In any case, he’d given the order at last. The causeways had been emptied of his troops, and now the enemy swarmed toward the open doors of the Fang. The closest of them were only a few hundred metres distant. A price had been extracted for their assault up the slopes, but only fate would tell whether it had been enough.
‘How stands Bloodfire?’ Greyloc voxed calmly, watching the front ranks of the enemy sweep towards him.
‘Clear, Jarl,’ came Skrieya’s reply from the far side of the mountain.
‘Good. You have command there.’
With a final gesture of defiance, he withdrew at last from his position and loped down into the vast maw of the gates.
Once in cover again, he went swiftly, running from the ruined areas into the vaulted spaces of the entrance halls. Massive statues passed by in the flickering dark, stern-faced warriors of old lining the passage into the mountain. Runes of intimidation and destruction had been carved deep into the living rock above them. Never had a living foe seen those figures, nor set foot on the hallowed portals. In moments, though, hundreds of the enemy would surge past the graven images, racing to complete what they’d started on the causeways.
No defenders would oppose them there. The halls were empty. No barricades had been raised, no fire pits dug, no gun-emplacements mounted. As Greyloc sped into the heart of the mountain, only his heavy treads resounded from the rough floor.
After a kilometre, the tunnel ended and Greyloc burst into a high vaulted chamber lit with roaring hearthfires. This was the division of the ways, where the single entry route running into the Fang branched off into other corridors and elevator shafts. The great seal of Russ hung from a gigantic chain in the centre of it.
Here the defenders waited. There were Rossek, Cloudbreaker, Rojk and Wyrmblade. All stood defiant, waiting for the arrival of their lord. The surviving Wolves were there too, reloading weapons and making hasty repairs to their armour. Further back, mortal troops bustled back and forth, doing their best to meet the expectations of the unforgiving huskaerls. Stretcher-bearers went among them, hauling the wounded away from the front and deep into the heart of the citadel. Box-guns rotated into firing positions, their squat barrels locked on the arch Greyloc had just come through.
None of those things caught Greyloc’s attention as he entered the chamber. One figure alone dominated the massive space, reducing even the Terminator-clad warriors around him to pale, childlike shadows. In the centre of the hall, directly under Russ’s seal, was the legend.
As he laid eyes on Bjorn, Greyloc felt hope leap in his heart again.
With no thought of honour or entitlement, he fell to his knees.
‘You answered the call, lord,’ he said, and there was joy in that weary voice.
The Dreadnought lowered its claw and ponderously beckoned him to rise.
You are Jarl Greyloc?
‘I am,’ said the Wolf Lord, getting to his feet.
And you plan to make your stand here?
As Bjorn spoke, the first sounds of pursuit began to come down the corridor behind Greyloc, distorted by the echoing chambers beyond. There were thousands of footfalls in the distance, a crescendo of aggressive battle cries, all from troops intent on resuming the slaughter they’d been denied by the Wolves’ retreat.
‘I do not.’
Bjorn said nothing, but inclined his torso fractionally in an almost-human gesture of questioning. Greyloc smiled, and nodded to Wyrmblade.
‘Now, Thar,’ he said.
The Wolf Priest took up a detonator and depressed the control rune.
The explosions boomed out instantly. Fireballs erupted all along the kilometre-long tunnels, breaking the rock shells around them and caving them in. The sharp bang of detonation was quickly replaced by the rolling roar of the heavy roof sections falling in, burying any invaders that had made it inside.
A bow-wave of rubble flew into the chamber of the seal, carrying the last screams of the crushed on its wings. Outside the Fang, huge columns of black dust rose from the collapsed Bloodfire and Sunrising Gates. Loosened rocks around the portal entrances rolled down the slopes, causing havoc in the companies of soldiers preparing to follow their comrades in.
The flanks of the mountain shook. There were a few last, grudging booms from deep within. Then the dustclouds drifted into the night, ripped into shreds by the dying stormwind.
The Fang was sealed.
Bjorn looked down at Greyloc. The Wolf Lord looked back.
Nicely done, said Bjorn.
