War of the Fang - Chris Wraight

by Warhammer 40K

  Ironhelm breathed deeply, enjoying the familiar sounds and aromas of war as they filtered through his helm. Kill-urge was already pumping around his system, priming him for the extreme and sustained violence to come.

  ‘So we come to it at last, brothers,’ he growled, hefting his frostblade and thumbing the energy field into life. ‘Let the killing begin.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Fangthane rang with activity. The sacred space was filled with the hoarse cries of thralls as they hurried to do their masters’ bidding. Ever more crates of armour-piercing shells were unloaded from rattling transports and stacked neatly behind the heavy bolter turrets and box-guns. The barricade across the western end of the gigantic hall edged closer to completion.

  Morek looked at it grimly. He’d heard the reports of the enemy, and had a rough idea of their powers. Such barricades and gun-lines would do little but slow them down. In the past he’d have trusted the Sky Warriors to hold almost anything back, but they’d already been bloodied twice. In the light of that, he wasn’t sure what he knew any more.

  Morek shook his head, trying to rid himself of the depressive emotions that had clutched at him since the journey to the fleshmakers. All around him, a makeshift field hospital had been organised. At the east end of the hall, under the gaze of the huge statue of Russ, lines of metal beds had been laid out in rows.

  Just like the vials on Wyrmblade’s table.

  The beds were reserved for mortals; the Space Marines were taken into the dedicated surgeries high up in the Jarlheim. As he walked down the aisles, Morek saw the twisted expressions of agony on the faces of the wounded. Fleshmaker thralls worked quickly and expertly, stitching and cauterising. Their methods were effective, but made few concessions to pain relief. Morek saw ice-tough Fenrisians, hardened to trial and deprivation, weeping in agony as they were carved open by the steel blades.

  One man was in the process of losing a leg just below the hip. If he survived it he’d have a basic augmentic limb attached in time, but he’d play no further part in the battle. Morek watched the man grimace as the knives went in. The patient was groggy with numbing agents, but still conscious enough to know what was happening. His jaw was clenched tight, the muscles strung out. As the fleshmakers did their work, he gripped the sides of the bed, knuckles bone-white and shivering.

  Morek looked away. There were moans and low, wracking sobs everywhere. Hundreds had been prepped for the knives. Hundreds more still lay out on the causeways, their bodies already frozen. For the first time since the battle had started, Morek found himself glad that Freija had been taken down into the Underfang by the Iron Priest rather than thrown into the first rank of the battlefront

  The two of them had only spoken once since her return from the lower levels. Duty had called them both away after that, so the time together was short.

  Morek recalled the embrace they’d shared. He’d clutched her tight, feeling her stocky body safe in his arms again. He’d been unwilling to let her go.

  Did she need me then? Or did I need her?

  ‘Are you well, father?’ she’d asked, looking into his eyes with concern.

  ‘As ever, daughter,’ he’d replied.

  ‘Something has happened?’

  Morek laughed.

  ‘War has happened.’

  They’d exchanged a few words after that, a mere handful before she was called back by the Dreadnought that shadowed her.

  ‘I’m assigned to him now, father.’

  It almost sounded like she was proud of that. She’d never been proud before, not to work for a Sky Warrior.

  ‘What need can he have of mortals?’

  Freija shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know. But he does. They are strange. Some things they remember like a skjald does. Other things they forget. I help him with those.’

  Morek looked into her earnest, blunt face. Her blonde hair had fallen over her eyes, just as it used to do when she was a girl. He had to stop himself smoothing it back. Her mother had always told him not to. He found words tumbling, unbidden, into his mind.

  You are all I have now! My only link to her, who was so beautiful and fierce. Be careful, my daughter – watch what you say, watch what you do. Preserve yourself. Let the Aett and all its chambers be consumed by fire, if only you are preserved!

  But he didn’t say that. He kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘Stay in vox-contact, when you can.’

  ‘I will, father. The Hand of Russ ward you.’

  ‘May it ward us all.’

