The wolftime, p.29
The Wolftime, page 29
‘Why should your lives be counted lesser to those aboard the Enduring Hate?’ Krom countered. ‘They can power up their shields and pray to the Allfather.’
Ullr heard the purr of the plasma gun recharge finishing. His gaze was fixed on Hari.
‘I have to do it now,’ said Gaius. ‘If the renegades achieve target lock, we’re dead anyway.’
‘We’re breaching now,’ snarled Ullr. ‘Give me thirty seconds.’
‘We might not have thirty seconds,’ said Gaius.
‘Hari!’ Ullr barked the name, but his pack-brother was focused on his weapon. It was a painful two more seconds until he lifted his head, lensed gaze meeting that of his pack leader. A brief nod followed and he turned the plasma gun on the door.
A blast as bright as starburst filled the corridor. Ullr did not wait for it to dissipate, hurling himself along the short passage as his auto-senses recovered, hunt-sense telling him exactly how far he was from the door. He thrust out a boot at full speed, half expecting to smash bodily into the mass of metal, the lock having held against the plasma shot. Thankfully the door gave way and he crashed through, bolter steady even as he thundered over the threshold.
A maze of stripped wires strung with decapitated heads hung across the control chamber like celebration lanterns. Ullr saw forest animals but also the rotting faces of tribesfolk – men, women and children. Panels in the control consoles had been prised open, their circuitry on view and daubed with symbols he did not know, holes dug out of the plastered walls to expose power lines and comm-network cables.
Ullr had no idea what they had done to activate the system, even less how to stop it.
His bark warned Hari not to use the plasma gun. There was too much circuitry exposed to risk gunfire. The pack leader brought down his bolter and raised his knife as he leapt at the closest enemy. Ullr’s arm snapped the man’s las-spear as he brought it up, and the blade plunged into the Prosperine’s chest.
Boots thudded behind as the others arrived.
‘Gaius, clear your position, I have a firing angle,’ Sáthor announced across the vox. ‘I can light this fire for you.’
‘No time, take the shot now,’ the Firstwolves’ leader replied.
Ullr’s snarl forbade firing as he backhanded another Prosperine out of his path and hurdled a mound of bones to reach the closest console. Sounds of focused violence continued behind him but he trusted to his brothers to watch his back while he studied the missile controls.
‘I’m not an Iron Priest,’ he muttered, looking across gauges and displays, seeing cracked screens daubed with bloody runes. None of it made sense. He turned back, eyes scanning across the crazy mess of cables and bloody remains, trying to work out how they linked together. Understanding glimmered in his mind. More precisely, lack of understanding.
‘It’s not going to launch,’ he announced over the vox, taking a step back.
‘What do you mean?’ Lord Krom replied.
‘They got lucky activating the target-seeking spirit, but they haven’t got control of anything. It’s just nonsense. They can’t fire the missiles.’
‘If you’re wrong?’ said Gaius.
‘Missile spirits have target lock,’ Sáthor updated them. ‘Do I fire?’
Ullr and Gaius shouted ‘no’ and ‘yes’ at the same time.
Ullr raised his bolter and fired, putting an explosive round into the back of the head of a man trying to bring his las-spear to bear on Hari. As he did so the pack leader slashed his knife through a twist of wire in the opened control panel. The headless corpse fell, furs parting to reveal the Prosperine guard uniform below. The display darkened.
‘Soldiers, not tech-priests. These fools don’t know how any of this works.’
The vox went silent. So did the control chamber as the last of Magnus’ followers slid to the floor, their blood pooling beneath them and upon the consoles. Ullr expected to hear Sáthor announce missile launch.
A heartbeat passed.
And another.
After the third, Ullr let out his breath. Another few seconds and the walls were still standing.
Snow swirled from landing jets as Sáthor brought down the gunship, more sedately than its last descent. Ullr dropped another Prosperine corpse onto the pile behind the control centre, each body stripped of its weapons. As well as Prosperine las-spears they had carried curved daggers that were wickedly sharp, the insides of their scabbards cleverly fashioned to whet the blade every time it was pulled free. Apart from the purple robes stitched with the symbols of their traitor master’s Legion, all else they had was scavenged from Fenris – furs and hides both crafted by tribespeople and taken raw from their prey, as well as some shields, axes and swords of obvious Fenrisian origin. These reclaimed items had been carried up to the summit, where Garnr was supervising the Firstwolves preparing the tribal dead for a pyre. They would be reunited with their battle gear and burned properly, even though they had suffered much indignity already.
