by Ben Counter, Guy Haley, Joshua Reynolds, Cavan Scott (epub)
‘Indeed you did,’ said Sigrund. ‘But the Lament did not let death take me all the way. She lodged in a crevasse halfway down. Her vox-booster still worked and the last thing she did before she died was tell Lord Blackmane here that my brothers needed help.’ Sigrund had a broad face, always smiling, and hair shorn close to allow for the cranial jacks with which he interfaced with the controls of his gunship. His face fell a little as he looked up towards the peak. ‘Did they die well?’ he asked.
‘They did,’ said Ulli.
‘And is what they say true of Aesor? I did not see it myself, but you were closer.’
‘What do they say?’ asked Ulli.
‘That he died that glorious death we always fated for him.’
Ulli’s eyes passed across the battlefield strewn with ork bodies, the dense drift of snow at the bottom of the slope where hundreds more were buried by the avalanche. It passed across Lord Blackmane – and behind him, watching from a distance, the black armour and skull-helm of Ulrik the Slayer.
‘It is true,’ he said. ‘The greenskin had harried us all the way up the mountain and slain Saehrimnar and Starkad, but in Aesor it met a foe it could not beat, and it knew it. It must have overloaded the machinery grafted to its body to destroy the both of them. An act of spite from the alien, but an act that proved Aesor was a greater warrior than any ork.’
‘Then that is what will be inscribed upon his cairn!’ said Blackmane, turning to the Blood Claws. ‘And sung of in the Great Hall when we come to tell the tale of Aesor Dragon’s Head! He struck fear into the alien too brutal to know fear!’
The Blood Claws cheered at his words, one brandishing the greenskin head he had taken as a trophy of the hunt. They were the last party to return – the force was embarking onto the gunships that had swept in as the second wave, to carry them back down the mountain to the lower slopes where the battle for Alaric Prime was being fought.
Ulli finished wiping the worst of the blood off his axe. The runes on it had grown dim now, but once he joined the main force below, they would have to glow bright again.
It would be good to fight down there. It would be good to let himself forget.
The battle lines had stayed fluid throughout the day. The orks had launched berserk charges from the landing sites of their crude landing craft, each time met by a counterattack from the squadrons of Imperial Knights who charged under the banners of Alaric Prime’s great houses. The Space Wolves had struck hard and fast into the flanks of the orks, deployed by gunship and drop pod and whisked away when the harvest of dead greenskins was reaped. But there were more orks with new landing sites established by the hour, and whole tribes were gathering ready to charge towards the Imperial lines. They were testing the Knights and the Space Wolves, spending greenskin lives to see the war machines in battle. The real fight for Alaric Prime would come later, after these opening moves had yielded no victor. The real battle would be close and vicious, a fight at which both greenskin and Space Wolf excelled.
The battle lines shifted as Blackmane watched through the port of the gunship. A wedge of orks, led by salvaged Imperial tanks and orkish war machines, was grinding across the battlefield in a pall of filthy smoke. Facing them was a phalanx of Imperial Knights, holding their ground in close order as they waited for the command to charge.
Watching the battle beside Ragnar was Ulrik the Slayer, wearing his wolf’s-skull helm as he always did. It was his mark as a Wolf Priest, the barrier between him and the rest of his Chapter, a symbol of how he must remain apart from them as the Rune Priests did, for it was his duty to judge them.
‘I had heard that Ulli Iceclaw was ill-starred,’ said Ragnar Blackmane as he watched the battle unfolding. ‘I do not listen to such rumours. They are foul and base things, not becoming of battle-brothers. But I am glad they will be dispelled now, when the rest of the Chapter learns of what he did on Sacred Mountain today.’
‘It was always his burden,’ replied Ulrik. He carried the only part of Aesor Dragon’s Head the Space Wolves had recovered from the battlefield – the hilt of his shattered frost blade, the fat uncut emerald gleaming in the centre. ‘And he was the only one who could throw it off.’
‘Would that Aesor had lived also,’ said Blackmane. ‘There was no limit to how high he could have risen. He could have succeeded any one of the Wolf Lords, save perhaps Grimnar. But even the Old Wolf will not last forever, and it is men like Aesor who will vie for his post when he is gone. We have lost more than a Space Wolf in him, keen though we feel that loss. We have lost the hero of the Imperium he could have become.’
