‘It makes me sick,’ said Morek. ‘It is wrong. Russ – honour to his name – would never have allowed it.’
Wyrmblade chuckled, an iron-hard rasping sound that limped out of the helm-grille.
‘So you speak for the primarch now, eh? You’re a brave man. I’d never presume to guess what he’d have made of this.’
Morek did his best to maintain a steady gaze, but the fatigue and the stress were getting to him. He felt faint, even while seated. For a fleeting moment, he saw the skull on the Wolf Priest’s armour leer into a broken, toothy snarl.
He blinked, and the vision faded.
‘Why are you telling me this, lord?’ Morek asked, knowing he could not stand more revelations. His world had already been destroyed.
‘As I said,’ replied Wyrmblade calmly. ‘To punish you. You have trespassed, thinking yourself equal to the secrets held in the fleshmakers’ chambers. Now that arrogance is exposed, and you have tasted just a sip of the terrible knowledge that I bear daily. If I served you the whole cup, you would drown in it.’
‘So is that what you wish for me?’
‘I do not. I wish you to rest, as you have been ordered. Then I wish you to fight, to hold the line against the Traitor, to sell your position in blood if it comes to that. You will do this in the full knowledge of what has been done in the Valgard.’
The Wolf Priest gestured with a finger, and the fire behind Morek flickered out. Absolute darkness filled the chamber, and the rivenmaster felt his consciousness begin to slip away almost immediately.
I welcome it. I wish never to wake up.
‘We demand that you die for us, mortal,’ said Wyrmblade, and his receding voice was as cold as the grave. ‘We will always demand that you die for us. It is as well, then, that you know what you’re dying for.’
Chapter Twenty
Temekh looked into the eye of his primarch. Magnus had a strange expression on his face, part expectant, part resigned.
‘The Fang is open to me,’ he announced.
Temekh felt a sudden spike of eagerness, quickly suppressed. ‘Aphael has been working hard.’
‘Yes. He has done well.’
Magnus turned away. In the flickering light of the sanctum, Temekh could sense the raw power bleeding from his image. So much, it was hard to contain. Since casting aside his mortal flesh, the primarch required colossal amounts of energy merely to exist on the physical plane. It was like trying to squeeze a sun into a wineglass.
‘I’ll protest again,’ said Temekh, knowing it was useless. ‘I could be of help down there. The Wolves are still fighting, and you could use another sorcerer.’
Magnus shook his head.
‘I’ll not tell you a third time, Ahmuz. You have a different fate.’
He looked back at the sorcerer-lord.
‘You have your orders for the fleet. Do not deviate from them, whatever happens on Fenris.’
As he spoke, Magnus’s outline was curling into nothingness like smoke.
‘Of course,’ said Temekh. ‘But be careful – we have roused a nest of hornets down there.’
Magnus laughed, and the sound rang around the chamber like pealing bells. His body was rapidly extinguishing, sighing out of view and falling into the shadows.
‘Careful? I’ll take that as a joke. That’s good. There was a time when there was more than gallows humour in the galaxy.’
Temekh watched the final shreds of Magnus’s visible form slide away. The last element to fade out was the eye, ringed with scarlet and alive with amusement.
As soon as the apparition was gone, Temekh turned away.
+Lord Aphael+, he sent.
+Good to hear from you+, came the reply, sarcastic and weary. +The wards are much weakened. Tell him he may–+
+He knows. He’s on his way. Get into position. You don’t have long.+
Aphael didn’t respond at once. Temekh could tell he was stung by the tone in his sending. Even now, the Pyrae still thought he was in charge of the operation. That was pitiable, though Temekh didn’t feel much like pitying.
+I am close to the bulwark they call the Fangthane+, sent Aphael eventually. +I can be there in moments. It will be good to witness our father in the material universe once again.+
Not for you, I fear, brother.
+He commended you on your labour+, sent Temekh.
He had the faint impression of a bitter laugh, and then the link between them broke.
Sighing, Temekh withdrew from the altar. The air within the chamber felt cold and thin in the primarch’s absence. It resembled his own state. He was exhausted by the work of so many days, and his fingers trembled from a long, low level tiredness.
