The man looked strangely nervous, and handed Temekh a data-slate.
‘These are reports from the ship-seers,’ he said. ‘I thought you should see them as soon as possible.’
Temekh glanced at the runes, taking in their import in an instant. The ship-seers had powers beyond those of any loyalist Navigator to see the approaching bow-waves of starships powering through the warp. The signals recorded on the slate, however, could have been picked up by a deaf-blind child in an isolarium. The fleet coming towards them was approaching fast. Recklessly fast.
‘Thank you, captain,’ said Temekh calmly. ‘Impressive. I didn’t believe the interceptor could possibly have made it to Gangava.’
He handed the slate back, and rolled his head stiffly to relieve the ache in his shoulders.
‘Very well. Prepare the fleet to break orbit.’
The captain started.
‘You cannot mean–’
Temekh’s glare silenced him.
‘I am tired, captain; you really do not want to test my patience further. Prepare the fleet to break orbit, and wait for my command.’
He flicked a finger, and the doors to the empty sanctum slid shut.
‘This game is coming to an end.’
Aphael strode toward the Fangthane, his bitterness fuelling him as powerfully as any chem-stimulant. The tone in Temekh’s voice had been unmistakable. While the corvidae sheltered on the bridge of the Herumon in safety, he was once more being thrust into the position of danger.
He didn’t mind the danger. He relished combat, as all the pyrae did. What bothered him was the peremptory manner of his assignment, the assumption that Temekh was calling the shots now.
Of course, Magnus had always had a soft spot for the corvidae – the seers and mystics. The more belligerent cult-disciplines had always been the ones that had been reined in and curtailed. Much good it had done. The corvidae were wayward. If the Thousand Sons had trusted more in the straightforward application of warp-power, perhaps they would have prevailed on Prospero rather than being hamstrung by doubts and visions.
He arrived at the chamber leading to the battle-front. Ahead of him, squads of rubricae were waiting to enter combat, interspersed with larger formations of mortal infantry. Sorcerers, some of them limping from terrible wounds, walked among them. Far off, hundreds of metres down the tunnels leading to the stairway, came the sound of crashing explosions. The Wolves were being hit hard, but they evidently still held the Fangthane approaches.
‘Greetings, lord,’ came the reedy voice of Orfeo Czamine, the pavoni commander of operations.
Aphael felt his face distort into an expression of contempt. It was entirely involuntary – his facial muscles were now wholly fused with the internal workings of his helm and had a mind of their own. Possibly literally.
‘How goes the assault?’ asked Aphael, gesturing for his retinue to stand down.
Aphael knew his own voice now resembled a whole choir of speakers, each fractionally out of sync with one another. There was no hiding it, and no hope of the condition improving.
‘We are grinding them down, as instructed,’ replied Czamine, sounding unsurprised by the bizarre inflections.
‘They should have been cleared out of their hole by now,’ Aphael said. ‘You’ve had days to wipe them out. I may–’
He broke off. Czamine looked at him quizzically.
‘Are you all right, lord?’
Aphael found he couldn’t reply. The words formed in his mind, but his mouth no longer obeyed him. He felt the frustration of weeks burn up inside him. Furiously, he clutched his staff with both hands, not yet knowing what to do with it. As his armoured fingers closed over the shaft, witchfire sparked along its length, blazing with a painful, searing light.
Czamine fell back, radiating alarm.
‘Lord, you are amongst brothers!’
By then Aphael’s movements were no longer his own. The staff began to spin, hand-over-hand, picking up speed with every revolution. The iron whirled, shimmering in the dark from a nimbus of racing witchfire.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to explain.
This isn’t me! Help me! Sweet Magnus, help–
But then his thoughts were taken over by another. The presence in his mind that had been growing for days suddenly asserted itself.
+Why should I help you, my son? This is what you were born for. In what time remains to you, relish the moment.+
The staff spun quicker, generating a vortex of rotating energy in its centre. Aphael’s hands became a blur, turning over like engine pistons, driving the staff into a whirlwind of dizzying momentum.