‘He will serve on as an example of his heroism,’ said Ulrik. ‘Even in death, a Space Wolf fights on.’
‘To think that Ulli alone should survive of all that pack,’ continued Blackmane. ‘I was certain that if any one of them were to return to us, it would be Aesor.’
The gemstone set into the broken frost blade’s hilt appeared cracked. On closer inspection, however, it was riddled with dark threads, slowly squirming their way through the emerald. On the hilt, the black marks where Aesor’s fingers had gripped the sword looked like scorches inflicted when the ork detonated itself – but they, too, were liquid darkness, as if something had left a stain of living corruption there.
‘I am not so surprised the Rune Priest is still among us,’ replied Ulrik, glancing down at the blade. ‘I know what Ulli Iceclaw can do.’
The bunker was small and dark, the only light coming from a fire that crackled quietly in a grate on the wall. Two Space Wolves stood near the roaring flames, one clad in storm-grey battleplate carved with eldritch runes, and the other the black of the Wolf Priests.
‘So, Ulli Iceclaw,’ said the Wolf Priest, ‘I hear you gave a good day’s battle. I wish I had witnessed it myself. The fight for Alaric Prime will demand many such days from all of us.’
‘My thanks, Wolf Priest. But you did not call me forth to congratulate me. Ulrik the Slayer does not give his time to such small talk.’
Ulrik smiled, revealing sharp fangs.
‘I do not. And you know why I must speak with you.’
‘About Lord Ragnar,’ said Ulli.
‘You were at his side. You saw it all. It is my duty as senior Wolf Priest to examine the conduct of all Space Wolves, even the Wolf Lords – or Rune Priests like yourself.’
‘Of course, Ulrik. And yet the consequences of what I witnessed do not sit easy with me.’
‘I will deal with the consequences,’ growled Ulrik. ‘Think only of the truth.’
Ulli Iceclaw sighed heavily. Very well. The greenskins had come at us not just on the ground, but from the air…’
We held a ridge of ruins and shell craters. A whole tribe of greenskins was arrayed against us. Tens of thousands of them seethed towards us in waves, as if the foothills had become an ocean of greenskin flesh. The Cadians held our flank and fended them off with las-fire, and we did the same with our bolters. And at the heart of our line stood Wolf Lord Ragnar Blackmane.
‘Space Wolves! The ork is cunning and without number, but he is still an animal! He has but one tactic in this battle, to spend the lives of his fellow greenskins to find a weak point in our line! But he will not find it where the sons of Fenris hold their ground!’
All the warriors of Fenris around us cheered, and I too was caught up in the Young Wolf’s fury.
‘And you men of Cadia! They will not find it where you stand, either. For there walks the Scorched Knight!’
Dyros Kamata, the Scorched Knight. He alone had stood proud of the Knightly Houses’ politicking and pledged himself and his war machine to the fight when the first orks landed. Ragnar Blackmane saw in Kamata a fellow hunter and asked that the Scorched Knight fight alongside him in person. Kamata spoke through his steed’s vox-emitters.
‘The greenskins thought they would find good hunting on Alaric Prime, Lord Blackmane. But
now an Imperial Knight stands alongside Space Wolves and Guardsmen of Cadia, and none of us are used to being the prey!’
Ragnar grinned.
‘For every Imperial loss, Baron Kamata, I will take ten orkish heads. Can you keep up with that?’
‘I have never turned down a hunter’s wager yet, Blackmane!’
There is much scorn I could pour on the Knightly Houses, for their politics slowed the response to the greenskin invasion and cost many lives. But they produced a warrior of the Scorched Knight’s calibre, and so I cannot show them too much disdain. It was then that I received the vox-report from our Stormwolf wings in the air.
‘Lord Blackmane,’ I reported. ‘Thunderfall Squadron is pursuing a wing of ork aircraft. It’s a bombing run. We have accounted for half their number but they will still hit us hard.’
‘Then the greenskin attacks were to keep us in place while they hit us from the air,’ Ragnar replied. ‘It passes for a plan by their standards. But it will not work. Space Wolves, Cadians – take cover!’
