Curse of the Wulfen

by David Annandale

  ‘Get us down!’ Stern ordered. He stared at the domes, willing the gunships to descend faster. The Grey Knights were exposed to the hurtling debris of their ship. Longhowl would give them the necessary shelter.

  And the even more vital chance at revenge.

  The Wulfen leapt towards Ulrik and Grimnar. They were a mass of fangs and blades. They were larger than any other Space Wolf. Ulrik saw what only their enemies had witnessed until now. The utter madness of violence coupled to an unparalleled physical force of war. The Wulfen were a fury that could not be stopped.

  Ulrik did not blink. He kept faith with the 13th Company.

  The Wulfen leapt over his head. Murderfang stormed after them, his vox speakers shrieking, overloaded by the howling insanity within. On instinct, Ulrik and Grimnar moved aside to let him pass.

  Two seconds had passed since the teleportation.

  The last of the disorientation leaving him, Ulrik turned in the direction of the Wulfen charge. They had passed through the ranks of Strike Force Morkai like a clawed wind.

  ‘They are frenzied,’ said Grimnar.

  ‘The teleportation process,’ Ulrik surmised. There was nothing but the animal in them now. Yet they knew the enemy, and fell upon the abominations.

  The Space Wolves had arrived on target. The cavern was the grand entrance to the underground settlements of Midgardia. Behind, the ground sloped gradually back up to the surface. Ahead, huge iron doors engraved with the two heads of Morkai opened onto the warren of tunnels. From the dark within came daemons. The unholy unity that had prevailed upon the other worlds beset by the warp storms held true here – daemonettes, plaguebearers, pink horrors and the swordlings rushed out together. The Wulfen tore into them before the first Terminator opened up with storm bolters.

  Two seconds, that was all. Then the rest of Strike Force Morkai joined the assault.

  The fire of the Wulfen was among them all. Ulrik felt it in his blood and in his bones. As he drove a plaguebearer’s head between its shoulders, he could feel the pull to the feral, stronger than it had ever been. His jaws ached as his fangs sought to push out from his gums. Every breath was a snarl.

  ‘The gift is upon us, brothers!’ he shouted. ‘Rejoice! We are among the blessed of Russ!’

  The flood of daemons was immense. They attacked with a lethal unity. The speed of the daemonettes and blood daemons was a distraction, demanding a response to their attack while the plaguebearers closed in with inexorable patience to deliver their heavy blows. The pink horrors kept their distance. They hurled sorcerous bolts into the fray. Mutating light struck the Space Wolves.

  Brothers died. Some went down to scores of wounds inflicted by blade or claw. Others collapsed with their lungs foaming out of their mouths and nostrils. And there were those who succumbed to the mutagenic fire. Their armour became a gnawing cartilage. Their flesh became a vortex of change that ended only with death, when it slid off their skeletons to pool on the cavern floor.

  Ulrik heard the cries of sagas cut short. And he raged.

  Far more sagas grew longer in deed and glory. For every brother who fell, dozens of daemons were rent asunder, blown apart and crushed. The battle was ferocious. It was also brief. His armour covered in ichor, his breath turning into a snarl, Ulrik suddenly found there were no more abominations to destroy. The cavern was awash with foulness. Bodies lay in heaps. Their forms were slowly melting into nothing.

  Inhuman whispers and babbling came from deeper in the tunnels. The Wulfen and Murderfang were about to run through the doors after their prey.

  ‘Halt!’ Grimnar roared.

  The Wulfen stopped in their tracks. The slaughter of the daemons had eased the confusion caused by the teleportation. Killing was something they understood, and this had been a good hunt. Ulrik saw traces of rationality return to them. They bowed to Grimnar. Murderfang, still under the influence of their presence, waited also. Unintelligible mutters growled from his vox speakers.

  ‘The enemy is on the run, Great Wolf,’ Njal Stormcaller said.

  ‘And we will keep him running. Our wait will be short.’

  Volkbad Wulftongue stepped forward. ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘I am in vox contact with elements of the defence forces. The Midgard­ians are coming to join us.’ The leader of the Shieldbrothers spoke approvingly. The Terminator pack dwarfed any mortal, but they could appreciate valour even in that humble form.

