Hollow Beginnings

by Mark Clapham

  Neither Anvindr nor anyone else in the Imperium had any idea how the renamed Stumpgutz had managed to not only maintain his rule while suffering such a disability, but increase his power. Orks were dumb but treacherous, and wouldn’t hesitate to depose an injured or crippled leader. For Stumpgutz to prosper, the warboss would have to be something much more than the orks under his command.

  The mass of orks that filled the throne room surged towards Anvindr and his Wolves as one tumultuous green mass of savage muscle. Looming over the horde were four great orks, presumably Stumpgutz’s bodyguards, dressed from head to foot in crude armour plating, with bucket-like helmets over their heads, wielding hatchets as well as stubby, over-sized pistols.

  The gretchin and common orks were the first to reach the Wolves, who found themselves engaging ork warriors hand-to-hand while kicking away the smaller, dome-headed creatures trying to stab at the joints in their power armour.

  ‘Sindri, help me give Tormodr space to clear this rabble,’ shouted Anvindr, slamming a boot down on the skull of one gretchin while elbowing an ork in its thick jaw. ‘Hoenir, Gulbrandr, take the first chance to engage those big brutes. I want a path to the boss.’

  The Wolves all stepped back a little, forming a circle around Tormodr, then as the big wolf readied his flamer, Sindri and Anvindr surged forward, slashing wildly with their chainswords, sweeping low to hack through the skulls of gretchin and the knees of orks, pushing back the forward line.

  ‘Make way, make way!’ said Sindri, slashing back and forth. ‘Brother Tormodr has some difficult buttons to adjust. Give him space.’

  Tormodr boomed some filthy words relating to Sindri’s tribal ancestry, then shouted ‘Clear!’

  Anvindr and Sindri rolled out of the way, letting the ork rabble surge forward over their injured and dead comrades, only for Tormodr to flame the lot of them. The ork advance faltered and tripped over itself, the dead and the dying blocking the way of those trying to both advance and retreat, and the flame scorched them all while the other Wolves fired into the carnage.

  ‘The smell...’ said Sindri in disgust. Anvindr grunted. He hated it too, but it was not very... wolf-like to express the sentiment that way. Typical Sindri.

  Tormodr’s roasting of the orks was interrupted by a shot from one of the over-sized pistols wielded by the helmeted ork guards, which exploded near Tormodr’s feet with enough force to knock the huge Wolf brother backwards, his flamer setting part of the high ceiling alight.

  The pack were already returning fire, with Gulbrandr firing precise bolt-rounds over the heads of the shorter orks, but these seemed to do limited damage to the ork guards’ thick armour. One took a well-placed bolt from Gulbrandr to the chest, only to keep walking with just a dent in his plate to show for it.

  ‘Get close and take these down now, quickly,’ bellowed Anvindr. ‘I want that boss.’

  ‘Nice easy orders,’ shouted Sindri back. ‘Should only take a second.’

  Then the guards were upon them, shoving through the blackened remains that littered the throne room, kicking aside charred corpses. Anvindr ran towards the nearest ork, which thrust its crude dagger towards him. Anvindr lunged to the side, the thick blade cutting the air beside him. Gripping the handle of the ork weapon in one hand, Anvindr lunged forward with his chainsword, aiming for the weak point between the ork’s armour and helmet. The chainsword found some initial purchase, digging in between the lip of the helmet and the chestplate to open up a gap, but began to grind with a hail of sparks. As Anvindr held the dagger out of the way, the ork brought its gun arm around to try and shoot Anvindr at point-blank range.

  Anvindr pushed back, letting go of both the chainsword and hatchet, and the ork stumbled without Anvindr to push against. Anvindr drew his bolter and fired just next to where the chainsword was jammed in place. The bolt-round found the point where the chainsword had created a small gap, and there was a muted thud as it exploded within the confines of the helmet. Blood dribbled from the helmet’s eye slits as the ork collapsed to the ground.

  Anvindr twisted his chainsword to pull it free and turned to see the rest of the pack overcoming the other ork guards – one was staggering around, smoke pouring out of the seams of its armour after Tormodr set it alight, while Hoenir had torn the helmet off another with his power fist, finishing it off with a bolt pistol.

