The Space Wolf Omnibus - William King

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘Aye, lad, true enough, but then we would have missed out on that glorious boarding action.’

  The ten men of the Wolf Guard accompanying them laughed agreement. Ragnar turned his glance back to the Pride of Fenris. He did not necessarily agree – if they had not boarded the ship many Space Wolf lives would not have been lost, and Aenar would not have been wounded.

  Thrilling as the fight had been, and glorious as the destruction of the Chaos craft was, Ragnar was not convinced it was worth the price. He was enough of a man of Fenris to relish the glory of what they had done, and to be glad he had earned a place in the legend-maker’s chants, but at the same time, another part of him counted the cost. It was an unnatural thought for a Space Wolf, he knew, but he could not help entertaining it.

  The shuttle moved closer to the flagship. Ragnar felt someone watching him and turned to see the Navigator. She was a tall woman, pale, slender and exotically beautiful, with long silver hair and eyes like chips of ice. A scarf was draped around her forehead covering the disturbing pineal eye. He smiled at her. She nodded back calmly. He shrugged and looked away.

  ‘Why is the Navigator with us?’ Ragnar asked Morgrim.

  ‘Shayara is with us because Lord Berek wants her to be,’ replied the skald. There was an undertone of amusement in his voice. ‘Her insights are often useful.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Navigators don’t think like we do. They do not see reality the same way either. It is surprising how often they see things we don’t. And sometimes Shayara has the gift of foretelling, powerful as any Rune Priest.’

  ‘That could be a useful gift,’ said Ragnar.

  ‘And a terrifying one,’ Morgrim replied and said no more.

  The council hall on the Pride of Fenris was like Logan Grimnar’s chambers back in the Fang, a little smaller, a little less ornate, but nonetheless they belonged to the Great Wolf just as recognisably as Berek’s belonged to him.

  As Berek and his men entered they were greeted by a great roar of approval from the assembled Wolf Lords and their guards. Even Logan Grimnar and his entourage of priests banged their chestplates with their fists in warriors’ applause. It was obvious that all had heard and greatly approved of Berek’s destruction of the Chaos warship. All that is, except Sigrid Trollbane. He applauded but his face was twisted, his expression that of one who has swallowed a lemon.

  This was Ragnar’s first opportunity to study his liege lord’s great rival and he took advantage of it. Sigrid was a tall man, spare and thin. All excess flesh seemed to have been burned from his face. His hair was dark and straight, his features sallow, his lips thin and unsmiling. His eyes were large and cold and glittered with a chilly introverted intelligence. The overwhelming impression he gave was of concentration. He looked like a racing hound straining at a leash. For a moment his eyes met Ragnar’s and there was a shock of contact. Ragnar felt he was the focus of all the Wolf Lord’s attention. It was like feeling a searchlight play over him, or suddenly knowing that he was in the sights of a sniper’s rifle.

  Sigrid tilted his head to one side, and considered Ragnar as if he was an interesting new form of insect life. A faint frown of puzzlement graved itself on his brow. He was obviously trying to work out who the newcomer was and why he was here.

  Ragnar refused to be the first to look away. A cold smile played across Sigrid’s lips and he turned and said something to the chieftain of his bodyguards, a huge bear of a man with a bristling beard and a shiny bald head. The giant laughed loudly at whatever his lord said. Ragnar could not help but feel he was being made the butt of some joke, but here, under the eyes of the Great Wolf and his retinue, was not the time or place to do anything about it.

  ‘Welcome, Berek Thunderfist,’ boomed Logan Grimnar. ‘Your presence gives us honour.’

  ‘And we always appreciate the drama of your entrances,’ said Sigrid. His voice was deep, resonant and surprisingly powerful. There was a sadness to it, and an ironic mockery as well as a touch of hatred. ‘Last to arrive, as always.’

  Logan Grimnar cast a warning look at Sigrid. He obviously did not appreciate having his speech of welcome interrupted. Was the Trollbane’s dislike really so intense that he would risk the lord of the Chapter’s ire, Ragnar wondered?

