The Emperor's Gift

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  Kysnaros was drawing breath to do exactly that, when a sickle-shaped Trecenti warning rune flashed white on my retinal display.

  ‘Wait. Something’s wrong.’

  Kysnaros reached a hand to his ear, re-tuning the vox-bead there. ‘The… the Wolves are back. Their entire fleet just broke warp.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ I asked. Behind us, Malchadiel was already powering up the gunship’s engines.

  ‘I don’t know. But they’re inbound, and…’

  ‘And they can see an enemy fleet with its weapons aimed down at the Fang. Your move, inquisitor.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  KINDRED

  I

  By the time we reached Corel’s Hope’s strategium, the Wolves’ fleet was in vox-range. The battleship’s bridge was a nightmare of activity and sound compared to the Karabela’s stately operation, though I was guiltily grateful my presence sent crew scurrying away from me. Too many humans, too many smells, all too close. I wasn’t made to be paraded in public.

  Even appearing in front of these officers had set them in line for a mind-scrape at best, and an execution at worst. My skin crawled each time I felt one looking at me. With four hundred serfs, servitors, officers and slaves – my skin never stopped crawling. The noise of their minds was a distracting miasma of emotion, and not for the first time did I wonder if humans simply felt things stronger than we do. Once we receive the Emperor’s Gift, does it dampen our capacity to feel and sense as a normal human did?

  Maddening, to think of such things now.

  Kysnaros tore off his rebreather, leaning both hands on the railing of the central raised dais.

  ‘Is the channel open?’

  ‘Yes, sire,’ came a nearby officer’s reply.

  ‘This is Lord Inquisitor Kysnaros to the Space Wolves fleet. Negotiations have begun in good faith. Divert your course and hold off from engaging us.’

  The voice that replied was thunder given guttural, unamused life. ‘I am Jarl Grimnar of the Wolves, lord of that world’s sons and daughters, and defender of the Fang. No more lies, coward. No more tricks. Our Rune Priests laid down their lives to bring us back here and paint the walls of our fortress with your sick blood. You dare warn me to back away from my own birth world? Are you blind as well as mad, weakling? This is Wolf space, and we are Wolves. Leave now, before we feed our oceans with your bones.’

  Kysnaros glanced over to the battleship’s usurped captain; a portly man in his fifties, in an immaculate uniform from one of the many divisions within Battlefleet Solar.

  ‘How long until they reach weapons range?’

  ‘Less than a minute, lord. They’re coming in hot.’

  Coming in hot. A bizarre dialect. I wondered what world he was from.

  ‘Why so calm?’ Annika asked from my side.

  ‘I can’t say for sure. I think I’ve accepted the fact we’re unlikely to survive any of this. I accepted it weeks ago.’

  Kysnaros was already speaking again, for whatever good it would do. I watched him surrender to panic, moment by moment. He’d pushed the Wolves too far, brought too much threat into their skies, and broken any chance of a peaceful resolution. I knew it. He knew it. He just didn’t wish to face it.

  ‘Move the fleet into a defensive formation. Keep the guns aimed at the Fang. They have to realise we will fire.’

  ‘They realise it,’ I interrupted. ‘And they no longer care. Inquisitor, break the armada apart. Run. It’s over.’

  ‘No. No, there’s still time.’ He turned back to the vox-mic hanging from the ceiling on a twisted cable. ‘They have no hope against our armada. They must realise that, at least.’

  I mounted the stairs, feeling a fist forming, and doing my damnedest not to raise my arm and fire.

  ‘You’ve threatened the Fang in front of the High King of Fenris. We had a chance with the Fell-Handed, but now? With the Wolves’ entire strength bearing down on us? Inquisitor, you will never leave this system alive. The remnants of the armada might, but the cost in life will be catastrophic.’

  ‘Hyperion,’ he said, as if I could possibly help him. ‘Hyperion…’

  ‘Surrender, lord. Surrender before the first shot is fired.’

  ‘They must see reason!’ He was on the edge, now. I could see the whites around his eyes as he grabbed the vox-mic. ‘Jarl Grimnar… This doesn’t have to end in war–’

  ‘You brought us here,’ the voice crackled back. ‘You sowed the seeds of this harvest. Now reap it.’

