Wolf's Honour Part 8

Ragnar drew a bead on the daemon, and a dark shadow fell over him. He heard the rasp of ancient armour and the hungry sweep of the Chaos champion's blade as it drew back for the killing blow.

In a split-second, the young s.p.a.ce Wolf made his choice. Commending his soul to the Allfather, he fired an explosive round past the pack leader's head and into the daemon's gaping beak.

Shadows danced above his head. Metal crashed against metal, and Ragnar heard a rumbling liquid growl.

Blood pounding in his temples, Ragnar faced his attacker, only to find the sorcerer grappling with a huge s.p.a.ce Wolf in scarred, gunmetal-grey armour. The warrior fought the champion bare-handed, one powerful hand gripping the sorcerer's sword wrist, while the other closed inexorably around the Chaos Marine's throat.

There was wiry grey fur matted along the back of the s.p.a.ce Wolfs hands. Ragnar caught a glimpse of curved, black talons, and then he noticed the s.h.a.ggy mane and the strange shape of the warrior's head.

The s.p.a.ce Wolf sensed Ragnar's eyes upon him. He glanced back at Ragnar, furred snout wrinkling as his lips pulled back in a b.e.s.t.i.a.l snarl.

Cursing wildly, Ragnar hurled himself to the right, rolling away from the struggling figures. In moments, he clambered unsteadily to his feet and whirled around, weapons raised, but the struggling warriors were gone. They had simply vanished, as though they'd never existed.

Bolt pistols hammered, the shots echoing from the walls. Chainswords sang their harsh battle song tearing through unnatural flesh, and then, abruptly, the only sound was the panting of exhausted men and the pained breaths of the wounded.

The stone floor seemed to sway beneath Ragnar's feet. Numb with shock, he surveyed the blood spattered chamber. Harald and half a dozen Blood Claws were still on their feet, their eyes wide and their armour splashed with gore. Three others knelt or lay among the bodies on the floor, wounded grievously but still alive. Two battle-brothers would not rise again, their bodies ripped apart by tentacles and snapping, serrated beaks.

Haegr knelt by Torin's p.r.o.ne form a few metres to Ragnar's left. The older Wolfblade was struggling to rise with Haegr's help, despite a deep wound in his hip.

A feeling of dread settled in Ragnar's stomach as he began to inspect the dead. Every one of the rebel officers had been torn apart by daemons or melted by sorcerous flames.

Of Sigurd, there was no sign. The young s.p.a.ce Wolf Priest was gone.

They rode back aboard the Thunderhawks in silence, each warrior lost in his own grim thoughts. Harald had suggested looting the war room of every bit of useful information they could find, and they dragged away makeshift boxes full of maps, data-slates and memory cores. As they loaded up their wounded and dead, however, the Wolves could not help but feel that they had failed.

Ragnar reported to Mikal Sternmark while the raiding party was still in the air, apprising him of what had happened. The loss of Sigurd was an exceptionally hard blow to Sternmark, recalling as it did the ambush at the governor's palace a few weeks earlier. Ragnar accepted full responsibility for what had happened in the bunker, lauding the courage of Harald and his pack as well as his fellow Wolfblades, but he wasn't sure Sternmark paid attention to any of it.

The return flight took them low over the southern outskirts of the city, and it was obvious to everyone on board that the forces of the enemy were on the move. Plumes of blue-black petrochem exhaust hung in a poisonous haze over the cratered transit ways leading into the capital, as regiments of infantry and armour moved towards the tenuous Imperial lines. White flashes stuttered and strobed beyond the hills west of the city as rebel gun batteries pounded the eastern rim of the capital. More than once the Thunderhawks and their Valkyrie escorts had to dive behind broken ridges or weathered hilltops to evade rebel anti-aircraft rockets or gun positions, and it was more than an hour after dust-off before the a.s.sault ships reached friendly lines and could land at Charys starport.

