THE THIRTEENTH WOLF    
Gav Thorpe	 

	Aboard the Stormbird Clawrend, the Old Guard of the Thirteenth Great Company shared a poignant silence. The growl of plasma jets and wind from the thickening atmosphere shook the hull around them. Bulveye stared at each of his veterans in turn, and met their gazes with his own knowing look.
	They were armoured in bulky war-plate of storm-grey, gilded and silvered, decked with trophies, medallions and honours. Necklaces of alien fangs and bones hung about their gorgets, and their arms were bound with iron torqs. Tatters of parchment – oaths of moment and honours from the Allfather Himself – marked them as heroes of a hundred wars.
	Each had been a grown man when the Imperium had rediscovered Fenris. Too old, they said. Too old to benefit from Great Russ’ gene-seed. Too old for the transformations.
	‘Too tough to die, too stubborn to give up, eh?’ Bulveye grinned toothily. ‘We proved them wrong...’
	Halvdan, his single eye shadowed in the light of the troop compartment, asked a question of the Old Wolf. ‘Will we offer terms to Magnus?’
	Bulveye shook his head.
	‘I asked that same question of the Wolf King himself. There is no chance of reconciliation. The sorceries of the Thousand Sons must be extinguished.’
	Halvdan offered no argument. Ranulf nodded sombrely.
	‘We are the Vlka Fenryka, brothers,’ Bulveye continued. ‘The Space Wolves, the Rout. We have come as the Allfather’s executioners, with a single purpose – to destroy a world, to annihilate its people and render its civilisation down to ashes. Prospero, home to the Thousand Sons, Legion of Magnus the Red, the Crimson King. Traitorous lord of a corrupt world. We are righteousness, and that cannot be held at bay.’
	Jurgen let out a short laugh. ‘Yet the power of Magnus protects his capital. Mass drivers and magma bombs have burned all the rest of Prospero, but Tizca still stands.’
	The others cursed their foes’ sorcerous ways, but Bulveye silenced them with a stern glare. ‘A Legion destroying another is a humbling matter,’ he reminded them. ‘We should take no joy from the destruction of our brothers. Be brutal and efficient, the Wolf King said, but do not glory in the fall of Magnus and his sons.’ He paused. A broad, toothy grin split his features. ‘But show no mercy either! The other Great Companies are already on the ground. We will have some catching up to do...’
	The hull started to rattle with the detonation of anti-aircraft fire, and the rush of wind grew louder and louder as the gunship descended.
	With a change of inertia that would have broken the spines of lesser men, the Stormbird fired its landing thrusters, forcing the Old Guard into their harnesses. Bulveye stroked the sealskin-bound haft of his single-bladed power axe, Eldingverfall – the storm’s strike.
	They landed, the gear hydraulics shrieking below them and the hull shuddering from the impact. Bulveye stood, hitting the activator for the assault ramp.
	The brightness and all-consuming roar of battle swept into the gunship. Bulveye lifted Eldingverfall, catching the ruddy light on its rune-etched blade, and raised his voice over the din. ‘Did you not think we would get our hands bloody today?’
	The fire of countless explosions reflected from the crystal pyramids of the city, the skies lit with pulses of red and blue and orange from incendiary shells, las and plasma. 
	Regiments of scarlet-clad Prosperine Spireguard flowed down the roads and broad steps towards the Space Wolves. The defenders’ tanks and walkers followed, laying down a curtain of fire to meet the grey-armoured mass of legionaries surging through the capital.
	Crystal shards and molten metal rained as Bulveye of the Thirteenth led his company through the maze of streets and cloisters. The towering structures of the Syrianus Precincts were one of several anchors for the enemy’s defence of the inner city, and Russ had tasked Bulveye and his warriors with overpowering the Thousands Sons’ flank.
	Now the precincts burned beneath the fury of the Rout.
	Las-fire from the Spireguard sparked azure beams along colonnaded roads and scoured down from balconies and windows, and a tempest of bolt-rounds snarled and cracked in reply. Dreadnoughts covered the advance of the Thirteenth, their autocannons and heavy bolters raking swathes of destruction through the defenders of Tizca. Bolstered by their presence, Bulveye and his warriors pushed further into the city of the Thousand Sons.
	‘Give no thought to retreat,’ the Old Wolf snarled. ‘We leave this place with our names recited in the rolls of victory, or in the laments of the lost. The Allfather has called on us, his wolf pack, again, and we will see His enemies torn apart to the last remnant. Give no quarter, for we can expect none in return.’
	It was not only physical forces and dimensions that broke the landscape. The pyramids and obelisks of Tizca gleamed with another power that distorted the heavens like a coruscating heat haze. Crimson lightning lashed down from the highest summits of glass and white metal, leaving shattered ceramite and fused flesh where they struck.
	Purple fire rained from tortured storm clouds that swirled about the pyramids, each burning droplet hissing as it smouldered through armour and seared into flesh. Plasma blasts and cannon fire screeched harmlessly from glimmering shields of unnatural power.
	Bulveye felt the psychic field prickling his skin even though clad head-to-foot in power armour, its ceramite plates no barrier to the otherworldly energies manipulated by the deviant Thousand Sons. Waves of sorcery, like a hot wind inside his flesh, were emanating from the cluster of domes and ziggurats towards which the Thirteenth Company advanced.
	Another psychic storm swept across Bulveye’s warriors, lacerating battleplate with its touch, churning exposed flesh down to the bone.
	Not one shout of pain or protest rose from the throats of the Space Wolves as they fell. Instead they roared their defiance of the Thousand Sons’ arcane powers and spat oaths of vengeance upon the traitors of Prospero.
	The Old Wolf pointed his axe at the tallest pyramid of the precincts, the temple-library’s glassy sides cracked and broken by artillery and tank shells that had penetrated the psychic force fields by weight of fire alone. Dark smoke issued from the many rents upon its reflective surface. Through the fume he could see a flickering corona as uncanny energies leaked from the pinnacle.
	‘I’ll raise a feast of honour to the wolf-brother that slays the sorcerer within,’ he promised.
	It was Ranulf that answered first, over the vox. ‘Ahh, my name shall be toasted that night!’
	This was met by a chorus of good-natured jeers from the others. Jurgen in particular laughed loud and long.
	‘And the Allfather Himself would come to pay His respects, no doubt!’ he jested. ‘But I’ll wager it is our own cyclops that strikes the final blow. As Russ will fell the one-eyed Crimson King, so Halvdan Bale-eye will chop down this upstart of a sorcerer. One eye for one eye. It is only fair.’
