War of the Fang - Chris Wraight

by Warhammer 40K

  Just for a minute. Just for two minutes. Then back on my feet.

  The world reeled around him, losing focus, and he felt his tired lids flicker towards closing.

  Then there was a massive presence looming over him. Some instinct told him that giving in to unconsciousness in front of it would be a terrible mistake, and he forced himself up on to his knees.

  ‘Your pardon, lord,’ he mumbled, trying not to scatter the cases around him any further as he rose.

  To his astonishment, the giant before him extended a massive gauntlet. As he considered grasping it to haul himself up, Morek noticed that the ceramite wasn’t grey, but black.

  His eyes lifted, passing over a scarred breastplate, festooned with the bones of animals. The helm face-mask was a skull, cracked open by a blade-impact and as coal-black as the rest of the battle-plate. The lenses glowed angrily, staining the cheek-guards like bloody tears.

  ‘Morek Karekborn?’ came the dry, age-tempered voice of Thar Ariak Hraldir, the one they called Wyrmblade, the fleshmaker. ‘It is time, I think, that we spoke together.’

  Morek gazed up into the skull-visage of the Wolf Priest. His fatigue seemed to fall away from him then. It was replaced, as he’d known it would be for so long, with the cold grip of fear.

  ‘As you command, lord,’ he replied, but his voice was as dry as embers.

  Aphael stalked through the empty tunnels of the Hould. The battles at the two choke-points had been raging for days already, with no immediate sign of a breakthrough. He expected them to burn for many more days to come. The Dogs would be tenacious in defence. They had to be – there was nowhere for them to go.

  That suited him fine. The purpose of the first wave assault was not just to inflict pain, but to clear the defenders from the heart of the Fang for long enough to destroy more of the wards against sorcery. That work was difficult and tiring, especially in his fevered state.

  Aphael had continued to suffer from the flesh-change. Combat was only a partial release. In its absence, he’d become erratic, prone to violent mood-swings, incapable of making decisions calmly. He knew it was happening. As if observing himself from afar, he could see his mental processes disintegrating with every passing hour.

  And now, a new presence had started to press on him, crowding out what control he still possessed. Something conscious was stirring, deep within his own mind. A sentience not his own had taken root within his thoughts and was gradually accruing more strength. Even as his body rebelled against him, his mind had begun to slip away too.

  Once the inevitability of his destruction became clear, Aphael had passed through the familiar response pattern. Disbelief. Rage. Misery. Now he’d ended up in a dull kind of acceptance. There was nothing he could do to fight the process. Already his body and armour were intimately fused together, such that he knew he’d never be able to remove it. The only task remaining was to carry out his duties for as long as he could.

  I will see the Dogs burn. After then, do whatever you wish with me. But I will not pass into oblivion until our retribution is complete. I will not.

  Such bravado, he knew, was pointless. The Changer of Ways was not a power to be threatened or cajoled. And yet, the words brought a grain of comfort to him. He was still capable of defiance, at least verbally.

  Aphael came to stand before another one of the wards. It had been placed at the intersection of four tunnels. The junction was a circular chamber with an empty fire-pit in the centre of it. The ward had been created on a stone pillar that rose from next to the pit. It was in the shape of an eye, scratched into the stone, with a jagged incision scored across it. There was human blood in the scratch, and a few runes carved underneath.

  So simple. A child could have made something similar. And yet, the raw power bleeding from the symbols clamped down on his sorcery like a fist locked over a mouth. The Rune Priests, for all their clumsy misunderstanding of the warp, were adept at manipulating its signs. Somehow, as untutored and ignorant as they were, they had learned how to focus the parallel energies of the aether through the use of names, sigils and gestures. Created in such numbers, the wards of the Fang acted as a powerful dampener of sorcerous energy, such that even summoning the mildest of magicks was difficult and dangerous.

  That had to end.

  Aphael stood before the ward, wearily preparing for the rite that would destroy it. Around him, his guard of six rubricae took up stations in the chamber. The last slivers of flame in the fire-pit rippled out, plunging the space into complete darkness. Absently, Aphael blinked to adjust his helm lens filters.

  It was only then that he saw the children. There were seven of them, huddled in the dark, rubbing up against one another like rats.

