Curse of the Wulfen

by David Annandale

  Stern plunged into battle with the Traitor.

  Krom was less than a quarter of the way through his run of butchery. There were hundreds of cultists, scores of astropaths. His warrior blood cried out to attack the Traitor, but he did not. His oath had kept him inactive on Fenris so he might be here, now, at this most critical juncture. His duty to Fenris now was massacre.

  Even the Wulfen did not turn to the greater prey. They understood. Without the energy from the cultists and the astropaths, the Dark Apostle was a single figure, all but powerless.

  Drain the glyph.

  So much blood. So many mortals dead now, and yes, the terrible light wavered. The rhythm of the searing pulses of jade light slowed. It became syncopated. The light began to fade.

  Now the last of the cultists was cut down, and the cradles of the astropaths were all destroyed. The Dark Apostle was on his knees, impaled by Stern’s sword. He was shouting. He shrieked the name Tzen’char. The sound of the name hurt Krom’s eyes.

  But the light was fading. The light was…

  No…

  No!

  The energy built once more, faster and more terrible than before. More than blinding. The dome of the choristrium seemed to melt and shake at once. Reality tore, and the chamber filled with daemons. The air around the contours of the glyph vomited into existence pink horrors and flame daemons by the hundreds. A firestorm of wyrdflame hit the Space Wolves. Blood Claws turned to glass and shattered. Wulfen were devoured by new maws on their own bodies. The daemons fell on the Grey Knights, disrupting the counter-ritual. The Grey Knights cut down the abominations as fast as they attacked, but they attacked without cease. The flood would come until the purpose of the glyph was fulfilled.

  The blast was imminent. Krom’s mind filled with jagged fragments of betrayal and mutation.

  The wyrd roared with awful birth, and the dread owner of the name howled by the Dark Apostle appeared. It stood before Krom at the edge of the glyph. Majestic in triumph, Tzen’char spread its wings.

  ‘Stern!’ it roared. The Grey Knight looked up.

  Krom charged at the daemon. He rammed his shoulder into the abomination’s back. It was like running headlong into a mountainside. The impact stunned him, but the daemon fell. He emptied his bolt pistol into its skull. Suddenly he was staring at the front of the daemon. The maze of its being reassembled its configuration in the blink of an eye. It was prone, and then it was standing, and its sword had pierced Krom’s left shoulder. His pistol arm went numb. He stepped forward into the blade, moving to within striking distance again, raising his axe.

  The daemon laughed. It raised its right hand. Energy danced from the claws, as blinding as the unholy light of the glyph.

  Serkir leapt at Tzen’char. His frost axe came down on that right arm. It bit deep. The labyrinthine being shifted again. Serkir’s blade went all the way through and struck the floor. The daemon’s arm was untouched. Serkir’s attack had gained Krom one second more of life.

  And the daemon laughed. The sorcery on its talons became a roaring nimbus as it reached for Krom.

  He could see nothing except the light. The burning, destroying light.

  Except now the light was filled with prayer. And the daemon was screaming.

  The malignant jade shattered, replaced by the purity of silver.

  The energy of the wyrd came apart, broken from the inside. Stern was there. Stern had entered the eye of the wyrdstorm. Krom had turned the daemon’s attention away, and the Grey Knight had stabbed his holy sword into the centre of the glyph.

  Tzen’char screamed. All the daemons screamed.

  The build-up of energy was reversed. Even the glyph shrieked.

  The light of judgement consumed all that was unholy.

  Epilogue

  It had been Scout Dolutas, wounded almost to death by the savagery of mutated Space Wolves. It had not even had to speak to deliver its message to Araphil, to give him the answers he dreaded. The Dark Angels had seen the images held by the skull. They had been reluctant to draw the terrible conclusions, but their thoughts had been inexorably pulled towards that chasm. They had taken the bait, and the great event had begun.

  It had been Master Astropath Asconditus. Into Sammael’s ears it had delivered questions and suspicions, all constructed around the tiny fragments of another lie. It rejoiced in the perfection of its art as Sammael, reluctantly, slowly, but inevitably, had walked still further down the path.

  Then that form of Asconditus had served its purpose too. Another kill, another disappearance on the Rock. The little touches gave it so much pleasure. It watched the Dark Angels begin to suspect an alliance between the Space Wolves and a daemonic party. It tried to remember when it had last tasted such delight.

