Stormcaller

by Chris Wraight

  ‘Tell me what you’re getting,’ said Olgeir.

  Hafloí extended the reach again, letting his armour-mounted auspexes do the work.

  ‘Infantry formations,’ he said, passing over several big contingents. The soldiers were arranged in loose phalanxes, basking in the heat, mouths slack, ready for the long desert night. Fires had been started, massive ones, adding to the pall of smoke that hung over them. ‘Six… seventeen chem-carriers. Big ones.’

  The massive tanker-juggernauts stood in a makeshift compound behind the first of the infantry lines, towering into the murk and underlit by pale green marker lumens. Their engines were running, fuelling the chemical furnaces in the tanks behind.

  ‘They’ve dug in,’ added Olgeir, marking the trench patterns.

  Hafloí ran his augmented gaze along earthworks topped with coils of razor wire. Gun-towers had been built along the ridges, constructed from huge rockcrete blocks and carrying heavy, snub-barrelled cannons on rotating bases. Each tower was protected by dedicated units of gas mask-wearing troops in thick carapace armour. More lights blinked on and off in the gloom, tracing the outline of bigger edifices beyond.

  ‘Prefabs,’ said Olgeir, indicating points along the defence lines. ‘They landed them, or looted them.’

  Hafloí remembered the empty depots they’d seen on the plague destroyer in orbit. He ratcheted up the scale again, and his helm zoomed in further. He swept over lines of infantry, some loosely formed up, some in deep-dug positions overlooked by more earthworks. A few rust-encrusted tanks rumbled between formations, belching smoke. Their hulls had been defaced and covered in corpse-racks, all of which buzzed with insect clouds.

  ‘Until I saw this world,’ murmured Hafloí, ‘I would not have believed so many flies existed.’

  Beyond the tank columns, the land rose. The magnocular range reached its limit, and the images became less defined.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Hafloí.

  More razor wire ran around the base of the incline, arranged in layers. Scaffolds were everywhere, all slung with swaying gibbets. Green marker lights peered fuzzily through the miasma, blinking on and off.

  ‘Get a loc-reading on that,’ said Olgeir.

  Hafloí had already done it, storing the positions of kill-zones, ingress routes, choke-points. ‘They’ve got something big in there.’

  ‘Wall-breakers. Focus more – you can see them.’

  ‘We can take it,’ Hafloí said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Olgeir, his voice as deep and calm as ever. ‘With Njal, certainly.’

  Hafloí let his vision lapse back into short-range. ‘You fought with him?’

  ‘I saw him. From a distance.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘What’s he like?’

  Olgeir kept up the scan. Hafloí could hear the faint clicks as his helm-gear registered picts. Then, before he could reply, something broke out below them – a crash, a long way down, followed by a series of thumps. The walls of the building shook.

  Olgeir clicked his lenses back into focus and took a deep breath. ‘We’ve been detected.’

  Hafloí smiled inside his helm. ‘Good.’

  Olgeir turned and walked back into the hab-chamber, hefting his wyrm-blade axe loosely. ‘Don’t let your blood get hot. We clear them out, then back to the citadel.’

  Hafloí followed Olgeir. He hoped there were lots of them – a whole herd, something worth drawing a blade for.

  ‘Fine,’ he replied, feeling the first spikes of kill-urge stir. ‘Just leave a few for me.’

  Chapter Two

  Baldr’s nostrils drew in breath again. His eyes twitched as he dreamed. The ghostly pallor had left his skin, replaced by Fenrisian colouring – pale, like stone under winter sun.

  Ingvar looked at him. Baldr lay on a metal slab under bright apothecarion lights, face up, limbs slack. Shackles grasped him at the wrists, ankles, neck and waist.

  The door to the apothecarion was criss-crossed with sensors. A second blast-door had been rigged in the room beyond, primed to slam closed if anything disturbed the contents of the inner chamber. Pict-feed lenses dotted the ceiling, flickering intermittently as they shunted their feeds direct to Gunnlaugur’s helm-display.

