The Broken Crown - Robbie MacNiven Read online

  ‘They’re not responding,’ Olaf Blackstone growled. ‘All vox-channels have been closed and locked since they landed that artillery.’

  The euphoria of a battle won cooled rapidly. Looking out at the distant barrels of the Earthshakers studding the islands’ ridges, Sven felt a sudden foreboding creep over him. There had been no Astra Militarum elements in-system last he’d heard. Where had they come from?

  ‘Raise the fleet,’ Sven said. ‘They must know more than we do.’ The vox squawked in his ear.

  ‘Lord Bloodhowl,’ said a familiar voice.

  ‘Lord Deathwolf,’ Sven replied, scanning the transmission’s source. ‘You’re no longer on Frostheim?’

  ‘No. Morkai’s Keep has fallen. I am bound for the World Wolf’s Lair.’

  ‘Fallen?’ Sven echoed, disbelief warring with sudden anger. ‘How can that be? I thought you’d purged the Alpha Legion traitors and their wyrdspawn allies?’

  ‘It was not the heretics who took it,’ Harald Deathwolf replied. ‘Do not communicate with anyone until I arrive. And maintain your defensive positions.’

  ‘What is happening, Deathwolf?’ Sven demanded.

  ‘I will explain in person, Bloodhowl. There is maleficarum trickery at work.’

  Star Drake, the Void

  Gormenjarl. A mountain cast from plasteel and adamantium and set adrift in the void. It filled the viewing ports of the Star Drake, the light of the Wolf’s Eye glinting from its gargoyle-edged bulkheads and the gaping maws of its defence batteries. Those weapons could blaze with enough firepower to decimate a fleet, yet now they lay inert, as silent as the star fort’s vox-channels.

  ‘Still nothing?’ Captain Stern demanded. The huscarl shook his head, eyes not leaving his blinking instrument displays. Stern watched Gormenjarl through the Star Drake’s open ports, imagining its defences flaring with sudden life. Their shields would hold for less than a minute, and the weight of ordnance would leave the proud Space Wolf Strike Cruiser a listing, gutted wreck in the time it took for them to fire a single salvo.

  But the guns stayed silent.

  ‘Maintain the docking vector,’ Stern ordered. ‘And inform me of any contact. I will be with my brethren in bay alpha one.’

  As Stern strode from the bridge he keyed his personal vox, opening a private channel with Brother Theo. Alone among the Brotherhood, Stern had ordered him to remain aboard the Star Drake and guard the unconscious Wulfen confined to the ship’s brig.

  ‘Any change?’ Stern asked.

  ‘None, brother-captain,’ Theo replied. ‘The beast still slumbers.’

  ‘You are to ensure that remains the case,’ Stern said. ‘And if you do not hear from me within the next hour, you are to take this ship to Midgardia and demand an audience with the Dark Angels. Do not let this madness continue, brother.’

  ‘I understand, brother-captain.’

  Stern closed the channel, confident Theo would carry out what may be his final orders. The other eleven Grey Knights were waiting for him in the cavernous corridor that acted as the Star Drake’s primary docking bay, standing in a tight circle with heads bowed and force weapons held at rest. Brother Latimer was leading them in the Canticle of Absolution, the Six Hundred and Sixty-Six Secret Words, the High Gothic cant ringing back eerily from the bay’s ceiling. The Space Wolf Chapter-serfs manning the bay hung well back, staring at the huge silver-plated warriors with undisguised fear.

  Stern took his customary space within the circle, taking the lead from Latimer with practised ease.

  ‘No despicable trickery will thwart us, no Damnation will bring us low.’

  ‘There is no peace for us,’ the rest intoned as one. ‘For an eternity we strive.’

  ‘Though mere mortals in His service, everlasting shall be our True Duty.’

  ‘Et Imperator Invocato Diabolus Daemonica Exorcism!’

  Stern finished the oath-prayer of the Grey Knights with the Benediction of the Third Brotherhood.

  ‘Itur in fauces iumentorum. In os gehennae. Imperator dei estis lux. Vestri sumus foedus inite gladio. Gloria tibi in saecula.’

  Into the jaws of the beast. Into the mouth of hell. God-Emperor, you are our light. We are your sword. Glory to you forever.