Chapter Thirteen
Gangava Prime. A dark world, far from its giant red star. As the solar terminator swept across the rust-red planetscape, the night-side sank deep into occlusion. There were pinpricks of artificial light all across the shadowed hemisphere, but they concentrated into a bright cluster towards the high northern latitude. Swirls of sulphur-yellow picked out a city. A vast, sprawling city.
From the bridge of the Russvangum, Ironhelm watched the lights wink on far below. The inhabitants of that place knew that the Wolves had arrived. They had detectors, sensor-arrays and void shields raised. The entire Chapter fleet, minus the few guard-ships left on Fenris, was now in high orbit. The firepower assembled there was immense, as great as anything pulled together during the Great Scouring. Gangava had no orbital defences, but they would have been an irrelevance anyway. Lean strike cruisers and ploughshare-bowed destroyers now prowled across the void with impunity, poised to unleash Hel on the world below them.
The Great Wolf felt a mix of emotions, looking down on the city he was about to destroy. He’d slept badly during the twenty-one days in the warp. Magnus had come to him in his dreams regularly, goading him, taunting his failure to catch up with him over the decades. Ironhelm hadn’t seen the face of the primarch, just as he hadn’t seen it over the many years of prior visitations.
But he had heard the voice. An unforgettable voice. Proud, powerful, cultivated, but with a touch of petulance that wasn’t quite under control. For all his primarch’s qualities, he now came across as a diminished, querulous presence.
My gene-father broke your back, monster.
Magnus had smirked at such defiance, but there was a residue of pain there. Real, mortal pain.
Brooding over the real space viewers in his private chambers, Ironhelm felt his fingers itch within their gauntlets. The journey had been too long. Only hours now remained before the drop pods would begin to fall, accelerating into a hail of dark seeds from the void, all aimed beyond the cover of the city’s shields.
Ironhelm saw the ingress routes in his mind’s eye. They were available at any time from his helm-display, but he knew he’d not have to use that. He could visualise all aspects of the battle as it would unfold. If he closed his eyes, the tactical outline would still be there, a pattern of hololith lines and deployment runes overlaid on the streets of the vast city.
Many in the galaxy believed that the Space Wolves were simply feral barbarians, brutes who charged headlong into battle yelling incomprehensible curses. Only later, when they found their supply lines severed, their comms jammed and their allies breaking out in rebellion behind them did they discover the weakness of that interpretation. Planning was everything, the coordination of pack movements, the encirclement of the prey, the cleanliness of the kill.
The Wolves were savage, but not savages. Gangava would be destroyed swiftly and without indulgence. Primarch or no, Magnus would come to regret his decision to establish himself within strike distance of Fenris.
There was a chime from the wall-unit behind him.
‘Come,’ Ironhelm said, without turning.
He heard the heavy treads of Kjarlskar, together with the marginally lighter ones of Rune Priest Frei. The two armoured giants came to stand alongside the Great Wolf.
‘All is prepared?’ asked Ironhelm, his gaze still fixed on the planet below.
‘As you commanded,’ said Kjarlskar. ‘Nine Great Companies are primed for first-wave assaults; the reserves are rea
dy when needed.’
‘And word from Fenris?’
‘Scheduled astropathic updates,’ said Frei. ‘No news. I think they’re bored.’
Ironhelm laughed harshly.
‘Too bad. We’ll bring back trophies for them.’
Kjarlskar took a step closer to the viewers. His forces had been in orbit above the city for twenty-eight days. Ironhelm knew the Wolf Lord had been desperate to launch an attack during that time, but he’d followed his orders to maintain the blockade. Until the entire fleet had been mustered, not so much as a single bolter had been fired in anger.
‘You still sense him, Frei?’ Kjarlskar asked.
The Rune Priest nodded.
‘He’s down there. Just as he has been for weeks.’
Kjarlskar frowned.
‘Why so passive? This I will never understand.’
‘It was the same on Prospero,’ said Ironhelm calmly. ‘He trusts in sorcery to protect him, that we’ll be daunted by a few spells. It is inconceivable to him that anything, even the Rout, could threaten him in a citadel of his own making.’