  Olgeir had inscribed a rune of warding over the medicae-cot, scratching it crudely into the brushed metal of the lumen-housing. A Rune Priest would have done a better job, but it had been a long time since one had accompanied Járnhamar on the hunt. There were fewer of them now, they said. They were overstretched, burnt out, kept busy by Grimnar’s remorseless war-calling.

  Ingvar didn’t know the truth of that. He’d seen the condition of other Chapters, though, and knew well enough the trials that faced them all. Every Chapter Master from Terra to the Halo Stars was feeling the strain – they couldn’t train new aspirants quickly enough, the rate of attrition was growing and the weight of ten thousand years of ceaseless combat was catching up.

  If there is to be victory, I cannot see it.

  But he had vowed not to think such things again. He drew a vial of liquid into a long syringe, watching as the dark red matter foamed. He discarded the vial and flicked the air bubbles from the syringe.

  Then he moved close to Baldr. Feeling for the vein, he inserted the needle. He had to push – mortal instruments had trouble penetrating the skin of a Sky Warrior. As he depressed the plunger, he watched the tincture enter Baldr’s system. His eyes flickered a little and his mouth tightened a fraction, then he relaxed.

  Ingvar withdrew the needle and discarded it. He was no Apothecary, far less a Wolf Priest. It was one thing to keep a brother warrior alive on the battlefield – every Hunter knew the basics of chirurgy – another to shepherd Baldr through whatever horror had overtaken him.

  At least the visible taint of corruption had faded. For a long time Baldr’s saliva had retained a green hue, like algal scum at the edge of summer-hot pools. Lifting his lids had exposed bloodshot eyes, unseeing, the irises shrunk.

  The breathing was more regular now. The rancid stench had gone, replaced by the healthier smells of perspiration. The Red Dream still had him, but the other sickness had retreated. Whether it was truly gone or simply dormant he had no way of knowing.

  ‘Gyrfalkon,’ came Gunnlaugur’s voice over the comm. ‘Anything yet?’

  ‘No change,’ Ingvar replied.

  ‘But he will wake soon?’

  ‘I cannot say.’

  Gunnlaugur grunted. ‘Re-seal the chamber, then. The canoness has news.’

  ‘By your will.’

  Ingvar severed the comm-link. He reduced the lumens, keeping the observation lamps over Baldr’s body on full. He ran a final check, activated the locks, then left the chamber. The door clanged closed behind him, followed by the hiss of bolts sliding home. The metal briefly glittered as the detector-field swept over it.

  Baldr was sealed again, as secure as one of Ras Shakeh’s ancient gods, locked in the cool under the desert floor and waiting to be stirred once more.

  He lay on the slab, breathing shallow, eyelids flickering.

  ‘This is the moment,’ said de Chatelaine, allowing a little pride to sink into her voice. That felt good – it had been a long time since she had done so. ‘This is the time we have been holding out for.’

  She stood in one of the marble-and-gold antechambers running clear of the Halicon’s main hall. The war had hardly intruded there: ivory and ebony statues of the primarchs still stood proudly on lozenges of veined stone. Thick drapes warded the force of the sun outside, though bars of light still angled in, twisting with dust.

  Callia stood by her, as did others of her Sororitas command retinue. Five Wolves faced them, making everything else in the chamber look fragile.

  Gunnlaugur had scoured the worst of the combat-grime from him, and de Chatelaine had bee
n surprised to see the extent of the glorious fine work around the edges of his armour. He seemed animated by a fierce, almost febrile energy, even when standing. Perhaps he thought he hadn’t performed well enough, hadn’t slaughtered quite as many as he should have. De Chatelaine couldn’t share that view, but then she only had the scantiest of insights into the battle-culture of Fenris, and what counted for satisfaction with a Wolf Guard.

  The other one, Ingvar, remained at one side, though some of the separateness she had detected in him at the start had ebbed – he now stood amongst his brothers at greater ease. Olgeir and Hafloí had come to the chamber fresh from their scout mission to the walls. Jorundur, the darkest, had remained alone with his gunship.

  ‘You have new tidings?’ asked Gunnlaugur, looking at her sceptically.

  ‘A flotilla, on the cusp of the veil,’ said de Chatelaine. ‘Your brothers.’

  ‘Fleet markers?’