Aphael’s awareness was now almost gone. What remained of him spied Czamine hurrying backwards, saw squads of mortals running from him in horror. He watched as the rock walls of the Fang glowed white, before realising that he was lighting them up himself. He was on fire, a caustic, dry fire that drenched the chamber in brightness. Warp-energy was bursting from his eyes, from his mouth, from the chinks in his armour. The flesh-change snarled into overdrive, warping his body into impossible contortions, breaking open the hard shell of his battle-plate and shedding it in rattling slivers.
With all the power that he still had, Aphael somehow dragged three words up from his receding consciousness.
Punish them, lord.
+Oh, I will+, came the response.
Then he was gone. The blaze of light and movement was no longer Herume Aphael. For a few moments, it was nothing at all, just a disparate collection of aether-born energies, wild and inchoate.
Then there was a massive bang, causing the air to ripple and dust to rain down from the chamber roof. Cracks snaked along the floor, radiating out from the rapidly transforming cocoon of light and noise.
From that point, the whirling gradually wound down. The light faded, burning into a single point of brilliance. As it slowly died, a figure was revealed within it, taller than Aphael had been and far more beautiful. With the final diminishment of the portal, the newcomer stepped clear of the flickering tendrils of illumination.
As soon as he emerged, all those closest fell to their knees in awe. Czamine bowed low, letting his staff scrape along the ground in submission.
‘Father,’ he said, and his voice was choked with joy.
‘Son,’ acknowledged Magnus the Red, flexing his muscles and smiling. ‘You have been held up in this stinking place for too long.’
He turned toward the Fangthane stair, and there was a greedy light in his eye.
‘Time, I think, to show the Wolves the true meaning of pain.’
Odain Sturmhjart roared his defiance again, his voice cracking under the strain. He’d been summoning the power of the storm for days, using it to divide and demoralise the forces besieging Borek’s Seal, and the pressure was beginning to show. His lips were cracked and calloused under his armour and his throat was raw.
There was no let-up. The sorcerers were powerful, even more so since so many of the wards against maleficarum in the Hould had been taken down. Sturmhjart had little support, and carried almost all the burden of protecting the defending troops from sorcery. A lesser Rune Priest would have given up days ago, overwhelmed by the need to maintain the steady rain of wyrd-sourced power. Only one such as he, steeped in the bottomless reserves of energy gifted by the strange ways of Fenris, could have maintained his position for so long. While he stood, the devices of the enemy were blunted, allowing the warriors of the Aett to charge into battle unhindered. If he fell, their witchery would come into play, turning the tide irrevocably.
And so he stayed on his feet, hurling invective at the silent Rubric Marines as they marched into view, maintaining the flurry of lightning into their ranks, countering the varied powers of the enemy spell-casters and taking the bite out of their aether-born attacks.
It made him proud. After his failure to predict the coming of the enemy, he was able to reflect with satisfaction on what he had done since. The Aett would have fallen already without hi
s untiring efforts. Even if it was still overwhelmed, he had given it precious extra days of life. To fall in battle after inflicting such pain on the enemy was honourable; only an easy, fragile death was a cause for shame.
Sturmhjart stood in the centre of the defensive lines, partially sheltered by the barricades. On either side of him were the gun-lines, still manned by mortal kill-squads. The Wolves’ packs roamed ahead of them, preventing the invaders from reaching the trenches. They were supported by the hulking outlines of Dreadnoughts and the strange, darting runs of the Underfang beasts. The creatures of the night instilled terror in the mortal Prosperine soldiers, even more so than the Wolves themselves. Many of the creatures had been killed during the repeated actions, but whole packs remained in action, fearless, tireless and horrifying.
Sturmhjart stole a glance to his right, over to where the fighting was fiercest. Greyloc was still on his feet, as he had been for days without pause. His Terminator plate was near-black from plasma-burns, his pelts ripped to tatters and the ceramite beneath cut deep by a hundred blades. But still he fought on, cold and clinical, holding the line together by force of example. He was no longer the White Wolf, more like a coal-black shade of Morkai let loose into the world of the living.
You have surprised me, lord. There is iron beneath that pale skin.