  ‘Do you think the warboss is one of these?’ shouted Hoenir.

  Anvindr was about to answer when the double doors at the far end of the throne room were kicked open by a towering greenskin far taller than any present, a grotesquely over-sized ork wearing a mass of armour plating and furs, the skull of a Space Marine on one shoulder and a battered helmet on the other. The ork’s huge green hands were encrusted with barbed rings, and were wrapped around the shaft of a long, two-bladed axe.

  Stumpgutz.

  ‘Great Russ!’ exclaimed Sindri, lost for anything smart to say.

  ‘Now we know how this thing stayed boss for so long,’ said Anvindr.

  Stumpgutz did not walk in on the legs of an ork, that part of the legend was true. Instead he strode in on two long, pneumatic legs that dripped with oil, released hissing steam from the knees and ended in boot-shaped artificial feet that looked like they could kick a hole in a Rhino.

  Anvindr raised his bolter but Stumpgutz jumped, his pneumatic legs carrying him a quarter of the way across the chamber in one leap. He landed with an impact that rocked the whole room, throwing up dust that mingled with the thickening smoke from the fires consuming the fortress.

  Stumpgutz went straight for Anvindr, swinging the giant axe around in a long arc, catching the barrel of Anvindr’s gun. It was barely a scratch, but the incredible force of the axe blow was enough to wrench the bolter out of Anvindr’s hands and nearly pull him off his feet.

  As Anvindr righted himself, revving up his chainsword, Stumpgutz was already swiping at the others with his axe, the great warboss stomping back and forth across the throne room with mechanical strides that shook the very ground, bolt-rounds exploding around it. Gulbrandr managed to hit the warboss in the shoulder, causing a howl of rage from the giant ork, but otherwise none of the Wolves’ shots managed to hit home. They were on the defensive.

  ‘Anvindr!’ warned Hoenir, and Anvindr saw the axe swing in his direction once more. He leapt over the huge, flat axe head, then prepared for the return swing, bracing himself against the ground and raising his chainsword. While the previous swing had cut low, this one came in high, and would have taken Anvindr’s head clean off his shoulders if he had had nothing to raise in his defence.

  As it was, the chainsword barely stopped the axe. The two weapons clashed with an impact that shuddered through Anvindr’s body, every muscle straining as he struggled to hold his chainsword firm. The force of the blow pushed him backwards, his boots scuffing the dirt. The teeth of the weapon screamed against the rough metal of the axe head, sparks flying and machinery grinding.

  ‘Yield, you green wretch!’ shouted Anvindr as he forced every iota of his strength into pushing the chainsword.

  Stumpgutz roared and twisted the handle in its grip, applying both hands to the job, turning the axe to force it downwards and letting gravity add to the pressure on Anvindr. Teeth began to fly off the chainsword and it sputtered. The chain broke and suddenly Stumpgutz’s axe was cleaving through the metal of the chainsword itself, an increasingly thin strip of metal and component parts between the axe and Anvindr’s skull.

  ‘Now, while I hold him back,’ said Anvindr to his pack.

  Gulbrandr was first to move in for the kill, but Stumpgutz lashed out with one of his mechanical legs, kicking the Wolf in his helmless head so hard his jaw shattered, the bottom half of his face crumpling beneath the blow. The impact knocked him aside, but before he was out of sight Anvindr saw a copious spurt of blood come from his ruined face.

  There was no time to worry abo
ut Gulbrandr, as both Hoenir and Tormodr were running to Anvindr’s aid. Hoenir used the body of a dead ork as a step to launch himself into the air, raising his power fist high.

  ‘For Russ!’ shouted Hoenir. Anvindr’s chainsword was about to break in two when Hoenir dropped, bringing his power fist down where Stumpgutz’s wrists overlapped, causing the ork to release the weapon with a howl. Stumpgutz battered Hoenir aside with one huge hand, tremendously strong even with a damaged wrist, but by then Tormodr was in close with his flamer.

  ‘Burn, xenos filth,’ he rumbled, a torrent of promethium from his flamer causing the ork to bellow further still, stumbling backwards across the chamber, unsteady on his tall artificial legs.

