Space Wolves

by Various

  At some point, another portal loomed in front of them, filled with fire. Flames hotter than the core of a star reached through it and licked at Rolling Thunder’s hull, threatening to draw her in. Cold beads of sweat were forming on Ulrik’s brow, although he had the protection of both the Stormwolf’s ceramite plating and his own armour.

  Rogan’s skilled and violent handling of the controls saved them. Shearing away from the inferno, they were snatched by the static storm’s capricious currents again. Their port wing scraped against something all too solid. As Rolling Thunder screamed in agony, Ulrik could only pray that she wouldn’t be torn asunder.

  ‘The Allfather is with us,’ he assured his brothers as the buffeting finally abated. He said nothing of the vision he had glimpsed inside the fire. It had lasted a fraction of a second, no longer, but it was scarred upon his retinas: a twisted, leering, monstrous face.

  Perhaps he had only imagined it…

  They ploughed on through a nest of giant insectile creatures, which pursued them angrily for some distance. Repeated bursts from their helfrost cannon eventually discouraged them, but one latched onto the hull. Rogan scraped it off against a wall of ice, but lost the starboard cannons in the process.

  Another hour, a month, a decade sped by. The storm clouds funnelled around them, plunging them into a tunnel barely wide enough to fly through. Shadowy creatures invaded the troop compartment, cackling with gleeful malevolence.

  Leoric sat bolt upright. ‘The warp,’ he intoned, ‘it’s straining at the barriers… seeping in through the fissures…’

  Ulrik had drawn his pistol, but the words jolted him to his senses, made him realise that the Rune Priest was seeing only phantoms. ‘Don’t look at them!’ he yelled. He screwed his eyes shut, but still he could feel the ghosts battering at the barriers around his mind, every one of them bearing the face he had seen in the flames.

  ‘The Allfather is our shield,’ the Wolf High Priest declaimed, lighting up his crozius. He recited a litany of protection, entreating all those present to join in. Two of his brothers had succumbed, however, one foaming at the mouth, the other trying to claw out his own eyes, while Rogan was screaming gibberish over the vox-net.

  Time passed.

  Ulrik found himself praying with Rogan, guiding him back to the light. Emund Firetooth, a novice Blood Claw, was beyond such help – Beregelt had granted him the mercy of a bolt round to the temple. The phantoms had receded when they had left the tunnel behind them. Still, Ulrik felt the itch of their intangible claws behind his eyes, at the base of his brain.

  Leoric furrowed his brow in concentration. ‘I see something,’ he said, ‘but we have to hurry. We have to–’

  ‘Did you see Lord Krom and the others?’ Ulrik asked quickly. ‘Can you take us to them?’

  Leoric shook his head. ‘No, I did not see them. I thought I saw the way back.’

  Ulrik’s hearts sank. He met Beregelt’s eyes and saw the same dismay reflected in them. Inwardly, he railed against the idea of turning tail, of abandoning his brothers to their fates – not to mention the missing Great Wolf whose trail had led them here. But what about the brothers aboard this ship? I am responsible for them too.

  He gave Beregelt an almost imperceptible nod. The veteran Drakeslayer lowered his gaze to his feet, but understood.

  ‘Don’t try to resist it,’ Leoric said. ‘Let it take us where it will. It wants us gone.’ Olav Brunn relayed his words to Rogan Bearsbane.

  ‘We shall return for them,’ Ulrik swore in a quiet but resolute growl. ‘Somehow, one day, we shall return for–’

  ‘Russ’s teeth!’

  Rogan threw the Stormwolf into a lateral spin, forcing the Space Wolves to cling to whatever they could reach. Ulrik scrambled to the viewport again, as something huge and blue and grey careened out of the static towards them.

  ‘High Priest!’ Beregelt strained forward beside him, his pale yellow eyes widening in astonishment. ‘Isn’t that… Wasn’t that…?’

  ‘Another gunship,’ Ulrik breathed.

