Wolf Trap - Robbie MacNiven Read online

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  Wolf Trap – Robbie MacNiven

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  Wolf Trap

  Robbie MacNiven

  Ramilies-class star fort, designate Mjalnar

  The very walls of Mjalnar shuddered and shifted, plasteel plating suddenly as insubstantial as a heat mirage. Through the haze came wyrdlings, their blades and claws reaching for Ragnar and his Space Wolves.

  ‘Blackpelts, to me!’ Ragnar roared. Normal forces would have been annihilated by so sudden and horrific an ambush. The Blackpelts, however, were far from normal. Back-to-back they fought, Tor Wolfheart and Alrydd the Bard, Uller Greylock, Hrolf Longspear and Svengril the Younger. With bared fang and wild eye they smote the creatures of Chaos, the warped corridor ringing with Fenrisian steel and crackling disruptor fields, snapping bone and snarled oaths. They were the Young King’s most favoured warriors, chosen as much for their brutal sword-skill as for their combat experience. Against them the lesser daemons of the wyrdrealm, for all their rage, could do little.

  And they were as nothing compared to their lord. Ragnar was a blur of unrestrained, natural-born violence. He’d abandoned the protective knot of the pack, striking out further down the corridor. Normally a Wolf Lord’s personal retinue would have striven to defend their leader, adopting a formation that covered his back and protected his blind spots. But the Blackpelts knew better than to try that when the battle-joy had taken hold of their Young King.

  Ragnar killed. It was simple. It was brutal. It was a terrible thing to watch, something that even his Wolf Guard treated with reverence. He was a blur of perpetual motion, never hesitating, never stopping, not even thinking. It was instinctive, deadly, the result of transhuman genetic engineering and the warrior conditioning of an already martial race, combined with over a century’s bloody battlefield experience. Frostfang, Ragnar’s ancient chainsword, was a blur, a halo of tearing teeth that left a haze of viscera hanging in the air around the lunging, spinning shape of the Wolf Lord. He danced the warrior’s dance, darting death that sawed through limbs and skulls and torsos and sent clutches of nightmares tumbling back to hell together.

  Inquisitor de Mornay was only half aware of him. His plasma pistol was in one fist, venting steam from its coolant valve as he fired down from his palanquin. Sister Marie stood behind the rocking platform, hammering her combi-flamer into the mass of bug-eyed, snapping monsters clawing at them. Her black power armour was pitted and scarred, its holy surface befouled with a sheen of dripping ichor. She was reciting the Thirty-Third Prayer of Revelatory Salvation in low, hard tones as she killed, eyes gleaming with the fires of a warrior given sacred purpose. When the tide rose too high she triggered the flamer, and the corridor was filled with the stench of roasting warpspawn and the dancing light of blazing promethium as it ate hungrily at the shrieking creatures.

  Subconsciously, the inquisitor was regretting not bringing the arco-flagellant, or donning his exo-plate. A part of him had hoped the rumours of Mjalnar’s corruption would prove to be unfounded, and the last thing he’d wanted was VX Nine-Eighteen rampaging through the star fort’s narrow corridors. That was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

  The daemons screamed with fury, enraged at the fact that their trick had been discovered. Without the intervention of de Mornay they would have driven Ragnar and his packs to the brink of turning, the Wolves’ frustration with the star fort’s seemingly endless, deserted corridors leading to the triumph of the Canis Helix. The Young King would have become the Young Beast.

  And then, as sudden as it had begun, the ambush was over. The last daemons flickered and vanished with fading howls. The walls were whole once more, painted with dripping slime and riddled with bolt-rounds. Ragnar twisted to a stop in a low crouch, Frostfang held upwards, its kraken teeth still revving. The Wolf Lord remained frozen for a second, fangs bared, a single twitch all that was needed to trigger another killing spree. But none came. He stood and deactivated the chainsword, wiping a globule of shorn wyrdmeat from the casing.

  ‘I needed that,’ he growled.

  ‘We can’t stay here,’ de Mornay said. His plasma pistol whined as it recharged, hot in his gloved grip.

  ‘We aren’t going to,’ Ragnar said. ‘Pack, on me.’ He keyed his vox.

  ‘Report.’

  ‘It’s an ambush, lord!’ shouted Hostor over the link. The sounds of fighting were clearly audible in the background.

