ASHES OF PROSPERO Read online

  ‘That is true,’ replied Njal, but offered nothing more, hiding his turmoil from further unexpected insight. The Iron Priest did not press the issue and continued the cladding process in customary silence, the room disturbed only by the squeal of ratchet guns, the creak of servos when Njal tested his accumulating plate, and the tread of the thralls’ boots on the crystal-lined floor.

  Finally Njal was enclosed toe to neck in the hulking mass of Tactical Dreadnought armour; layers of plasteel, adamantium and ceramite the equal of Logan’s legendary plate. He took up his staff, gauntleted fingers curling around the haft as though gripping the wrist of a returning friend.

  Njal turned and lifted the last component, a web-like tracery of fine crystalline thread hung with several thicker cables. He laid the psychic hood upon his scalp, letting it nestle into his hair, and then commanded Aldacrel to attach the interface. The Iron Priest’s nimble fingers made short work of the connection and he stood back, still shielded from the sight, as etheric energy flickered about the Rune Priest.

  Njal’s spirit flowed into his staff and war-plate. Runes ignited with power, gleaming red and amber and gold with building potential. Against the drone of the suit’s power, a subtle flow of psychic energy whispered across the plates. The Stormcaller flexed his mental attributes while he exercised the fibre bundles and actuators. Lightning crackled from fingertip to fingertip and a sheen of unearthly blue energy encased his form, turning the considerable defences of the Terminator suit into a near-impenetrable personal fortress. On the edge of hearing the wolf-spirits howled, guiding his mind into the warp.

  With a mental flick, he called Nightwing to his raised arm. The psyber-raven settled there, feathers bristling with static.

  ‘Fight well, Stormcaller,’ Aldacrel intoned sincerely. ‘Bring honour to this wargear and victory to the Chapter.’

  The psychic hood suppressed the insidious grating of Izzakar, leaving only a tremor in the depths of the Rune Priest’s thoughts. Energised by the calm, Njal Stormcaller strode from the wyrding halls to seek his fate.

  The Fang had many great halls, and also many dormitories, medicae bays, armouries and gun batteries. It boasted numerous watch towers, depots, wolf lodges and wyrdwards, supplied by more than a dozen flight bays, forge-smithies and manufactories. To Njal, it seemed as if all of them had been emptied in response to the Great Wolf’s call to arms. His task force slowly assembled in the Hall of the Long Fangs, close to the eastern gates and the shuttle pens above them.

  A conflicting mix of pride and sadness fought within the Rune Priest as the volunteers entered, some alone, others in small groups. An assortment of every imaginable inhabitant of the Space Wolves’ aett.

  Firstly, there were the Space Marines that had been crippled, unable to fulfil a position in a regular battle pack. Most had at least one bionic prosthetic of some kind – wheezing, clumsy artifices of plasteel and wire, sheathed in ceramite and burnished bronze. They were the warriors that had been put back together in the midst of battle, their flesh and bone jury-rigged like a starship’s battle-scarred systems, repaired just well enough to fight on but consigned to non-combatant roles on their return.

  They all carried themselves with pride, their eyes bright at the prospect of once more seeing battle. The minds were far more willing than the bodies were capable. They shuffled, lumbered and limped into rough lines as though for inspection. The gloom of the hall glittered with crude bionic eyes and thrummed with the buzz of hydraulics and hiss of bulky pneumatic actuators.

  Hundreds of thralls had answered the call also, interpreting the Great Wolf’s summons as reason to leave their onerous duties in the Fang. Thralls of all ages and capabilities served the Chapter throughout the Great Companies and fleet, and it was not unusual for them to be close to the heart of battle.

  Yet these thrallfolk were, like the veterans, those whose failure during their initiations had not slain them but had otherwise left them incapable of serving in the combat zones, or simply those too young or old to be of use manning a strike cruiser’s torpedo bays or working the gun decks of a battle barge. Dressed in their plain smocks and tunics, they mustered as well as they could, some of them as grey-haired as Ulrik, others barely of age to grow fluff on cheek and chin.

