by Ben Counter
This one was sick. Ulli could tell that at the first glance. Glistening black oil ran from its joints, like corrupted blood, running from its eyepieces and the joints of its armoured body. The green and gold paint was blistered as if by disease, with pits and craters like old wounds turned bad.
Behind it clambered the giant ork mechanic, and in one hand it held a chain hooked to a collar around the Knight’s neck. It was a master leading a slave, and it brought with it the stink of witchcraft and that upwelling of rage that seemed to shake the mountain under Ulli’s feet.
‘Is that the Dominus Vult?’ demanded Aesor inside the bunker.
A shuddering Frith appeared at the firing slit. ‘No,’ he said, his eyes wide with horror. ‘It’s the Aquila Ferox. Emperor on high, they got the Aquila…’
‘Whatever it is,’ said Tanngjost, ‘this heavy bolter won’t dent it and that thing on its arm is a battle cannon. It will crack this bunker open.’
Ulli ducked back into the doorway to shelter from the fire still coming down from the scattered orks. The bikers had been sent to keep the Space Wolves pinned down in the bunker while the Knight reached them. The greenskin was not stupid, and it could call upon the corruption of the warp.
‘Rune Priest,’ said Starkad, sheltering beside Ulli, ‘we have need of you.’ He was holding out the final demolition charge, a spare in case the detonator failed on one of the charges they planted at the dam.
‘Brother,’ said Ulli, ‘I cannot…’
‘We will all die,’ said Starkad, ‘if you do not.’
Ulli looked into Starkad’s face. He was one of the newer members of the pack, and had not been a Space Wolf when Ulli had fought alongside Tanngjost and Saehrimnar at Phalakan. Ulli did not know the young Grey Hunter well, but he had seen in him a calm and analytical war mind that could turn to a Fenrisian fury when cornered, a pathfinder who could pick out a trail through the roughest terrain and scout the most cunning enemy. The Chapter would do ill to lose him. But there was no regret in his face, and no pride at being the one to stand alone. There was just the certainty at what had to be done, and that he was the one who had to do it.
Ulli placed a hand on the casing of the demolition charge. He formed the sigils of strength and reckless fury on it, indiscriminate destruction and anger without form. It was not a complicated symbol but it was one that needed raw power, dredged up from the well at the back of Ulli’s mind that was usually kept sealed by the mental discipline of a Rune Priest.
The glowing rune in the shape of a fist was etched onto the explosive’s casing, and Ulli’s hand smouldered with the effort.
‘Cover him,’ ordered Aesor.
The Knight reached the top of the slope, its gait lopsided and uncertain. One arm ended in a battle cannon, a weapon normally carried by the main battle tanks of the Astra Militarum. The mountainside shuddered under its feet.
‘Metal beast!’ bellowed Tanngjost from the bunker. ‘Steel will melt and bend in the forge of war, but flesh and bone will not! And greenskin filth! Your kind are a disease, and in my hands I hold the cure!’
The ork mechanic turned at the sound of Tanngjost’s voice, its face creasing with hatred. It pointed and bellowed towards the bunker and the enslaved Knight followed it, the battle cannon turning to aim. Tanngjost opened fire and heavy bolter fire spanged off the Knight’s armoured chest, throwing out sparks but doing no damage.
Starkad sprinted from the doorway, pistol in one hand and the demolition charge in the other. Ulli’s rune left a glowing trail in the air as Starkad ran.
If Ulli could bury his axe in the ork’s skull, would he kill it? Even if he channelled every drop of psychic power through the blade, was that well of warp-born darkness too great for a Rune Priest to overcome? Ulli had never encountered an ork corrupted in this way before. He had never even heard of such a thing. How could he fight it?
Starkad reached to within a few metres of the Knight before the ork saw him. It roared and stomped up proud of the rocks, drawing the rotator cannon it had strapped to its back to make the climb. Ulli broke cover and ran at an angle to Starkad’s path, letting a white-hot flow of power course from his mind into the axe. The weapon was hot in his hand and it was suddenly heavy, the strength of his arm temporarily drained as it was forced out of his body and into his mind.
Ulli leapt and brought his axe down, as if delivering a killing blow to the back of a prey-animal’s neck. The blade of psychic energy was projected from the axe, a crescent of white light. It hammered into the ork’s gun and shattered its casing, sending components spinning everywhere.
