The Space Wolf Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer 40K

  He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Strybjorn and Sven move to the sergeant’s aid. They lopped off inhuman limbs with their chainswords, and then pulled Hakon to safety through the door. Ragnar glanced around in panic, wondering what had become of Nils. Back in the heart of the room was a humanoid figure, completely encased in hardening goo. Even as he watched, more and more greenish figures threw themselves on it, and the struggling stopped.

  In a moment, all that remained was Nils’s outline, encased in hardened green stuff. Horror filled Ragnar. This was an abomination, and one against which there seemed to be no defence. Normal weapons appeared to have no effect against these creatures. Their soft, magically animated forms were impervious even to bolter shells, and simply knitted together again when struck with chainsword blades. It was like fighting with trolls, only worse; even trolls had not engendered this level of horror in him.

  ‘Go! Go!’ Sergeant Hakon ordered. ‘There is nothing we can do for him now.’

  Ragnar wanted to stay, to at least try, but he could see the sense of the sergeant’s words. By staying they would only guarantee themselves a horrible death, one that was in no sense heroic. A sacrifice that would not help the teeming millions on the planet’s surface who would soon fall victim to the daemon.

  At least the things were slow moving. If they ran, he and his companions should be able to outpace them. He wondered what had happened to Gul. He had caught no sight of the traitor since Hakon had shot him. If there was any justice, Ragnar thought, he would be drowning in the mucus that covered the floor. Somehow he doubted they were going to be that lucky.

  Making sure Karah’s slight, lifeless form was secure on his shoulder, he began to trot back the way they had come, following the scent trail they had left on the way in. Behind him, echoing footsteps told him his remaining battle-brothers were on his trail.

  They emerged from the pyramid into night and an ominous silence. Ragnar wondered what had happened. Surely everyone could not be dead already. The daemon’s powers could not possibly be so virulent, could they? But how could he know what the thing was capable of? How could he measure the abilities of a being that had managed to stay alive in the heart of the Black Pyramid for millennia and which was capable of the dark magic he had just witnessed. Its powers far and away dwarfed those of Madox, the sorcerer-warrior of the Thousand Sons he had killed back on Fenris, and who was his only previous experience of the fell terrors of Chaos sorcery. Perhaps Botchulaz could indeed bring this world to its knees. Perhaps he had already done so. Ragnar had no way of knowing.

  He glanced around, out into the mist and silence. The patterns of tiny lights on the starscrapers glowed in the distance. Overhead he could see the running lanterns of aircars and descending spaceships. Behind him a strange greenish yellow glow suffused the surface of the pyramid. It pulsed eerily, and even as he watched the shimmering light seemed to separate itself from the structure, coalesce into a cloud and drift off into the night air. Thousands upon thousands of misty tendrils extended themselves outwards, a manifestation of a dark sorcery he could not quite comprehend. He was sure it boded no good for the inhabitants of Aerius.

  As he watched, the lights along the side of the Black Pyramid flickered and reassembled themselves into a new pattern. Ragnar could have sworn that for a brief instant he saw the leering face of the plague-thing looking down on them. Moments later, he was convinced that the face was itself made up of thousands upon thousands of smaller versions of Botchulaz, all capering and prancing and posturing. Even as he watched, liquid began to coalesce on the side of the pyramid. Droplets of green slimy sweat seemed to ooze from the very stone. It became apparent to Ragnar that whatever magic the eldar had used to imprison Botchulaz, it was no longer working.

  He realised that he himself was not feeling too good. His head felt light and sweat was pouring from his brow. He stifled a sneeze and realised that he was rapidly becoming feverish, ill in a way he had not been since he first became a Space Marine. Not even his altered physique was immune to the vile contagion created by the daemon, Botchulaz. All he could do now was pray to Russ and the Emperor that he was strong enough to resist the illness.

  It occurred to him then that if the disease was now strong enough to affect even Space Marines, it must be a terrible scourge indeed for ordinary mortals.

  ‘Smell that,’ he heard Sven say. Ragnar sniffed the air and realised what his battle-brother meant. There was an odd taint to the night air which had not been there before. His nostrils seemed to tingle.