They disembarked in the middle of another rocket attack, carrying their seriously wounded brothers to the port's medicae facilities through a storm of fire and shrapnel. Torin wanted no part of the packed and chaotic field hospital, with its exhausted chirurgeons and outdated equipment. He insisted his wound was minor and would heal quicker on its own. 'I'd rather lie down in the dark somewhere like a wounded hound than risk getting my limbs cut off by some drunken bone-cutter,' he declared, and his protests grew so vehement that even Haegr shrugged his broad shoulders and relented. Of course, they hadn't the faintest idea what to do with the older Wolfblade, so finally Ragnar and Haegr turned around and carried him back to the Thunderhawk.

Once they'd settled Torin back in the same suspensor-web he'd lain in on the flight out of the PDF base, Ragnar left Haegr to watch over their battle-brother and headed to the command bunker to report to Athelstane and Sternmark. On the way there he thought to check with Gabriella and ensure that she was safe, but the memory of what he'd done back at the rebel base was still painfully fresh in his mind. I'm as much a danger to her as the enemy is, he thought in despair, wondering what was going to happen to him now.

Every s.p.a.ce Wolf struggled with the wolf inside him. The gifts of the Canis Helix made them into peerless warriors, but such savagery was two-edged. The wolf within was always testing its limits, seeking escape in the fire of battle to rend and tear until its appet.i.te was sated. Once the wolf had got its teeth in a man, there was no turning back, so far as Ragnar knew. Little by little his mind slipped away and his body succ.u.mbed to the influence of the helix's b.e.s.t.i.a.l influence. Sometimes there were Wolf Lords who took one of the Wulfen into battle with them, but most often the wolf-bitten were given into the care of the Wolf Priests and taken from the Fang, never to fight for the Chapter again.

Now he understood from whence his dreams had come, and why he had been feeling so strange of late, but the realisation gave him little comfort. He would probably be dismissed from the Wolfblade, he reasoned, and without a Wolf Lord willing to speak for him, this campaign would doubtless be his last.

Ragnar gritted his teeth and pushed such thoughts from his mind. For now, there was a battle to be fought and won.

The young s.p.a.ce Wolf found an open crate of field rations in the command bunker, and forced himself to eat. It had only been a few days since he'd last had a meal, but focusing on his body's mundane needs kept more troubling thoughts at bay. The ration paste also helped kill the taste of blood that still lingered in his mouth.

'We should have expected this all along after the ambush at the governor's palace,' Sternmark said bitterly. 'What I want to know is how they knew when we were going to strike?'

The Wolf Guard was pacing along the back wall of the bunker's war room, gauntleted hands clasped tightly behind his back. Sternmark's face was fierce and brooding his dark eyes darting from Ragnar to Athelstane and back again. The Guard general sat in a nearby camp chair, fixing the situation holo with a dark stare. From the beleaguered look on her face Ragnar suspected that she hadn't slept in days.

Ragnar stood at parade-rest at the foot of the table opposite the general. He raised his scarred chin and addressed them both. 'I don't believe it was an ambush at all,' he said. 'If the rebels wanted to lay a trap for us at the base they could have done it easily enough without putting their generals in the crossfire.'

'At this point I'm starting to have my doubts that they were generals at all,' Athelstane said with a frown. She gestured at the holo with a gloved hand. 'Their planned counter-offensive hasn't skipped a beat. Reconnaissance imagery shows that the traitors have moved another forty thousand men into the city since daybreak, and they'll be in a position to hit us by tomorrow. The Emperor alone knows how we're going to stop them.'

Ragnar shook his head. 'You didn't see the looks on their faces when we broke into the vault. Those men were high-ranking officers, all right, and they were desperate to escape,' he said. 'They had painted some kind of symbol on the floor. It looked like they were calling for help, honestly'

'Yet the Chaos champion and his daemons killed those same men during the fight,' Sternmark pointed out. 'If the champion killed the army commanders, who then is leading the counter-offensive?'