  Now it was the seneschal Vox Mendaxis, and it waited upon Grand Master Azrael. Events were proceeding so perfectly, it had no need to act for the moment. There were no messages to twist. No orders to misinterpret. Azrael had the facts: Chaos taint in the entire Fenris system, Space Wolves transforming into Wulfen. Nothing but the truth.

  Azrael was still regrettably hesitant. For the moment, though. Only for the moment.

  Under the hood of Vox Mendaxis, the Changeling suppressed a smile.

  The vox system was working again in the damaged command centre of Morkai’s Keep. The unit was a powerful one, and some of the interference had diminished. Harald established contact with Sven Bloodhowl, holding the World Wolf’s Lair on Svellgard. The Iron Priests of both companies used the signals from the two fortresses to amplify each other.

  And now he heard Krom Dragongaze’s voice, too.

  Harald stood at the gaping hole in the command centre’s wall. He looked up into the night sky of Frostheim while he spoke to Dragongaze.

  ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘it is good to speak to you.’

  ‘And you. What news of the Great Wolf?’

  ‘None. Communication with Lord Iron Wolf has been fragmentary. The situation on Midgardia is dire. All contact with Grimnar’s strike force has ceased.’ He paused. ‘The Iron Wolf says there was an earthquake…’

  ‘I will not believe it,’ said Dragongaze. ‘We have hope now. Let us use it well. We purged Valdrmani. We will free our other worlds too.’

  At the augur bank behind Harald, Feingar shouted, ‘Vessels translating in-system!’

  Harald rushed back inside. ‘Who?’ he asked.

  ‘Dark Angels,’ Feingar said. He tapped the augur network’s pict screen. One reading after another appeared. ‘Ultramarines. Iron Hands…’ More than a dozen different Chapter runes appeared over the vessel signals. Then came those of Knightly houses. Then mass transporters of the Astra Militarum. The fleet was immense.

  ‘Dragongaze,’ Harald said, ‘Are you picking up the same signatures?’ He had so many doubts. There had been so much deception. He had to be sure.

  ‘We are,’ the Fierce-eye said. ‘It looks like a substantial portion of the Dark Angels fleet before we even count the rest.’

  ‘It is their fleet,’ Feingar said. Then his eyes widened. He pointed to a rune many times larger than the rest. ‘Russ,’ he swore. ‘That’s the Rock!’

  Doubts. Patterns. Dooms within dooms. Harald felt the events click together like the gears of a terrible machine. As Feingar updated the positions of the fleet minute by minute, Harald returned to the breach once more. He watched the sky.

  He witnessed the passage of a moon, one that did not belong in the Fenris System.

  He saw the movement of stars he knew to be warships.

  He was still watching when the sky flared, and the bombardment of the Fenris System began.

  About the Author

  David Annandale is the author of the Horus Heresy novel The Damnation of Pythos. He also writes the Yarrick series, consisting of the novella Chains of Golgotha and the novels Imperial Creed and The Pyr
es of Armageddon. For Space Marine Battles he has written The Death of Antagonis and Overfiend. He is a prolific writer of short fiction, including the novella Mephiston: Lord of Death and numerous short stories set in The Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000 universes. He has also written several short stories set in the Age of Sigmar. David lectures at a Canadian university, on subjects ranging from English literature to horror films and video games.

  An extract from Legends of the Dark Millennium: Space Wolves.

  For the first time in many years, Logan Grimnar was exhausted from battle. He had held off the tau for nearly three days as the xenos had sent unending packs of attack-beasts and swift hover-tanks to harass the Space Wolves.

  The aliens had paid dearly for the chance to tire out the Great Wolf of Fenris. Hundreds of tau and their alien auxiliaries lay among the rocky canyons covering the surface of Dactyla. Now, as the Great Company faced the xenos outside, Grimnar stood on the threshold of the temple he had come to this world to find.

  ‘Can the Great Company stand?’ asked one of Grimnar’s champions. Each of the half-dozen warriors was taken from the Chapter’s Wolf Guard, armed with Terminator armour and their pick of weaponry from the Fang’s armoury. It was rare that anyone would speak to Grimnar so bluntly, and Grimnar still had ample fury in him to round on the warrior.