  ‘Vile sorcery,’ Sergeant Hakon said. ‘Of the worst sort.’

  ‘What are we going to do about it?’ Strybjorn asked.

  Hakon looked at the unconscious figure of Karah. ‘We need to find out what is going on. What the daemon has planned.’

  ‘I think that is just about to become obvious,’ Sven said, pointing at the crowd of sickly figures which lay around the square. Ragnar’s foreboding increased as the eerie mystical reek intensified, swathing them in an almost tangible cloud. It was like the smell of sewage mingled with rotting flesh, only greatly intensified and a thousand times worse. The unhealthy mob had begun to moan and writhe. A few of them were starting to clamber unsteadily to their feet. They did not look as if they had recovered, though. If anything they looked worse. Their faces were pale. Pustules erupted all over their bodies. Their movements had a terrible slowness, like those of old men in the last stages of some terminal illness. Their flesh had an odd greenish yellow tint. Their sweat looked more like mucus than any normal body fluid, and gave their flesh a loathsome, nausea-inducing sheen. A strange greenish glow had entered their eyes, a sorcerous light that burned dimly beneath the rheum which crusted their eyeballs. Ragnar sensed the flow of alien energies around and through them. He knew now that they had passed beyond being human, and had fallen under the evil spell of the plague daemon.

  As if to confirm this, the first of the newly arisen plague victims turned towards the Blood Claws. It opened its mouth and let out an eerie sound, half shriek, half gurgle; a noise that made Ragnar think of a man drowning in the mucus that filled his lungs and throat. Slowly the infected man shambled towards them, arms outstretched, mouth agape, eyes blazing.

  Ragnar looked at his companions. He was not frightened. Compared to what they had just escaped in the pyramid these few corrupted souls were nothing. Then, in a moment, true realisation dawned, and what he was seeing became suddenly quietly terrifying. Across this world were millions of plague-infected mortals. If all of them, or even some, were turned into Nurgle’s creatures by this disease then the Plague Lord would soon have an enormous army under his sway. Worse than that, if the pestilence were to spread off world, soon systems, even entire segmenta might fall to him. Was it possible that the monstrous being was really this powerful? Truly, if it were so, then this was a threat not merely to the world of Aerius but to the whole Imperium! Despite himself, his respect for the dark powers of Botchulaz increased.

  ‘Perhaps we should return to the ship and get Inquisitor Isaan some treatment,’ Sven suggested, looking at her recumbent form with concern.

  ‘No!’ Ragnar said suddenly. All eyes turned to him. ‘If she is infected, if we are infected, all we will do is spread this contagion to the Light of Truth. Who knows where it might go from there?’

  ‘Ragnar speaks the truth,’ Hakon agreed. ‘We must keep this place quarantined at all costs!’

  The sergeant spoke into the comm-net, relaying details of their situation to the ship, telling them to broadcast an interdiction order to all vessels in the system, and informing them to request the presence of an Imperial battlefleet to contain the threat. Ragnar saw the sense of this, but wondered what good it would do. By the time a fleet could get here, the damage would be done.

  Ragnar glanced back at the crowd. They were beginning to surround the Space Marines and their comrades. Ragnar was not sure what they hoped to accomplish, unarmed against armoured and well-equipped troops. As he watched, tho
ugh, the crowd shambled forward, arms outstretched, fingers extended like talons. He was reluctant to open fire on these pitiful victims of Botchulaz’s daemonic machinations. They were, after all, the people he was sworn to protect, who their mission had been intended to save.

  ‘Fire at will!’ Sergeant Hakon said. ‘These people are beyond saving. They are no longer human, merely vessels of evil.’

  He matched his action to his words and opened fire. Bolter shells blasted through the chest of the first unfortunate, sending him tumbling back into the crowd. It did not even slow his fellow plague victims down: they shambled forward mindlessly, intent on pulling down Ragnar and his comrades. Ragnar realised that they might just possibly manage it too, by sheer weight of numbers. He reached for a grenade and lobbed it into the mass of bodies. The explosion tore them apart, sending blood and body fluids and internal organs spraying everywhere.

