The youngsters yelled and whooped in reply. Cogfang howled among them, his cry ringing through the Stormwolf’s hull like an alarm as a red warning rune flashed on Anvarr’s tac-display.
Something was closing in on him from behind, moving at unthinkable speed. The Iron Priest felt the engine judder beneath him, and could have sworn he heard a ghostly laugh.
Clad in elegant black carapace, Iruthyr Xynariis, Archon of the Kabal of the Forked Tongue, stalked towards the invading savages like a huge venomous insect. He was grateful for the opportunity to vent his displeasure. His raiding party’s webway portals had shattered upon entry to this world. Sabotaged. Agents of the Book of Sorrows, his rival Kabal, were the obvious culprits. As if this were not humiliation enough, he had been forced not only to abort his latest raid, but also to take refuge in this stinking human burrow.
Three armoured apes blocked his exit from the control room, their maskless faces grimacing amid flashes of booming gunfire. Iruthyr vaulted over an exploding control console and scuttled over toppled furniture as a trail of blasts chased him across the room, destroying an entire wall of surveillance monitors. A short while ago, Iruthyr and his exhausted raiders had been availing themselves of the humans that had been stationed here, feasting on their tortured screams. Then the apes’ assault pods had landed overhead, shaking the bunkers’ foundations and spoiling the meticulous flesh-peeling he had been performing upon a shrieking captive.
Iruthyr rose from behind cover and fired his splinter pistol twice and with seeming carelessness. Spikes of poisoned crystal punctured the eyes of the two bearded savages closing in on him. Iruthyr slithered between them as they toppled to the floor, their blue-grey power armour clattering as the bodies inside convulsed in agony. The dark eldar sidestepped another clumsy burst of gunfire and slid his huskblade into the shooter’s throat. Iruthyr shuddered with pleasure, feeling his muscles invigorated by the pain radiating from his victim. He watched the ape’s face shrink into a withered brown skull before withdrawing the blade and sprinting through the nearby exit, splinter pistol in hand.
The corridor outside rang with nearby bolter blasts as Iruthyr bounded through a set of double doors and into the elevated tunnel that led to the station’s hangar bay. Here his beloved Razorwing jetfighter sat undamaged, fully fuelled, its missiles unspent. Dust hissed against a porthole beside him as a booming shadow passed overhead.
He peered outside and saw a huge blue-grey vessel, a gunship by the look of it. Its ramp yawned in mid-air, disgorging several wild-eyed apes wearing bulky jump packs, each waving a chainsword as they leapt one by one from the gunship. Through the opposite window, Iruthyr saw another gunship circling nearby, flanked by two more, each with a huge ice-blue cannon embedded in its snout. Iruthyr felt a flicker of disbelief as he considered the possibility that his raiding party – veterans of countless incursions, selected from among the finest mercenaries and murder-artists of Commorragh – could actually be slaughtered by these brainless animals.
One of the gunships exploded in mid-air.
Iruthyr flinched as a ball of fire tore the vessel apart in a shower of debris and burning bodies. Three bat-like shadows streaked overhead as the shattered gunship sank, crashing to the ground with a boom that shook the corridor.
Iruthyr’s communicator crackled into life.
‘Brother?’ a familiar voice purred. ‘Are you there?’
‘Izabella,’ Iruthyr gasped.
‘You sound surprised.’
Iruthyr fumbled for an answer to the contrary as he watched the remaining gunships scatter, the streaking shadows driving them into the air with volleys of disintegrator fire. Clearly, the apes had not expected a rescue attempt either.
‘After all this time,’ Izabella said. ‘After everything we have built together, have you not yet learned that the Kabal of the Forked Tongue stands for the two of us, or it does not stand at all?’
Iruthyr heard approaching cries and ran down the corridor as more explosive rounds tore open the wall beside him. He turned to see another gaggle of apes pounding towards him.
Iruthyr ducked as he heard the familiar whine of an approaching monoscythe missile. The projectile pierced an overhead skylight and detonated in the midst of his enemies, bursting into a sizzling halo that decapitated the apes and destroyed the surrounding walls. Long-haired heads rolled for an instant on a dwindling shelf of energy, then dropped to the floor.
