They were not subtle weapons. They relied on vast numbers of supporting troops for protection, drank whole reservoirs of promethium in moments, and were operated by hundreds of shackled mortal crew, many hard-wired into the chassis in a grotesque fusion of man and weapon.
Their only purpose was to break the portals of the Fang, to disintegrate the protection over Russ’s fortress and render it as broken as the scoured wastelands of Prospero. Thousands had died to create them, their souls welded into the structures to bind the infernal powers within. The Legion had exhausted itself on them, poured every resource it still had into them, knowing full well that they would only be used once.
They were statements, those devices.
We will ruin ourselves, starve ourselves, cripple our future viability and leave ourselves destitute, all so long as we can destroy the gates that guard your citadel.
So they fired again, vomiting beams of destructive essence like shards of a supernova, venting the hatred that had seethed for over a thousand years, focusing it on the gates.
And those massive arches, each carved from the cold rock by ancient machines no less powerful, began to glow red from the impact, wavering in the heat-shimmer. The void shields were strengthened by desperate kaerls, fed with more power from the inexhaustible wells below the Fang until the unseen barriers screamed. The stone cracked and buckled, rocked by the torrent of fire and energy.
Above the lintel of the Sunrising Gate, the rune Gmorl had been graven. It signified Defiance.
When it was broken open at last, a vast sigh shuddered through the stone. There was a snap in the air, and a bow-wave of force rushed out from the citadel. Piers of granite and adamantium collapsed, breaking the symmetry of the buttresses. Cracks opened beneath the doors, running over the ground like rivulets of dark lava.
The remaining void shields shivered, and those at ground level went out. A hail of fire immediately poured through the gaps, slamming into the mountain beyond. The gate-breakers recalibrated, aiming for the weakest point. Their enormous barrels loosed columns of immolation, and Sunrising disappeared behind a wall of plasma.
When the fireballs cleared, the mighty doors were broken open, swinging crazily on hinges the size of Thunderhawks, buoyed by nothing more than the continuing explosions around them.
For a moment, no one moved. As if suddenly horrified by what they’d done, the entire Thousand Sons host held back, gazing up at the hole in the side of the mountain. The howl of the wind raced across the battlefield, its note of fury replaced by a whine of anguish.
Then the paralysis passed. Men began to run forwards, flanked by rows of tanks and troop carriers. The artillery resumed its crushing onslaught. The horde of vanguard warriors, thousands strong, rank upon rank of them, surged towards the gates, suddenly filled with the hope of victory.
Behind the climate-masks, they had all begun to realise what they’d done, what no-one had done before them. In the face of that knowledge, even the fear of the Wolves shrank back slightly.
Every trooper, from the lowliest gun-servitor to the mightiest sorcerer knew the truth, a truth that would now never be erased from the annals of galactic history.
They had come to the Citadel of Russ, the mightiest human fortress outside Terra, and they had broken it.
Blackwing ducked and ran, weaving between the bolt-rounds that tore gashes in the tunnel walls. Electrical cables were ripped open, causing showers of sparks to sluice across the floor. His men had either been killed or were fleeing back down the corridor ahead of him. It was a shambles.
Blackwing veered around the T-junction corner and crouched down against the near wall, turning back to face his pursuers. The body of one of his kaerls was flung across his field of vision, limbs cartwheeling, before the Rubric Marine careered into view.
Blackwing opened fire, loosing a dozen rounds at point-blank range before leaping back to his feet and hurtling down the corridor. From over his shoulder he could hear the crack of his bolts’ detonation, and risked a glance back.
The Traitor Marine had been rocked, its armour dented and smoking, but was already recovering his feet. Its boltgun barked, and Blackwing slammed himself into the cover of the broken bulkhead. Six slugs thunked into the structure and exploded, obliterating it, forcing Blackwing to scramble further back, covered in a rain of broken metal.
+Just one of you,+ came a voice in his mind. Its sending was halting, as if the speaker was in terrible pain. +I didn’t quite believe it until now.+
Blackwing had no way of replying, and concentrated on staying alive for a few moments longer. Leaping and ducking, relying on his gene-enhanced agility, he scampered away from the Rubric Marine, firing blindly behind him as he went.