  ‘You know better than to question the resolve of our brethren,’ he snarled. ‘They will stand as long as they have to. And we will ensure that is not for long. Follow me and speak no more.’

  The temple was more ancient than the Great Crusade itself. Echoes of a long-dead xenos empire’s architecture broke through the living rock of the tunnel complex beneath the ground. Even as Grimnar led his champions down further, he could hear the reports of tau pulse rifles and the replying volleys of bolter fire.

  They were Space Wolves, and the tau were as drained by the running battle as Grimnar and his brethren were. The Great Company would hold. The tau assault would be blunted. He knew this because this was the place the runes had described, and Grimnar would not return from this hunt empty-handed.

  ‘There,’ said Grimnar, indicating a symbol cut into the wall. It resembled a serpent coiling around a skull. ‘Njal Stormcaller cast that rune as I watched. We are close. Just a little further.’

  Grimnar felt the weight of the Axe Morkai as he walked. The warrior he had once been would have dearly loved to lay it down and rest, but those were the thoughts of a lazy pup and not the Great Wolf, so he forged on until he came upon a massive circular slab of rock blocking the way ahead.

  Without a word, Grimnar put a shoulder against the rock and pushed. The Wolf Guard joined him, adding their strength to his. The slab rolled aside, revealing the way into the chamber that lay at the heart of the complex.

  Purple light bled from the vault. Grimnar’s autosenses were not enough to shut down the glare completely, and he held a hand in front of his face, squinting. The Wolf Guard had their storm bolters ready to open fire on any enemy that might emerge from the temple’s core, but they held their fire.

  They saw what Grimnar did. And in that moment, all the weariness of battle was gone.

  Ulrik’s watch included the dawn hours, when the blood-red light of Fenris’ sun broke across the glacier-bound mountains. It was the season of fire, when Fenris came closest to its star and the equatorial oceans boiled. In the environs of the Fang there was no warmth, but the ground heaved and cracked like distant thunder as the glaciers experienced a rare thaw.

  ‘It will be today,’ said a voice behind Ulrik. It was that of the Wolf Lord Krom Dragongaze, whose Great Company had the duty of manning the Fang during the Thirtieth Great Hunt. Krom wore his trophy rack on the back of his power armour, surrounding his ruddy face with a halo of jangling bone. The orange ridge of hair along his scalp was dark in the reddish dawn light. ‘Do you not think so, Lord Slayer?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Ulrik. He anticipated the return of the Great Companies as much as any at the Fang, and yet he could not let the emotions of a Fenrisian close to the surface.

  ‘I can smell it,’ said Krom. ‘My Great Company is restless. It is not a glorious task, to serve as housekeepers here while the rest of the Chapter is on the hunt. I must fight to keep them focused, and yet I itch to be let off the leash myself.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Ulrik, ‘we must keep the wolf caged.’

  ‘That is not as easy for us as it is for you,’ said Krom shortly.

  Ulrik kept looking into the distance. He wore, as always, his armour’s skull-faced helmet, and so Krom had no chance of reading anything from his face. Ulrik let the silence fall, broken only by the distant moan of the thaw and the cries of frosthawks wheeling overhead.

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Krom. ‘I spoke out of turn.’

  Ulrik did not move to face the Wolf Lord, and instead pointed a finger up towards the colouring sky. A silver streak was just visible there, like a falling star, a thread of precious metal suspended.

  ‘The Canis Pax,’ said Ulrik. ‘You were correct, Lord Dragongaze. It is today.’

  The Canis Pax carried with it the Great Company of Alaric Nightrunner, known to the rest of the Chapter as the Silent Howlers. They descended in a fleet of shuttles from their strike cruiser and landed among the eyries of the Fang, and were met by a host of thralls to assist with their docking procedures and get the first glimpse of the trophies they had brought back. The brothers of Krom Dragongaze’s Great Company, the Drakeslayers, lined the processional down towards the cell blocks and sparring halls of the Fangs, saluting Nightrunner’s battle-brothers on their return. Behind them walked Alaric Nightrunner himself, cutting as dashing a figure as there was among the Space Wolves, with skin the colour of beaten bronze and thunder hammer swinging at his hip. Alongside Nightrunner’s Company marched the Rune Priest Njal Stormcaller, by some accounts the most powerful psyker the Space Wolves had fielded for thousands of years.

