Blood of Asaheim

by Chris Wraight

  Then Hafloí’s voice came over the comm. It didn’t sound like it normally did – it was urgent, tight, serious.

  ‘Support,’ Hafloí gasped, his words clipped with pain. ‘Blood of Russ, support now.’

  Gunnlaugur took up skulbrotsjór again, his mood switching instantly. Even before Hafloí had finished he was already running.

  Ingvar and Bajola stood facing one another in her chambers, just as they had done on their first meeting. The night was old by then, heavy with smoke and the fatigue of a city under siege. Lights could be seen from the vantage of Bajola’s spire-windows, bleeding across the whole expanse of the lower city. They were not wholesome lights – they were pyre-glows, or searchlight beams, or the sudden flashes of las-volleys in the dark. Those lights were accompanied by similarly unwholesome sounds: crackling flesh, the thudding of running feet, screaming in the dark.

  Unlike at their first meeting, Bajola did not remain standing for long. She slid into a hard wooden chair, scratching it with her armour as she slouched wearily. She let her unfixed helm fall from her hands, and it rolled across the stone floor.

  ‘When did you last sleep?’ asked Ingvar.

  ‘I don’t remember. You?’

  ‘Four days ago.’

  Bajola snorted. ‘Explains your mood.’

  Ingvar walked across to the far side of the room, near one of the narrow windows.

  ‘This place was meant to be a respite.’ He smiled to himself. ‘Garrison work.’

  ‘You want to sit?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  Bajola gave him a sardonic look.

  ‘Always on duty, never at rest,’ she said. ‘You never get tired? You never just want to stand back, for a minute, to look away from it all and forget that you’re the Emperor’s finest and that you’re needed all the time and everywhere because, well, we’re all so much weaker than you?’

  Ingvar leaned against the stone wall behind him. In truth, he wasn’t immune to fatigue. If things had been less straitened he would have welcomed the chance to recover himself, to reflect on how to handle Gunnlaugur when he returned, to prepare for the trials ahead. But those things were luxuries.

  ‘What was that place?’ he asked for a third time.

  Bajola’s face fell. ‘The archive room. Not something you’d think much of – just a bunch of data-cores and repository banks, sealed and categorised.’ Her brown eyes went hollow. ‘The history of an obscure shrineworld, its succession documents and transaction records.’

  She looked up at him.

  ‘It was our story here,’ she said. ‘One of the things I was charged with defending. Now all gone, and before the enemy has even arrived at the gates.’

  ‘Could it not have been moved to the Halicon?’

  ‘It would have taken a whole convoy of heavy transports, and they had all been assigned other tasks.’ She shook her head resignedly. ‘I made my decision. De Chatelaine will ask the same questions when she hears of it. It will be one more failure in her eyes. She was never convinced of the wisdom of taking me on, this will reinforce that view.’

  Ingvar found himself surprised by Bajola’s deflation. When they had first met she had seemed so lively, so defiant. It was strange: in her fragile robes she had been strong; encased in power armour, she was diminished. Perhaps she might have been better off staying in the non-military cadres.

  ‘They’re only records,’ he said. ‘None of your troops were hurt.’

  Bajola let slip an empty laugh.

  ‘Only records,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose you keep any, on Fenris.’

  ‘We do.’ He tapped the side of his helm. ‘The skjalds recite the sagas. We commit them to memory. We pass them on. Every one of us knows the myths of the past.’

  ‘Myths.’ Bajola’s tone was scornful.

  ‘All of us use myths, Sister. Some are stored on data-slates, some come from the mouths of skjalds. Your way has its strengths. Its weaknesses are obvious.’

  Bajola smiled wryly. ‘Nice.’

  Ingvar clasped his hands before him. The blood on them had blackened from the heat of the archive chamber.

  ‘You know why I came,’ he said.

  Bajola nodded. ‘You think I’m keeping something from you.’

  ‘You recognised his name.’

  Bajola reached up and rubbed her scalp with her gauntlet. Her short, wiry hair was flecked with ash.