  The chant finished, its echoes rebounding one last time from the ship’s walls before they too fell silent. As one, the Grey Knights raised their heads and came to attention.

  ‘Brothers,’ Stern said, addressing them without his helmet. ‘We are about to walk into a trap. Beyond those blast doors is a Ramilies-class star fort dubbed Gormenjarl. No communication has been received from its crew since the outbreak of the first daemonic incursions in this system. We must assume the worst. Our objective is to secure this docking spine and protect Star Drake while its crew effect repairs. If possible, we will then attempt to purge any taint that may have manifested within the star fort.’

  ‘Brother-captain, isn’t our objective to reach Midgardia?’ asked Brother Gideon. ‘If the star fort is infested then purging it will slow us down considerably.’

  ‘Which is why we will only go on the offensive if it is practical,’ Stern replied. ‘Gormenjarl’s current trajectory is taking it past an extensive asteroid field known as Alpha Eleven-Nineteen, lying spinward of Fenris itself. If the opportunity arises I will attempt to storm the fort’s command deck and reroute it into Eleven-Nineteen. If a real-space collapse has occurred onboard Gormenjarl then we cannot afford to leave it open, regardless of the situation on Midgardia.’

  ‘My lord.’ The huscarl’s voice blared over the bay’s vox rig. ‘We are moving into our final docking position. You will be able to break the atmospheric seal and board Gormenjarl within the next five minutes.’

  ‘Brothers, make ready,’ Stern ordered. ‘Wrathhammer formation. I will take point.’

  His Grey Knights assembled in a wedge around him, standing before the heavy, wolf-stamped blast doors of the docking bay, snapping home storm bolter clips and murmuring prayers to the spirits of their armour and weaponry. Stern pulled on his helmet, clamping and locking it with his gorget seal. A blink and the retinal visor display of his auto-senses came online, filling his vision with targeting reticules, vox-channels and vital signs. Around him he felt Star Drake shudder, its adamantium hull groaning and straining as its helmsman eased it into contact with Gormenjarl’s main docking spine. It was almost as though the venerable Strike Cruiser had no wish to touch the foreboding, silent star fort.

  One last long, agonising moan rose from the ship’s metal, and there was a distant, shuddering thump that reverberated up through Stern’s boots. Then all was still.

  ‘Stand by,’ the huscarl’s voice crackled over the vox.

  ‘Post tenebras lux,’ Stern said. After darkness, light. His Brotherhood echoed him, and as one they activated their nemesis force weapons, holy energy surging and sparking up glaive, sword and halberd.

  A warning claxon shrieked. The light above the blast doors blinked red. Stern’s grip on his force sword tightened. There was a thump of disengaging magnetic seals, a pressurised hiss, the grating of autobolts and servo-locks. The light above the doors blinked green.

  The blast doors rolled back, and Brother-Captain Stern led his paladins’ charge. Straight into the mouth of hell.

  The Void, Fenris System

  ‘Are you sure this is wise, lord?’ asked Sister Marie. Her hawkish features – scarred by the flamer burns so common among members of her Chamber Militant – were set in a familiar expression of disapproval.

  Lord Inquisitor Banist de Mornay shifted fractionally on his auto palanquin, the vitae cables plugged into his flesh flexing with the movement, and tugged the trapped hem of his dark red robes out from underneath him. The deck beneath his recliner’s tracks shuddered as the shuttle clamped onto the hull of the larger vessel beyond the docking bay’s blast doors.

&n
bsp; ‘We should have activated the mark seventeen exo-plate,’ Marie continued. ‘At least then you would have rudimentary protection from these animals.’

  ‘The Wolves are not our enemy here, Marie,’ de Mornay said, his voice chiding. ‘Many wish us to believe they are, but we must not be swayed by their lies. Do not allow them to influence your judgements of these warriors.’

  ‘They are harbouring mutants,’ Marie pressed, unable to even utter the last word without her features twisting with disgust. ‘The Dark Angels do not lie about that, and you know it.’

  ‘The genetic heritage of the Vlka Fenryka is a complex one, that I grant,’ de Mornay said. ‘But we must examine the outcomes of actions, regardless of what we perceive their intent to be. Thus far the Wulfen seem only to have acted alongside their battle-brothers, and exhibit very little animosity towards the God-Emperor’s servants. They are fighting as hard as any of us to rid this system of daemonic taint. That in itself must count for something.’

