The Space Wolf Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer 40K

  The great wooden door swung back and Ragnar ventured warily into the chambers assigned to the inquisitor and his retinue. Already they had changed their surroundings. The air smelled different, full of the cloying scent of incense and odd, subtle off-world perfumes. From deeper inside the chambers came the sound of voices chanting. A litany was being recited in Imperial Gothic, the standard language of the Imperium and all its liturgy. Somewhere the praises of the Emperor were being recited, over and over. The ancient words echoed around the hallway.

  Heavy crimson brocade drapes had been hung up to cover the bare stone of the walls. Ragnar wondered how the fitting could have been made so quickly, until he saw that each section of cloth hung from a suspensor globe floating on its own antigravity field. He ran his fingers over the cloth. It was thick and soft, of far finer weave than anything produced on Fenris. Each vast rectangular section was trimmed with gold and precious stones, and emblazoned with the symbol of the Inquisition. Before him two enormous braziers burned – and between them stood two black-robed men. Huge cowls hid their faces. Bolt pistols were held in their hands. The left-hand sentry extended his open hand in a gesture that told Ragnar he was to stop.

  ‘What is your business here?’ the right hand sentry asked, almost as if they were not in the depths of the Fang. As if Ragnar had no right whatsoever to be there.

  ‘I am Ragnar of the Space Wolves. I have been sent to act as Inquisitor Sternberg’s guide to the Fang.’

  The sentry spoke into a small brass device on a leather strap at his wrist. The words were framed in a language which Ragnar did not recognise, though that was hardly surprising; there were millions of tongues in the Imperium, and he spoke only the language of Fenris and Imperial Gothic, which had been drummed into his brain by the tutelary engines of the Fang. The Wolf waited, studying the strangers closely, annoyed by their arrogance but determined not to show it. He breathed in their scent. It was human but held many faint alien taints. It was the scent of men who had grown up eating different foods, breathing different air, under a different sky from the one under which he had been born.

  ‘You may proceed, Ragnar of the Space Wolves,’ the sentry said. The pair turned on their heels to leave an opening between them for him to pass through. It was performed with a discipline and a precision that Ragnar found almost amusing. Part of his education had concerned the military training of other Imperial units. He knew that they were addicted to marching and moving in formation and all manner of shows of discipline that the Space Wolves rarely indulged in and considered pointless ostentation. Of course, he had been led to believe, they in turn thought the Space Wolves barbaric. To each his own, Ragnar thought, moving forward.

  One of the sentries fell in behind him, Ragnar not sure whether this was to show him the way or to escort him as if he were a prisoner. Two more dark-cowled guards had already emerged from the inner chamber, as if produced by a machine to take their place, and they took over chaperoning duties. He could see how some visitors to an inquisitor might be intimidated by such behaviour. He might have been himself, had they not been in the heart of the Fang. Besides, he seriously doubted that these two warriors, well trained as they might be, could even slow him down when it came to a real battle. He was, after all, a Space Marine.

  They arrived at the inner chamber and Ragnar saw that it had been partitioned off like the first with many drapes. It was like being in a huge multi-sectioned tent. It gave each person in the retinue some privacy; moreover, from a military standpoint, it altered the lay of the land, and might confuse any intruder for a few moments. Ragnar almost laughed at the thought. As if that could possibly stop the Wolves right in the middle of their own lair. He shook his head realising that he was being naïve. This arrangement was simply a standard procedure for these people, not some special set-up for here in the Fang. Perhaps in other places, on other planets, it would serve its purpose admirably. He decided to withhold judgement.

  He was led by the two guards through a winding maze of cloth corridors. It did not trouble him. He could find his way through the labyrinth from memory if need be and, even if that had not been the case, it would be a simple matter to follow his own scent trail back to the exit. He realised that the layout was another clue about these off-worlders. They thought in terms of mazes and puzzles, of deception and trickery. Their thinking was most likely equally convoluted and circuitous.

