[Space Wolf 06] - Wolf's Honour

by Lee Lightner - (ebook by Undead)

  Battle reports from the planet’s surface indicated that two local Guard regiments and the vast majority of the local Planetary Defence Force had forsaken their holy oaths and sworn fealty to the Ruinous Powers. Opposing them were seven loyal Guard regiments shipped in from neighbouring worlds, each of them locked in bitter urban combat to recapture the world’s major population centres. Interrogations of captured officers and militiamen pointed to the former governor, Lord Volkus Bredwyr, and his family as the leaders of the revolt. Evidently, Lord Bredwyr and his household had nurtured an obscene cult within the bounds of the governor’s palace, from where they continued to issue orders to their followers all over the world.

  Berek swore that all that was going to change in the next few minutes.

  The capital city of Charys was heavily defended, occupied by one of the rebels’ traitor regiments and units of heavily armed planetary militia. Weeks of artillery and aerial bombardment had levelled the city walls and reduced entire districts to smoking rubble, but rebel forces had placed strongpoints at every intersection and turned the narrow streets into mined kill zones. Loyal Guard regiments operating from the nearby starport had only managed to seize a narrow foothold on the eastern fringe of the city, almost a dozen kilometres from the fortress of the governor’s palace. The air over the massive, walled compound shimmered with the dark haze of an Imperator-class void shield, proof against the heaviest shells the Guard could throw at it.

  As the drop-pods streaked down through clouds of anti-aircraft fire a holo-slate built into the drop-cradle above Berek’s head projected a detailed display of the battle unfolding below. Mere minutes before the Holmgang launched her drop-pods, the Guard regiments at the edge of the city had begun a fierce offensive, driving hard for the city centre.

  Heavy tanks and armoured personnel carriers were assaulting rebel strongpoints, advancing under a steady rain of heavy artillery shells. Dark masses of infantry advanced doggedly in their wake, dashing from one shell hole to the next in the face of intense enemy fire. Lascannon bolts and rocket trails leapt from the rebel positions, and streams of tracer fire raked through the struggling infantry formations. Casualties mounted as the Imperial forces charged across the killing ground. Tanks and armoured personnel carriers exploded in balls of fire, incinerating the hapless squads inside.

  The traitors were throwing everything they had at the oncoming troops, and the augurs of the Space Marine vessels overhead took careful note of their positions.

  An amber warning icon flashed along the margin of the holo-display as the Holmgang and her attendant strike cruisers opened fire. Salvoes of bombardment rounds, each one massing as much as a Leman Russ tank, impacted in a curtain of fire four seconds later, stretching in an arc five kilometres wide in front of the Imperial advance. Rebel strongpoints disintegrated. Entire city blocks vanished in boiling clouds of flame and pulverised ferrocrete. In a single instant of righteous fury, the traitors’ defensive line was shattered. Even the Imperial advance faltered for a moment, stunned by the sheer ferocity of the attack. As the Guard units watched in awe, the bombardment shifted, marching inexorably towards the city centre, and the regiments surged forward once more, forcing their way past the shattered rebel positions.

  The warning icon flashed an insistent red as the drop-pods neared the terminal phase of their approach, and the second phase of the Space Wolf bombardment began.

  “Here it comes,” Berek said, settling deep into his restraints as the icons of five Nova-class escorts in high orbit flashed crimson and unleashed their lance batteries on the shields of the governor’s palace. Ravening beams of energy stabbed downwards amid the plummeting drop-pods. One passed so close to Berek’s pod that the ionisation caused the onboard lights to flicker, and sent waves of static coruscating across the holomap. The superheated air outside the pod howled like the Stormwolf of legend, and Berek Thunderfist howled along with it.

  Five lance beams played across the palace’s shields for almost a full second, setting off a ripple of concussive blasts that hammered at the falling drop-pods and rattled the Wolf Lord’s bones. The blasts were so intense that Berek didn’t even realise the pod’s retro thrusters had kicked in until he saw the landing countdown flash on the holo-display. Three seconds later the drop-pod slammed to earth and explosive bolts fired, lowering Berek’s assault ramp to the ground. The Wolf Lord hit his quick release and, with a roar, charged into the mouth of hell.

