ASHES OF PROSPERO Read online

  ‘Of course, I will fight by the side of the Great Wolf,’ the Rune Priest said.

  Logan nodded, pleased by this, the care lines softened slightly on his brow.

  ‘There are others that would speak with me, Njal,’ he said, glancing past. The Stormcaller turned his head slightly and saw a congregation of men and women in the traditional garb of the Fenrisian tribes, eyes roaming their surrounds with fear and awe. Their gazes fixed upon the two lords of the Fang, the fingers of the petitioners clasping nervously at amulets and fetishes as they did so. Njal could feel the hope that washed from them; hope that could only come from those caught in the grip of deepest need. He did not like its scent. It was a cloying presence on his thoughts, so unfamiliar on Fenris.

  The tribal elders shrank back, quivering and muttering. Njal realised he had bared his fangs, not at the Fenrisians, but the dread that maligned them. He adjusted his expression to something he hoped was a little more reassuring. They did not seem convinced and he turned away, shielding them from his unnatural features.

  ‘I shall leave the pleasantries to you, Logan. Keep them strong. Their people, their heart and continued courage, are our future. If they lose faith in our purpose…’

  ‘I know.’ Logan’s eyes betrayed his concern though he kept his face neutral. He probably did not even realise he was doing it, a natural ambassador as much as he was a war leader.

  The Great Wolf laid a hand on Njal’s arm. It was a gesture of solidarity, offering strength but also drawing it. The bond between Space Wolf and Space Wolf, brother and brother, Fenrisian and Fenrisian, ran deeper than any oath to the Imperium. Only their duty to the Allfather outweighed their dedication to each other.

  Dusk was swiftly approaching and with it died the light that the Elsinholma claimed was the only defence against the ice drake. Determined to be rid of the creature or die in the attempt, the townsfolk had taken up arms and accompanied Arjac in his trek up into the peaks above the fjord, following a trail of broken trees and strangely swirled drifts that Tyra said would lead to the drake’s lair.

  ‘Has anyone seen the beast?’ Arjac asked as they rounded a ridge overlooking the head of the fjord. A few metres ahead Tyra pointed east with her leaf-headed spear, towards a forbidding cliff face.

  ‘It comes in a mist,’ said Thorda, her breath an imitation of this feat. ‘Ice flows in its veins, I tell you, Sky Warrior.’

  ‘I heard the creak of its skin,’ said another of the locals. He looked away quickly, shamed. ‘Its breath was a whisper against the walls and the panes frosted with its passing. I dared not go out to confront it.’

  The group carried an assortment of weapons, some designed for war, others improvised from the tools of the kraken hunt. Despite her apparent frailty, Magnhild held a long flensing pike, its curved head catching the last rays of the sun above the far mounts. Others had taken barbed harpoons from the harbourside. Those not so confident in their limb-strength any longer, pragmatism overcoming pride, had fashioned pavises from the timbers of their ships’ remains. What these wooden shields were meant to do against the supposed ice breath of the drake Arjac was not sure, but it gave the party confidence to bring them along.

  ‘So, no,’ said Rockfist. ‘None of you have seen this creature.’

  ‘That is why we are still alive,’ muttered Rangvaldr.

  Arjac could not disagree.

  Tyra’s directions led them across a flat glacier field, the cliff face some half a kilometre away, rent with broad, dark fissures. A vapour seeped from a large crevasse near to the centre of the sheer ice wall. It hung low to the ground, and was no more than waist-high to the Space Marine.

  While they picked their way closer, the Elsinholma were content for him to take the lead. Arjac wondered what manner of foe he was about to face. The invasion of Magnus and his Thousand Sons had brought foes mortal and immortal to Fenris, though the traitor primarch’s departure had, as far as the Great Wolf could assess, taken such threats with him. What had not been immediately obvious was the damage done to the fabric of Fenris itself and the competing forces that controlled its unique ecosystem.

  Losses among the tribe folk had meant the thaw season hunts had not slain anywhere near their usual count of trolls, ice bears and other fierce predators. In turn, vermin and lower creatures had fled their territories, infesting the food stores, taking what little had survived the devastation. The most gigantic monsters – drakes and krakens, fyr-ent and leviathans – rampaged at will, taking nearly as many folk as the war and the brutal purges of the Grey Knights. Whole communities had been lost and the Great Wolf had despaired even as he had sent more and more of his warriors off-world to combat the burgeoning threats across the stars.