  ‘You know what they say: first in battle, last in council,’ said Berek, smiling amiably. Ragnar studied his chieftain closely. There was a change in his manner again, doubtless for this new audience of influential lords. Now he was the picture of the bluff Fenrisian warrior, his natural intelligence hidden behind an ingenuous manner. If he was deliberately contrasting himself with Sigrid’s sneering intelligence he could not have done a better job. Ragnar saw the room respond. Many of the other Wolf Lords looked at Berek approvingly, and at Sigrid with something like disdain.

  ‘Well spoken,’ said Logan Grimnar, smoothing over the obvious rift. ‘And now that we are all here it is time to discuss the drop on Garm.’

  Ragnar felt a thrill of excitement pass through him. The drop was going to go ahead soon. He stood now at the hub of things. This was where the decisions would be taken that would affect the lives of himself and his comrades, and he would be among the first to know of them. It was a heady feeling.

  ‘I have had a request from the Imperial field commander for our Chapter to spearhead the drop…’

  A roar of approval greeted this news. It was after all only appropriate that Space Marines be called upon to lead the Imperial attack. Surprisingly Logan Grimnar raised his hand for silence. At once, the Wolf Lords went quiet. The Great Wolf gestured again. Some technical adept was obviously working his wizardry for at once a glowing sphere, recognisable as Garm, appeared in the air above them. It was twice as tall as a man. Ragnar could see the blue-black of the seas, the white of the clouds, and snow-fields, the multi-coloured blisters that were the cities.

  ‘Lord High General Durant has suggested that we attack here, at point alpha-four-omega.’

  As Logan Grimnar spoke their point of view dropped towards the planet. It swelled in their field of vision to become a topographic map of a huge hive city. Parts of it were colour coded – blue was loyalist, angry red was enemy. At this point, there was far more red than blue. A shimmering circle pulsed at the point where the general wanted them to drop.

  ‘I have regretfully declined his request,’ said the Great Wolf. ‘I have told him it is our first duty to free the sacred shrine of Russ from the clutches of the heretics and to recover the Spear. Only then can we move to cleanse this world of the filth who are the Emperor’s enemies.’

  Once again the assembled Wolf Lords roared their approval. Ragnar understood the Great Wolf’s decision. At one and the same time the Great Wolf had put the Imperial general in his place and established their real priorities. He had let Durant know that the Space Wolves were with his command, not part of it. They were outside the normal Imperial power structure and would act as the supreme lord saw fit. Ragnar had been taught how the rest of the Imperium worked. Doubtless General Durant thought in terms of his own plans and priorities, and would like nothing better than to see the Space Wolves subordinated to his aims. Logan Grimnar had let him know this was not the way it was going to be.

  The Great Wolf gestured again and the view in the holosphere changed once more. It showed the ruins of an enormous pyramid-shaped building. A statue of a rampant wolf had stood on the top of the roof; now it lay smashed in three pieces. In the side of the building, a monstrous set of metallic double doors had been blown open. The skeletons of dead warriors lying amid the rubble put them into scale. They were near five times as high as a man. The whole building was riddled with shots. Thousands and thousands of bullet holes pockmarked the walls. Massive craters had been ripped out of the wall. Here and there enormous duralloy girders jutted from the plascrete like broken ribs sticking through skin.

  Ragnar heard gasps from some of those present, men who obviously recognised the building. It did not take much guesswork to tell him
that this was the Shrine of Garm’s Skull. As far as he could tell someone had done a pretty good job of storming it. As Grimnar continued to speak the view panned backwards and outwards.

  Ragnar could see the structure of fortifications surrounding the shrine. The flatness of the plascrete plain was broken only by turrets, emplacements and bunkers with interlocking zones of fire. Enormous fortified walls, bristling with turrets, enclosed the plain forming a killing ground almost a kilometre square.

  Now the whole area was full of wreckage and dead bodies. The twisted remains of tanks filled the ground. Corpses lay bloating in water-filled craters, their weapons still close at hand. Huge chunks of plascrete had been ripped out of the earth by artillery fire. Amid the flotsam and jetsam of war, patrols of men moved, scavenging from the dead. Amid the burned out remains of the bunkers, war-weary men huddled around trash-fires and warmed their hands at gas braziers. The air had a hazy, polluted look. A blanket of strangely discoloured snow covered most of the ground.

