'How?' he gasped, turning to the Rune Priest. 'What manner of sorcery is this?'
Torvald was wreathed in vapour, like a blade drawn from the quenching barrel. His grin turned fierce, and tiny arcs of lightning flickered through his iron grey beard. 'We've learned a few of the enemy's secrets on our long hunt,' he replied. 'A keen mind and a bold heart can accomplish much, even in this terrible place. I can cross leagues in but a few steps, so long as I can see the destination in my mind.' The Rune Priest winked conspiratorially. 'Soon we'll be able to walk between the worlds as well as our enemies can.'
Inquisitor Volt stepped from the shadows across the street from Torvald. 'Pride goes before the fall, priest,' the old man warned. 'What you speak of dances upon the edge of damnation.'
Torvald gave the inquisitor a flinty stare. 'We've spent the last ten thousand years here, Volt. We've forgotten more about damnation than you will ever know.'
Dark shapes glided swiftly around the Rune Priest. The Wulfen recovered swiftly from the shock of the sudden transit, and whatever else had become of their minds, their training still held tme. Sniffing the air, the former Blood Claws slipped silently into the shadows along both sides of the rubble-strewn lane, followed closely by Sigurd. Haegr and Torin paced into view behind Volt, warily eyeing the lightning-shot sky. Gabriella walked between them, her pineal eye blazing like a brand.
'We're at the south-east edge of the city,' Torvald continued. He pointed further east. 'A few hundred metres that way is the city's main transit route, but there's not much cover to shield our approach.'
Ragnar nodded, breathing in the crypt-like air and trying to clear his thoughts. He could still feel the curse clawing at his insides. Focus on the mission, he thought. 'What are we likely to encounter from here?'
The Rune Priest shrugged. 'I cannot say. This is as far as any of us has ever come.' His yellow eyes surveyed the ruined city blocks. 'The place is much changed since I was last here, and there are no signs of patrols. Bulveye's plan appears to have worked.'
'Or the Imperial troops on Charys have been driven from the capital,' Volt said, looking to the east. A look of horror leached the colour from the inquisitor's face. 'Blessed Emperor,' he said, fumbling for his chrono. 'What is the hour? Does anyone know? My timepiece isn't working.'
Torvald let out a grunt. 'Time is fickle in this place, inquisitor.'
'But not on Charys,' Volt whispered. 'If the Imperial forces have been forced back to the starport and Sternmark has been affected by Madox's ritual…' He gave Ragnar a stricken look. 'Before we left I ordered the Holmgang to destroy the planet if they didn't receive a signal from the planetary commanders at a set time each day. If Sternmark and his warriors have fallen under the sway of the curse, the surviving defenders will have been thrown into disarray—'
'Morkai's teeth!' Ragnar snarled. 'Have you gone mad, inquisitor?'
'Perhaps I have,' Volt said shakily. He ran a trembling hand across his face. 'We must be swift,' he said, thinking quickly. 'If we can disrupt the ritual in time, and Sternmark regains his senses, perhaps he can contact the battle-barge and stop the bombardment.'
'And if he can't?' Gabriella asked. 'What will happen here if Charys is destroyed?'
Volt turned to the Navigator. 'I don't know,' he said. 'Look around you. The shadow realm changes to reflect the reality of the physical world. If Charys burns…'
'Oh, damnation,' Torvald snarled. 'Not only have you put Charys in danger, but Bulveye and his warriors as well. You risk more than you know, Volt!' The Rune Priest took a step towards the inquisitor, his hand tightening on the haft of his axe.
'That's enough!' Ragnar snapped, stopping both men in their tracks. 'What's done is done. Our only chance to set this right is to get to Madox and recover the spear, and the sands are running from the glass as we speak.'
Torvald glared at Volt for another moment, and then relented with a curt nod. 'You're right, little brother,' he said. The priest pointed his axe in the direction of the palace. 'Lead on,' he said, 'but be careful. I've shielded us from sorcerous detection, but there may still be patrols guarding the streets.'
The young Space Wolf nodded, considering his options. 'Very well,' he said. 'Sigurd, take charge of the Wulfen and cover our flanks. Torin, Haegr, you're on point with me. Lady Gabriella, Inquisitor Volt, stay close to Torvald.' He locked eyes with each of the Wolves in turn. 'No shooting unless absolutely necessary. We can't risk being discovered before we get to the palace.'
Each of his companions nodded their understanding. Ragnar felt a welcome calm settle over him at the prospect of battle. 'All right,' he said, 'let's go.'
Torin and Haegr joined Ragnar without a word, and the Wolfblade set off at a swift, stealthy pace through the ruins. He breathed deeply, tasting the air for the scent of his enemies, and his eyes roamed the wasted landscape ahead for telltale signs of movement. The young Space Wolf bared his teeth in the darkness, glad to be back on the hunt once more.
They moved through the rubble wherever possible, avoiding the easier but more exposed roadways and charting a direct course for the distant palace. Ragnar caught multiple scents covering the broken stones, and thought he glimpsed distant movement in the direction of the palace, but the lightning made it difficult to discern truth from illusion.
It was Torin who saw them first. A warning hiss sent Ragnar scrambling for cover behind a toppled section of wall. His eyes darted warily left and right, but there was nothing to see.
Then he heard it, a thin, whistling sound, like wind over broken stones, approaching slowly from the north. Ragnar pressed closer against the stone and looked back along his line of march, hoping that everyone else had gone into cover as well.