‘I have another present for you, brother,’ Izabella said as her twin scrambled to his feet. ‘Captured saboteurs of the Book of Sorrows. I have prepared them as part of a pain-feast to celebrate your return to Commorragh. But first, won’t you join me in this little appetiser…?’
Iruthyr laughed as he ran towards the hangar bay.
Another burst of disintegrator fire slammed into the Stormwolf’s snout, punching the ship into a spin that turned the world outside Anvarr’s canopy into a whirl of smoke and flashing gunfire. The Iron Priest grunted as he heaved at the sticks, arresting his turn in time to lance the air where he calculated his enemy would appear, but his las-bolts strafed nothing but empty sky. Another shadow screamed past him as Kaarle’s and Varg’s enraged curses crackled over the vox. The wreckage of Eadric’s Stormwolf smoked nearby as Anvarr struggled to dismiss the thought that his failure to honour the machine-spirit had not gone unnoticed by the Omnissiah, and that his brothers were now paying the price for his dishonour.
He voxed the two gunships as he saw a red arrowhead on his tac-display streak towards him from behind, preparing to fire upon his exposed tail.
‘They’re trying to scatter us,’ he said. ‘But they’re moving too fast to be accurate.’
He heaved his Stormwolf to one side, avoiding another blazing disintegrator beam as the crescent-winged jetfighter sliced past him. The craft was sleek and black, veined with green, its barbed fins like those of a venomous fish. Razorwings, the xenos called them, named after some predatory alien bird. Anvarr blasted after it with his heavy bolters, but the jet merely twirled aside, peeling away to commence another run.
Anvarr wheeled hard, the battleground rising into a wall beside him. The xenos were swarming now. Those that had escaped the bunker were leaping aboard open-topped skiffs, which must have arrived alongside the fighters. The skiffs’ crews helped their comrades aboard, handing them masks to protect their eyes from the crystal splinters churned into clouds by the aircraft that thundered above them. The rescued xenos took up position and fired their rifles at the bunkers where Skaldr’s Wolf Guard now crouched, pinned behind cover. Small-arms fire rattled upon the ceramite hide of Anvarr’s prowling Stormwolf as the Razorwing dived overhead.
He glanced at his tac-display. Every time Kaarle and Varg moved to deploy their troops behind the xenos’ skiffs, a Razorwing dived at them, seemingly out of nowhere, and cut them off. Even if the gunships could land, their troops would likely be cut down by the swooping fighters. His assault wing was being worn down and prised apart.
‘Abort deployment,’ Anvarr growled over the vox. He swung his Stormwolf hard to port. Kaarle’s Stormfang reeled into view on the other side of the station, dodging twin beams of disintegrator fire from the Razorwing above him.
‘Ignore the ground for now,’ Anvarr voxed. ‘Let us tear these three little birds from the sky first. For Eadric! For the Allfather!’
Anvarr charged towards the distant Stormfang, intent upon destroying the xenos fighter bearing down on Kaarle’s gunship, heedless of the other fighter the Iron Priest knew was closing on his own tail. The heavy snout of his Stormwolf dipped as he accelerated, the battleground rising to meet him, rifle fire sparking on his armoured canopy. His augmented brain engaged in myriad calculations, Anvarr felt the engine rumble beneath him. He commenced a prayer of invocation to the machine-spirit, surrendering himself to instinct as he corrected his approach, training his attention upon the area behind Kaarle’s Stormfang where the xenos figh
ter would appear. As he closed in, he realised he had not taken fire from the Razorwing behind him.
A shadow enveloped the cockpit. Anvarr looked up to see the fighter hovering upside down above him. Unlike the ships of its two wingmen, the fighter was not black, but a livid purple, its canopy wavering a few feet from his own. The dark eldar pilot was female. She wore no flight helmet, her red-and-black hair hanging in a ponytail as she gazed down at the Iron Priest, oblivious to the streaking gunfire that surrounded them. He was close enough to see that her hooded eyes regarded him with a mingled look of curiosity and disgust, as though he were a dead animal about to be dissected.
Anvarr concluded his prayer to the machine-spirit as he brought two sets of weapons to bear.
‘I’ll give you something to watch,’ he growled. The helfrost turret whirred into life above his head and he sensed the heavy bolters lock at his sides, feeling their weight as though he held them in his own hands.
He thumbed both fire buttons a split second before the xenos fighter appeared in his sights, expecting to hit the ship dead centre, destroying it with a single blow.