  ‘I merely worry about my ability to protect you in a ship full of beasts,’ Marie said. ‘We should have brought VX Nine-Eighteen as well.’

  ‘Sometimes a subtler touch is required,’ de Mornay said. He had ordered the rest of his in-field retinue to remain aboard Allsaint’s Herald. ‘The last thing we need right now is to antagonise our hosts. We require them if we are to make progress, after all these years.’

  Marie said nothing, but de Mornay could feel the distaste radiating off the Adepta Sororitas. He could not wholly deny that he didn’t share that disgust. Genetic impurity, especially amongst the hallowed ranks of the Adeptus Astartes, was something he’d struggled to uproot for decades. To wilfully overlook evidence of mutation went against his instincts as a member of the Ordo Hereticus. But for now there were greater matters at stake – and darker secrets to unravel – than the curse of the Wulfen. In their eagerness to persecute their old rivals the Dark Angels had left themselves exposed. De Mornay had waited a long time for such an opportunity to present itself. All he needed now was muscle.

  Hydraulics whined and thumped, and the blast doors leading from his private shuttle’s docking strut into the Space Wolf battle-barge ground open. A single figure waited for them on the other side, wreathed in decompression steam. He towered in the blue-grey power armour and furred pelts of the Space Wolves, and though his unhelmeted head was a latticework of old scars and blue knotwork tattoos, his eyes were disarmingly calm and grey. Seeing de Mornay’s cable-covered servitor-palanquin rolling through the venting steam, he bowed.

  ‘Lord Inquisitor, well met. I am Thierulf Bloodhanded. I have been sent by my jarl, Ragnar Blackmane, to escort you to the Holmgang’s bridge.’

  ‘The pleasure is all mine, Thierulf,’ de Mornay said, making the sign of the aquila. ‘By all means, lead on.’

  He had heard it said that every Wolf Lord shaped his Great Company to his own dominant personality. Travelling through Ragnar Blackmane’s flagship, de Mornay could well believe it. The Space Wolves he passed were more often than not young, armour and blades inscribed with new kill markings, and had that hungry look about them that had Sister Marie’s hand fixed to the hilt of her holstered combi-flamer almost every step of the way. One snarled at de Mornay as they passed, holding the inquisitor’s gaze long after most would have flinched away. As they neared the upper decks he became aware of an ever-increasing pack of Wolves following them. Despite his outward confidence, he felt cold sweat pricking across his body, anticipation setting his pulse racing. His fingers brushed his plasma pistol in its ornate leather holster, strapped to the palanquin’s flank.

  ‘Pay the pups no mind,’ Thierulf said, as though reading de Mornay’s thoughts. ‘They’ve just been caged for too long. The currents of the Sea of Stars have been fickle of late. I was starting to think we’d never make it home.’

  ‘You’re aware of what’s happening throughout the system?’ de Mornay asked.

  ‘Aware enough. Wyrdling scum are attacking everything bar the Hearthworld itself, and the sons of the Lion are trying to intervene with a crusade fleet. Meddling where they’re neither wanted nor needed, as ever.’

  ‘I’m here to try to do something about that,’ de Mornay said.

  Thierulf made a growling noise. After a second the inquisitor realised he was laughing, albeit mirthlessly.

  ‘All depends what you want out of it in return, pyre-builder.’

  ‘Who ever said anything about wanting something in return?’

  ‘It’s always so with your kind. Here, we’ve arrived.’ Thierulf came to a halt before a wire-mesh grav lift, and entered a string of codes on the rune lock.

  De Mornay spent a moment looking at the jagged lines of the Fenrisian Juvjk script on the lock. He had to remember to have Peterkyn create an auto-upload file for that language. An understanding of it was looking increasingly useful.

  ‘I should return to my pack,’ Thierulf said. ‘They are grown restless in this torpid transport. Take the lift to the bridge level. My jarl Ragnar will meet you there.’

  ‘My thanks, Wolf,’ de Mornay said, rolling onto the lift platform as its grille door juddered open. ‘We will doubtless both do the God-Emperor’s work again soon enough.’

  ‘Allfather be praised,’ Thierulf grunted, and hit the activation rune. The doors snapped shut, and the lift began to rise with a low whir.