Between them, Greyloc and Bjorn dominated the battle for Borek’s Seal. The Thousand Sons were too numerous to be driven back for any length of time, but the invaders had made painfully slow headway since the start of their full-scale assault. The Wolves had forced a deadlock across the barricades, and that in itself, given the numbers of troops in play, was a staggering achievement.
It couldn’t last. Eventually, the line would break and the Rubric Marines would sweep into the chamber beyond. Until then, however, no ground would be ceded.
‘Fenrys hjolda!’ Sturmhjart bellowed, trying, as always, to rouse the Wolves around him to greater heights of heroism. He slammed his rune-staff to the ground, sending up forks of storm-lightning from the cold stone. ‘For Russ! For the–’
He broke off. A shadow passed across his hearts, chilling them. The power that sluiced across his runic armour flickered and died. He staggered, putting a hand out to prevent himself falling.
You feel it too, Priest.
Bjorn’s voice was dominating, even over the comm. Sturmhjart saw black stars spinning before his eyes, and dizziness wrapped itself around him.
‘He is here.’
Greyloc broke from combat.
‘What do you sense, Odain?’ he voxed, breaking from combat and racing back up towards the Rune Priest’s position. Behind him, Grey Hunters struggled to close the gap in the defensive line.
Sturmhjart shook his head vigorously, trying to rid himself of the lingering disorientation.
‘He has been here all along. Everywhere and nowhere.’
The sorcerers’ attack suddenly stepped up in intensity. Crackling aetheric force whipped out from the attacking ranks, wreathing the oncoming Traitor Marines. For the first time in days, the Wolves began to falter in their defiance.
‘He is here?’ roared Greyloc, his voice heavy with loathing. ‘Show me where he is, Priest.’
He assaults the Fangthane. Even now he lays it in waste.
‘Too far away...’ gasped Sturmhjart.
‘We must reach him,’ said Greyloc, his voice urgent. ‘There are routes through the mountain, fast ways up. None at the Fangthane can withstand him.’
‘Nothing on Fenris can withstand him.’
I can.
Sturmhjart whirled round to face the approaching Dreadnought, still feeling groggy and nauseous.
‘You’re deluded!’ he blurted. ‘You cannot sense him as I can. He is a primarch, an equal to Russ himself. This is death, Bjorn! This is the cutting of the thread.’
Ominously, the Dreadnought raised his plasma cannon, pointing the heavy, blunt barrels directly at Sturmhjart’s helm.
You have a heart of fire. If I had not seen that already, you would be dead where you stand for those words.
Greyloc didn’t hesitate.
‘The defence of the Seal will be given to Hrothgar of the Revered Fallen – he can hold the line for a little longer. I will go after the Traitor, as will my Wolf Guard. Bjorn will stand with us, and so will you, Rune Priest – your wyrd-mastery will be needed.’
Sturmhjart straightened, looking first at the lowered plasma barrel at the end of Bjorn’s gun-arm, then at the blackened and ravaged helm-face of his Jarl. The worst of the sickness brought on by Magnus’s translation ebbed. He felt his resolve begin to return, closely followed by shame at his outburst.
‘So be it,’ he growled, taking up his staff in both hands. ‘We will face him together.’
Greyloc nodded, and motioned to his two surviving Terminator-armoured Wolf Guard to follow him.
‘Of course, we have to break out of here first,’ he said grimly.
Do not worry about that, snarled Bjorn, his voice low and resonant like a starship engine. He swivelled on his axis, training his weapons on the enemy once more. Tell the Fangs to lay down heavy cover. Now I have prey worthy of a kill, I feel the need to stretch my claws.
Wyrmblade let his arms fall slack by his sides. He stood at the summit of the Fangthane stairs, between the massive images of Freki and Geri, the final layer of defence before the hall itself. He was an old warrior, tempered in the fires of a thousand engagements, as inured to surprise or despair as any of the Vlka Fenryka.
And yet he couldn’t move. The presence before him was so dominating, so transcendent, that it filled his veins with lead and locked his superhuman muscles into a horrified stasis.
Magnus had come. The daemon-primarch was at the foot of the stairway, attracting tracer fire in glowing, angry lines. The ordnance seemed to explode before it hit him, blooming in starbursts of angry red and orange around his massive frame. The Long Fangs and heavy weapons squads had unloaded all they had at him, pouring streams of flame at the monster’s head and chest.
