War of the Fang - Chris Wraight Read online

  He looked up at the helm of the rubricae, watching the way the polished ceramite of its crest caught the faint interior light and turned it into a thing of beauty.

  ‘A Wolves vessel,’ he continued, trying to construct a mental picture of how the ship would be laid out. ‘There may be many of them on board.’

  He smiled, suppressing the coughing-up of more blood, and laid a trusting hand on the rubricae’s vambrace.

  ‘No matter, my brother,’ he said. ‘I can recover from these wounds. You will be my protector in the days to come. By the time this ship leaves the embrace of the Ocean, we will be the only living souls within it.’

  For three days, the landings in the mountains of Asaheim continued. For three days, the hunting packs disrupted and burned them, launching attack after attack across the ice. For three days, they racked up victories, preventing permanent footholds, scouring the rock clean of the taint of the invader. Many drop-ships were destroyed before landing by clusters of Long Fangs, more were knocked out soon afterwards by the roaming packs.

  Despite all of this, the invaders succeeded in establishing bridgeheads. Time wore on, and the Wolves were faced with ever more of the enemy. They could not be everywhere at once, and the battles became fiercer and more protracted. The Thousand Sons established enduring positions at nine points in the mountain ranges around the Fang, landing ever more men and materiel, gradually constructing the stranglehold from which the main assault would be launched.

  As dawn broke over the Fang on the fourth day, the fortress was ringed with fire. Oily black columns, generated by promethium spills that would burn even on the ice, formed a vast, kilometres-wide circle across the mountain chain. The leaguer was closing, forged by the sacrifice of thousands of invading soldiers, each one of their deaths buying space for another drop-ship to land, another lascannon to be unloaded, another tank to rumble down the embarkation ramps.

  Greyloc’s Thunderhawk, the Vragnek, touched down in the Valgard, swooping hard under the umbrella of exploding plasma where the void shields still resisted the constant orbital bombardment. As it came to rest on the rock floor of the hangar, the crew-bay doors slammed down and the Wolf Lord himself strode back into the Aett, followed by his Terminator-clad retinue. Wyrmblade was there to meet him.

  Greyloc’s armour was scorched black across one side and streaked with dried blood. A chunk had been knocked out of his right shoulder-guard, scarring the face of the rune Trysk. His wolfclaws were still fizzing with residual energy, and the crust of gore on his wrists showed that they’d been in heavy use.

  ‘Good hunting?’ asked Wyrmblade, looking at the signs of battle with approval.

  Greyloc removed his helm with a sucking hiss and locked it under his arm. His white eyes burned coldly.

  ‘Too many of them,’ he muttered, striding past Wyrmblade, forcing the Wolf Priest to turn to keep up with him. ‘We turn the ice red, but they keep landing.’

  Wyrmblade nodded.

  ‘The first rank of drop-ships were to keep us busy. They’ve landed heavy carriers further out. Traitor Marine squads now march with the mortals.’

  Greyloc spat a gobbet of blood-flecked saliva and shook his head.

  ‘Bones of Russ, Thar,’ he hissed. ‘I wanted nothing more than to keep fighting. I could have stayed out on the ice until my claws were rending their cold, dead bones.’

  He looked into the Wolf Priest’s eyes, and there was ferocity in his lean face.

  ‘I wanted nothing more. Do you understand?’

  Wyrmblade looked back carefully, his old eyes scanning for the tell-tale signs. He scrutinised long, paying particular attention to the white irises.

  ‘Righteous rage, brother,’ he said at last, clapping him firmly on the shoulder. ‘As it should be.’

  Greyloc grunted, hiding his relief badly, and shook himself from the Wolf Priest’s grip.

  ‘Then tell me.’

  ‘We’re surrounded,’ said Wyrmblade. He spoke bluntly, factually. ‘The net’s closed. If you leave the packs out there, they’ll be picked off. There are sorcerers in the ranks of the enemy now, and we don’t have the Rune Priests to counter them.’

  ‘They won’t be called back easily.’

  ‘Then they’ll die. I can show you the auspex scans.’

  Greyloc remained silent, grimly weighing up the options.

  ‘We’re hunters, Thar,’ he said eventually. The harsh edge had left his voice as the kill-urge receded. ‘We pursue. They’ve got us cornered. This fighting won’t suit the Claws.’