  The company’s dropsite was a kilometre square parade ground that stretched before the gates of the governor’s palace. A hot wind roared across the scorched plain, buffeting the Wolf Lord’s bare face and tangling his braided blond hair. Columns of smoke and fire coiled into the sky from the palace grounds and the buildings surrounding the square.

  Corpses and parts of corpses littered the parade ground, many burned beyond recognition. Men staggered across the scorched ferrocrete, their eyes glassy with shock and their uniforms blackened by heat. Berek glanced quickly around and saw more than a dozen armoured vehicles arrayed around the square. Some were on fire or had been overturned by the bombardment, but most still appeared functional. The company had dropped right into the middle of a mechanised battalion that had been using the square as a staging area.

  Fifty metres away, the rear assault ramp of a Chimera armoured transport dropped, and a squad of stunned rebel Guardsmen scrambled out. Berek turned and raked them with a long burst from his storm bolter. Explosive rounds stitched across the chests of the surprised traitors and flashed along the rear deck of the APC. Before the torn bodies had even hit the ground, the Wolf Lord activated his beacon and keyed the command channel on his vox-unit. “Blood and thunder!” he roared, sounding the war cry of his company. “Wolf Guard, to me! All packs, form up and clear the square!”

  Even as he spoke, the staccato thump thump thump of storm bolters and the more measured fire of boltguns echoed across the square as the Space Wolves leapt into action. Off to Berek’s right there was a draconian hiss as a cyclone missile launcher fired, sending an armour piercing rocket into the side of another Chimera. The APC exploded in a huge fireball, and the battle began in earnest.

  The four Terminators accompanying Berek in his drop-pod took up positions around their lord, snapping off shots from their storm bolters. One of the Wolf Guard levelled his assault cannon at a charging squad of rebels and tore them to pieces with a two-second burst. Streaks of fire criss-crossed overhead as Deathwind launchers on several of the Space Marine drop-pods went into action. Explosions ripped across the square amid the growing crackle of lasgun fire.

  A rocket hissed across the battlefield and struck one of the Wolf Guard standing beside Berek. The krak missile struck the Space Marine full in the chest, knocking him back a step, but the anti-tank round could not penetrate the adamantine breastplate of the ancient Terminator suit. The Wolf Lord caught sight of the rocket team, killed them with a quick burst, and then turned his attention to the disposition of his troops.

  Anti-aircraft fire and cyclonic winds had scattered the company’s six drop-pods all across the parade field. From where he stood, Berek could see the tops of four other pods, one to the north-west, one to the north and two to the east. “Aldrek! Where are you?” he called. The Rune Priest had been in the drop-pod containing the rest of Berek’s Wolf Guard.

  Aldrek responded at once. “I mark you 300 metres to my east,” he said over the vox. “We are on our way.”

  A loud boom echoed from the edge of the square, and the drop-pod to the east exploded. The voice of Thorvald, one of Berek’s Grey Hunter pack leaders, rang out over the command net. “Battle tank at the eastern edge of the square! I’m taking casualties.”

  “We see him, brother,” a gruff voice answered. It was Gunnar, one of the Long Fang pack leaders. “We’re some way off to the west, but we’re manoeuvring to line up a shot. Stand by.”

  The Wolf Lord nodded in satisfaction. The volume of lasgun fire was increasing, stitching threads of blazing light a
cross the square from every direction, but the company had sorted itself out and was responding decisively to the threat. Berek was just about to order his Wolf Guard forward when the air shook with a roar of dual petrochem engines and a Chimera APC came charging out of the smoke directly at the command squad. The forty-tonne armoured vehicle sideswiped the drop-pod behind the Wolves, toppling it onto its side, and bore down on the Space Marines like an enraged rhinodon. Multi-laser bolts spat from its squat turret, flashing among the Terminators as they scattered to either side of the onrushing war machine. One bolt detonated against the pauldron of Berek’s Terminator armour, making his ears ring and leaving a scorch mark on the curved ceramite. The Wolf Lord bared his fangs as he turned to face the APC, his power fist crackling. “Blood and thunder!” he cried, and met its charge head-on.

