Blood of Asaheim

Chapter Eighteen



They came with the sun. As the sky turned rust-red, then flesh-grey, then a clear, deep, cloudless blue, the plains began to fill with the armies of ruin. Slowly at first, as the advance units crawled across the dust, then with growing frequency as the main detachments caught up and the day waxed towards noon. They went warily, watchfully, before finally digging in several kilometres clear of the walls.

Canoness de Chatelaine watched them from atop the fortifications of the Ighala Gate. As the hours passed, she watched the air turned brown from the clouds of dust they threw up, and smelled the hot, putrid stench of their bodily corruption. The sun beat down, making her sweat even within her armour.

Callia stood beside her, as well as six of her Celestians in their dark battle-plate. All along the walls, running away from the gate-bastion in either direction, Guardsmen and Battle Sisters had taken up positions behind the battlements. The Guardsmen wore full-face gas masks and sealed carapace armour. Few of them spoke. Few of them moved. They stood quietly, expectantly, nervously, watching.

‘Word from the Wolves?’ asked de Chatelaine, her eyes fixed on the gathering army out on the plain.

‘On their way, canoness,’ said Callia. Her voice was more nervy than usual.

‘Their wounded?’

‘One warrior. He remains in the citadel. The others will fight.’

De Chatelaine nodded. ‘Good. For what it is worth, good.’

She couldn’t summon up much more than a token enthusiasm. This day had been coming for months. It had filled her dreams every night since the plague-ships had first appeared above her world. In her heart she had never believed victory to be possible. Now, seeing what the enemy had created and was capable of deploying, that belief became a certainty.

Privately she had always doubted that Gunnlaugur and his savages really understood just what volume of horror had been unleashed on Ras Shakeh. Perhaps their raw confidence was just an act, a show of defiance in the face of inevitable defeat. Perhaps they truly believed they could turn the horde back. In either case, their arrogance had only a superficial charm.

‘Nothing remains to be done,’ she said coldly.

It was true. The outer walls were fully manned and the defence towers stocked with huge quantities of ammunition. The engineering works in the lower city had been completed. Fire lanes had been gouged through the interlocking network of shadowy streets; pits had been dug in concentric lines ready for the promethium that would be pumped into them at a moment’s notice. Explosive lines snaked their way through the hab-units and gun-clusters, ready to be ignited as the enemy reached them.

De Chatelaine felt a soft swell of pride as she cast her eyes over what had been achieved. Her Sisters had laboured well, keeping the spread of contagion down and mobilising the workforce. The Wolves, particularly the big one with the scars, had accelerated the work enormously, but the bulk of the lifting had still been done by mortal soldiers under her command. Given the time they had had to work in, and the conditions, it was an achievement worth taking pride in.

She ran the numbers through her mind one last time. Twenty thousand Guardsmen were on the outer perimeter, almost all stationed along the walls or in the defence towers. Sixty Battle Sisters stood with them in ten-strong squads to stiffen their resistance. A reserve line of ten thousand Guard and militia, plus the few mechanised units they possessed, were posted within the terraces of the lower city in staggered detachments. Six Sisters were billeted in the cathedral with Palatine Bajola, with the remainder of the Sororitas contingent up in the Halicon, together with the final five thousand Guard troops, ready to oversee the withdrawal to the citadel should they be forced into a last stand at the summit.

De Chatelaine lifted her helm and looked out again at what faced them. The enemy had dug in several kilometres out, far beyond the range of the guns on the perimeter wall. Her helm-lenses zoomed in as she squinted into the hot light.

Their formations were huge. Battalions of infantry, each one many hundreds strong, marched up out of the dust. They arranged themselves in ragged squares, each one headed by contagion-mutated command squads bearing rough-hewn standards and skeletal trophies. The air around them was thick with a screen of dust and spore-clouds. The troops wore a motley collection of armour – rusting iron plates, looted Guard uniforms, strangely warped and merged creations of bolted metal and stretched sinew.

De Chatelaine couldn’t zoom in close enough to see their faces, though she knew well enough what they would be like: listless, bloated with tumours, the flesh pressing out from the stitched joints in their leather hoods and gas mask-helms, stained green from the clouds of filmy murk that swam behind their eyepieces. Some of those troops would have been landed from the plague-ships; others were new recruits, infected and enslaved during earlier fighting. They were all equally lost now; only death, in some cases for the second time, would release them.