  ‘I did.’ Some of her old defiance glistened in her eyes.

  ‘How?’

  Bajola laughed.

  ‘You think he kept it secret?’ She shot him a sidelong glance; it was almost flirtatious. ‘You are a boastful people, Space Wolf. You brag about your conquests from one end of the Imperium to the other. Do not be surprised if others hear you.’

  ‘It had significance,’ said Ingvar. ‘You had heard it before.’

  For a second longer, Bajola held his gaze. Her dark skin, the same ebony as her armour and sweaty from exertion, glistened in the low light of the chamber.

  Then she lowered her eyes.

  ‘I have seen many secret things,’ she said softly. ‘Never intended for my eyes, but one does not spend so much time with the powerful and not catch glimpses of their affairs.’

  Ingvar listened intently.

  ‘It is said that Fenris makes enemies easily,’ said Bajola. ‘You do not know the tenth of it. There are inquisitors who would gladly see your world virus-bombed into poisonous slush if they could only find a way to do it. Other Chapter Masters, too. And, yes, the Ecclesiarchy harbours some with no love for your brethren. That is no secret: our forces have clashed before, they may do so again.’

  Bajola’s voice was low but firm. She spoke like an agent delivering a report to her superiors, much like she must have done many times while in the Orders Famulous. Ingvar remembered how he’d been required to speak when in Halliafiore’s presence, and how long it had taken for him to knock the rough cadence of Juvykka from his speech. The results had been much the same.

  ‘There was a document,’ Bajola went on. ‘I only saw it once, but I was in the business of memorizing things then. It had names on it, most of which are irrelevant. Hjortur Bloodfang was among them. I remember thinking the name was absurd, but that was before I had had dealings with others of your kind.’

  ‘What was it for?’

  ‘A briefing note, prepared for the senior cardinal of my jurisdiction, one of dozens that would pass his desk every night. Such things had many purposes. It might have been in relation to diplomatic embassies – unlikely, in this case – or problems with military liaison, or some clandestine matter that I would not have been aware of.’

  Her voice was steady, calm, assured.

  ‘That’s all?’ Bajola nodded.

  ‘My guess: it related to communication between Fenris and the Ecclesiarchy that was kept quiet. Such things exist, you know. Perhaps Hjortur was the conduit.’

  Ingvar remembered how Hjortur had been – his frothing bravado, his thundering anger – and almost laughed out loud. Subtlety had not been his strong suit.

  ‘I find that unlikely.’

  Bajola looked equivocal. ‘Well, you knew him,’ she said. ‘But at some point his name came to the attention of a cardinal of the Ecclesiarchy, one who wielded considerable power. I have seen stranger things in the galaxy, but not many. If you do not know why that is then I cannot help you.’

  Ingvar drew in a long breath, tasting the last of the soot that still clung to his vox-grille. He turned Bajola’s words over in his mind. Silence fell across the chamber, broken only by the sporadic noises of trouble still rumbling across the city outside.

  ‘There is no lie in your voice,’ he said eventually. ‘But you are not telling me all you know.’

  Bajola half smiled – a strange, almost melancholy gesture – and lean
ed back in her chair.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘But even if you weren’t, I won’t take lectures from you about that.’

  Ingvar raised an eyebrow under his helm. ‘Which means?’

  ‘You understand me,’ said Bajola. ‘The Imperium we both serve and love is built on secrets. We use them to clothe ourselves, to wall ourselves in, and I swore vows never to disclose the secrets I was given to guard. I swore never to reveal the identity of those who conferred such privilege on me, nor those whom I was charged with protecting. Those vows were not lightly made. The secrecy that binds me is as sacred to me as your sword is to you.’

  She looked at him, and her eyes sparkled knowingly.

  ‘You are no stranger to secrets, Ingvar,’ she said. ‘You did not tell me what took you from Fenris for so many years, though I can guess, and if I am right you could not tell me even if you wished to. No force on this planet could compel you to speak, no matter how much I might desire to share the terrible sights you keep locked in your never-forgetting mind.’