  ‘Repoda is in no doubt.’

  Gunnlaugur shared a look with his brothers. ‘If Njal’s bringing a pack, a large one, then this battle’s already over.’

  ‘Then, after it, we take it to the sector,’ said de Chatelaine, her eyes shining. ‘The beginning. This is the crusade we sought.’

  The canoness activated a large hololith column. A battle schematic hovered in glowing lines over the marble face, picking out the perimeter of the city, the terrain beyond, and what they had discovered of the enemy positions.

  ‘When your forces detect our beacon signal,’ said de Chatelaine, ‘they can make planetfall on the open plain, surrounding the enemy. We will break out then, and they will be caught between the two fronts. Caught, and destroyed.’

  Gunnlaugur scrutinised the schematic. He sniffed sceptically. ‘They won’t wait.’

  Olgeir nodded. ‘They’ve not moved for a while, but this looks complete now.’ He pointed to a low hill, two kilometres to the south-west of Hjec Aleja’s ruined outer gates. ‘They’ve brought wall-breakers. We ran deep augur sweeps while down at the wall’s edge.’

  ‘And Plague Marines,’ added Hafloí. ‘The last ones left. We’ve been waiting for reinforcements, and so have they.’

  ‘Then we need to hold out,’ said de Chatelaine. ‘Just a little longer.’

  ‘They have had all the time they needed,’ said Gunnlaugur, shaking his head. ‘They have dragged those guns halfway across a continent, and now they are ready to use them.’

  Olgeir leaned over the column and gestured to the landscape immediately behind the fortified incline. ‘The wall-breakers are there. Couldn’t get a good look, but if they fire, we’ll know all about it.’

  It was de Chatelaine’s turn to study the schematic. As she did so, her brow furrowed in concern. ‘We can’t launch a sortie that far out.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Ingvar.

  ‘And you can’t wait for those guns to fire,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘They’re ready to go. We have to move first.’

  De Chatelaine pursed her lips. The Wolves always relished the reckless attack, but that didn’t automatically make it the right tactic. ‘The mortal troops aren’t like you – they won’t last long in the open desert, not against those numbers.’

  ‘They don’t have to,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘You just need to retake the outer walls. Get their attention. Seize the towers by the main gate and you’ll give us all the cover we need.’

  ‘And you’ll take on what’s left.’

  Gunnlaugur bowed. ‘For as long as needed.’

  Callia shook her head in disbelief. ‘Even for you, that’s–’

  ‘Possible,’ said Ingvar. ‘We don’t have to hold them forever – just hit them before they move.’

  ‘They won’t stand still,’ added Gunnlaugur. ‘Wait longer, and the city will be in flames before Njal makes orbit.’

  De Chatelaine hesitated. She scrutinised the hololith again. ‘You go out there, in plain view, and they’ll rip you apart.’

  Gunnlaugur snorted. ‘Do it in plain view, and we’d deserve to be.’

  ‘What’s the readiness of the city garrison?’ de Chatelaine asked Callia.

  ‘Full readiness,’ Callia said.

  No hesitation, no shade of doubt. That gave de Chatelaine some comfort.

  ‘And this is your only counsel?’ she asked Gunnlaugur.

  The Wolf Guard shrugged, making bone totems clatter against his armour. ‘We’ll take the guns out anyway. Better to do it with cover, but it’s your city.’

  De Chatelaine smiled. ‘So it is.’ She turned from the hololith, giving the nod to Callia. ‘We will need time to prepare. I shall notify you when all is ready.’ Then she looked back at Gunnlaugur. ‘And I will give the order, Wolf Guard. As you say, it is still my city.’

  Gunnlaugur inclined his head. ‘We will aim to keep it that way,’ he said.

  Five hours later, Callia stood under the arch of the Ighala Gate as the sun set, casting deep orange shafts across the darkening sky above. Towering toxin-clouds glowed in the dusk, vivid and spectacular. The heavy twin defence-doors loomed up ahead of her, bolted and barred as they had been since the final hours of the last assault.