Already the host of plague-bearers comfortably outnumbered the defenders on the walls and more regiments were arriving all the time. She saw huge, slab-sided troop carriers smoking and rolling into position, vomiting more diseased soldiers from their flanks before shuddering back away from the front line to ferry more in. Plumes of noxious smog rolled and boiled amid the drifting dust, staining the clear blue of the sky with a wash of swimming filth.

De Chatelaine swept her gaze back and forth, scouring the front line for signs of more formidable fighters. She knew they would be there, somewhere, stalking amid the endless ranks of mortal fodder. She’d seen footage of great striding horrors, each three times the height of a man and almost impervious to pain or damage. She’d heard stories of hovering drones that buzzed across the battlefield spreading gouts of flesh-melting blooms, and swarms of fist-sized insects that latched on to faces and bit through flak-jackets.

She saw none of those things. They were being held back at the rear of the gathering host, ready to be unleashed when the defences were reeling under the weight of attacking numbers.

De Chatelaine smiled thinly. It was what she would have done, given the luxury of such overwhelming force.

And of course there was the matter of the Plague Marines. She knew that one had been destroyed by the Wolves; she doubted it was the only one. Perhaps only a handful had been landed, or perhaps dozens had.

No way of knowing until the fighting started.

‘We’ve been waiting too long,’ said Callia grimly. ‘I find myself wishing for it to begin.’

De Chatelaine nodded. ‘Which is why they will linger.’

‘Maybe this time will be different.’

‘No. They wish for our fear to grow.’

Even as she spoke, a strange, half-audible noise drifted across the plains towards them. At first it sounded like the eddying drift of the desert wind. Then it clarified – a whispering chant, hissed through broken lips and filtered by spore-thick rebreathers. Thousands of voices were murmuring in unison, mournfully repeating the same words over and over again.

Terminus Est. Terminus Est. Terminus Est.

‘The end,’ said Callia. ‘They are telling us that this is the end.’

De Chatelaine listened. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Or perhaps it has some other meaning. Who knows?’

She spoke deliberately lightly, as if it mattered not what jabbering nonsense those pustulent mouths spat out. For all that, the mournful repetition quickly became grating. It preyed on the nerves, irritating like the sting of a gadfly. The army kept up the chant, whispering and chattering like ghouls.

She straightened, pushing her shoulders back and keeping her spine straight. That was how she intended to stay until the fighting began – standing tall, looking the enemy in the eye.

‘Ensure the mask drills are broadcast,’ she ordered. ‘Check the secure comm-lines to Bajola and the perimeter. And unfurl the standards – it is time we matched their faithlessness with the symbols of devotion.’

Callia bowed, and hastened to obey.

De Chatelaine let her go. She would have to think of more things to give her to do. She would have to think of more orders to issue to all of them, keeping the entire city busy lest it lapsed into a fearful paralysis. In truth, though, there was nothing left to do. Everything that could have been done had been done; all that remained was to wait.

Terminus Est. Terminus Est.

De Chatelaine edged forwards, making sure she was visible on the parapet to the troops lining the terraces below her. It would be important to stay visible, to give them a signal that she was with them.

The air around her felt muggy and oppressive, even more than usual, as if thickened and curdled by the poisons leaking from the enemy.

Terminus Est.

The words were strangely familiar, though she couldn’t quite think why. She turned her mind from them, trying not to listen. It would be important not to listen.

Terminus Est. Terminus Est.

She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to think of other things.

All that remained was to wait.

Váltyr hurried down through the streets, heading for the outer walls. Olgeir went with him, striding in his purposive, unhurried, rolling gait.

The pack had split. Gunnlaugur had gone to the Ighala Gate to consult with the canoness. Hafloí and Jorundur were heading to the northern edge of the perimeter zone to stiffen the defences there. Váltyr and Olgeir had been assigned to the southern half. With the city surrounded on multiple fronts, the defenders were stretched thin.

Váltyr briefly wondered if it had been the same in every city that had been destroyed. Perhaps each of them had put in place hasty defences, working until their fingers bled to erect barricades and fire-trenches, hoping against hope that it would be enough.

As the two of them moved towards their positions, loudspeakers blared out repetitive messages to the populace.