  ‘A penitent crusade would absolve your sins, Logan. We can end this without bloodshed–’

  The only reply was a laugh. A laugh that became a howl.

  II

  The fleets crashed together in the sedately brutal way of the most vicious void battles. Warships so often duelled over vast distances, waging war with calculated weapon strikes, that it wasn’t uncommon for a captain to have never once come face to face with another ship prepared to ram his own.

  Only a commander’s madness or hatred could bring warships within ramming reach of one another. Too much could go wrong with no room to manoeuvre; with no space to come about; with no hope of escaping if something went wrong.

  The Wolves crossed into weapons range, howling all the while. They came closer, closer, and closer.

  The panic threatening to claim Lord Inquisitor Kysnaros only moments before drained from him in a cold flood. In a true trial, his qualities made themselves plain. He pointed from station to station dispensing orders in absolute calm, phrased with perfect clarity. Ship by ship, the armada received its commands.

  ‘I want half of the fleet to focus all its fire on the fortress-monastery. All use of atomics and cyclonics are disallowed, but traditional bombardment mustn’t cease. The rest of the fleet, focus on their capital ships.’

  ‘Aye, lord,’ called back several officers, moving to relay his commands.

  ‘Shields to variable cycling,’ he ordered, already moving from the void shield station to the gunnery platform. ‘Do you see the Space Wolves ship Gate of Garm? All ahead full, interception course. Order the Helana and the Consecrator to come about and use us as cover while they manoeuvre. We’ll take the Garm’s assault on our starboard shields. As soon as we pass by, fire one-third of our broadsides at the Garm’s aft section, aiming for the armour plating around its primary thrusters. Then align with the In Sacred Trust for an attack run against the Scramaseax. Get the Aquiliania escort squadron to herd the Scramaseax so that it’s forced to plough between both battleships. We’ll cripple her with our laser batteries.’

  He moved around the deck, never ceasing, only stopping his stream of orders to hear another status update from elsewhere in the armada.

  ‘Order the Farwall and the Bloodghast to protect the Redoubt until she can get her engines back online. You. Second lieutenant. Order the God of Us All to break off from its outrider arc and commence immediate bombardment of the Fang.’

  Annika looked lost in the chaos, her eyes never settling on any one officer or station. ‘Are we safe here?’

  ‘The Corel’s Hope is the biggest, most heavily defended ship in the armada,’ I replied. ‘But no, we’re not.’

  ‘He’s firing at the Fang.’

  ‘I know.’

  Kysnaros moved back to the railing, clicking his fingers as he concentrated on maintaining a second-count.

  ‘Now,’ he said softly. The deck shook beneath us as the first of our weapons released into the void.

  The command deck was drowning in shouting voices. I was struggling to filter them out from each other. One, however, stood out above all others.

  ‘Boarding pods!’

  ‘Details…’ Kysnaros called back.

  The tactical hololithic superimposed over the occulus, projected from the roaring mouth of a gargoyle sculpted into the ceiling. Every ship among both fleets, many of which were sailing perilously close to one another, was a winking rune of red or white.

  ‘Boarding pods fired from ev
ery single Fenrisian warship.’

  ‘Tell all afflicted ships to brace and stand by to repel boarders. Order the Red Hunters to begin counter-attacks on every single Space Wolves vessel that has launched its warriors. Board them in turn, and kill them from within. Order Chapter Master Daemar to deploy his elite companies via teleportation to take hold of the Kerberaus and the Sky’s Hammer.’

  The deck shook again, savagely enough to throw some of the crew from their feet.

  ‘Taking heavy fire,’ a servitor mumbled to itself, from its new position on the deck. It rolled from side to side, too damaged from a concussion to stand back up.

  On the occulus, I watched one of the most uncomfortable sights I’d ever had the misfortune to witness. The grey iron battlements of the Scramaseax drifted past in a slow, beautiful slide, countless firelight-winks along the walls and towers showing the anger of individual turrets.

  Corel’s Hope groaned in protest at the other vessel’s proximity. Throne, we weren’t just close enough to see individual windows, we were close enough to reach out and touch the warship’s bruised armour.