  As they proceeded through the structure, Ragnar noted the activities around him. In some of the curtained chambers, men meditated. In others scribes scratched away with stylos on the parchment pages of huge librams. Ahead of him, he could hear the clash of blade on blade. It sounded as if two people were engaging in combat practice.

  The three of them stepped through an entrance where the hangings had been folded back and Ragnar could see that he had been correct. The salt smell of sweat and the hard acrid stink of aggression struck his nose with an almost physical assault. He twitched his nostrils and watched carefully. Inquisitors Sternberg and Isaan were sparring with each other on a padded combat mat. They were using a style he had never seen before, long cloaks held in one fist, knives in the other. They were using the cloaks as weapons, flicking them at each other to obscure vision, using them like nets to try and entangle the other. Ragnar watched in fascination.

  They were both very skilled. Sternberg was larger and had the longer reach, but the woman was quicker and somehow she seemed able to anticipate the man’s movements better. Sternberg faked a slash and stabbed forward, but she was no longer before him. Her cloak lashed out to entangle his legs. Looking at the way it moved Ragnar could tell it was weighted, designed to be used as a weapon. That too told him something about these people. They thought to conceal weapons even within innocuous items of clothing. He imagined that the weights sewn into those hems, whipped forward at the end of a cloak, might be able to knock a normal man out, perhaps even break his head, though he doubted they would have any effect on the reinforced skull of a Space Marine.

  Sternberg leapt upward, letting the cloak pass beneath him but that was a mistake, Ragnar could tell. Taking even one foot off the ground usually was in close combat. It put a man off balance. Leaping into the air was worse. You had no purchase on anything. Isaan proceeded to demonstrate this admirably. Her straightened arm slammed into Sternberg’s chest, sending him tumbling backwards. His fingers opened and the cloak tumbled to the floor. Ragnar thought him bested for a moment, but then realised that the truth was otherwise. As he hit the ground he rolled over, feet passing over his head, but even as he did so his newly freed arm slammed into the ground and his whole body rotated, bringing his feet into position to kick the legs from underneath the woman. She tumbled backwards onto the mat, and the man moved forward with a turn of speed he had not previously demonstrated, to end with his knife at her throat.

  ‘Yield,’ he said smoothly.

  ‘I yield,’ she panted. ‘Good move, the last. I had thought you a little slow today.’

  Ragnar studied them again, looking at Inquisitor Sternberg with new respect. He had obviously planned out the whole thing, lured his colleague into his trap and then swiftly implemented it. He had used his mind as a weapon as well as the knife and it was difficult to tell which was keener. Ragnar slapped his open hand against his breastplate in warrior’s applause. Sternberg turned at the sound, and bowed to him with a smile.

  Ragnar took a moment to study the inquisitor. Close up, the man looked as hard as a Wolf Priest. His hair was so grey it was almost white but other than that he looked youthful. His skin was tanned and his teeth were white and even. His eyes were grey, calm and watchful. His smile was pleasant, even friendly, but that friendliness never quite seemed to reach his eyes.

  ‘Greetings, my friend,’ Sternberg said evenly, despite his recent exertions. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘I have been sent to be your guide and to answer any questions you may have about the Fang.’

  ‘And about what I came here to find?’r />
  ‘I know nothing about such things – but I can take you to those who may do.’

  ‘Good,’ the inquisitor said. ‘I am most keen to start. Lives are at stake and we do not have any time to waste.’

  ‘Then let us seek out the archivists,’ Ragnar said.

  Matters were not going well, Ragnar thought. On the surface the inquisitors seemed relaxed and charming but Ragnar could tell by their scents that they were angry and frustrated. His nose never lied about such things. No Space Wolf would be fooled by their appearance, and the archivist, too, was a Space Wolf. He, in turn, seemed to be responding to the visitors’ suppressed impatience with an anger of his own.

  To distract himself from the swirl of emotions, Ragnar gazed around this section of the Hall of Battles. One corner of the vast chamber was filled by flickering viewscreens and the huge brass and iron chassis of the ancient cogitation engine. The air smelled of ozone and machine oil. The hiss of pistons and the hum of capacitors reached his ears. In the walls were countless niches filled with smooth stone tablets. Ragnar knew that these were runestones, and that in some way known only to the Iron Priests they stored great volumes of information that the machine could read. The stones were a near-indestructible repository of lore from throughout the Space Wolves’ history.

