by Various
Krom turned tail and ran for his life.
One of the two clawed fiends had finally fallen.
Even thrashing about in its death throes, it had continued to bloody its claws and fangs and knocked at least two Space Wolves off their feet. It couldn’t beat back all of them, however, and a dozen chainswords hacked at the beast until it shuddered and fell still, dark blood matting its violet fur.
Ulrik had remained on the edge of the melee, firing into it when he had seen a clear shot, reserving the rest of his attention for matters elsewhere. In the sky he could see distant blossoms of light, the only signs of the pitched battle being fought up there. Occasionally, a ship – one of the combatants – would dip into the atmosphere and his enhanced hearing would detect the faint roar of its engines.
At last, he heard the sound he had been waiting for.
‘Rolling Thunder to Wolf High Priest Ulrik,’ a voice rumbled in his ear. ‘I’ve made it through the tau blockade. Descending towards the abandoned city now.’ Simultaneously, he heard engines above his head, deep and throaty, and saw their contrails burning across the heavens.
The remaining clawed fiend was mortally wounded, too angry and stupid to accept that it was dead. The Drakeslayers are capable and numerous enough to take care of it, Ulrik judged, as their commander would no doubt insist if he were here.
He broadcast a general-frequency vox to his own forces, those fighting the monster alongside him and those further afield. He told them to disengage from their battles, those that could, and prepare to rendezvous with him at coordinates to follow.
He was contacted by Rolling Thunder’s pilot again, on cue: ‘I’ve identified a possible landing site, a plaza, on a bearing of oh-seven-four degrees, two point one miles from your vox-signal. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but I think I can–’
‘I’ll meet you there,’ barked Ulrik.
Russ, don’t let me die like this!
Krom hurtled around another sharp bend in the road. He saw a narrow gap between two buildings and plunged into it. It opened onto a circular plaza, where the dismembered legs of mildewed bronze statues still clung to broken plinths. He was too exposed here.
He glanced over his shoulder. He couldn’t see the black skimmer but could hear its whining engines zeroing in on him. He turned back the way he had come, squeezing back between the buildings in the hope of confusing his pursuers.
As soon as he reached the road again, however, they pounced on him. Krom howled as his back was peppered with poisoned splinters. Don’t let me be cut down from behind, running like a frightened man-cub. Don’t let that be how I am remembered. Let me meet my killer face to face and die with his blood on my claws.
He was lucky this time. His armour saved him, preventing the needles from reaching his flesh.
A window loomed in front of him. Without stopping to think, he dived through it. His twisted back betrayed him. He landed on his numb left shoulder, sending a jolt of pain through him. His armour automatically upped his medication, but he countermanded it, needing his senses to be sharp. Splinters thudded into the far side of the wall behind which he was sprawled. At least he had found temporary shelter.
He couldn’t stay here.
Krom scrambled away from the window, avoiding the shafts of grey light that streamed in through the roof. He crouched in the shadows and sniffed the musty air. His keen eyes pierced the gloom, exploring the innards of the dome in which he found himself. Its shell was relatively intact, but its internal walls had crumbled. There were plenty of egress points, designed and otherwise.
He could hear the dark eldar craft circling above him. No doubt they would direct ground troops to this spot to root him out. He couldn’t afford to rest. He had to move, to get away from here, before they arrived.
He picked a window and loped across the rubble towards it, being sure to stay out of the light. He flattened himself against the wall and waited. When he judged that the skimmer was at the farthest point of its circuit, Krom bolted. He tumbled, head over heels, through the window, landed on his feet and ran. He was counting on taking his pursuers by surprise, on his reflexes being sharper than theirs were.
He wasn’t fast enough – or they were too fast. Barely had he taken six steps when the skimmer was riding on his tail again, swooping down on him like a giant bird of prey, its cannon firing. More than one of its needles penetrated his armour this time, and buried themselves in his back.
Krom staggered and almost fell. He realised that the nearest cover was too far ahead of him, so turned back while he could. He scrambled through the same window he had emerged from, back into the broken dome. This time, he knew there would be no escaping from it. He was trapped here.
