War of the Fang - Chris Wraight Read online

  Temekh felt a low foreboding creep across his stomach. So this was it, the target of Magnus’s long and bitter planning. It looked smaller than he’d hoped for, a dirty ball of howling gales and cracked ice.

  Aphael radiated savage energy. Ahead of the Herumon, other ships of the flotilla were becoming visible through the realspace viewers. Streaks of superheated plasma scored across the heavens as the strike vessels raced to compass the target. In their wake, the vast troop-carriers lumbered into position. There were no mistakes, no botched rematerialisations.

  ‘Fenris,’ Aphael breathed, held rapt by the unfolding spectacle in front of him. Terrible forces spread out across the cosmos in tight formation, the kind of forces not seen together since before the Betrayal.

  Temekh, seeing the same vista unfold, felt nothing but a weary dread. He’d wept over the destruction of Tizca, but that did nothing to fuel his sense of revenge. By contrast, Aphael’s eagerness felt vulgar and empty.

  We have lost our taste.

  The pyrae was heedless. He walked toward the mirror, watching as the isolated globe filled the screen ahead.

  ‘This will hurt you,’ he murmured. ‘Oh, this will hurt you so much.’

  Adaman Earfeil’s last day alive did not start well. Few of the astropaths manning the communications spire in the Valgard were Fenris-born, which made him one of only a dozen or so off-worlders on the entire planet. His native subordinates were rude, malodorous and given to making foul-mouthed jokes about his witchery. They didn’t like the use of psyker powers, even though their own bone-rattlers leaked enough aether-born power to level a manufactorum. Even after forty years’ service, he still hadn’t thrown off the ways of his homeworld, the hive-planet Anrada. He hated Fenris. He hated the stink, he hated the boredom, and he hated the cold.

  After little more than two hours’ sleep, the chime summoning him to the astrotelepathic gantry was infuriating. The entire choir had been busy enough over the past few days transmitting material for the muster. He emerged from his cell blearily, wiping the sleep from his sightless eyes. In the corridor beyond he felt the press of bodies hurrying back and forth. There was a low, concerned chatter over vox-beads. Something had got the spire roused.

  Once in the Sanctum Telepathica, Earfeil strode confidently through the mass of kaerls and thralls around him, judging where they were from smell and sound alone. The passages from his cell to the transmitter thrones were as well known to him as the outline of his own body. Ever since waking, though, he’d felt a dull pressure mount behind his eyes, dragging at his thoughts and making his work difficult.

  He took his station, feeling terrible. Thick-headed, lethargic and irascible.

  A servitor creaked up to assist him into his transmit-throne, and he winced as he felt the cold steel of the interface implant itself into his wrist input nodes. There was no damn reason for that to be so painful – if the savages on this forsaken world had cared about anything like comfort, they’d have installed new equipment years ago.

  ‘Water,’ he croaked, knowing that it would take the servitor an age to retrieve a cup and bring it back, frigid and with an aftertaste of grit.

  Clumsily, his headache getting worse, he began to decipher the programme of work ahead. All around him, he could hear more chatter as other astropaths began their litanies.

  ‘Blessed Emperor, Protector of Humanity, Lord of the Heavens, guide my thoughts in Your service and clear the landscape of my mind...’

  Earfeil began to recite while adjusting the series of dials and levers on the console in front of him. The machinery felt warmer than usual – normally, his desiccated old flesh would stick to the ice-cold metal.

  As he spoke, the itinerary began to appear in his mind. He couldn’t see the text exactly, but the sending was clear enough as a mental image.

  ‘May my body endure and my soul remain pure, my Inner Eye remain clear and my Outer Eye remain dark as the eternal mark of Your favour...’

  He kept speaking the familiar words as the iron hood, bristling with needle-slender probes, descended over him. He kept speaking as the probes threaded through the steel-ringed holes in his bald skull and came to rest in their allotted places. He kept speaking as the voices of the rest of the choir drifted out of focus.

  My head is killing me.

  There was no sign of the water. Earfeil pulled up the first transmission. Standard inter-world communique, something about convoy escorts on one of the Wolves’ protected systems.