The corridor opened out into a larger chamber, one he’d patrolled through just moments earlier. His men had set up a bulwark there, overturning tables and crates for barricades. They opened fire as Blackwing burst into the room, just managing to avoid hitting him as they aimed for the leviathan hard on his tail.
Blackwing pounced behind one of upturned tables. He drew his power-sword, a short stabbing blade, and flicked on the disruptor field. A heartbeat later and the Rubric Marine had followed him in.
It shrugged off skjoldtar fire as if it were a hail of pebbles. The Traitor Marine moved incredibly quickly for its huge size, hurling barricades against the wall and pumping bolt-rounds into the exposed troops before whirling round to smash apart more flimsy pieces of cover.
+A mere Scout, too. It seems I am in luck.+
Blackwing pushed his barricade aside and launched a stream of bolts directly at the Rubric Marine. It evaded some of them, swaying back with astonishing agility. The rest hit, exploding against the armour and shattering the ornamentation from the helm and shoulder-guards.
Then Blackwing pounced, swinging his blade into the contact zone and aiming for the cables at the neck. The Traitor’s Mk IV armour only had a few weaknesses, but that was one of them. His blade whistled towards its destination.
It never arrived. The Traitor sidestepped the swipe, pulled its fist back and punched out. Blackwing jerked his head away but the gauntlet still connected, crunching under his jaw and throwing him into the air on the follow-through.
+Not much of a contest, is it?+
Blackwing swivelled in mid-flight and crashed face-down to the ground. His visor shattered on impact, turning his vision into a crazy patchwork of angular lens fractures.
That’s why they don’t wear helms.
Groggily, he dragged himself back around. He heard sporadic gunfire as the few remaining kaerls launched a desperate assault on the rampaging Rubric Marine.
Blood ran down his temple. The gilded monster was busy finishing off the kaerls, breaking limbs with casual flicks before blasting men apart with single shots.
And in the background, limping up the corridor beyond, was the sorcerer.
+We will take this ship when you are dead, Dog,+ the cobra-masked figure wheezed. +Right into the middle of your fleet.+
Blackwing cleared his head, curling his fist around the grip of his sword, judging the distance. The last of his kaerls was dispatched contemptuously, and the Rubric Marine turned back to him.
+Then I’ll detonate the warp drive. What do you think of that?+
Blackwing sprang to his feet. Moving with all the explosive power he could muster, he fired his pistol straight at the Traitor Marine while simultaneously sending his power sword spinning towards the sorcerer. It glittered as it travelled, the biting edge whirling dead-eyed towards its target.
It was the most perfect manoeuvre Blackwing had ever executed, a stunning double-handed attack launched at unstoppable speed. The aim was perfect. His bolter rounds hammered home, thudding into the Rubric Marine’s armoured shell and tearing off plates.
The cartwheeling blade flew to its target too, blazing with ceramite-cleaving energies as it span. Even in the midst of everything, poised to leap at the sorcerer to finish the job, Blackwing felt a
burst of pride. Not many of his battle-brothers could have done what he’d just done. It was magnificent.
Then the blade hit the sorcerer’s kine-shield and broke into fragments. The Rubric Marine reeled, its right arm blasted off, exposing a gaping hole at the shoulder. Then it righted itself, and started to advance again.
At that point, Blackwing knew he was dead. There was nothing further he could do to halt them.
I’ll scar you, though, you bastards.
‘Fenrys!’ he roared, charging towards the sorcerer, emptying his clip at the hunched figure, feeling the weapon kick back against his palm as it unloaded its mass-reactive contents.
An explosion of wild, writhing, multi-coloured light boomed out from the sorcerer, followed by a deafening crash of something terrible breaking open. The stink of the immaterium bloomed out, and Blackwing was thrown on his back again, landing crushingly hard amid the ruined barricades and corpses. Something heavy hit his head, knocking open the damaged visor further. The world reeled around him, punched off its axis by the unholy release of warp-energy.
