Runes

by Chris Wraight

Baldr Svelok slammed hard into the acid-laced rock. His plate crunched against the stone, sending warning runes flashing across his helm-feed. Instinct told him another blow was coming in fast, and the Wolf Guard ducked. A massive tight-balled fist tore into the rock where his head had been, showering him with shards where the impact had obliterated the cliff.

Svelok dodged the next crashing fist, his augmented limbs moving with preternatural speed. He almost made it, but the monster’s talons raked down across his right shoulder-guard, sending him sprawling to the ground and skidding across pools of acid. He landed with a heavy crack, and something snapped across his barrel chest boneplate. He felt blood in his mouth, and his head jerked back from the impact.

Throne, he was being taken apart. That did not happen.

He spun onto his back, ignoring the heavy crunch as the creature’s clawed foot stamped down just millimetres from his arm. It towered into the storm-wracked sky, a living wall of obsidian, five metres high and crowned with dark, curving spikes. Lightning reflected from the facets of its organic armour, glinting off the slick ebony. Somewhere in the whirl of jagged, serrated limbs was a monotasking mind, a basic alien intelligence filled with an urge to protect its territory and drive the infiltrating humans back into space.

Svelok had never seen a xenos like it. The closest he could get was a creature of demi-myth on Fenris, the Grendel, but these bastards were encased in plates of rock and had talons like lightning claws.

‘You all die the same way,’ he growled. His voice was a jagged-edged rasp, scraped into savagery by old throat wounds. He sounded as terrifying as he looked.

The storm bolter screamed out a juddering stream of mass-reactive bolts, sending ice-white impact flares across the creature’s armoured hide. It staggered, rocking back on its heels, clutching at the hail of rounds as if trying to pluck them from the air. The torrent was relentless, perfectly aimed and deadly.

The magazine clicked empty. Boosted by his armour-servos, Svelok leapt to his feet, mag-locked the bolter and grabbed a krak grenade.

Amazingly, the leviathan still stood. It was reeling now, its hide cracked and driven in by the barrage of bolter fire, but some spark of defiance within it hadn’t died. A jagged maw, black as Morkai’s pelt, cracked open, revealing teeth like a row of stalactites. It lurched back into the attack, talons outstretched.

Whip-fast, Svelok hurled the grenade through the open mouth. The massive jaws snapped shut in reflex and the Space Wolf crouched down against the oncoming blast. There was a muffled boom and the xenos was blown apart, its iron-hard shell smashed open and spread out like a splayed ribcage. The behemoth crumbled in a storm of shards, toppled, and was gone.

‘Feel the wrath of Russ, filth!’ roared Svelok, leaping back to his feet, fangs bared inside his helmet. He seized a fresh magazine, spun round and slammed the rounds into the storm bolter’s chamber. There’d been three of them, massive stalking beasts carved from the stone around them, horrors of black, tortured rock bigger than a Dreadnought.

Now there were none. Rune Priest Ravenblade loomed over the smoking remains of the largest, his runestaff thrumming with angry, spitting witchfire. Lokjr and Varek had taken out the third, though the Grey Hunters’ armour was scarred and dented from the assault. The xenos monsters were tough as leviathan-hide.

‘What in Hel are these things?’ Lokjr spat over the comm, releasing the angry churn of his frostblade power axe.

‘Scions of this world, brother,’ replied Ravenblade coolly.

‘Just find me more to kill,’ growled Varek, reloading his bolter and sweeping the muzzle over the barren landscape.

Svelok snarled. His blood was up, pumping round his massive frame and filling his bunched muscles with the need for movement. The wolf-spirit was roused, and he could feel its feral power coiled round his hearts. He suppressed the kill-urge with difficulty. His irritation with Ravenblade was finding other outlets, and that was dangerous.

‘How far, and how long?’ he spat, flexing his gauntlet impatiently.

‘Three kilometres south,’ said Ravenblade, consulting the auspex. ‘One hour left.’

‘Then we go now,’ ordered Svelok, combat-readiness flooding his body again. ‘There’ll be more xenos, and I still haven’t seen one bleed.’

Kolja Ravenblade loped alongside the others, feeling his armoured boots thud against the unyielding rock. Gath Rimmon, the planetoid they’d been on for less than an hour, was a hellish maelstrom of acid-flecked storms. The sky was near-black, lit only by boiling electrical torment that scored the heavens with a tracery of silver fire. In every direction the landscape was dark and glossy, cut from unyielding rock and glinting dully in the flickering light. Acid pooled across the jagged edges, hissing and spitting as it splashed against the Astartes’ armour. The four Space Wolves ran south through narrow defiles of jet, each worn down by millennia of erosion, each as pitiless and terrible as the ice-fields of Fenris in the heart of the Long Winter.

This world was angry. Angry with them, angry with itself. Somewhere, close by, Ravenblade could feel it. It was like the beat of a heart, sullen and deep. That was the sound that had drawn him here, echoing across the void, lodged in the psychic flesh of the universe. Something was hidden on Gath Rimmon, something that screamed of perversion.

And it was being guarded.

‘Incoming!’ bellowed Varek, halting suddenly and sending a volley of bolter fire into the air.

Ravenblade pulled out of his run and swept his staff from its mag-lock. His helm-display ran red with signals – they were coming from the sky. He spoke a single word and the shaft blazed with fluorescent power, flooding the land around.

Above them, dozens of creatures were flinging themselves from the high rock, talons of stone outstretched. They were carved from the same material as the planet, each of them crudely animated creatures of inorganic, immutable armour. Eight spindly legs curved down from angular abdomens, crowned with extended rigid plates for controlled gliding. At the end of the metre-long body, wide jaws gaped, lined with teeth of rending daggers. They plummeted towards the Space Marines soundlessly, like ghosts carved out of solid adamantium.

‘Fell them!’ ordered Svelok, his storm bolter spitting controlled bursts at the swooping xenos. The rounds all hit, sparking and exploding in showers of shattered rock. The Wolf Guard made killing look simple. A shame, thought Ravenblade, that he had no time for anything else.

Varek’s bolter joined in the chorus of destruction, but some xenos still got through, wheeling down and twisting through the corridors of fire.

For those that made it, Lokjr waited. The massive warrior, his armour draped in the pelt of a white bear and hung with the skulls of a dozen kills, spun arcs of death with the whirring blade of his frost axe.

‘For the honour of Fenris!’ he roared, slamming the monomolecular edge in wide loops, slicing through the glistening rock-hide and tearing the flyers apart as they reached him.

Watching the carnage unfold, Ravenblade grasped his staff in both hands, feeling the power of his calling well up within him. The wind spun faster around his body, coursing over the rune-wound armour. Acid flecks spat against his ancient vambraces, fizzing into vapour as raw aether rippled across steel-grey ceramite.