Both weapons stalled and the fighter flashed past unmolested. Anvarr cursed aloud, glaring in rage as the fighter released another burst from its disintegrators, destroying a rack of missiles in the flank of Kaarle’s Stormfang.
He commenced a prayer of entreaty as he pulled up after it, but the xenos fighter was faster and rose out of sight. The machine-spirit had refused Anvarr’s plea, allowing the ammunition feeds to become misaligned, or perhaps static to have impeded the targeting relays, denying him glory and perhaps costing his packmates their lives. Such was the price of his failure.
The purple Razorwing followed him, still hovering above his head. Anvarr punched the inside of his canopy, cursing with rage. The dark eldar woman laughed as she pulled back, dazzling Anvarr as sunlight flooded his cockpit. She corkscrewed into position behind him, chasing him as he climbed after the other fighter, which curved back to continue its attack upon Kaarle.
Anvarr bared his fangs as the speeding fighter wavered into his sights. He slowed enough to achieve a target lock, although he knew he would need to accelerate if he had any hope of evading the blast about to tear into his tail. Anvarr fired his heavy bolters and prayed.
Shuddering thunder answered him as the bolters pounded long lines of explosive rounds into the fighter’s path, stitching fire across its left wing as it zipped past. An explosion threw Anvarr forward in his seat. Warning runes glimmered on his tac-display as the ship dipped to one side. He had lost one of his thrusters. Another was badly damaged. As he pulled aside, he saw the fighter he had wounded roll directly in front of his packmate’s Stormfang. The vessel’s helfrost cannon spat a dazzling blast that enveloped the black Razorwing, freezing it white. The xenos fighter tumbled to the rocky ground where it shattered like porcelain.
Anvarr turned his helfrost turret to face the fighter behind him. He fired wildly, thanking the machine-spirit for not disabling the weapon permanently. The disintegrator bolts that lanced the air either side of him ceased as the purple Razorwing peeled away in search of easier prey. The Iron Priest gave chase as quickly as his shattered thruster array would allow.
‘My thanks, Anvarr,’ Kaarle voxed. ‘I shall sing your sagas louder than thunder.’
Anvarr grunted.
‘Deploy your troops to the south-west,’ he said.
Kaarle retreated, leaving Anvarr to cruise after the purple Razorwing. The Iron Priest fired his lascannons at the fighter’s rear, but the vessel dodged every volley, rolling aside each time as if pestered by insects.
‘Anvarr!’
It was Skaldr.
‘We grow lonely down here behind cover,’ he voxed. ‘Any chance of some company, brother?’
‘Kaarle’s sending you a bellyful of Long Fangs,’ Anvarr replied. ‘They shall bite the xenos’ flanks shortly.’
The purple Razorwing had joined its remaining wingman in attacking Varg’s smoking Stormfang, the two fighters like moths battering a dying flame.
‘Tell the elders to hurry,’ Skaldr voxed. ‘The xenos seem to think there are enough of them to take us alive. I would hate to have to prove them wrong.’
‘Give us time enough to kill the rest of these vermin,’ Anvarr said. ‘Just two of them left now.’
A third xenos fighter flashed before him, rocketing up from the station below, forcing Anvarr into a tight swerve. As he swung back to face Varg’s besieged gunship, he saw the purple Razorwing break away and race to meet the newcomer, another Razorwing of the same hue. Anvarr braced himself, expecting the pair to collide head-on, but the twin fighters snapped into a climb at the last second, spinning skywards in perfect unison. The other Razorwing joined the greeting display and the three ships peeled apart at the apex of their climb, curling backwards like the petals of a blossoming rose, then dived back down towards the crippled Stormfang.
Anvarr’s damaged thruster shrieked as he accelerated, firing madly at the three descending fighters. Kaarle joined the barrage, his own Stormfang closing at Anvarr’s flank, his cargo of Long Fangs safely deployed.
Together the Space Wolves ships lanced the air relentlessly, firing bolt after bolt of helfrost above their injured packmate, eventually scattering all three fighters, forcing them to flee like startled crows. A pair of missiles had already sizzled out from beneath one of the Razorwings, but the projectiles detonated either side of Varg’s gunship, exploding into haloes of energy that showered the wounded vessel with rocks and dust.
