War of the Fang - Chris Wraight

by Warhammer 40K

  So it had ever been. So it would ever be.

  The fires of the Hammerhold had never gone out. Now they roared more angrily than ever, working hard to replace the weaponry that had been destroyed.

  Aldr stomped across the long bridge in convoy with his brothers. He had no wish to return to the dark. None of them did. But the long task of driving the enemy from the last recesses had been completed, and the sagas had been memorised. There was nothing left for them to contribute, and so the Revered Fallen went back to the Long Sleep.

  They went alone, unaccompanied by the living. In time, an Iron Priest would come to read the rites and prepare the tomb-cradles. For now, the fellowship of Dreadnoughts was left alone, given a little time to reflect on their sojourn in the world of vital flesh before leaving it again. The living respected that, knowing how important the niceties of ritual were.

  All except one. Freija Morekborn walked with Aldr, seemingly unwilling to leave him even as the Underfang portal beckoned.

  Aldr couldn’t say he was sorry about that. It had been irresponsible of him to pick her from the floor of Borek’s Seal and carry her from danger. She had failed in combat, and such weakness was habitually met with execution on the field. But he owed her for other things, and debts were important on Fenris.

  What will you do now?

  Freija gave a weary smile.

  ‘I’ve been given penance. For the moment, I still serve in the kaerls. I prefer it in the ranks. I didn’t cover myself in glory at the Seal.’

  It was weak.

  ‘I know. I recognise my weakness, and will strive to correct it. I believe I can overcome my flaws.’

  Your mind wanders where it should not. You are made to serve.

  In the past, Freija would have balked at such words. Now, she merely bowed her head.

  ‘That is a lesson I will learn,’ she said. ‘I have the example of my father.’

  She looked back up at Aldr then.

  ‘Morek never doubted. In the face of that horror, he never doubted. His faith in the Sky Warriors was complete even at the end, and I will work to match it.’

  Aldr said nothing, and they walked together for a while in silence.

  The Dreadnought knew that, next time he awoke, he would recognise no faces. It was a sober thought. Perhaps the second awakening would be easier. Perhaps it was something that became less excruciating the more one did it.

  He doubted it.

  The portal to the Underfang drew closer. He kept walking, though each step was harder to make.

  ‘I know I’m too curious,’ interjected Freija, just as they reached the point where she couldn’t follow. ‘I know it’s a weakness. But tell me one thing.’

  Aldr halted.

  ‘The beasts, the ones who fought with us at Borek’s Seal. What were they? You said they were weapons, but who made them?’

  Aldr hesitated. For a horrible moment, he realised how fully he would miss their conversations. He would miss this mortal’s endless questioning, her bluntness, her lack of poise. It was beneath him, to feel that way about a thrall, but he would miss her all the same.

  You said you would strive to improve yourself, he replied. Start now. Cease your questions. That knowledge is not for you.

  Freija broke into another weary smile.

  ‘You are right,’ she said. ‘I have offended you again. I will leave.’

  At that, Aldr made to move off, to follow his brothers into the tunnels. His powerful leg-motors whined as he stepped across the portal. Freija fell back, at last respecting the sanctity of the occasion.

  You never offended me, he said, his voice thick, before stalking off back into the dark.

  By the flickering light of the hearthfires, two voices echoed in the chamber. Both were impossibly deep, resonating from ancient armour. One belonged to Jarl Arvek Kjarlskar, who would soon be elevated to Great Wolf in place of Ironhelm. The other belonged to Bjorn the Fell-Handed, who had been Great Wolf before and had since passed beyond such titles.

  The venerable Dreadnought had been recovered from the mountainside a day after the last fighting had been completed. His life-sign had been so faint that no auspex had picked it up. Only a visual scan of the Valgard slopes had marked his final resting place. He’d torn half the pinnacle down in his fall, grinding a huge wound in the bare rock before lodging in a deep crack between two mighty spurs. Retrieving him had taken two days, and his physical recovery had taken many more. Even now, his sarcophagus bore the signs of battle, and the Iron Priests still had much work to do before he could rejoin his brothers in stasis.

