The wolftime, p.15
The Wolftime, page 15
Another sweep of the surrounds did not improve the situation. A flickering light bathed everything from above. Ullr glanced up again. The fiery belly of the drop-ship was just half a mile up, filling the sky like an incoming star. It was coming almost directly down, heading for the broad elevated apron at the centre of the dock. The blue-spark engines of the Thunderhawks circled up towards it, their wings alight with the flare of firing missiles. There were other lights, further up, bright stars of yellow that Ullr assumed were more ork craft of some kind.
If it lands, we’ll break out towards the woods and blow the charges, Ullr told himself. The Dragongaze will understand.
‘Can you stand?’ he asked, checking the cracked plate of Dethar. His blood had become an almost solid scab from armpit to waist.
Dethar reached up his empty hand and Ullr pulled him to his feet. The rags of his throat quivered as he tried to reply.
‘If we go, we’re going east,’ Ullr told the squad. ‘Rapid exit.’
Another green blast flared from the armoured orks in front of Ullr, crackling past Garnr close enough to leave sparks crawling across his helm. A concerted roar of fire erupted from two others, riddling the walkway and wall with high-velocity rounds, shrieking from ironwork and gnawing chunks of ceramite from the Space Marines’ warplate. As pieces of his shoulder pad scattered like woodchips from a saw blade, Ullr turned to present his more intact pauldron to the enemy, switching his firing grip from his right to his left hand. Hari fired again at the war machine, putting his shot into the damaged spot he had hit before. The plasma ball speared through the weakened armour plate and out of the back of the machine to spew white-hot metal, burning oil and charred flesh from the exit hole.
The armoured orks were just thirty yards away. Ullr could see the gleam of bionic eyes – targeter lenses, perhaps – and the small arcs of power throbbing from batteries and power packs.
‘Better go now, First-Shot,’ said Forskad from the other side of the building. ‘Forty or fifty more greenskins coming from the north. I see rocket launchers too.’
The pack leader could hear the rumble of tortured air from the drop-craft’s approach. If his pack stayed to engage the heavies they might not have a chance to pull back at all. But what was the point of retreating only to face a strengthened enemy tomorrow?
‘Hunt-brothers, waste no bolt,’ he snarled, coming to a decision. ‘This is our aett, we die to–’
A crash of noise that rivalled the greatest storms of Asaheim engulfed Ullr and the squad as a shockwave almost threw him from his feet. A ripple of blue flame washed out across the ferrocrete from behind, passing over the armoured orks, turning a dozen of those following to charred husks, hurling even more greenskins bloodily through the air trailing flames.
‘Vahk meh!’ cursed Forskad. Ullr turned to see what had happened.
The sky was as bright as day, the ork drop-ship now a thousand burning meteors plummeting groundwards. Ullr saw what he thought was lightning at first, but a second later realised had been a column of blue light pulsing down from orbit.
The lance strike of a starship.
The flares beyond the descending debris resolved into two large craft, each like a double-hulled Thunderhawk. As they powered surfacewards the quadruple-gleam of plasma jets reflected from pieces of broken ork landing craft. Missile launches rippled from their wings and heavy cannons strafed fire through the orks thronging across the landing pads.
The closest gunship banked hard, the shriek of its jets piercing against the continued rumble of the falling ork vessel’s demise. Pieces of jagged rock and lumpen metal smashed into the ferrocrete, throwing up even more debris that scythed down orks by the dozen.
Jubilant, welcoming howls erupted across the battlefield as the gunships roared over. Ullr’s voice was among them.
‘Ullr!’
Hari’s shout had the pack leader’s attention returned front and centre in an instant, any questions about the strange gunships swamped by a more immediate concern. The armoured orks had broken into a charge, firing madly as they pounded through the swirling ash of their minions. They were a matter of seconds from the stairs leading up to the gantries.
Ullr opened fire and the others followed. Bolt detonations rocked the incoming aliens but each was at least twice the mass of the Space Marines and their armour was just as impervious as theirs.
‘Pick your shots,’ he said, reminding himself as much as his pack-brothers.