  ‘It will take some time to find out what you require,’ Archivist Tal said testily. He was an elderly Wolf Priest, even older-looking than Ranek but far less burly. Age seemed to have pruned every fragment of spare flesh from his frame. His beard was long and straggly. His one good eye was sunk deep its socket. The green-tinged camera lens of a bionic device glittered in place of its twin. Ragnar could see the inquisitor’s face reflected in its polished glass. When the archivist raised one hand the nails were so long they looked like talons.

  ‘How much longer?’ Sternberg asked him. His voice was calm, well-modulated. Had Ragnar not been reading the man’s scent he would have detected no trace of impatience in it.

  The archivist shrugged and the raven hopped from his shoulder and began to scrabble along the desk, before it flexed its wings and took off. Ragnar watched the bird go. For a moment it looked like a scrap of shadow under the vast cavern roof, then it disappeared into the gloom. This part of the Hall of Battles was not well lit and it smelled fusty with age. ‘Who can say? I will notify young Ragnar when I come across the runestones pertaining to what you require. In the meantime it would be best if you returned to your chambers. Your presence here is merely a distraction.’

  ‘The Great Wolf said that these people were to be given all the co-operation they required,’ Ragnar said. He did not feel quite as calm as he sounded. The archivist was notoriously crotchety.

  ‘It is not for you to remind me what the Great Wolf said, young Ragnar. My memory is quite good enough for that. I am the Keeper of Records. I can recall what he told me only yesterday. I am just saying that things would go quicker if I did not have people here asking me fool’s questions and goading me with fool’s statements.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Ragnar said tetchily.

  ‘And I don’t need any of your lip either, youngling. I am not so old that I can’t administer a sound thrashing to any beardless cub that cheeks me.’

  Ragnar looked at the old man sullenly. He seemed serious but it was hard to tell. The archivist was known to have a strange sense of humour. Age had made him somewhat eccentric; senile, some claimed. Ragnar breathed in the man’s scent. There was some resentment there. Judging by his stance and his tone it was not directed at Ragnar but at the off-worlders. It seemed that the archivist, too, was reluctant to give up the secrets of the Space Wolves to people he did not know.

  ‘Can you not at least give me some idea of how long?’ Ragnar asked, now using the native tongue of Fenris, a speech that doubled as the secret battle language of the Space Wolves. He saw the archivist’s good eye flicker once in the direction of Sternberg. His own gaze followed.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ said Tal. Ragnar caught what he was looking at too. No flicker of understanding passed over Sternberg’s face. Presumably the inquisitor did not know their language, then. For some reason Ragnar found himself hoping that was the case.

  ‘There are millions of runestones, Blood Claw, and the indexes are not necessarily all that reliable. Such procedures take time. You would do well to learn patience, as would your off-world companions.’

  ‘I will bear that in mind,’ Ragnar said sourly. ‘I hope all of the people on Aerius who are dying learn patience too. The fate of a world hangs in the balance here.’

  The archivist snorted. ‘When you reach my age, youngling, you will realise that the fate of a world always hangs in the balance somewhere.’

  ‘How much longer is this going to take?’ Inquisitor Isaan asked, glancing around the Hall of Battles with impatience. She did not sound happy. Things were obviously not going quite as well as she had imagined.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ Ragnar said. He followed her gaze, oddly glad that Sternberg had not accompanied them, allowing him to be alone with the woman. Sternberg had shown far less interest in the wonders of the Hall than she and waited with the archivist.

  The great statue of Oberik Kelman, 23rd Great Wolf of the Chapter, glared down angrily at the pair of them. Kelman had been a famously temperamental man, given to terrifying rages when frustrated. Just at the moment Ragnar thought he knew how the Wolf must have felt. He was struggling to keep his temper in the face of the inquisitor’s impatience. It was not that he blamed her. He too would have liked to have seen quicker progress but he also felt that she blamed him, and her constant questioning of him would not make things happen any quicker.