	But Halvdan said nothing, perhaps expecting a punch-line jibe that did not come. The vox fell quiet, leaving only the roar of guns and pounding of armoured feet.
	They were ancient fighters – hearthlords of Russ from before the coming of the Imperium, bound by a camaraderie longer than any normal lifetime. They were the heart of the Thirteenth Great Company, as well as the tip of its blade.
	As they advanced, they passed other groups of VI Legion warriors. Bulveye recognised the quick-eyed Asmund amongst them, surveying the path ahead.
	‘Beware the sorceries of Magnus’ brood,’ Asmund urged him. The words might have seemed redundant, but he continued with a more precise warning. ‘This whole city is steeped in the power of the wyrd, Old Wolf. Illusion is a weapon as powerful as any bolt or blast.’
	‘So, we can trust nothing we see or hear, Rune Priest?’
	‘You can trust my words, and the strength of Russ!’
	The Space Wolves fired on the move, leaving the streets carpeted with hundreds of red-coated corpses as they pushed hard into the outer reaches of the precincts. Stormbirds and Thunderhawks scoured the broad avenues and plaza with battlecannon and lascannon fire. Bulveye and his company advanced past smouldering wrecks of fighting vehicles and armoured walkers.
	Though progress was swift, the lord of the Thirteenth Company knew better than to underestimate the task ahead. ‘Stay alert,’ he urged them. ‘Magnus’ warriors have yet to show themselves. Know that when their fury comes it will be fierce, and we must ride the storm together. Listen to my command. Fight as one.’
	‘There is not a son of Prospero yet born to match the Rout,’ Halvdan’s reply growled across the vox-link, ‘even if there are any brave enough left amongst them to dare face us.’
	‘Not if they were the Ten Thousand Sons would they casually confront the Bale-eye. Not if they have the wisdom they claim so proudly.’
	Jurgen was without mirth for a change. ‘The ravens feed on those that fall to the guns of cowards just the same.’
	Hard fighting delivered the Old Guard of the Thirteenth onto the steps of the inner sanctum, the last two hundred metres fought through a bloody melee. Like phalangites of ancient Terran history, Spireguard with melta-pikes formed lines sixteen deep across the streets leading to the library-temple, the tips of their weapons glowing like heated brands.
	Where they struck the plate of the charging Space Wolves, the long spears erupted with intense blasts of energy, piercing armour and snapping thickened bone.
	The Rune Priest Asmund called out to Bulveye once more. ‘These foes are real enough, Old Wolf, but the temple-pyramid burns with malefic power. The enemy that lies within is strong in the ways of the Broken Path. He shields himself and his followers from my gaze with a curtain of beguiling gold.’
	The sons of Russ hacked at their foes. Bulveye stepped into the breach of the phalanx, his plasma pistol annihilating the body of a Prosperine defender.
	‘Press on! The skald’s scorn on the hindmost!’
	The press of bodies was thick, but such was the strength and bulk of the Space Marines that even the backswing of a weapon would crush a man’s skull, and they trampled over their close-packed foes like a stampede of wild beasts. Though some fell to the melta-pikes, such gaps were quickly filled with more eager warriors, cutting down all in reach so that not a foe was left to strike at them from behind.
	Ranulf was the first to break through and ascend the steps, others following swiftly towards the main doors of the pyramid. The great gate was flanked with tall statues of Magnus: cyclopean guards with arms crossed over their chests, a rod in one hand and a curved khopesh blade in the other.
	‘Still they do not show themselves!’ Ranulf bellowed in frustration.
	The ground started to shake, vibrating as if to the footstep of some impossibly vast beast. Cracks ran down the steps, parting the stone to swallow legionaries and Spireguard alike, hellfire glowing from the depths as though they were fractures into the abyss itself.
	The entrance to the pyramid yawned wide, its two great doors swung outwards with a crack like thunder and a flare of white light. From the unnatural brightness emerged a column of Space Marines armoured in plate of dark red, edged with gold and silver.
	Bolter fire raked down the steps, the rapid crack-and-boom of propellant and detonations in perfect time to the step of the Thousand Sons legionaries. The fusillade struck attacker and Spireguard without favour, pranging from the armour of the former, tearing apart the latter. So precise and ruthless was the counter-attack that Bulveye had thought at first that automatons assailed his warriors. He saw also in that moment that to pause in the slightest would be disaster. If the Thousand Sons were to sweep the Space Wolves from the threshold of their citadel, they might well drive them out of the precincts entirely.
	Into the teeth of the snarling fire raced the Wolf Lord, a shot from his plasma pistol vaporising the head of an advancing legionary of Prospero. ‘Into the storm! We are the thunder of Fenris! We are the Allfather’s lightning!’
	He raced up the steps three at a time to come alongside Ranulf and the others that had been caught in the open. Ranulf’s left arm was clenched across his chest, blood on his hip and breastplate. The rest of the Old Guard poured onwards, ignoring the torrent of bolts, heedless of their foe’s wrath as they returned it in kind.
	Ranulf waved away Bulveye’s proffered hand of assistance. He grunted as he stood up.
	‘It is nothing, Old Wolf. I can still fight.’
	‘I did not say otherwise, brother,’ Bulveye replied. ‘Lead the assault!’
	The gap swiftly closed, the Thousand Sons soon abandoning bolters for gleaming halberds and bayonets against the chainswords and power axes of the Space Wolves.
	Through the fighting Bulveye spied a figure with a coat of dark blue over his armour, its thick cloth stitched with many archaic sigils and devices. Several hooded acolytes stood around the sorcerer, lightning and fire spraying from their out-thrust hands.
	‘There he is, the witch-warrior!’
	Redoubling his efforts, Bulveye hewed down one enemy legionary after another, shouldering his way past his own warriors in his eagerness to bring the fight to the psyker. Yet he was still more than twenty metres from the grand entrance when the sorcerer turned and retreated across the threshold, disappearing into the bright light within.
	The Old Guard formed up around their lord and, like the tip of a spear, they punched through the Thousand Sons, trusting to the rest of the company to guard their backs as they surged up the steps again, ignoring the flicker of incendiary bolts that followed them. Beyond the doors, all was shimmering gleam and wisps of flame-like streamers of fog.
	There was no time for a subtle strategy. The precincts had to fall. Bulveye plunged into the shifting light with a last roared command.
	‘With me! We sheathe our claws in the heart of the foe!’
	The noise of the fighting seemed distant and dulled inside the arched hallway of the library. There was no ceiling, the walls simply came together in a huge vault some twenty metres above Bulveye, Ranulf and the handful of warriors with them.