  And then she’d gone, trotting after that Dreadnought, the one they called Aldr Forkblade.

  Morek sighed and looked up at the statue rearing above him, trying to banish the memory. The massive image of Russ was there as it had been before, feet braced, face contorted into a snarl. His features were those of a true Wolf – distended jawline, pronounced fangs, pinned pupils.

  It had been ten days since Jarl Greyloc had stood beneath that mighty frame and roused the Aett into defiant fury. Above it all, Leman Russ had stood, his spirit watching over them.

  Do you know? Do you know, lord, what is being done here to your sons? Does your gaze penetrate to the halls of the Priests? And do you condone it?

  The stone gave no answer. There was nothing but a grimace of kill-urge on those immobile features.

  Then, from the far end of the hospital, a commotion. A huge warrior in coal-black plate had returned from the front. His armour was scorched and dented, the pelts ripped from it. He stormed past the rows of beds, and a gaggle of thralls struggled to keep pace with him.

  Wyrmblade had returned. He was bare-headed, and his golden eyes blazed in their sunken sockets. He strode toward the elevator shafts, back to his lair in the Valgard, the place where his work was done.

  Morek’s eyes followed him. He didn’t dare move. He didn’t know whether he was looking at the guardian of all he held dear or the destroyer of it.

  Suddenly, Wyrmblade seemed to sense something. He stiffened, and stopped walking. His mournful face, marked by that severe, hooked nose, swept round.

  The eyes, those predator’s eyes, locked on Morek. For a moment the two men were looking at one another.

  Morek felt his heart hammering. He couldn’t turn away.

  He knows! How can he know?

  Then Wyrmblade grunted, and resumed his course. His retinue swept after him.

  Morek felt light-headed, and leaned against a bed. He stared around him guiltily. The hospital orderlies carried on working as if nothing had happened. No one had noticed. Why should they have done? He was just a kaerl, a mortal, an expendable.

  He took a deep, shuddering breath. He was beginning to jump at shadows. Morek pushed himself away from the metal frame and resumed his patrol. There was much work to do, and he had a whole riven of kaerls to keep in line. Trying to ignore the screams and moans, he picked up the pace.

  He needed to keep busy.

  It was then that he found himself wishing the invaders would breach the defences and come quickly. At least they were enemies he knew how to fight.

  Twenty-four days after Ironhelm had called the Council of War that had authorised the mission to Gangava, the Chamber of the Annulus was opened once again. It was as grim and shadowy as ever, though the torches burned a little lower in their iron grates this time, and the mood of the gathered commanders was sombre rather than anticipatory.

  Only seven figures stood around the huge stone circle, heads bare but otherwise in full armour. Greyloc was there, as were Sturmhjart, Arfang and Wyrmblade. Of the Wolf Guard, Skrieya and Rossek were present. The flame-haired warrior looked half-wild still, and his mane was tangled and unkempt.

  At the head of the circle, the position of honour, stood Bjorn. When he’d entered the hallowed place nearly an hour ago, he had remained unmoving for a long time, staring at the floor-mounted stone plaques in silence. None had dared disturb him while he reminisced on the past, and none had taken their place until
he had recovered himself.

  As the Council got under way, Greyloc looked up at the massive facade of the Dreadnought carefully. The ceramite sarcophagus was decorated with extraordinary care. Gold-plated images of wolves and snarling beasts’ heads were embossed on the heavy front panels. An iron skull with crossed bones had been mounted on the long face-plate. Runes had been engraved everywhere, each of them placed in the proper position by long-dead Rune Priests and bound with complex rites of warding.

  Bjorn was magnificent, more so than any living Space Wolf, and more so than most of those who had died.

  Do you know how much care has been lavished on your living coffin? Do you care?

  Bjorn stirred himself then, as if Greyloc’s thoughts had somehow transmitted themselves to him.

  So now we plan our survival. Jarl, your assessment.

  ‘All accessible entrances to the Aett have been collapsed,’ reported Greyloc. ‘The explosives were a mix of melta and fragmentation devices. Some were placed to remain intact, ready to detonate when further disturbed. Allfather willing, that will slow the excavators.’