  ‘The whole station is a trap,’ Ragnar replied. ‘Objective remains the same. Secure the command deck.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Hostor, the word underpinned by the sound of a revving chainsword.

  ‘The other packs?’ Uller asked as Ragnar broke the link.

  ‘Unresponsive,’ the Wolf Lord said grimly. ‘World Wolf pattern. We have an objective to secure.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ de Mornay demanded as the Wolves moved off down the corridor.

  ‘The command deck, of course,’ Ragnar called back. ‘Via the nearest vox terminal. Someone has to warn the rest of the Chapter that those Grey Knights were right.’

  ‘The place is infested,’ de Mornay said. ‘We’d be better off evacuating and bombarding the station with your fleet.’

  ‘I’ve seen worse cases of corruption,’ Ragnar said. ‘Haven’t you, inquisitor? Besides, do you think that little scrap was enough to satisfy me?’ The Wolf laughed.

  Glowering, de Mornay rolled his platform in the pack’s wake.

  The World Wolf’s Lair, Svellgard

  ‘All packs, focus fire!’

  Sven didn’t need to clarify the target. The burning Bloodthirster was hurtling through the air like a comet, aimed unerringly at the heart of the World Wolf’s Lair. It roared a challenge as it came, the sound seeming to shake the whole moon to its core. The receding waters around the island churned as yet more daemons joined the assault, answering the great slaughter-lord’s defiance. For a moment, just a split-second, Sven thought he understood what it meant to be a mortal, armoured only in plates of metal, facing down the molten, white-hot fury of a god’s avatar. He wondered if Jarl Stormpelt had known the same feeling when he had duelled the same monster, all those centuries ago.

  Bloodhowlers and Deathwolves opened fire as one, filling the air with death. Bolter rounds, streaking missiles, spears of plasma and heavy las hammered at the greater daemon, ordnance enough to decimate an army in seconds.

  It didn’t even slow. Missiles burst in the air before they could strike, detonated by the thing’s infernal heat. Hard rounds became molten spray that pattered from its craggy black hide. A demolisher cannon shell detonated in front of it, the shrapnel barely touching it. The daemon burst through the smoke with its roar still ringing through the fire-streaked air, its blazing eyes fixed on the control keep. On Sven.

  ‘Leave me,’ the Wolf Lord said. Olaf looked at him, saying nothing.

  ‘Do not question my orders, long-tooth,’ Sven growled, turning to face him.

  ‘Do not question our loyalty, pup,’ Olaf replied, unsheathing his wolf claws. Around him the other Wolf Guard activated their own weapons, the air filled with snapping blue energy.

  ‘I will not have the greatest of the Firehowlers die here,’ Sven said. ‘I am going to order Yngfor to target this keep and launch one of the World Wolf’s Claws.’

  ‘It would be minutes before it struck,’ Olaf countered. ‘You’re a tolerable fighter on a good day, pup, but do you really think you can keep that piece of wyrd-dung busy fo
r that long?’ The rest of the Bloodguard growled their agreement.

  ‘Bloodhowl!’ The voice interrupted Sven before he could respond. He turned to see Harald Deathwolf pull himself from the access hatch up onto the keep’s battlement. The big Wolf Lord was grinning.

  ‘Not you too,’ Sven said.

  Harald just laughed and slammed a hand into his pauldron. His Wolf Guard, the Riders of Morkai, were following him out onto the parapets.

  ‘That’s one big beast,’ Harald said as he watched Infurnace’s fiery approach. ‘I want its skull for my hall. Maybe I’ll take the name Stormpelt, eh?’ The Riders of Morkai snarled and beat fists against their breastplates. The Bloodguard responded in kind, the two grey-pelted packs facing one another down like feuding Blood Claws.

  ‘Yngfor,’ Sven snapped into the vox, linking to the depths of the keep, where the Long Fangs were helping to coordinate the fire support.

  ‘We can’t stop it, lord,’ the Long Fang said over the background thunder of heavy bolters. ‘Nothing can touch it.’

  ‘Cease fire,’ Sven ordered. ‘And launch one of the Claws. Lock onto this keep’s coordinates.’

  ‘But lord–’

  ‘Don’t argue,’ Sven said. ‘Just do it. Then get to the secondary command bunker.’ He cut the link.

  Harald had activated his frost axe, the disruptor field snapping along Glacius’ twin heads.