	The air thrummed with ambient power, a low hum that occasionally rose or fell in pitch, as though from a faltering generator. The light that suffused everything was similarly inconsistent, not so much flickering as dimming and brightening unexpectedly.
	Eight arches led away from the central nave-like chamber. Directly ahead, opposite the great doors, three huge winding stairways disappeared into the upper floors. Between them, Bulveye could see gateways leading into a cloister, lit by explosions that continued to fall upon the upper levels of the pyramid.
	Halvdan came up beside the Wolf Lord. ‘They went ahead. I can smell them.’
	It was true. A trail of incense-like fragrance marked the sorcerer’s exit between the stairwells. Bulveye felt a detonation not so far above them as it shook the walls, and pale dust and plaster flakes fell onto the grey armour of his warriors.
	‘Only a fool would go higher into a storm of shells,’ he growled, scanning the corners of the room. ‘They must have some exit or bolthole on this level.’
	Boots clattered on the tiles behind as more wolf-brothers burst into the library. Bulveye glanced past them but could see little outside – the light seemed blinding from both sides of the threshold. Jurgen led the next group swiftly after the first.
	‘They scatter like leaves in the long winter. Krodus is sweeping them up.’
	Bulveye spied two more of his lieutenants among those that had entered. ‘Redclaw, clear two floors above. Hroldir, I want squads scouring these corridors. Everyone else – kill anything you meet.’
	The Space Wolves company parted in several directions – three squads sprinted up the stairs, while others fanned out into the surrounding galleries and passages. Shouts and death cries rang back. Bulveye pressed on with his Old Guard, smashing down a silvered gate with one blow from his axe.
	Stepping over the twisted metal, he found himself in a courtyard nearly a hundred metres long. The walls on each side were sheer, rising up to a small rectangle of clouded sky far above, unmarked by window or slit. The ground was covered with stones, each a perfect sphere about three centimetres in diameter, of quartz and amethyst, garnet and andulasite. They had been artfully arranged in swirling patterns, pathways of tiled black between them.
	The footsteps of the sorcerer and his acolytes had left a wake of disturbed stones directly across the meditation garden. Rough breaks in the harmonious geometries jarred Bulveye’s nerves as he followed their course towards another gate at the far end of the cloister. Ornate pebbles crunched underfoot, some turning to powder, as they followed the trail.
	The vox chimed in his ear.
	‘Old Wolf, this is Geigor.’
	He recognised the voice of Geigor Fellhand, the honoured Wolf Guard charged with command of the Blooded Claws. The veteran warrior did not wait for any acknowledgement.
	‘We have encountered unusual portals throughout the city. The Thousand Sons have been using them as a transportation system, some kind of localised teleport network.’
	Jurgen sniffed. ‘That explains our prey’s intent. He scurries for a rat-tunnel.’
	‘Aye,’ Bulveye muttered, then spoke back into the open vox-channel. ‘We are pursuing one of their warlocks, he might be heading for just such a portal.’
	‘Then catch him before he reaches it. If your foe eludes you, hold position for the Sisters of Silence. These are not mortal technologies.’
	‘None stay the hand of the Thirteenth – not even you, my hearth-brother. Russ himself tasked me with this duty, and only the abyss itself will come between us and victory.’
	‘The portals are dangerous. If the Allfather had wanted to hurl someone mindlessly at the enemy, then He would have sent Angron. This is no saga of old, Bulveye!’
	‘This is the greatest saga of our age, Geigor! But if you wish your name to be spoken softly in the telling, then that is your choice. Not for the Old Guard! These portals may be dangerous, but our foes are the greater threat.’
	Bulveye cut the link and broke into a run.
	‘For all that, let us hope to catch this slippery eel before he bolts,’ he called back over his shoulder. He barged the next gate, his warriors close at his heel.
	Crashing into the chamber beyond, he was met by billowing jets of flame. As promethium lapped at his armour he twisted and rolled sideways to avoid the worst of it. Behind him, Dannet was not so swift – he thrashed past his Wolf Lord, bathed waist-to-throat in blue fire.
	Halvdan entered a second later, his bolter barking fiercely as he laid a salvo of shots into the flamer-wielding Thousand Sons legionary who had been lying in wait. More traitors opened fire, scything bolts and autocannon shells into the enraged Space Wolves spilling into the great hall.
	From the cover of a thick stone pillar, with bolt shrapnel and masonry shards rattling against his war-plate, Bulveye peered out to see the sorcerer. He was in front of a large, freestanding gateway a few metres from the back wall of the amphitheatre, made of gleaming metal and white marble, its keystone shining with golden light.
	The robed psyker stood with three acolytes, the corpses of two more at their feet, and a squad of Thousand Sons, trusting to their protection while his hands traced lines of runes set into the portal. Other Thousand Sons were stationed on the descending levels of the amphitheatre, and fired up at the Space Wolves. Bulveye stepped out, returning fire with his pistol.
	‘Surrender to your fate, witch-kin!’ he howled. An acolyte stumbled backwards, robes on fire, his chest turned to molten pulp. ‘The Emperor’s Wolves will never give up the chase! Spare yourself the torment of hope!’
	The sorcerer turned at the challenge. He wore no helm, his gaunt face framed by a shock of black hair and a broad collar that rose up from the gorget of his armour. His eyes were pits of blackness, his features contorted in an expression of such rage that it startled Bulveye.
	‘Murderer!’ the sorcerer spat, pointing at the corpses of his disciples, and then waved a hand towards the cracked dome of the amphitheatre. ‘Despoiler of dreams! Slaughterer of innocents!’
	‘The Allfather has called justice for your crimes! No plea will be heard! Your transgressions cannot be forgiven!’
	The sorcerer was incredulous. ‘You would cast us as villains? I am Izzakar Orr, devotee of Magnus, master of the hundred paths. I have freed more humans from the blighted ignorance of Old Night than all of your barbarous horde – and this library alone contains more knowledge, more power to shape the destiny of mankind, than all the dank mead halls of Fenris. You massacre our people, raze our cities, destroy thousands of years of knowledge... and then dare to think that you are the heroes?’
	Squads of Space Wolves descended the steps, Halvdan at the fore. The Thousand Sons gave ground slowly, collapsing in rings towards their commander, demanding a toll of dead and wounded from the sons of Fenris even as they were slain.
	With a wordless snarl, Izzakar Orr thrust a hand towards the portal. The metal melted away to reveal a crystalline gate, the shimmering liquid gold flowing to create a rippling screen across the gap beneath the arch. Then he moved his hands in an arcane gesture, and the apparition of a many-headed dragon coalesced in the air around him. Orr threw his hands out towards the Space Wolves and the dragon burst into life; a flaming, roaring beast of myth that left trails of silver sparks as it snapped out its broad wings and soared in an arc to pass through the warriors of Leman Russ.