  Berek gauged the vehicle’s approach with an experienced eye. More laser bolts snapped harmlessly overhead as the Chimera drew too close for the gunner to target him. The Wolf Lord raised his storm bolter and rattled off a long burst at the driver’s vision block. The explosive rounds smashed into the armourplas, and the driver panicked, slewing the vehicle slightly to Berek’s right. At that moment, he stepped forward and smashed his power fist into the APC’s right quarter. There was a thunderous detonation. Armour crumpled, partially converted to plasma by the power fist’s energy field. The forward axle snapped, hurling a spinning tyre past Berek’s head, and the APC flipped heavily onto its left side. Moments later, the rear assault hatch was shoved open, and the bloody survivors of the infantry squad staggered out of the smoking wreck into the Wolf Guard’s merciless fire.

  “Well struck!” Aldrek cried, raising his gory rune axe in salute as he and four more Terminators jogged heavily out of the swirling smoke. “Gunnar knocked out the battle tank with his lascannons, and he reports that the traitors are falling back to the east. What now?”

  Berek pointed north. “Forward, to the palace gates,” he cried. “We have to get inside before the rebels recover from our bombardment and launch a counterattack. If the traitors bring up more heavy armour we’ll be overrun before our Guard allies can reach us.” Without waiting for a reply, the Wolf Lord set off at a ponderous run, heading north.

  Lasgun fire flickered over Berek’s head as he drew closer to the palace walls, growing in volume with each passing minute. Streams of tracer shells stitched their way through the smoke as rebel gunners opened fire with heavy stubbers mounted on the square towers of the palace gatehouse. Missiles hissed through the air and exploded above the battlefield, showering the Wolf Lord and his companions with clouds of red-hot shrapnel.

  Berek reached the bulk of his company a minute later, just a few hundred metres short of the palace gates. Two of his three Grey Hunter packs had taken cover behind the burning wrecks of a pair of Chimeras, while his two Long Fang packs fired at the palace defences from the rims of a pair of shell craters nearby. As he watched, two lascannon gunners from Thorbjorn’s Long Fang pack targeted the battlements of the leftmost gate tower. The red beams vaporised a corner of the structure in a cloud of pulverised ferrocrete, spilling burning bodies onto the square sixty metres below.

  At the Wolf Lord’s approach, one of the Grey Hunter pack leaders rose from cover and dashed over to Berek. “Well met, lord,” the pack leader said. “It appears we have a problem.”

  Berek scowled at the helmeted pack leader. “What kind of problem, Einar?” he asked. A few metres away, one of the Terminators fired a Cyclone missile at the rightmost gate tower, blasting away a section of its battlements.

  “It’s the damned gate,” Einar said, nodding his head towards the palace. “It’s a great deal stronger than we’d been led to believe. Gunnar and Thorbjorn’s lascannons can’t scratch it.”

  A line of stubber shells marched across the ferrocrete a few metres away and up the leg and chest of one of the Wolf Guard. The Terminator was knocked back a step by the heavy impacts, but the slugs shattered harmlessly against the heavy armour. The Wolf Guard made a rude gesture with his power fist in the direction of the palace wall, and fired a burst from his storm bolter in reply.

  Berek studied the distant gates with his enhanced vision, nodding thoughtfully. “The former governor had ample time to prepare for this day,” he growled. “How many melta bombs do you have?”

  Einar glanced back over his shoulder at his assembled pack. A lasgun bolt, possibly from a long-las sniper rifle, struck the side of his helmet with an angry crack. The Space Wolf appeared not to notice. “We’ve got four, and Ingvar’s pack has two left.”

  “Hand them over,” Berek ordered, and the pack leader began gathering up the heavy plasma charges.

  Mikal Sternmark stepped up alongside his lord. “Going for a walk, are we?” he asked, surveying the killing ground between them and the palace gates.

  “The Grey Hunters and Long Fangs will provide cover fire while we take down the gates,” Berek said, gesturing for Einar to hand the charges over to the Wolf Guard. “Once we’re inside, don’t waste time clearing the walls or the palace grounds. Aldrek has cast the runes, and believes we’ll find Bredwyr in his audience chamber. If we only kill one man inside that palace, it must be him. This uprising has gone on long enough.”

  The Wolf Guard answered with growls of assent. “Lead on, lord,” Mikal said sardonically. “First man out always draws the most fire.”

  Berek threw back his head and laughed. “Last man to the gate can clean the scorch marks off my armour,” he answered. “Blood and thunder!”

