'It's the damned gate,' Einar said, nodding his head towards the palace. 'It's a great deal stronger than we'd been led to believe. Gunnar and Thorbjorn's lascannons can't scratch it.'
A line of stubber shells marched across the ferrocrete a few metres away and up the leg and chest of one of the Wolf Guard. The Terminator was knocked back a step by the heavy impacts, but the slugs shattered harmlessly against the heavy armour. The Wolf Guard made a rude gesture with his power fist in the direction of the palace wall, and fired a burst from his storm bolter in reply.
Berek studied the distant gates with his enhanced vision, nodding thoughtfully. 'The former governor had ample time to prepare for this day,' he growled. 'How many melta bombs do you have?'
Einar glanced back over his shoulder at his assembled pack. A lasgun bolt, possibly from a long-las sniper rifle, struck the side of his helmet with an angry crack. The Space Wolf appeared not to notice. 'We've got four, and Ingvar's pack has two left.'
'Hand them over,' Berek ordered, and the pack leader began gathering up the heavy plasma charges.
Mikal Sternmark stepped up alongside his lord. 'Going for a walk, are we?' he asked, surveying the killing ground between them and the palace gates.
'The Grey Hunters and Long Fangs will provide cover fire while we take down the gates,' Berek said, gesturing for Einar to hand the charges over to the Wolf Guard. 'Once we're inside, don't waste time clearing the walls or the palace grounds. Aldrek has cast the runes, and believes we'll find Bredwyr in his audience chamber. If we only kill one man inside that palace, it must be him. This uprising has gone on long enough.'
The Wolf Guard answered with growls of assent. 'Lead on, lord,' Mikal said sardonically. 'First man out always draws the most fire.'
Berek threw back his head and laughed. 'Last man to the gate can clean the scorch marks off my armour,' he answered. 'Blood and thunder!'
'Blood and thunder!' the Wolf Guard howled in reply, and they charged for the gates as one.
The Space Wolves were rushing into a storm of enemy fire within moments. Intersecting lines of lasgun fire wove a burning web around the Terminators. Tracer fire arced through their ranks, and explosive shells dug craters the size of feasting plates out of the scorched fer-rocrete. Bolters roared as Berek's Grey Hunter packs opened fire at the rebel positions along the walls, stitching chains of red and yellow flashes along the battlements. Lascannon beams and missile trails lanced towards the gatehouse, punching molten craters in the ornately carved stone facade, and spilling curtains of shattered masonry onto the pavement below.
Lasgun bolts and autogun shells rang off the Wolf Lord's armour. A burst of rounds from a heavy stubber struck his left leg and a bloom of fiery pain caused Berek to stumble. Mikal drew close and reached for Berek's arm, but the Wolf Lord waved him towards the looming gates instead.
An autocannon let off a loud, rattling burst at a Terminator to Berek's right. Red and yellow detonations hammered across the Space Wolfs chest. The Wolf Guard staggered out of the cloud of dust and smoke, his storm bolter still firing despite the three bloody craters punched into his breastplate. After two halting steps, the warrior fell to his knees and pitched over onto his face.
Moments later, the Space Wolves were flattening their bodies against the scarred surface of the palace gates, underneath the arc of the remaining guns along the walls. Many of the Wolf Guard were splashed with blood from numerous minor wounds, but they immediately went to work setting the demolition charges. 'No need to blow the whole gate down,' Berek said through gritted teeth as he probed the wound in his leg. He could feel the shell in his leg lodged close to the bone. 'Just make us a hole big enough to charge through.'
The breaching charges were ready in seconds. Berek took half of the Terminators to the right of the gate, while Aldrek and the other half went to the left. 'Clear!' The Wolf Lord called out, and when he heard an answer from Aldrek he keyed the detonator.
There was a bone rattling whump and a rush of superheated air, and the stink of vaporised metal made Berek grimace. 'Go!' he roared, and the Wolf Guard rushed to the breach.
The melta charges had blown a roughly circular hole three metres across in the thick metal gate, just large enough for one Terminator to pass at a time. Beyond lay a long rectangular courtyard, bordered by statues of forgotten saints, which the rebels had transformed into a charnel house. Priests and adepts from the local Ecclesiarchy had been brought here and slain, and then hung by chains from the worn, grey statues. A thick cloud of noxious smoke hung over the scene, reeking with strange compounds that seared Berek's nostrils and made his flesh crawl.
An improvised rebel strongpoint made from steel supports, flakboard and bags of ferrocrete stood about twenty metres from the gate. Lascannons and heavy stubbers had been sited there to cover the entrance to the compound, but now the sloped face of the strong-point was ablaze, its surface ignited by molten shrapnel from the melta bombs. Berek dashed forwards, firing bursts from his storm bolter into the roiling fire and smoke. Other Wolf Guard snapped off short bursts with their storm bolters as well, unleashing a hail of deadly fire into the position.