‘In the name of the Allfather,’ he whispered, feeling the dark wolf within him snarl into life. The runes on his plate blazed with witchlight, blood-red like the heart of a dying star. He raised the staff above his head, and the wind accelerated into a frenzied whine. A vortex opened, swirling and cascading above the four Space Marines, billowing into the tortured air above them.

‘Unleash!’

A column of lightning blazed down from the skies. As it reached Ravenblade’s outstretched staff it exploded into a corona of writhing, white-hot fire, lashing out from the Rune Priest in whip-fronds of dazzling brilliance.

The surviving flyers were blasted open, ripped into slivers by the leaping blades of lightning, crushed and flayed by the atomising power of the storm. The Rune Priest had spoken, and the creatures of Gath Rimmon had no answer to his elemental wrath.

As the last of them crunched to the ground, Ravenblade released the power from the staff. The skirling corona rippled out of existence and a shudder seemed to bloom through the air.

By contrast with the fury of the storm, the Rune Priest stood as still and calm as ever. Unlike his brothers, his pack-manner was stealthy. If he hadn’t been picked out by Stormcaller, perhaps the path of the Lone Wolf would have called for him.

Kilometres above them, the natural storm growled unabated. The planet had been cowed, but remained angry.

‘Russ damn you, priest,’ rasped Svelok, crushing a fallen flyer beneath his boot and crunching the stone to rubble. His helm was carved in the shape of a black wolf’s head, locked in a perpetual curling grimace. In the flickering light its fangs glistened like tears. ‘You’ll bring more to us.’

‘Let them come!’ shouted Varek, laughing harshly over the comm.

Svelok turned on him. The Wolf Guard was a hand’s breadth taller and broader than the Grey Hunter, though the aura of his ever-present battle-lust made him twice as terrifying. His armour was pitted and studded with old scars, and they laced the surface like badges of honour. Rage was forever present with him, frothing under the surface. Ravenblade could sense it through the layers of battle-plate, pulsing like an exposed vein.

‘Don’t be a fool!’ Svelok growled. ‘There’s no time for this.’

Ravenblade regarded the Wolf Guard coldly. Svelok was as angry as the planet, his hackles raised by a mission he saw no use or glory in, but he was right. Time was running out. They all knew the acid tide was racing towards them. In less than an hour the ravines would be filling up, and ceramite was no protection against those torrents.

‘I’ll be the judge of that, brother,’ warned the Rune Priest. ‘We’re close.’

Svelok turned to face him, his bolter still poised for assault. For a moment, the two Space Wolves faced one another, saying nothing. Svelok had no patience with the scrying arts, and no faith in anything but his bolter. He had almost a century more experience on the battle-front than Ravenblade, and took orders from no one but his Wolf Lord and Grimnar. Handling him would be a test.

‘We’d better be,’ he snarled at last, his voice thick with disdain. ‘Move out.’

Six kilometres to the north, Gath Rimmon’s dark plains were deserted. The tearing wind scoured the stone, whipping up the acid that remained on it and sending curls of vapour twisting into the air.

In the centre of a vast, tumbled plateau of rock was a circular platform. Exposed to the atmosphere, it looked raw and out of place. Lightning flashed across the heavens, picking out the smooth edge of the aberration.

Suddenly, without any signal or warning, a crystalline pinprick began to spiral over the platform. It span rapidly, picking up speed and flashing with increasing intensity. It moulded itself, forming into a tall oval twice the height of a man. At its edge, psychic energy coursed and crackled. The rain whipped through it, vaporising and bouncing from the perimeter.

Then there was a rip. The surface of the ellipse sheered away. One by one, figures emerged from the portal. Eight of them. As the last stepped lightly from the oval, the perimeter collapsed into nothingness, howling back into a single point of nullity.

The arrivals were man-shaped, though far slighter than humans, let alone Space Marines. Six were clad in dark green segmented armour. They carried a chainsword in one hand and a shuriken pistol in the other. Their closed-faced helmets were sleek and tapered, and all had twin blasters set into the jowls. They fell into position around the platform, their movements silent and efficient.

Their leader remained in the centre. He was arrayed in the same armour, though his right hand was enclosed in a powerclaw and the mark of his shrine had been emblazoned across his chest. He moved with a smooth, palpable menace.

Beside him stood a figure in a white mask carrying a two-handed force sword. The blade swam with pale fire, sending tendrils of glistening energy snaking towards the ground. He wore black armour lined with bone-coloured sigils and warding runes. Ruby spirit-stones studded the surface, glowing angrily from the passage through the webway. He wore no robes of rank over his interlocking armour plates, but his calling was unmistakable. He was a psyker and a warrior. Humans, in their ignorance, called such figures warlocks, knowing little of what they spoke.

‘You sense it, Valiel?’ asked the claw-fisted warrior.

‘South,’ nodded the warlock. ‘Be quick, exarch; the tides already approach.’

The exarch made a quick gesture with his chainsword, and the bodyguard clustered around him.

‘Go fast,’ he hissed. ‘Go silent.’

As one, the eldar broke into a run, negotiating the treacherous terrain with cool agility. Like a train of ghosts, they slipped across the broken rocks, heading south.

Svelok felt battle-fury burning in his blood, filling his muscles and flooding his senses. He was a Space Wolf, a warrior of Fenris, and his one purpose was to kill. This chase, this running, was horrifying to him. Only the sanctity of his mission orders restrained him from turning and taking the wrath of Russ to every Grendel-clone on the planet. He knew the acid ocean was coming. He knew that the entire globe would soon be engulfed in boiling death. Even so, turning aside from the path of the hunt for the sake of a Rune Priest’s dreams sickened him.

They were coming to the end of a long, narrow defile. The stone walls, serrated and near-vertical, blocked any route but south. A few metres ahead, hidden by a jutting buttress of rock, the route turned sharply right.

Svelok’s helm-display flickered, and he blink-clicked to augment the feed. There were proximity signals on the far side of the buttress. Plenty of them.

Varek whooped with pleasure. ‘Prey!’ he bellowed, picking up the pace. By his side, the bear-like Lokjr kicked his frost axe into shimmering life and returned a throaty cry of aggression. ‘Fodder for my blade, brother!’

Only Ravenblade remained silent, and his wolf-spirit remained dark. Svelok ignored him. Energy coursed through his own superhuman limbs, energy that needed to be dissipated. He was a Wolf Guard, a demigod of combat, the mightiest and purest of the Allfather’s instruments of death, and this is what he’d been bred for.