  Wyrmblade smiled, and his mouth hooked like a knife-wound in his old, wrinkled face. ‘Then we’ll learn a new way. Isn’t that what you’re always saying?’

  ‘I had a vision for it. The Tempering is–’

  ‘They’ll learn. You have to lead them.’

  Greyloc looked at Wyrmblade coldly. His thoughts were evident across his lupine face, and he didn’t bother to hide them.

  They do not trust me. I am the White Wolf, the ghost, the bloodless one. They sense what I wish to do, how I wish to transform us all.

  ‘Call the packs back,’ he growled, rolling his head wearily from side to side, stretching the muscles that had been combat-tense for days on end. ‘We’ll meet the attack here. If nothing else, the passage of the Gates will make them bleed.’

  The open sky was streaked with the dirty trails of incoming shell-fire. The enemy had managed to establish firing positions a few kilometres east of Rossek’s hold-out, and now spearheads had begun to advance out of them.

  ‘Rojk!’ he bellowed into the comm. ‘Where’s that damned heavy support?’

  There was a fizz of static in his earpiece. Either short-range comms were being jammed, or Torgrim Rojk’s Long Fang squad had been forced out of combat. In either case, things were getting difficult.

  Rossek’s squad had assaulted six dropsites during the night, destroying all of them utterly before moving on. In four days his ten Grey Hunters had yet to take a casualty despite slaughtering huge numbers of enemy troops. Only gradually had the truth become apparent. The first wave of landings had been fodder – poorly trained and badly equipped conscripts sent to absorb the fury of the Wolves while the real soldiers were landed further out. The mountains were now crawling with enemy squads. Hundreds of them.

  Like the one they were closing in on now.

  ‘Frar, Scarjaw,’ he hissed over the mission channel. ‘Go wide.’

  The two Grey Hunters responded instantly, breaking left from the squad and sweeping up the slope of valley. Rossek’s pack had pushed far down a long, narrow cleft in the mountains, using the impenetrable rock cliffs on either side to mask their approach. The broken boulders, some the size of Rhinos, gave excellent cover. At the far end of the valley, only a few hundred metres distant, the enemy was making its advance.

  Two tanks were grinding their way toward Rossek’s position, guarding a phalanx of marching troops in their wake. The incoming fire was heavy and accurate, shattering the boulders in front of them and sending shards spinning into the air. The vehicles had an unusual pattern. Leman Russ chassis, by the look of them, with autocannons and heavy bolters. They looked like the Chapter’s own Exterminators. Infantry killers.

  ‘Eriksson, Vre,’ Rossek hissed.

  Two more Grey Hunters peeled right, stooping low as they weaved between the shoulders of rock, leaving seven of the pack still in cover on the valley floor.

  A huge boulder cracked open several metres to Rossek’s right, blasted apart by a long-range mortar. Heavy bolter-fire from the tanks ran along the valley floor in rows, creeping ever closer to the Wolves’ position.

  Rossek checked his helm locator, watching as his troops took up optimal positions.

  ‘Now,’ he snarled.

  The Grey Hunters on the flanks broke cover and raced toward the enemy lines, sweeping across the broken terrain like bolting konungur. They moved incredibly quickly, bounding with assurance across the treacherous landscape. Their boltguns
opened up, slamming into the flanks of the swaying tanks and exploding across the front ranks of the infantry beyond.

  Rossek watched as the tank-mounted heavy bolters swivelled to meet the flank threats, holding for the few seconds needed to draw fire from the front aspect, then clenched his fist tight.

  ‘Hjolda!’ he roared, leaping from cover.

  His Hunters burst out with him, roaring defiance and letting their pelts stream out from their armour. The time for stealth had passed, and now speed took its place.

  Incoming bolter rounds flew past Rossek’s shoulder as he weaved toward his destination, his animal senses keeping him one step ahead of the mortals’ reactions. He fired back from the waist – short, sharp bursts of twin-streamed fire from the storm bolter held in his right hand. As he closed on the first tank, he thumbed his chainfist into whirring, snarling life.

  The vehicles were powerful but slow, hindered by the uneven terrain. The Wolves leapt and ducked as they raced toward the enemy. Despite their huge suits of power-armour, they went fluidly, fast and low.