He couldn’t reach the splinters in his back with only one hand. The injectors in his armour were flooding his system with anti-venoms, trying to counteract the dark eldar toxin – but the only thing holding it in check, he felt sure, was the rage bubbling white-hot in his veins. He embraced that rage like a brother.
He refused to let his legs fold underneath him. He kicked out at what was left of the walls instead, demolishing them and punching a fresh hole in the side of the dome. He voxed Beoric Winterfang, because he needed to scream at someone. ‘Where are you?’ he demanded. ‘Do I have to slaughter every xenos on this planet by myself? What in Russ’ name do I keep a Wolf Guard for?’
From Beoric there was no reply. Krom’s hearts, both of them, were pounding in his ears as if competing with each other. The skimmer still circled overhead. The dark eldar troops, their warriors, would be here soon, he knew. All he cared about now was being on his feet to greet them.
He found a place in the shadows to crouch, from where he could watch every entrance to the dome. He clutched his bolt pistol in his right hand, though he had to concentrate to keep it from shaking. He would cut down two, maybe three dark eldar before they knew where he was. Then, when his gun was empty, the rest would come to him and Wyrmclaw would deal with them.
They would find him surrounded by the gutted corpses of his enemies, and would know that a battle worthy of legend had been fought here. The Sons of Russ would toast the memory of this day at many feasts to come.
They would long tell the tale of Wolf Lord Krom Dragongaze’s last stand.
The narrow streets were empty again, which was no more than Ulrik had expected. It was typical of the dark eldar to spring a surprise attack then retreat with their spoils while their victims were still disoriented. Not this time, he vowed.
Rolling Thunder’s engines now drowned out all other sounds for him; her wolf’s-head shadow blotted out the light momentarily as she passed over him. She was a Stormwolf, an assault ship capable of carrying sixteen Space Wolves into battle.
Ulrik loped around the corner of another fractured hab-block, the five members of his Wolf Guard at his heels. The Stormwolf was sitting there, waiting for him. She almost filled the cramped plaza in which she had put down, wreathed in her own exhaust smoke, looking battered but defiant – as indeed she always had.
Its pilot, Rogan Bearsbane – a ruddy-faced, heavy-set Iron Priest sporting a voluminous beard – flashed him a grin from the cockpit as he lowered the boarding ramp. Ulrik waved his battle-brothers ahead of him, and was pleased to see others – more than he had expected – streaming into the plaza to join them.
One group of three wore the badge of the Sun Wolf. They were members of Krom Dragongaze’s Wolf Guard, though neither the Fierce-eye nor Beoric Winterfang were among them.
A Wolf Guard by the name of Beregelt squared up to the High Priest. ‘You’re taking a gunship in pursuit of the dark eldar’s captives.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘The Great Wolf was here,’ said Ulrik. ‘If they took him–’
Beregelt interrupted him, boldly. ‘We’re coming with you.’
Ulrik growled at him, ‘I have as many Wolves as I require.’
‘They have our Wolf Lord cornered,’ said Beregelt, stubbornly. ‘Beoric is leading a pa
ck to his side, but I fear they may not reach him in time, especially not if there is a gate to the eldar labyrinth in these ruins.’
Ulrik nodded. ‘It may be what brought the Great Wolf here.’
It didn’t surprise him that Beregelt knew of such matters. The Wolf Guard had served long enough to have seen many things.
‘You plan to follow the dark eldar through that gateway,’ said Beregelt. Again, it wasn’t a question. ‘Lord Krom would want his Wolf Guard aboard that ship.’
And just how was Krom separated from his Wolf Guard, Ulrik thought to snarl, especially after I cautioned him against being reckless? He bit back the words. Now is not the right time. ‘Very well,’ he conceded gruffly, then turned his back.
He climbed aboard the waiting gunship, and left Beregelt and the Drakeslayers to follow him as they wished.
They had come at him from nowhere.
Krom Dragongaze cursed them, cursed the splinters in his back, the neurotoxin in his system, cursed himself most of all for his weakness. He had closed his eyes, unwittingly, for a second: long enough for them to strike.