Berek reached the sloped front embrasure of the strongpoint and leapt through the flames, landing next to a heavy stubber and its dead crew. Lasgun fire struck him along the right side, and the Wolf Lord grabbed the stubber by the barrel and hurled it at the squad of traitors who'd shot at him. The rebels scattered out of the way of the spinning weapon, leaving th;m easy targets for Berek's storm bolter.
A rasping cry from Berek's left brought the Wolf Lord around just as a traitor wearing the tattered uniform of a Guard officer lunged out of the smoke and swung a crackling power sword at his head. Berek deflected the sword with the back of his power fist and shot the rebel point-blank.
The hissing crackle of power weapons hummed amid the smoke and the screams of the dying. Dark shapes flitted through the roiling haze. Aldrek appeared from the smoke like a giant of old, his black beard glistening with spilled blood, and his heavy axe streaming gore. The traitors' false courage broke before the onslaught and they fled in every direction, calling vainly to their newfound gods for deliverance. Those that fled in the direction of the palace were cut down as they ran, reaped like wheat by the blazing guns of the advancing Wolves.
Berek and his men reached the far end of the courtyard in moments. The Wolf Lord climbed the shallow steps of the palace entrance and without breaking stride he smashed his power fist into the ornate wood and metal doors. There was a clap of righteous thunder and the portal exploded inward. Shouts and screams of pain greeted Berek as the Wolf Lord crossed the smoking threshold.
The nave outside the governor's audience chamber was once majestic. Soaring arches decorated with winged saints rose high overhead, their carved hands outstretched towards an octagonal ceiling of coloured armourplas that filled the chamber with shafts of jewel coloured light. Square columns carved with the likenesses of Imperial heroes stood at attention down the length of the chamber, their stern features judging the worth of every soul that strode along the marble floors.
The great space was crowded with a mob of twisted degenerates, gibbering and shouting imprecations to the false gods of the warp. Foul sigils covered the walls and pillars, and many of the carved heroes had been smeared with layers of blood and filth. Naked, rotting corpses lay in heaps at the feet of the columns, their torn faces twisted into masks of horror and despair.
Hundreds of mutants and Chaos worshippers recoiled in shock and anger from the Wolf Lord's sudden arrival. They brandished stained cleavers and chainblades, laspistols and looted autoguns, and the air of the defiled nave shook with their bestial cries. More streamed in from side corridors to the left and right, adding to the mass. It was a sight to shake the heart of even a stalwart hero, but Berek looked upon the shrieking masses and was unmoved. He was one of the Emperor's chosen, a Space Wolf, and he knew no fear.
Berek clenched his crackling power fist and raised it high. His furious voice smote the unbelievers into silence. 'Oathbreakers!' he roared. 'I am Berek Thunderfist! Look upon me and despair! The Allfather knows your crimes and has set his Wolves among you.'
An answering roar echoed Berek from the far end of the nave. An impossibly-muscled, four-armed mutant reared head and shoulders above the rest of the mob and made to answer the Wolf Lord. Berek shot the monster between its three eyes, and with a bloodthirsty howl he leapt among his foes.
The Wolf Lord swept his storm bolter in an arc before him, cutting a vengeful swathe through the packed throng. At such close range the heavy shells tore through two or even three bodies before their explosive tips travelled far enough to detonate. When he'd emptied the weapon's twin magazines he swung it like a club, crushing skulls and smashing ribs. His power fist rose and fell, hurling broken bodies in all directions. Clubs, chainswords and cleavers rained against his ancient armour, but none could find purchase. He was a storm of righteous fury, the embodiment of the Emperor's wrath, and nothing could stand against him.
Aldrek and the remaining Wolf Guard stormed into the nave behind Berek, adding their strength to the battle. Two Terminators stepped to either side of the broken doorway. One launched a pair of Cyclone missiles down the length of the nave, showering the rear ranks of the mob with red-hot shrapnel. The other levelled his whirring assault cannon and unleashed a stream of deadly shells over the heads of his brother Wolves.
Within seconds, the battle had transformed into a slaughter. Even the mutants' fanatical devotion to their new gods was not enough to sustain them in the face of the Space Wolves' fury. They tried to flee, but their large numbers worked against them as they tried to fight their way to the nave's narrow side-passages. They clawed and trampled their kin in their desire to escape, while the Wolves continued their remorseless advance, blood streaming from fist and blade.
By the time Berek reached the far end of the nave there were hundreds of dead rebels heaped in his wake. Aldrek and the Wolf Guard gathered around him, weapons ready. The Wolf Lord eyed the Rune Priest as he reloaded his storm bolter. 'What now, priest?' he asked.
Aldrek took a step towards the audience chamber doors, his hand tightening on the haft of his rune axe. 'I smell the stink of sorcery,' he said. 'Bredwyr must lie within.' He turned back to the Wolves, his face lined with terrible strain. 'There are terrible forces at work in the chamber beyond,' he warned. 'The fabric of reality is… unsettled.'
Berek frowned. 'Unsettled? Speak plainly, Aldrek.'