He sighted on the snarling face of a monster just forty yards away. It was swaying from side to side, and as the hulking ork lumbered closer, Ullr found himself gently rocking in unison, his aim unwavering. He needed no magnification to see the creature’s red eyes glaring back, momentarily hidden by muzzle flare as the ork opened fire. Bullets screamed past but Ullr paid them no heed. If one was to cut his thread that moment, he would not go to the halls of the Wolf King ashamed.
Just as his finger tightened on the trigger, the ork’s head exploded. The bolt flared through an expanding cloud of vaporised flesh and dissipating blue energy to explode against the armour’s power pack. The headless corpse remained standing, the armour locked in its stride.
Plasma bolt. From where?
Another salvo of blasts screamed in from Ullr’s right, accompanied by a scything volley of bolts into the following orks. All but one of the armoured orks was down, cut to pieces by the plasma fusillade.
‘With me!’ First-Shot bellowed, vaulting over the remains of the rail to drop five yards to the ground. He launched himself towards the orks as his feet hit ferrocrete. ‘For Russ and the Allfather!’
The charging ork mob faltered, some tripping over the sudden pile of corpses, more trying to slow or turn back in the face of their devastated leaders and the counter-charging Wolves of Fenris. Around Ullr the Greypelts opened fire, bolters held single-handed, knives or axes readied. More shots hissed past from Dethar on the walkway.
‘Fenrys Hjolda!’ shouted Garnr, arm straight as he fired again.
Some of the orks fell to more shots from behind, as well as a fresh volley of plasma blasts from the pack’s unknown saviours. Leaping over the twitching remains of an armoured ork, Ullr fired a bolt into the chest of the nearest enemy. It fell back, pistol falling from its grip as it stumbled into another green-skinned alien. Sáthor leapt past, the curve of his hand-axe opening up the second ork from brow to throat.
The pack slashed into the orks with the same ease, bolts and blades parting the mob before them. Needing to reload but with no time in the press of foes, Ullr used his bolter as a club, smashing it into the horned helm of an ork to his left. He flipped his knife grip and drove it backhanded into the creature’s exposed shoulder, the point digging deep into the chest and organs within. Pulling free his weapon, he kicked the dying creature aside.
With no opponent at hand, stepping past the falling ork, Ullr found himself squaring off with a figure in blue-grey armour. Not quite face to face, for the other warrior was taller than Ullr, who since becoming a Space Marine had physically looked up to no man except Arjac Rockfist.
It was clearly a Space Marine, and the colours were those of the Wolves of Fenris. Rather than a pack mark, the Space Marine bore a more traditional Codex squad symbol, but on the Chapter pauldron was the Fenrisian wolf, just as on Ullr’s; it was partly obscured by a grey chevron painted over it.
There were five more like it behind.
Other than the colour, there were no totems, badges, runes or other paraphernalia Ullr would have expected on a brother wolf. The weapons the warriors held looked like bolters, in the same way the wielder looked like a Space Marine – larger and yet somehow leaner by proportion.
‘Vlka Fenryka!’ the newcomer bellowed, lifting a chainsword thick with ork viscera, the words bizarre to hear in a standard Imperial Gothic accent.
Ullr stared at the stranger.
‘Vahk meh…’
Chapter Nine
WOLVES OF FENRIS
HARD DECISIONS
FENRIS FORBIDDEN
It was a moment Gaius had wanted for three years, now become reality. Three years of battle, of being at the knife-edge of Fleet Primus’ advance had brought him close to death several times; his demise had never caused him pause but he had feared his soul would feel the regret of never meeting the Wolves of Fenris before his time was ended. The book from Mudire had turned that vague hope into a much-imagined moment as he pictured the great warriors of the Wolf King, and here he was striding amongst them in the midst of battle.
The Grey Hunters’ squad leader – Gaius knew the markings on sight – said something in Fenrisian that hadn’t been included in the gazetteer’s glossary and dictionary. There were orks all around them and no time to check whether the Space Wolf had issued a command or a greeting.