	Armour split and shattered at the touch of the monstrous spell, sweeping Space Wolves from their feet, gouts of blinding fire issuing from the beast’s open maw.
	The Wolf Lord flinched as the massive creature roared in his direction, Eldingverfall and plasma pistol raised defiantly but useless against the psychic attack. The creature shimmered as it coiled towards Bulveye, its immaterial form breaking into thousands of particles before it reached him.
	As the fog of the illusion dissipated, he saw that his warriors were unharmed, the dragon nothing more than a glamour. His eyes snapped to the dais at the bottom of the auditorium. The portal was still active, but of the sorcerer and his followers all that remained were faint shadows on the golden field, as though cast from the other side of a curtain.
	A faint heat came off the open portal, registering as little more than background radiation across the systems of Bulveye’s war-plate. He reached out a hand to the shimmering gold surface, but stopped just short of touching it.
	Ranulf laid a hand on his arm and pulled it down. ‘It’s a trap. Why else would they leave it open? They are waiting on the other side, or they’ve redialled the coordinates to the middle of a plasma reactor.’ He eyed the portal warily. ‘Or something. We all heard Geigor’s warning.’
	The snap of the vox stopped Bulveye replying immediately.
	‘We’ve found another of the gateways, Old Wolf,’ reported Packmaster Hroldir, quietly and urgently. ‘Two more. I sent Bavdir up. There seems to be one of the portals on every other level.’
	Bulveye turned his gaze to the others standing just behind. The Space Wolves had secured the auditorium and the cloister outside. His warriors had seized most of the library, and squads were moving to secure the surrounding buildings.
	‘Are they open?’
	‘They seem active, yes.’
	He looked at Ranulf. ‘They cannot be waiting in ambush behind every one of them, can they?’
	The Old Wolf switched his vox to company address.
	‘We treat this as unknown land. Recon in force, double-squads at all times. Vox-checks on the five-minute marks.’ As affirmatives crackled back across the link, the Wolf Lord returned his attention to the shimmering portal. ‘We’ll hunt this mystic down soon enough...’
	He moved to take a pace, but was baulked by Halvdan stepping in front.
	‘You’ll not be going first, Old Wolf. Not this time.’
	Bulveye knew he could order Halvdan to stand aside. He also knew that there was every chance the warrior would refuse, and that would leave them in an awkward position. Instead he waved Eldingverfall at the portal.
	‘What are you waiting for? A signed invitation?’
	With a shake of his head, Halvdan turned and stepped towards the golden field. It rippled like water as first his hand, and then his arm, and then the whole warrior passed through. Ranulf went next, swallowed quickly, a vague pulse of light and then darkness dappling the surface of the teleporter field.
	Jurgen stood at the threshold. He gave a slight bow.
	‘I am not proud,’ he said with a grin. ‘After you, Old Wolf.’
	With a nod, plasma pistol and axe at the ready, Bulveye strode into the waiting auric gleam.
	Halvdan was at one of the tall windows, his bolter in one hand, the other flat against the ruby-like crystal. Ranulf had his weapon trained on another portal gate about ten metres directly ahead.
	The quiet was disturbing.
	Bulveye moved away from the portal and looked around. The chamber was square, about thirty metres across. The red-paned windows angled steeply inwards towards the high ceiling. Several of them were marked by thick cracks. Smoke drifted from fires somewhere not far below, the sparks from the flames still bright as they lifted into the sky.
	He could see the summits of other pyramids in the distance and, as he moved closer, Bulveye looked down at the pillars and roofs of the surrounding precincts.
	Halvdan approached him. ‘We must be nearly at the pinnacle,’ he said.
	More Space Wolves entered with a clatter of boots and whine of powered plate. The vox crackled into life and Bulveye felt a moment of relief at hearing Hroldir’s voice, in spite of the poor quality of the signal.
	‘...some kind of basement... Squads reporting in from several locations... Two have moved out of auspex range…’
	Bulveye stalked around the crystal-windowed chamber until he could see towards the centre of Tizca. The fury of battle raged still, blossoms of explosions and gunship contrails marked the progress of the invasion.
	‘The greatest campaign of our time and we stand here, watching from afar...’ Halvdan murmured.
	Bulveye growled at the thought and stomped towards the other gateway.
	‘Not for long. The traitors must have passed through the next portal. They cannot have got far. All squads, continue the sweep. Hunt down Magnus’ dogs wherever they try to hide.’
	The next portal jump took them to another chamber within the Syrianus Library, one entire wall and a corner of the floor and ceiling blown out by the bombardment. A stench like burning rubber and charred flesh gusted through the breach.
	Past the broken stone and shattered crystal, Bulveye saw Space Wolves through the windows of one of the neighbouring ziggurats. Then he watched them flicker out of sight through another gateway. He activated the vox.
	‘Any sign of the sorcerer?’ he asked.
	There was no reply. Only the hiss of static.
	‘Hroldir? Jorllon?’
	Ranulf checked the connection. ‘They must be out of personal vox range. The other portals are some form of swift transit system across the city. We seem to be stuck on an internal loop, within this one spire.’
	‘Ha! A glorified elevator?’ Jurgen laughed. ‘All of that concern for a sorcerer’s lift?’
	There were two other gateways in the hall, as well as several conventional exits.
	With a pulse of light, one of the portals flared into life. Bulveye and his wolf-brothers reacted as one, turning their weapons quickly as dark shapes emerged from the gold.
	‘Hold fire!’ he bellowed, relieved.
	Hroldir and his pack looked around in confusion as they stepped forwards.
	‘By the Allfather’s hairy...’ The packmaster’s curse tailed off as his gaze fell to the Old Wolf. ‘We were... I don’t know. Another tower on the east side of the city.’
	Ranulf shook his head. ‘I’m not sure we’re making progress, here. Perhaps the Thousand Sons are changing the pathways when they move.’
	Bulveye gestured over his shoulder to the portal through which they had first arrived.
	‘We’ll all retrace our steps,’ he decided. ‘Hroldir, you head back and we’ll go this way. Signal me when you–’
	Other portals flared. More Space Wolves were arriving from several directions, quickly filling the hall with armoured warriors. Some of them had not been with Bulveye, coming from the groups he had sent to secure other parts of the precincts. All were in a state of some bafflement and disorganisation.
	‘This won’t do...’ Bulveye muttered, opening the vox-channel again. ‘Everyone, hold position! Do not move unless by my direct command.’
	At a nod from his commander, Hroldir and his squad started back through the portal that had brought them. Bulveye waved his axe at his Old Guard.