There were more aircraft than the orks should ever have been able to field on Alaric Prime. The greenskin technology was possessed of some kind of mad genius that made those rusting crates airworthy. Dozens of bombers bore down on us. Hundreds of bombs fell.
They hit the Cadians. I could hear the men burning. They lost hundreds in moments. Good men, brave men. I saw Lord Ragnar silhouetted by the firestorm as the worst of it rained down. And then the vox-net opened up, and I heard the voice of the Scorched Knight.
‘Lord Blackmane, my power plant is ruptured. Plasma is leaking into the thorax and the hatch is jammed. It’s not looking too good from where I’m sitting.’
‘Hold fast,’ growled Ragnar. ‘I shall be with you soon. My Blood Claws can make it. We will get you out of there.’
‘Everything around me is burning. My life is not worth the Space Wolves who will be lost if the plant goes critical. We had a fine hunt, Ragnar.’
‘Lord Blackmane does not abandon his brothers. Hold fast and survive. We will be there! Damn it, fetch me a jump pack!’
‘It was always going to end this way, Ragnar,’ said the baron. ‘This Knight has served me well but she does make for a tempting target. I’m amazed I–’
Static drowned his words and we could hear sirens blaring within the cockpit of the Scorched Knight.
‘No!’ screamed Ragnar as the Knight exploded.
When the smoke blew off the ridge, the destruction was terrible. Hundreds of Cadians had not reached shelter in time. They lay dead or dying in burning craters. But the most awful sight was the Scorched Knight. It still stood, but the upper half of its chest was a melted ruin. The cockpit was gone. Dyros Kamata was dead.
When I think back, I still cannot read what I saw on Lord Blackmane’s face. It was as if his eyes were flecks of ice and his skin was of cold iron. For a moment there was just silence. Then he turned to me.
‘Rune Priest, place the mark upon my blade. Frostfang hungers.’
‘What rune should I strike, my lord?’
‘Vengeance.’
‘The greenskins are massing for another charge,’ I warned him.
‘Then be quick about it.’
It seemed I had placed a thousand runes on the weapons of my battle-brothers while we fought for that ridge. I pictured a symbol of chill hatred, and I laid my hand on Frostfang’s blade. The rune burned there in cold fire. I could feel the same rune burning across the heart of Lord Blackmane.
I could see the orks approaching, thousands of them in a green tide. In their midst was their warlord, a towering creature riding a tank festooned with gun turrets and blades. I could see its fangs bared as it grinned. I could see, through my psyker’s eye, the alien’s joy at the prospect of slaughtering Space Wolf and Cadian alike.
‘Sons of Fenris!’ bellowed Ragnar. ‘The greenskin thinks we are defeated! He thinks we are weak! But all he has done is stoke in us the rage the whole galaxy has learned to fear! Ten ork heads are not enough for one Imperial corpse. I will not take ten! I will not take a hundred, nor a thousand. This rage will not be quelled until every greenskin on Alaric Prime is dead!’
I have seen the volcanoes that rise from the oceans of Fenris in the Season of Fire. I have witnessed storms that bring down mountains. But I have never witnessed such rage as burned inside Ragnar Blackmane then. And though I am a Rune Priest and must always strive to keep my soul in check, I felt it too. Blackmane’s rage is no mere anger. It is a force that floods into every Space Wolf. I wanted nothing more than to leap into the fray and kill every ork I could see. Forgive me, that anger burned in me.
Ulrik looked thoughtful. His snarling wolf-helm, reputed to be that worn by Leman Russ himself, sat on the table beside him. He stroked it absent-mindedly as he spoke.
‘But what then, Ulli? What of Blackmane?’
‘The Great Wolf Grimnar was behind our lines, leading the battle alongside the Imperial commanders. I had access to the command vox and I heard his response…’
‘Blackmane! I have reports of an air attack on your position. What is our situation?’ The Great Wolf sounded tense.
‘The wounds have done no more than bloody our claws, Great Wolf. I am giving the order to charge.’
‘No, Blackmane. Your orders are to hold that ridge. If the orks break through the whole Imperial line could fall.’
‘The orks have taken our lives for too long. The time has come to slaughter them!’