  ‘Maintain the ward of Your protection... dammit, Fror, why is this list so long?’

  There was a crackle of broken static over the channel to the superintendent, a Fenris-born over two hundred years old.

  ‘Fror?’

  Earfeil gave up. Senile old goat. The pain behind his eyes got worse. It felt as if the burned-out nerves had somehow reconnected.

  What in Hel is doing that?

  He considered calling for an apothecary, pulling out of the contact, then changed his mind. They all thought he was weak anyway, a soft-fleshed offworlder with a smattering of unholy magick.

  He opened up his mind.

  The aether rushed in. A single eye stared back at him from the void, ringed with a circuit of crimson.

  ‘Holy Empe–’ he started, and then the pain really began.

  Something massive entered his consciousness, something vast and ancient, something of such magnitude that Earfeil immediately knew he was a dead man.

  ‘Fror!’ he screamed, maybe out loud, maybe mentally. Dimly, he could hear other noises coming out of the darkness around him. There were heavy footfalls as someone ran across the chamber. Then there were screams. Then all was lost in the pain – the crushing, mind-bending pain.

  He briefly thought about struggling against it. For a moment, a horrifying moment, he was taken back to the soul-binding on Terra. Back then he’d been exposed to sentience of such magnitude that it had burned out his eyes and seared his soul shut.

  This is the same force.

  No, it wasn’t. Not quite the same, though kin to it. Even as he writhed in his bonds, pinned down in his seat by the electrodes running through him, he could make out familiar shapes in the warp signature.

  Close the link!

  It was too late for that. Earfeil could feel his organs popping inside him, slapping open with hot, agonising explosions. Blood was running down his face, dribbling into his open mouth, frozen in a soundless rictus scream. The eye blazed at him, rippling with casual menace. This thing wasn’t even trying hard.

  +What are you?+ he sent, and his message was like shooting a microlumen into a star.

  The eye didn’t waver, but piled on more agony. It was then that Earfeil knew it was doing the same to all the astropaths. That should have been impossible – there were wards against infiltration across the spire, and the psykers were all soul-bound. This thing was tearing them apart as if the protection didn’t exist.

  He juddered in his throne, feeling awareness leave him. His nerves were burned away, giving some release from the pain.

  This will isolate us, he thought as he fell towards death. It wants us mute.

  That was the penultimate thought Adaman Earfeil ever had. The last one came hard on its heels.

  And whatever it is, he realised, his burned body spasming in excruciation, it’s just like the Emperor.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Wolf Scout Haakon Gylfasson, the one they called Blackwing, sat in the command throne of the Nauro and surveyed the scene before him smugly. The landing stages were already far behind and the dark of the sky from the realspace viewers had sunk into star-flecked black. The neon-white curve of Fenris fell away as the starship climbed higher, its engines straining against the powerful pull of the receding planet. It had taken many days of preparation to fit the Nauro out for an extended system patrol tour, but now the irritating wait was over and he was back where he belonged.

  In the servitor pit below him, a dozen hardwired automata laboured at their statio
ns. On the gantries above, six kaerls were strapped into restraint harnesses until the atmosphere was cleared and gravity generators could compensate properly.

  ‘Master, report when ready,’ ordered Blackwing casually, enjoying the feel of the ship as it thundered into low orbit range. The metal floor shivered slightly under him. The vessel was like a hunting-hound – lean, trembling, taut in the slips.

  ‘You’re pushing her hard,’ came the reply over the comm-link from the engine chambers. The ship’s Master was a veteran of working with Blackwing, and there was no confidence in the mortal’s voice that his warning would be heeded.

  Blackwing enjoyed making him uncomfortable. He enjoyed making everyone uncomfortable. That was the joy of piloting an interceptor with a crew entirely composed of mortals – the absolute power, the knowledge he could drive this thing as hard as he wanted. It was a beautiful ship, a thoroughbred, and there was no fun in keeping the ascent within safety parameters.

  ‘Treat her mean, Master,’ he replied. ‘That’s the way she likes it.’