  Despite everything, despite all his inner turmoil, despite the need for swift clearance of the wards, Aphael smiled.

  He turned his bronze head toward them. In the perfect dark, his helm picked out the childrens’ outlines in the fuzzy green of night-vision. He saw their terrified faces, their tiny fingers scrabbling at the rock walls.

  How had they been left behind in the Hould? Did the barbarians of Fenris care so little for their own young that they abandoned them to the enemy? Or had some terrible mistake been made?

  In either case, it gave Aphael a rare chance to exercise his skills in the cause of genuine pleasure. Their deaths would be lingering, a fitting punishment for all the hurt inflicted on his Legion by the Dogs of Fenris.

  ‘Feel free to scream, little ones,’ purred Aphael, withdrawing his blade and picking his first victim. ‘There’s plenty of ti–’

  Something hit him hard in the helmet, thrown with astonishing accuracy and poise. Then it exploded, rocking him back on his heels.

  ‘Fekke-hofud!’ yelled one of the whelps, darting past him and scampering into the dark.

  Aphael roared with rage, and swung his sword down quickly, aiming to scythe the little horror down as he ran. The stroke was knocked off-course by another grenade going off, this time hurled at his midriff.

  They’re armed! They were left here – with weapons!

  ‘Kill them all!’ shouted Aphael, whirling round and reaching to grasp one of the fast-moving brats. He grabbed the bolt pistol at his waist and pulled it free. By then the rubricae had swung into action, grasping for the children as ineffectually as he did.

  They were as fast as rats, and just as at home in the tunnels. More grenades were discharged, including one that actually took down a Rubric Marine, exploding in a flurry of frag-discharge into his face and dumping him on to the ground.

  Then they were gone, darting down the corridor beyond like whelp-ghosts, leaping and laughing into the echoing dark.

  Aphael swept his pistol up and released a torrent of rounds into the tunnel entrance. None of them connected. The urchins of the Fang, bred to a lifetime of darkness and survival expertise, were too fast, too wily, and too well-prepared.

  The laughter died away. The downed rubricae regained its feet, looking all the more ridiculous for its very lack of embarrassment. It took up position again, as silent and serious as before.

  There was no real harm done. For all their stealth and speed, the tunnel-rats had no means of hurting a Space Marine.

  But it was humiliating. Deeply humiliating.

  ‘I loathe this world!’ roared Aphael, whirling round to the ward-pillar and letting his anger ignite his staff.

  The shaft of iron exploded into ruinous, terrible light, banishing the darkness and sending flickering beams of aetheric electricity shooting in all directions. The blazing inferno crackled against the ward, sucked towards it as if by magnetism. The symbol resisted for a moment, glowing an angry red, soaking up the horrific amount of energy pouring from the sorcerer’s staff.

  Then, inevitably, it broke. A hairline crack ran down the image, shattering the unity of the device and interrupting the runic text beneath. The frigid air rippled with a sudden, searing heat, and then sank back into cold darkness.

  Aphael let the
power drain back into his staff, panting heavily. All around him, the rubricae looked on inscrutably.

  The ward was broken, and Aphael felt his power instantly magnify. The sense of relief was fleeting. He was humbled, angry and frustrated. There were kilometres of tunnels still to work through, all of them riddled with traps for the unwary.

  This was menial work, fit for acolytes, not for commanders. If any of his subordinate pyrae had been skilled enough to take his place, he’d happily have drafted them into ward-destruction instead of him.

  But they weren’t, and in any case the greater mass of sorcerers were needed to shepherd the Rubric Marines into combat.

  Damn Ahriman. He’s made us into a Legion of fools, stumbling around with our puppets in tow.

  ‘Follow,’ he muttered, striding out of the chamber and into the next tunnel. The rubricae smoothly moved to comply. As he went, Aphael could feel the flesh-change accelerating, encouraged by his outburst of anger.

  Time was running out, slipping like sand through his fingers, racing towards the horror he knew was waiting. It would not be long now. Not long at all.

  Wyrmblade led Morek far away from the stairway, across the broad floor of the Fangthane and under the feet of the Russ statue. As they went, the air was filled with the trundle of supply transports, the cries of huskaerls ordering their troops back into position, the distant thud of fighting elsewhere in the massive expanse of the Aett. No one gave the Wolf Priest and his mortal hanger-on a second glance.

