The Broken Crown - Robbie MacNiven Read online

  De Mornay felt Marie freeze beside him. He held up his hand, afraid the Adepta Sororitas would be overcome by disgust and draw her weapons. He was in no doubt that such a move would spell immediate, bloody death for both of them.

  ‘My lord,’ the thing Ragnar had addressed as Sverri snarled, struggling to form the syllables between jutting fangs and heavy, panting breaths. With some difficulty, it knelt before the throne.

  ‘Sverri, this is Lord Inquisitor de Mornay of the Ordo Hereticus,’ Ragnar said, looking at de Mornay. The inquisitor could sense the Wolf Lord studying his reaction, searching for the revulsion he expected. Sverri also turned to look at de Mornay, in a half crouch, watching him with the wary caution of a beast sizing up an enemy. Judging whether it was predator or prey.

  ‘Lord Inquisitor, this is Sverri, pack leader of my Great Company’s newly adopted Wulfen Murderpack,’ Ragnar finished the chill introduction.

  De Mornay held Sverri’s calculating, lupine gaze. It was the oldest law of nature. To look away would be to show weakness, and weakness was more often than not fatal.

  ‘The Wulfen are not my concern,’ de Mornay said slowly. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘So why are you here?’ Ragnar demanded. ‘I do not have time for the Inquisition’s games. As you yourself have said, my home system is beset and my lord Grimnar is missing. Speak plainly or get off my ship.’

  ‘The Dark Angels above Midgardia intend to fire-bomb its surface,’ de Mornay said. ‘They must be stopped before they go any further. Azrael and his Inner Circle have remained unaccountable to the Imperium for too long.’

  ‘So your hand is revealed,’ Ragnar said. ‘The lion is the one you’re hunting, not the wolf.’

  ‘After a manner of speaking, yes.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It is a grim tale,’ de Mornay said, ‘and we have little time for it.’

  ‘You will get nothing from me unless you explain yourself,’ Ragnar said. De Mornay sighed and nodded.

  ‘Then I will be brief. Fifty years ago I was bringing word of a greenskin invasion to the Calva Senioris System, in the Narthex Nebula. The foul xenos struck before a defence could be organised, and I was left leading an underground resistance. The Dark Angels and Silver Eagles were dispatched to spearhead a liberation, but one of the Angels, an Interrogator-Chaplain named Asmodai, received word of my resistance movement. He attacked our camp, slaughtered loyal Imperial citizens, and would have killed or captured me had I not proven my membership of the ordos before his battle-brothers.’

  ‘Why?’ Ragnar asked. ‘Why would he attack you?’

  ‘I have spent the past five decades asking the same question,’ de Mornay said. ‘You may scoff now, Wolf, but once I was a fine young warrior, active on the God-Emperor’s front lines, striving to enact His will and banish the darkness that forever threatens our Imperium. After Asmodai’s atrocity I went directly to the home world of the Silver Eagles and told their Chapter Master everything. That the Dark Angels had butchered fellow servants of Terra, and that many Silver Eagles had also fallen after Asmodai abandoned their fight against the orks to pursue me.’

  ‘And what did the Silver Eagles do then?’ Ragnar asked. He was leaning forward in his throne now, eyes fixed on the inquisitor. The Wolves, de Mornay remembered, loved their sagas.

  ‘The Silver Eagles did nothing,’ he said, letting the bitterness in his voice show. ‘Or next to nothing. They would not confront the Dark Angels. They merely petitioned Supreme Grand Master Azrael. He claimed he would censure Asmodai. I doubt any censure was ever carried out.’

  ‘The sons of the Lion have always been a secretive brotherhood,’ Ragnar said. ‘They have little honour, and I would not trust one of their battle-brothers as far as I could throw him. That being said, you are the inquisitor, not I. If you cannot bring the Angels to justice yourself I do not see how I can help. I have a war to fight.’

  ‘Our paths are linked now, Lord Blackmane,’ de Mornay pressed. ‘And they have been ever since the Dark Angels decided to invade your system. I believe they are not only here for your…’ he hesitated, glancing at Sverri, who seemed to be following the discussion with a silent, animalistic understanding.