  A few other Space Marines had dragged themselves from the treatments of the apothecarion assistants and servitors. The walking wounded. Some still with bloodied bandages on heads and limb stumps, others with internal injuries hidden inside armour hastily reclaimed from the forge halls. Njal caught the eye of one in particular, a swathe of dressing and plastek over the side of his face and head. His armour was marked as a Pack Leader of Grey Hunters from the Drakeslayers Great Company. Njal knew him. Indeed, he had been stood no more than three metres away when an ork rocket had blasted open his helm and shredded half of his face and skull.

  ‘Valgarthr?’ The Stormcaller stepped closer, a hand held out. ‘I am honoured by the gesture, but you are in no fit state to fight again so soon.’

  The pack leader met Njal with a stare of his one good eye, icy blue and intent.

  ‘No gesture, Lord of the Runes,’ said the sergeant. He looked at the others around him, indicating that he spoke the mind of all. ‘We can fight. We will fight, as hard as any brother of Fenris.’

  Njal hid his dismay, and considered returning to the Great Wolf to rescind his desire to travel to Prospero.

  +These are the mighty Space Wolves? Fell must have been the blow dealt to your treacherous cousins for turning on Magnus and his followers.+

  ‘Your world is ashes, your Legion is dust,’ Njal whispered. ‘I would think carefully before you brag of injury done.’

  Even so, the sorcerer’s barbs hardened Njal to the prospect of what was to come. If this was to be his command, so be it. They were all Space Wolves, and that was the most important thing. They would willingly lay down their lives for the Allfather and the Chapter and it was his duty – his right and privilege – to lead them.

  Others joined the assortment, awaiting orders for embarkation: tech-priests sworn to alliance with the Space Wolves, with servitors made in grotesque mockery of machine-men; three exhausted Wolf Scouts only just returned from a long patrol into the warp storms. Other miscellaneous leftovers of a departed Chapter.

  The more he considered the task ahead, and the company he would keep, the better his mood, inversely proportionate to any objective assessment of his chances of victory.

  The Stormcaller identified those among the contingent that had some leadership skills – by personal acquaintance or rank markings – and tasked them to begin organising into battle packs. Speeches were all well and good for morale and brotherhood, but Njal knew from long experience that organisation and dedication to the details won more battles.

  Despite that truth, oratory was expected on such an occasion.

  ‘The Great Wolf said we shall be legendary, and he was right. Any fool under the Allfather can win a battle with half a dozen Great Companies, starships and tanks. It takes heroes to win when all else has failed. Heroes, I see before me. Each one of you is moulded from the war-dreams of Russ himself. The Wolf King could not have asked for a greater assembly of courage, determination and warrior spirit. Sagas will be sung for long years in honour of this day and the next days to come.’

  The Vaults of the Ancients buzzed with a rare blend of static and antiquity. To tread the hallowed halls was to approach one of the greatest warriors of Fenris, surrounded by the thrumming machinery that kept him and his less venerable companions bound to the mortal sphere. Njal could not help but turn his thoughts to the Allfather, enshrined upon the Golden Throne on Terra, sustained by similar yet impossibly grander technologies.

  A broad corridor led to the main vault, a circular space several dozen metres across. In the centre stood the empty shells of the Dreadnoughts, armoured walkers twice as tall as the Rune Priest and equally broad. Their massive, slab-sided bodies were decked with emblems, runes and wolf-55pelt totems,
painted in the colours they had worn as battle-brothers. At the centre one dreadnought stood slightly apart, the others placed in respect of its importance. Each had a void at the centre where disconnected cables and pipes hung like entrails.

  Njal chose not to walk to the empty metal carcasses of the war machines, but instead turned to the metal-plated sarcophagi that lined the wall. Like the war engines they were part of, they were also decorated in the Fenrisian manner, adorned with wolf skulls and fang-threaded hangings. Njal quickly found the one he sought. The main plate was set with a wolf skull over two crossed bones, the name of the incumbent written on a scroll beneath. A single name, yet so redolent for any that had passed through the Fang. The mere whisper of it conjured sagas of the greatest heroes and battles.

  Bjorn.

  Njal regarded the panel next to the sarcophagus. The lifesigns it showed were barely below wakefulness, the incumbent of the tomb not yet returned to deep stasis since the invasion of Magnus the Red. The Stormcaller hesitated, wondering if it was right to rouse Bjorn again, so soon after his recent battles.