‘Kill them all!’ he roared, his hearts pounding as he tore round the final corner and into the ravine beyond. His muscles tensed for impact, suffused with the expectation of righteous murder. A kind of elation bled into the fanged smile under his helm.

Past the buttress, tall cliffs of stone soared away on either side, cradling a narrow stretch of open ground. The massive Grendel-creatures were there, stalking like Titans across the stone, silent and dark. Flyers swooped among them. There were smaller creatures too, all encased in the acid-washed rock-hide of their kind, multi-faceted and covered in diamond-hard spikes and growths. Their vast mouths opened, each ringed with armour-shredding incisors.

Something was in their midst, hunted and cowering. The xenos had come to slay.

‘Humans!’ called out Lokjr, barrelling into the nearest walker. His frost axe slammed against its trailing leg, throwing up shards and sparks.

‘Preserve them,’ ordered Ravenblade, dropping to one knee and spraying bolter fire up at the circling flyers.

Svelok charged into the nearest spiked xenos, ducking under a clumsy swipe and punching up with his power fist. The stone chest shattered as the crackling disruption field tore through it. He threw an upper-cut at the monster’s head, ripping away spikes, before cracking it apart with a savage back-handed lunge. What was left of the xenos fell away and he ploughed on, heading to the heart of the melee.

A dozen weapon-servitors, grey-skinned and fizzing from the acid in the air, were being torn apart by two of the Grendels. Even as Svelok raced to intercept, a big one was ripped limb from limb by a talon-thrust, its pallid flesh impaled on the tips of massive claws, implanted machinery snapping and crunching. Las-blasts spat out in all directions, bouncing harmlessly from the rock-hide of the xenos.

‘What are they doing here?’ growled Varek, taking down his target with a volley of superbly positioned bolter rounds and whirling to confront the first of the slower-moving walkers.

Svelok sent a column of bolter shells into another spiked creature and charged into assault range. Above him, a Grendel was turning, its massive fists clenching with intent.

‘Russ only knows,’ he snapped. ‘Just finish them!’

There was a crack of thunder above them and forks of lightning plunged from the sky. As coolly as ever, Ravenblade had got to work. Bolts of searing witchfire slammed down, punching through rock-hide and breaking limbs apart. The rain of whining destruction was withering, and the smaller flyers were cut down from the air.

Svelok engaged the nearest Grendel, glorying in the crackling aura of his power fist. The wolf-spirit howled within him, and he crunched his fist into the creature’s leading knee-joint. The stone shell shattered, bringing the massive xenos down. It plunged its own fist at Svelok’s head, but the Space Wolf was already moving, darting to the left and releasing a barrage of rounds at the Grendel’s open mouth. The bolts exploded, dousing the monster in a cataclysm of sparks.

‘Death to the alien!’ roared Svelok, his ragged voice ringing out of his helm’s vox-unit and echoing across the ravine. His fist clenched around the trigger, and the twin barrels spat more streams of rock-tearing bolts.

Thrown back by the fury of the assault, the Grendel toppled, broken limbs grasping for purchase. Svelok leapt after it. His armour powered him into the air and on top of the creature’s chest. He plunged down, pinning the monster, his power fist thrumming. Twice, three, four times he punched, his arm moving like a piston, his disruptor-shrouded gauntlet tearing up stone and delving into the heart of the xenos. It cracked, stove, crunched, shattered.

Then he leapt free, whirling to face his next target, clenching the power fist for another assault.

The Space Marines had sliced through the xenos as they’d been made to do. Only one of the big walkers remained. Ravenblade had it enclosed in an aura of blazing light, raised from the ground, coils of lightning crackling between it and the Rune Priest’s staff. Helpless, it writhed within the nimbus of psychic power, trapped inside like an insect in amber. Ravenblade uttered a single word. The cracks in the creature’s armour blazed white-hot, frozen for a second in a lattice of blazing tracery, then it blew itself apart in an orgy of bursting aether-fuelled immolation. Massive chunks of broken hide tore through the air, smoking and fizzing from the Rune Priest’s warp-born energies.

Varek and Lokjr let their heads fall back and howled their victory, swinging their weapons around them like the barbarous warriors of Fenris they’d once been.

‘For the Allfather!’ Svelok bellowed, giving vent to his battle-fury. As Lokjr raised his massive arms in a gesture of defiance and triumph, the skulls at his belt clattered and swirled around him.

Only the Rune Priest remained unmoved. He let the vast power at his command bleed away and strode silently forwards. The bodies of servitors lay before him, ripped to shreds by the acid, or the xenos, or both. In the middle of them all hunched a human shape, clad in some kind of suit and unsteadily regaining its feet.

Svelok cursed under his breath. What was wrong with the priest? Were his fangs so blunted by meddling in runes that he couldn’t revel in the joy of victory like a Son of Russ should? He reined in his own exuberance grudgingly, and made his way to the cowering form on the ground. Varek and Lokjr took up guard around them, no doubt eager for more combat.

The survivor was clad in bulky armour of an ancient template, blood-red in colour and fully covering his body. It looked obsolete, scored with the patina of years and covered in esoteric devices Svelok didn’t recognise. Brass-coloured implants studded the surface, humming sclerotically and issuing hisses of steam. As the human rose, servos whined in protest and a thicket of mechadendrites scuttled out from hidden panels at his shoulders to begin repairing surface damage. Across his chest was the skull of the Adeptus Mechanicus, pitted and worn from age.

The man’s face was hidden beneath a translucent dome of plexiglass filled with a thin blue mist. His head was little more than a dark shadow within that clouded interior, though the spidery shapes of augmetic rebreathers and sensor couplings could be made out.

‘Speak, mortal,’ ordered Svelok in Low Gothic, determined to interrogate him before Ravenblade could.

A series of clicks emerged from the dome. Eventually, hidden behind a wall of distortion, speech emerged from a vox-unit mounted on his sternum. There was no emotion in it, barely any humanity. It had been filtered through some proxy mechanism, cleansed of its imperfections and rendered blank and sterile. Svelok felt nothing but disgust.

‘Adeptus Astartes,’ came the voice. Then a train of jumbled clicks. ‘Low Gothic, dialect Fenris Vulgaris. Recalling.’

Ravenblade stayed silent. Even through the barrier of the runic armour, Svelok could feel his keen interest in the pheromones his pack-brother emitted. Something had got the prophet worked up. Another vision? Or something else? He suppressed a low throat-rattle of irritation. There was no time for this.

‘Identify as Logis Alsmo 3/66 Charis. Departmento Archeotech IV Gamma.’

Another pause.

‘I should add,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

They came to a standstill. As they’d headed south, the plains had given way to twisting, steep-sided gorges. Pools of fluid could be seen glistening at the base of the defiles, harbingers of the deluge to come. They were closing on their quarry, but time was running out. The acid was coming.