The young s.p.a.ce Wolf shrugged. 'The Thousand Sons themselves, I would think,' he replied. 'We know this world is the lynchpin to their entire campaign. I can't imagine that they would trust a cabal of Guard officers to defend it.' He glanced uncomfortably at Athelstane. 'No offence, ma'am.'

Athelstane brushed the remark aside with an impatient wave of her hand. 'If the Thousand Sons are commanding the planet's defence, where are they? They must have a base somewhere on the planet, correct?'

'Not necessarily, I'm afraid.'

Heads turned at the sound of Gabriella's voice. The Navigator and Inquisitor Volt stood at the edge of the former stage, their arms piled with dusty books. She looked to the Inquisitor, who nodded and addressed the general. His face was pale and grim.

'W think we know where the Thousand Sons are striking from,' he said. 'If we are right, we are all in far greater danger than we imagined.'

TEN.

Tripwire 'It was Lady Gabriella who provided the key,' Volt said quickly. The inquisitor shuffled up onto the stage and spread his weathered books on the situation table. The holo image above the table warped into a storm of rainbow hued static as Volt covered many of the hololith's projector eyes.

'What's all this about?' Athelstane asked, unable to conceal a note of irritation in her voice.

The inquisitor didn't seem to hear the general at all. 'As focused as I was on events here on Charys, I failed to pay close attention to reports from the other affected worlds across the subsector,' Volt said, fumbling with his trembling, bandaged hands at the iron lock and hinge securing one of the tomes. The book's cover was smoke stained and charred along the edges, and one corner of its heavy, cream-coloured pages was spotted with red.

'... a campaign of this size, with so much preparation, it should have been obvious that there were deeper patterns in play,' Volt said, almost to himself, as he rifled through the thick pages. 'The diversionary attacks, yes, and the choice of targets... Ah! Here,' he said, gripping the bottom of the open book with both hands and turning it around so that Athelstane and Sternmark could see. 'This is what I'm talking about.'

The general and the huge s.p.a.ce Wolf leaned over the table. Volt had opened the book to a page covered in hand lettered High Gothic script. Spread across the pages was a vast, intricate circle, inscribed with dense patterns of blasphemous runes. Athelstane caught just a glimpse and turned away, making the sign of the aquila and muttering a prayer under her breath. Sternmark raised his eyes and studied the inquisitor carefully.

'This is not the symbol I saw in the governor's palace,' he said.

'No, not at the palace!' Volt snapped, his grey eyes blazing. He turned and beckoned to Ragnar. were at Hyades, were you not? Tell me what you see.'

Frowning bemusedly, Ragnar stepped over to the table. The lines etched in red across the page burned into his mind, calling up a memory of the tense shuttle flight off the beleaguered Imperial world. He glanced from Volt to Gabriella. 'It's the symbol we saw burning over the capital city,' he said.

'Aha!' Volt said, pleased to hear the young s.p.a.ce Wolfs confirmation. 'This is what is known as a cornerstone, an anchoring sigil designed to shape the boundaries of a much larger occult symbol,' he said. 'In my time, I've seen them spread across the hab blocks of a small hive city, even once across the breadth of an entire island.' He traced a finger across the surface of the page. 'Only once in history has anyone attempted such a feat on an interstellar scale.'

Volt turned his attention to the remaining books on the table, searching through them impatiently. Gabriella stepped forward quietly and handed over a battered tome from the top of her stack. The inquisitor looked up with a grunt of surprise and took the volume with a mutter of thanks. 'It happened around thirteen hundred years ago,' he said, flipping quickly through the ancient pages. 'A traitor named a.r.s.enius Talvaren tried to open a permanent gateway to the Eye of Terror, centred on Holy Terra itself.'

Athelstane, Sternmark and Ragnar shared incredulous looks. The general shook her head. 'Obviously, he failed,' she said.