  ‘They are still fighting?’ Ulrik asked.

  ‘Barely. What remains of their units are converging on this point.’

  The mortals arrived a few minutes later. Some found their way down from the surface. Most came from the tunnels. They were ragged from battle. Their uniforms were torn and caked in mud, dust and blood, and their eyes were haunted. They had beheld sights no mortal should even imagine.

  Their exhaustion fell away as they entered the Space Wolves’ presence. Their determination was renewed, though they gazed fearfully at the Wulfen.

  While the mortals gathered, forming themselves into something like squads, Grimnar spoke over the vox with Egil Iron Wolf. Several times, Ulrik heard him ask the Iron Wolf to repeat himself. Communications were going to be difficult even over these relatively short distances.

  When Grimnar was done, he asked Wulftongue, ‘Are you able to track the teleportation homers on the surface?’

  ‘There are some fluctuations of the signal,’ Wulftongue said. ‘It is strong enough for now.’

  Grimnar nodded. ‘Well enough,’ he said. He raised his voice to speak to the full company. ‘Strike Force Fenris has taken the Magma Gates,’ he announced. ‘The Iron Wolf is ready to advance. Now we will reclaim Midgardia. As above, so below. We advance together, scouring each zone of the abomination. The daemon will find no refuge, nowhere to regroup. Brothers, to war!’

  With those words, he loosed the Wulfen. They ran into the tunnels, Murderfang close behind. The tunnels were barely wide enough for the passage of a Dreadnought, and his roars were bounced around the narrow stone confines, echoing ahead, a horn blast of doom.

  The Space Wolves followed. Past the doors, there were three tunnel entrances. Rather than reduce the effectiveness of the company by restricting his warriors in tight confines, Grimnar divided the strike force between the three passages.

  ‘All must be cleansed,’ he declared.

  Ulrik moved with Grimnar and his Wolf Guard down the central tunnel. He was one step behind the Great Wolf, ahead even of his champion, Arjac Rockfist. The Wulfen were howling much further ahead. Ulrik needs to have them in his sight. He needed to bear witness.

  They encountered no daemons for the first hundred metres, only their bodies, shredded by the Wulfen. Then the tunnels branched again. And then again. And again. At each intersection, Grimnar divided the strike force further. The smaller squads could advance more quickly. The Space Wolves spread through the caverns of Midgardia. The great scouring had begun.

  Daemons lurked in the darkness. They attacked from the shadows, lunging out from side passages, ventilation shafts and crevasses in the walls and cave roofs. They were scattered. They stood no chance. Flamers, bolters, thunderhammers and the Stormcaller’s conjured lighting burned them to ash or smashed them to pulsing flesh in pools of ichor. They barely slowed the advance.

  ‘Where are they all?’ Arjac asked as he smashed a plaguebearer against a wall with Foehammer. The daemon slid to the ground, its upper torso and skull turned to mush. ‘Not all at the surface, I hope. No sport in that.’ The Man-Mountain marched by himself just behind Grimnar. His huge frame filled most of the tunnel.

  ‘They will be closer to the habitation zones,’ Ulrik said. ‘Where there is prey.’

  The tunnels thus far were access routes, exhausted mining seams, and maintenance shafts. The few larger caverns the Space Wolves had passed were warehouses and turbine rooms where huge fans created wind for the under
world, circulating the air. They had seen a few mutilated remains, but very few signs of the citizens of Midgardia. Ulrik presumed they had sought shelter in their homes. Concentrated together, they would have presented desirable targets for the daemons – so many victims, so many to suffer and to see others suffer in turn.

  Massacres that would now be avenged.

  More tunnels, more divisions, more speed. The Wolf Guard caught up to a pack of Wulfen. Daemons appeared and died in seconds.

  Hours into the advance, Ulrik heard Grimnar call Egil Iron Wolf’s name several times, then curse.

  ‘What news?’ Ulrik asked.

  ‘None now,’ Grimnar said. ‘Not for some time.’ He cursed.

  ‘They were advancing well.’ The Iron Wolf’s forces were moving entirely in armoured vehicles. The mist at the surface was so corrosive it could dissolve armour.