  ‘How long have we got?’ asked Skrieya.

  Greyloc shook his head.

  ‘Depends on what toys they have. A week. Perhaps less.’

  A low, grinding noise came from Bjorn’s innards.

  Sealed in, he growled. Not a noble way to conduct war.

  Greyloc bristled a little. He had made the choices he’d had to, faced with an invading army over twenty times the size of his defending force.

  ‘You are right, lord,’ said Greyloc. ‘It is not noble. But the portents are against us. We have eighty-seven brothers of my company still capable of fighting, not counting the twelve Revered Fallen. We have a few thousand kaerls – enough to man the defences, but little more. We need a period of time to recover what strength we can. When the enemy enters the Aett again, we will have to fight continuously until completion, however long that takes.’

  Bjorn grunted again. Even the smallest of his gestures produced some rumbling sound from deep within the arcane machine-body.

  What strength does the enemy possess?

  ‘Many Traitor Marines. Perhaps six hundred, although we killed several squads during the first landings and the approaches. Their mortal troops are, to all intents and purposes, inexhaustible. The armoured divisions far exceed anything we can field, though that will not avail them in the tunnels.’

  And there is no communication beyond Fenris?

  ‘None, lord,’ said Sturmhjart. ‘Our astropaths were killed by remote means. Local-space comms are jammed, and attempts to penetrate the barrier above us have failed.’

  What could do that?

  Sturmhjart looked uncomfortable.

  ‘The witches have many dark powers, lord,’ he said, unconvincingly. ‘Whatever the cause of it, we do not have the power to defeat it. Anything short of a full battle-fleet would be annihilated by the blockade above us. We are alone.’

  And the Great Wolf?

  ‘His thoughts are concentrated on Magnus, lord,’ said Wyrmblade. ‘If it occurs to him to make contact, it will not be beyond the powers of our enemy to make it seem as if all is well here. They drew him away by design, and would not have neglected to consider all the ways of keeping him away.’

  At that, Bjorn sank into thought. The Chamber fell silent, save for the distant, muffled sounds of clanging from far below. In the Jarlheim, preparations for invasion continued unabated.

  All eyes remained fixed on the Dreadnought. The veneration he was held in remained absolute, and none would speak until he did.

  They will make for the reactors, Bjorn said at last. The greater number of troops must be stationed at Borek’s Seal.

  ‘And what of the Hould?’ asked Wyrmblade.

  It cannot be defended. Too many tunnels. The Jarlheim must be held from the Fangthane.

  ‘That means dividing our forces,’ said Greyloc.

  Indeed. But we can cede neither objective. If the reactors are taken, then the Aett will be destroyed. If the Fangthane is breached, then no other part of the upper citadel can be defended. They are the two choke-points, the two places where a small army can stand against a larger one.

  ‘There are other considerations, lord,’ said Sturmhjart. ‘There are wards across this place. The mightiest were at the gates, but they are gone. For as long as even the lesser runes are defended, the power of the sorcerers within the mountain will be limited. If the sacred places are defiled, then their power will wax.’

  You need not instruct me on their power, said Bjorn, and there was a sudden note of fervour in his rumbling voice. His claw twitched as if in memory of some ancient pain. The wards will be protected where we can. But there must be sacrifices. If we attempt to salvage everything, we will lose everything.

  ‘It will be as you command,’ said Greyloc, bowing his head. ‘We will make the bulwarks into killing-places. But there will be resistance at the places where they must emerge. I would not have their first steps inside the Aett to be blood-free.’

  Bjorn gave a cumbersome nod of approval.

  Then we are agreed. I will stand at Borek’s Seal with my Fallen brothers. Combat will come there the swiftest, and it has been too long since I felt the kill-urge in anything other than dreams.

  The Dreadnought inclined his massive profile to gaze at the central device on the Annulus, the rearing wolf amid a field of stars.