  Njal had no choice. There was no other that knew Prospero as Bjorn knew it, no other Space Wolf that had actually walked the fabled streets of Tizca.

  He slowly drew up the adjacent lever, powering down the stasis field projected within Bjorn’s chamber. Lights cycled through red and amber and into green, while within the tomb-shell Bjorn rose from slumber. Njal stepped back so he stood before the ocular device above the sarcophagus, showing himself to the ancient warrior.

  A voice crackled from the speaker grille, slow and deliberate, tainted by artificial modulation but still enriched with a deep timbre.

  ‘When the Lord of Runes comes to me, I know the situation is dire. Tell me, Stormcaller, why do you break my peace?’

  ‘The Thousand Sons.’

  ‘They have returned so soon?’ Njal thought he detected a note of surprise in Bjorn’s voice. ‘The Cyclops?’

  ‘Not this time, Fell-Handed. We go to them. To Prospero.’

  ‘Nothing remains of Prospero, Stormcaller. We broke it upon our wrath.’

  Njal hesitated, unsure what to say of his peculiar condition and the invasive presence of Izzakar.

  ‘The Portal Maze survived. The Old Wolf has tasked me with assembling a force to return and break into the labyrinth, to free brothers trapped within.’

  An odd noise emanated from the speaker. It sounded like grinding gears and Njal realised it was a chuckle.

  ‘When I hear “Old Wolf”, I think not of Logan, but another. The first that carried that name. Bulveye Greybeard, Jarl of drekk-tra when Prospero burned.’

  ‘It is Bulveye that we seek, Fell-Handed. He and his Old Guard have not returned with the others of the Thirteenth Company. They are bound within the Portal Maze and cannot escape it.’

  Bjorn said nothing and Njal checked the bio-displays to ensure that the remnants of his physical body were still conscious within the sarcophagus. All read as normal and he reminded himself that the Fell-Handed had lived, after a fashion, for ten thousand years. He was not one to make hasty comment, though in battle he fought with the same fury the sagas claimed he had possessed as a young Blood Claw. He existed in a different time frame to mortal warriors, his thought processes of a more deliberate tempo.

  The speaker crackled into life again, Bjorn’s tone quiet, almost wistful.

  ‘I remember pyramids of crystal shattering and a sky of falling fire. A screaming wind and lightning that snarled death. Across the Othersea we sailed, seeking the doom of another Legion, with the strength of the Allfather at our backs. Can you imagine the cataclysm of a Legion breaking like a storm upon the fortress of another, Stormcaller?’

  ‘I cannot. Such fury has not been seen for ten thousand years, Fell-Handed.’

  ‘No.’ Bjorn’s voice was subdued, saddened. ‘We broke the Thousand Sons and their world on that day, but something else fractured also. I fought blade to blade against warriors that I had once thought of as kin from a different father. We did the Allfather’s bidding, and gladly, but it is not right to disturb the ghosts we laid upon Prospero.’

  +Is it true what he says? What became of Magnus and the Thousand Sons? All is obscured here, filtered through the fog of the veil.+

  Njal ignored the sorcerer and sifted Bjorn’s words, finding an answer within.

  ‘You will not come?’

  ‘I will not return to Prospero, Stormcaller. The past is done.’

  The Rune Priest knew better than to argue his case. No fresh appeal would sway the Fell-Handed, and would be disrespectful. Mindful of the argument that had erupted with Ulrik, Njal forced himself to accept the entombed Space Wolf’s decision.

  ‘Very well, Fell-Handed. Your claw shall be sorely missed.’

  He moved towards the stasis controls but a mechanical grunt halted him.

  ‘Leave me awake for a while, Stormcaller.’ The speaker grille rattled in poor imitation of a sigh. ‘I do not want to return to oblivion just yet. I will inform the forge priests when I wish to sleep.’

  ‘Of course, honoured ancient.’

  ‘One other thing,’ said Bjorn even as Njal moved to turn away.

  ‘Yes, Fell-Handed?’

  ‘Do not let a rescue mission become a quest for vengeance, or a return to past battles. Find the Old Guard and bring them home. All else is vanity.’

  Njal nodded his acceptance of this advice though he was unsure of its importance. Clearly Bjorn had a view on matters different to all except the Allfather, Wolf King and traitor Magnus. He took the words to heart and left, leaving the vault of the near-dead in silence.