  Morek felt slightly aggrieved about that. If he was going to his death, it would have been nice for someone, just one person, to have cast a sympathetic look in his direction. But, of course, they had no way of knowing what Wyrmblade’s business with Morek was. And even if they had, would it have changed anything? Was the power of the Wolf Priests so absolute that there were no sanctions, at all, on what they did with their mortal charges?

  That was what I thought, too, and not long ago. Back when my faith was unconditional. The way it ought to be.

  The two of them went beyond the statue, out of the Fangthane and into the dark, cold corridors beyond. The noise of fighting at the defensive barricades died away, leaving the chill and isolation of the Jarlheim in its place. Wyrmblade strode powerfully, and Morek had to trot to keep up. As he did so, he felt his exhaustion begin to return – there was only so much fear could do to keep it at bay.

  Eventually, Wyrmblade paused before a slide-door in the tunnel wall. He gestured to open it, and ushered Morek inside. Once the door had closed on them, they were alone and entirely sealed off. They stood in a narrow, high-roofed chamber, unfurnished aside from a single wooden stool and a small fire-pit. A collection of bones was suspended on a length of rope hung over the flames, twisting gently in the heat. Though modest, the place had the look and feel of a fleshmaker’s abode. Perhaps a rite-chamber of some sort. Or maybe an executioner’s.

  ‘Sit,’ ordered Wyrmblade, motioning toward the stool.

  Morek did so, instantly feeling even smaller and more insignificant. The Wolf Priest remaining standing, gigantic and threatening, less than two metres away. He kept his helm on, making his voice, if possible, drier and more unearthly than usual.

  For a moment, Wyrmblade simply looked at him, saying nothing. Morek did his best not to betray his trepidation. In normal circumstances, he’d probably have managed it, but after so many days of constant fighting the task was difficult.

  And he was old. Too old, perhaps. That in itself was a cause for shame. Not many Fenrisians died from their age, and it had never been something he’d aspired to.

  ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ asked Wyrmblade at last.

  The voice wasn’t kind, but neither was it unduly harsh. It was matter-of-fact, stern, authoritative.

  ‘I believe so, lord,’ replied Morek.

  There was no point in evasion. Wyrmblade nodded, as if satisfied.

  ‘Then we need not rehearse what brought you to my chambers. I know why you were there, and what you saw. Since I discovered your name, I have been watching you. Perhaps you have noticed. I did not feel the need to hide it.’

  Of course not. The Sky Warriors never had the need to worry what a mortal might think of them.

  ‘It has taken me many days to decide what to do with the name Tromm Rossek gave me. As the enemy wears us down to our limits, I can no longer delay. And yet, even now, my mind is still undecided. Your fate has become a burden to me, Morek Karekborn.’

  Morek said nothing, but tried to keep his eyes on the skull-mask above him. He’d always told Freija the same thing.

  Look them in the eyes. You must always, always look them in the eyes.

  That was still the case when the eyes in question were hidden behind the long ivory skull of a slain beast and locked within blood-red, glowing lenses.

  ‘So,’ said Wyrmblade, still adopting his chilling, rather prosaic tone of voice. ‘What did you think of what you saw?’

  ‘I was shocked, lord.’

  Tell the truth. That is your only chance.

  ‘Appalled.’

  Wyrmblade nodded again.

  ‘You have been raised in the Aett. Everything you believe in is here. We have made you in our image, lesser versions of ourselves. You were not schooled to question the order of things, nor should you have been.’

  Morek listened, still working hard to control his breathing. He could feel his pulse, heavy in his veins. The fire behind him was uncomfortably hot after the privations of the barricades.

  ‘What you saw was forbidden. In different circumstances, your very presence in that room would have been death. The Lord Sturmhjart has been trying to get in there for weeks and without success. If events had not conspired to make the watch laxer than it should have been, the contents of the room would still be secret. So now I have to decide what to do with you.’

  Though it was impossible to tell, Morek felt as if the terrible old face behind the mask was smiling – a hooked grin, exposing yellow teeth.