  ‘Until they reached a swamp. The daemons have been hitting them hard.’

  ‘They can’t free the tanks?’

  ‘This is what I hoped to learn. I’ve heard nothing for almost an hour. In his last vox transmission, the Iron Wolf was cursing about spores eating through armour and flesh. Now he doesn’t answer. We have no vox contact with the surface.’

  ‘How far have we come without their cover?’ Ulrik asked. If the tandem advance had broken down, Strike Force Morkai would be much more exposed to a counter attack.

  ‘Wulftongue has lost the signal,’ said Grimnar. ‘We cannot tell where Strike Force Fenris is.’

  ‘If we purge…’ Ulrik began. He was interrupted by the angry growls of the Wulfen. ‘The enemy is close,’ he said.

  They heard the daemons before they saw them. There was a rasping sound, as though the tunnels had begun to breathe. The noise grew louder, becoming the skittering of claws, the dragging of blades, the snarls and chanting of thousands of abominations. A great tide was coming in from all directions.

  The tunnel ahead of Grimnar’s squads curved to the left. The air filled with a cloying odour. It worked its way through the rebreather of Ulrik’s helm, reaching behind his eyes. It sought to lull him. It invited him to lay down arms and surrender to a dream of excess. He snarled, shaking free of the unclean illusion. The Wulfen howled and raced forward, enraged by the malevolent scent.

  Grimnar raised the Axe Morkai. ‘Rend the abomination limb from limb!’ he shouted. The Space Wolves charged as one. They rounded the corner and barrelled into a huge cluster of Slaaneshi fiends. The daemons lashed out with pincers and stingers and ceiling vents disgorged flamers. They fell in the midst of the Space Wolves, the fire of change washing over the warriors.

  Bells began to toll. From behind came the monotone chants of the plague daemons. They hacked at the Grey Hunters bringing up the rear. Fell blades cut through ceramite. Disease ate at the souls of heroes.

  The Space Wolves hit the daemons with fire and blade. The Wulfen cut abominations in half with single blows of their relic weapons. Mounted on their backs, the stormfrag auto-launchers responded to the neural impulses of the Wulfen. The grenade explosions were huge in the tunnel. They blasted craters of flesh, splashing the cavern walls with wet, broken chunks of daemon.

  A daemon dropped in front of Ulrik. His momentum carried him through the full burst of its wyrdflame. Change seized him. It sank claws into his being and sought to remake him. It fought with another force of transformation. The gift of the Wulfen was there. He felt the beast rage against the daemonic influence. Its hold on his soul was deeper. The flames could not touch him. He retaliated with a different flame, incinerating the form of the daemon with plasma.

  The wrath of wolves overwhelmed the plague of daemons. Grimnar’s squads stormed over and through the enemy. The more daemons there were, the more prey there was. The advance did not slow. It accelerated. A cleansing flame of bestial rage swept through the tunnel.

  Ulrik emerged from the wave of daemons covered in ichor. He paused for a moment to take in the state of his brothers. There had been losses, and there were serious injuries. These were only fuel for anger. Terminators and Wulfen thundered on. On the squad channels, Ulrik heard how easily breathing turned to growls. The gift was growing stronger. So were the warriors.

  He ran on forward again, catching up to Grimnar. ‘The spirit of the wolf burns high in our brothers,’ he said. ‘We cannot be stopped.’

  The Great Wolf’s face was grim. ‘I fear the Iron Wolf has been, or worse,’ he said. ‘The daemons have had the opportunity to mass a counter attack.’

  ‘What of the rest of Strike Force Morkai?’

  ‘Stymied, I think. I cannot reach all of them. Those who answer cannot yet break through the ambushes.’

  ‘So only we are advancing.’

  Grimnar nodded. ‘So it would seem. We strike on,’ he said. ‘We will plunge our claws into the enemy’s heart and rip it out.’

  ‘The others will triumph too.’

  ‘They will,’ Grimnar affirmed. He growled with such conviction, it seemed to Ulrik the words themselves had the power to shape reality.

  Though the tunnels continued to branch, Grimnar no longer divided the force. The squads plunged down the larger passages. Here they had liberty of movement along with the power to smash the foe. The daemons attempted repeated ambushes. They were torn to pieces for their pains.