  It had been something of a miracle that Elsinholm’s messenger had survived the journey to the Fang, and the Great Wolf had been loath to ignore the plea. While others had simply abandoned their ancestral lands – such as existed amongst the tectonic anarchy of Fenris’ lively orbital cycle – these people had stayed to defend their homes and way of life. An example to others, the Great Wolf had said, and undoubtedly the sires of future Space Wolves.

  And from this last concern, Arjac had divined Logan Grimnar’s greatest fear. The Space Wolves were of their people. If the people died, so too did the Chapter. The Canis Helix and Fenrisian blood were inextricably linked. If the Chapter was to replace its losses, if there was to be a new generation of Space Wolves, every town, tribe and village was as precious as gemstones.

  Which was why Arjac was ploughing through the snow on a glacier field in the northern wastes to confront a snow drake.

  ‘Wait here,’ he told the townspeople, lifting his hammer to halt them.

  ‘We fight at your side,’ insisted Tyra, brandishing her spear.

  ‘My hammer-swing is wide,’ Arjac said with forced humour. He really did not want them risking themselves only to hamper his fighting space. ‘By my side is a dangerous place to stand.’

  Their honour satisfied by the justified refusal, the Elsinholma contented themselves with following a dozen metres behind, their expressions growing more fearful as they waded into the mist.

  The fog glistened, and not from suspended ice crystals as Arjac had first thought. He was no wyrdjarl, but he could smell something amiss on the cold breeze. On any planet other than Fenris it might have been called unnatural, but in the frozen wastes of his home world, the wyrd was as much part of nature as trees and fish and birds.

  There was something definitely off about the mist, more than the sparkle. A residue of sorcery.

  That was perhaps the worst. The battles, the monsters, the devastated fields and hunting grounds were extreme but, in time, nothing that Fenris could not heal. But in scattered places where the wyrdsturm had broken, where sorcery had been unleashed and the tread of Magnus had passed, the spirit of Fenris had been corrupted.

  Arjac hoped fervently that it was just a wyrd-touched monster. If it was something else… Oaths had been made to the Grand Master of the Grey Knights to keep secret the knowledge held so tightly by the lords of Titan.

  He glanced back at Rangvaldr, Magnhild and the others. His gaze settled on fiery-haired Tyra. He really did not want to have to slay them for the unwitting crime of meeting a daemon.

  CHAPTER 2

  LEGENDS

  Leaving by one of the side doors, Njal headed for his chamber. When he had spoken to Logan of the Fang being haunted by ghosts, he had not simply been using skald-words. Through his wyrd the fortress-monastery was alive with all sorts of exceptional activity. Since Magnus the Red’s incursion, the boundaries between the material world and the warp around Fenris had been substantially thinned, and the Fang thrummed with nascent power on the edge of sensation.

  The world of the Space Wolves had always occupied a space closer than usual to the immaterium. It was this proximity to the realm of dreams and nightmares that was the source of their runelore, and perhaps the secret to the Canis Helix bound within the Space Wolves�
�� gene-seed, a gift from the Allfather to keep at bay the temptations of the dark gods. Njal had learned many views of the universe over his centuries with the Sons of Russ; from Librarians of other Chapters, the Psychomancers of the Adeptus Mechanicus with their warp algorithms, and from facing the denizens and servants of the Abyss. But in his heart was the wyrd of his upbringing, the innate bind with the fabric of the universe that formed the foundations of his powers. Others spoke of breaches between dimensions, or tapping into a distant reservoir of energy. To Njal and others raised as wyrdfulk on Fenris, their abilities did not come from another place but were part of the substance around them.

  Such was the way he viewed the Fang now, the permeability between the realm of mortals and godspawn stretched near to breaking. He heard the whispers of dead thralls lamenting their failure to serve the Allfather, not their deaths during the trials to become a Space Marine. The unfulfilled oaths of fallen brothers sang along the walls and echoed down from the towers. Battle cries or death-snarls shouted on the other side of the galaxy reverberated through the chambers of the citadel.