  There were Wolf Brothers on Gangava?

  ‘Yes, lord. A Great Company, or something close to it. They’d been corrupted, and were wholly given over to the enemy.’

  So you destroyed them.

  ‘Lord Ironhelm wished to finish them himself, but we had tidings of the siege here, and I persuaded him to break from combat. The city was destroyed from orbit, and a squadron left behind to ensure the devastation was complete.’

  Bjorn grunted with grim satisfaction.

  It sickens me. What purpose did the Traitor have in this?

  ‘He meant to detain us on Gangava. He knew Ironhelm would not refuse combat with corrupted brothers. He was right. Had news not come of the battle here, we would have hunted the last of them for many days, and the Aett would have fallen in our absence.’ The Jarl’s voice was speculative. ‘But that could not have been all. We were shown the weakness of our successors in that place. With all that has transpired here, I do not believe that could have been an accident.’

  You speak of the Tempering.

  ‘I do not know the details. Only Ironhelm and Wyrmblade did. Possibly Jarl Greyloc too, since he was close to the Wolf Priest. But we all knew the goals of the programme. It cannot be chance that the fleshmaker chambers were destroyed before the Chamber of the Annulus was assaulted.’

  It should never have been done. It was a betrayal of the primarch.

  Kjarlskar shrugged, his massive shoulder-guards moving only fractionally.

  ‘Perhaps. In any case, it cannot be restarted. None now live who understand Wyrmblade’s work, and the equipment is destroyed. We will remain alone, the sole inheritors of Russ’s mantle.’

  As it should be. If I’d known of the work, I’d have destroyed it myself.

  Kjarlskar had to suppress a smile. He could well imagine the Dreadnought doing just that.

  ‘Then you should be content, lord. You have fought a primarch and lived, and the Aett was defended. Soon the sagas will be full of your deeds and no one else’s.’

  Bjorn gave no indication of a smile.

  Not my deeds. Greyloc held out the longest, and this is his victory.

  ‘So it will be recorded,’ said Kjarlskar. ‘But I do not think it will be remembered that way.’

  A fire burned on the pinnacle of Krakgard, the dark peak overlooking the Fang where the dead had been honoured since the age of the primarchs. The summit of the mountain was flat and smooth, having been carved out in the days of the Allfather and hallowed in the long years since. The entire Chapter was assembled across its expanse, standing in rows of grey, their heads bare and exposed to the biting elements.

  The sun was low in the sky, and the shadows were long. The flames leapt, red and angry, sending sparks floating high into the dusk.

  Kjarlskar stood before the blaze, the heat of it pressing against his back. The Rune Priest Frei was with him, as were others of the Lords of the Wolves.

  ‘Sons of Russ!’ he cried, and his voice carried far across the wind-whipped heights. ‘As is the way of our kind, the bodies of those who died in the defence of Fenris are now committed to fire. Here lies Jarl Vaer Greyloc, and the Rune Priest Odain Sturmhjart, and the Wolf Priest Thar Ariak Hraldir. So do we reverence them for their sacrifice. As their mortal bodies burn, it kindles our everlasting hate for the ones who did this. Remember your hatred. Keep it vital, and forge it with malice into one more weapon in the
Long War.’

  The rows of Space Wolves listened intently, each one of them as silent as stones. In the front rank stood twenty-three warriors, removed slightly from their brothers. They were the survivors of the Battle of the Fang, the last of Greyloc’s company. Redpelt was there, his face still badly scarred. There were few Blood Claws left to stand alongside him. It hadn’t been decided how best to reconstitute the packs yet, but many believed Redpelt would not serve in one again, instead choosing the path of the Lone Wolf. The death of his comrades had hit him hard, and such a path was an honourable response.

  As Kjarlskar spoke, he stared into the flames, watching as the bodies of the fallen turned to ash. He carried Brakk’s force-blade Dausvjer at his belt, the last weapon his battle-brother Helfist had taken into combat. Though none assembled there knew it yet, the sword had a powerful wyrd set upon it, and would find a place in the sagas millennia hence. For then, though, it was merely a weregild, and a reminder, and a warning.