  She leaned forwards in her chair. Her face lost its spectre of dry amusement and became earnest again.

  ‘For all that, I do not doubt that you are a servant of the Emperor and a loyal ally. You could extend the same courtesy to me.’

  Ingvar didn’t respond immediately. He watched the way her body moved – the confidence of it, the heaviness of her limbs, the comfort of knowing she was in her own demesne and surrounded by her own kind.

  Her chin jutted proudly. She held his gaze, looking up into his death-snarl mask fearlessly.

  A rune-signal flickered into life on his retinal display. Jorundur wanted to see him about something. Ingvar dismissed it. The Old Dog would have to hunt alone for a little longer.

  He reached up, released the air-seals and twisted his helm free. He mag-locked it to his belt and ran his fingers through sweat-stiff hair. The long tresses flopped over his armour’s gorget.

  He pushed himself away from the wall and advanced on Bajola. The disparity in their sizes was almost comical: his bulk, augmented by thicker plate and heavy pelts, dwarfed her slender frame.

  He stood over her and lowered his head towards hers.

  ‘I have no doubt of your loyalty,’ he said. His voice was a low murmur, one that resonated in his chest and echoed from the stone around him. ‘If I had, you would be dead where you sit.’

  His eyes bored into hers. For the first time, he saw a flicker of fear in her sleek features.

  ‘I will fight alongside you, Sister,’ he said. ‘I will serve the cause of this world as if it were the cause of my own, and before the end of this thing you will learn truly why I bear the name I do and what it means.’

  His grey eyes went flat.

  ‘But know this: my brothers are more than blood-kin to me. If I discover your silence has led to harm befalling them, I will come after you. Wherever you are, I will hunt you, and what the Fenryka hunt they find.’

  He grimaced, his leathery flesh creasing away from his fangs.

  ‘You would not like me as much then.’

  To her credit, Bajola retained eye-contact. She blinked once, then again, but never looked away. When she replied, her voice wavered but did not fail.

  ‘Then I thank the Throne I have nothing to hide,’ she said.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hafloí fought with two weapons, just as he did whenever he could, his axe in his right hand and his bolt pistol in his left. Older warriors, those who had honed their craft over centuries, would eventually settle on a preference for blade or ranged work, but he intended never to specialise. He enjoyed the interplay between axe-strike and pistol-kick, doling out death in equal quantities as he rampaged through the enemy. He relished the thick cut-and-drag of the metal on diseased flesh; he took delight in the action of the bolt pistol as it tore up body-armour and ripped through vehicle plate.

  He’d opened his throat since Gunnlaugur’s order, giving in to the urge that he had always had to shout and holler and whoop with the raw joy of killing. That had been how it was in his old pack, all of them flame-haired neophytes led by the brutal vaerangi Oje Redclaw. They’d taken joy in their work, laughing like savage children in the heart of battle, pushing every limit that was set for them, racing out to be the fastest, the most deadly, the strongest, the best.

  Járnhamar was different. He’d known it would be, but still the shock of it had been hard to get used to. From the long, hard training sessions back on Asaheim he’d learned just what it took to be a Grey Hunter. Olgeir was as strong as a mountain, Váltyr as quick as a snake, Jorundur as wily as an ice-drake. One on one they were all more than a match for him. Their sinews had hardened, their muscles had tempered, their combat-skills had been honed and honed again.

  And yet, for all that, they were missing something. Their joy had gone. They had all been fighting too long; the Long War had made their spirits shrivel even as it had toughened their bodies.

  Hafloí kicked out, plunging his boot into the reeling forehead of another plague-bearer. He loosed a single shot to halt the charge of another, jerked his axe-blade round harshly to decapitate a third. Flecks of blood circled him like debris swirling around a star, thrown up by the vicious hack, thrust and fire of his relentless movement.

  One chem-tanker already smouldered, its fuel tanks ruptured and its toxin-cylinder leaking. He could hear that the other one – the one taken on by Gunnlaugur and Váltyr – was reeling. The hordes of plague-raddled mortals had shaken off their shock and now lumbered into combat, but they had little with which to combat the unleashed wrath of the Wolves.