Anvarr and Kaarle had saved Varg’s Stormfang from complete destruction, but its thrusters were already ruined, leaking columns of smoke as the vessel lowered majestically. The Stormfang’s snout ploughed through the crags in the direction of the dark eldar skiffs, threatening to topple onto its side before eventually grinding to a halt on its belly. Anvarr and Kaarle circled the grounded ship, like wolves guarding a kill. Anvarr targeted the approaching skiffs as Kaarle prowled the air above him, protecting his alpha against the Razorwings’ next attack.
Anvarr saw Varg’s Long Fangs batter open the rear exit of the crashed Stormfang, their faces streaked with blood. Their life signs scrolled and glimmered in his tac-display. Varg’s did not.
The air above him suddenly streamed with heavy bolter fire as Kaarle drove off the weaving Razorwings. Anvarr pummelled the dark eldar skiffs with las-fire, covering the wounded Long Fangs as they limped and stumbled behind the cover of the rocks. His ship’s tac-display was a riot of warning runes, while Kaarle’s Stormfang appeared relatively intact. But the three Razorwings threatened to slip past them both and turn the advancing Long Fangs into a crater. A xenos skiff exploded amid bolts of heavy las-fire as the Long Fangs claimed their first kill. Anvarr felt a rush of battle-hunger and gained altitude to join Kaarle.
He prayed again, imploring the machine-spirit for forgiveness, turned and was blessed with the sight of the two purple Razorwings nearing his target lock. He fired helfrost cannons and bolters together, targeting both fighters at once.
His weapons seized once again.
Defiance and rage burned within the Iron Priest as he surged after the fighters. If skill and valour in battle was the price demanded by the machine-spirit, then Anvarr Rustmane, Iron Priest of the Deathwolves, was prepared to give more than suitable tribute.
He voxed his remaining wingman.
‘Our brothers on the ground look bored, Kaarle,’ he growled. ‘Let’s give them a display such as would inspire Russ himself!’
Kaarle howled down the vox in agreement, and the Space Wolves ships loped after the streaking Razorwings.
Skaldr Frostbiter broke cover, several of his packmates howling behind him. As he ran, the pack leader emptied the clip of his bolt pistol into the xenos pirates that clustered behind the spent drop pod. He beheaded the last of them with a backhand swipe of his chainsword as he
skidded into cover behind the ceramite plating of the downed gunship. His packmates joined him as he looked up at the Space Wolves ships tearing after the xenos fighters above them. White bolts of helfrost and golden spears of disintegrator fire criss-crossed beneath the glaring sun as the Iron Priests fought to prevent the enemy from loosing their missiles upon the Space Wolves below.
More dark eldar pounced upon Skaldr’s men from the nearby crags, wearing horned masks and twirling strange two-handed swords that flashed in the sun. Skaldr’s chainsword sparked as he parried a sweeping blow at his neck, grabbing the creature and slamming his forehead into its mask, shattering the skull beneath. Another blow glanced off his pauldron and he charged at his attacker, aiming to drive his shoulder into the creature’s chest. But the nimble xenos dodged aside, spilling him onto the ground. Before the dark eldar blade could meet Skaldr’s neck, a thick las-bolt exploded from the xenos’ chest, spraying ash and blackened bone.
The pack of wounded Long Fangs who had clambered from the ruined Stormfang were crouched atop a nearby ridge. They pumped heavy las-fire into the retreating xenos swordsmen as Skaldr and his packmates recovered and ducked behind the drop pod, their advance momentarily secure. The Long Fangs turned and directed their fire at the xenos skiffs pinning the rest of the Wolf Guard within the bunkers. Their las-fire ripped into the jagged craft of the dark eldar, shattering their black carapace and scattering their screaming riders, each of whom was then calmly blasted into smoking pieces. The veteran Space Wolves held the line, shielding their flank with an outcrop of rock, their faces weary, almost bored by their own mastery of battle.
Skaldr needed to order the rest of his Wolf Guard forward to support the Long Fangs, before the xenos could regroup and overwhelm them with their superior weight of numbers. He went to vox his command when he was thrown to the ground by a blast of air. Silence fell for an instant and Skaldr assumed he had been deafened. Then the clamour of rifle and bolter fire returned as he got to his feet and peered through a cloud of glittering dust.
On Wings of Blood Page 26