For a moment he lay still, stunned. There were more crashes, more blasts of eye-watering warp-power. They passed.
Then, slowly, something occurred to him.
I’m not dead.
He lifted his head painfully, feeling the compression in his neck. The Rubric Marine stood immobile three metres away, locked in a half-completed stride forwards. The sorcerer had crumpled to the floor, his robes burning with lurid flames and his armour prised open. The flesh within was... horrible.
‘Do not look yet,’ came a familiar voice.
Ignoring the advice, Blackwing craned his head round to see where it had come from.
Neiman was there, re-binding his warp-eye. The Navigator looked shaky, and his face was pale.
‘I came to get you,’ he said, furiously. ‘And thank the bloody Emperor I did, you stupid bastard.’
Greyloc surged towards the breach, his retinue a pace behind him, his twin claws shimmering in the dark from their disruption fields.
‘For Russ!’ he bellowed, and the sound echoed from the walls of the Fang’s cavernous entrance chambers.
Ahead of him were the shattered gates, still burning from the explosions that had destroyed them. Beyond the crushed pillars, partially masked by sheets of smoke and hammering hail, was the advancing enemy. The first lines of invaders were already closing on the opening, emboldened by the devastating power of the gate-breakers. Greyloc’s helm display flickered with signals as his armour’s machine-spirit rapidly made sense of the thousands of life-signs ahead and prioritised them into target-runes.
Roaring with defiance, he burst out into the open, shrugging off the lines of incoming las-fire, revelling in the cold, sharp air of Fenris once more. Though polluted with engine oil and the acrid tang of spent ordnance, it was still better than being cooped up behind the walls.
We are predators. This is where we belong.
As he charged, his squad swept alongside him, their massive Terminator suits ploughing through clusters of smoking metal and ruined stonework. Volleys of armour-piercing fire streaked over their heads, sent by the Long Fangs still in the shadows of the mountain. Kaerls came out in their wake, mortals clad in carapace armour and loosing their heavy projectile guns in controlled bursts. They struggled to keep pace with the Wolves in the vanguard, but Greyloc knew they were just as eager to make contact. Many were knocked from their feet by the rain of las-fire spitting across the storm-whipped earth, but most made ground, rushing to secure terrain before it was seized by the oncoming horde.
Buoyed by Sturmhjart’s ferocious storm whirling about him, Greyloc thundered into the first ranks of the invaders. They were mortals, decked out like his own kaerls in environment suits and shouldering lasguns. He’d already killed hundreds of such warriors since their drop-ships had first defiled his homeworld. Before they could loose a massed shot at him, he was amongst them, carving his way deeper into the ranks.
‘Slay them!’ he roared, feeling the kill-urge distort his voice with its intensity. ‘Slay them all!’
He barely heard the thud and crash of impact as his retinue slammed into battle beside him, each bellowing his own oath of combat, each tearing a channel through the Thousands Sons vanguard. Bodies were hurled into the air, limbs severed, armour ripped apart.
Grey Land Raiders lumbered from the ruined gates then, grinding over the broken terrain, laying down heavy bolter fire and sending lascannon beams scything into the sweeping tide of men and armour. More Wolves loped alongside them, Grey Hunters and Blood Claws, their armour draped with gruesome totems of death and vengeance. In the face of their sudden assault, the Thousand Sons’ charge on the gates faltered.
Greyloc remained at the spear-tip. The wolf within him slavered, hungry for more killing, taking keen pleasure from the men falling beneath his talons. He kept bellowing oaths of hatred and damnation as he slew, each syllable amplified by his armour into a crescendo of savage elation.
The roars of defiance and anger were not idly made. They were part of the projection of intimidation, the wall of sound that drove lesser men mad with fear. Every blow was aimed to aching perfection, every blade-plunge was judged with accuracy, every bolter discharge was aimed with exacting precision. These Wolves hunted the way their Jarl had taught them to – fast, deadly, efficient. At their head, the White Wolf cut his way through walls of living flesh, his claws drenched in the blood of his prey, energy sluicing from his claws and crackling with cold fury.