	‘Follow me. Don’t let your guard down – the Thousand Sons could have circled behind us.’
	With a last glance around the hall, he stepped back through the gateway. Golden energy slicked like liquid over his armour, crawling like tendrils along his arms and legs…
	The harsh light of twin stars blinded the Wolf Lord for a moment, until his auto-senses flicked in a filter that cast a greenish sheen across everything. He nearly stumbled as he stepped off the gateway plinth and his foot sank into something soft.
	All about, for many kilometres, were undulating desert dunes.
	Bulveye staggered away from the portal, wading into a drift of dusty sand as the others followed him through. In the distance he saw dark towers. Multicoloured beams scoured the skies like searchlights, casting strange shadows on the clouds and sand.
	Jurgen scanned the horizon in disbelief. ‘I don’t think we’re in Tizca any more,’ he growled.
	Bulveye examined the portal gate. It was carved from sandstone, though laced with a crystalline structure like the others. ‘We passed back through... How are we here?’
	‘Wherever “here” is,’ said Halvdan, kicking at the sand. ‘We can’t just head back in, then. There’s no telling where we’ll end up.’
	Jurgen frowned. A deep trail carved in the sand circled behind the portal where he stood. ‘Perhaps... Perhaps if we enter from the other direction?’
	It had not occurred to Bulveye that the portal might have two sides. He shrugged. ‘It’s worth a try.’
	He waited a few more seconds, until his Old Guard had all come through. They stared at the impossible vista, though none said a word.
	‘Jurgen, you go first this time.’
	Ranulf extended his hand. ‘And hold my wrist. I’ll pull you back through.’
	Jurgen said nothing, and hauled himself up to the dais. He helped Ranulf after him, and they gripped each other’s arms. Jurgen backed into the portal, all but his vambrace and gauntlet disappearing into the semi-solid gold mist.
	Suddenly, a warning chime sounded in Bulveye’s ear as Jurgen’s signal disappeared from the tactical feed.
	‘Ranulf!’ he roared. ‘Bring him back!’
	Ranulf pulled, but for all his strength he could not haul Jurgen back onto the dais. Golden light lapped at the disembodied forearm, holding him fast like a mire.
	Eirik stepped up to help, and between them they both heaved, feet braced hard against the plinth. Jurgen’s chest and head emerged with a sudden, fizzing lurch, and the trapped warrior bellowed in pain.
	Bulveye leapt up, gripping Ranulf by the shoulders to lend his own weight. ‘Do not lose him!’
	With a flare the portal relinquished its hold and the handful of legionaries crashed down onto the plinth. Jurgen rolled left and right, one arm clasped to the other, snarling and growling.
	‘By the Allfather,’ he grunted. ‘You nearly pulled my arm off, you kraken-chewed halfwits!’ He surged to his feet and kicked at the portal arch, though his armoured boot left no mark on its surface. ‘Damn these gates!’
	Bulveye picked himself up. ‘Where did it lead?’
	Jurgen’s strained laughter was more in relief than humour.
	‘Back to the city. Not sure where, but it’s in Tizca. Outside.’
	They turned to see Halvdan pointing towards the towers in the distance behind them, squinting with his single eye. ‘Brothers – what are they?’
	A flock of winged shapes rose up from between the black spires. Though the flat perspective of the desert and the featureless edifices of the city made it hard to judge distance and scale, each creature seemed to be at least the size of a Thunderhawk, some much bigger.
	Halvdan let his gauntlet fall. ‘Are they...’
	‘Dragons,’ murmured Ranulf. ‘They look like dragons.’
	The Space Wolves formed up around the portal, their weapons directed at the incoming beasts. Bulveye edged back onto the dais. ‘Not our fight,’ he murmured.
	He cocked a glance at Jurgen.
	‘Back to Tizca, you say?’
	Jurgen nodded. ‘Explosions and all, Old Wolf.’
	‘Then we go back now. Rapid deployment.’
	It was definitely a plaza somewhere at ground level. Glass and polished steel soared up around Bulveye as he emerged from the gateway. The flicker of plasma jets crossed the darkening skies and the thump of artillery pounded out a regular rhythm. 
	A lascannon blast missed the Old Wolf by only a few centimetres. He threw himself behind the plinth of the gate, plasma pistol readied.
	More than thirty traitors were positioned around the plaza, weapons trained on the gate. Bolts and plasma screamed from every angle as more wolf-brothers appeared through the arch.
	‘Breakout, on me!’ Bulveye ordered, rising from cover and breaking into a sprint, trusting to his men to follow. He ignored the bolts chipping ceramite from his plate, focusing on a red-armoured warrior a dozen metres ahead using a faceted, abstract crystal statue as a rest for his bolter. The Old Wolf levelled his plasma pistol and fired on the move. The shot seared through the figurine to slam into the legionary’s torso.
	The wounded warrior started to rise, in time for Bulveye’s axe to meet the side of his head. Wrenching the gleaming weapon free, the Old Wolf set upon another enemy, carving a deep furrow through his breastplate.
	‘We cannot remain here, brothers! We will be trapped!’
	Jurgen caught up with him, howling with fury, his chainsword turning the faceplate of a third Thousand Sons legionary to ceramite shards and blood. Halvdan was there a second later, grappling a son of Magnus to the ground, trying to wrest away his plasma gun.
	‘The Bale-eye is upon you, traitor!’ he roared, spittle flying from his fangs.
	Pausing for a moment to lever Eldingverfall from the breastbone of a felled enemy, Bulveye saw that the portal he had come through was just one of four, arranged not quite at right angles to each other, about fifty metres apart. The Thousand Sons, their ambush sprung but unsuccessful, retreated through one of the other gates, parting with a few last volleys of bolt-rounds and autocannon shells.
	Bulveye saw a trio of his warriors making after the vanishing foes.
	‘Wait! Hold ground until we have our strength of numbers!’
	No sooner had he spoken than one of the other portals sprang into life, ejecting several figures burning head to foot. Agonised shrieks filled the air as they stumbled away in trails of flame.
	More staggered after them, their scarred grey armour marking them out as sons of Fenris from the Thirteenth Company.
	Bulveye and the others rushed over to help them, weapons at the ready in case their attackers followed. Aghast, he recognised Hroldir among the wounded. He lowered the packmaster to the ground.
	‘What happened? Who did this to you?’ he asked.
	‘We did...’ Hroldir gasped. His visor was broken, charred flesh exposed down to the bone on his right cheek. ‘Damned portals... Took us... to one of the cities... unnnh... being bombarded. Rad-bombs and plasma... unnh... plasma flares...’