  Detonations speckled the ship’s spine as our own laser batteries and lesser turrets returned the unwanted attention. The lances at the ship’s prow kicked hard enough to breed a second shudder, almost as violent as the first. Ahead of us, displayed on the panning occulus, a Space Wolves ship I couldn’t name rolled away even as it crumbled. Our final lance array ignited its plasma core, briefly blinding the occulus with a retinal blurring of painful colour.

  The next vision was of a Red Hunter, strike cruiser, the Purity of Loyalty, blackened by burn markings, struggling to come about on dying engines. I watched it trembling, coming apart as it caught fire in Fenris’s atmosphere. Escape pods sprayed from its hull in a scattering of doomed seeds.

  Yet another vision filled the occulus. One of our ships, the Grey Knights cruiser Solemnity, was driven back from the armada, out of formation. The ships harrying it veered away, just in time for the Fang’s own defences to open fire now Solemnity fell into range of its tower guns.

  ‘Shields?’ I heard Kysnaros yelling. ‘Shields?’

  They were down. I could tell from the way we were shaking under the Scramaseax’s guns. They’d punched through the barrier, and were pulling us to pieces with their dense turret batteries.

  Kysnaros was no less aware. ‘Shields! I want them back up before they–’

  A second blinding light flashed across the command deck. The first had been from the outside, and easy enough to look away from. No luck, this time. It was close enough to feel, and it was a feeling I knew so very well.

  III

  I’d never seen a warrior sprinting in Terminator warplate. He ran through the fiery mist of a teleportation storm, with no hint of the sluggishness I’d felt on Armageddon. Impossible as it was, I swore I could hear the pounding of his boots, and the screaming whine of protesting servo joints, over the ship falling apart around us. Sparks burst from every racing step he took.

  I couldn’t even conceive of the power and rage it would take to force Terminator plate to react against its will like that. I fired at him. Malchadiel fired at him. Our storm bolters crashed and boomed and blasted chunks of ceramite away with no effect at all.

  In the middle of his sprint, the grey warrior leapt onto a control console, smashing it beneath his armoured boot, and kicked off with a jump high enough to bring him down on the central command dais. Despite his speed, there was nothing of grace or agility in his movements, merely anger and ferocious strength, pushing his armour’s joints to the absolute limit of the sacred ceramite’s endurance.

  Malchadiel and I moved in the perfect unity of those whose minds are meshed as one. The Wolf’s axe felled Mal in a heartbeat, cleaving his legs out from under him. I brought my stave around in a whirling parry, to block a blade that didn’t exist. The immense axe blade was a blur, coming from the wrong angle to crash against the side of my helm hard enough to throw me off the raised platform. I felt something crack in my face, and fell back over the railing, dropping the six metres to land on the deck in a heap of numb limbs.

  I looked up, half-blinded by blood and disoriented enough to lose all sense of balance. Just standing was a struggle I wasn’t sure I could win. My face was broken again. Some part of my skull was screaming.

  Insignificant las-fire burned scorch marks on the old warrior’s suit, all going utterly ignored. Several beams of laser fire even managed to punch home, drilling hot into the flesh beneath the plate, earning no more notice than the rest.

  The three Naval armsmen died in turn, their lasrifles falling silent. The first and second died from bolt shells to the chests; the third from an archaic throwing axe slamming into his face and leaving him to jerk on the floor like an abandoned automaton.

  Annika bared her teeth as she reloaded her bolter.

  ‘Ayah! For the High King! For the Aett!’

  Kysnaros faced the old warrior, weaponless and clad only in ceremonial power armour. He said nothing. He never had time to whisper a single word.

  The old warrior’s axe didn’t even slow down going through him. Lord Inquisitor Kysnaros’s head fell from his shoulders, rolling and banging down the steps. The body toppled a second later, collapsing back into the command throne.

  Logan Grimnar raised the axe Morkai in one hand, roaring a howl to the burning bridge around him. For every crew member reaching for their sidearms, two dozen were abandoning their stations for the escape pods.