  ‘It will kill us all,’ Sven said.

  ‘It’ll kill you, Bloodhowl, you fangless pup,’ Harald said. ‘Not me. I told you, I want its head.’ He pointed Glacius at the oncoming daemon, and howled a challenge.

  Despite himself, Sven grinned. He activated Frostclaw.

  Infurnace struck. Its great, cloven hooves slammed into the keep’s parapet. Rockcrete crumbled, slamming back into the Wolf Guard. Sven bowed into the wave of debris, auto-stabilisers struggling to keep him upright, feeling the wreckage hammer and score his armour. The daemon found purchase on the edge of the battlements and cracked its whip, the chains rattling. It roared its defiance in the Wolves’ faces, the heat like a melta’s passing shot. The air shimmered and wolf pelt tokens singed and caught light.

  Harald struck first. Glacius was an arc of ice carving through a furnace’s heat, straight towards the daemon’s head. The blow never landed. The Bloodthirster moved with a speed that should have been impossible for a creature of its size, smashing aside Harald’s blow with the spiked haft of its own burning axe. The Wolf Lord stumbled, and a strike from the creature’s whip slammed him down onto his back.

  Gunnar Felsmite was the first to die. The Wolf Guard threw himself at the monster, his claws sparking. One set buried in the thing’s thigh, cracking the black skin. Flames burst from the wounds. Gunnar twisted the claws free a split-second before the daemon beheaded him. The jetting blood steamed in the super-heated air.

  Denr Longblade was next. He swung his longsword up in a parry, but the axe simply carved through the steel and then down through ceramite, flesh and bone, cutting the Space Wolf in half.

  Nils Ironclaw and Fior Frostmane died together, both gutted by a single vicious swing. The blow struck Sven too, meeting the head of Frostclaw. The force of it rung down through the axe, throwing it from the Wolf Lord’s numb grasp.

  A single second’s opportunity. A moment amidst the fire and blood. Fangs bared, Sven threw himself inside the greater daemon’s guard and thrust Firefang up. The chainsword’s teeth bit deep into its lower torso, chewing through brass plate and wyrdflesh. Sven thrust harder with both hands, roaring as he forced the blazing sword up to its hilt.

  ‘I am a Firehowler,’ he snarled. ‘I am a son of the Fire Breather. You cannot burn me.’

  Infurnace backhanded him, the blow sending the Wolf Lord grinding across the parapet’s bloody rockcrete in a shower of sparks. He came to a stop next to Frostclaw. He managed to get a hand on its haft again before the Bloodthirster’s whip lashed out, chains snapping around his outstretched vambrace. With a grunt Sven found himself dragged up onto his knees. The rockcrete beneath him cracked and split as the beast dug its hooves in.

  ‘Sven!’ Olaf’s wolf claws slammed down on the whip’s taut length. The chains shattered and Sven slumped back, hand still on the haft of his weapon. Infurnace roared as Istun swung his power axe at the beast’s back, hacking into flesh that had the consistency of coal. It spun with its terrible speed, and the Bloodguard narrowly ducked a swing of its axe.

  ‘You’ve done enough,’ Olaf snarled, dragging Sven to his feet.

  ‘Yngfor,’ Sven voxed.

  ‘Still inputting the coordinates, lord,’ the Long Fang replied.

  ‘Then do it faster!’

  ‘Lord, you’ll destroy half the island!’

  ‘You have to go,’ Olaf snarled in Sven’s face. ‘Some of the Great Company must survive.’ Behind him Istun bellowed with pain as the Bloodthirster’s huge axe cleaved through his right arm. Uuntir slammed his thunder hammer into the beast’s knee, but even that mighty weapon did little more than crack its dark skin. Flames licked from the wound as Infurnace shattered the Bloodguard’s storm shield with a single stroke.

  ‘Firehowler!’ It was Harald. The Wolf Lord’s nose was bloody and broken, and his eyes blazed with battle fury. But instead of pointing at the greater daemon, he gestured upwards. Sven followed his finger.

  Directly overhead, a patch of Svellgard’s slate-grey clouds was flaring with a blood-red light. A second later the voice of his flagship’s vox huscarl, in orbit above, crackled in his ear.

  ‘Lord, a ship of the crusade fleet has just launched a lance strike against Svellgard’s surface.’ Suddenly it made sense. Sven looked at Harald.