  ‘The Great Wolf, Harek Eirek Ereiksson, does not lie here,’ said Kjarlskar. ‘His body has been taken to the place where he fell fighting the great enemy. I have ordered that a shrine be built there, a place of pilgrimage to test the endurance of the faithful. Let it serve as a memorial to his unwavering devotion. And let it also serve as a memorial to his blindness. Never again will we allow ourselves to be drawn into a war not of our own making. This is the lesson we will draw, and we will use it to improve ourselves further.’

  Set aside from the twenty-two veterans of the siege, shunning as ever the company of his brothers, was Blackwing. The Scout had recovered much of his poise on the journey back from Gangava. He’d since been assigned with the task of rebuilding the Twelfth’s void-war capability, though few expected him to last long in the position. He’d already fallen out with the Chapter’s armoury over requisition plans for new fast-attack frigates, insisting on an engine-heavy design that most thought of as wildly impractical.

  As Kjarlskar spoke, he looked up at the stars, mild tedium playing across his dark features. Ceremonies bored him, though he’d been satisfied by his manoeuvre over Fenris being placed in the sagas. It was some compensation for losing the Nauro, the only element of his life on Fenris he’d ever felt much affection for, and the only element he ever would.

  ‘We will rebuild,’ said Kjarlskar. ‘The Aett will be restored and made even greater. The last taint of the enemy will be scrubbed from the ice, and the remnants of his forces on other worlds hunted down and destroyed. The Twelfth Great Company will be rebuilt, its honour intact and its packs restored.’

  The Great Wolf swept his golden eyes across the assembled companies.

  ‘No recovery will take place for our enemy. We have broken them. Never again will they mount such an operation, for they have been reduced to petty warbands of knowledge-thieves, roaming the galaxy for scraps of hidden trinkets. Their shame knows no limit, and their poverty knows no equal. They have come here, led by their primarch, and failed.’

  Kjarlskar’s eyes blazed then.

  ‘Remember that, brothers!’ he cried. ‘They failed. This will be the greatest lesson of all, the truth we will carry with us as we march once more to war in the sea of stars. Our faith defines us. Our loyalty defines us. Our hatred defines us. So it is that we endure while the Traitor falters.’

  His voice shook with fervour.

  ‘In a thousand years men will still speak of this battle. For as long as the Imperium of Man stands, skjalds will tell of the Battle of the Fang, and hope will flare in the hearts of the loyal. Whenever the flames of war return, they will remember what we have done here, and find the strength to rise up and accept the test.’

  Kjarlskar thudded a fist against his breastplate.

  ‘This is our legacy. This is our purpose. This is why we fight.’

  Then he lifted the clenched gauntlet in a gesture of defiance, pride and acclamation.

  ‘For the Allfather!’

  And across the summit of the Krakgard, two thousand warriors of the Vlka Fenryka, the Space Wolves of fearsome repute, slammed their fists on their battle-plate and raised them up to the heavens. The roar of their massed response rose high into the darkening sky, a war-cry that was already ancient, already feared, and as bold and exuberant as the dawn across unbroken snow.

  For the Allfather. For Russ. For Fenris.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chris Wraight is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Scars, the novella Brotherhood of the Storm and the audio drama The Sigillite. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written the Space Wolves novels Blood of Asaheim andStormcaller, and the short story collection Wolves of Fenris, as well as the Space Marine Battles novels Wrath of Iron and Battle of the Fang. Additionally, he has many Warhammer novels to his name, including the Time of Legends novel Master of Dragons, which forms part of the War of Vengeance series. Chris lives and works near Bristol, in south-west England.

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  Battle of the Fang © Games Workshop Ltd. 2011.

  The Hunt for Magnus © Games Workshop Ltd. 2015.

  This eBook edition published in Great Britain in 2015 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

  Cover illustration by Leonid Kozienko.

  Internal artwork by John Blanche, Dave Greco, Neil Hodgson, Nacho Molina and Adrian Wood.

  War of the Fang © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2015. War of the Fang , Space Marine Battles, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.

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  ISBN: 978-1-78251-783-2

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