Keep your gas mask on at all times. Ensure your armour is sealed. Check your fall-back routes and muster points. Do not leave your post unless ordered to do so. The Emperor protects the faithful. Remain strong, and the righteous will prevail. Keep your gas mask on at all times. Ensure your armour…

Olgeir had spent the time since leaving the apothecarion cleaning and oiling his heavy bolter. Huge loops of ammunition hung from his burly frame, interspersed with graven rune-totems promising destruction for the faithless. His battle-plate still bore the acid-burns from the ravine but he’d stripped the tattered remnants of his pelts from his back.

‘You are quiet, great one,’ said Váltyr as they walked.

Olgeir sniffed. ‘Not much to say.’

His rolling voice was subdued.

‘Perhaps not,’ said Váltyr.

Neither of them wished to speak of recent events, though in truth there was little else on their minds.

They passed quickly from the shadow of the Ighala Gate and down through the Cathedral zone. Mortal soldiers scurried around them the whole time, hauling ammo gurneys or hefting lasguns. They had stopped staring at the Wolves a long time ago. Their faces were hidden behind masks, but their movements were hurried and anxious.

‘How long do you think this perimeter will hold?’ asked Váltyr as they approached the lowest terraces. He tried to keep his tone light, but it sounded forced. ‘You helped build it.’

Olgeir snorted. ‘If we’d had more time, maybe a day or two,’ he said. ‘As it is? A few hours.’

Váltyr looked around him.

‘Aye,’ he said ruefully. ‘Looks about right.’

They strode across what had once been a narrow, tree-lined courtyard. The hab-units around its edges had been demolished to clear space for a lascannon emplacement on the northern edge. Old tiles and cobbles had been dumped in a rough embankment around the lascannons. Shakeh Guardsmen crouched on the far side of it, surrounded by stacks of lasguns and spare power-packs. Some were methodically going through their last weapon rites in order to placate machine-spirits. Others were praying. Others just squatted in the heat, their limbs listless, waiting for their world to come crashing in on top of them.

‘It will be hard on them,’ said Olgeir, halting for a moment.

Váltyr nodded. ‘It will.’

Olgeir gazed around him. The surviving walls of hab-units and personnel bunkers seemed to shake in the heat.

‘I worked with them,’ Olgeir said. ‘They are good people. I think they will fight well enough.’

Váltyr listened warily, wondering where he was going with this.

Then Olgeir shook his head dismissively. ‘It is a shame they will die,’ he said. ‘I could have done things here. With more time, we could have made them as tough as kaerls.’

As he finished speaking, a low, brushing noise broke out across the city. From every tower balcony and gate lintel around them, banners suddenly unfurled, sliding down the stone and hanging limply in the unmoving air. Váltyr looked over his shoulder, back up at the imposing bulk of the Ighala Gate, just in time to see two immense standards unroll on either side of the yawning entrance arch. Each one was black, lined with pearl-white and gold. One displayed the emblem of the Wounded Heart in deep crimson; the other had the Imperial aquila emblazoned in gold.

Similar devices unfurled across the entire city. Hjec Aleja was a ceremonial site, full of processional hangings, regimental standards and ritual tapestries; when they were unravelled all at once the effect was startling: blank stone and rockcrete was replaced by a rippling sea of ebony, white, gold and crimson. The immortal images of the Imperium and the Ecclesiarchy came into being, picked out starkly by the unforgiving sun, staring out defiantly at the sea of blasphemy beyond the walls.

For a moment, faced with that spectacle, Váltyr forgot the reality of the tactical situation. He saw the dazzling array of icons, all of them created by a world whose only purpose was to venerate the Imperial order. He saw the pride that had gone into their making. Ras Shakeh was not a rich planet, it was not a beautiful one, but it had always been pious.

Olgeir grunted with approval.

‘Good people,’ he said again, as if that had proved his point.

The two of them started moving again, Olgeir striding out, Váltyr following on, his hand on the hilt of his blade. He felt a mix of emotions, including ones he rarely indulged. For once, the forthcoming combat was not something he looked forward to as an abstract exercise. With Baldr’s fall, it had gone beyond that, becoming something more personal.

Most strangely, and against all the odds, he found himself sharing some of Olgeir’s sentiments. As things had transpired, he regretted the ruin that would come to Ras Shakeh. They had already fought hard for it; they would fight harder for it before the end came.

The people had earned that. With their dogged resistance, their artistry, their loyalty, they had earned the right to one last battle.

He remembered hating the planet, and found he could no longer do so.

It is a shame they will die.

Hafloí limped along behind Jorundur. They were near the outer walls, surrounded by the bunkers and resupply depots of the perimeter defence forces. His limbs still felt like they were atrophied inside his armour. Váltyr had told him it would pass. Hafloí wondered how he could be so certain.