  The expedition’s preparations continued as the masters of the forgeworks delved into their deepest stockpiles to equip the thrall host. Veterans trained with unblooded aspirants, while tech-priests ignited the machine-spirits of slumbering giant automata that were buried in the depths of the Fang’s lowest levels. Forty-eight hours after the pronouncement of Logan Grimnar, the expedition was almost ready to depart.

  The Great Wolf himself summoned the warriors to the Great Hall. Beneath the banners of generations past, staring wide-eyed at the trophies and heirlooms on display, the thralls were feted by the Chapter Master. Ale was brought from the cellars by centuries-old veterans, to acknowledge the bond with their new warrior-peers. The Space Marines each bore a full tankard or a goblet rendered from the skull or other remains of a defeated foe. For those who did not possess the digestive augmentation implants of a Space Marine, the ale had been watered down and poured into plain steel mugs.

  Logan held up a horn frothing at the brim, the gold-chased vessel taken from the head of a monstrous ork beast he had single-handedly slain. The disparate assembly raised their drinking vessels in return.

  ‘The Great Companies of the Space Wolves gather here,’ Logan began, sweeping his other hand to indicate the tables and the Grand Annulus at the centre of the hall, inscribed onto massive stones with the symbols of the reigning Wolf Lords. ‘You come from all places, yet none, to seek the lost. All voyages are into the unknown for the future is a fickle sea to sail. The waters into which you shall travel are shrouded in the thickest mists. Rocks and beasts await, no doubt, loitering in the darkness. And coming upon the strange shore within, you shall find yourselves in a land more remarkable still.’

  He strode across the stones of the Grand Annulus to stand upon his symbol – the Champions of Fenris – a wolf’s head howling against a dark moon. The circular stone at the centre was facing him, the symbol of the Wolf that Stalks Between Stars an indication of his rank as Great Wolf. His gaze passed over the symbols of the other company stones – Bloodmaws, Blackmanes, Iron Wolves, Sons of Morkai and others – and lingered on the black stone that represented the missing 13th Company.

  ‘You are not represented here, nor is there place for you to be, but in heart you are a Great Company. As such, your leader is a Wolf Lord, among his other well-earned titles. The skalds must have a name for your s
aga, the singing of which shall fill these halls for many generations and pass out into the lands of our ancestors. It is not for me to give you this name, but for your lord to choose it.’

  ‘I would not presume,’ said Njal from his place at the high table.

  ‘A mantle of modesty ill suits your shoulders,’ chastened the Great Wolf. ‘You know the legends of our people more than any other here. Choose your totem and name your company.’

  ‘I have a name, the Stormcaller,’ insisted Njal. ‘I have been honoured by it ever since it was bestowed on me.’

  Logan said nothing but a discontented murmuring and growling sounded from the assembled company. The pack leader, Valgarthr, rose to his feet and drew a long-bladed axe from his belt.

  ‘We cannot set sail across the Othersea without a name, Lord of Runes,’ he protested. There was much nodding and thumping of the tables from the other veterans while the thralls looked on with bewilderment, not sure how to act. He pointed to the shoulder pad of his armour. Njal saw that it was blank, the symbol of the Drakeslayer painted over with the blue-grey of the Chapter. The others had also removed their former Great Company insignia. ‘I feel naked without my aett-rune.’

  ‘Very well,’ conceded Njal as the demands grew in frequency and volume. He cast his mind back, into the earliest memories of his time before the Sky Warriors had come for him. ‘There was a story my uncle told me, when I was a bairn on his knee the night after my father had been killed in battle. He said that my father’s spirit had been taken by the valkyr to ride on the storms between worlds, fighting the enemies of the Allfather for eternity. We shall go with our ancestors upon that tempest. We are the Stormriders.’

  The Space Marines roared their approval and the higher pitch of the thralls joined it in praise of this decision. Logan Grimnar smiled broadly, drained his horn in one long draught and held up the empty horn to the assembly.

  ‘The Stormriders!’ he shouted.

  The answering bellows, stamping of feet and tankards slammed on tables rivalled a company many times its size. When the resounding endorsement had died down, a lone voice called out from the direction of the great doors.