‘Ragnar, hold your position! Ragnar Blackmane, in the name of Russ and the Allfather, your liege lord commands you to hold your position!’
The vox-channel went dead. I looked in Ragnar’s face and knew that our lord’s orders would go unheeded.
‘I go now to extract the price of our dead in greenskin flesh. Who is with me?’
He was answered by a chorus of howls and oaths.
‘Then charge, sons of Fenris! By fire and blade, by tooth and claw! Charge!’
Even as the Cadians were pulling their wounded from the rubble, we abandoned their side and joined Ragnar’s charge. Brother Einar’s Swiftclaws leapt into the saddles of their bikes and roared after him. The Skyclaws hurtled in his wake on their jump packs. Even the Grey Hunters and Long Fangs, whose rage should have been tempered by the discipline of a veteran, ran from cover to join the fight. And of course, I was amongst them.
‘It was the death of the Scorched Knight that spurred Blackmane’s anger?’ asked Ulrik.
‘So it seemed,’ replied Ulli. ‘But I am not certain.’
‘How so, Rune Priest?’
‘Whenever Lord Blackmane was near, I could feel that rage inside him, under the surface. It was quiet while he kept it caged, but it was always there. I wonder now if it needed much reason to be unleashed. When the Scorched Knight fell, was it a terrible enough blow that it could only be answered with such anger? Or did the rage itself simply use Kamata’s death as a trigger to take Ragnar over?’
‘But what of the battle that followed?’ prompted the Wolf Priest.
Ulli hesitated before answering, and when he did, his voice was dark.
‘It was slaughter…’
‘What vermin are these that stand before me? I am Ragnar Blackmane! I am the Young King of Fenris! What senseless animal thinks he can look upon me and live?’
The greenskins were without number and I could see no end of them. I told Blackmane so.
‘Then cut them down until there are few enough to count!’ he shouted. ‘Stand by my side, Rune Priest, and should I die here, live on that the Chapter might know of what I did!’
He lashed out with his frost blade, hewing an ork in two.
‘That one tasted sweet, but Frostfang is still thirsty!’
Another greenskin fell to his blade, then another.
‘These aliens know our greatness, Ulli Icec
law. See how they throw themselves on our blades!’
One large beast wielding a huge chain-toothed axe growled a challenge at the Young Wolf, who laughed in response.
‘This one thinks he’s clever. He’s not so quick to charge in. He wants to find an opening. But Frostfang isn’t my only weapon. These are the fangs and teeth of a Fenrisian!’
Ragnar leapt and drove Frostfang’s whirring teeth through the haft of the ork’s axe. It shattered and the alien roared in anger, throwing himself at the Wolf Lord.
‘A blade through the gut is too good for you, greenskin. A broken neck is all you get!’
He took the beast in a headlock and snapped its neck with an audible crack. Behind him another, even larger, brute raised a crude sword, aimed for Ragnar’s back.
‘Behind you, Lord Ragnar!’ I shouted as I fired a volley of bolt pistol rounds that turned the ork to mush. ‘They’re pressing in on all sides!’
Through the clamour of combat, I heard another sound, the rumbling of engines. I glanced around and saw an immense shape closing on us.
‘It’s the war machine. The warlord’s heading right for us.’
Ragnar grinned. ‘Ulli, Blood Claws, keep them off me. This one’s mine.’
The warlord was one of the biggest of its kind I have ever seen. Only the strongest and most vicious orks ever get to lead a whole tribe to war.
Lord Ragnar vaulted onto the tank and ran at it as if there was nothing else he wanted in this galaxy but to kill that greenskin. It wielded a giant hammer. I was sure Ragnar would have to evade it or be crushed flat, but he caught the weapon on his chest and wrenched it out of the ork’s hands.
Then Frostfang flashed, and those hands were sliced off. The warlord stared down at the stumps of its wrists, and that moment of shock was the opening Ragnar needed for the kill. Frostfang sawed through the warlord’s neck and its head came free of its shoulders. Ragnar held the head up high, so all the tribe could see what had become of their leader.
‘This is the one you followed across the stars, to despoil this world? This is the lord who made you cower? Look at it now, greenskins, and know what you are. You are prey!’