He gestured to the doors, and they slid open smoothly. In the corridor beyond, a silhouette waited for him, a mortal wearing the uniform of a Spireguard captain.
‘Have you been waiting long?’ asked Temekh, stepping out of the sanctum.
‘No, lord,’ came the reply.
You wouldn’t have told me even if you had.
The man looked strangely nervous, and handed Temekh a data-slate.
‘These are reports from the ship-seers,’ he said. ‘I thought you should see them as soon as possible.’
Temekh glanced at the runes, taking in their import in an instant. The ship-seers had powers beyond those of any loyalist Navigator to see the approaching bow-waves of starships powering through the warp. The signals recorded on the slate, however, could have been picked up by any Navigator at the start of their training. The fleet coming towards them was approaching fast. Recklessly fast.
‘Thank you, captain,’ said Temekh calmly. ‘Impressive. I didn’t believe the interceptor could possibly have made it to Gangava.’
He handed the slate back, and rolled his head stiffly to relieve the ache in his shoulders.
‘Very well. Prepare the fleet to break orbit.’
The captain started.
‘You cannot mean–’
Temekh’s glare silenced him.
‘I am tired, captain; you really do not want to test my patience further. Prepare the fleet to break orbit, and wait for my command.’
He flicked a finger, and the doors to the empty sanctum slid shut.
‘This game is coming to an end.’
Aphael strode toward the Fangthane, his bitterness fuelling him as powerfully as any chem-stimulant. The tone in Temekh’s voice had been unmistakable. While the Corvidae sheltered on the bridge of the Herumon in safety, he was once more being thrust into the position of danger.
He didn’t mind the danger. He relished combat, as all the Pyrae did. What bothered him was the peremptory manner of his assignment, the assumption that Temekh was in charge now.
Of course, Magnus had always had a soft spot for the Corvidae – the seers and mystics. The more belligerent cult-disciplines had always been the ones that had been reined in and curtailed. Much good it had done. The Corvidae were wayward. If the Thousand Sons had trusted more in the straightforward application of warp-power, perhaps they would have prevailed on Prospero rather than being hamstrung by doubts and visions.
He arrived at the chamber leading to the battle-front. Ahead of him, squads of Rubricae were waiting to enter combat, interspersed with larger formations of mortal infantry. Sorcerers, some of them limping from terrible wounds, walked among them. Far off, hundreds of metres down the tunnels leading to the stairway, came the sound of crashing explosions. The Wolves were being hit hard, but they evidently still held the Fangthane approaches.
‘Greetings, lord,’ came the reedy voice of Orfeo Czamine, the Pavoni commander of operations.
Aphael felt his face distort into an expression of contempt. It was entirely involuntary – his facial muscles were now wholly fused with the internal workings of his helm and had a mind of their own. Possibly literally.
‘How goes the assault?’ asked Aphael, gesturing for his retinue to stand down.
Aphael knew his own voice now resembled a whole choir of speakers, eac
h fractionally out of sync with one another. There was no hiding it, and no hope of the condition improving.
‘We are grinding them down, as instructed,’ replied Czamine, sounding unsurprised by the bizarre inflections.
‘They should have been cleared out of their hole by now,’ Aphael said. ‘You’ve had days to wipe them out. I may–’
He broke off. Czamine looked at him quizzically.
‘Are you all right, lord?’
Aphael found he couldn’t reply. The words formed in his mind, but his mouth no longer obeyed him. He felt the frustration of weeks burn up inside him. Furiously, he clutched his staff with both hands, not yet knowing what to do with it. As his armoured fingers closed over the shaft, witchfire sparked along its length, blazing with a painful, searing light.
Czamine fell back, radiating alarm.
‘Lord, you are amongst brothers!’
By then Aphael’s movements were no longer his own. The staff began to spin, hand-over-hand, picking up speed with every revolution. The iron whirled, shimmering in the dark from a nimbus of racing witchfire.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to explain.
