Legacy of the Wulfen - David Annandale & Robbie MacNiven Read online

  And yet. He stared into the unforgiving black of the void above, and knew that something worse than his most dire speculations was approaching. His fists tightened in frustration. A low growl rumbled in his chest.

  He stood on the turret platform for a full hour. Then two.

  Frostheim remained silent.

  CHAPTER 4

  A Symmetry of Blood and Storm

  The battle-barge Allfather’s Honour was at low anchor over Vikurus. It had translated from the immaterium three hours before, holding a stationary orbit over the city of Absolom. Aboard, preparations for invasion reached completion. The Kingsguard were about to descend.

  Ulrik entered the bridge’s strategium, where Grimnar sat in a throne carved from a single block of Fenrisian granite. ‘An astropathic message from Sven Bloodhowl,’ Ulrik said.

  ‘Strike Force Sagablade was successful on Tranquilatus?’ Grimnar asked.

  ‘They were. They also encountered Dark Angels.’

  Grimnar muttered a curse. ‘Many?’

  ‘A company’s worth. They were already at war with the daemons when Sagablade arrived.’

  ‘So they saw the Wulfen.’

  Ulrik nodded.

  ‘The fates have been kind to our hunt thus far,’ said Grimnar. ‘But the Dark Angels… That is unfortunate. There was contact?’

  ‘Yes. With the Ravenwing. Bloodhowl reports the Dark Angels demanded our Wulfen brothers be turned over to them. Daemons attacked before shots were exchanged. Sagablade extracted the Wulfen during the battle.’

  Grimnar’s slow intake of breath was as close as he came to wincing. ‘To depart in the midst of a struggle is hard. Bloodhowl acted wisely.’

  ‘The Dark Angels would not agree,’ said Ulrik.

  ‘No, they would not,’ said Grimnar. ‘We will deal with those consequences in due course.’ He paused, thoughtful. He looked at Ulrik, his eyes troubled. ‘A well-timed daemonic attack,’ he said. ‘I know what Lord Deathwolf would say about that.’

  ‘And that is?’ Ulrik asked.

  ‘That it could be interpreted as daemonic intervention on our behalf.’

  Ulrik shook his head. ‘That interpretation would be mistaken.’

  ‘So I would prefer to believe, Slayer. Convince me. Was the fortunate event chance?’

  ‘It was the chance created by inevitable fate.’

  Grimnar’s eyes burned in the shadows of the chamber. He leaned forward. ‘Say on, old one.’ For a moment, he was once again the young warrior eager for the veteran’s insights.

  ‘The Thirteenth Company has returned to the materium. That event itself is so great, it has convulsed the warp. It is so great, it cannot transpire without leading to events just as great. The Wulfen come to us in advance of Russ. They will reclaim their rightful place on the Grand Annulus. Nothing can stand in the way of this resolution, and certainly not the Dark Angels. If agents attempt to stop fate, chance itself will be forced to intervene. Do you see?’ Ulrik asked Grimnar. ‘If it had not been the daemons, it would have been something else. Fate cannot be denied. The abominations were pawns of destiny on Tranquilatus.’

  ‘It is true our course is clear here too,’ Grimnar said.

  ‘Aye. The Stormcaller was unequivocal.’ The High Rune Priest’s scryings had allowed no uncertainty. The Wulfen would be found in the shrine city of Absolom. None of the other strike forces had had targets so precise revealed to them. One after the other, they had triumphed, and Wulfen packs were being transported to the Anvarheim system and the waiting Coldfang.

  The Kingsguard strike force had had far to travel, and was among the last to arrive on station. The string of successes before immense odds were still more evidence, as far as Ulrik was concerned, that he was correct in his interpretation of the portents.

  Grimnar stood. ‘To battle, then, Wolf Priest.’ He bared his fangs in an eager, predatory grin. ‘To battle.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ Sammael asked. Standing in the antechamber to the astropathic choir of the strike cruiser Silent Oath, the Grand Master of Ravenwing stared at the parchment in his hand.

  ‘We are certain of its recipient, yes.’ Master Astropath Asconditus raised a cautious hand. The old man was bowed, his gaunt, sallow face deeply shadowed by his cowl. ‘Not as to its meaning. The message is open to multiple interpretations.’

  ‘This message is ambiguous,’ Sammael said. ‘It can be interpreted many ways.’