  Anvindr knew this was his moment, while Stumpgutz was off-balance. He ran straight at the warboss, firing a burst from his bolter, and this time Stumpgutz was too busy trying to stay on his feet to dodge. Bolter-rounds slammed into Warboss Stumpgutz’s head and torso, some deflected by armour but others exploding within vulnerable flesh. He stumbled again, managing to control his descent enough to land on one knee rather than fall flat.

  Then Sindri was in close, rolling beneath the wild flail of an arm by Stumpgutz, swinging upwards to jam his own chainsword into the warboss’ neck.

  ‘Hold him!’ cried Sindri, and as Stumpgutz scrambled to grab him and pull the Space Wolf away, one long arm was seized by Hoenir’s power fist while another was held by Tormodr, who wrapped himself around it to hold it back. Stumpgutz’s bionic legs scraped back and forth against the rocky floor but couldn’t help him escape.

  He roared with rage, unleashing a torrent of incomprehensible orkish insults.

  As his brothers held the warboss down, Anvindr ran up to Sindri and put his hands over Sindri’s on the chainsword.

  ‘Together!’ he cried, adding his strength, helping Sindri to force the chainblade deep into the sinew of the warboss’ neck. Blood poured down the blade, the motion of the teeth dispersing it as a fine red spray.

  Then any resistance against the chainblade was gone, and with a judder Warboss Stumpgutz, scourge of the Alixind System, finally died.

  The ork’s limbs went limp, allowing Tormodr and Hoenir to let go, dropping them to the floor. Anvindr let go of Sindri and stepped back.

  ‘They never die easily, do they?’ sighed Hoenir, flat on his back.

  Sindri put his booted foot to the dead ork’s chin and used it as leverage to pull his chainsword free.

  ‘Anvindr,’ Sindri said with a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth, ‘will you have the honour of taking the head yourself?’

  Sindri gestured towards the dead warboss, then gave an exaggerated look of shock at where Anvindr’s chainsword lay broken on the floor.

  ‘Careless,’ he said, shaking his head sadly. ‘Careless, to break your weapon like that.’

  ‘I recognise my failing,’ replied Anvindr drily, ‘and will be sure to correct it.’

  Then he remembered Gulbrandr.

  ‘Take the head,’ Anvindr told Sindri, running over to where Gulbrandr had fallen. He could not believe that in his moment of victory he had briefly forgotten one of his pack was down. What was victory if the pack did not claim it as one?

  Gulbrandr was lying still on the filthy ground, face down so that Anvindr could not see his injuries, just the pool of blood spreading beneath him.

  Anvindr was about to turn Gulbrandr over on to his back when a gauntlet on his shoulder stopped him.

  ‘Easy,’ said Sindri. ‘I saw the blow, turn him over without care and you might worsen the wound.’

  ‘Didn’t I order you to take the beast’s head?’ Anvindr spat.

  There was a revving of Sindri’s chainsword from across the chamber, the grinding of the sword digging into thick muscle and bone.

  ‘Young Hoenir is fit to the task,’ said Sindri. ‘I felt over-dressed still holding my sword, now you have chosen to discard yours. Let’s turn our brother together.’

  Anvindr nodded, and he and Sindri carefully turned Gulbrandr over, Sindri reaching under to support Gulbrandr’s neck at the back as Anvindr shifted the bulk of his armoured weight.

  It was an ugly wound. Stumpgutz’s powerful kick had indeed crushed Gulbrandr’s jaw and torn open part of his neck, a wound that continued to bleed, albeit slower than before. His eyes were closed, the lids grey.

  ‘Brother?’ asked Sindri. ‘Do you still live?’

  There was a grunt and a cough from Gulbrandr, blood trickling down from the centre of his mouth. He didn’t open his eyes, but tried to speak, finding that the words would not come from his broken face. Gulbrandr collapsed into a further series of coughs, spitting blood.

  ‘Silence brother, the boss is dead,’ said Anvindr. ‘Do not try and speak, let us help you stand.’

  Anvindr and Sindri helped Gulbrandr to his feet. He was a dead weight.

  Around them, the smoke in the throne room was thickening. Anvindr heard a rumble and a creak from somewhere nearby. A large flaming pylon toppled from high above, and landed nearby with a crash and shower of cinders.

  ‘Hoenir, get that head,’ said Anvindr. ‘Tormodr, come help carry Gulbrandr. We need to leave before this place collapses in on itself.’