It had no discernible effect. Magnus was a giant, a five-metre-tall behemoth striding through the clouds of promethium like a man pushing through fields of corn. He was radiant, as splendid as bronze, dazzling amid the shadows of the mountain. Nothing hurt him. Nothing came close to hurting him. He had been created for another age, an age when gods walked among men. In the colder, weaker universe of the thirty-second millennium he was unmatched, a walking splinter of the Allfather’s will set amid a fragile world of mortal flesh and blood.
As Wyrmblade watched, gripped by a vice of horror, the kill-machine got to work. There were no battle-cries, no shouts of rage. The daemon-primarch had retained his phlegmatic humours of old, and cut threads with a chilling equanimity. Wyrmblade saw his Wolves charge up to the shimmering titan, as immune to fear as ever, hurling their bodies into the path of the monster. They were brushed aside, thrown bodily into the stone where their backs were broken.
Magnus strode forwards, reaching the bottom level of the stairway. The barricades there had held for days, resisting every attempt to breach them. Box-guns spat at the primarch, surrounding him in a curtain of flickering, sparkling impacts. One by one, he tore them down, ripping them up by their roots and dashing them across the trenches.
Magnus came on. Lauf Cloudbreaker stood in his path, arms raised in defiance. The Rune Priest began the summoning, whipping up the storm-wyrd, contesting the advance of the daemon with all the art he possessed. The primarch clenched his fist and Cloudbreaker simply exploded, lost in a ball of blood, his totems scattered amid the fragments of his shattered runic armour. Kaerls scrambled to evacuate the trenches then, all thoughts of resistance quashed by the immense force striding toward them.
Magnus came on. More Wolves charged to meet him, still undaunted by the destruction wreaked around them. Wyrmblade saw Rossek, the grim-faced Wolf Guard, lumber into contact, his Terminator plate streaming with golden flames. Grey Hunters went in alongside, howli
ng with rage. For a moment, the primarch was held, rocked by the sudden assault of so many blades, each of them wielded with passion and courage. Rossek even managed to land a blow, causing Magnus to pause in his rampage.
A single blow. A lone strike with his chainfist, followed up by a hail of storm-bolter rounds. That was all he managed before Magnus’s fists caught him, hurling him back into the ground, pummeling him into shrapnel and crushing him into a slick of gore beneath his ironshod feet. Rossek was gone, taken down in seconds, his proud life snuffed out with the casual descent of a primarch’s boot. The Wolves with him were ripped apart soon after. More fixed guns unloaded their ammunition at the primarch. All were destroyed, torn from their mounts and tossed aside like chaff.
Magnus came on. The Fangthane’s six Dreadnoughts waited for him halfway up the stairway, resolute and unmoving. They opened fire as one, launching missiles and plasma bolts in a blistering, crushing flurry of destructive energy. In a few seconds they unleashed enough firepower to level a whole company of Traitor Marines, chewing through heavy bolter ammo-belts and exhausting energy packs. Magnus emerged from the inferno intact, his armour trailing gouts of smoke and flame. As he towered over them, the Dreadnoughts closed up, gunning their massive power fists and lightning claws into life and bracing for impact.
Magnus seized the nearest Dreadnought in one hand and lifted it from the ground. The huge sarcophagus swayed up above the rolling torment of fire, its close-combat weapon flexing impotently, its heavy bolter thudding shell after shell into the impervious hide of the primarch.
Magnus drew his arm back and hurled the Dreadnought against the walls of the stairway. The Revered Fallen hit the surface at speed, shattering the stone and driving a huge rent in the rock. Magnus loomed over the stricken war machine and clenched his fist again. The Dreadnought’s armour cracked open, shearing down the middle with a resounding clap of thunder, revealing the seething amniotic chamber within. The ruined scrap of flesh and sinew inside the tank writhed for a moment, still possessed by some primordial urge to survive, before Magnus smashed the plexiglass and dragged it out. With a flex of his mighty fist, the remnants of the Dreadnought’s body were squeezed into a slurry of blood and wasted muscle.
Battle Of The Fang Page 33