Ulli gulped down air. He abhorred the moment of weakness that followed such use of his power. He saw the ork throwing the broken weapon aside and growling in frustration – but it was not stalking towards Ulli for revenge. Instead it stayed fixated on Starkad, who was now in the shadow of the Knight.
‘Here!’ yelled Ulli, knowing it was useless. The distraction had bought a few seconds, but not enough for Starkad to do his work. Instead Ulli ran for the ork, his axe for the moment just a mundane weapon until he could catch his breath and feel the psychic power flowing through him again.
The Knight’s cannon hammered a volley of shots into the bunker. Unaugmented hearing would have been deafened by the din – as it was Ulli’s senses were overloaded for a moment by the noise. Chunks of the bunker vanished in bursts of flame and debris, laying open the interior.
Silhouetted by the muzzle flare of the battle cannon, Starkad clamped the charge to the leg of the Aquila Ferox. The ork loomed down on him, bringing his cleaver up to hack Starkad in two.
Ulli dived into the ork’s side, tackling the alien shoulder-first. It was an unyielding wall of muscle and scar and Ulli barely knocked the ork back half a pace. He hacked at it with his axe and buried the weapon deep in the ork’s shoulder, but the ork flexed the muscle of its arm and forced the blade out. For a moment Ulli was looking into the ork’s eyes, and behind them he saw the infinite darkness of the warp, tinted red and boiling over with hate.
The ork aimed a backhand swipe at Ulli and caught him square in the chest. Ulli was thrown off his feet, head reeling with the impact, and it was instinct that made him throw his hands out to find some purchase in the snow and rock. He arrested his momentum just as his feet swung out over the precipice, a moment before he would have slid over the edge and into a fall hundreds of metres down through the clouds.
The charge detonated. The concussion wave hit Ulli before the sound and nearly threw him the rest of the way off the edge. The impact slammed against his ringing head and everything went red for a moment as the mountain shuddered.
Fragments of rock rained down over Ulli. Through the dust and snow thrown up by the blast he saw the Aquila Ferox listing to one side, one leg completely gone below the knee where Starkad had planted the charge. It put out a hand to steady itself but the ork’s corrupting machine-sickness had made it slow and ill-coordinated. It toppled to the ground beside Ulli, the greater part of its weight hanging over the edge. It slid across the icy rocks and fell. Ulli heard the sound of stone on steel as it was battered against the side of the mountain and plunged through the cloud layer.
Ulli shook the sense back into his head. Somehow he still held onto his axe – another warrior’s instinct. He used it to push himself to his feet.
The shape of the ork emerged from the smoke. In one massive paw it held Starkad up in the air, brandishing him towards the ruined bunker. Starkad’s face was streaked with blood and his armour was torn and cracked, but he was conscious. He saw the ork’s maw opening wide.
The ork bit down on Starkad’s upper body. Its fangs sheared through ceramite and bone. Starkad’s head and shoulders disappeared down its gullet. Blood and organs spilled down its chest as the ork threw the body aside.
Ulli could feel its glee. It relished this, not just killing, but killing a foe in front of that foe’s allies. The very hatred Ulli felt for the ork brought it joy.
‘To
the slopes,’ said a voice behind Ulli. In the chaos it took him a moment to recognise it as Aesor. ‘Upwards. More are following.’
Ulli could hear the engines now, more bikers and war machines crawling up the slope towards the ruined bunker. Through the smoke of the Knight’s assault he could see Tanngjost, the insensible Frith thrown over his shoulder, breaking from cover to join Fejor in the rocks above.
‘We’re running out of mountain,’ said Ulli as Aesor helped him to his feet.
‘Then we will make our stand at the top,’ said Aesor, ‘and bleed the greenskins white as they follow us. Move, Rune Priest. Move!’
For the first time, what remained of Pack Aesor could appreciate just how many greenskins followed the mechanic who led them. They had swarmed out of the camp by the mountain lake, thousands of them, released from the workshops to take up whatever weapon they could find and hunt down the Space Wolves.
Two more crawlers ground their way up to the ruined bunker, one bringing more bikers, the other scores of orks clinging to its upper hull. Other orks made the journey on foot, clambering through the ice and snow. From the glimpses of the greenskins massing below, Ulli estimated three to four thousand of them, many hauling their bikes after them, others loaded down with heavy weapons. Ulli saw no more corrupted Knights, for which he dared to be grateful.