‘You could slow down,’ he complained.

‘And you could keep up,’ Jorundur retorted, not changing his pace. ‘I thought you were capable of fighting?’

‘I am,’ said Hafloí sullenly. ‘This is walking.’

Jorundur stopped and turned to face him.

‘They’re linked,’ he said acidly. ‘Tell me truly, whelp: if you can’t swing an axe up there, you’re no good to me.’

Hafloí scowled under his helm. ‘I can swing an axe fine,’ he said. His voice held a growling edge to it, just as Gunnlaugur’s so often did. ‘Just get me into position and let them come to me.’

Jorundur looked at him for a long time, as if judging whether that was wise.

‘Your armour’s burned white,’ he observed. ‘That’s not going to change. Perhaps we should give you a name to remember it by. Witch-marked? White-pelt?’ He shook his head. ‘Never been gifted at such things. Baldr would have known what to suggest.’

Hafloí felt a twinge of pain. ‘Deed names are for heroes,’ he said. ‘I won’t take one.’

The memory of what had happened in the ravine was still raw. He’d fought a thousand times against the scions of the Dark Gods and had never been so easily swatted aside. If he’d just been a little quicker, a little wilier or a little more experienced, Baldr might not be lying on a slab in the heart of the Halicon.

He expected Jorundur to respond with sarcasm. To his surprise, the old warrior reached out to him, resting his gauntlet on his warp-whitened armour.

‘You’re young, whelp,’ he said. His dry voice was as warm as it ever got. ‘You fight well. Váltyr told me he’d have struggled against that witch if he’d been up against him. It took three of them to take him down. Three. And one of them was Gunnlaugur, who can kill anything that lives. So you have nothing to be ashamed of.’

The kindness was so unexpected, so unusual, Hafloí didn’t know how to respond. For a moment he thought Jorundur might still be mocking him somehow, masking a jest with honeyed reassurances.

‘Doubt is the killer, Hafloí,’ Jorundur went on. ‘Let it under your guard, and it will murder you. I’ve seen you use your axe, and you’ve got a mighty future ahead of you.’ The Old Dog’s voice drifted a little, as if he were remembering something else. ‘Don’t doubt. I’d hate to see you not fulfil your potential.’

It was then that Hafloí knew he wasn’t mocking him. He watched Jorundur standing before him, somehow hunched and crabby even in his ancient battle-plate. Those last words had been heartfelt.

Then Jorundur withdrew his gauntlet and started walking again.

Hafloí hurried to keep up with him, feeling the muscles in his calves throb. He struggled to think of something to say.

‘So what of Vuokho?’ he asked, suddenly remembering the Thunderhawk sitting up in the citadel.

Jorundur laughed. ‘Still hoping, eh?’ he said. ‘Forget it. It’s back in one piece, but we ran out of time. It wouldn’t get off the landing pad. And if it did, it would crash soon after.’ He chortled darkly to himself. ‘A shame. I’d have enjoyed opening up with the cannon.’

Hafloí sighed. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘And I’d have enjoyed flying it.’

That made Jorundur laugh again.

‘Where is this nonsense coming from?’ he asked. ‘You’re a fine warrior, but you’re no pilot. Trust me, I’ve trained plenty. You’ve got muscle where your brain should be. You’d burn a Thunderhawk into the ground as soon as look at it.’

Hafloí began to feel reassured. That was more like it – the old sarcasm was back.

‘So you think,’ he said, wincing as his damaged muscles protested against the work he put them to. ‘I’d have enjoyed proving you wrong.’

As he spoke, they reached the broad expanse of cleared earth on the inside curve of the walls. Dozens of Shakeh-liveried troops milled around at the base of the fortifications, hauling materiel or barking orders to one another. Ladders ran up from the ground level towards the summit, more than twenty metres up. Hafloí could see figures moving between the various gantry levels on the walls’ inside faces. Long chains ran down from the parapets above, ready to lift the heavy ammo-crates chewed through by the fixed bolter turrets on the battlements. Everything was in motion, a bustling energy that spoke of nerves and resolve. Hafloí could smell the sweat of the workers even though their sealed armour and rebreathers. They would be sweltering in their chem-resistant outfits.

Jorundur moved to one of the many ladders leading to the parapet, then paused as he gripped the metal.

‘Last time I’m asking,’ he said. ‘Are you fit for this?’