‘Hjolda!’ said Gaius, grinning inside his helm at the thought of speaking Juvyk in the presence of these famed warriors.
A bellowing ork lunged at the pair, forcing the other sergeant to turn with knife held up to the parry. Gaius fired his pistol at others coming behind, putting three bolts into each ork as he had been taught – the xenos were ridiculously difficult to put down permanently.
The two squads parted naturally as the brutality of melee engulfed them both, neither wishing to impede the other. Knowing that Sergeant Godan’s Hellblasters were behind him, Gaius threw himself into the fight, chainsword chewing through padded armour and flesh, its rending teeth gnawing at blades and bones. The orks were surrounded by the arrival of the Primaris Marines and fought with the same savagery as cornered animals, breaking claws and tusks against ceramite armour when cleavers and clubs proved ineffective.
Though he did not allow himself to be distracted from the foe at hand, Gaius found himself looking over the thronging aliens to catch glimpses of the Fenrisian squad. From all that Cawl had implanted into his autolearning, and the few asides on the warriors of Russ in his book, Gaius hoped to see an incarnation of feral savagery unleashed upon the enemy. What he witnessed was a much more controlled ferocity. Every Space Wolf fought as part of the squad, protecting the others, striking when opportunity presented, so that rather than a handful of wild fighters they were a viciously efficient killing team.
Deflecting an axe blade with a swinging arm, Gaius raked the teeth of his chainsword across the chest of another ork. His squad had fought together for three years, and spent nearly every waking minute not on campaign in combat drill or learning improved battle doctrine. Even so, the moment he saw the Fenrisian squad in action Gaius realised that he and his warriors fought like a machine, more than a creature. Effective, but lacking an indefinable quality of togetherness.
The sprawl of the combat brought the two squads near each other as more Firstborn of Fenris followed from the building they had been guarding, pursued by several score of orks.
‘I am Sergeant Gaius,’ he called to the other squad leader a few yards away, breaking open the face of an ork with the guard of his chainsword. He spoke in Gothic, confidence in his Fenrisian dented by his lack of understanding in their first exchange.
‘Ullr, of the Drakeslayers Great Company under Lord Krom Dragongaze,’ replied the Space Wolf in the same tongue, his accent marking the words but not obscuring them. He ducked a crackling cleaver blade and swept away his attacker’s legs with his bolter. He drove the point of his knife into the back of its neck as it fell. ‘I am known as First-Shot.’
Gaius had no title, and the company attached to the torchbearer fleet had no other official designation yet. He improvised, not wanting to appear rude.
‘We are the Sons of Russ, commanded by Lieutenant Castallor.’ Close-range fire cracked against Gaius’ breastplate. He hacked off the clawed hand holding the pistol and the ork stumbled back, snarling. Aegreus strode past, knife cutting the wounded xenos’ throat.
‘Sons of Russ are you?’ The other sergeant’s face was hidden but the question was laden with doubt. ‘How do you figure that?’
Doro arrived, shooting his bolt rifle between the two of them. Gaius cut down an ork that tried to grab his battle-brother’s arm, pushing the chainsword into its chest and sawing it through the creature’s spine as it buckled. He wasn’t sure where to start – the return of Lord Guilliman, Cawl, the Indomitus Crusade… He was sure there were protocols for the officers to introduce these profound concepts to the sons of Fenris.
‘What gives you the right to that name?’ Ullr demanded while Doro pushed onward to support Aegreus. ‘What are you?’
That was a much easier question. Gaius smashed his pistol into the skull of an ork raising its weapon towards the Space Wolf. The xenos was knocked sideways, its shots slamming into ferrocrete rather than ceramite. Ullr rammed a knee into its face as it staggered forward, snapping its neck. Gaius stepped on the creature’s head, crushing it to a paste to be certain of its demise. This brought him back to the other squad leader.
‘Space Marines, Ullr First-Shot.’ Gaius grinned as he said it, filled with the joy of one bearing a happy truth. For a second Gaius wondered if this was another of the simulations; it seemed too good to be true. ‘Primaris warriors. A new kind of Space Marine, but from the gene-seed of Leman Russ the Wolf King. We’re here to help you.’