Above the Space Wolves now was nothing save for a long snowy climb up to the very peak of Sacred Mountain, a gnarled spear of rock pierced with black caves. When the pack reached that peak, there would be nowhere left to climb.
Frith trudged alongside the pack as they moved. He was slow, but his weight was a fraction of a Space Marine’s and he did not have to watch his footing so carefully in the snow.
‘I should not look upon it,’ said Frith, pointing up at the peak. ‘It is a sacred place. Only those who pilot their own Knight may make this journey. We are unworthy.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ growled Tanngjost.
‘What is in there?’ asked Aesor.
‘In there?’ said Frith.
‘This is more than just a mountain. It might be the tallest on this world but the Knight Houses are not cowering savages to bow before a mere mountain. I have heard tell the lower reaches were opened up, and there was found the means to summon us to Alaric Prime, but the peak is a mystery.’
‘We keep it to ourselves.’
Aesor paused in his climb and turned to Frith, fixing the retainer with a look that Frith couldn’t return. ‘We could leave you,’ said Aesor, ‘if you would rather keep it to yourself.’
Frith squirmed for a moment, but Aesor did not have the air of someone who let such things slide. ‘It is said that the Omnissiah put his greatest secrets in the peak,’ said Frith. ‘He walked here before men did. And when the Knightly Houses came, He left them ninety tablets of pure carbon carved with the admonishment never to tread upon the peak. When we are worthy, when we can hear the Omnissiah’s truths and not corrupt or abuse them, then the peak of the mountain will open up to us. That is why our noblest sons make this journey and halt at the threshold, to show the Omnissiah they still hold true to his commandment.’
‘And now there will be greenskin filth running all over this place,’ said Fejor, who was listening in from his place in the lead a few paces ahead.
‘I cannot think of it,’ said Frith, ‘I must not.’ Ulli noticed the labour of his breath and remembered that while a Space Wolf did not care about altitude, an unaugmented human would suffer as the air got thinner. Without rest Frith would probably die before the sun rose the next morning, and he would not get any rest.
‘I smell smoke,’ said Fejor. Aesor held out a hand and the pack halted. They were in the lower reaches of the long snowy ascent, a trudge of perhaps two hours up to the rocky spike of the summit. Ulli followed Fejor’s gaze and saw a smudge of grey against the ice-blue sky.
‘It’s the ork aircraft,’ said Tanngjost. ‘The one Sigrund shot down. Our greenskin pilot made friends with the side of this mountain.’
‘Take a moment to think,’ said Aesor. He kneeled in the snow and ran his hand through it, picking up a handful. ‘This is fresh snowfall, on top of old. See up ahead. Near the peak? The snow is cracked where the slope has shifted. It won’t come down with our movement but it wouldn’t take a lot more.’
‘An avalanche,’ said Tanngjost. ‘Wouldn’t mind dropping half the mountain on a few orks.’
‘There,’ said Aesor, pointing to the side of the pack’s path, where a dip in the slope formed a snow-choked valley. ‘The orks are many but they are slow and move at different speeds. They will gather there before striking out for the peak. And above them is an avalanche begging to be set off.’
‘Set off by us,’ said Fejor. ‘That ork death trap never dropped its bombs. If they didn’t go off on impact then they’ll still be there.’
‘A fitting tribute to Brother Starkad it would be,’ said Tanngjost, ‘if we could set off a few more explosions in his name.’
Starkad’s death flashed in Ulli’s mind. He did not dwell on the deaths of brothers, setting those thoughts aside to be unravelled at the mourning rituals back at the Fang where the fallen were remembered. But the sight of Starkad’s body disappearing down the greenskin’s gullet, the alien’s growl of satisfaction at the taste of a Space Wolf’s flesh, those came to Ulli’s mind unbidden.
‘We have to take out their leader,’ said Ulli. ‘If that thing lives, it’ll bring its warpcraft to the battle and the Imperial Knights will become weapons in its hands.’
‘Leave that to me,’ said Aesor. ‘Fejor speaks true. Between Sacred Mountain and the greenskins we have everything we need. We will not make our last stand on this peak, brother. The greenskins will be making theirs.’