  Lasgun beams and bolter shells smashed into the walls beside him. Now he saw what was happening. There was no way through the press of bodies. There were too many of them, and some of them were armed. They could not fight their way clear. By sheer weight of numbers the plague victims were forcing them back into the pyramid.

  Karah stirred. When she spoke, her voice was weak but her words were clear and distinct. ‘Leaving here will do no good. The daemon is… tapping into the power of the pyramid itself, using the energies that once trapped him to fuel his sorcery. We must… stop him here and now, or we will not stop him at all. We must go back in there… and finish this…’

  At least she’s still alive, he thought and snapped off a shot into the oncoming crowd. It spoke with one voice, roaring and gurgling, and in that eerie cry, Ragnar thought he heard an obscene echo of the plague daemon’s mirth.

  ‘Let’s move!’ Hakon yelled; his keen senses had obviously picked up her words. He raced back into the pyramid. Within heartbeats, the Blood Claws had followed him. Behind them, the mob howled and gurgled sickly, leaving Ragnar wondering what sort of hell they had found themselves dropped into.

  Around them the blackness of the ancient eldar pyramid closed in once more.

  It was quiet. Ragnar placed his back against the cool stone of the wall and took a deep breath. His head swirled. He felt feverish. He knew it was the effects of the daemon’s magic. His body was trying to throw off the symptoms of the plague, so far unsuccessfully. Looking at the others he could see that they did not look any better. Sweat beaded Sven’s forehead and his skin had taken on a sickly, greenish-yellow hue.

  ‘You look like an ork,’ Ragnar said.

  ‘You don’t look so bloody handsome yourself,’ Sven responded. ‘I’ve seen corpses look healthier.’

  ‘The power of Chaos is strong here,’ said Strybjorn.

  Sven let out a bitter bark of laughter. ‘Thank you for pointing that out. Without your help I am sure we would never have noticed.’

  Strybjorn glared at Sven and snarled. The air between them was suddenly tense with violence. Sergeant Hakon laid a restraining hand on Sven’s shoulder and Ragnar stepped between them.

  ‘We are all sick and tired and there is a daemon loose on this world. Now is not a time to be at each other’s throats,’ said Hakon. ‘We must stand together or we will never find a way to stop this madness.’

  Despair filled Ragnar at the sergeant’s words. They had all witnessed the daemon’s power. It seemed invincible and unstoppable. There was nothing they could do against such a being. Nothing. It had used them as pawns from the very start. It was too clever for them. Its ageless eternal evil was more than any mortal man could overcome.

  What could four of them hope to do against such a creature and its minions? The monsters it had created were bad enough, but he knew now that, outside the pyramid, an army dedicated to Chaos was coming into being, an army made of the infected bodies of the plague’s victims, reinforced no doubt by the members of the secret cult that had worked for so long to ensure Botchulaz’s freedom. Who knew how many of them there were, and what positions of power they had attained. If Sternberg’s own trusted lieutenant had been one of them, how many others might there be?

  Right from the start, they had been caught up in a web of evil from which they had not been able to escape. Ragnar wondered if they had ever had a chance to break free, if any decision could have been made differently that would have allowed them to avoid freeing the plague daemon, and saved the lives of his comrades?

  Guilt swept through Ragnar. He had believed Sternberg and had become an unwitting pawn of the daemon, and so had all his companions. Unknowingly Lars and Nils had laid down their lives in the service of the foul powers of Chaos. It was a thought that made him ashamed to the core of his being.

  It also made him angry. If he was if only partly responsible for the devastation they were watching, Botchulaz was all the more so. It had been the daemon’s malign intelligence that had planned all of this, Ragnar did not blame Sternberg or his companions or himself half as much as he blamed that vile monster, and he swore that if it was the last thing he did, he would have revenge on the daemon.

  With the anger came a sense of betrayal. They had all been let down. The prophecies that had led them here had proved false. He felt hopelessness return when he realised that the daemon’s powers had been great enough to reach out from this sealed pyramid halfway across the galaxy to sway the minds of even the Rune Priests of the Space Wolves. Or were they?