  ‘And how long precisely will that be?’ Karah Isaan glared at him with cat-like green eyes. She was almost as tall as he was, brown skinned, with a pert nose and wide lips. Her hair was lustrous black. She was quite the most exotic woman he had ever seen, but right at this moment there was nothing remotely attractive about her.

  ‘I can see why you are an inquisitor,’ Ragnar replied. ‘You do not easily abandon a line of questioning.’

  ‘And once again you are avoiding giving me an answer.’

  ‘The answer is plain, lady: I don’t know. I am not an archivist. I am only here to be your guide.’

  ‘And to be our watchdog.’

  Ragnar looked at her, startled that she would suggest such a thing. In that tone of voice it was close to being an insult. ‘Those are words I would call you out for, if–’

  ‘If I were a man?’

  Ragnar almost smiled. That was exactly what he had been going to say. The womenfolk of the islands did not fight, and he had no idea how to deal with a woman who behaved as if she were the equal of any warrior. Instead of speaking he merely grunted assent.

  ‘I would not let that stop you,’ she said. ‘I have been trained to fight. All of my calling are.’

  ‘I am sure. But it would be a most terrible breach of hospitality. We do not slay our guests.’

  ‘You are very certain you could slay me.’

  ‘Yes.’ A simple statement of fact. ‘I am a Space Marine.’

  Another simple statement of fact. He was one of the mightiest warriors humanity could produce, enhanced in a hundred different ways, taught to kill in every way, bloodied in combat against the vile forces of Chaos. There was no way any normal mortal could stand in combat against him.

  She smiled at him, showing small perfect teeth. It was a cold smile, with nothing friendly in it. She moved her hand. Ragnar sensed a gathering of energies, but was unsure of what was happening.

  Then he tried to move and his limbs would not respond.

  A psyker, he realised. She was a psyker, one of those witches gifted with extraordinary mental powers, one of which was now quite obviously the ability to paralyse any target she wished.

  Ragnar suddenly felt very foolish… and very angry. He exerted his strength, willing his limbs to respond. Her arrogant smile grew wider and colder as she w
atched him struggle. This just served to make him angrier still. Somewhere in the dim depths of his mind, the beast that had been part of him since he became a Space Wolf began to snarl with frustrated rage. It did not like being caged, even if the cage was his own body.

  Perhaps this was the threat he had sensed when the strangers had first appeared. Psykers were notoriously prone to possession by the daemons of Chaos. Perhaps even now one of them had wormed its way into the very heart of the Fang.

  ‘Space Wolf, I could kill you now and there is nothing you could do about it,’ she said calmly.

  THREE

  Ragnar could almost smell the woman gloating – and he was livid. He could not sense any other alteration in her scent. She did not appear to be tainted by Chaos. Perhaps, after all, she was simply doing all this to prove a point. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow as he forced his numb limbs to move. Time seemed to slow to glacial time as he urged his body to reject her hold on him.

  One of his fingers quivered slightly and a look of utter shock appeared on her face, as if she had never seen anyone break her hold before, no matter how slightly. He smelled her sudden loss of confidence, and a faint flicker in the power as that affected her control. Suddenly, somehow, he could move. It was like being encased in molasses but at least his limbs were his own once more. He seemed to be moving with incredible slowness, but at least he was moving.

  She let out a faint shriek. His hand was round her throat, almost before he had thought of it. With his superhuman strength all he had to do was close his fingers and her windpipe would be crushed.

  ‘And now I could kill you,’ he hissed. ‘And there is nothing you could do about it.’ He opened his hand and stepped back. ‘But that would be neither honourable nor hospitable.’

  They stood for a moment, glaring at each other. Both of them were breathing hard. He realised that the use of her powers must be as draining to her as hours of heavy exercise was to him. He himself was exhausted from resisting them as he had not been after a two hundred mile forced march.