	A shadow fell over them, and Bulveye looked up to find Halvdan close by.
	‘The sorcerer was with them,’ the warrior said, grimly. ‘I saw him go through the portal before the rest.’
	‘You are sure?’
	‘By my good eye, I’m sure! That–’
	Ranulf interrupted. ‘Heavy signals converging on this position, Old Wolf. Air and vehicles. Dozens of them.’
	‘The defenders were bait,’ Halvdan growled. ‘They must have been.’
	‘They’ve signalled for reinforcements on our position,’ Bulveye guessed. It was all beginning to fall into place.
	Ranulf gestured to the dead warriors that had come through with Hroldir. ‘We cannot just keep chasing after the traitors. We’re back in Tizca. Let us be grateful for that and reform with the rest of the company.’
	‘It’s not just the traitors,’ said Jurgen. ‘Our wolf-brothers are out there too. Who knows where these accursed portals have taken them...’
	Bulveye glanced at his tactical display.
	‘The enemy will be on us in no time. Hroldir, can you get into those ruins opposite? Overwatch on the portals, create a rally point for any more of ours that come through.’
	Hroldir struggled to his feet, aided by one of his pack-brothers. He patted the melta charges at his belt and pointed to the heavy weapons of the squads that had made it through with him.
	‘We’ll hold the ground, Old Wolf.’
	‘Then we will go after the sorcerer, and see who else we can gather while we’re at it.’
	Bulveye checked the energy cell of his plasma pistol. Half-charge left. He nodded towards the fallen Space Wolves.
	‘I don’t know how long it will be until we get back to the city. Take what we need from them, brothers – the dead have no more use for weapons and ammunition.’
	The Old Guard stripped the bodies in silence. Bulveye felt Ranulf staring at him.
	‘What do you want?’ he muttered.
	‘This is a mistake, Old Wolf. If we go back into that nightmare then we will not return.’
	‘Are you refusing to follow me?’
	Ranulf looked at the portals, and then back to Bulveye. ‘Are you ordering me to come?’
	‘With the Allfather as my witness, you can be sure I am.’
	‘Then I am not refusing, Old Wolf... but on your honour lies it.’
	Bulveye shook his head and turned away. Hroldir and his warriors were almost in position. The Old Wolf checked the chrono-display. ‘Seventy seconds,’ he called.
	Then he pointed to the portal through which the sorcerer had apparently escaped again.
	‘Move out!’
	What small hope Bulveye had harboured that the next portal-jump would take him to his prey, or at the least keep them within the limits of Tizca, was dashed the moment he set foot upon the crumbling stone floor.
	The air was thick with dust, and it clung to every surface of his plate. Grit crunched underfoot. Suit lamps burning, he could just about see a rugged cave wall, part of a tunnel receding into the gloom.
	Jurgen blinked, running his fingers along the rock. ‘Under the city, perhaps?’
	The beam of Bulveye’s lamps fell upon a primal-looking painting on the wall, of a three-horned beast being chased by arachnid-looking creatures. ‘I think not. At least, not in the time we left.’
	‘Do we go back?’
	In answer, Bulveye pressed on, ducking into the uneven tunnel. It had clearly been fashioned by cunning hands, though he did not think them human.
	‘We’ll scout out the surrounds,’ he said, ‘and see if there’s another way out.’
	A short exploration revealed that the cave was one of many in an underground network that auspex returns suggested stretched for several kilometres. Ranulf ran a sweep of the perimeter.
	‘Anomalous power sources, Old Wolf. Two more portals. Do we try them all?’
	‘No, we stay together.’ Bulveye looked to the remaining warriors of his Old Guard. What fates had befallen the others he did not know, and he did not want to dwell on such grim musing. ‘No more scattering. We search as one company.’
	They found more crude paintings, but brief study gave no insight into their makers, or whether they held any clue to the operation of the portals. With no other guidance, Bulveye picked the closest to the one by which they had entered.
	And so began a series of increasingly frustrating and nerve-testing leaps into the unknown.
	The first portal brought them back to the caves from another direction, but passing back into that gate transported Bulveye’s company to a broken wasteland of fallen towers and collapsed bridges that were of obvious eldar origin, lit by a trio of dark red moons.
	Things flapped and shrieked across the night skies, circling closer and closer to the lamps of the Space Marines.
	‘Hold your fire,’ Bulveye ordered, wearily. ‘Save your ammunition.’
	The next teleportation took them to an old fortress, its ramparts marked with plasma burns and las-scars, its keep broken open to a storm that howled across a granite-grey sky.
	Another portal, another landscape, this time of near-endless identical and empty ferrocrete cubicles all linked by doorways just high and wide enough for the Space Marines to squeeze through.
	As they investigated yet another identical cell, Jurgen glanced at his chronometer.
	‘Halvdan, how long have we been here?’
	‘Fourteen minutes and twelve seconds.’
	Bulveye frowned. ‘I have thirteen minutes, eighteen seconds.’
	‘And I have fifteen minutes exactly...’ Jurgen added.
	Bulveye paused, watching his wolf-brothers in the next chamber. He had not noticed it before, but they seemed to be moving perceptibly slower. Turning around, he stepped back into the previous cell and watched Jurgen closely. The Space Wolf looked to be moving slightly more quickly, like a vid-review set at half a per cent too fast.
	‘Each chamber is different,’ Bulveye sighed. ‘It’s like they have their own timeframes.’
	Ranulf spat. ‘Then it looks to me that the further we go in, the longer it will take to get out.’
	‘There’s nothing here,’ said Halvdan. ‘If Izzakar Orr came through at all, it might have been hours ago, or years...’
	Bulveye’s patience was ended. ‘I’ve seen enough. Back to the portal.’
	Only then did Ranulf hesitate. ‘Which one is it? They all look the same.’
	They all looked at each other for a few seconds, each waiting for another to offer a solution.
	It was Halvdan that eventually broke the silence.
	‘Smell. Gun oil and plate lubricant. We’ll follow our own trail.’
	At first, Bulveye thought it was the sound of wind chimes. After a few more paces he realised it was the sound of his footsteps. He looked down, and immediately wished he hadn’t.
	But for the feedback of his armour telling him he was standing upon a solid surface, he would have sworn he stood in the gulfs of space over the blazing fire of a sun. Looking around, he could see nothing else. No walls or ceiling. He tentatively reached out a hand but touched nothing. An endless expanse of stars stretched before him.
	The curses and gasps of his wolf-brothers echoed as they arrived through the gateway. Bulveye let out a growl in answer to their questions and exclamations.