  He had seen them too, occasionally, when the moons were full above the Fang and Fenris was lit by stars not of the mortal universe. Glimpses in shadows, of the haggard dead, and the honoured lost; those that had died in dishonour and those that had given their lives bravely.

  And not only Space Wolves.

  Fenris had known invasion several times in its long history, from the Thousand Sons of Magnus to the frothing zealots of Cardinal Bucharis, and numerous other traitors and alien foes. Thousands of years had passed since they had besieged the fortress-monastery, but the spirits of demented Frateris continued to shriek and holler their praises to a false god-emperor. Blasphemous canticles from the sons of Prospero were etched in the walls, the faces of the chanters formed in the cracks between stones and the blemishes of turning millennia.

  It was nothing new. The first time Njal had set foot inside the aett of the Space Wolves he had felt the presence of the ancient dead, as though the entire structure was built not just as a fortress but also a conductor for the spirits of the departed. Beneath the dancing polar lights, the Fang had swarmed with otherlight also, drawing down the power of demigods and immortal princes.

  As of late, the intensity and frequency of these intrusions had increased. Magnus had sought more than simply vengeance in his latest assault. His legion and daemonic allies might have been driven from the surface of Fenris, but neither Njal, Logan, or any other with the wisdom to see would call the conclusion of the battle a victory.

  In part, it had been to escape these distractions that Njal had ventured into the wilderness. He had sought clarity in the frozen peaks, the toil of his trek to clear the fog of doubt Magnus had left in his thoughts.

  Njal had sought purging, returning to the state of natural grace that had gifted him his wyrd.

  And it had worked. His wyrdsight was keener than ever, but his mind was stronger also, so that the apparitions that haunted the Fang no longer intruded upon his waking thoughts. Sleep was another matter, but here his Allfather-gifted physiology was a boon, allowing him complete rest in the space of just fifteen minutes. Even that respite he had not allowed himself during his quest. It had been a considerable time since he had known even the half-sleep of his catalepsean node.

  So it was that he came to his room, tired in muscle and bone but invigorated in thought.

  Arjac’s breath came in long, steaming draughts, matching the vapour that issued from the cave mouth. A hundred metres from the cave he raised his hammer and shield and advanced with deliberate steps, eyes fixed on the cleft ahead.

  He was painfully aware of the shadow behind him lengthening as the sun set behind the far side of the fjord. The creeping darkness overtook him when he was just fifty metres from the ragged crack. He broke into a slow run, trying to catch the wavering line but he was still thirty metres from the monster’s lair when the mountainshade reached the entrance. The reflective ice was engulfed by the fall of night, plunging the glacier field into twilight.

  ‘Balka,’ swore Arjac.

  A frozen blast raged from the cave, coating Arjac’s armour and face with frost. He blinked, cracking whiteness, in time to see a serpentine shape issuing from the cavern. Twenty metres of the wyrm had slithered out onto the ice field and still its tail was not in sight. Its head was ringed by a barbed frill, splayed in aggression, while its mouth opened to reveal icicle fangs.

  Behind him, the townsfolk shouted in panic, but relief flooded through Arjac as the monstrous wyrm snaked towards him across the glacier.

  Not a daemon.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he called, glancing back at the retreating Elsinholma. ‘It’s just a wyrd-touched sturmwyrm!’

  Arjac returned his attention to the creature as it reared up, ten metres above him. The Great Wolf’s champion raised his shield, hammer swinging back in his other hand. Mist billowed from the serpent’s maw, enveloping him again, crusting over skin and ceramite. From the cloud, the beast lunged, slamming its head towards him.

  Its blunt nose smashed into the anvil shield. The impact threw Arjac backwards while sparks cascaded from the power field. He landed hard, his heavy plate breaking the ice in a plume of white. Head swaying, the gargantuan serpent approached.

  With a fierce yell, Tyra dashed past, snow churning from her stride. Others from the devastated town followed, the names of their fallen loved ones shouted as curses, the titles of the Allfather called out as invocations of protection.