‘What do you sense?’ asked the exarch.

The warlock remained silent, his head inclined to one side. Above him, the sides of the gorge soared upwards.

‘Mon-keigh,’ he said at last. ‘And something else.’

Even as Valiel finished speaking, there was a crack in the rock face closest to him. The warriors snapped into a defensive cordon around the warlock.

A pillar of rock seemed to detach from the cliff nearest them. As it did so, jagged arms broke free from the torso, showering corrosive fluid. Silent as death, an eyeless creature, obsidian-clad and uncurling talons of stone, began to move towards them. Further down the gully, spiked variants detached, unfurling glossy limbs and exposing gem-like teeth.

‘This world dislikes intruders,’ said Valiel.

The exarch hissed an order, and the troops fanned out into a line in front of the warlock. The creatures lumbered nearer.

‘Was this in your visions?’ asked the exarch over his shoulder.

Valiel let the psychic surface of his witchblade fill with energy. These creatures hadn’t been, but then glimpses of the future were always imperfect. That was what made the universe so interesting.

‘You don’t need to know. Just kill them.’

Ravenblade glanced at his auspex. Thirty-nine minutes.

‘Your purpose here, tech-priest,’ he said, towering over the logis. ‘Speak quickly – I can kill you as well as those xenos.’

He could still feel the dark wolf within him panting, circling impatiently, thirsting for more release. It would have to wait. There was also a shard of fear from the logis, generated by the vestigial part of whatever humanity he’d once had. The Space Wolves towered over him, their massive war-plate draped in gruesome trophies and adorned with runes of destruction.

‘Rune Priest,’ said the logis. ‘Artificer armour, Fenris-pattern.’

Svelok growled his displeasure. ‘Stop babbling, mortal, or I’ll rip your arms off. Answer him.’

The logis shrank back, cogitators whirring. Communication in anything other than binaric seemed difficult.

‘Gath Rimmon,’ Charis said. ‘Third world Iopheas Secundus system. Acid surface, total coverage, impenetrable, sensor-resistant, hyper-corrosive. No settlement possible, no surveys archived.’

Svelok took a half-step forwards, his gauntlet curling into a fist. ‘We know this!’ he rasped over the mission channel to Ravenblade. ‘He’s wasting our time.’

‘Let him speak,’ replied Ravenblade. His voice was calm, but firm.

‘Single satellite, class Tertius, designation Riapax. Orbit highly irregular. Period 5,467 solar years. Proximity induces tidal withdrawal across polar massif for three local days, total exposure thirty-four standard hours. Opportunity for exploration. Sensors detect artefact. Mission dispatched. Xenos infiltration unanticipated.’

‘What kind of artefact?’

‘Unknown. Benefit analysis determined by age. Assessed Majoris Beta in priority rank system Philexus. Resources deployed accordingly.’

‘You have a location?’

‘Signal intermittent, 2.34 kilometres, bearing 5/66/774.’

‘Then we need him,’ said Ravenblade to Svelok on the closed channel.

‘Forget it,’ said Svelok. ‘Too weak.’

‘He has a lock. We don’t have time to waste looking.’

‘Morkai take you, prophet!’ cried Svelok, spitting with vehemence. ‘What is this thing? We diverted a strike cruiser for your visions.’

Ravenblade remained impassive. Svelok was the deadliest killer he’d ever seen, a single-minded inferno of perfectly controlled rage and zeal. Despite all of that, the Wolf Guard had no idea of the power of the Wyrd and the knowledge it gave Ravenblade. How could he? How could anyone but a Rune Priest understand?

‘He comes with us. We have less than an hour to find it and return to the pick-up coordinates. The acid is returning, brother. When it comes, the chance will have gone for another five millennia.’

‘Then let it lie. This worm can scurry after it.’

Ravenblade felt the dark wolf issue a low psychic growl, hidden to all but his aether-attuned instinct. Svelok was a stubborn bastard, as stubborn as the Great Wolf himself, but there were other ways of deciding this.

‘Enough.’

He twisted open a casket hanging from his neck to reveal a dozen pieces of bone, each inscribed with a single rune on both sides. He spilled the pieces into his gauntlet’s palm, marking how each fell. As he worked, he saw Svelok turn away in exasperation. The Wolf Guard had no time for the runes. That was his problem.

Ravenblade studied the sigils. Rune patterns were complex and subtle things. He opened his mind to the patterns in the abstract shapes. Across time and space, the angular outlines locked into their sacred formation. The sequence fell into place. He had his sign.

‘The runes never lie, brother,’ he said. ‘We are meant to be here, and we are on the right course. The strands of fate demand it. And there’s something else.’

He looked at Svelok, and this time spoke over the standard vox. Another element had emerged, one he’d not foreseen.

‘I sense xenos,’ he announced. ‘They are here.’

The exarch called his warriors back. None of the creatures remained alive. Two had died in the assault, their fragile armour rent by the talons of the world’s guardians. Once the shell was broken, the acid rain did the rest.

‘Safeguard the spirit stones,’ ordered Valiel, sheathing his witchblade and bringing his breathing under control. The survivors did his bidding silently.

‘Are we near?’ The exarch’s voice, muffled by a damaged speech matrix, was tainted with accusation. Valiel regarded him carefully. The exarch was the deadliest killer he’d ever seen, a relentless master of close-ranged combat. Despite all of that, the warrior had little idea of the full power of the warp and the knowledge it gave Valiel. How could he? How could anyone but a warlock understand?

‘See for yourself.’

Before them, the series of winding gullies opened out into a wide valley which ran towards the southern horizon. At the far end of the valley was a cliff of cloud, flecked with pale lightning at its base. A distant roar came from it, just like the sea coming in.

‘The tides approach,’ said the exarch, resentment still in his voice. He feared nothing but that which he couldn’t fight. So it was with all those lost on the warrior path.

‘What we seek lies on the precipice of danger,’ said Valiel. ‘Remember your vows, killer.’

The warriors returned and waited. Valiel could sense their doubt, just like their master’s.

‘Follow me,’ said the warlock. He didn’t wait for the exarch’s assent. Now, above all else, he trusted in the vindication of his vision. The artefact was at hand. Ignoring the acid rain as it streaked across his armour, the warlock strode down the floor of the gorge and into the valley beyond.

Svelok’s pack broke from the cover of the gorges and into a wide, bowl-shaped valley. At its far end, a few kilometres distant, the storm raged unabated. A low roar echoed from the mountain walls on either side. The tide-line was almost visible. Even now the rocks underfoot were sodden with puddles of gently hissing fluid. The planet’s inhabitants had been driven off for now, but the pack was still being shadowed by flyers, circling out of bolter range like vultures.