  ‘None, with your pardon, are good,’ Asconditus said.

  Sammael did not reply. He looked at the message again. Transcription, already subject to the vagaries of the warp and astropathic interpretation, was rendered even more doubtful by the message’s fragmentary nature. ‘Leave no sign,’ he read.

  Asconditus spoke up again. ‘A question? A statement? An order? All are damning, Grand Master. There are only shadows here.’

  ‘And there is no doubt about the provenance?’

  ‘None. It was sent by the battle-barge Allfather’s Honour.’

  The Space Wolves’ flagship was communicating with the Wolf Lord Sven Bloodhowl on the Bloodfire. Sammael was not inclined to think well of the Space Wolves. For that reason, he was wary of his instincts. He had to be sure of the truth before acting. But after Tranquilatus, he was finding it difficult to disagree with Asconditus.

  The antechamber was dark, its vault invisible in the shadows. Even so, Sammael saw light dawning on the situation that had been developing since Nurades. The light was cold. What it revealed was unclean.

  The bestial slaughter of the Scouts who had been stationed to protect the Dark Angels’ interests on Nurades. The pict from the recovered servo-skull revealing a massive shape with the Fenrisian insignia on its armour. The presence of the mutated beasts on Tranquilatus. The craven behaviour of the Space Wolves, escaping with their monsters during a daemonic attack.

  ‘We bear witness to an accumulation of damnation,’ Asconditus said, as if reading Sammael’s thoughts.

  ‘We must be cautious,’ said Sammael.

  ‘But if the Space Wolves have mutated…’

  Sammael shook his head. ‘We must be sure.’

  Asconditus’ voice dropped to a whisper. ‘With respect, Grand Master, aren’t we?’

  Sammael did not wish to be. Whatever he thought of the Space Wolves, they had been fierce warriors for the Imperium. If they had become unclean, the loss would be terrible. The cost of dealing with the fallen Chapter would be even worse.

  ‘What news from the Rock?’ he asked. Perhaps new truths had been unearthed, ones that would point away from this dark path. ‘Has Scout Dolutas been located?’ The survivor of Nurades had disappeared before regaining consciousness.

  ‘Not according to the last report.’

  ‘He must be found!’ Sammael said. It was impossible that a Dark Angel could vanish on the Rock. Not by accident. And if it were not an accident, then there was an enemy who had penetrated the citadel, and that fact led to its own set of terrible implications.

  ‘There is something else I must ask,’ Asconditus said.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have heard that on Tranquilatus, daemons attacked at just the right moment to benefit the Space Wolves.’

  Sammael hesitated, but Asconditus’ train of thought was growing harder and harder to resist. ‘In effect, that is so,’ he said. ‘I consider that a coincidence.’

  Asconditus bowed his head. His silence was sceptical.

  Sammael left the antechamber and made for the bridge. The Silent Oath was already making all haste for the Rock. The thought ate at him that darker shadows had already reached it.

  And that his worst surmises about the Space Wolves still fell short of the truth.

  The Kingsguard came to Absolom. Logan Grimnar’s strike force descended in squadrons of Stormwolves and Thunderhawks. As the gunships approached the shrine city, they split up, the flights heading for their designated target zones. Each warrior-band had its contingent of Wulfen to help trac
k their kin.

  Ulrik watched Absolom grow larger through a viewing block of the Thunderhawk Helwinter Judgement. Despite the smoke billowing upward from hundreds of blazes, at first the city seemed almost intact. The glory of its architecture had not been destroyed. Absolom was a shrine city; the placement of every stone had a religious purpose. The veneration of the Allfather was made manifest in cathedrums built for hundreds of thousands, in mile-wide processional avenues of gleaming marble, and in colossal statuary. Many times larger than an Imperator Titan, the statues were both monuments and habs. They were human in form, some robed, others armoured. They were the qualities of the Emperor given solid form. The Guardian of the Imperium, the Master of Mankind, the Destroyer of the Heretic and the Xenos, the All-Seeing, the Exterminating Sword. Before the warp storm, their limbs and torsos had housed tens of thousands. Their skulls were the chapels where worshippers would look out with the eyes of a god, and contemplate a yet greater one. The upturned palms were landing pads, which now received one squadron of Stormwolves.