We must make them pay for the passage of the gates.
Greyloc punched a warrior aside, breaking him in two, before launching himself at the flanks of a troop carrier trying to turn in the churned-up slush and gravel. He was in constant motion, swivelling and scything like a whole pack of predators combined into a single, terrible amalgam. He felt Sturmhjart’s powerful wards protect him as he went, a barrier against the flickering spells of the sorcerers. He knew the value of that protection: for this short time he was free to kill unimpeded, to bathe in the blood of those who had come to his domain to bring death.
He would use that time well.
Beneath the shadow of the gates, the two armies crunched together, one massive and ponderous, the other swift and feral. As the Fang burned, tortured by the remorseless volleys of long-range fire, its slopes echoed from sound of close-combat killing at last. And as men died and vehicles burned, as the gunships came in low for renewed attack runs, amid all the carnage of the ground assault, every warrior on the field knew the cold reality of the situation.
The noose had closed, and had begun to tighten.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Freija felt like she’d stumbled into some drug-induced trance. Her body ached from the brief firefight, and she could still feel blood trickling down her ribs. Coming down here had been insane. Three of her men had died, all to protect a bunch of scuttling half-breeds while their master did whatever he had to do in that vault. Even the awesome sight of Bjorn, a figure she’d never been quite sure was more than a myth, had only partially assuaged the sense of futility.
The Fell-Handed was just one of the Dreadnoughts roused by Arfang. Others had emerged in the time since then, marching in a procession of stately, grinding majesty. Hours had passed as more of the venerable warriors were awakened. All the while, the pack of beasts hung back in the shadows, growling and pacing. It was unclear how many there were – maybe a dozen, perhaps many more.
Freija didn’t know which to be more wary of, the malshaped horrors of the Underfang or the grim, sepulchral structures of the walking dead. As the Dreadnoughts passed through the doors to the vault, they flexed giant fists and spooled up huge autocannon barrels. Even by the standards of a savage Chapter, they were fearsome in aspect. They hissed and steamed as they moved, throwing up clouds of smoke from exhausts mounted behind layers of thick armour. All were scored with old runes and draped in ancient skins, black from age and as dry as stone. As each one entered th
e chamber, the air vibrated a little more from the growling judder of their engines.
Bjorn had said nothing since his arrival, and brooded alone. Every so often he’d raise his vast lightning claw and rotate the blades, as if reminding himself of something from the distant past. None of the mortals dared approach him, though the beasts did. They slunk up to him, heads low, jaws drooling. They were submissive before him, like whelps of the pack paying homage to the alpha predator.
As they crawled into the scant light of the open vault doors, Freija began to make out more of their outlines. They were a motley assortment of bestial forms, all hunched and awkward. There were glints of metal amid the fur and sinew as they moved. One wolf-shape had no visible eyes in its sleek face at all, another had steel claws, and a third had an almost human smile on its tooth-crammed jaws. All of them were gigantic, as big as the Fenrisian wolves that stalked the high places, though with none of their savage grace.
Do not watch them. They take it as a challenge.
The voice rumbled from over her shoulder, almost as deep and machine-thick as Bjorn’s. Freija spun round, seeing the profile of another Dreadnought in the dark. As far as she could see, it looked much the same as the others – hulking, angular, humming with coiled menace. Perhaps this one was a little less battle-scarred, a little cleaner looking, but only slightly. She could make out the rune Jner, Pride, on its massive armoured leg.
‘Thank you, lord,’ she said humbly, keeping the bitterness out of her voice. It might have been better to have been told that before she’d been asked to guard this place. The Wolves’ love of exuberant danger was maddening. Why, in the name of all the Hels, were such horrors tolerated within the Aett?
The Dreadnought clumped alongside her. It stood motionless for a moment, inscrutable behind its blank fascia of ceramite. It stank of oils and exhaust-fumes.
You are mortal. Why are there no Sky Warriors here?
A good question.
‘They are fully engaged, lord. The Aett is under assault.’
War of the Fang - Chris Wraight Page 29