They kept running, kept the pace tight. Twenty-five minutes. Ravenblade could taste the acrid stench of the distant acid ocean. Readings scrolled down his helm-display detailing atmospheric toxicity. Nothing his armour couldn’t handle. For now.

‘Bearing,’ he ordered over the mission channel.

‘Imminent, Space Marine,’ responded the logis, struggling to match the pace in his archaic armour. ‘Recommend halt.’

The Space Wolves came to a standstill and waited for Charis to catch up. The rain streaked and steamed from their battle-plate. Lokjr’s bear pelt was being eaten away, and the runes of Ravenblade’s pauldrons were still glowing an angry red, like wounds washed in iodine.

‘Located,’ said Charis. A laser-sight extended from his right shoulder and pointed out a piece of flat rock a few metres distant.

‘Russ, that’s nothing!’ mocked Varek.

‘Silence!’ ordered Svelok, his mood clearly still dark. ‘We’ll examine it.’

As Ravenblade approached the site he had a sudden lurch of remembrance. He’d seen it before. Like a déjà vu, the blank gap in the stone loomed up towards him. He had no doubts. This was where he’d been drawn to.

No more than five metres square, a shaft had been bored directly down into the valley floor. It plunged vertically, sides smooth and open to the elements. It was perfectly black, as if it went all the way down to Hel. There were no steps, and few hand-holds. Far above them, the thunder growled, echoing from the valley sides.

‘That’s it?’ demanded Svelok.

Ravenblade nodded, mag-locking his staff. ‘Where we’re meant to be, brother.’

‘You sense it?’

The psychic signal filled Ravenblade’s mind, drowning out the pheromone-signatures of his battle-brothers. All that he could sense was the thing that had drawn him, and the stench of the xenos. Both were close.

‘Trust me.’

Svelok turned away. ‘Lokjr, you’ll hold. Drop anything that gets close. Varek, take point. We’re going down.’

Panels on Charis’s gauntlets and vambraces opened up, revealing clawed extensions capable of gripping the rock face. The Space Marines, with their occulobe-enhanced vision and superhuman poise, needed no such aids.

Varek swung himself over the edge, his boots finding instant purchases against the rock, and started to descend.

Ravenblade turned away, reaching for the runes again. Surreptitiously, keeping them shielded from Svelok, he spilled the bone fragments into his palm once more.

‘What do you see?’ The rumbling voice was Lokjr’s. Unlike his superior, the Grey Hunter had a pious respect for the readings.

Ravenblade stared at the figures resting on his gauntlet. The fragments glistened pale in the darkness. Shapes swam before his eyes, resisting interpretation. Elk, Fire, Axe, Death, Ice. None of them stood in their proper relations. There was no pattern. Ravenblade felt a rare pang of unease. For the first time in his life, over a hundred years of service, the runes were blank. There was nothing.

‘All is at it should be,’ he said, snatching up the bones and putting them away. ‘Time to go.’

Svelok went carefully but quickly, testing each hold before placing his weight on it. He knew as well as the others that when the tide came up the valley floor it would cascade down the shaft on top of them. Whatever happened, they had to be back up on the surface before then. Damn that priest. This mission was pointlessly dangerous. They didn’t even know what they were hunting down. His pack-brothers respected the Wyrd, but he’d never trusted it. There was a thin line between augmentation and corruption, and Rune Priests walked it perilously.

He blink-clicked a feed from Ravenblade’s auspex to his helm display. Twenty minutes.

‘Report,’ he snapped.

There was a low thud from below him as Varek leapt to the bottom of the shaft.

‘At the base,’ he responded. ‘No targets.’

Svelok checked his proximity readings.

‘Teeth of Russ,’ he spat. ‘Where are those xenos?’

He crunched to the ground beside Varek. On three sides, the stone walls continued to the level of the floor. The fourth opened out into a small underground chamber carved roughly from the rock. As Ravenblade and Charis completed the descent, the lumen-beams of the Space Marines’ helms ran across the enclosed space.

A circular access hatch had been carved into the floor of the chamber. Svelok’s helm detected the force field across it – one strong enough to
withstand five thousand years of acid erosion.

‘The mechanism may prove–’ started Charis.

A blast rang out across the chamber, and the embedded control panel exploded with a gout of oily smoke. The field shimmered and gave out.

‘Varek, with me,’ barked Svelok, his bolter barrel glowing from the discharge. ‘Priest, keep an eye on the mortal.’

Then he leapt through the hatch, landing heavily several metres down and throwing up a cloud of fragile debris. He sprang away, whirling his bolter round.

Still no targets. His lumen-beam ran over banks of equipment. Cogitators, they looked like, ancient and dark. He heard a crash behind him as Varek joined him. Together they swept the space with their weapon muzzles.

Nothing. The room was empty. It had been empty for millennia. A chamber no more than ten metres square, packed with defunct machinery, heavy with decay. Coils of translucent piping lay breached and desiccated in the dust. Bundles of machine-spirit conduits led from cogitator banks to an elaborate brass altar, black with age, studded with skulls and obscure control runes. There was a faint hum from somewhere, as if the force field had a counterpart hidden in the chamber. Cracked crystal viewports were as dark and lifeless as the shaft above them, and the floor was thick with ancient dust.

Ravenblade and Charis clambered down from the hatch via footholds in the wall. Svelok lowered his bolter and widened his lumen-beam.

The altar was the centrepiece. Though tarnished and old, the pipes and embellishments were massively complex. The hum came from its base, and a faint power reading registered on his helm display. Sitting on the altar was a box. A small, black box. Fascinated, Charis edged towards it.

Svelok turned to Ravenblade.

‘You sensed xenos,’ he said. ‘Where are they?’

The Rune Priest didn’t reply. He was looking at the space where Svelok had landed. There was a shattered ribcage on the floor, brittle with age. Other bones littered the floor. Ravenblade snapped his gaze towards the altar.

‘They’re here, Space Wolf.’

Charis’s voice had taken on a fresh clarity, and he suddenly seemed to have no trouble with rendering Gothic. Svelok and Varek spun round to face him. The logis withdrew his gauntlet and exposed a grey-fleshed claw of a hand, riddled with mechanical components. He took the box.

‘They’ve always been here.’

Valiel dropped through the hatch, landing lightly on the pristine metal floor. He sprang clear, making room for the warriors to follow. The dark green figures leapt into the room, rolling away and uncoiling into attack poses, the exarch close behind.

The chamber was harshly lit and lined with gleaming machinery. Coils of translucent pipes pumped coolant from cogitator banks to an elaborate brass altar, studded with skull-and-cog devices and surmounted by a humming containment field. Runes flickered across crystal viewports as the arcane clusters of machinery clicked through their protocols. A low humming gave away the power stored in the room, enough to supply a protective field of prodigious strength.