  Helwinter Judgement led its flight of gunships between the shoulders of the colossi. Closer up, Ulrik could see the damage. The face of one statue had been utterly destroyed, and its skull was now an eerie, hollow darkness. Flames licked from the eyes of another. As Helwinter flew past, he had a brief glimpse of ongoing slaughter inside the great habs. Mortals were hurled from shattered windows. Things of horn and claw rioted through the fires.

  ‘The daemons have not overthrown the towers,’ Njal Stormcaller said. He sat next to Ulrik in the Stormwolf’s troop hold. The High Rune Priest glared at the vista of the tormented city. In the rumbling, shaking hold, the air crackled with ozone. Pressure built around the Stormcaller. His rage was building.

  ‘It pleases the daemons to keep them intact,’ Ulrik said. He gestured at magnificence turned malignant. ‘The place of highest worship turned to unholy purposes.’

  ‘Aye. The desecration is all the more complete.’

  ‘Foulness from within the sacred,’ Ulrik said.

  Stormcaller nodded, as if coming to a new understanding. ‘And the Wulfen are our great hope fighting within the foul,’ he said. ‘A striking symmetry.’

  Ulrik waited.

  ‘The omens multiply,’ said Stormcaller. Though his anger at the daemons did not diminish, his eyes shone with anticipation. ‘Surely Russ is coming,’ he said.

  Good, Ulrik thought. It was clear the High Rune Priest saw the truth of the Wulfen.

  ‘They shall rise from the daemonic maelstrom as they tore away from the grip of the immaterium,’ Ulrik said. ‘There is repetition here. The Wulfen bursting through one threshold after another.’

  Lower now, roaring through more densely interlaced structures. Arched bridges traced delicate paths through the air between cathedrum towers and free-standing prayer galleries. Ulrik caught more impressions of Absolom’s pain. The city’s defenders had lost, but some still lived, and fought on. At the peak of one narrow arch, a trio of Sisters of Battle was surrounded by plaguebearers. The daemons of Nurgle slowly trudged up from both ends of the bridge. There were hundreds. The Sisters cut them down with bolter and flamer as they came near. There was space for no more than two or three of the daemons at once. The heroines of the Imperium could hold out as long as they had ammunition, but the stream of plaguebearers was unending.

  Helwinter Judgement strafed the east side of the arch with its lascannons. It burned away a huge swath of the abominations. Then it left the bridge and the struggle behind.

  ‘That bought them a little time,’ said Stormcaller.

  ‘Aye,’ said Ulrik. ‘No more than that, though.’

  Lower still. Now the Stormwolves slowed as they made their final descent into the Grand Assemblis. The square was a few thousand metres on each side, the parvis of four grand cathedrums. Statues of the saints were scattered about it, their placement and orientation given the appearance of chance, as if they were living pilgrims making their way towards the houses of worship. They were an illusion of calm in the midst of nightmare. Blood daemons of Khorne rampaged through the square, cutting down desperate squads of militia. The mortals fought, but there was no hope for them. They were now only prey for the swordlings, slain for sport.

  There were many mortals present in the Assemblis, however, many tens of thousands. They lay in mounds a score of metres high. Some of the heaps were on fire, bodies slowly turning to ash and smoke. Others squirmed and heaved. The dead flailed their limbs as if struggling against a new pain, one worse than any they had known alive. Wyrdfire skittered over the mound, running like water, destroying the lines between rot and metamorphosis. Around the periphery of the square were pict screens. Once they would have broadcast images turning officiating ecclesiarchs into heroes twenty metres high. Now they screamed madness.

  The gunships came down into the square. Their lascannons and twin-linked heavy bolters scorched the Assemblis, blasting the landing area clear of the swordlings. Assault ramps dropped, unleashing the Kingsguard before taking off once more to continue their purging assault.

  Ulrik charged into the square, part of the collective howl of rage. Grimnar led the charge aboard Stormrider. The thunderwolves Tyrnak and Fenrir pulled the war chariot, as eager to lay waste to the foul enemy as their master. With a roar, beasts and warrior fell upon the blood daemons. In Grimnar’s left hand was his storm bolter. He attacked with such ferocity that it seemed the enemy exploded into body parts and a deluge of ichor on all sides of Stormrider.