This isn’t me! Help me! Sweet Magnus, help–
But then his thoughts were taken over by another. The presence in his mind that had been growing for days suddenly asserted itself.
+Why should I help you, my son? This is what you were born for. In what time remains to you, relish the moment.+
The staff spun quicker, generating a vortex of rotating energy in its centre. Aphael’s hands became a blur, turning over like engine pistons, driving the staff into a whirlwind of dizzying momentum.
Aphael’s awareness was now almost gone. What remained of him spied Czamine hurrying backwards, saw squads of mortals running from him in horror. He watched as the rock walls of the Fang glowed white, before realising that he was lighting them up himself. He was on fire, a caustic, dry fire that drenched the chamber in brightness. Warp-energy was bursting from his eyes, from his mouth, from the chinks in his armour. The flesh-change snarled into overdrive, warping his body into impossible contortions, breaking open the hard shell of his battle-plate and shedding it in rattling slivers.
With all the power that he still had, Aphael somehow dragged three words up from his receding consciousness.
Punish them, lord.
+Oh, I will+, came the response.
Then he was gone. The blaze of light and movement was no longer Herume Aphael. For a few moments, it was nothing at all, just a disparate collection of aether-born energies, wild and inchoate.
Then there was a massive bang, causing the air to ripple and dust to rain down from the chamber roof. Cracks snaked along the floor, radiating out from the rapidly transforming cocoon of light and noise.
From that point, the whirling gradually wound down. The light faded, burning into a single point of brilliance. As it slowly died, a figure was revealed within it, taller than Aphael had been and far more beautiful. With the final diminishment of the portal, the newcomer stepped clear of the flickering tendrils of illumination.
As soon as he emerged, all those closest fell to their knees in awe. Czamine bowed low, letting his staff scrape along the ground in submission.
‘Father,’ he said, and his voice was choked with joy.
‘Son,’ acknowledged Magnus the Red, flexing his muscles and smiling. ‘You have been held up in this stinking place for too long.’
He turned toward the Fangthane stair, and there was a greedy light in his eye.
‘Time, I think, to show the Wolves the true meaning of pain.’
Odain Sturmhjart roared his defiance again, his voice cracking under the strain. He’d been summoning the power of the storm for days, using it to divide and demoralise the forces besieging Borek’s Seal, and the pressure was beginning to show. His lips were cracked and calloused under his armour, and his throat was raw.
There was no let-up. The sorcerers were powerful, even more so since so many of the wards against maleficarum in the Hould had been taken down. Sturmhjart had little support, and carried almost all the burden of protecting the defending troops from sorcery. A lesser Rune Priest would have given up days ago, overwhelmed by the need to maintain the steady rain of wyrd-sourced power. Only one such as he, steeped in the bottomless reserves of energy gifted by the strange ways of Fenris, could have maintained his position for so long. While he stood, the devices of the enemy were blunted, allowing the warriors of the Aett to charge into battle unhindered. If he fell, their witchery would come into play, turning the tide irrevocably.
And so he stayed on his feet, hurling invective at the silent Rubric Marines as they marched into view, maintaining the flurry of lightning into their ranks, countering the varied powers of the enemy spell-casters and taking the bite out of their aether-born attacks.
It made him proud. After his failure to predict the coming of the enemy, he was able to reflect with satisfaction on what he had done since. The Aett would have fallen already without his untiring efforts. Even if it was still overwhelmed, he had given it precious extra days of life. To fall in battle after inflicting such pain on the enemy was honourable; only an easy, fragile death was a cause for shame.
Sturmhjart stood in the centre of the defensive lines, partially sheltered by the barricades. On either side of him were the gun-lines, still manned by mortal kill-squads. The Wolves’ packs roamed ahead of them, preventing the invaders from reaching the trenches. They were supported by the hulking outlines of Dreadnoughts and the strange, darting runs of the Underfang beasts. The creatures of the night instilled terror in the mortal Prosperine soldiers, even more so than the Wolves themselves. Many of the creatures had been killed during the repeated actions, but whole packs remained in action, fearless, tireless and horrifying.