The chamber’s lone occupant whirled round to face them. A human, wearing bright red armour. The close-fitting plates were covered in gleaming mechadendrites, all clicking animatedly, sparkling under the bright strip lighting. His domed helmet had been retracted, revealing a thin, young face. Only a few augmetics marred the taut skin, though there already fresh incisions on his cheeks where more would be added.

He looked terrified.

Valiel let a ripple of sapphire pass down his blade.

Kill, he ordered psychically.

The warriors sprang towards the human. Two kept low, sending a stream of metal from their mandiblasters. Two more leapt into the air, chainswords whirling. The exarch took the direct route, firing from his shuriken pistol as he swung his claw into position.

It all happened in a single heartbeat, and yet the human reacted. That should have been impossible.

Mandiblaster darts homed in and folded out of existence. Shuriken bolts disappeared, winking into nothingness. The man raised his hand and the warriors crumpled into agony. Valiel felt their psychic screams as their souls were ripped from their bodies and sucked, howling, into the box. Dark tongues of matter like strings of ink shot out from the box. They clamped on to the exarch, tearing his spirit from his body. His broken husk fell to the floor, his faceplate distorted into a many-dimensioned mess.

So quick. Valiel remained calm, feeding his blade energy. Tendrils of aether-born plasma curled round his armour like the tails of cats.

‘So you’ve learned some of its tricks,’ he said in heavily-accented Gothic. ‘That won’t help you. If you keep using it, they’ll find you.’

Logis Alsmo Charis walked forwards. As he did so the box folded up and switched aspect in his hand. At times it resembled a cube, at others a pyramid, others a rhomboid. Every heartbeat, a new shape. Valiel knew, as the human could not, that it was folding across many dimensions as well. It was an abomination, the product of a mind beyond the imagination of a mon-keigh, and its power had been proscribed on the craftworlds for millennia. Despite his long training, Valiel felt his gaze drawn to it.

So terrible. So beautiful.

‘You think I came here to use it?’ the logis said, his voice growing in confidence. His fear was fading. ‘I came here to hide it. The trail will die.’

‘Then so will you.’

Charis flexed his fingers, already laced with steel slivers of augmetic technology.

‘I’ll find a way.’

He launched a lashing column of black fire from the box.

Valiel sprang clear, kindling the witchblade as he rose. He somersaulted clear of the box’s blast, landing lightly on a cogitator bank. His blade shot out, spitting a flurry of brilliant silver stars towards the human. The man evaded the strikes and leapt back towards the warlock.

His outline shimmered like a Warp Spider’s. The box was shifting him.

Charis twisted the box. A black mirror flew into being, rotating across the chamber, reflecting thousands of possible states on its shimmering surface. Valiel knew what it was instantly. He twisted away, but the glass enveloped him. As it passed through him, bulging like water across his body, he felt his soul dragged from his body, folded into miniscule shards of pain-filled insignificance. He was pulled from the bank and crashed to the floor.

The surface of the warped glass shattered. Valiel came to a halt, prone, locked down. His sword clattered away. He felt his essence dissipated. There was no physical pain, but the psychic agony was unbearable. He stifled his screams as the human loomed over him. The box was still in his hand, and was changing shape quickly now.

‘Unwise, to try and prevent me.’

Valiel let his eyes flicker to the roof.

Too powerful. Why was I led here?

He opened his tormented mind, bent all his fading power towards the multiple paths stretching away from this moment. The structure of the universe always gave you options.

I am only a part of this.

Valiel felt the humming malevolence of the box grow. With all the strength that remained in him, he locked away everything he knew about the device, its origins, his mission. History, time itself, condensed into a single form. A glyph. A key. One with the right power would know how to use it.

With a cry of agonised effort, a final blast of witchfire streaked from his clenched fingers, tugging at those strands of his soul still gathered together, tearing the psychic sinews of his inner self.

Charis moved quickly, trying to deflect it with the box, but the bolt flew clear, striking the metal rim of the hatch above, cracking it and careering across the roof. As the flame burned out it left a trail behind it on the stone. An intricate trail.

Charis ignored it. The last traces of terror had left his eyes, and flickers of a confident hatred distorted his features.

‘A waste,’ he spat, spinning the box-forms on his palm idly. ‘You’re no different from the rest. Think carefully on that, alien filth. Your people started this. I will finish it.’

Valiel tried to speak, but his mouth no longer obeyed him. The mon-keigh was mistaken about that, like so much else. He knew nothing of the varied allegiances of Valiel’s ancient kind. The mon-keigh were so crude, so simple.

The box opened. Defenceless, Valiel felt his soul dragged into isolation, his remaining essence torn from his material form and sucked within the shifting walls of the device. For an instant, while his eyes still worked, he caught a glimpse of what was inside. Part of him understood what was in there, knew it from myths and scraps of legend. He could see movement, layers, shifting upon shifting, the dark heart revolving before a...

He tried to scream, but his vocal chords were no longer his own.

The box clicked shut.

Charis looked down at the burnt-out corpse of the warlock. Not as powerful as he’d been led to fear. The dark ones had been worse.

He hurried over to the altar and placed the box in the receptacle he’d made for it. Leaving it was hard, but he had to master the secrets of it, and they were coming. He withdrew his hand and his armoured gauntlet extended over the exposed flesh, sealing him in against the acid. He depressed a rune on the nearby panel and the cogitators clicked into life, feeding the containment field, keeping it safe. A whiff of ozone burst across the chamber, and the air began to crackle with bounded energies.

The tides were returning. The xenos had delayed but not defeated him. With a final glance across the chamber, Charsis let the dome close over his head. He had to leave – they’d be tearing space apart to find him. Once he was safely away, there was work to be done. Lore to be studied. Secrets to be uncovered. And then the long years of stasis while he waited for Riapax to uncover the shaft again.

So much to do before he’d be back. But then there was so much to learn.

Ravenblade’s staff burst into flame, kindling on the angular incisions inscribed along the shaft, and the dark wolf’s hackles raised. The box held by Charis was shedding psychic energy. Incredible amounts. It was opening and closing in on itself with dizzying speed.

Svelok and Varek moved instantly.

‘Lokjr!’ Svelok barked into the comm-link. ‘Down here. Now!’

The sergeant barrelled across the chamber, power fist crackling. Varek let fly a stream of rounds, each aimed with exact precision: head, neck, armour joints. As they hit, they folded out of existence. Nothing left as much as a mark.