  ‘I believe they are trying to misdirect the Imperium,’ de Mornay continued. ‘They were hiding something on Nurades, a relic perhaps. If your Chapter hadn’t purged the daemons infesting that world we may never have realised it, but I have never seen the Dark Angels move with such decisiveness unless the Inner Circle felt threatened. I want to end the insanity that infects this system. I want to confront Azrael, and I’m not strong enough to do that alone.’

  ‘You will start a civil war,’ Ragnar said doubtfully. ‘I would not listen to a wyrd-damned word uttered by one of the Lions, but nor would I expect them to listen to me. I would add nothing to your negotiations bar the threat of my Great Company’s presence.’

  ‘Then let me do the talking,’ de Mornay said. ‘I simply wish your fleet to accompany me to Midgardia. Unless I’m badly mistaken, that is where you’re headed anyway.’

  Ragnar exchanged glances with his Long Fangs. Sensing his opening, de Mornay kept speaking.

  ‘In ancient times the sons of Russ were the Emperor’s executioners. All Legions feared you. The same cannot be said today. The Dark Angels treat you like animals, to be baited, trapped and shamed. They may well have already opened fire on Midgardia. They will not stop until the Fenris System is nought but ruins and ash.’

  ‘We are indeed bound for Midgardia,’ Ragnar allowed, again fixing de Mornay with his unsettlingly bestial gaze. ‘And you may accompany us. I do not know what we will find there, but it seems as though the rest of the Imperium has turned its back on us. I would be a fool to scorn an inquisitor offering an alliance during such times.’ De Mornay bowed his head.

  ‘If it is any consolation, I do not believe your Wulfen are warp-tainted, Lord Blackmane,’ he said. ‘And regardless, their judgement can wait. For now, we have to stop this madness of Angels, before we slaughter each other at a daemon’s behest.’

  The World Wolf’s Lair, Svellgard

  Harald Deathwolf’s Thunderhawk put down on the landing pad jutting from the Lair’s central control keep. Sven’s Bloodguard joined Harald’s own Riders of Morkai, forming an honour guard as they led the Wolf Lord into the command chamber. Sven Bloodhowl was waiting for him.

  ‘Lord Deathwolf,’ he said as Harald stepped into the room. Low and plated with plasteel, its illumination pulsed dully from emergency lumen strips lining the walkways, from the monitors of vox arrays and from the Lair’s missile targeting systems. A holochart dominated the centre of the chamber, currently deactivated.

  ‘What in the name of Russ is happening?’ Sven went on as Harald joined him at the edge of the chart.

  ‘Wyrd-damned treachery, that’s what,’ Harald growled. ‘We were locked in battle with wyrdling scum in the vaults of Morkai’s Keep when a strike force of Iron Hands made contact with us. Their captain told me he would destroy the keep from orbit, whether my warriors still garrisoned it or not.’

  ‘What sort of madness is that?’ Sven growled. ‘Did they succeed?’

  ‘Morkai’s Keep is a ruin,’ Harald said. ‘Resisting would have resulted in the annihilation of my Great Company. Believe me brother, I considered it. I have tried to raise the Fang, and the Great Wolf on Midgardia, but I have heard nothing. I can only assume this fleet is but part of a larger incursion.’

  ‘Are they here for the Wulfen?’ Sven asked darkly.

  ‘I can see no other motive. They are too numerous to be a response to the daemonic incursion. Such a force must have been gathering for weeks prior to the invasion. Have they tried to contact you?’

  ‘I’ve heard nothing,’ Sven said. ‘The Astra Militarum have occupied the nearest islands. Their artillery is zeroed in on us, but they won’t communicate. The da
emons have been driven back, but they will soon return. Their numbers are unending. I fear the warp rifts below the oceans are widening. The scans say there are at least three down there.’

  ‘I am going to order my Great Company to deploy here, in full strength,’ Harald said. ‘I have given up enough of our Chapter’s territory today. I will not evacuate again.’

  ‘Won’t they repeat what they did on Frostheim?’ Sven asked. ‘An orbital bombardment would achieve two objectives for them. It would wipe out both us and the wyrdlings.’

  ‘If that’s to be our fate I will die with my boots in the dirt of one of my Chapter’s worlds,’ Harald said. Sven looked him in the eye for a moment, before a fanged grin split his tattooed features.

  ‘And if need be the Bloodhowls will burn alongside you, brother. Whatever is to happen, we will make the Saga of Svellgard one that will be sung in the feast halls of the Fang for millennia to come.’