As Arjac considered his surroundings, it was not lost on him that the folk of Fenris were almost as adept at changing their environment as the orks. Aside from the view out of the armoured windows, he could have been standing in one of the many halls of a Chapter starship or even back at the Aett. The walls were heavy-gauge plasteel on top of the native decks of the bulk hauler and it was nearly impossible to tell where the ancient starship stopped and the newly raised defences of Grimnar’s Great Company began. Just as the orks had constructed a township out of the starship’s guts to recreate their ingrained settlement pattern, so Arjac and others had hung banners, trophies and wyrdleif-marked badges throughout the new fortification and the chambers of the ship below.
Although the orks had secured much of the inner reaches of the space hulk, keeping it protected and intact with fluctuating tractor beams and force fields, they had neglected most of the surface. In the absence of any serious void-directed firepower and anti-aircraft defences, the ships of Grimnar’s Great Company had stationed themselves within a few hundred yards of the slowly moving conglomeration. A brief bombardment had accomplished little but had depleted supplies already limited by the extended campaign, while energy weapons fire taxed plasma reactors that had not received extensive ministration from the Iron Priests for many years.
The orks would have to be slain from within the hulk.
The insertion point chosen for the first assault had become the site for the keep, but now the established breachhead delved down several decks to provide more than a dozen sortie routes for patrols or massed counter-attack. Two large bunker-like complexes nestled into the hauler’s upper decks were the foundation of a tower that reached back to the void and extended to a makeshift dock, where gunships were able to make rapid drops – or equally swift extractions should the Gottrok start to fall back into the Everdusk.
To guard against this, Njal or one of the other surviving Rune Priests stood constant vigil on the Ironjarl, away from the psychic noise caused by the orks and their sorcerous warlord. Twice in the last few days the Great Company had been put on evacuation alert by command of the runethegn, but the fluctuations of the othersea had dissipated before laying their grip on the space hulk again.
Arjac’s view looked out along the storage bays of the starboard side of the old freight ship, each knocked through to the next to create a field of fire half a mile distant and a quarter of a mile wide. To either side of this kill-zone was a maze of half-broken corridors and chambers, some of them belonging to the old crew decks, others from impacted neighbouring vessels. The orks held much of the maze-like ruin but had learnt from repeated attacks that the armoured line of Grimnar’s keep would not be easily taken.
In return, there had been little opportunity to press home any attacks against the idol-town and its strange ruler. The Great Wolf had instructed the Rune Priests and Imperial astropaths to send messages calling for assistance from any that could, and to demand the attendance of any other Chapter forces in the vicinity. So far the void had been clear of reply.
Until now.
Njal had requested the council gather, saying that he had received fresh vision regarding the fate of the Chapter and the deeds of Logan Grimnar. So it was that Arjac waited with Lord Grimnar, Ulrik the Slayer and the most senior Wolf Guard pack leaders.
Although the war-aett had been partly decorated to resemble the households of Fenris, nothing that would hamper a withdrawal had been brought down. Furnishings had been left behind, bar two large work tables from the armoury, now home to a hand-drawn map of the immediate surrounds, based on a few surveyor’s scans and much embellished by information from the excursions of the Great Wolf and his warriors. At the centre was a drawing of what could be remembered from the battle in the ork settlement. The chart was drawn on a large piece of canvas found in the holds of the Allfather’s Honour, an old jarlship sail someone had stowed in years or centuries past for reasons unremembered, held down with runestones, tankards, fresh ork skulls and other ephemera.
‘If I had just fifty more warriors we could push forward to these choke points here.’ Grimnar picked up an ork fang and drove it into the map as he explained to two arrivals just back from the perimeter, Ironfang and Horgoth. Ork blood was still drying on their armour as they leaned over the map table to see where the Great Wolf indicated. ‘With the orks pinned back, we could move our entire force into the chambers around the hauler’s command bridge, within half a mile of the reactor.’
‘Let’s hope Njal has news of reinforcements,’ said Ironfang.