The poison had tightened his chest, making it difficult to breathe. His pulses were irregular, his secondary heart pumping frantically to compensate for his failing primary. He had prayed for his enemies to find him soon, lest he die first and be denied his blaze of glory.
He had rested his brow against a half-demolished wall, though he didn’t remember doing so. His auto-senses warned him that the temperature in the dome had dropped sharply – but, insulated by his armour, he had paid them little heed. He had thrown back his head with a shuddering breath as the cold had touched his lungs. His eyes had snapped open and he had found himself beset.
They were unlike any dark eldar he had encountered before.
They were similar in build and facial features, but their skin was ebony-black rather than milky-white. They had marked themselves with tattoos, which flowed like oil, forming one hideous, blasphemous shape after another. The creatures were wrapped in pale robes, blood-spattered and stinking of death – fashioned, Krom realised, from layers of flayed skin stitched together.
They slashed and thrust at him with sickle-shaped blades, wielded with the precision of surgical knives, but they also tore at him with fangs and claws.
Krom dropped his pistol. He hadn’t had a chance to use it and knew he probably wouldn’t again. He drew his axe. He wasn’t sure how many opponents he was facing: one second he thought there were only three of them, the next he was sure there were five or more. They seemed to phase in and out of the shadows around him.
Shadows…
He had heard tell of creatures like these, long ago. Was it Ulrik who had spoken of them at some point, early on in his training? Tales told by lesser men, he had thought at the time, to frighten their young. How had the High Priest named these semi-mythical creatures? He remembered now: nightfiends!
It was whispered that they could spring from any man’s shadow. Is that how they crept up on me? Krom wondered. The way the darkness appeared to deepen around them, as if they were sucking light out of the world, he could believe it.
He felt cold emanating from their very souls, and when he swung Wyrmclaw at them, even when he was positive that its blade had cleaved their flesh, often they remained unbloodied. They were swift – as swift as their dark eldar brethren – and he feared that the poison in his body was slowing him down, but it wasn’t only that. It was almost as if these creatures were shadows themselves.
He screamed at them until his throat was raw, hurling every curse he knew at them. He called them cowards and challenged them to face him like warriors, one at a time. The only sounds they made in response were vile hisses. Their blades and claws continued to slice through him, chilling his flesh where they touched it.
Krom fought back as fiercely as ever he had. His tiredness, his shortness of breath, were almost forgotten. His armour had dosed him with stimulants, but nothing could replace the natural rush of battle. Still, his efforts so far were proving futile. Worse, he had the impression that the shadow-skinned creatures were holding back. They could have slain him by now, but instead they were sporting with him.
The thought enraged him, and he whirled his frost axe with renewed vigour and laughed as he felt it biting into flesh and splintering bone at last. The tones of the creatures’ hisses changed, then – they sounded affronted, as if they had the right – and some of them melted away, to leave but three arrayed in an arc before him. These three raised their arms, their talons pointed at him like spears.
Krom managed to take a single step towards them before he was struck by another wave of freezing cold.
He tried to raise his good arm to protect his face, but found he couldn’t. He was paralysed and the nightfiends were swarming him again, more of them than ever. They wrenched Wyrmclaw from his helpless fingers; for a moment he thought they would use it to take his head, but they had something worse in mind.
They encircled him, grabbed at him, tipped him backwards off his feet. They shouldered his power-armoured weight between them, and Krom would have howled in rage at this humiliation had his lungs not been frozen.
The cold – or was it the poison? – had spread behind his eyes, stealing his senses from him one by one. Inwardly, he railed at the indignity of his fate: to be shamed in this manner, to be made a wretched hostage. Outwardly, there was nothing Krom Dragongaze could do as the icy shadows claimed him.
Ulrik sat in Rolling Thunder’s passenger compartment, knee to knee with Olav Brunn, Beregelt and Leoric Half-ear, a Rune Priest he had requested join them in case they had need of his particular talents. Ulrik blocked out the deafening roar of the Stormwolf’s engines as he spoke to Asgir, on the orbiting Canis Pax, by vox. He had instructed his shipmistress to make continuous scans of the abandoned city and keep him informed of the results.