  Rossek reached the first tank, leaping high on to its roof, boosted by his armour-servos. The turret whirled to face him, but he jammed his chainfist into the metal, carving it open and sending sparks spinning.

  Two Hunters pounced on to the other one, with the rest of the squad sweeping past and laying into the supporting infantry. The heavy bark of bolter-fire quickly drowned out the cracks of returning las-beams.

  In a single movement, Rossek mag-locked his bolter, grabbed a krak grenade and hurled it into the gap he’d opened in the turret armour, before leaping from the roof through a hail of return fire. The tank’s heavy bolters tracked after him, only to be ripped apart by the muffled boom of the exploding grenade. The tank rocked on its tracks, its armoured panels bulging from within as the explosions blossomed.

  Then the other tank blew up, knocked from its tracks when its fuel tanks were breached. Black smoke boiled up from the twin cracked hulls, rolling out of the shattered innards.

  The mortals broke then, hurrying back the way they’d come so confidently only moments before, some dropping their weapons in their haste to retreat. Rossek roared his scorn, grabbing his storm bolter again and prepared to reap vengeance.

  It was only then that his proximity scanner picked up the new signals, masked by the infantry advance. Further down the valley floor, moving slowly but inexorably, a line of sapphire and bronze figures was marching up the valley. Rossek crouched down behind cover, checking the numbers. Eighteen. Two times nine.

  ‘Comm signal from the Aett, Jarl,’ reported Frar breathlessly, clattering heavily against the rock as he sank beside him, his voice heavy with kill-urge. ‘Orders to fall back.’

  Rossek kept low, magnifying his helm-view and watching the line of Traitor Marines advance through the retreating remnants of their mortal allies. They didn’t hide their presence, made no effort to remain in cover. They came silently, arrogantly, as if they’d already conquered the world they walked on.

  ‘Traitors,’ he spat, feeling his murder-urge sharpen. The mortals were just meat for his boltgun; these were the real enemy.

  ‘Jarl?’ asked Frar. ‘Will you respond?’

  Rossek found the question irritating. He’d only now seen warriors who were worthy of his blades, ones who wouldn’t run like cattle when their cover was broken. Involuntarily, he found himself giving in to a low, wet growl, his finger moving toward the trigger of his bolter.

  ‘No, brother,’ he snarled, noting the position of his pack as it clustered around him again, gauging the distance to the advancing Traitor Marines, estimating terrain cover and exposure to ordnance on the way in. ‘I will not respond. I would not respond if the voice of the Allfather himself gave the order.’

  He turned to the Grey Hunter, sensing the warrior’s own readiness for the murder-make. The whole pack had been fighting for hours, and the kill-scent was heavy in his nostrils.

  ‘Kill the comm,’ he spat. ‘We’ll take them. On my mark, bring the wrath of Russ to those that dare trespass on his domain.’

  The Hunters tensed, ready for the order, bolters and chainswords clutched fast.

  ‘The wrath of Russ, Jarl,’ acknowledged Frar, and as he spoke there was a brutal, guttural joy in the words.

  Ramsez Hett strode through the slush, his pale robes already sodden at the fringes. His golden armour shielded him from the worst of the chill, but the severe cold had a way of penetrating even his atmosphere-sealed battle-plate.

  The Heq’el Mahdi dropsite had grown from a few hundred square metres to over a kilometre, a miniature city draped across the ice-bound highlands. It had anti-aircraft batteries, void shield generators, prefabricated assault walls and hastily-dug trenches around the perimeter. Over two thousand Spireguard had been landed and more were disembarking every hour. Among them strode squads of rubricae, each accompanied by a sorcerer and shadowed by a hundred more mortal troops. Prosperine tanks and mobile artillery ground their way through the grey patches of lingering snow, their engines labouring and letting loose gouts of black smoke in the extreme conditions. Heq’el Mahdi housed a formidable army in its own right, but it was only one of nine secured dropsites. The scale of Aphael’s ambition had never been more apparent.

  We will never be able to do this again. On this strike, everything depends.

  The raptora sorcerer-lord reached his destination. A Spireguard commander, wearing the heavy armour, full facemask and tactical battle-helm that had been denied to the first landers, approached and saluted.