  Ramilies-class star fort, designate Gormenjarl

  Stern’s worst fears had been realised. Gormenjarl had become a gateway to hell.

  Mankind’s collective nightmares had been made manifest onboard the star fort. The walls of the docking bay had twisted and melted like candle wax, plasteel and adamantium now studded with fleshy maws that snapped and spat, or clusters of eyes that wept black ichor. The decking underfoot flowed and shifted like quicksand, the metal molten and writhing, or plated with fresh growths of chitin. The air was heavy with sweat vapour, and vibrated with some gigantic, hellish heartbeat.

  ‘Brothers, purge this filth,’ Stern roared as he swept through the Star Drake’s blast doors, his nemesis force sword inscribing a crackling white arc through the shuddering air. The first daemon to meet his blade, a red-skinned bloodletter, disintegrated beneath the blow, its hellsword shattered into a hundred black shards.

  The Grey Knights stormed what had once been the star fort’s docking spine, storm bolters hammering death into the warpspawn packing the arching corridor, the roaring flames of Brother Tomaz’s sanctified incinerator torching the tainted walls and filling the air with the stench of roasted daemonflesh. Stern led his brethren in the Chants of Admonishment, the strength of their hatred and the purity of their faith like a physical force that sent daemons shrieking and scrambling back down the corridor.

  ‘To the far end,’ Stern voxed. ‘Secure the junction.’

  At the end of the corridor the spine split into two sub-routes, both leading deeper into Gormenjarl’s guts. There the corruption was even worse. The floor, walls and ceiling now resembled the tract of some foul creature’s intestinal organs, carpeted with flesh that throbbed and pulsed with unnatural life. Stern stamped down on a bloodshot eye that glared up at him from what had once been the deck, bursting it in a spray of milky ichor. Around him his brothers stood firm, the protective wards edging their silver aegis armour blazing white with heat. The very air of the star fort pulsated and bent around them, as though the tainted atmosphere was seeking to avoid contact with the holy paladins.

  ‘We hold here,’ Stern ordered. ‘Bulwark formation.’ He blink-changed channels. ‘Huscarl, how long before Star Drake is void-worthy again?’

  ‘We are reactivating the engine blocks right now, sire,’ the Space Wolf thrall replied, voice choppy with static. ‘After that we will need to couple with the star fort’s external coolant array. The systems estimate fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Make it ten,’ Stern ordered, and cut the link.

  The level of Gormenjarl’s infestation was worse than even he had expected. There had to be a warp rift open at the star fort’s heart. That meant another front in the war for the Fenris System.

  ‘We must seal away this filth, before it can spread any further,’ he voxed to his brethren.

  ‘If we are to seize whatever remains of the bridge, it will take all of us to get that far,’ Gideon replied. ‘We would leave the entrance to Star Drake’s docking bay undefended.’

  ‘Besides, if we adhere to our previous plan, I doubt we would find any way to redirect the star fort into the asteroid field,’ Tomaz added as he jetted a fresh gout of blessed promethium into a clutch of squealing horrors. ‘If the level of corruption on these external levels is this bad, I assume the inner command centre is completely lost.’

  Stern impaled a lunging daemonette, banishing the creature in a blaze of light. He knew his brethren were right. They were too few to fight their way to the root of Gormenjarl’s infection. Even holding the docking spine looked like a desperate task.

  ‘But if the star fort’s directional controls no longer work,’ Brother Artemis voxed, ‘then will its targeting systems? Or its shields?’

  The thought was interrupted before it could gain traction. A terrible sound bounced down the flesh-corridors towards the Grey Knights. It was a howl, at once chillingly familiar to Stern, and yet horribly different. It was distorted, as if by vox interference, rising to an unnatural pitch before diving to throaty depths. The eerie sound sent the daemons ahead of the Grey Knights into a frenzy, throwing themselves onto the Space Marines’ blades and bolters. Not in rage, Stern realised, but in desperation. In fear of whatever was coming down the twin corridors behind them. The words of the huscarl earlier, aboard the Star Drake, came back to him. A pack of Grey Hunters, the Redpelts.

  ‘Brethren, brace!’ he shouted.

  Gormenjarl’s complement of Space Wolf defenders still lived, but in the most nightmarish way imaginable. And now they were coming for the silver-armoured interlopers.