Twin beams of lurid red light swept across the ruins from overhead, sweeping back and forth across the rubble. The whistling turned into a faint wail, and a strange, bat-winged figure glided swiftly overhead. Ragnar caught a glimpse of glistening, leathery wings and corroded metal ribbing, a long tail made of steel barbs and a pale, misshapen head. The creature's fleshy mouth was distended around the rusted grille of a vox speaker, and the crimson beams shone from its augmetic eyes.
Still searching, the figure swooped off to the south, until the light from its eyes was lost in the distance. Ragnar waited a full five minutes before he rose slowly to his feet. 'What was that?' he mused softly.
'Some manner of daemon,' Torin muttered, still crouched low and scanning the dark sky. 'If we're spotted they'll draw every patrol in the city down on us.'
'Let them,' Haegr growled, gripping the haft of his thunder hammer. 'I haven't had a bite of food or a drop of ale in twenty-four hours. Someone is going to get a good thrashing.'
Ragnar tried to gauge the distance left between them and the palace. As near as he could reckon, they still had five kilomeues to go. 'We'll have to take that chance,' he declared. 'It's in the hands of the Fates now.'
They signalled to the rest of the warband and resumed their pace, dividing their attention between the path ahead and the skies above. As they drew closer to the centre of the city they saw more signs of movement along the shadowy streets. Ragnar's keen sight picked out the shapes of men, traitor Guardsmen like the foes they'd fought on Charys, lurking in the rubble at every intersection along the main routes leading to the palace. More of the flying daemons circled and swooped above the broken ground in between, painting the rocks with their bloody gaze. More than once, Ragnar was forced to call a halt and try to find a way through the net of flying sentries. Fortunately, their movements were predictable enough to create gaps that a small party could slip through if they were careful.
The trek into the city seemed to last for hours. Ragnar's earlier calm had melted away, leaving his body tense and his nerves raw. Each passing moment was like a weight piling onto his shoulders. Every flash of pale lightning caused his heart to skip a beat as he imagined the Holmgang unleashing her cyclonic torpedoes and setting the agri-world afire.
They were within a kilometre of the palace when they came upon a cross-street that intercepted their line of march. By this point they were close enough for the pillar of coruscating fire, towering over the ritual site, to cast strange shadows across the ruins, sending shivers along Ragnar's skin. He could see a pair of flying daemons searching a bombed-out district further off to the north, but sensed no other movement ahead. Signalling for his companions to halt, he crouched low and crept closer to the street.
Ragnar slipped silently through a defile of broken stone, and settled onto his haunches near the burned-out shell of a small building. Moving only his eyes, he scanned along the length of the street, first to the left, and then right… and froze.
Just twenty metres away, crouched against a low, broken wall, lurked nearly a score of traitor Guardsmen. Ragnar saw at once that they were not recent converts, like the rebels on Charys. Their armour was very old, and scribed with layers of blasphemous runes, and their bodies bore signs of terrible mutations. They clutched strange-looking autoguns tipped with serrated bayonets, and searched the darkness with cold, calculating stares. For the moment, their attention was directed to the north, towards the writhing column of Chaos energy.
The hackles on the young Space Wolfs neck rose. Faintly, he sensed movement behind him. Ragnar turned his head and saw several of the Wulfen moving across the rubble field towards him, and then Torvald, Gabriella and Volt. He bit back a curse. The rest of the warband had missed his signal in the darkness.
Moving as quickly as he dared, Ragnar slid backwards until his position was hidden by the same low wall that hid the daemon pack. Thinking quickly, he waved to his companions to head for the wrecked building. To his relief, the Wulfen changed course and slipped into cover behind the building's broken walls. Torvald and the others quickly followed suit, and Ragnar motioned for the Wolfblade to join them.
They made their way cautiously across the broken terrain and through a gaping window frame into the ground floor of the building. Part of the second storey's floor was still intact, as well as two of the structure's four walls. The warband crouched in deep shadow. Ragnar could hear the panting breath of the Wulfen, and saw the eerie glow of Gabriella's pineal eye. They watched Ragnar intently as he crouched down and described quietly what lay in their path.
'We can try to work our way further down the street, cross over, and then work our way back towards the palace,' Ragnar said, 'or we can wait and see if the patrol moves on.'
'Can't we just kill them?' Sigurd replied. The Wulfen shifted on their haunches and growled, as though in agreement.
'Not quietly,' the young Space Wolf said. 'We're still more than half a kilometre from the objective—'
'Then we'll cut our way through them and charge towards the palace,' Sigurd shot back. 'As you said before, we're wasting time.' The priest rose to his feet, and the Wulfen moved with him.
'Don't be a fool!' Ragnar hissed, bolting to his feet and stepping into Sigurd's path. Rage seethed within him as his body responded instinctively to the Wolf Priest's challenge. The Wulfen picked up on the change and bared their fangs. One of them, possibly Harald, took a step towards Ragnar and let out a warning snarl.
The bestial sound echoed like the roar of a chain-blade in the confines of the ruined building. Sigurd hissed a warning at the Wulfen, but Ragnar waved him to sudden silence. Everyone froze as something sharp scraped along the ferrocrete above them.
Red light washed over the Wolves. Ragnar looked up and found himself staring into a pair of glowing augmetic eyes.
TWENTY
The Last Battle
It was no simple thing to turn a living world to ash.
Cyclonic torpedoes operated on the principle of igniting a planet's atmosphere and creating a self-sustaining firestorm that spread across entire continents. Kindling such a fire was no easy task, however; the warheads had to be seeded in a complex pattern and their detonations synchronised in such a way as to ensure a proper chain reaction.