Sturmhjart stole a glance to his right, over to where the fighting was fiercest. Greyloc was still on his feet, as he had been for days without pause. His Terminator plate was near-black from plasma-burns, his pelts ripped to tatters and the ceramite beneath cut deep by a hundred blades. But still he fought on, cold and clinical, holding the line together by force of example. He was no longer the White Wolf, more like a coal-black shade of Morkai let loose into the world of the living.
You have surprised me, lord. There is iron beneath that pale skin.
Between them, Greyloc and Bjorn dominated the battle for Borek’s Seal. The Thousand Sons were too numerous to be driven back for any length of time, but the invaders had made painfully slow headway since the start of their full-scale assault. The Wolves had forced a deadlock across the barricades, and that in itself, given the numbers of troops in play, was a staggering achievement.
It couldn’t last. Eventually, the line would break and the Rubric Marines would sweep into the chamber beyond. Until then, however, no ground would be ceded.
‘Fenrys hjolda!’ Sturmhjart bellowed, trying, as always, to rouse the Wolves around him to greater heights of heroism. He slammed his rune-staff to the ground, sending up forks of storm-lightning from the cold stone. ‘For Russ! For the–’
He broke off. A shadow passed across his hearts, chilling them. The power that sluiced across his runic armour flickered and died. He staggered, putting a hand out to prevent himself falling.
You feel it too, Priest.
Bjorn’s voice was dominating, even over the comm. Sturmhjart saw black stars spinning before his eyes, and dizziness wrapped itself around him.
‘He is here.’
Greyloc broke from combat.
‘What do you sense, Odain?’ he voxed, racing back up towards the Rune Priest’s position. Behind him, Grey Hunters struggled to close the gap in the defensive line.
Sturmhjart shook his head vigorously, trying to rid himself of the lingering disorientation.
‘He has been here all along. Everywhere and nowhere.’
The sorcerers’ attack suddenly stepped up in intensity. Crackling aetheric force whipped out from the attacking ranks, w
reathing the oncoming Traitor Marines. For the first time in days, the Wolves began to falter in their defiance.
‘He is here?’ roared Greyloc, his voice heavy with loathing. ‘Show me where he is, Priest.’
He assaults the Fangthane. Even now he lays it to waste.
‘Too far away...’ gasped Sturmhjart.
‘We must reach him,’ said Greyloc, his voice urgent. ‘There are routes through the mountain, fast ways up. None at the Fangthane can withstand him.’
‘Nothing on Fenris can withstand him.’
I can.
Sturmhjart whirled round to face the approaching Dreadnought, still feeling groggy and nauseous.
‘You’re deluded!’ he blurted. ‘You cannot sense him as I can. He is a primarch, an equal to Russ himself. This is death, Bjorn! This is the cutting of the thread.’
Ominously, the Dreadnought raised his plasma cannon, pointing the heavy, blunt barrels directly at Sturmhjart’s helm.
You have a heart of fire. If I had not seen that already, you would be dead where you stand for those words.
Greyloc didn’t hesitate.
‘The defence of the Seal will be given to Hrothgar of the Revered Fallen – he can hold the line for a little longer. I will go after the Traitor, as will my Wolf Guard. Bjorn will stand with us, and so will you, Rune Priest – your wyrd-mastery will be needed.’
Sturmhjart straightened, looking first at the lowered plasma barrel at the end of Bjorn’s gun-arm, then at the blackened and ravaged helm-face of his Jarl. The worst of the sickness brought on by Magnus’s translation ebbed. He felt his resolve begin to return, closely followed by shame at his outburst.
‘So be it,’ he growled, taking up his staff in both hands. ‘We will face him together.’
Greyloc nodded, and motioned to his two surviving Terminator-armoured Wolf Guard to follow him.
‘Of course, we have to break out of here first,’ he said grimly.
Do not worry about that, snarled Bjorn, his voice low and resonant like a starship engine. He swivelled on his axis, training his weapons on the enemy once more. Tell the Fangs to lay down heavy cover. Now I have prey worthy of a kill, I feel the need to stretch my claws.
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