	‘Hold, brothers,’ he whispered. ‘Steady yourselves. We’ll just turn around, careful, and head back. Wherever we end up, it cannot be worse than here.’
	The Space Wolves did as commanded, edging back through the portal. Bulveye resisted the urge for one final glance, and quickly plunged into the shimmering gold of the teleportation field.
	He let out a long, steadying breath when he found himself on solid land. Brick, to be precise, with mortared walls and a slightly arched ceiling just a few inches above his head. It stank like a sewer, and thick effluent trickled beneath his boots.
	A clattering echoed up ahead and lights moved from a side tunnel. Ranulf raised his auspex.
	‘War-plate signatures!’ he hissed, dropping into a crouch.
	The Space Wolves silently took up positions as best they could against the brick walls, some kneeling to allow others to fire over their heads and past their shoulders.
	The intruders stopped just out of sight. The vox crackled in Bulveye’s ear.
	‘Valaskjalf.’
	Recognising the countersign, the name of the Thirteenth’s hall in the Fang, Bulveye replied with the name of its first lord.
	‘Vali Thunderbrow.’
	Laughter rang out ahead. ‘Well met, Old Wolf!’
	The warrior that showed himself was Packmaster Vangun. A dozen others crammed into the tunnel after him, exchanging relieved greetings with the rest of the Old Guard. Vangun gestured to the portal.
	‘We came through a while ago, an hour and more. The tunnels lead nowhere, as far as we can tell. We were just heading back.’
	Bulveye noted that there were at least three different squads amongst the men following the packmaster. ‘You’ve been picking up strays?’
	‘A few. We’ve had some run-ins with the Thousand Sons, too.’
	Halvdan bristled. ‘Any sign of that damned sorcerer?’
	‘Once, but we didn’t get close. We lost three in that exchange.’
	Bulveye said nothing as they all returned to the portal together, but Ranulf fell into step beside him.
	‘How many more will we lose, before we are done?’ the warrior asked in a low voice.
	‘This is battle, brother. Casualties happen. We’re committed now. Right or wrong, we have to finish this, or it has been for nothing. We are here to destroy the Thousand Sons. The Wolf King and the Allfather demand nothing less. But I would not have counted you a pessimist before today, Ranulf.’
	‘The wise man’s heart is seldom cheerful, Old Wolf.’
	Beyond the next jump they discovered a dazzling construction of crystal and mirrors. When all were through, assembling in half-packs across a cavernous space of glassy facets and reflective ceilings, Bulveye called the packmasters for conference. When they spoke, their voices echoed back bizarrely, as though from a space even more vast than the one it seemed they occupied.
	‘I see at least three possible routes,’ he said. ‘A short recon, five minutes, and then we reconvene here.’
	He was going to continue when he noticed Jurgen was looking past him, back towards the portal. ‘That bodes ill...’
	Looking back, Bulveye saw that the energy gate had disappeared, leaving only a simple plinth of metal and stone. He could see the angled crystal of the far wall through it. 
	Halvdan stepped behind the gate and waved his arm, perfectly visible the whole time. ‘Perhaps it is a good thing. We have reached the end of the line, the centre of this wretched maze of portals.’
	‘Aye, with nowhere else to run,’ Bulveye replied, his mind set. ‘The plan does not change. We investigate and report back. Three forces.’
	He indicated the largest archway a few dozen metres ahead, and set off with his veterans. Their boots rang loudly on the hard floor, made of glassaic patterns almost black in their darkness, flecked with grey and red.
	Reaching the passageway he found the walls were of a thick, semi-opaque crystalline substance that took no mark even when Bulveye rapped his axe hard against it.
	Halvdan leaned close to peer through. ‘I can see something... distant...’
	‘Like a tower,’ Ranulf agreed, moving beside him. ‘Lots of towers.’
	Jurgen pointed with his bolter. ‘Up there, too.’
	Bulveye looked up and saw that the ceiling was much clearer. But instead of a sky, he saw what looked to be a landscape of walls and keeps, half-seen jagged towers linked by arching bridges in a maddening labyrinth of walkways and alleys, all made of silver, crystal and shadow.
	‘It’s like a castle or something, at the centre...’ Ranulf murmured. He was looking in the opposite direction to Bulveye, but seemed to be describing the same scene. ‘I see towers with thousands of windows.’
	Whichever way he looked, the Old Wolf saw the same view, or near enough. Then he took a few steps and the angle changed dramatically, so that only metres further on it seemed that he stood almost directly over the huge maze, looking down into innumerable mirrored courtyards and cloisters.
	‘It’s almost like–’
	Halvdan interrupted him with a curse. ‘By the Allfather, look!’
	He was pointing to where a transparent tunnel bridged a wide gap not far away. A squad of Space Wolves, their markings unidentifiable, walked overhead – but they seemed to be advancing along the ceiling, and not the floor. Other packs could be glimpsed making their way through the maddening passages, some of them impossibly distant already, or appearing only in fractured inversions.
	The small chamber beyond was one of many, all hexagonal and linked by square arches. As the Old Guard moved onwards the honeycomb continued, the rooms varying in size but not shape; the walls, floor and ceilings mirrored so that reflections of the Space Wolves accompanied them to each side, and above and below.
	Ranulf stopped to look at himself.
	‘Wait. That isn’t right.’
	Bulveye looked at his own image and saw that it was not quite perfect, like a skewed projection from the wrong side of where he was looking. He glimpsed movement behind him and turned sharply, Eldingverfall at the ready.
	There was nothing in the room, but on the edge of his vision he caught other shapes and figures, barely visible in the reflective glass. The wary snarls and growls of the other legionaries indicated that they had noticed it too.
	Even as he watched, Bulveye saw the reflection to his right change. The image distorted, the limbs lengthening while plasma pistol and axe became serrated claws jutting from the beast’s fingers. Pale yellow eyes with slit pupils glared back at the Old Wolf, the entire illusion moving to match him as he stepped back and raised his hand.
	‘Do not be deceived, brothers. These are merely–’
	The mirrors exploded, showering Bulveye and his companions with slashing shards of blood-red crystal. In seconds the chamber was filled with snarling, clawing, howling monstrosities.
	Bulveye’s wulf-self bore him down with the surprise and weight of its charge, claws raking and scrabbling at his chest, saliva-flecked fangs snapping just inches from his faceplate. Falling onto his back, the Old Wolf had his arms pinned, Eldingverfall and pistol useless. A long claw punched through his gorget seal and grazed the clavicle, its edge keen enough to saw through bone.