Then Svelok was in range. He hurled a heavy blow with the power fist, aiming for the gap between shoulder and helmet. Charis fell back astonishingly quickly, but the fist still caught him, sinking into the armour. It disappeared. The ceramite crumpled and distorted, and the disruption field flew wildly out of frequency.

Svelok fell back with a snarl and snapped up his storm bolter. Before he could get a round away Charis’s gauntlet punched him heavily in the face. As the fist impacted, black flames exploded from the blow, spiralling out like seeker flares. Svelok was hurled backwards, feet flung from the ground before crashing into a bank of cogitators. The muzzle of his wolf-helm had been folded in on itself.

‘Death, traitor!’ roared Varek, tearing straight at Charis, discarding his bolter for his fists. He smashed into the logis, closing his gauntlet over the box, aiming to tear it away.

‘No!’ cried Ravenblade, swinging his staff into position.

Varek bellowed in agony as his arm was sucked from real space, dragging him after it. The limb was ripped into a vortex of distortion, blood flying in concentric spirals, armour cracking and flesh tearing.

Ravenblade let fly with a searing ball of lightning, engulfing Charis’s breastplate and ramming him against the altar. What was left of Varek slumped against the floor, gurgling in a froth of blood, half of his body ripped away. Ravenblade swung round for a second strike, and his staff crackled with storm-pulled fury.

He didn’t even see the blast from the box. All he felt was the pain as it hit him. The rending, mind-unlocking pain. That was what the device was for, its only purpose. It had been made by a master of technology so advanced that it looked like sorcery. In that moment, exposed to its searching mind, Ravenblade knew its name. In the ancient xenos language now only spoken in one city in the galaxy, it was the Ayex Commorragh. The Heart of Agony.

Black fire shattered his defences, tore through his psychic wards. He felt himself being lifted backwards, armour aflame. He hit the wall with a crack, crashing into the rock. The fire kept coming. Blood trickled down the inside of his helmet. He felt his breastplate rip away, exposing the flesh beneath. The black carapace bubbled and split, shredding the skin, tearing up the muscle.

‘For the Allfather!’

Ravenblade half-heard Lokjr’s charge into the chamber, his frost axe pulsating with energy. Charis whirled to deal with him, but Svelok was back on his feet too, his bolter spitting. Ravenblade felt consciousness slipping away, and fought to hold on to it. He was collapsing into shock. He needed to fix on something. Anything.

He let his head fall back. His eyes flicked to the roof. That was when he saw it. Blasted into the ceiling of the chamber, scored in witchfire, was the thing that had drawn him. The rune. It had been in his dreams for months, deep in the void, out on the strike cruiser. It was the key.

It was enough. His mind unlocked.

Deep within him, crippled and bloody, the dark wolf opened its yellow eyes. A succession of images raced through his consciousness, overlapping with each other as they crowded into his mind. He sensed the souls thronging around him, impossibly old, long-dead. There was a warlock in a white mask and black armour. He’d been here, five thousand years ago.

More images rushed into his mind. Another planet, covered in Adeptus Mechanicus complexes, hells of industry. Dark shapes streaked across the burning skies, jagged-winged flyers, crewed by nightmares. There were men and women running, faces contorted with terror. Among them strode thin-limbed corsairs. Eldar they were too, but of a different kind. In the midst was the architect of the Heart, the haemonculus, hunched over his machinery of terror, watching the slaves being herded through the webway portal. His skin was grey, riddled with black veins. The eyes were pitiless wells of ennui, windows on to a heart driven cold by centuries of horror. There was a terrible intelligence there, a mastery of forbidden arts. He’d used the box to create pain from outside the bounds of the universe. That, and that alone, was why it had been made.

The vision shifted. There was fighting, ranks of human troops moving through the shattered cityscape. The corsairs were driven back. The haemonculus had lingered too long, and soldiers in carapace armour, skitarii, ordinatus, all piled into the vision. There were crippling explosions, massed volleys of las-fire, a retreat. The webway portal closed. The nightmares were gone.

It shifted again. In the midst of the ruination, surrounded by weeping survivors and smouldering rubble, a young logis came. He looked handsome, his flesh as yet unmarked by the touch of the Machine-God. He bent down, drawn by a strange black box. It had a certain pleasing construction. He took it, covering it in his robes. He’d keep it secret, learn how to use it.

But the nightmares knew how to find the box. They came back, pursuing him across the stars. While he had it, they could find him. He could never rest long enough to master it. It had to be hidden. Somewhere far away. Safe while he learned what it was. Safe until the trail died and he could come back to collect it.

Ravenblade snapped back into consciousness. The visions shuddered into nothing. He hadn’t been summoned here by the box. He’d been summoned here by the witchfire rune, left by the xenos whose presence he still sensed. The real world rushed into focus around him. All that remained of the mind-transfer were five words.

I have weakened the portal.

Ravenblade tried to pull himself up. Even his superhuman constitution was near collapse. Blood, half-coagulated, pumped from his exposed chest. Lokjr and Svelok fought on. They were being ripped apart. None of their weapons bit. They ducked around the vicious blasts of black fire with all their skill, but the end was only a matter of time. Even as he watched, Ravenblade saw Lokjr’s frost axe suddenly pulled across dimensions and smashed into scraps of metal by the Heart.

He dragged himself into a half-seated position, lungs burning. Charis had closed the hatch above them, sealing them in. He had control over every device in the room and had ensured that none of them would escape.

But Ravenblade was a son of Fenris, and escape was the last thing on his mind. Just like Svelok, he was a dealer in death, a predator, a hunting beast of the endless war. Only the manner of the kill differed.

Ravenblade closed his charred eyes and opened his mind to the immaterium. The dark wolf growled with pleasure. The runes on his armour went black as Ravenblade pulled all his remaining power to himself. He went back to the essence of his Rune Priest training, the primal tools of his art.

The elements. And this was a world of storms.

‘Unleash.’

Ravenblade screamed as the pain coursed through his body and mind. Far above, he could sense the torrent answer his call. Clouds boiled and raced, hurtling to the source of the summons. Acid oceans, already close, surged across the blasted land, swollen unnaturally by the power at Ravenblade’s command.

The rain increased. It became a deluge, hammering against the rocks. Even shielded by twenty metres of stone, Ravenblade could feel the breaking fury. Corrosive fluid rushed across the valley floor and down the shaft above the chamber, bubbling and churning. He piled on more energy, ignoring the warnings of terminal stress from his body. He felt his primary heart give out, but still the maelstrom responded to the call. He could sense the weight of the acid as it pressed against the hatch. The metal began to steam.

He opened his eyes. Lokjr had been cast aside, his face half-dissolved by the Heart. Even as he watched, Svelok was thrown backwards, a two-metre tall giant in full power armour hurled like a doll across the chamber, shattering machines as he skidded along the floor. Then Charis came for him.