  ‘If they mean to slaughter us, now is when they’ll do it,’ Marie muttered.

  De Mornay allowed himself a smile, glancing briefly up at the pict feed monitoring the lift’s occupants.

  ‘Your suspicions make me think you’ve served in my retinue for too long, honourable Sister,’ he said. ‘Regardless, we shall soon discover whether your beliefs are well-founded. Into the wolf’s lair…’

  The grav lift chimed as it reached Holmgang’s highest level, the bridge that lay at the top of the ship’s command spire. The doors opened once again, and the hubbub of an Imperial warship’s control nexus washed over the two Inquisitorial operatives. It was stilled by a deep growl, a growl that became words.

  ‘Welcome, Lord Inquisitor de Mornay. It’s rare to have a visitor from the ordos aboard my ship.’

  De Mornay rolled his palanquin onto the bridge, assuming the mask of haughty indifference he had relied upon for so long. In his profession it did no good to show weakness or fear, either to friend or foe. But beneath the dozen predatory eyes that observed his arrival, indifference was a difficult appearance to maintain.

  The bridge of the Holmgang was a cavern-like space, its walls and high ceiling cast from Fenrisian stone, carved with intricate scenes of the battles and the mythic adventures that the Space Wolves knew as sagas. Lumen globes flickered in alcoves or hung suspended from chains overhead, their light battling the green glow of cogitator screens and augur arrays. Chapter-serfs in plain blue-and-grey shifts bent over their workstations, fingers tapping at rune banks or adjusting heavy brass levers and gauges. Huscarls, their robes trimmed with fur, paced the walkways between the stations, monitoring the ship’s vital signs and its progress through real space and relaying pertinent information to the command dais. That raised platform of seemingly primordial rock dominated the bridge’s centre, the rune-carved stone throne at its top draped with heavy pelts. Upon it, like a techno-barbarian warlord from the darkest days of the Age of Strife, sat the figure that could only be the Young King. Ragnar Blackmane.

  His grey battleplate was trimmed with gold, and hung with fang tokens. A dark wolf pelt was draped over his right pauldron, while a green gem glittered at the centre of his Belt of Russ, the relic that marked out all Wolf Lords. He wore no helmet, his long, black hair and sideburns lending his features a wild look. The appearance was only accentuated when he grinned, revealing vicious canines.

  ‘You are a bold one, witch hunter,’ he said as de Mornay ground to a halt before the throne, Marie at his side. ‘I like that. But will
I like the reason you are here?’

  Ragnar was not the only Space Wolf on the bridge. Half a dozen of his pack leaders stood around his dais, their pelts grey, their eyes surveying de Mornay with something akin to hunger. Native Fenrisian wolves also prowled the bridge, seemingly at liberty to come and go as they pleased. They sat and watched the two interlopers with as much restrained savagery as their transhuman wolf-brothers.

  ‘Any true son of Fenris would approve of the reason that I am here, my lord,’ de Mornay said to Ragnar. ‘Defending your Chapter’s honour, recovering your Great Wolf and purging your native system of daemonic infestation. That is what I am here to request your assistance with.’

  ‘That may be,’ Ragnar said. ‘But I doubt that’s the only reason you have sought out my fleet.’

  ‘Why else would I seek an audience in person?’

  ‘To discover if the rumours are true.’ Ragnar grinned again, a savage expression that carried with it little warmth. ‘I can tell you now, they are. Sverri!’

  A low growl answered the Wolf Lord’s summons. De Mornay followed the sound to the far side of the bridge. Emerging from the shadows of a strategium cell came a creature seemingly born from the wildest and most savage of imaginations.

  It bore only a passing resemblance to the other Space Wolves on the bridge. It was larger, and its iron-hard muscles bristled with bestial black hair. It wore less armour, what battleplate it did possess appearing archaic and timeworn. Its lower limbs were more like those of the Fenrisian wolves that padded around the bridge, distended and claw-toed. Its features were even more terrible – they were no longer recognisably human. Its nose was flattened and nostrils flared, while its predatory yellow eyes were sunk into a heavy brow. Its hair was long and matted, and its thick jaw was studded with rows of fangs that jutted out over its lower lip. As it moved towards Ragnar’s throne it adopted a loping, hunched gait, claws scraping on the bridge’s stone floor.