‘And can we?’
Ironhelm turned to face the Jarl of the Fourth.
‘You sound doubtful, Arvek. I do not like that, not on the eve of battle.’
Kjarlskar wasn’t intimidated by Ironhelm’s tone. He was too old, too battle-wily, to care much about prestige or reputation.
‘Don’t intimate fear to me, lord, or even unwillingness – I would fight alongside you beyond the doors of Hel, and you know it. I just make explicit the question we all leave unsaid.’ He returned his master’s gaze evenly. ‘Have mortals ever killed a primarch in battle? Can it even be done?’
Ironhelm didn’t waver in his response.
‘I do not know, my friend,’ he replied. ‘Though before this is done, one way or another, the question will be answered.’
Another day dawned across the frigid wastes of Asaheim. The exterior of the Fang presented a charred, diminished aspect. The barrage of plasma from orbit had ceased, its work done. The rain of offensive artillery had also given out, as no defensive batteries still remained on the surface of the mountain to trouble them.
Smoke rose in dreary columns from the blackened rock walls. With the passing of the wyrd-summoned storm, the full extent of the devastation was illuminated by crisp morning sunlight.
The Thousand Sons now controlled both causeways. Their troops moved at will across the wide expanses of stone. Broken companies recovered their shape. Supplies were brought up to the battlefront and casualties taken away from it. More tanks crawled up the slopes, now free of interference from the defenders. The mountain stood alone, surrounded by a carpet of besiegers, its inhabitants buried deep in its interior. Except for the landing platforms still visible at the very summit, it could have been any other peak of Asaheim, lifeless and desolate.
As the sun climbed into the sky, Aphael made his way to an observation platform a kilometre from the scorched citadel. The cold was getting to him. His constitution should have made him functionally immune to such climatic extremes, especially when sealed in his armour, but still he shivered.
He knew the cause of it. The flesh-change was gaining speed. Aphael doubted whether he could take his helm off now even if he wanted to. The muscles in his fingers pressed painfully against the inside of his gauntlets. He was being altered. The initial response – disbelief – had given way to a fearful kind of resignation.
There would be some purpose behind the transformation. There was always some purpose. He just didn’t know what it was yet.
The platform was ringed by Rubric Marines. Few of them had died in the assault on the gates, though hundreds of mortals had perished. The savagery of the Wolves had been expected, and Aphael had used the vast forces at his command to blunt their peerless martial prowess. An individual Space Wolf was arguably the finest exponent of close combat in the galaxy, but even he could only kill a finite number of foes before being brought down.
Hett was waiting for him on the platform. His robes were ripped and charred from where his Rubric Marine squad had run into trouble. Aphael had heard stories of some of the Wolves descending into berserk rages and slaughtering dozens before they could be finished off. If so, that was all good. He had the troops to spare, and the lapses indicated the mental stress the Dogs were under.
‘A good night’s work, eh, Ramsez?’
The Raptora inclined his head in greeting.
‘For you, perhaps. I lost my Rubricae. Some crazed boy-Dog, going mad at the death of his mentor.’
‘Then you’ll have to take responsibility for some more, my friend.’
Aphael cast his gaze over to the smoking mountain. The once pristine cliffs were now a dirty brown. Fires still burned across the causeways where promethium had ignited. The stunning vista had already been turned into a cauldron of devastation.
We have achieved so much already, Dogs. Now watch as we defile your world some more.
‘It astonishes me,’ mused Hett, looking at the same view, ‘how quickly the Dogs are able to kill. I have never seen fighting like it. Any other force in the galaxy would have hidden behind those walls, waiting for us to come to them. Yet they met us in the open, fighting like daemons. What drives them? What makes them the way they are?’
Aphael shrugged.
‘Do I detect admiration, brother?’ he asked. ‘If so, it is misplaced. They were made to do the dirty work no other Legion would do. They are the exterminators, the vermin control of the Imperium. They cannot change, and they cannot improve. Just like us, they are imprisoned in the image of their primarch.’