  It was already gone, peeling away from them into a pocket of icy mist. They had come a hair’s breadth from a collision, close enough that Ulrik was left with an afterimage of the pilot’s ruddy, red-bearded face gaping at him open-mouthed through his glacis. He had recognised that face. He had recognised the gunship too. It seemed impossible – but what had Leoric told them? I thought I saw the way back. He remembered his own words too: Time means nothing here…

  ‘We’re almost there,’ Leoric said, unable to conceal the relief in his voice despite himself.

  Ulrik opened a channel to Rogan Bearsbane. ‘Maintain our course,’ he said.

  ‘But High Priest, I saw–’

  ‘I know what you saw, Brother Rogan. Maintain our course. The Allfather is with us, he has found us even here – and he will guide us out of the storm.’

  Already, Ulrik could feel the turbulence around them easing. A solemn hush descended in the troop compartment, and for a long time – or a short time, it was still impossible to know – the only sound to be heard was that of Rolling Thunder’s engines.

  At last, Rogan’s voice buzzed in Ulrik’s ear again, more composed than it had been. He reported a gap in the storm ahead of them. Through the gap all was black, but Rogan said he thought he could see the pinprick sparkle of stars, real stars. Ulrik turned to Leoric, who nodded sagely.

  ‘Take us through the gap,’ Ulrik ordered, though the words weighed heavily on his heart. After all they had endured, to be spat back out into real space… It was almost more than he could bear. He had failed in his mission – he was no closer to finding Logan Grimnar than he had been. As for Krom Dragongaze and the other captured Space Wolves…

  They would have to save themselves.

  Krom was woken by the hissing of the cell gate. The slave masters had come for him again. Ragnek Halfhand protested that it was too soon, that Krom needed more time to heal – but the Wolf Lord silenced him with a glare. Wolves did not beg.

  Jormund’s sacrifice had left Krom, for one of the few times in his life, despondent. Many may have been surprised to hear it, but there was a limit to the Fierce-eye’s arrogance, after all. He had tried to do his fallen brother justice. He told how fiercely he had fought, and how well – in graphic detail, with embellishments to cover what he had not seen – and ensured that the story was spread. He had set his pride aside, giving Jormund due credit for saving his life. He wasn’t sure what good it would do.

  Jormund Thunderclaw’s story would die between these walls. As would the stories of too many others. Krom remembered the Guardsman he had met on his first day here, and knew he had spoken truly. Not even the mightiest champion left the arena a victor. The only way out was in defeat and death – at least, according to the dark eldar’s rules.

  His right knee had seized up. His damaged servo-motors were no help to him as he struggled to stand. He began to understand how Jormund must have felt, a prisoner of his own armour. Two slave masters took Krom under the arms and hauled him roughly to his feet. He shrugged them off. He intended to keep his dignity, at least.

  He had only three escorts today. He walked unaided between them. He considered snatching one of their whips. He was sure he could take one, even two of them down before they subdued him. Defiance meant certain death, however. He preferred to take his chances – such as they were – in the arena.

  The muster area was unusually crowded. A dozen Chaos cultists were waiting there, chained together. They sneered and cursed at Krom, straining to reach him. He bared his fangs at them in return. They had the look of new arrivals, unbloodied and still strong. Krom took some solace in the likelihood that they were about to die.

  As they were herded away, another combatant was led through, back towards the cages. It was the Dark Angels chaplain. He turned his head to look at Krom. He offered no greetings, nor even acknowledged the other’s presence. His armour was dented and scored, but he appeared to have weathered his orde
als well, on the whole.

  Krom glared at him, but had no chance to speak as the slave masters were jabbering at him excitably, prodding him with their whip handles, and – sooner than he had expected – it was time for him to fight again. He took a deep breath, gathering his depleted energy, focusing his willpower.

  Impress the Grand Archite and she may choose to extend your life...

  They hadn’t given him Wyrmclaw this time. Had the queen grown tired of him already? So what if she has? he thought stubbornly. The span of my life is for no xenos scum to determine. Not while I have breath in my body and strength to fight.

  Krom lifted his head, squared his shoulders. He made the sign of the aquila. Then he stepped out beneath the crimson sky of Commorragh and let the roar of the xenos crowd wash over him.