  The paving stones shattered beneath the tread of the Venerable Dreadnoughts Haargen Deathbane and Svendar Ironarm. Daemonic forms vanished in the heat of Haargen’s multi-melta. Svendar lumbered forward, a mountain of walking death, his great axe and blizzard shield striking down the daemons with the force of a rockslide. Where he walked, he left a wake of crushed, disintegrating bodies. The crushed forms of the abominations sank slowly into the pools of their liquefying essence.

  And there was Murderfang.

  The Stormfang Drakesbane shadowed the advance of the Kingsguard. Its heavy bolters chewed through the mobs of swordlings, but they were incidental targets. Its helfrost destructor was trained on Murderfang, ready to fire if needed. The Dreadnought’s rage was absolute, a thing of shredding madness. The warrior was as unpredictable as a rabid wolf. There was always the danger that the path of its rampage would take it through the bodies of its brothers.

  On this day, Ulrik did not believe that danger existed. He followed close behind Murderfang. He saw a purpose now in his meeting in the vaults with Dragongaze and Deathwolf. The feral Dreadnought was himself an omen of the Return, and here he led the charge to recover more of the 13th. Even the Great Wolf followed Murderfang in this charge.

  Ulrik brought his crozius arcanum down with exterminating force, banishing the unclean with the symbol of Fenris’ spiritual strength. Ichor splashed against his totems. Swordlings snarled, but the snarl of the Wolf Helm of Russ was greater than theirs, and their anger turned to agony before they fell. Ulrik fought with wrath, in the name of what was to come. He had lived so long, and perhaps it had always been decreed that he would live to see these great moments arrive for the Space Wolves.

  The return of the 13th Company. The return of Russ.

  Events were aligning. The portents were clear. The future was unfolding as it should, as it must, and Ulrik rejoiced to bear witness to it.

  The vox speakers of the sarcophagus distorted Murderfang’s howl. The rage rattled and shrieked across the Grand Assemblis. The Dreadnought pounded forward, his terrible gauntlets reaching for the sword-wielding Khornate daemons. The abominations attacked, swords clanging against the sarcophagus. They were rushing to their doom, but they were the essence of rage given bodily form, and they could do nothing else. The beast met them with his murderclaws. Blades the crystalline blue of xenos ice crackled as they slashed through daemonic flesh. The daemons came at Murderfang by the score but he tore them apart without pausing in his battering
run. He turned to wherever he saw the greatest concentration of abominations. His momentum was relentless. He was a machine of perpetual slaughter.

  There were thousands of the swordlings in the Assemblis when the Kingsguard descended. Shortly, only stragglers remained. Then there were none. Daemons shrieked from the galleries and spires of the cathedrums, but the square was purged. The few surviving mortals clustered together, staring at the Space Wolves with awe and caution. Even the ruinous shrieks coming from the pict screens could not tear their attention from Murderfang. They regarded him with terror. They could barely walk, yet it was clear they would attempt to flee if they came within the Dreadnought’s gaze.

  Deprived of foes, Murderfang paused. The Wulfen of the Kingsguard gathered near him, as if sensing kinship. Ulrik moved to the front of the Dreadnought. The face visible within the sarcophagus was contorted by a rictus of eternal rage. The eyes were wide, glassy, bloodshot, agonised. There was no personality there, yet for the first time in his memory, Ulrik saw Murderfang blink. He sniffed the air. So did the Wulfen.

  Stormcaller joined Ulrik. The High Rune Priest’s psyber-familiar, Nightwing, landed on his shoulder. It shook its feathers free of gore and cocked its head, training its bionic eye on Murderfang.

  ‘He senses more Wulfen,’ Stormcaller said.

  ‘As you predicted,’ said Ulrik.

  ‘I have never known him to stop of his own accord before.’

  ‘Nor have I.’

  A change came upon Murderfang’s eyes. Something more than bloodthirst entered them. There was recognition. Ulrik’s soul was elated at that sign of consciousness.

  Everything aligns, he thought. The chapters of the great saga unfold before us.

  Murderfang and the Wulfen turned to face south, then thundered towards the cathedrum named the Dome of Penitents.

  Ulrik raised his crozius and howled in triumph. A short distance away, Stormrider followed the feral pack. Tyrnak and Fenrir were eager to follow the baying of the Wulfen. Over the triumph of the wolves, Grimmar’s voice called to the Kingsguard. ‘Our kin await us, brothers!’ He pointed forward with the Axe Morkai. ‘Forward! We shall be reunited amid the destruction of the daemonic foe!’