  Everyone there cried out the same question: what trophy had the Silent Howlers brought back to Fenris? No Wolf Lord ever returned from the Great Hunt without a new prize to be displayed at the Fang as a symbol of the Space Wolves’ relentlessness at the hunt. Alaric did not carry a new skull or captured banner, and met all questioners with the same knowing smile.

  Ulrik was not among the honour guard. This was a time for the Space Wolves to be uncaged and to let their spirits run wild. They needed times like this. They did not need a presence like Ulrik standing over them to remind them of their duties. Instead, the Wolf Priest spent several hours in the Reclusiam, drafting missives to be sent out by courier-thrall to the most loyal tribes of Fenris. Each one called for them to send an emissary, one of the wise and powerful men permitted to know of the Chapter’s workings, to the outskirts of the mountain fortress’ hinterland, where a shuttle from the eyries of the Fang would transport them to the inaccessible peak. There they were to hear of the exploits of the Great Hunt, and take the tales they heard back to their tribes.

  It was part of the cycle that brought new blood into the Chapter. The youthful warriors of Fenris learned of the Space Wolves’ heroic deeds and sought to emulate them in the endless battles between the tribes and with the furious indigenous life forms of Fenris. The Wolf Priests, led by Ulrik, chose the most valiant, and brought them into the Chapter to be put through the Blooding and made into Space Wolves. The myth of the Space Wolves was as crucial a part of the process as the warlike Fenrisian stock, and the Great Hunt served to create new legends that grew and spread with every telling.

  Elsewhere in the Fang, for nineteen days Alaric Nightrunner kept his silence. In that time three more Great Companies, those of Bran Redmaw, Gunnar Red Moon and Sven Bloodhowl, arrived home laden down with the trophies they had taken. Finally the emissaries from the tribes arrived, and Ulrik led them wordlessly into the fortress – wise men and warlords, the soothsayers and patriarchs of their clans. The call went out for t
he Space Wolves to gather in the Great Hall and hear the sagas of the Great Hunt. The first to take the place reserved for the saga-teller was Alaric Nightrunner.

  Ulrik presided over the feasting. There was only so much of the leash that could be given to a Space Wolf. Five Great Com­panies were present in the Great Hall and Fenrisian ale was flowing, a concoction of fermented plant life lethal to an unaugmented man. It was strong enough to affect a Space Marine in spite of his enhanced capacity to filter out toxins, so Ulrik was ready to intervene in case boasting and challenging turned to bloodshed among the battle-brothers. Ulrik stood in his black, skull-faced armour, silent while the cheering and drinking songs of the Space Wolves battered against him like a sea wind.

  Alaric Nightrunner approached the enormous fireplace to a tremendous cheer. The tribal emissaries applauded too, and among them Ulrik recognised the First Spear of the Bear tribe, a muscle-bound warrior carrying a kraken-tooth lance, and the hooded emissary of the Stargazer tribe. The Frost Wyrm tribe, the Flint Striders and the People of the Burning Sea had also sent representatives. Not all the tribes had answered Ulrik’s call, but many had. Whatever tale Alaric was about to tell, it would soon be heard by all of Fenris.

  Alaric heard the cheering for a minute, then motioned for quiet. The noise lowered enough for him to be heard.

  ‘I carry no trophy for you,’ he said. The battle-brothers cried out in dismay. ‘But that does not mean I have disgraced the Great Hunt. Far from it! No, I have a tale for you, and fear not, there will be plenty of reason to pour yet more of Fenris’ bounty down your gullets.

  ‘Our hunt took us to the edge of the Ghoul Stars, where the void is as clouded as a corpse’s eyes. The Canis Pax was my steed and my brethren were sharpening their blades for the chase. The region is haunted by warp predators and the ghosts of fallen xenos empires, and there is always worthy quarry to be had! Njal Stormcaller, whose casting of the runes guided all the Great Companies on the Great Hunt, stood by my side, and he looked upon the diseased void with great relish. He foresaw the foes all but begging to be put to the bolter and the chainsword. And I had my thunder hammer and spear ready to take the foremost head!’