clear.

  Two warriors moved to engage him. Their faces blurred in Bjorn's eyes and the voices laughed. They attacked while he was half-blind. Bjorn parried their blows clumsily.

  Something was coming. Bjorn looked up the stairs. A light, like approaching torches flickering on a cave wall, was coming down the corridor. Foreboding preceded it. It was almost as if Bjorn could feel the shape of his wyrd bend out of true under the pressure. The whispers became a laudatory roar, singing out the praises of their champion.

  The golden doors swung open.

  With a rush of black terror, Horus Lupercal stepped out onto the head of the staircase and joined his sons. A bodyguard of hulking Terminators fanned out either side of him. Other warriors whose twisted faces and unnatural limbs Bjorn first took for the extravagance of a mad armourer came after.

  Horus commanded all attention. In his left hand he carried a maul taller than a Sp
ace Marine. The right bore a massive gauntlet whose fingers were tipped with cruelly barbed, powered blades, and on the wrist were mounted twinned boltguns. His armour was covered in spikes; his Imperial badges had been replaced by slit-pupilled eyes that seemed too moist and alive to be of anything but flesh.

  As befitted his arrogance he came into battle helmetless. His once noble face was contorted with an exultant superiority that bordered on the daemonic. Harsh red light shone out from the cowl of the Terminator plate around his head, a diabolical halo with no readily discernible source. With shadowed eyes he surveyed the carnage of the hall and uttered a single word.

  'Cease!'

  Such power was imbued in that command that all the warriors faltered. Green and grey armoured figures stepped back from one another, eyeing each other with unshakeable hatred. But they were compelled to hold their peace by Horus' word no matter how much they wished to fight.

  Bjorn's strike halted in mid-air and turned aside. His opponents backed away. He looked to his primarch for guidance, expecting Russ to defy his brother's words and leap to the attack immediately. But he did not. Leman Russ waited, motionless, a look of such dismay on his face that it struck fear into Bjorn's heart. The Lord of Winter and War was decisive, a force of nature as potent as an ice storm, I unrelenting and merciless. But the appearance of his brother had ^ unmanned him. Consternation passed down through the Rout at Russ' hesitation. A tense calm descended upon the battlefield.