A transport with a workforce of kaerls was on its way to clear the missile station and, once reconnected to the communications network, the Iron Priests would power down the damaged systems from the Aett. High above, the Enduring Hate was moving into upper orbit.
After a few minutes of grisly work, Ullr’s pack were joined by Gaius and the others. At the summit, thick smoke billowed into the snow-laden clouds.
‘Fetch the flamer from the weapons rack,’ Ullr told Eirik, nodding a head towards the Thunderhawk.
‘Another pyre?’ said Gaius, making his way across the bloodied and muddied ferrocrete surrounds of the station. ‘Why would you honour these renegades with Fenrisian funeral rites?’
‘No honour, just a precaution,’ replied Ullr. He gestured to the axebeak crows that waited in their scores on branches at the treeline. ‘We have to guard against wyrdrot. Mutation. These Prosperines can be filthy with maleficarum even when they look normal. Birds and beasts eat them, get the wyrdrot, go bad and attack people, or worse, get eaten by tribesfolk and give them the wyrdrot. I’ve seen whole regions burned to the ground to stop the spread.’
Eirik returned. With a few curses on the souls of the enemy dead he fired the flamer onto the corpses. Burning promethium caught furs and flesh instantly, turning the bodies into a conflagration that registered immediately on the heat sensors of Ullr’s armour.
‘To Hel,’ he muttered, turning away from the dishonoured dead.
‘Might as well mount up, we’re not to wait for the kaerls.’ Ullr started towards the gunship. He looked at the Firstwolves, their armour bloodied and ash-stricken. Doro had one of the Prosperine knives scabbarded on his belt and Neiflur carried a head by its long hair. ‘Taking some souvenirs, are you?’
‘Our quarters are bare,’ said Gaius. ‘I know it is not much, but a few trophies of our first battle as Wolves of Fenris will make it seem more like it belongs to us.’
‘You certainly look more the part,’ admitted Ullr.
‘Acted the part too. Fighting as a pack, trusting each other, acting as one. Not everything, but I can feel the difference.’
‘That’s good,’ said Ullr. ‘If you can do it, then maybe those others on the ship we just saved might also one day.’
‘I got this for you,’ called out Forskad. He tossed something to Gaius, and when the other pack leader held it up, Ullr saw that it was a piece of metal marked with Fenrisian runes, broken from one of the Prosperines’ las-spears, threaded onto a cord made from the purple of one of their robes.
Gaius looked at it, letting it dangle from a finger.
‘Hang it on your bolt rifle,’ said Ullr. ‘It’s your first wyrdleif.’
Ullr could see nothing of Gaius’ expression but could hear the grin in his voice when he thanked Forskad for the gift.
They reached the foot of the ramp and Ullr stopped, putting a hand to Gaius’ chest to halt him too. He waited until all the others had boarded and then pulled off his helm, taking a deep breath of the frigid mountain air. Gaius did the same, closing his eyes for a moment.
‘You can act like sons of Fenris, but you can’t feel like one,’ Ullr said quietly. ‘You were too close to choosing that starship over your company brothers.’
‘They are my company brothers!’ said Gaius. ‘Our company brothers.’
‘Not according to the Great Wolf, and not according to what I saw today. You’d have killed us all for what? You said Guilliman’s got thousands more like you. There aren’t a thousand more like me. Like Dethar, or Forskad or Eirik.’
‘If you had been wrong, Fenris would have been at war with the Imperium,’ said Gaius, leaning closer. ‘I would spend all of our lives to stop that.’
‘Why?’ growled Ullr. ‘Why would you even bend to that idea? War is war, battle is battle, death is death. If it is in our wyrd to die, do not fight it. But you don’t understand that. Because you’re not from here. You can’t see what it means to be part of this place. It shares a soul with the Wolf King and we share our souls with the world and the Verse. It’s in us from when we are born, and it is that shared soul that is awakened by the Test of Morkai and makes you a Wolf of Fenris. Fengr, the spirit of the wolf that lives in us, wakened by the Canis Helix, gifted us by the wisdom of the Allfather.’