'Obviously, yes,' Volt replied. 'The attempt was doomed almost from the very start, but the madman's underlying theory was entirely sound, from an arcane standpoint.' He paused at a particular page, reading closely, and then nodded to himself. Volt looked up from the book. 'Lord Sternmark, come here and take a look at this for a moment,' he said. 'Tell me if this is more familiar to you.'

The powerful champion moved slowly around the perimeter of the table, a look of dread settling like a mask over his features. He looked down at the book, and grimaced at once. 'It is similar,' he admitted, 'very similar.'

'So you're telling me that the traitors are trying to pry open the Eye of Terror?' Athelstane asked, her stoic expression tinged with concern.

Volt snapped the tome shut. 'No, not this time,' he said. Talvaren, the mad genius, overreached himself. He could not master the forces necessary for such a feat, and even if the Inquisition hadn't stopped him on Luna, the demands of the ritual would have destroyed him.' The inquisitor glanced at Sternmark and the general. 'Here on Charys we're dealing with forces that are altogether more powerful and sophisticated.'

'Then what, pray tell, are they attempting?' Athelstane asked, her patience clearly nearing its limit.

'A bilocation,' Volt said gravely. 'A... link, if you will, between Charys and a daemon world within the Eye.'

The lady commander rubbed her brow with an augmented hand. 'I thought you just told me that wasn't possible,' she growled.

Lady Gabriella cleared her throat diplomatically. 'A co-location is not the same as a conduit,' she said, setting her books on the table. 'Because the Eye of Terror is a location where the warp spills into physical s.p.a.ce, the notion of distance and time within the region is fluid,' she said. 'This is the same reason why we use the warp to travel between the stars.'

'Yes, yes, I know all that,' the general said with an impatient nod.

'Well, think of the warp as a fast-flowing river,' the Navigator continued. 'A person could either walk along the bank to get from one town to another downstream, or he could leap into the water and be rushed there at a much faster rate. Now, what Talvaren tried to do was create a tributary of that river, allowing the water to flow from the Eye of Terror directly to sacred Terra, a tremendous feat that had little chance of success.'

Gabriella reached into her belt and removed her vox-unit. 'We think Madox is trying to strain the fabric of reality around Charys and create a shadow of the world inside the Eye of Terror.' She extended her hand slowly, edging the rounded vox-unit into the projector field of the hololith. As the object occluded the edge of the projection field it created an oval shaped dark patch in the shimmering, distorted map.

Sternmark glowered at the shadow before him. 'The Eye of Terror is hundreds of pa.r.s.ecs away,' he protested. The Eye was a vast stellar region within the Segmentum Obscuras, where the Chaotic energies of the warp bled into the physical universe. It was a realm of horror and madness, an eternal battlefield where the worshippers of Chaos warred for the favour of their uncaring G.o.ds. After the Horus Heresy, the Traitor Legions of the Warmaster Horus fled into the Eye, where they continued to plague the Imperium with deadly raids and ruinous Black Crusades.

'Remember that within the warp there is no notion of s.p.a.ce or distance,' the Navigator said. 'A location can be fixed by will and ritual alone, and Inquisitor Volt suspects that a series of daemon worlds within the Eye are maintaining cornerstone sigils to stabilise the shadow world as well. The sigil within the governor's palace provides the glue that conjoins the two worlds.' She turned to Ragnar. 'It's this ritual that is causing the strange turbulence in the warp I spoke of.'

Ragnar nodded thoughtfully. It also explains the sense of dislocation Torin and I felt, and perhaps even the hallucinations. 'Then the Thousand Sons are simply stepping between worlds when they attack us.'

Gabriella nodded. 'Yes, exactly'

'But to what end?' Athelstane demanded. 'I'm going to a.s.sume that what you just told me is possible, but even so, surely pulling it off would have to consume enormous resources.'