‘I see them, High Priest,’ she reported. ‘Dark eldar Venom skimmers in all sectors. They’re fading in and out… I can’t get a lock on them…’
Allfather be praised, thought Ulrik, we still have time.
Rogan Bearsbane voxed him from the cockpit. ‘I have eyes on a skimmer and am in pursuit. We can’t match it for manoeuvrability, though. It’s weaving in and out of the buildings, even through them. If it wants to shake us off, it only has to–’
‘High Priest,’ Asgir cut in on him. ‘Something else. Three signatures closing in... no, taking up positions around you, matching your course and speed.’
‘The tau?’ Ulrik guessed.
The shipmistress confirmed it. ‘I’m reading them as Manta gunships.’
The dark eldar are their enemies as much as ours, he thought. They are watching us to see what we will do. More likely, they have guessed we won’t be their problem much longer.
‘Russ’ teeth!’ Rogan spluttered, suddenly, and he slammed the Stormwolf into a steep, banking turn.
At the same time, Asgir reported that a new icon had erupted onto her tactical hololith. The accompanying data, however, was gibberish.
Ulrik pushed himself up from his seat and pressed his eyes to the slats of a narrow viewport in the forward hatch. From this limited perspective, however, he was too late to see anything of import. ‘What is it?’ he barked at his pilot. ‘What did you see?’
‘Down in the ruins,’ Rogan answered. ‘Some… some xenos artefact. It had three curving pylons, like claws. Then suddenly, between them… It was like… like staring into the heart of the warp itself.’
‘What about the skimmer?’
‘It flew into that… High Priest, what is it?’
‘It’s a gateway,’ said Ulrik. ‘And your orders remain the same. Our captured battle-brothers are aboard those ships. The next one to approach that portal…’ He had switched to a general frequency, allowing his brothers to hear him. ‘You will follow them through.’
For the first time, Rogan demurred. ‘High Priest, are you certain–?’
Beregelt sat forward. ‘Th
ey may have taken Lord Krom in there,’ he said, quietly.
That seemed to settle the matter. Some of the other Space Wolves exchanged uncertain glances, but none raised a voice in protest. Nor did Rogan speak again, but Ulrik felt the Stormwolf coming back around.
‘We don’t know what’s in there,’ Leoric warned.
Ulrik turned to Beregelt. ‘Vox the rest of your company. Tell them where we’re going and that we may not return. They are to wait six hours; then, in the absence of further contact from either of us, return to the Fang.’
He was likely wasting his breath. With the dark eldar gone – and even without Krom to lead them – the Drakeslayers would probably find an excuse to re-engage the tau. So, let them. It is none of my concern, he thought.
He peered out through the narrow viewport again. He saw the portal ahead of them, just as Rogan Bearsbane had described it. It was as if the xenos construct had torn a hole in the surface of reality itself – and beyond it…
He could barely look at its blinding, hateful light, even with his eyes protected by the Wolf Helm of Russ. He made the sign of the aquila across his chest and silently asked the Allfather for his guidance. This was either a monumental act of courage or one of insanity; he couldn’t tell which.
But the Great Wolf may be in there…
Ulrik offered another prayer – aloud, this time, for all to hear – that the Allfather might still be able to watch over them where they were about to go, so far from the things they knew. Then a dark eldar skimmer dropped into his line of sight, span into the light and was completely swallowed by it. He voxed his pilot, ‘There it is. Go! Go!’
Rolling Thunder plunged into the seething portal.
And left the tangible universe behind it.
PART FOUR
DARK CITY
His opponents had never stood a chance.
Most likely, thought Krom Dragongaze, they were never meant to.
There had been six of them to his one – slobbering ghouls with flat eyeless faces and rows of trembling nostrils. They had come at him in flurries of claws and teeth, blunting both against his armour. The last one had wrapped its mouth around his forearm, clinging to him tenaciously for all its wounds. He tore it free and dashed it to the floor.