  There was a muttered expletive from the other end before the link cut out. Blackwing grinned and summoned a hololith from the arm of the throne. The tactical display flickered into life in front of him, a swivelling sphere representing local space.

  ‘We’ll buzz the grid on our way out,’ he shared with the Tacticus, mentally plotting a trajectory that would take them to within a few kilometres of the first orbital gun platform. ‘It’ll take their minds off their tedious lives.’

  ‘I can’t raise them,’ replied the grey-suited Tacticus, seated at a console just below Blackwing’s position.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean I can’t raise them.’

  Blackwing frowned and cut into the channel. There was a hiss of static.

  ‘Are our comms shot?’ he demanded.

  ‘We’re fine,’ replied the Tacticus, his fingers playing across a control panel that looked more like an organ. ‘It’s them.’

  Blackwing flicked his eyes at the hololith display. The first of the gun platforms was swimming into augur range, a single rune floating within the emerald sphere.

  ‘What’s their problem?’ he asked.

  The Tacticus turned away from his array and shrugged.

  ‘System failure,’ he suggested. ‘That, or they’re being jammed.’

  Blackwing laughed harshly.

  ‘Yes, like that’s–’

  The wolf-spirit within him suddenly stirred, as if uncurling from sleep. He felt the hairs on the back of his arms rise under his armour.

  ‘Keep trying,’ he ordered, and expanded the range of the tactical display. The figures within the sphere rushed into tiny points as the scope widened. More orbital platforms swept within the augur ambit.

  ‘Can we get the Skraemar?’ he asked, not liking what he was seeing.

  ‘Not responding.’

  The sphere kept expanding as the sensor arrays took in more and more of local space. Then, at the edge of the range, more runes appeared. Lots of them. None with Fenrisian sigils.

  ‘How’re our shields?’ asked Blackwing, clutching the arms of the throne a little tighter.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Keep them fine. Now bring auxiliary plasma banks online.’

  The Tacticus turned to look up at him, staring as if he’d gone mad.

  ‘We’re still within the gravity–’

  Blackwing fixed him with a withering look.

  ‘I want attack speed. Now. Then signal the Valgard and tell them to throw everything they’ve got up here. Then get your prayers in.’

  Blackwing turned to the tactical display and dug his fingers into the control arms of the throne. He poured on more power, and felt the febrile machine-spirit whine in protest.

  ‘Get used to it,’ he growled, gouging at the metal under his gauntlets. ‘It’s going to get a whole lot worse soon.’

  Something had stirred within Greyloc’s mind even before the warning runes started to come in. He was deep in the Fang, working on the edge of his old axe-blade Frengir, the one he’d taken from his old life and kept by his side. The Wolf Priests didn’t like remnants of mortal days being retained, but a blade was a sacred thing, and now he was Jarl they had less power to turn that displeasure into sanction.

  He’d been honing the killing blade with a whetstone, working carefully to maintain the murder-edge. The head of it was iron, far softer than any axe he’d used as a Space Marine and useless for proper combat. Still, he’d kept it in pristine condition over the years, never letting the metal blunt or degrade. Scrapes of swarf littered the bare floor by the whetstone, scattered at his feet as he worked.

  Then the runes glowed into life, set high up on the walls of the forge. At the same time, red sigils burst out across the collar of his armour, smaller versions of the datafeeds his helm would have given him had he been wearing it.

  Greyloc put the axe down.

  ‘Jarl,’ came a voice into his earpiece. ‘We’re under attack. Multiple targets closing in, defensive grids coming under fire. Transmission spires compromised, casualties taken.’

  The change was instantaneous. Greyloc grabbed his helm from its mounting and strode from his cell into the corridor beyond.

  ‘All pack-leaders to the Chamber of the Watch,’ he snapped back over the comm. ‘Including Wyrmblade. Enemy numbers?’

  ‘Over forty major targets closing,’ came the response. It was Skrieya, the Wolf Guard he’d stationed in the Chamber. ‘Possibly more.’

  ‘Forty? From where?’

  There was a hesitation.

  ‘Unknown, Jarl.’