	With a roar, he kicked himself free of the monster’s grip. All around him the Old Guard battered and wrestled with the wulf-kin, their armour broken, flesh slashed by monstrous facsimiles of themselves. ‘Hold fast, warriors of Fenris!’ he called out. ‘We will not be–’
	The Bulveye-wulf leapt to the attack again, an impossibly strong arm wrapped around the Wolf Lord’s throat as it slipped behind him.
	The retort of a bolter right next to his head startled Bulveye. He felt the weight slip from his back, and staggered around just in time to see Ranulf, his weapon still smoking.
	An instant later another fanged monster leapt on the warrior, a pair of sword-like claws erupting from Ranulf’s chest as he fell, spattering Bulveye with blood. ‘No!’ the Old Wolf cried in anguish, his plasma pistol vaporising the creature’s head and chest, the blast at such close range that heat warnings flashed across his war-plate’s systems.
	Bolters roaring, the Old Guard fought back, but with every stray round, more mirrored walls shattered, and through the breaches clambered fresh waves of wulfen-beasts.
	All sense of command was lost. The vox was a mess of conflicting reports and disjointed shouts from the other squads. Bulveye almost tripped over Ranulf’s corpse as he batted away a clawed hand with the haft of his axe. He reversed his swing and hacked the creature’s head from its body, to reveal another pulling itself through from beyond a splintered wall. Darkness and vague lights swirled beyond the creature.
	‘And so our path is revealed...’ Bulveye murmured.
	He leapt towards the incoming beast, his axe meeting its throat as it jumped into the chamber. Not stopping to check whether it was dead, Bulveye crashed shoulder-first through the remaining crystal, hurling himself out into the half-seen void beyond.
	He fell.
	Above he saw sprinkles of light receding and, silhouetted against the gleam, the figures of his Old Guard following their commander.
	Everything froze.
	For an instant or an eternity, Bulveye looked at the stark plateau of his warriors spilling from the broken citadel of glass, some still entangled with the wulf-kin, falling with him into endless night.
	Light engulfed them, burning brighter and brighter from within the maze-like structure. It became so fierce that Bulveye’s auto-senses had to shut down, plunging him from whiteness to darkness.
	He was completely aware of everything that transpired, and felt the moment exactly when there was solid footing beneath him.
	The darkness slowly lifted to reveal a domed hall, impossibly vast. Around him a battle raged, though silent and motionless for the moment, as though bound in amber: Thousand Sons and Space Wolves were locked in a frozen tableau, with no sign of the wulf-kin or the crystal labyrinth in sight.
	Bulveye could see two portals. They were both active, each a circle of iridescent energy. He recognised smoke-shrouded Tizca beyond the one on the right. Through the other was a long corridor, much like the crystal passage they had just left, though intact.
	‘You are destroying us all,’ came an unwelcome voice.
	He turned and saw Izzakar Orr striding towards him.
	‘Your blundering weakens the fabric of the portalways,’ the sorcerer continued. ‘These are delicately contrived creations. Stop, for all our sakes!’
	Bulveye took a step towards the son of Magnus, his pistol rising a fraction. The sorcerer lifted up empty hands as he walked.
	‘I am unarmed, as you can see.’ Orr walked past Bulveye and several legionaries locked in hand-to-hand combat, until he stood between the two portals. He gestured to the one to Tizca, the image wavering like a visual-feed losing its clarity. ‘Attack me and you’ll never see the real universe again.’
	‘The wolf and the dog do not play together. I do not bargain with the Emperor’s enemies. You–’
	Orr raised a dismissive hand. ‘Silence, you oaf. These portals are exceptionally fine-tuned. Each time you barge through one, you are upsetting a harmonious matrix of forces that took centuries to put into place. Each gateway needs to be calibrated, orientated and verified before and after each translation. It is mostly luck that I was able to get us here, to the stasis heart.’
	Bulveye glowered. ‘What have you done with my warriors?’
	‘These Wolves?’ the sorcerer replied, gesturing towards the frozen scene of battle. ‘They are in temporal paralysis. Momentarily, I will release them, along with my own brothers. We will call a ceasefire, you and I. I will surrender to your custody, and then we will all return to Tizca and escape this awful mess that you have created.’
	‘What of the others? The ones lost in the maze?’
	Letting his gaze fall, Orr hesitated. ‘I... I cannot vouch for their continued survival. What they have done threatens the fabric of Prospero itself, and other worlds besides. The labyrinth will purge them eventually, when we have restored some semblance of control.’
	‘Purge them?’
	Orr nodded. ‘Like an organism expunging a foreign body,’ he said, trying to remove any trace of emotion from the words.
	Still wary, the Old Wolf grunted. He considered that prospect for a moment, then straightened. ‘You willingly surrender?’
	‘It seems to be the only way that any of us will get back to Prospero alive.’
	Bulveye grunted again, then cocked his plasma pistol.
	‘No. The Wolf King was very clear. I cannot accept your surrender.’
	He fired. The plasma blast ripped open Orr’s chest, flinging broken war-plate and charred flesh.
	Like a pressure seal bursting, time reasserted itself – with a thunderclap shock, the turmoil and clamour of battle engulfed Bulveye. Bolts and missiles screamed past, the snarls of the Space Wolves and battle cries of the Thousand Sons filling the immense chamber.
	The Old Wolf spun towards the Tizca portal. Silvered spires were still plainly visible through the arch. With a Wolf Lord suddenly in their midst, the Thousand Sons were thrown into disarray, and Bulveye hewed the legs from under a retreating traitor.
	A ragged whisper drew his attention to where Izzakar Orr crawled closer.
	‘Fool... You have... doomed... us... all...’
	‘My brothers are still lost, and yours at large. We will not rest until all have been found.’
	Orr summoned enough strength to spit blood at Bulveye’s feet. ‘Error... carries away... the unteachable...’
	The Old Wolf smiled cruelly, readying his axe. ‘A gift should be repaid in kind,’ he growled.
	He split the sorcerer’s skull, and the Tizca portal flickered and died with him. Bulveye saw that the other was still open, heading back into the cosmic labyrinth.
	Several of the Thousand Sons withdrew through the shimmering veil, disappearing from view. He charged, plasma pistol spitting ruin, Eldingverfall making a bloody cleft of another foe’s head. Bulveye’s war-cry echoed as he leapt towards the open portal.
	‘Did you destroy our way home, Old Wolf?’ Jurgen called out, stepping over the body of a fallen son of Magnus, his blade wet and red. ‘Are we to head further into the nightmare labyrinth of the half-warp forever?’
	Bulveye roared with laughter.
	‘We were not born for easy deaths, my wolf-brothers!’ he replied. ‘Into the maze, wherever it leads, and spare none the blade of retribution!’