‘Russ guide me,’ whispered Ravenblade, seizing his bolt pistol from its holster, swinging it upwards and firing at the hatch.

The metal exploded instantly, blowing shards across the chamber, unleashing the torrent. Acid sheeted down. The cogitators fizzed and exploded, sending blooms of sparks skittering across the floor. Ravenblade went into spasms of fresh agony as the searing liquid ran across his open wounds. His back arched as he cried out, doused in gouts of boiling liquid pain.

Too slow, Charis’s naked hand was snatched back into its gauntlet. The acid tore through the exposed flesh, eating through skin, bone and metal. The logis shrieked in his turn, his fear unfiltered by the vox-distorter. He tried to clutch the box, but his fingers were gone, washed into the slew of ankle-deep acid bubbling at his feet. It tumbled from his grip, dropping into the seething, corroding mass.

As it hit the liquid, it flipped into a dizzying array of shapes. For a moment it span desperately, its walls folding impossibly fast. Then, feeling even its infinite malignance threatened, the spinning stopped. There was a shudder, and the air around it burned away in a sudden blaze of ozone. The acid bath surged into a boiling sphere, furious and infused with black fire. The box emitted a deafening scream, as if a million tortured voices had been sucked back into the mortal plane for an instant.

Then the acid ball exploded in a blinding, whirling inferno. At its core, the box folded itself out of existence and the psychic backwash from its departure tore out from the epicentre.

Ravenblade cried aloud as the warp echo scored his exposed soul. Eyes bleeding, lungs burning, he hauled himself to his knees, trying to shelter his open chest cavity from the tumbling rain. Every move was a symphony of agony, physical and psychic.

‘You... killed it!’

Charis stumbled towards him, his remaining gauntlet clutching impotently. Freed from the protection of the box, his armour was corroding fast. Mechadendrites extended, blades whirring. The Rune Priest, chest ripped open, psychic senses seared away, had no defences left. He snatched the bolt pistol into position, but it slipped through his broken fingers.

‘For Russ!’

His voice ringing with rage, Svelok burst from the acid like a leviathan rising from the ocean, armour streaming with fluid. He staggered into range and smashed his fist straight through Charis’s visor. The glass shattered, cracking the logis back against the altar and snapping his spine. For a moment, Ravenblade caught a glimpse of a hideously ruined face within, riddled with augmetics. Then it was gone, consumed by the foaming deluge.

Ravenblade’s vision wavered. He was close to passing out. The acid burned against his chest, eating its way into his core. The liquid was now knee-deep around him.

‘We have to go, priest,’ Svelok rasped, his battle-plate pitted and steaming. The combat-fury was gone from his voice, replaced by grim resolve. He dragged Ravenblade to his feet, sending fresh needles of pain shooting through his body.

‘The staff,’ gasped the Rune Priest.

‘No time.’

Svelok hauled Ravenblade to the footholds, shouldering the Rune Priest’s massive armoured weight. Fluid showered down from the portal, sluicing over Ravenblade’s breastplate, snaking under the ruined carapace, worming into his wounds. His organs were failing.

He gritted his teeth. Not yet.

Svelok went first up the ladder, pulling Ravenblade after him. His strength was incredible. It was all Ravenblade could do to hang on, keep his feet on the holds, stay conscious.

The ascent up the rock was a nightmare. Falling acid burned through the armour plate with horrifying speed. Every agonising step saw their protection thinned a little more. Ravenblade watched the runes on his vambrace blaze red as the liquid sank into the impressions. The runes he’d carved himself, now smoking into oblivion.

They reached the top of the shaft. Shouldering his bulk against the torrent, Svelok pulled himself back onto the valley floor. With an almighty heave, he dragged Ravenblade up behind him.

The fury of the heavens had been unleashed. Lightning streaked across the angry sky. Rain fell in swathes. Acid swilled across the full width of the valley floor, bubbling and foaming. To the south, there were white-topped waves. Riapax was heading back into the void, and the ocean was reclaiming its own. They were out of time.

Ravenblade’s helm lenses flickered and went dark. Acid must have got into the mechanism.

‘Nearly as... bad as... Fenris,’ he gasped, feeling the tightness in his throat grow.

Svelok dragged Ravenblade to his feet, pulling the Rune Priest’s arm over his shoulder. Despite his wounds, he was still a furnace of energy and determination. For the first time, Ravenblade began to see his true value to the pack. He was everything a Son of Russ should be.

‘Nearly as,’ Svelok agreed grimly, dragging them both to higher ground. They reached a flat-topped outcrop, jutting from the rising acid around them. It wouldn’t last long. Even now the liquid at its foot was knee-deep. It would soon be waist-deep.

The two of them clambered onto the rock shelf. Ravenblade collapsed against the stone, his breath ragged. Far above them, thunder rolled across the valley. The torrent surged by, washing against the edges of their little island.

Svelok bent over Ravenblade, trying to shield the stricken Rune Priest from the downpour.

‘Hold on, prophet,’ he said, then corrected himself. ‘Brother. We’re not dead yet.’

The Wolf Guard hid his emotions poorly. Ravenblade could sense the full range of frustration and regret. They were far from the pick-up location. Better to prepare for the end, to meet the Allfather with honour. Battle-rage had its place, but not now.

As for himself, he could no longer feel anything in his limbs. His torso was lost in a dull ache, the nerve-endings burned away. A task had been achieved on Gath Rimmon, even if it wasn’t the one he’d expected.

‘They were blank,’ coughed Ravenblade, tasting the blood in his mouth.

‘What were?’ Svelok’s voice was no longer coloured with suspicion. Two battle-brothers had gone. Two pack-members. The bond between them was severed. Now a third strand would be cut.

The roar above them got louder. It wasn’t just thunder. There were lights in the clouds, and the whine of engines.

‘The runes,’ said Ravenblade. He saw the huge shadow of a Thunderhawk descend from above, searchlights whirling. That was good. Svelok would live to tell the saga.

‘Don’t speak, brother.’

The pain went. The Allfather had granted him that, at least.

‘I will speak,’ Ravenblade croaked, letting the last of the air in his lungs bleed away. ‘You must learn from this, Wolf Guard. We were part of a greater pattern here. There is always a pattern.’

His vision faded to black.

‘Your fury gives you strength, but it is fate that guides you. Remember it.’

The dark wolf gave him a final, mournful look, then loped into the shadows. Ravenblade was truly alone then, just as he had been before taking the Canis Helix.

‘Even across so much time and space,’ he rasped, feeling Morkai steal upon him. ‘The runes never lie.’

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2011 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Hardy Fowler

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