  The temperature climbed as the Space Wolves moved deeper and deeper underground. They reached settlements built into large caverns. Streams of lava flowed across the floors and interconnected walkways and living platforms hung from the ceilings. The people of Midgardia had lived inside their forges, suspended above a killing heat and had braved molten death the way the people of Fenris confronted the cold. The mining and manufacturing communities were small. Each had been home at most to a few thousand. They were all empty now, broken tombs. Pieces of bodies littered the platforms. Flesh without bones was draped across thresholds and hung from windows. Flayed skeletons were suspended from metal frameworks, still dripping blood. They were coated with oozing, viscous slime and buzzed with otherworldly insects. The metalwork on the walls of the suspended habs had been defaced and the engravings of wolf heads and hammers had been gouged by claws. The new markings formed runes that writhed in the corner of the eye.

  The deeper the Space Wolves went, the worse and more elaborate the desecrations became. Bodies were fused together into altars of bone. On the central platform of one settlement, a dozen mortals had been assembled into a single rune. Ulrik smashed the sculpture as he marched past. The violence he did to the dead was a necessary evil to free their souls of these new, cursed bonds.

  He could not read the runes. No human could without suffering moral damage. Even so, the traces of meaning scraped at the edge of consciousness. The same four runes kept repeating. These were names. Their frequency was increasing, as was their size, as if the names were being shouted louder and louder.

  A summoning.

  ‘We are seeing pieces of a ritual,’ he told Grimnar.

  ‘Ongoing?’

  ‘It has been completed,’ Stormcaller answered. ‘The energy of the wyrd is present, but fading. Something grave has already transpired.’

  They went through more settlements, deeper beneath the ground, the air wavering in the heat, the tunnels flickering orange, lit by lava now always close at hand. There were more ambushes. The daemons attacked now at wherever the passages were at their narrowest and movement most restricted.

  There was blood. Brothers fell. But so did each wave of abominations, utterly extinguished.

  Settlement 529 was larger than the others the Space Wolves had traversed, though it too occupied a single cavern. A fallen sign by the access walkway read Deepspark. The citizens had given 529 a name. There were none now to speak it. The community was another grave. There were fewer bodies here and none were intact. All were burned, as if the cavern had become a giant crematorium.
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br />   The Wulfen moved cautiously along the wide metal walkway. They growled warnings, their hackles up. There was no threat visible, but Ulrik could feel the imminence of presence. Something pressed hard on the air, stretching the membrane of reality.

  ‘The foe is close,’ Stormcaller said.

  ‘From what direction?’ Grimnar asked.

  ‘I cannot tell. From the wyrd.’

  Ulrik glanced over the railing of the walkway at the floor of the cavern. He hissed at what he saw.

  ‘That is why,’ he said, and pointed. The lava channels had been altered. They had become the four runes. Molten rock flowed through unholy names.

  ‘The four runes are joined,’ Stormcaller said. ‘Four names have become one. We approach the heart of Midgardia’s torment. The great powers of Chaos have united. The hordes we are fighting are commanded by a unity of daemon lords.’

  ‘Then their destruction will be Midgardia’s liberation,’ said Grimnar. ‘Do you hear, craven scum?’ he bellowed. ‘The sons of Fenris have come to rip you from this realm! You do well to hide, but do not think you will escape us!’

  The squads reached the centre of Deepspark. The platform was large and had acted as a town square. A chapel to the Allfather and hall of sagas were built on opposite sides. Walkways and metal suspension bridges converged onto it, creating a nexus point in the web of iron paths.

  The membrane tore.

  Warp rifts opened up over four major walkways. Behind the Space Wolves and ahead, to the left and the right, reality wailed and disgorged a legion of abominations. This was more than an ambush. Daemons bounded and lurched over the bridges, clamouring for the blood of heroes.

  Four hordes. Four armies of the Ruinous Powers. Towering over each were four princes. The rifts tore wider at their arrival and the cavern trembled with the sounds of their names, becoming a volcanic fanfare. Lava erupted from the runes. Tongues of rock licked up towards the walkways. The edges of the channels contorted into lips. Grinding voices paid tribute to the forces that gave them life.