  ‘Make sure Sturmhjart’s there,’ snarled Greyloc as he broke into a run, his whole body tensing. ‘Hammer of Russ, there’d better be a reason why he didn’t see this.’

  Rivenmaster Gregr Kjolborn of the Reike Og orbital platform ran down the plasteel corridor to the command module, half-deafened by klaxons blaring from every angle. There was a massive, shuddering boom, and his world tilted several degrees.

  He slammed against the near wall and spat a curse.

  ‘Where in Hel did they come from?’ he muttered as he regained his feet. The doors to the command module had jammed open, and he could see the mess within before he’d burst past them.

  ‘Status!’ he panted as he took up position on the dais in the centre.

  The command module of the gun platform was seven metres wide and circular. Realspace viewers dominated the ceiling. Normally they would have opened out on to blank space. Now the plexiglass looked out on to an inferno. The whole structure, several thousand tons of plasteel and adamantium, was listing dangerously. Across the floor of the module, kaerls and servitors worked at a cluster of linked consoles, all of them alive with flashing danger runes. Far below, the curve of Fenris’s northern hemisphere glowed ice-white in the void.

  ‘Primary shield failure imminent,’ read out his huskaerl, Emme Vreborn. Her voice was flinty and unwavering, something that did her credit as the burning console in front of her spat sparks. ‘Power ten per cent above minimum. We’ve got a few minutes.’

  Kjolborn nodded, feeling his blood continue to pump around his system. ‘Weapons?’

  ‘Critical,’ reported another kaerl.

  ‘Great.’

  Kjolborn tried to take in the situation. Seven minutes ago there had been signals picked up on the long-range scanners. Two minutes after that the signals had turned into battleships. Either there was a serious problem with the augur array, or a fleet had come out of the warp staggeringly close to Fenris’s gravity well. There’d been no warning, no warp-wakes detected, and no time to do anything other than power up the weapon batteries and prepare to return fire. As it had turned out, that response had been pitifully insufficient.

  A wall of ships had swarmed at them at full speed, sending arcs of energy tearing into the linked network of orbital platforms. Several guns had gone down almost immediately, taken out by the massed volume of fire, their v
oid shields overloaded and cracked apart in a blaze of released energy.

  The defenders’ counter-attack had been sporadic, with no time to coordinate proper firing solutions. In the wake of the initial assault, enemy fighters had spun out of the shadow of the larger ships, screaming into range and strafing the surviving elements of the defensive grid. It had all been too fast, too overwhelming. Now the outer network was in flames, burning and falling into the upper atmosphere, and what was left was going to do little more than slow the bulk of the fleet closing in on it.

  ‘Has the Aett been warned?’ asked Kjolborn, looking at the carnage around him, his mind racing.

  ‘Oh, they know all about it,’ replied Vreborn.

  ‘Lucky them.’

  For a moment, Kjolborn thought wistfully of the saviour pods slung under the planetside face of the platform. If he’d been bred anywhere else but Fenris, he might even have contemplated trying to reach them.

  ‘Divert all power from the shields and feed to the forward battery,’ he ordered, running his gaze over the swirling pattern of light on the tactical displays.

  ‘Sir?’

  There was a second crash as something massive hit the platform from underneath. The lights failed, leaving nothing but blood-red backups. The crew of the command module looked like shadows of the Underverse in the gloom.

  ‘You heard me. I want one shot before we go.’

  The kaerls complied without further query. With an involuntary shudder, Kjolborn watched as the platform’s void shields shrank back across the realspace viewers. The withdrawal left a shimmering trail in its wake, and then the blade-sharp unmediated view of the void.

  ‘Lock on incoming Fyf-Tra, bearing 2.-2.-3. Once you’ve fixed, hit it.’

  Kaerls hurried to comply. Out of the corner of his eye Kjolborn saw another platform explode in a huge ball of hot white plasma and its signal wink out from the tactical display. He ignored it, concentrating on his target. Amid the sea of oncoming ships, an enemy frigate, already reeling from some other impact, was turning to bring a prow lance to bear. It caught the reflective light from the half-disc of Fenris on its armoured prow, and the sapphire plating flashed briefly.