  ‘We can’t get an internal view of the shrine’s inner sanctum,’ said the Great Wolf. ‘The shielding is still effective.’

  ‘It’s fair to assume that in so short a time there can have been no internal modifications,’ said Berek. ‘We can use the architectural schematics we already have.’

  ‘We can assume nothing,’ Sigrid contradicted. ‘It is merely wishful thinking to believe that nothing has changed.’

  Logan Grimnar looked at his two bickering captains like a parent regarding two squabbling children. ‘The schematics are the only things we have to go on currently. Nothing from the orbital divinatory engines suggests anything has been changed. When we seize the shrine we will proceed as always within hostile terrain until the Iron Priests have time to perform cleansing and purification rituals.’

  ‘How are we going to do it?’ asked a voice from the back that Ragnar did not recognise.

  ‘The same way as always,’ said Logan Grimnar. ‘With bolter in one hand and chainsword in the other.’

  That got a laugh from everyone except Sigrid, though even he gave a sour smile.

  ‘To give the tale a true telling, we shall begin with a short orbital bombardment at these points.’

  The map returned. Red skulls appeared at each corner of the building until the whole shrine was cordoned off.

  ‘How brief?’ asked Sigrid.

  ‘Thirty seconds. No more. We go down thirty seconds later. The bombardment should detonate any mines or other nasty surprises the tech-augurs have missed and give us a clear landing site. I want five companies on the ground in drop pods. There will be Thunderhawks for air support. Three transport shuttles will bring the armour in once the perimeter is secure. I am allowing two minutes for that.’

  ‘What about the shrine’s defences?’ asked Sigrid. ‘Is there any possibility they have been subverted?’

  ‘All our divinations tell us that most of the defences were destroyed in the initial attack. The last signal broadcast before the shrine was overrun tells us that Brother Jurgen managed to purge the datacores and self-destruct the major weapon-systems.’

  ‘My company stands ready to enter the shrine and begin purification of the heretics,’ said Berek. Ragnar looked at his chieftain, sensing the tension. Berek wanted very badly to be first into the shrine, he wanted the glory of reclaiming it for the Chapter. ‘We have recent experience of such action on Xecutor.’

  ‘All our companies have such experience,’ said Sigrid. ‘I too volunteer my company.’

  Immediately a chorus of voices made it clear that all present were keen to have their companies perform this duty. Logan Grimnar spread his arms wide for silence.

  ‘Berek and Sigrid, you both make the assumption that you are going in the first wave.’

  Both of the Wolf Lords openly stared at the Great Wolf. At that moment it looked like they were both considering challenging him. Grimnar’s steely glance quelled them. Once he was sure they were not going to say anything stupid, he smiled. ‘Fortunately, you are both correct in your assumptions. You will be going in with Grimblood, Redmaw and Stormforge. I don’t want to hear any challenges from those in the second wave either, before anybody speaks. Time is short and we need to get the wheels in motion.’

  ‘Who will begin cleansing the shrine?’ asked Stormforge.

  ‘Given their recent spectacular performance on the Chaos ship, Berek’s company will have the honour.’

  Ragnar looked over and saw a look of pure hatred written on Sigrid’s face. This did not bode well for the future, he thought.

  ELEVEN

  Ragnar leaned back inside the drop pod and surveyed the rest of the squad. For the duration of the landing, it seemed, he was back with the Blood Claws, and he was glad. When it came to fighting, he would rather be alongside Sven and Hakon and Strybjorn – who he knew well and had fought alongside many times.

  They were all strapped into the cramped interior of the pod. Space was so tight that they were pressed up against each other in the dark. The familiar smell of his pack filled the recycled air reassuringly. He glanced around at faces old and new, and was glad he trusted everyone present. All it would take was one tiny error, for one bolter to go off accidentally within the confines of the pod, and the results would be catastrophic.