Gaius stared at Ullr for several seconds, anger flashing in his eyes. Ullr was not trying to be cruel, but neither would he spare his companion the truth.
‘The way they made you is a marvel, it’ll be used to make our warriors in the future,’ said Ullr. ‘The Great Wolf bares his teeth but he’ll see sense. New Primaris Marines made from the folk of Fenris, with the breath of Morkai in their lungs and the spirit of Russ in their hearts. Fengr. That’s a good thing that you’ve done, to bring it to us, to give us this chance to grow strong again. But you cannot be that, it is not a gift to yourself. Wanting to be what you cannot, to break your wyrd, that’s another sign that you travel a different road to me, Gaius.’
‘The strongest men bend wyrd to their fortune,’ said Gaius, fixing his gaze on Ullr. ‘Call it skjald-wisht but I know that I belong here.’
The Primaris Marine kept his eyes fixed on Ullr’s for a moment longer, his anger seeping away, replaced by a look of determination. Without further word he stomped up the ramp, the talisman dangling from his massive fist.
A bear dressed as a wolf is still deadly, but it’s not a wolf, thought Ullr.
Flames crackled as starships fell like bad stars.
It took a few seconds for Mudire to realise that it was actually the fire in the pit that he heard. He felt numb all over, chilled to the bone, and glanced down at his fingers in expectation of seeing them blackened with frostbite. The others moved slowly, with similar unease, glancing at each other as they blinked away confusion.
The scraps of another meal on the table and empty fyrkaf cups stood testament to time passed, but he did not remember taking a break. He did recall, however, sitting around the fires in the mountains as Bucharis’ siege train bombarded the fortress of the Space Wolves. The taste of flame-roasted venison lingered in his mouth.
Mudire looked down at his notes. They finished mid-sentence, sometime after the first hour or so.
‘Damn,’ he muttered. He shook his head, feeling like grit had clogged his brain. ‘Ahlek, did you record all of that?’
The historitor checked his data-slate and grimaced. ‘The crystal was full about three hours ago.’
‘I remember it,’ announced Vychellan.
‘All of it?’ Forgewelt’s near-constant gaze of amazement around the Custodian returned.
‘I will repeat it verbatim for your records when we return to the Enduring Hate.’ The Custodian, as far as Mudire could tell, had not moved throughout the whole day and night. ‘Unfortunately, I do not think it sheds any light on the matter that concerns us.’
‘Really?’ Copla-var was slouched in his chair, as though almost asleep. He pulled himself up, downed the contents of a cup and shuddered. Even cold, the effect of the fyrkaf was swift and within a couple of seconds Copla-var regained his normal animation. ‘What exactly are we looking for?’
‘A good question,’ said Njal, stirring on his throne. For a split second Mudire thought he saw other figures crowding around the Rune Priest, faces both bearded and clean-shaven, old and young, women and men, like wisps of lace that disappeared. Moisture glistened in Stormcaller’s ruddy beard as though ice had melted there. ‘If I knew what you hoped to find, I could guide you closer to your goal.’
‘And if we knew what we were looking for, we would have already found it,’ growled Vychellan. He stepped back, boots thudding harshly on the stone floor. ‘It was a slim hope. Not even a hope, a wish.’
‘Do not dismiss your wyrd so easily, Custodian,’ said Njal as he stood up. Though Vychellan was clearly taller and broader, and fully armoured, the Stormcaller’s presence swelled greater, drawing the eye away from the golden warrior. A half-seen tempest clouded the air behind him. ‘It has brought you here and we are not yet exhausted. Tell me, not the answer you seek, but the question you ask. What are you hoping to find?’
Vychellan hesitated and then replied, speaking of what had transpired on Gathalamor – the Neverborn, the Traitor Astartes, the warp weapon they had unleashed. Perhaps drawn on by the Rune Priest’s sagas, Vychellan related his experience below the cardinal palaces, losing his companion to a sorcerous foe, arriving too late to apprehend the other traitors. Mudire had not heard the full account before and shuddered at how close disaster had been for the battle group approaching Gathalamor.