'Yes, indeed,' Volt nodded. 'We can't even speculate on what the traitors had to do in order to create the cornerstones within the Eye, but it's obvious that they devoted many years and a huge investment of effort to arranging the rituals across this subsector.'

'Then what do they stand to gain from all this?' the general asked.

'Several things,' Volt replied. 'First, it gives them a secure base of operations from which to pursue their efforts on Charys. They can strike us anywhere, at any time, and retreat to safety without fear of pursuit. It also allows them to tap into the limitless power of the Eye to fuel their sorcery.'

'But what's their objective?' Athelstane snapped. That's the one piece of information I need, inquisitor. If I know what they're after, I can try to counter it.'

Ragnar remembered the war council back on Fenris. 'The runes say that the Thousand Sons have a plan to bring about the downfall of our entire Chapter,' he said. 'That's why Madox is here.' And the spear as well, he thought.

Inquisitor Volt looked sidelong at Ragnar. 'As to what their ultimate goal is, neither I nor Lady Gabriella can say,' he continued, 'but we do know that the heart of the enemy's power lies not on Charys, but upon its shadow twin within the Eye.'

'Then that is where we must strike,' Ragnar said at once.

Athelstane interrupted with a harsh bark of laughter. The bitter amus.e.m.e.nt died at once as she saw the look on the young s.p.a.ce Wolf's face. 'You're serious,' she said incredulously. 'But... that's not possible.'

Volt glanced at Gabriella. 'We think it is,' the inquisitor said, gesturing to her. 'Please explain.'

Gabriella nodded. 'The Fist of Russ made orbit not too long ago,' she began. 'Shipmaster Wulfgar reports that she has sustained severe damage, but her warp drive is intact. We could place a strike team onboard and use the ship to enter the warp.' The Navigator took a deep breath. 'Providing we activated the drive close to the planet, the ship would cross the barrier into the immaterium at the point where the shadow world is anch.o.r.ed.'

The general interjected with a peremptory sweep of her hand. 'Now, forgive the interruption, my lady, but I know enough about warp travel to know that the ship is surrounded by a force field that keeps it isolated from the immaterium-'

'The Geller field, yes,' Gabriella said. 'It projects a pocket of reality around a ship travelling through the warp that keeps the forces of Chaos at bay. Naturally, we would have to deactivate it before making the attempt.'

Athelstane was struck speechless. Finally she stammered, 'That would be suicide.'

'Normally, yes,' Gabriella agreed, 'but not in this case. Just as the co-location causes some of the warp to spill over into the physical realm, the reverse would apply to the shadow world. There should be a pocket of stable reality around the planet strong enough to keep the ship from being destroyed outright.'

'Should,' Athelstane echoed. 'All of this is theory. You haven't one shred of proof that any of this is true.'

Volt raised his chin. 'It fits the evidence at hand,' he replied archly.

'I can only take your word for that,' Athelstane replied. 'My experience doesn't help much in matters like these, but I do know what will happen if you've guessed wrong and you head off into the warp without a Geller field. You, the ship, and everyone on board will be destroyed.'

Mikal Sternmark folded his arms and glowered thoughtfully at the books scattered across the situation table. 'I'll gather the Wolf Guard,' he said, 'plus a pack of Grey Hunters and Einar's Long Fangs. We could-'

'No lord, you can't,' Athelstane declared. 'I won't let you do this.'

Sternmark slowly turned to the general. 'You forget yourself, lady commander,' he said coldly. 'You have no authority over the Sons of Russ.'

Athelstane rose to her feet and stared up at the towering s.p.a.ce Wolf. 'Perhaps not,' she said, 'but you swore an oath to protect the people of this world, and without you Charys is most a.s.suredly lost. Every squad you pull out of the battle line makes our defence that much more precarious. Are you willing to risk losing an entire world for the sake of a suicidal gamble like this?'