At the mention of Russ, Hett made a warding gesture. Aphael laughed harshly.
‘Do not fear – he cannot come to their aid now, as you well know.’
Both sorcerers fell silent. Far below the platform, more heavily armoured vehicles were crawling their way through the ranks. They were of an ancient and obscure design, though a historian of the Imperial military would have been able to detect the faint emblem of the Legio Cybernetica on their flanks.
‘So what now?’ asked Hett.
‘It is as I said before, brother,’ replied Aphael, watching the vehicles with distracted interest. The feathers at his neck were irritating him. ‘The Cataphracts will be deployed. The Dogs have chosen to go to ground.’
Aphael took a deep, combat weary breath then, feeling the sharpness of the air even through the filters.
‘And we, my friend, have chosen to drill them out.’
Blackwing had resumed his place on the command throne of the Nauro. Neiman was back navigating the ship in his isolated chambers, and the remaining kaerls were at their stations. The course had been maintained, still at full speed despite the engines haemorrhaging fuel and coolant.
A standard Terran day had passed since the encounter with the Thousand Sons sorcerer and his mute bodyguard. It was a meaningless period of time, neither corresponding to the Fenrisian diurnal cycle nor the natural rhythm of a starship, but the crewmen clung to it nonetheless, perhaps thinking that something of their essential humanity was reflected in it.
Whatever the reason, twenty-four hours had still not been long enough for the Nauro to recover its equilibrium. Blackwing’s command reputation had taken a hit. All the kaerls he’d taken with him on the hunt had died, and the whole crew was aware that it had only been the fortuitous use of the Navigator’s deadly warp eye that had saved his hide. In the normal run of things, perhaps even that wouldn’t have damaged Blackwing’s standing much with the ratings, but everyone was exhausted, run ragged by the endless demands placed on them. So it was that the muttering had begun, quiet enough for the whisperers to feel secure, but loud enough for Blackwing’s animal-sharp hearing to catch what was being said.
The gossip and moaning didn’t bother him. What did was the fact that he’d been so comprehensively out-fought by a badly wounded spellcaster and a single warrior in power armour. The encounter should have gone better.
He had been in his element, stalking in the shadows like a Wolf Scout should. He should have detected the intruders sooner, laid some ambush for them and caught them just as he’d been caught.
The fact he’d stumbled into the firefight so brazenly was worse than sloppy. It was embarrassing.
At the least, Allfather be thanked, it had not ended worse for him. The Rubric Marine had been half-destroyed by the Navigator’s baleful gaze. When the sorcerer had been killed in turn, the last of its animating genius had been removed and the lumbering warrior-drone had slumped into inaction. The engines had consumed their remains, turning the corrupted metal and broken flesh into just one more piece of fuel for the hungry furnaces.
Blackwing had spent a lot of time thinking about the two stowaways since then. The sorcerer’s body, though crippled by a botched transport, was much the same as his – extended physiology, a broad, stocky frame with overdeveloped musculature and enhanced organs. In many ways, the sorcerer’s corpse had been closer to the Adeptus Astartes ideal than Blackwing’s own, with his rangy, loping frame and Helix-derived peculiarities.
But the Rubric Marine... that had been strange. Underneath the shattered armour, there was nothing. No flesh, no bones, just a smattering of grey dust. Blackwing had heard the stories, of course. The Wolf Priests had declaimed sagas of the bloodless remnants of Magnus’s Legion, cursed by the dark sorcery of the faithless Ahriman to march to war forever with their souls destroyed, so he shouldn’t have been surprised. He should have found it routine, just another quirk of the galaxy’s tortuous, tragic history.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. For some reason, the notion that Space Marines could mutilate themselves so completely, just to avoid an inexorable flaw in their constitution, was abhorrent to him. There were some things that just had to be dealt with. For the Sons of Russ, it was the Wulfen, the dark spectre of the Wolf that hunted in all of them.
Perhaps the Thousand Sons had suffered from some similar flaw. If so, they hadn’t stood up to it like men, but had turned themselves into monsters. The longer Blackwing contemplated it, the more it horrified him.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 154