  ‘And as you have been truthful with me, I will be truthful with you, Morek Karekborn,’ said Wyrmblade. ‘I had resolved to cut your thread. The danger of the work we are doing leaking out has always been so great, and that, you must understand, will never be allowed to happen.’

  The prospect of the Wolf Priest ending his life had strangely little effect on Morek. He had already prepared for it. He had been prepared for it every night since the mission to the fleshmakers’ chambers. Only the Wolf Priest’s strange indecision had postponed the moment longer than it had needed to be.

  ‘If that is my wyrd,’ said Morek, even managing to sound half-convinced by it.

  ‘I believe you mean that. You have commendable faith, Karekborn. Though I sense your devotion has been diminished in recent days, which is also not something to be surprised about.’

  The Wolf Priest let out a long, whistling sigh.

  ‘Do not think that I have somehow lost my resolve for killing, mortal,’ he said. ‘I have killed for this work before, and, Allfather providing, will do so again. But I will not kill you. Your wyrd does not end here, locked in this room. That, at least, I can see clearly.’

  Morek knew he should feel some kind of relief at that. He didn’t. Perhaps it was the fatigue, perhaps it was the loss of faith. Whatever the cause, he found himself wishing for nothing more than sleep, for respite from the endless dark, the endless cold, the endless combat. For as long as he could remember, the Wolf Priests had been an inspiration to him, a tangible link between the mass of humanity and the awesome example of the eternal Allfather. Now, towered over by this near-three-metre-high behemoth, so close he could see the blade-bites on the ravaged armour and hear the rattle of the breathing through the helm filters, he could summon up none of that lifelong awe. The spell had been broken.

  I am not afraid of you. Now, at last, I understand what Freija has been telling me for so long. Daughter, forgive me. You were right.

  ‘But you must be punished, mortal,�
� Wyrmblade continued. ‘If the Heresy taught us anything, it is that transgression must always be met with reprisal. And so I will give you the most terrible gift in my possession.’

  The Wolf Priest’s helm lowered slightly, bringing the red eyes more on a level with Morek’s. They shone dully amid the scorched bone, like rubies set in old stone.

  ‘What you witnessed is called the Tempering. It will change the face of the Chapter forever. Listen, and I will explain how it will destroy and remake all that you have ever been taught to hold sacred.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Borek’s Seal rang with the sound of barking gunfire, the thunder of war-engine treads and the spit of oil-furnaces. The Thousand Sons pushed forwards again, ranks of them moving in unison, laying down a close wall of bolter-fire.

  Thanks to Bjorn and Greyloc, the enemy had been held at the portals. None of them had yet crossed into the Seal chamber itself, and the many fixed gun positions there were silent and still. The battle raged, as it had done since Bjorn had met up with Greyloc, in the entrance arches, where the Dreadnoughts and Long Fangs had dug in. Just as at the Fangthane, barricades and trenches of adamantium provided cover for the defending infantry. The pattern of battle was simple – endless, repeated attempts by the invaders to storm the perimeter and break into the space beyond, shattering the advantage given to the defending forces by the narrow choke-point.

  They had been unsuccessful in that objective so far, but the cost had been high. The kaerls stationed in the barricade zone had suffered under bolter fire, and whole squads had been wiped out in single thrusts. The Sky Warriors weren’t immune either, despite their superior armour and weaponry. Aside from the command group, who looked almost invulnerable in their Terminator battle-plate and power weapons, the Hunters and Claws had taken serious casualties going up against the Rubric Marines.

  Freija had done her part during the repeated actions, leading her squad of kaerls in support operations, laying down covering fire to allow the Wolves to enter close combat. It had been the hardest, toughest fighting she’d ever been part of. At a given signal from a Sky Warrior, she and her troops would dart from the relative safety of the barricades and lock sights on any Prosperine infantry within range. The skjoldtar rifles were more powerful than the enemy’s lasguns and inflicted heavy damage, but the kaerls were still vulnerable once out of cover. Dozens had been brought down in previous sorties, caught by las-beams or ripped apart by Rubric Marines before the Wolves could race to assist. Freija had almost had her own thread cut more than once, only saved by her reflexes, her armour, or a good slice of luck.