  Sergeant Hakon caught his glance and nodded grimly. Ragnar found the gesture strangely reassuring. He had followed Hakon into many tight spots before and had always come out. He saw no reason why this time should be any different. Then he too smiled grimly. Not unless something went wrong...

  The drop pod could malfunction in a hundred different ways. The heat shields could fail and they could burn up on atmospheric entry. They could be caught by defensive fire as they made the drop. The reverse thrusters could malfunction and they could be flattened like crushed bugs by impact with the planetary surface. They could…

  Hastily he concentrated on the Litany of Acceptance, using the ancient words to drown out all the niggling little voices that worried away at the back of his mind. He concentrated on breathing, on regulating the beat of his double heart, on preparing himself for arrival.

  The orbital bombardment could fail to clear the minefields. They might land on a killing ground between defensive bunkers. They might go too soon and be caught by their own orbital support weapons. They…

  ‘What’s the matter, Ragnar?’ asked Sven. ‘You look like you just remembered you left all your ammo back in your cell.’

  Ragnar glanced across at his friend. Sven read him all too easily, just like he could read Sven. Despite his pose of ferocious indifference, Ragnar could smell Sven’s own uneasy fear. It might simply be a natural response to being confined in this small space or…

  Ragnar smiled suddenly. It was obvious now why his mind was racing more than normal: it was being in the drop pod. He did not like it all.

  Once more he was hemmed in on all sides, but this time it felt worse. Now that the purity seals on the pod were fastened, there was no way out until they hit the surface of Garm. The pod was their only protection against heat and altitude and the dangers of enemy fire. It was a tiny island of security in a deadly ocean of peril. The operative word was ‘tiny’. Now more than ever Ragnar was aware of his dislike for being enclosed. It was too much like being entombed. At least now he was aware of the source of most of his fear and unease and could resist it.

  ‘It’s just the smell of your breath, Sven. You’ve been at the curdled goat cheese again, haven’t you?’

  Sven grimaced. ‘A man has to eat. Best to go into battle on a full stomach. Who knows when we’ll see decent rations again.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s plenty to eat down there,’ said Aenar, his face glowing with a mixture of good cheer and apprehension. He looked very young, Ragnar thought.

  ‘We’ll soon find out,’ said Torvald. ‘If I am killed in the first minute, don’t anybody forget to say the rites over me. It would be just my luck to go down to hell unblessed and have the old hag who cu
rsed me waiting there.’

  Ragnar glanced around the inside of the pod. Overhead was the gargoyle encrusted control panel, familiar from a hundred practice drops. The internal walls were all inscribed with murals depicting familiar scenes from the Chapter’s legends. Behind Sven, Ragnar could just make out some details of Hengist Torvaldsson’s battle with the great serpent of Doomflare. Doubtless the product of some Wolf’s long leisure hours between combat practice and the meditation cell.

  ‘Synchronise,’ said Sergeant Hakon. A low bell-like chiming sounded in Ragnar’s ears as the ancient technical systems checked that the chronometers of his armour were perfectly synchronised with those of the sergeant and his battle-brothers.

  ‘Aye,’ Ragnar responded, and listened to the familiar litany of replies from his comrades. ‘Russ be praised.’

  ‘One minute,’ said Hakon. Immediately the chronometer countdown was superimposed on Ragnar’s field of vision. He closed his eyes and the clock remained there, its gothic lettering ticking away the time until the pod was expelled from the Fist of Russ and began its atmospheric entry. He reviewed his pre-battle preparations one last time.

  All of his equipment was primed and ready. He would break left when they hit the ground and give supporting fire as the others advanced. In his mind’s eye he could picture the pattern of the drop that Berek had outlined to them. They would be slightly closer to the entrance to the shrine than the Wolf Guard and were to advance immediately into it, securing the company’s way into the depths.

  He checked his physical responses. His heartbeats were perfectly relaxed now. His mind was clear. His anxieties were under control. Glands in his implanted lymphatic systems manufactured hormones to enhance healing and trace chemicals to speed his reflexes and dull pain. All familiar programmed changes before battle. In the past, he had not had enough experience to even be really aware of them, he had just known he felt better, faster, stronger. Now, he was capable of distinguishing each small new response.