  The prophecy had said only that the evil would end when the talisman was brought to the central chamber of the pyramid. It had not said anything about the cost in human lives. But had they not brought the talisman to the appointed place, and had they not failed even then?

  Ragnar forced himself to think back. Was that what had in fact happened? Karah had been blasted unconscious before she had a chance to use its power. The daemon’s minions had forced them to retreat. If they had stayed put, perhaps they might have been able to achieve something. But what?

  The brief hope that had flickered in his mind died away. He was clutching at straws, deluding himself. There was no hope; they had failed. There was nothing left but to lie down and die. He felt a touch on his forehead and looked down to see that Karah’s eyes were open. She looked at him in understanding, as if reading his thoughts. She smiled wanly.

  ‘I think you are right,’ she said through cracked lips. ‘ Perhaps the talisman is the key – and used properly we might seal the daemon within its prison once more.’

  ‘How can you know that?’

  ‘I have had more chance to study the layout of this pyramid than anyone save its builders. I have communed with the forces at play here. I think I can see a way to activate them again and imprison that evil thing once more.’

  ‘And what if you are wrong?’

  ‘What do we have to lose?’ she shrugged. ‘We are already as good as dead.’

  Ragnar heard the sharp intake of breath from his battle-brothers, and looked around to see that they were all nodding their agreement. The despair that had been written on every face was gone, to be replaced by looks of single-minded determination.

  ‘She’s bloody well right,’ Sven said for all of them. ‘We’ve nothing to lose, and everything to gain.’

  ‘We have a chance to settle our score with the plague-thing. I, for one, welcome that.’

  ‘Then let us go and face our doom!’ said Ragnar. ‘At least we may die as worthy sons of Russ!’

  All of them nodded agreement save Sergeant Hakon. His thin lips were compressed into a snarl.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I would know more of what we should do. Our heroic deaths might redeem us in the eyes of Russ, but it will do nothing for the people we are sworn to protect. I would know more of what you plan, Karah Isaan.’

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Listen.’

  And as Ragnar listened his heart sank once more.

  They raced on, deep into the heart of the pyramid. Ragnar clutched his weapons in his white-knuckled fists. His chainsword was ready
. His bolt pistol was held level. If any enemy came into his sight, they would die. All around he could catch the strange scents of the diseased ones. They had entered the great pyramid from the square and wandered about within. Ragnar could smell the sickness in them, and there were other scents, more subtly tainted, that he assumed belonged to the cultists who worshipped Botchulaz. He bared his fangs in a snarl. He wanted to get to grips with those traitors to humanity. He wanted them to pay with their lives for their betrayal of the Imperium and their fellow men.

  The corridors were shadowy. Strange witchfires burned in alcoves in the walls. Their yellowish-green light reminded him of the magical energies the plague daemon had unleashed. It had conjured this glow forth for its own fell purposes, probably to allow its worshippers to hunt down the Space Wolves. So far they had managed to avoid the foul creatures. The pyramid was huge, the corridors seemingly endless. Even the massive number of diseased ones could not be everywhere. They had managed to avoid them by taking different turnings, trusting to their sense of direction, that they would be able to return to the correct path at need. It was slowing down their progress though, and Ragnar could not help but feel that every second counted. With every heartbeat he sensed the daemon’s power spreading. The plague was getting stronger, more and more people would fall under its foul sway, and succumb to the daemon’s magic. Worse yet, he felt his own strength lessening, and his own brow becoming more feverish.

  At the back of his mind, he could hear a strange whispering voice, full of mad gurgling mirth, urging him to lie down, to rest, just for a moment. By doing so, he would regain his strength. He knew this was the work of Botchulaz, the start of the plague daemon’s spell. He knew that if he lay down, he would lie down forever and rise again as the daemon’s minion. He determined that he would never do that, that he would rather put his own bolt pistol to his brow and pull the trigger than become a slave of such evil. He could tell by the way his battle-brothers snarled that they too had reached the same decision. A soft hand came to rest on his shoulder.