  ‘Run.’

  Transit line four hundred and three,

  the Underworld, Midgardia

  The transport tunnel resounded with screams and the tearing of flesh. Around Egil Iron Wolf his brothers fought, back and forth across the rail lines of the sub-crust highway, hacking and chopping into the resilient, dead flesh of the plaguebearers. The necrotised daemons felt nothing, and hacked back at the Wolves with their own rusting blades, trying to drive them against the packed earth of the tunnel wall.

  The Nurgle Herald that challenged Egil was no warrior. The Iron Wolf realised that, to his surprise, as he darted back from the daemon’s first clumsy swing of its pitted broadsword. It was obese and rotten to its core, reduced to shuffling after the Wolf Lord as it tried to swipe at him. Its blade would not kill Egil. But the miasma of filth that surrounded it might.

  The Iron Wolf lunged, razor-fast, the wolf claws of his right fist blazing with power. They punched through the daemon’s breast with ease, four points searing through pox-scarred flesh, yellow fat and cancer-gnawed bones. Egil ripped downwards, spilling a slew of vile innards, seething with fat maggots.

  The Herald laughed.

  Egil’s visor was awash with red runes. The air around the Herald and his infernal Tallyband was hyper-toxic. Pulsating puff-ball growths infesting the plaguebearers’ skin were bursting and popping all around the embattled Space Wolves, clouding the air with a noxious fug of green daemonspores. His auto-senses told him his armour was literally disintegrating, layers of ceramite being eaten away every second. When it was gone, he’d be a puddle of rotting matter in the time it took to draw breath.

  Egil thrust desperately at the Herald with both fists, its broadsword clanging uselessly off his pockmarked breastplate. The wolf claws tore deep again, carving up its engorged folds, spilling pus-blood and writhing worms. The thing just tried to stab him again. It was impervious. A movement flickered through the spore cloud behind it.

  ‘Go back to the wyrdrealm, you rancid scum,’ Egil snarled as he embraced the Herald, both sets of claws locked deep inside its noxious body. A warning sound wailed in his ear as his armour lost integrity, the ceramite gone, the shaped plates of adamantium and plas
teel beneath stripped almost to their servos. His breath caught, intake filters clogged with green slime. The Herald was laughing again. It leaned into Egil’s helm, worm-tongue caressing his audio receptors.

  ‘I am Phugulus, wolf-man,’ it croaked. ‘And I come bearing a message.’

  Egil buried his claws deeper, trying to find something vital, pushing against a seemingly impervious mountain of decay. The daemon’s phlegm-choked words echoed around his skull.

  ‘Logan Grimnar is dead.’

  ‘Moln!’ Egil roared, and flung himself backwards, claws sliding free of the weeping flesh. The daemon stumbled, and a bolt of blue lightning split the green smog behind it. It struck the Herald’s horned skull with a thunderclap that echoed back from the highway tunnel’s sloping walls.

  Phugulus exploded. Moln’s charged thunder hammer, swung two-handed, burst the bloated monstrosity like a huge ulcer, sending out a shockwave of gory pus and burning meat so thick that it physically drove Egil back a pace. The Herald’s demise was met by a wail from its plaguebearers.

  ‘Krak grenades, collapse the hole,’ Egil snapped, slashing down the nearest lesser daemons as they tried to recover. He was rewarded seconds later by a trio of splitting detonations as anti-tank grenades collapsed the maw-tunnel the plaguebearers had crawled in through. He shouldered another daemon to the ground and stamped hard, snapping first its ribs and then its neck. More fungal balls burst as the daemons died, but without the Herald the air’s toxicity readout on Egil’s visor had already begun to drop. He swung at another plaguebearer that had buried its blade in Olaf Ironhide’s knee joint, cutting its head from its shoulders as Olaf ripped the blade free.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ the Ironwolf grunted as a scream split the tunnel’s choking air.

  The plague wyrm still lived. It was being hammered by the Champions of Fenris, its loathsome white flesh riddled with bolt-rounds and torn by chainswords and wolf claws. Yet still it healed, its unnatural physiology impervious to even the most violent blows of the enraged Wolves. Its fang-ringed maw snapped hungrily at them, driving part of the pack back. Judging by the shape bulging grotesquely halfway down its gelatinous gullet it had already snapped up one of the Space Wolves, his scream now silenced.