  Around her stood the remains of Ras Shakeh’s Celestian contingent. The remaining Battle Sisters of the Wounded Heart lined up behind them, their ebony armour glinting with the last rays of the dying light. Beyond that stood attack squads of Ras Shakeh Guard, arrayed in the mixed uniforms of hastily combined regiments. Some of their gear was in good condition, some of it looked barely capable of resisting a determined bayonet strike.

  She didn’t like to think too closely about numbers. They had mustered a few thousand, all told, with a skeleton reserve to follow them down and an even thinner defence force to man the wall-guns. Still, it was good to be on the front foot again. Huddling behind the gates waiting for the inevitable assault was not what she had been trained for.

  Her comm-bead crackled.

  ‘You have clearance, Sister,’ came de Chatelaine’s voice. ‘Go with hate, and the Emperor guide your aim.’

  Callia smiled. ‘And yours, canoness preceptor.’

  The bolts on the gate began to grind open, sending sparks flying from the adamantium sheaths. On the walls above, lascannons swivelled on their mounts, holding fire for now but already picking targets. A hundred sharpshooters mounted on the parapets crouched down, resting long muzzles on the hot stone.

  Callia tensed, clutching the grip on her bolter. She could feel her heart-rate pick up, slipping into the pre-combat state she cherished.

  Cleanse my soul.

  The words came to her unbidden. Callia couldn’t remember who’d taught them to her. Bajola, perhaps.

  Clear my mind.

  The last of the bolts powered home, sliding into the wall-mounts on immense pistons. A thin line ran up the centre of the two doors, and dust showered down the joint.

  Enable my body.

  With a jolt, the gate-engines kicked in and the two doors parted, grating slowly apart and exposing the bridge beyond. Las-beams whickered out into the gathering gloom, angled down from the parapets to lay a covering wall of fire. A wide, empty expanse stretched off, cleared of buildings during the first siege and home to nothing more than broken earth.

  Callia advanced, the Celestians on either side of her, until they were directly under the arch. The narrow span of the bridge ran ahead of them, empty, before terminating on the far side of a deep gorge. In the distance, hidden by both gathering darkness and smog, ran the jagged outlines of the lower city, its habs now bombed-out and derelict.

  ‘With me,’ voxed Callia to her retinue. She strode out into the foetid air beyond the gate. More las-beams scythed out above her, whining into the line of buildings in the distance. The volume picked up as the gunners found their targets, aiming to give the infantry a clear run for as long as possible.

  Callia glanced upwa
rds, looking back over her shoulder. The face of the gate bore the tattered remains of Wounded Heart banners and iconography. Though scorched and ripped, the symbols of the Imperium still endured.

  ‘Forward,’ she ordered.

  The vanguard broke into a run, leaving the cover of the Gate and charging out across the bridge. For a few moments they were totally exposed, running across the open span with no cover of any sort. Then they reached the far side and split into four columns, fanning out across the wasteland. Battle Sister squads headed each unit, followed by the more numerous Guard detachments, all heading straight towards the forbidding line of silhouettes ahead.

  For a while, there was no return fire. The lascannons on the high wall behind them kept firing, briefly lighting the scene before them in stark flash-frames. It was eerily silent, save for the echo of breathing in their helms and the crunch of boots on gravel.

  Callia ran hard, her movements boosted by her power armour, her head low and her bolter trained on the lines of cover ahead. They rapidly closed the gap between the Gate and the first ranks of ruined hab-blocks. Her column took the central path, the one cleared by the Wolves to aid the passage of arms down to the outer wall. The other groups split off, one to the left and two to the right, moving swiftly to take up positions in cover before the fight down to the perimeter.

  A las-beam from the Ighala formation hit the remnants of a big tower ahead of her, scything clean through the weakened masonry and sending bricks cascading to the ground. More hit, crowning the shattered ruins with blooms of incandescence.

  The lead group reached the line of buildings and kept running. Callia leapt across a tangled line of razor wire and felt her boots thud onto rockcrete on the far side. The serrated outlines of the lower city rose up on either side of her, enclosing the night sky like two walls of a canyon. The street ahead was littered with wreckage – blast-rubble from the walls above, the carcass of a Rhino transport, the cracked edges of craters where ordnance had hammered down during the worst of the previous fighting.