  ‘He’s on time, commander?’ asked Hett, his voice as rasping as ever. He’d not emerged entirely unscathed from the Rubric, and his vocal cords had stretched beyond mortal tolerances. If the Spireguard noticed the effect, he made no sign.

  ‘Perfectly, lord,’ he replied, looking up to the skies.

  The two of them stood on the edge of a wide landing platform, cleared by meltas and with the irregular rock smoothed with plascrete. Rubricae stood on guard around the perimeter, as unmoving as the stone about them.

  Hett followed the commander’s eyeline, seeing Aphael’s ship descending toward their position. It was a Stormbird, one out of many the Legion had once operated, gilded and decorated with images of fabulous mythical beasts. The cockpit was lost in a riot of baroque bronze symbols, geometric and mystical. Above them all was the Eye, picked out in a mosaic of garnet, ruby and beryllium.

  Looking at the lander as it touched down on the platform, Hett found himself wondering if Temekh was right about the Legion’s loss of taste. The vessel was gaudy. Outsized. Vulgar.

  When we lose our judgement, our ability to discern, we lose everything.

  The passenger ramp descended, touching gently on the slushy filth beneath it. Lord Aphael strode down it casually, flanked by six towering Terminator rubricae. His bronze helm, carved with an elongated vox-grille, looked self-satisfied. Every movement the commander made was smug, content, in control.

  ‘Congratulations, brother,’ Aphael said as he came up to Hett. ‘You have given us the platform we need.’

  Hett bowed.

  ‘We lost many men, lord. More than I made allowances for. The Dogs were fast out of the traps.’

  Aphael shrugged.

  ‘It is their world. We should have been as eager to defend ours.’

  ‘Nonetheless,’ said Hett, turning to walk with Aphael. ‘Mortals cannot take on Space Marines. There have been sites of slaughter.’

  Hett detected a flicker of irritation from Aphael. For all the commander’s surface equanimity, there was something underneath, something fragile. If Hett had been of the athanaeans, he might have been able to tell what it was.

  Not fear, but possibly something like it.

  ‘That is why the rubricae go to war,’ Aphael replied. ‘Thanks to our Lord’s deception, there can be no more than a hundred Dogs left in their lair. We bring six hundred of our silent brothers. We have two millions of mortal troops against a few tho
usand. What numbers would make you more content, brother?’

  Hett felt the urgency in the commander’s words.

  Does he fear failure? Is that it? No. The unease is more subtle. It’s something else, something within him.

  ‘I did not presume–’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ said Aphael wearily. ‘As is your right. You’re a commander as much as I am.’

  He stopped walking and looked over the expanse of the dropsite, teeming with massed ranks of infantry and the rumble of tank-groups. A wing of gunships flew low across them, some bearing the scars of recent combat. It was an impressive vista, a show of force few adversaries in the galaxy would have been able to stand against.

  ‘If this were not Fenris, I would say that we already have what we need,’ Aphael said. ‘Complacency in this place, though, will get us all killed.’

  He looked back at the Stormbird, where the dorsal load-bay doors had been lowered. Something was emerging down the ramp. Something huge.

  ‘So you’ll see, Ramsez, that all precautions that could have been taken, have been taken. We will go into this battle with every weapon the Legion still has in its possession.’

  A massive structure lumbered out of the shadow of the load-bay. It stood twice as tall as the rubricae around it, a mobile mountain of curved metal. Its head was placed directly in the centre of its vast barrel chest, surrounded by tracery of bronze. Outsize arms hefted a cannon on one side and a gigantic mining drill on the other. It moved with crushing, deliberate strides, compensating perfectly for the flex of the loading ramp. The gilded monster exuded a pungent aroma of heavy oils and coolant as it came, but nothing else. It had no soul. Even the rubricae had more presence in the warp.

  Hett gazed at it in shocked surprise.

  ‘Cataphracts,’ he breathed, seeing another follow the first down from the open hold. ‘I thought they’d all been–’

  ‘Destroyed? Not all. These are the last.’

  Hett watched the enormous battle-robots, the product of ancient cybernetic tech-sorcery, reach the perimeter of the landing site and come to a mute standstill. They looked formidable, utterly unshakeable. More followed, a whole squad of death-dealing engines.