'What other choice do we have?' Sternmark shot back. 'Volt is right. The Thousand Sons can strike our lines at will, and there are no reinforcements coming. At best, we're just delaying the inevitable. Better to strike a blow against the enemy than sit in our holes and let them come for us!'

'And what if they're wrong?' Athelstane said. 'If that ship hits its warp drive and there's no stable pocket of reality on the other side, you'll have thrown away not just your life, but millions of others as well. Make no mistake, without you and your men we won't last twenty-four hours once the rebel counter-offensive begins.'

'Send the Wolfblade,' Ragnar interjected. The words burst from his lips before he fully knew what he was saying. 'Us and Harald's pack as well.'

Sternmark shot Ragnar a disdainful look. 'What, thirteen of you against Madox and the Thousand Sons?'

Inquisitor Volt spoke up. 'Actually, I was thinking along much the same lines,' he ventured. 'It is unlikely that the enemy is expecting this kind of attack, and a small force would have a better chance of avoiding detection,' He spread his bandaged hands. 'Of course, given the situation, I would a.s.sume command of the expedition. My skills will be able to further protect the strike team and lead it to its target.'

The Wolf Guard regarded Volt balefully for a moment, and then relented with a curt nod. 'There's still the matter of the warp turbulence,' he said. 'How do you plan on getting past that?'

Volt turned to Gabriella. She raised her head and said calmly, 'The mission will have need of an expert Navigator. Otherwise the ship could be hurled deep into the Eye and meet with disaster.'

The Wolf Guard's eyes went wide. 'No,' he said, 'I can't allow this.' He glanced at Ragnar and Volt for support. 'Lady, surely you can see that this mission is a forlorn hope at best. Even if everything goes as planned and the mission is a success, the survivors will face the full wrath of the Thousand Sons. With an attacking force this small, no one is going to survive.'

Gabriella only nodded. 'I understand, lord, and I appreciate your concern, but just as the lady commander has no authority over you or your men, neither do you hold any sway over me.' She met the Wolf Guard's eyes and gave him a faint smile. 'Rest a.s.sured, the Navis n.o.bilite are no strangers to sacrifice in the name of the holy Emperor.'

Sternmark thought it over. 'The Old Wolf will have my hide for a rug when he hears about this,' he growled, but he threw up his hands in surrender. 'All right. Make your preparations to depart,' he said. 'Ragnar, I'll leave it to you to give Harald the good news.'

Ragnar bowed his head to Sternmark, and with a worried glance at Gabriella he took his leave. The Navigator sketched a bow to Athelstane and the Wolf Guard. 'I'll contact the Fist of Russ and inform Shipmaster Wulfgar of our plans,' she said, and departed as well.

Sternmark watched them go while Inquisitor Volt gathered up his scattered tomes. Finally he sighed. 'I hope you know what you're doing' he growled.

'As do I,' Volt answered. He straightened and fixed the Wolf Guard with a commanding stare. 'It's time we contacted the Holmgang!'

The Blood Claws weren't at the staging area near the starport's command complex, and none of the headquarters staff seemed to know where they'd gone. Ragnar wasn't all that surprised, but the discovery irritated him nonetheless. As more enemy rockets plunged like arrows across the cratered expanse of the starport, Ragnar was reduced to tracing his route back to the Thunderhawk they'd flown in, and then tracking Harald's pack by scent.

He finally found them in an isolated supply bunker not far from the Thunderhawks' armoured revetments. Ragnar followed the trail down a shallow ferrocrete ramp that led to an open doorway in the bunker's flank. Two Blood Claws posted as sentries rose silently to either side of the interior doorway as the young s.p.a.ce Wolf stepped inside.

The bunker had been emptied out long ago, and the pack sat on the bare floors in the gloom, tending weapons and making field repairs to their armour. The three men that they'd taken to the field medicae unit had either been released or they'd decided to release themselves. They rested against one of the ferrocrete walls, letting their enhanced const.i.tution and their armour's medical systems tend to their injuries.