‘The weapon is some cursed warp tech, that much is clear,’ the Custodian said. ‘We may never understand its workings, but it is dormant now. We were too late, yet it did not fire again, when the primarch’s ship was inbound and ripe for destruction. If that was not their goal, something even worse is planned. We have fragments to study, pieces of the Despoiler’s scheme, but no purpose. That the device is called Bucharis’ Gift is the only real lead we have, and so we followed the trail to this world hoping for… something.’
‘I am afraid I have little else to help you,’ confessed Njal.
He strode between them, wolf-skull-headed staff banging on the floor. Mudire didn’t remember him picking it up. The historitors stood and followed as the Rune Priest headed along the hall towards the door. Vychellan caught them up with long strides. As though inaudibly summoned, two Wolf Guard entered, different to the pair that had escorted the party from the shuttle dock.
‘You will have to remain in your quarters for a while,’ said the Rune Priest. ‘The Great Wolf does not wish any ships in low orbit.’
‘For how long?’ said Vychellan.
‘Until the Great Wolf declares otherwise.’ Njal shrugged and continued out of the doors while Mudire suppressed a groan.
Gaius took off his armour with the aid of the two kaerls aboard the Thunderhawk, holding the pauldron with the symbol of the Firstwolves for some time after he had stripped down to his undersuit.
Like Drogr, Ullr had not been personal in his choice of words, but it felt like an attack all the same. To add to the injury to Gaius’ pride was the barb that one day there would be Primaris Marines that the Wolves of Fenris recognised as their own. He would not be one of them. Not a Son of Russ under Cawl and Guilliman. Not a Wolf of Fenris under Grimnar. An oddity. A curiosity of the Drakeslayers, a point scored by Krom Dragongaze.
If he fought well, and he would, he might live another five hundred years and more. The thought of five centuries of this between-state felt like dragging a battle tank through a bog, its weight pulling him back again and again. Could he carry on putting one step in front of the other, continuing in the limbo of being no real thing?
He felt the eyes of the Greypelts on him as he rejoined the others. Some still wore their armour, others had come out of their gear like Gaius.
‘Where’s your amulet?’ asked Garnr. ‘Don’t want to lose that.’
Gaius had stowed it with his bolt rifle. He realised that Garnr was right and retrieved it from the weapons locker, the cord wrapped around his fingers. He sat on the bench for some time, looking at the light through the ports catching on the circle of metal as it spun.
‘I don’t recognise the rune,’ he said to Forskad. ‘What is it?’
The Greypelt glanced at his companions with a half-smile.
‘It means “wind-help”,’ said the Firstborn. ‘I carved it for you.’
Gaius accepted this with a nod, not quite understanding. There were chuckles and some looks exchanged between the Greypelts. Ullr was quiet, fully armoured but for his helm, not taking part, staring out of a port. Something about the other pack’s behaviour irked Gaius, the leader more than the others.
‘Ullr!’
The pack leader turned his head. ‘Yes?’
‘What does wind-help mean?’
Ullr sighed and pulled himself fully around, hands on knees.
‘An old story, told round the fire by hunters when the wind bites like a she-wolf,’ said the Greypelt pack leader.
‘So, it’s a hunter’s talisman?’ said Gaius, causing Forskad to laugh sharply, punching Garnr on the shoulder as he did so. Gaius ignored him, glaring at Ullr. ‘Tell me. What does it mean?’
Ullr shook his head in reluctance, throwing an angry glare at his pack as they settled themselves.
‘In the dawn time there was a young hunter who could never get a kill. She hunted darkwolf and frostbear, jumphorn deer, rendtuskers and giant walrus, but never was her spear or arrow the one to slay. For a year this continued, vexing her greatly, and the lord of her aett. One day, frustrated that she brought nothing to his table, her jarl told her that if she did not return with a fine crowned stag she would be exiled.
‘The hunter set out and for three days she tracked a stag, through forest and snow, never quite getting the opportunity for the kill. When she finally came upon it against the foot of a cliff she fired her bow but the shot went wide, scaring the crowned stag away. For half a day more she followed it, but again her aim was off and the stag ran free.