  They regrouped following the attack that had left Barro dead. Captain Anju Badya and her squad had spent hours riding back and forth searching for escaping orks. There had been the occasional individual greenskin, but the squad had not been overrun again.

  Their patrols had brought them to a position with a clear view of the fortress. Most of that structure was now a skeleton of blackened wreckage, with only a few visible fires burning.

  Captain Badya hadn’t seen any ork survivors in a while.

  One of her riders whistled for her attention. She turned to watch as a large section of exterior wall collapsed like an avalanche, a stretch covering perhaps a sixth of the fortress perimeter just falling in on itself, huge chunks of blackened metal rolling across the plain, followed by an expanding cloud of ash.

  ‘Nothing’s walking out of there,’ said Khai, wounded but still alive.

  It was then that they saw the figures, the same five that had disappeared into the fortress earlier.

  Five Space Wolves, one of whom was carrying one of his fellows on his back, while another carried the largest ork head that Captain Anju Badya had ever seen.

  ‘Ejad,’ shouted Badya. ‘Ride to the Wolves and tell them that their brothers return, and they have both their prize and injured.’

  Ejad nodded wordlessly, pulled on the reins of his horse and rode away back towards camp.

  With the head retrieved, the cannons resumed firing for a few hours to pound the remains of Warboss Stumpgutz’s fortress into the ground, and then all was silence on the plain of Durrl. The Alixind campaign was over.

  As night fell, celebrations began in the encampments of the Imperium forces. For the last months of the campaign, the Tallarn 14th and the Fourth Company of the Space Wolves had been encamped here in a sprawling temporary city of tents and mobile support units. Now the campfires burned high, and desert riders and Wolf brothers alike gathered to celebrate their victory.

  They did so separately in their own ways. The Tallarns, as was their way, sat close around the fires, conserving warmth against the hard desert night, talking in low whispers of comrades lost in battles both recent and long ago.

  The Space Wolves had their own traditions.

  ‘My money is on the youngster,’ said Sindri, in between gulps from a large tankard. ‘Tormodr may have strength on his side, but Hoenir has youth.’

  ‘Youth?’ replied Anvindr, snorting. ‘Hoenir has exactly as many winters behind him as you.’

  ‘And am I not still young, even after all these decades?’ demanded Sindri in mock outrage.

  Yes, you are, thought Anvindr, looking upon Sindri’s unlined fac
e in the firelight. But he didn’t say that out loud.

  With Anvindr silent, Sindri looked elsewhere for support. He turned as if to find Gulbrandr, who usually sat back from the fire, then remembered that Gulbrandr wasn’t there. He was recovering, and would continue to recover, but his absence was felt around the fire. They were a close pack, whatever their differences, and any absence amongst them was always felt.

  ‘Brother Gulbrandr would support me,’ said Sindri stubbornly.

  ‘When he wakes, you will already have been proven wrong,’ said Anvindr.

  Gulbrandr had been lucky. A blow that hard would cut the thread of a normal human, but Gulbrandr was a Space Marine and would recover once his jaw had been rebuilt.

  Sindri was about to object to Anvindr, but the fight began before he could speak. Tormodr and Hoenir were wearing most of their armour, but without their helmets or the pelts and adornments that might provide treacherous handholds. They ran at each other and fell into a grappling hold, both trying to bring the other to the ground. When they clashed it was with a great clang and a shriek of metal as their breastplates smashed into each other then ground together.

  Sindri made a gagging noise, as if his drink was foul.

  ‘That sound!’ he exclaimed over the metallic grinding. ‘It’s like knives sharpening in my skull, a stink for the ears.’

  Anvindr couldn’t help laughing.

  Hoenir had the advantage, as Sindri had said he would. Hoenir had a better footing, and beneath Tormodr’s thick grey moustache his mouth was set in a grimace of effort as he tried to maintain his position.

  It seemed to be all over as Tormodr lost his footing and began to be pulled over by Hoenir, but then Tormodr stepped right into a stronger position, and allowed Hoenir’s own momentum to cause the red-headed warrior to slip forward. Tormodr took advantage of that momentum to grab Hoenir by the waist and pitch him face forward into the fire with a crunch of burning timber.