  Transit line four hundred and three, the Underworld, Midgardia

  Transit line four hundred and three was the primary level-one subsurface route into Deepspark. The grav lift took Egil and his ragged retinue to a maintenance station half a mile from what had once been the subterranean hive’s entrance. As he stepped into the wide, tracked tunnel, the vox display on the edge of Egil’s visor uplink finally showed signal connectivity.

  ‘All Imperial forces, come in,’ he said, setting the vox tuner to roam.

  ‘We should be able to make contact with the surface this high up,’ Lenold said.

  ‘That’s what I’m attempting to do,’ Egil replied. ‘It may take time to lock onto a signal though. We should proceed.’

  The Wolves set out, following the dual rail lines that wound their way through the dirt-walled tunnel. Skol buzzed ahead, its pict feed relayed directly back to the Iron Wolf’s bionics.

  ‘Signs of fighting,’ he said as he walked, scanning the walls with his remaining unaugmented eye. ‘Recent. Also, the air is showing higher spore toxin content.’

  ‘The nearer to the surface we are, the higher it’ll be,’ Bjorn said.

  ‘Even more so if plague wyrdlings passed this way recently,’ Lenold said darkly.

  ‘And they may well have,’ Egil said. ‘Skol has found something.’

  It was a body. A Grey Hunter, slumped across one of the tracks, fingers frozen in claw-like rigor mortis. The blood from the wound piercing his breastplate still glistened red.

  ‘Dredwulf,’ Lenold said grimly, kneeling beside the fallen Hunter. ‘From Storrie’s pack. They were the nearest to catching up with the Great Wolf before he was cut off.’

  ‘The body is not old,’ Egil said, eyes scanning the dark shadows that flickered beneath the tunnel’s wan lumen globes. The keen senses of the Wolf Lord, even enhanced by his augmetics, detected nothing. ‘They must be close.’

  ‘We should press on,’ Lenold said.

  ‘Agreed.’

  Further down the tunnel, Egil’s vox finally picked up something. A blurt of signal code cut across the long-range frequency.

  ‘I’ve detected an Imperial transmission,’ he said, coming to a halt. ‘From the surface. I’m locking on now.’

  ‘I’m getting it too,’ Lenold said. ‘Seems to be coming from the Magma Gates.’

  ‘Conran,’ Egil
said as his Ironguard’s identifier rune lit up on his visor. ‘It’s a looping non-verbal distress code.’

  ‘You still have part of your Great Company on the surface?’ Lenold asked.

  ‘I shouldn’t,’ Egil said. ‘Conran was ordered to lead the withdrawal of the Ironwolves in my absence. He shouldn’t still be on Midgardia.’

  ‘Or transmitting,’ Lenold noted. ‘Do you think something has befallen the Magma Gates? Can it be possible that they are already overrun?’

  Egil snarled with annoyance. Surely Conran would not have disobeyed his orders to lead the retreat? If more of his Great Company were still on Midgardia wouldn’t he pick up their vox transmissions as well? But if only Conran had come back, then why? And what fate had befallen him if all that remained was a distress transmission?

  A growl from ahead broke his train of thought. While the rest of the makeshift pack had halted, the remaining Wulfen had slunk further down the line. Now their bestial warnings echoed back up the tunnel.

  ‘They’ve found something,’ Lenold said. Egil felt his pulse quicken, hairs bristling with a sudden sense of foreboding. He led the pack at a run along the tunnel.

  The Wulfen had discovered more bodies. Four of them, more of Storrie’s Grey Hunters. Dismembered, still bloody. If they had taken any wyrdspawn with them, the creature’s bodies had already melted back into the immaterium. The Wulfen were clustered in a tight circle at the centre of the group of bodies, crouched over something, snuffling and growling in obvious distress.

  ‘Stand aside, wolf-brothers,’ Lenold commanded, parting the circle. They scrabbled back in the dirt, letting out a low, mournful moan.

  ‘What have they found?’ Egil demanded, reaching Lenold’s side. Skol darted overhead, stab-lumen picking up the object the Grey Hunters had died defending. The Iron Wolf caught his breath as the light shone back off gilded metal.

  It was Fellclaw. The huge thunderwolf’s plated skull, the one that had been borne aloft on Logan Grimnar’s back ever since he had slain the mighty beast during his Trail of Morkai almost a millennium ago. Its gilding was battered and befouled with muck and blood, and a number of fangs had snapped off.