'This is as plain as I can make it,' the Rune Priest replied, his expression vague and haunted. 'Reality is… shifting like sand. Forces are mingling compelled to weave together…' Aldrek shook his head fiercely, trying to drive the image from his mind. 'I cannot explain it. I've never known the like.'
Berek raised his storm bolter. 'Then let us see for ourselves,' he said, and put his power fist to the door.
The portals swung open silently. A wavering nimbus of light washed over the wary Space Wolves, and unseen energies clawed invisibly at their minds.
The Wolf Lord strode forward into the dimly lit chamber. His boots crunched on brittle bones. The entire chamber was littered with human skeletons and cast-off husks of withered skin. The air was hazy with foul incense, streaming from tall, wrought iron braziers placed apparently at random along the room. Sheets of bloody skin had been tacked to the tall pillars by the hundreds, each one carved with intricate patterns of blasphemous runes. It was these runes that filled the room with its tenebrous light.
Berek strode through the detritus of scores of sacrificial victims. His brain felt as though it was on fire. The Wolf Lord passed unheeding through the blasphemous tableau, his gaze fixed dreadfully on the abomination that reared behind the governor's broken throne.
The wall behind the throne was fifteen metres tall and ten metres wide, and in the days of the palace's construction it would have been carved with the likeness of the holy Emperor. Now, the wall was covered in glistening flesh and pulsating organs, stitched together by some form of silver wire that shone like liquid in the sorcerous light. Veins and arteries throbbed, and hearts clenched and unclenched, driving blood through the vile mass. Berek glimpsed naked brains trapped in webworks of palpitating muscle, and eyes rolling in gelid masses of fat. Intestines writhed like snakes across the surface of the towering mass, bound in place by silver wire. Vast and unnatural energies radiated from the thing, like heat from a forge. The abomination was alive, somehow, and on some deep, primal level Berek also knew that it was not some maddened act of depravity. It had been built to serve a very particular purpose.
'Blessed Allfather,' Aldrek gasped, his face turning pale. 'We've found Bredwyr and his entire household.'
Gritting his teeth, Berek raised his storm bolter. 'Then let's finish what he came here to do.'
The Space Wolves fired as one, pouring streams of explosive shells into the horrid mass of flesh. Berek watched with revulsion as the construct writhed beneath the storm of fire. A pink haze of vaporised blood and flesh filled the air around the abomination, but, almost as quickly as they were made, the shell holes sealed shut again.
A wave of unholy power radiated from the construct and swept over the Space Wolves. Vertigo washed over Berek, overwhelming his enhanced senses. It felt as though the room was expanding in every direction, stretching away into the vastness of space. Reeling, the Wolf Lord turned to Aldrek. 'Priest!' he cried. 'Your axe!'
Aldrek had been driven to one knee by the force of the constructs power. His eyes had rolled back in their sockets, and tendrils of smoke curled from the silver and brass connections wired to his skull. And yet, the heroic priest heard Berek's call and nodded. He tried to speak, but only a guttural growl escaped his bloody lips. With a mighty effort, Aldrek rose to his feet, raising his rune axe high, and a black blade carved with blasphemous, glowing runes burst from the Rune Priest's chest.
A towering figure clad in ornate blue and gold armour had appeared behind Aldrek, as though coalescing out of the shadows. The Chaos sorcerer pulled his hellblade from Aldrek's body, and the Rune Priest staggered, blood pouring from his open mouth. With a strangled roar, Aldrek spun about, swinging furiously with his axe, but as he did so two more armoured giants materialised like ghosts to either side of him and drove their swords into the Rune Priest's chest.
More figures were taking shape from the darkness: dreadful warriors clad in baroque versions of power armour eerily similar to those the Space Wolves wore. Berek recognised their blue and gold heraldry at once, and fought back a surge of righteous revulsion and dread. Every son of Russ knew the colours of the Chaos Marines known as the Thousand Sons. Twisted nightmares of muscle and flesh emerged alongside the Traitor Marines, and reached for the Space Marines with glistening ropy tentacles and fanged mouths.
The ambush had caught the Wolf Guard unawares, but their surprise lasted only an instant. 'For Russ and the Allfather!' Mikal Sternmark cried as the sorcerers and daemons rushed in from all sides, and the air rang with the thunder of bolters and the clash of blades.
Aldrek had fallen to his knees, blood flowing from his wounds. As the sorcerers closed in again, he slashed at one with his rune axe, but the Chaos warrior parried the blow with his hellsword and knocked the axe from Aldrek's bloodless fingers. The Rune Priest howled defiantly at his foes, but the sorcerers laid their hands upon him, and they vanished as swiftly as they appeared, taking Aldrek with them.
Berek Thunderfist let out a furious bellow. 'Stand fast, sons of Fenris!' he cried, blasting a pair of daemons into gobbets of protoplasm. 'Our brothers are coming,' he said, knowing that Einar and the rest of the Grey Hunters could not be far behind them.