  ‘Hjá, brother!’ Hafloí roared to Baldr, leaping clear of a las-volley before blasting the firer’s head open with a return shot. ‘The next one waits!’

  Baldr was worrying him. On Fenris, Baldr had always been serenely, irritatingly in control. Olgeir had called him the quiet one, the calm presence at the centre of the pack.

  Now Baldr was shrieking, ripping into the enemy with a stark energy that surpassed even his own. Hafloí had never seen another Fenryka fight like it. Baldr’s movements were fast, too fast, careless and slapdash. If the enemy had been more competent he might have been in trouble; as it was, his sheer brutality was enough to daunt the trapped and panicked host of misshapen and plague-twisted. They were terrified of him, falling over themselves to flee his haphazard sword-strokes.

  ‘Forget this filth!’ Hafloí called out again. ‘The tanker!’

  No answer came over the comm. Baldr’s breathing was thick and wet, more like the wheezing of a dog than a man.

  Hafloí spun round, swinging his axe to clear space amid the milling host of mutants, looking up briefly to gauge the shape of the battle.

  Further down the ravine the remaining four tankers had slowed, grinding to a near-halt as the gorge-slopes descended into chaos around them. Their towering drive-units reared up above the swirling melee, underlit by eerie green glows, their engines churning as they struggled to change course.

  Hafloí glanced over at Baldr one last time. He remained busy slaughtering those around him, lost in a mist of blood and fury.

  ‘Skítja.’

  Giving up on him, Hafloí kicked into movement, sprinting after the next chem-tanker, firing at any plague-bearers who barred the way ahead and cutting down any who got too close. He wasn’t sure what he’d do when he arrived. He might vault up into the cab and take the tractor-section down, or maybe go for the engines with kraks. In any event it would be a worthy kill to add to his name, something that might gain him a little more respect from the warriors around him.

  He’d like that. For all their lack of mirth and vigour, for all their dreary fatalism, he’d still like their respect.

  He was barely ten metres away from the chem-tanker when he saw the Traitor stride out from the shadows. If he’d been more experienced he might have sensed hi
m earlier, though the fug of human filth clogging the ravine floor made it hard to pick out individual aromas. He might, though, have noticed the ever-heightening terror in the mortals he cut down so easily and seen that they weren’t just scared of him. As it was, consumed by the combat around him and fixed on the target ahead, he only saw the Traitor once he had lumbered into range.

  Once, he must have been like Hafloí: a loyal Space Marine of the Imperium decked in blessed power armour. Now he had been altered, had grown, bloating and twisting as the slow arts of the warp had worked their baleful influence. His ceramite plate was thick with poxy encrustation, like polyps of dirty coral layered over rotting stonework. He trod ponderously on huge, cloven hooves, and necrotic flesh burst through wound-like gouges in his breastplate and cuirass. A sweaty stink of fear hung over him, and hosts of flies followed his every movement, billowing around him like a shroud.

  Inexperienced as he was, Hafloí knew well enough what he faced.

  Plague Marine.

  His helm had once been an old Mark I issue but it had been ravaged almost beyond recognition. A dull green light spilled from hollow lenses, leaking across the decaying snarl of the vox-grille. A fused mass of tortured ironwork rose up over his shoulders, studded with loosely nailed skulls and pulsing with the ghost-flicker of unnatural energies. He carried a heavy glaive two-handed, and phosphor-dim witchlight glimmered over the pocked blade.

  As soon as he saw the Traitor, Hafloí felt his battle-joy transmute to blind rage. Deluded mortals were one thing; fallen brothers were another.

  ‘Allfather!’ he roared, charging towards the Traitor, loosing a hammering barrage of bolts from his pistol and twisting the axe-head to swing.

  The Plague Marine did not move fast. He could not match Hafloí’s pace and energy, and his reactions were sluggish.

  But he did not need to move fast. As the Blood Claw closed in on him, cracking a dozen rounds against its fist-thick battle-plate, the Traitor raised his glaive and levelled the point at him.