FOUR
The pilot’s body was a tangle of skin and flesh, torn open first by gunfire and then by the impact that pancaked the fighter craft’s nose back into the fuselage. Smoke was coming from one of the engines that had been torn clear of the main body and burst into flames. The snow was stained a dirty grey by the spill of fuel and oil.
‘How can they get anything like this to fly?’ asked Tanngjost, peering into the wreck’s innards. ‘It’s just flotsam and junk.’
‘The greenskins believe it will fly,’ replied Ulli. ‘Maybe that’s enough.’
Fejor wrenched a sheet of steel away from the hull, revealing the bomb load crushed into the fuselage. ‘A couple look intact,’ he said. ‘Tanngjost, your help, brother.’
Aesor and Ulli kept watch as the packmates unloaded the intact bombs. The bombs were as crudely made as the rest of the craft, just metal barrels with fins welded on and filled with explosives. It was a miracle they had not all detonated on impact.
‘Do you see them?’ asked Aesor.
All Ulli could see was the long white expanse of the slope, then the snarl of frozen rock that led down to the ruined bunker and eventually the distant blue glimmer of the lake. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but they are there.’
‘Greenskin scouts,’ said Aesor, pointing towards a dark cleft in the rock where Ulli could just make out movement. ‘Received wisdom states the ork is too stupid to scout ahead. That it simply charges headlong into anything put in its way. But you noted the cunning in the creature that leads them, Rune Priest. What you sensed, I now see with my own eyes. When the assault on the bunker failed, it changed plans. Now it seeks to trap us and hunt us down, and leave us no hiding place. It has its scouts pick out the best routes up the mountain, so its forces will not become bottled up and congested.’
‘But you do not have any admiration for it,’ said Ulli.
‘No, brother,’ said Aesor, ‘for it tries to match wits with a hunter of Fenris. Better for it that its greenskins charged blind and raging up at us, for then at least they would have the advantage of shock and fury. No, it has never hounded a quarry like us. It has no trick or tactic that I did not learn as a child of my tribe, let alone a warrior of the Space Wolves.’
&nbs
p; ‘It left no gene-seed for us to take from our dead,’ said Ulli. ‘Not from Starkad or Saehrimnar.’
‘You think that was deliberate?’
‘I can conceive of few better ways to dispirit Space Marines than to kill our brothers in such a way that the flesh of Russ cannot be passed on.’
‘A coincidence,’ said Aesor. ‘And crimes for which it will be punished. It should be grateful that we are visiting no more than death on it.’
‘There is more going on in that creature’s skull than you realise,’ replied Ulli. ‘The machine-virus was born of warpcraft, and wielded with deliberation and focus. Our enemy is no greenskin brute that rules by size and strength alone. That is why it must die, Aesor Dragon’s Head.’
‘And so all discussion of our foe will be rendered irrelevant,’ said Aesor, ‘for die it shall, and then there shall be nothing going on in its skull at all.’
Tanngjost trudged towards them from the wreck. ‘There are two bombs that are still intact,’ he said. ‘Fejor’s rigging a detonator. They were using a chemical mix as explosives, and bloody volatile too. If it wasn’t so cold here it would go up if you breathed on it.’
‘Thank Sacred Mountain, then,’ said Aesor, ‘for another weapon.’
Ulli thought of the cold, and looked around for Frith. He saw the man crouching out of the wind by the side of the wreck, holding the lapels of his uniform around his face. He was going to die, and Ulli thought about mentioning that fact to Aesor – but there was nothing the Space Wolves could do to prevent it, no shelter to provide for him or fuel to build a fire.
Ulli wondered if Sacred Mountain was an auspicious place to die, if it would be a failure in the eyes of the Omnissiah or a blessed end under His gaze. The Space Wolves did not cleave to the Imperial church or the many variations of the Imperial creed, or to the worship of the Omnissiah, that facet of the Emperor as a god of knowledge and revelation. Ulli did not understand religion of that kind – he had read the runes from tombs of Fenrisian kings venerated as ancestors by the people of his home world, but he did not himself believe their ghosts came to lead the souls of fallen warriors to the afterlife as many tribes did. And the Emperor, while the greatest man who had ever lived and the father of the Space Marines in a literal and figurative sense, was not a god in his mind as the Imperial church would have it. Did it bring comfort or dread to imagine the Omnissiah glowering down to judge at the moment of death? Was there even room in Frith’s frozen mind for matters so weighty?