  “Blood and thunder!” the Wolf Guard howled in reply, and they charged for the gates as one.

  The Space Wolves were rushing into a storm of enemy fire within moments. Intersecting lines of lasgun fire wove a burning web around the Terminators. Tracer fire arced through their ranks, and explosive shells dug craters the size of feasting plates out of the scorched ferrocrete. Bolters roared as Berek’s Grey Hunter packs opened fire at the rebel positions along the walls, stitching chains of red and yellow flashes along the battlements. Lascannon beams and missile trails lanced towards the gatehouse, punching molten craters in the ornately carved stone facade, and spilling curtains of shattered masonry onto the pavement below.

  Lasgun bolts and autogun shells rang off the Wolf Lord’s armour. A burst of rounds from a heavy stubber struck his left leg and a bloom of fiery pain caused Berek to stumble. Mikal drew close and reached for Berek’s arm, but the Wolf Lord waved him towards the looming gates instead.

  An autocannon let off a loud, rattling burst at a Terminator to Berek’s right. Red and yellow detonations hammered across the Space Wolfs chest. The Wolf Guard staggered out of the cloud of dust and smoke, his storm bolter still firing despite the three bloody craters punched into his breastplate. After two halting steps, the warrior fell to his knees and pitched over onto his face.

  Moments later, the Space Wolves were flattening their bodies against the scarred surface of the palace gates, underneath the arc of the remaining guns along the walls. Many of the Wolf Guard were splashed with blood from numerous minor wounds, but they immediately went to work setting the demolition charges. “No need to blow the whole gate down,” Berek said through gritted teeth as he probed the wound in his leg. He could feel the shell in his leg lodged close to the bone. “Just make us a hole big enough to charge through.”

  The breaching charges were ready in seconds. Berek took half of the Terminators to the right of the gate, while Aldrek and the other half went to the left. “Clear!” The Wolf Lord called out, and when he heard an answer from Aldrek he keyed the detonator.

  There was a bone rattling whump and a rush of superheated air, and the stink of vaporised metal made Berek grimace. “Go!” he roared, and the Wolf Guard rushed to the breach.

  The melta charges had blown a roughly circular hole three metres across in the thick metal gate, just large enough for one Terminator to pass at a time. Beyond lay a long rectangular courtyard, bordered by statues of forgotten saints, which the r
ebels had transformed into a charnel house. Priests and adepts from the local Ecclesiarchy had been brought here and slain, and then hung by chains from the worn, grey statues. A thick cloud of noxious smoke hung over the scene, reeking with strange compounds that seared Berek’s nostrils and made his flesh crawl.

  An improvised rebel strongpoint made from steel supports, flakboard and bags of ferrocrete stood about twenty metres from the gate. Lascannons and heavy stubbers had been sited there to cover the entrance to the compound, but now the sloped face of the strong-point was ablaze, its surface ignited by molten shrapnel from the melta bombs. Berek dashed forwards, firing bursts from his storm bolter into the roiling fire and smoke. Other Wolf Guard snapped off short bursts with their storm bolters as well, unleashing a hail of deadly fire into the position.

  Berek reached the sloped front embrasure of the strongpoint and leapt through the flames, landing next to a heavy stubber and its dead crew. Lasgun fire struck him along the right side, and the Wolf Lord grabbed the stubber by the barrel and hurled it at the squad of traitors who’d shot at him. The rebels scattered out of the way of the spinning weapon, leaving them easy targets for Berek’s storm bolter.

  A rasping cry from Berek’s left brought the Wolf Lord around just as a traitor wearing the tattered uniform of a Guard officer lunged out of the smoke and swung a crackling power sword at his head. Berek deflected the sword with the back of his power fist and shot the rebel point-blank.

  The hissing crackle of power weapons hummed amid the smoke and the screams of the dying. Dark shapes flitted through the roiling haze. Aldrek appeared from the smoke like a giant of old, his black beard glistening with spilled blood, and his heavy axe streaming gore. The traitors’ false courage broke before the onslaught and they fled in every direction, calling vainly to their newfound gods for deliverance. Those that fled in the direction of the palace were cut down as they ran, reaped like wheat by the blazing guns of the advancing Wolves.