  ‘No, no, no,’ Arjac grumbled to himself, rolling sideways and pushing himself to one knee. ‘You’ll just get in the way.’

  The corridors around the chambers of the Runeworkers were hung with wyrdwards – sigils in iron, stone and gold, and barrier-runes of flint. It looked crude, like the barbaric offerings of the uninitiated to the Dark Powers, but Njal knew better than to judge the protective talismans by appearance. All things had a presence in the warp. The scholars of the Imperium called it many things – the soul, the shadow, the spirit. To the rune-skalds, it was a reflection, hence their poetic names for the warp – the Othersea, the Waters Within the Ice, the Frozen Beyond. Like a reflection on a rippled glacier wall, the projection of material into the warp was incomplete, asymmetric even. The tufts of bloody hair and inscribed bone, the metalworked icons of runes older than the Fang, were the opposite – imperfect mortal interpretations of immaculate warp-concepts. They were the language of gods writ in base human form, only readable on the periphery – the deeper language known only to the dark gods and the Allfather. It was a grunting translation, like the attempts of visitors to speak the tongue of Fenris, hearing and speaking only the harsh verbal syllables while they missed all intonation and breath beneath that softened the words.

  In the warp, the thrice-twisted nail was not simply a fastening, it was a lock on the mind. The Knot of Ever, wrought in seemingly infinitely intertwining silver bands, was a gatherer, pooling power, syphoning the energy away from those that would snare it for foul use. The pelts, fangs and claws were all incarnations of the Fenrisian spirit, the primal and unstoppable power of the world itself. To the eye of Njal as he approached his chamber the walls were a rainbow of vibrant colour, streamered with hate and hope, love and anger.

  The door was no different to the many mechanical portals throughout the Fang, save for the dagger-carved mark upon it: the Stormcaller. His rune burned golden, recognising its maker, the blood that had been used to seal its creation a link that could not be severed or faked by mortal means. With a thought, Njal unsealed the bonds upon the portal and the door slid open with a hiss.

  The chamber within was larger than might be expected given the unremarkable appearance of its door. Njal gave no thought to the spiralling rune-shapes and octagonal intersections carved into the naked rock, but for the non-gifted the sight would have been disconcerting if not migraine-inducing. Above stretched a crystal ceiling, almost invisible but for slender vertices that glittered in t
he starlight of Fenris’ upper atmosphere. Prismatic light danced across the chamber, fractured along lines of wyrdic spatial geometry.

  Near the centre of the room in a corona of dancing wyrd-halo stood an ornate suit of Tactical Dreadnought armour hung on a bulky dummy of articulated wood, its blue-grey ceramite set with metallic sigils. Wolf pelt and tails, talismans and wyrdlodes augmented these psychic protections. Upon the head of the dummy was set a tracery of thin wire and crystal junctions – a psychic hood.

  Nightwing left Njal’s shoulder as the door slid shut behind him, alighting on the back of the chair that faced the Stormcaller’s war-plate. The throne – for it was of such size that the term chair did not do it justice – was carved from a single piece of wood. Millennia of varnish and patina obscured most of the fine detail that its creator had obviously spent many days labouring upon. More prominent were the pale bones set into the dark timber. They followed, roughly, the outline of the occupier when seated, the legs at the front set with thigh and shinbone, the arms with similar decoration, and vertebrae running up the long, narrow back. A vulpine skull sat atop the structure, just above the position of the occupant’s head, like a crown or saintly halo.

  When Njal had first seen it, he had thought the skeleton embedded in the frame of the throne had been that of a Thunderwolf, but on closer examination a more grotesque truth had been revealed. The skull betrayed human likeness, the phalanges with an opposable thumb, not the paw of a wolf. The bones had belonged to a human, or something like one, tainted by the wulfen curse. Njal did not know to whom the skeleton had belonged in life, and his predecessor as High Rune Priest had not furnished him with such education before his demise. Yet he sensed the psychic potential stored within the ancient bones and knew on instinct that they were likely older even than the throne into which they had been bound with gilded bands and hex-headed iron nails. A great wyrdthegn of the tribes, that much seemed obvious. Perhaps even the fabled Ighest Baldrkin, much-lauded in the chronicles of Gnauril the Elder.