  The arena had been restructured during his absence. The polished stages had been removed to create a single fighting space that stretched from one arena wall to the other. The large surface was covered in sharp black sand that crunched beneath his boots. The eldar were clearly planning for this fight to be a grand finale, Krom realised grimly.

  As he crossed the huge space, he glimpsed the queen’s throne. It was empty. Her absence stoked his anger. I’ll give these xenos a show like they have never seen before, he swore, one to leave them cowering in fear of the Allfather’s might!

  In the centre of the arena, he found the chained Chaos cultists waiting for him. His lips twitched at the prospect of being the one to slay them.

  The cultists weren’t alone, however. Dozens of other combatants were being herded from their cages. There was a group of tau fire warriors to Krom’s left and beyond them, two groups of Imperial Guardsmen. There were orks to his right, including one hulking warboss with a scarred pit in place of its right eye, and a Traitor Space Marine in tarnished black and gold. A Black Legionnaire!

  A slave master prodded Krom in the back, mistaking his surprise for trepidation. He shrugged it away from him with a snarl.

  Krom was weighing up the traitor, intending to engage him first, when a roar went up from the crowd and he realised that he had misjudged the situation. He was not expected to fight his fellow prisoners. Rather, his true opponents came wheeling out of the sky towards him. The slave masters withdrew and Krom dived for the nearest axe – but the traitor reached it before him, snatching his prize out from under his nose. He dropped into a crouch, empty-handed.

  Suddenly, they were all around him – a gang of young dark eldar males, heavily-inked and leather-armoured. There were thirty or more of them, whooping and screeching, poised atop skyboards, which they steered with their feet. They hacked at their prey with double-bladed polearms, and had already eviscerated a pair of cultists.

  Two of the hellions flanked a tau and lifted it off the ground between them. Then they were gone, escaping into the sky again, out of reach.

  The attack left the grounded combatants in disarray. The surviving cultists pulled this way and that, hampered by the chains that bound them to a pair of bloody corpses. The orks were snatching up every weapon in reach, hurling them at the circling predators. Krom made a grab for an ancient-looking chainsword, while he had the chance.

  The hellions were putting on an aerial display. They repeatedly tossed their luckless victim to one another, much to the crowd’s delight. Only when the tau was battered, broken and partially dismembered did they fling its body away from them with casual contempt. As they swooped on the arena again, however, Krom was ready for them.

  Three skyboards hurtled towards him. He sprang to meet the centremost of them, hoping to surprise its rider. He brought his chainsword down in a double-handed smash, which the hellion parried, by a hair. The dark eldar swerved away from Krom, the jagged edge of its board clipping his foot. He landed heavily on his injured leg and crashed onto one knee.

  The hellion hooked a bone pylon with its polearm, whipped its board around and flew at him again. One of the orks saved him, though that surely hadn’t been its intention. It appeared as if from nowhere, barrelling through the Chaos cultists, pouncing on the low-flying dark eldar with a murderous howl. It had run out of weapons to throw, without thinking to keep one for itself, but its meaty fists alone could crush bones.

  The skyboard veered between two pylons and flipped over, depositing one hellion corpse and one thrashing-mad greenskin in the dirt below. Slave masters rushed to drive the latter back into the centre of the arena.

  The other hellions were gone again, but for one other that had become separated from its board. The cultists swarmed over it, denying it the chance to stand. About a third of the prisoners had fallen. Krom realised that the hellions had picked off the weakest of them. Most of the tau warriors and several Imperial Guardsmen lay among the dead.

  The hellions swooped again, but this time their tactics had changed. They focused their attacks upon a single target. They swarmed around the Chaos Space Marine like angry insects, stinging with their polearms. Swatting at them furiously, he cleaved one through the stomach and caught a second in the throat with his elbow and flipped it backwards off its board.

  Once again, the cultists swarmed the fallen hellion.

  At last, a hellion swooped carelessly into Krom’s reach. Bones ground together inside his patched-up left gauntlet as he swung his whirring blade, and he sucked in air between his fangs. It was worth the pain, however, to open his enemy’s throat.