  I was on Prospero, brothers, he said. I was there when we burned their heresy from the galaxy. I saw Leman Russ lay waste to their cherished places. I saw Traitors weep from corrupted eyes as we turned their pyramids of glass into barren wasteland.

  The council listened intently. Bjorn’s fragmentary accounts of distant days were seized on whenever he chose to offer them.

  That will not happen here. They were made weak by the knowledge of their treachery. We are made strong by the knowledge of our fidelity. Where Tizca fell, the Aett will stand.

  The Dreadnought’s voice was growing stronger. As the days passed, he was remembering himself, becoming once more the god of war the skjalds spoke of in their hushed voices. Amid all the desperation, that was cause for hope.

  Though it may cost the lives of us all, Bjorn growled, the words made machine-harsh by the vox-generators within him, the Aett will stand.

  After the Council had ended, Rossek watched Bjorn clump down the corridor outside the Annulus with Greyloc and the other senior commanders in tow. He hung back, staying in the shadows, eager to avoid contact. He hadn’t spoken during the deliberations. Indeed, he’d barely shared two words with Greyloc since the withdrawal from the landing sites. Several times he’d tried to approach his old friend, but the Jarl had avoided anything other than routine exchanges.

  Perhaps that was for the best. Rossek didn’t even know what he’d say if he had the chance.

  That he was sorry? Apologies were not for the Wolf Guard.

  That he saw the faces of the warriors he’d killed every night in his tortured dreams? That was true, but would change nothing.

  Contrition did not come easily to a son of Russ. For a few blessed moments, while Rossek had had the blood of enemies flowing across his claws, he’d shaken off the cloud of torpor and remembered his savage inheritance. He’d willed the assault on the gates to last for much, much longer. For as long as he fought, the guilt was less acute.

  But it always came back.

  ‘Wolf Guard Rossek.’

  The voice was iron-dry and sardonic. Rossek knew who it was without having to turn. Wyrmblade must have stayed behind, waiting for the rest to leave.

  ‘Lord Hraldir,’ acknowledged Rossek. His voice sounded surly, even to him.

  Wyrmblade emerged from the gloom of the Chamber’s apse and into a pool of firelight. His black armour was perfect for blending into the shadows of the sparsely-lit places. The bone devices across his battle-plate were chipped and scarred by plasma-burns, and the ragged pelts he’d once draped over the ceramite
had been ripped away. His golden eyes still glowed as they ever had done, locked within that desiccated old face like amber jewels beaten into leather.

  ‘You are not yourself, Tromm,’ said the Wolf Priest, his mouth breaking into a crooked, mirthless smile.

  Rossek towered over Wyrmblade in his Terminator plate, but somehow still seemed the lesser figure of the two. That was always the way. The Wolf Priests had a grip of authority over the entire Chapter, one that transcended the normal patterns of command.

  ‘I long for combat,’ replied Rossek, which was truthful enough.

  ‘So do we all,’ said Wyrmblade. ‘There isn’t a Blood Claw in the Aett who doesn’t. What makes your mood special, Wolf Guard?’

  Rossek narrowed his eyes. Was the old man goading him? Trying to provoke some kind of furious response?

  ‘I claim no special privilege. Just a desire to do what I was bred for.’

  Wyrmblade nodded.

  ‘So it has ever been with you. I remember when I brought you off the ice. You were a monster back then, a bear of a man. We marked you for greatness from the beginning.’

  Rossek listened wearily. He wasn’t in the mood for a prepared homily. Any reference to his potential, to his destiny within the Chapter, had become loathsome to hear. He’d coveted the Wolf Lord position for years, however much he’d tried not to, and had always resented Greyloc’s elevation at his expense, but now the proof of his inadequacy had been painfully exposed.

  ‘Well, perhaps you were wrong,’ he said, casually.

  Wyrmblade shot him a look of contempt.

  ‘Do I hear self-pity? That’s for mortals. Whatever guilt you’re carrying with you, shed it. You cannot bring your brothers back, but you can remember how to fight.’

  Rossek started to reply, so missed the uppercut.