  +Hyperion. Hyperion, help me.+

  +Mal.+

  I hauled myself to my feet, staring back up the stairs. Malchadiel, his new bionic legs severed from the thighs down, was dragging himself across the deck. His ceramite breastplate squealed along the gantry as he crawled.

  Jarl Grimnar stalked closer to him.

  +Mal!+

  He rolled, raising his storm bolter, but the axe ended his arm in a silver blur. His forearm spun away, and the mounted bolter with it.

  I fired. I fired my storm bolter until it clicked dry, staring in disbelief as every single shell burst apart against the relic axe blade. Seven bolts fired, for the pathetic victory of staining the embossed golden wolves a dirty, burned black.

  Jarl Grimnar raised the axe again, pressing a boot down on Malchadiel’s chest. I started running.

  ‘So will be the fate of every treacherous snake’s son in your honourless Chapter.’

  No. No. I’d lost Galeo. I’d lost Dumenidon. I’d lost Sothis, directly because of my own weakness. Enceladus was lost within a coma, likely never to wake again. I wouldn’t lose Mal. He was the last; my only brother; my one chance not to fail the oaths I’d sworn in the name of unbreakable fraternity. The energy nodes on my backpack crackled and spat witch-lightning in response to my helpless anger.

  Annika moved in front of me. I hurled her back with a torrent of kinetic force, smashing her back against a burning wall. Other Wolves – warriors I’d never even seen teleport aboard – fired at me from where they’d been killing the crew at the chamber’s sides. Every impact sent me staggering, choking on the smoke of my own dying armour. I cried out as the axe fell, just a wordless, fevered shout of shameful denial.

  In the same second, I threw myself into the hell behind reality.

  IV

  The axe crashed down.

  I stared at Jarl Grimnar, eye to eye, both of us baring our teeth into the face of the other. His axe trembled, the blade locked tight against the haft of my black stave. I could feel ghost-flame filling my eye sockets, bleaching and burning all colour from my vision. Even though the pale fire, I saw the unease in the Great Wolf’s dark stare.

  +No.+

  His fangs scraped his lower teeth as he grunted. If it was a reply, it was a weak one.

  +No.+

  The old warrior tensed, pressed harder, and his grimace became a predator’s toothy smile. My stave – the Trecenti runes along its black sides flaring white-hot – started to shiver as he forced me dow
n. I couldn’t stand against his strength in Terminator plate. I felt the fire streaming from my eyes begin to cool.

  +Brother,+ came Malchadiel’s fading voice. +Finish him.+

  +I… I can’t…+

  +You shattered the cursed blade of a daemon-god’s son. Finish this mortal, mongrel bastard.+

  I smiled back, teeth bared again, almost laughing. My voice was nothing more than a guttural snarl through the protracted effort.

  ‘Do not speak to me of honour…’ White warp-fire sidewindered in hissing coils around my fists. ‘You… are as guilty… as we are. This is the Imperium of Man, Old Wolf, not a fabled empire of bliss and joy. We are the Emperor’s Gift. We know what must be done. We never let stubborn pride and misplaced kindness blind us to the real enemy.’

  The axe cracked. A thick, black crack split the ancient relic, severing one wolf’s head from its shoulders.

  ‘We are both guilty in this war.’ I spat the words into his grizzled, bearded face.

  +Behind you!+

  I heard Mal’s warning the same moment Jarl Grimnar’s eyes flicked to glance over my shoulder.

  I couldn’t turn. I tried to hurl the jarl back, but even with every iota of energy, it was no different from trying to move a mountain.

  I knew who it was. I sensed Brand Rawthroat’s presence and personality, charged with anger and savage amusement, clear enough to almost feel the axe in his hands.

  A wave of kinetic force crashed into me, smashed into all of us, hurling us all from our feet.

  +Just run.+ Malchadiel’s silent voice was scarcely a whisper. I sensed his signature in the psychic release. +Just run.+

  I stood above him – my legless, one-armed brother – and summoned my stave back into my fists from across the deck. Spinning it in my hands, I turned to face Rawthroat and his unkillable jarl.

  Only, I didn’t face two Wolves.

  I faced twenty.

  They closed just as their namesakes would, in a unified pack, never blinking, teeth on show the moment before they tore into their prey.