  The Black Legionnaire had claimed a few kills of his own, as had the orks. When the hellions withdrew, this time, only twelve of them remained. It was less than half their original number. They had whittled the traitor down, however, leaving him to bleed out from a hundred cuts and gouges. They performed a victory circuit of the arena, garnering wild applause, giving Krom and the other remaining prisoners – a handful of Guardsmen and cultists and three orks, including their warboss – a minute to collect themselves.

  Krom took charge, barking at the Guardsmen to form a defensive circle, back-to-back. The hellions attacked for the final time, and for Krom, the next few minutes were a blur of ducking, diving, swiping and screaming. He was at the centre of a maelstrom, barely able to react to one threat before the next came at him from another direction. He didn’t dare stand still for a second, so he pushed his battered body as hard as he could to keep moving, keep fighting, stay alive. The sand of the arena was slick with blood, and more than once he slipped and almost lost his footing.

  Through a red haze, he saw the ork warboss’ neck being severed. He saw the last of the Imperial Guardsmen speared by three polearms at once. There were dark eldar bodies on the ground too, however, several of them thanks to Krom’s efforts.

  Then his sputtering chainsword was parried so fiercely that it span out of his broken hand.

  He found himself in a crouch in the middle of the stage, surrounded by mutilated corpses. The final hellion was plummeting towards him, cackling madly. He propelled himself forward, diving beneath the oncoming skyboard, landing facedown – as he had planned – beside the Chaos Space Marine. He prised the axe out of the traitor’s dead fingers, rolling onto his back as the skyboard whipped around again. He hurled the weapon at the skyboard’s underside. Its blade lodged deep inside the board’s workings, sending it careening out of control, skipping and spluttering across the sand, taking its rider with it.

  It was over, and Krom was alive. He was the sole survivor.

  He tried to stand, but a fresh gash in his side that he didn’t recall sustaining – combined with his old, unhealed injuries – rendered him temporarily incapable. He fell back to his knees. With his hearts hammering in his ears, at first he didn’t hear the ominous thrill that rippled around the arena.

  A shadow blotted out the sky’s sullen light. Krom raised his head to find a blurry shape looming over him. He couldn’t tell if it was beast or machine, or a perverted amalgam of both. A pale, muscular torso was hunched inside an armoured carapace, which bristled with implements of war and torture.

  It had no legs
but hovered, like the skyboards, on anti-gravity motors. A thick, segmented tail coiled over its head, a twitching xenos weapon grafted onto its end like a sting.

  Whatever this unholy contraption was, Krom was in no state to fight it. Even if he could, there would only be more behind it. His fate had never truly rested in his own hands, after all. The Grand Archite had decided the time and manner of Krom Dragongaze’s demise, as soon as she had ceased to be entertained by him.

  And that time, it seemed, had come.

  PART FIVE

  THE DARKNESS OF ANGELS

  The Dark City rang with the sounds of battle and butchery. From the serrated spires of High Commorragh to the insanity of the Middle Darkness, the miserable industry of the Old City to the degradation of the Sprawls, things were suffering and dying. It was home to the murderous and those they would murder. It was a hellish cityscape of barbed wonder and torment, in which the alien and the depraved lived, died and enjoyed the perversity of everything inflicted in between. Above the corpse-thick slurp of the city’s rivers, the slave revolts of the gateway ports and the dimensional flux of the shadow districts, the cacophony of death rose.

  The arenas spread like a dark cancer out from the razored towers and crooked pinnacles of High Commorragh. Dominating the Sprawls, they drew the bloodthirsty and depraved for kilometres around – alien deviants who filled their worthless lives with their daily fix of death and howled their rabid encouragement from their terraces of black stone. They spat curses in a language of shattered syllables that contorted their thin lips and haunted their features with a wretched fury. They wagered in flesh – that of their slaves, their rivals and their own. They pushed, shoved and screamed at each other as the violence of the arena spread through the auditoria. Knives flashed in the darkness, gutting and slitting. Victims bled their last, stamped into the ground by feverish throngs of xenos intent on commanding the best views – views of alien beasts, the gore festival of traps, and prisoners reduced to the brute desperation of murderous survival.