Hafloí briefly saw Baldr’s grey face, laid out on the slab, eyes open but unseeing. They had done that to him. He hadn’t been strong enough to prevent that then, but there was always vengeance.

He flexed his arms. Still painful, but some of their old suppleness was returning.

‘Think I’d tell you if I wasn’t?’ he said. ‘But worry not, old one.’

He drew his weapon and hefted it loosely.

‘I can swing an axe fine.’

De Chatelaine smelled the Wolf Guard’s approach before she saw him. His aroma hadn’t improved with the passing of time. The musk that always hung around him had been added to by the remnants of those he’d killed: she could detect the dry tang of crusted blood, the slowly decaying residue of slaughtered flesh, the musty stench of residual acid-eroded furs, so incongruously worn in the full heat of the sun.

She waited for him on the platform above the Ighala Gate, standing where she had done since the first enemy troops had crawled onto the plains before her. She heard his heavy tread coming up the stone steps behind her. She knew that Space Marines could move stealthily when they chose to, but for the most part their movements seemed to her heavy, almost clumsy.

They were such crushing, blunt instruments. Each individual among them was capable of slaying hundreds of lesser troops. They had passed so far beyond the capabilities of mortality that they were more like living tanks than lone soldiers.

And of all the Chapters that might have answered her summons, the Wolves were the most incongruous of all; a weird mix of mutation, superstition and backwardness that would have long since been purged from the Imperium if it hadn’t been for their other qualities: unshakeable loyalty, terrifying combat prowess, sheer bloody-mindedness.

De Chatelaine smiled silently to herself. Despite everything, despite all she’d expected, she couldn’t help but appreciate their uniqueness. Dealing with the Adulators had been easier. They had been courteous, predictable and efficient. But – Throne forgive her – they had also been mordantly dull.

‘Canoness,’ came Gunnlaugur’s greeting.

De Chatelaine turned away from the vista before her and inclined her head gracefully.

‘Wolf Guard,’ she answered. ‘How fares your wounded warrior?’

Gunnlaugur drew alongside her. The two of them stood together at the Ighala’s summit. Below them spread the tumbling face of the lower city. Beyond that sprawled the enemy army, now bloated into a foetid sea of bodies that lapped in all directions, staining the earth into blackness. Their numbers had long since become uncountable.

‘He lives,’ said Gunnlaugur. His expression was masked by his helm. ‘One of my pack tends him.’

De Chatelaine placed her hands together before her.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Then your raid was a success.’

Gunnlaugur didn’t reply immediately.

‘They had a witch with them,’ he said. ‘A sorcerer. We killed it.’

‘So I heard,’ she said. ‘The first such abomination to die on this world. Let us hope it will not be the last.’

Gunnlaugur growled his assent. ‘Trust in that.’

Out on the plains, the low whispering had never stopped. It still rolled across the thickening air, repeated in overlapping, husky, phlegm-thick voices. The sound was impossible to get used to; de Chatelaine couldn’t block it out or forget it was there. That was, presumably, the point. She forced her mind not to fixate.

‘Terminus Est,’ she said. ‘Does it mean something to you?’

Gunnlaugur nodded slowly. ‘It does,’ he said. ‘It is the name of a ship.’

As soon as he said it, de Chatelaine knew he was right. She dimly recalled stories, old stories, legends of drifting hulks in the deep void crewed by nightmares.

‘So why do they say its name?’ she asked.

‘I do not know.’

De Chatelaine looked at him shrewdly. ‘You do not know, or you will not tell me?’

Gunnlaugur seemed to consider that for a while. Eventually, he spoke again.

‘The mutants that pollute your planet are scions of Mortarion,’ he said. ‘The Traitor Marines that walk among them are of his Legion, the Death Guard. Their captain has many names and many faces. Some are legendary, some remembered only by the souls of those he has slain.’

Gunnlaugur’s voice dropped low, audible only to her and the Celestians in attendance.

‘In the annals of our order he was once Calas Typhon of the Dusk Raiders. Now he is called Typhus.’ The contempt in Gunnlaugur’s voice was almost physically tangible. ‘The Terminus Est is his flagship.’

‘Why do they call out its name?’ asked de Chatelaine. ‘Is he here? Is that it?’

Gunnlaugur made a strange, twisted noise. For a moment de Chatelaine thought he was choking on something. Then she realised he was laughing.

‘If he were here, Sister, this world would already be smouldering ash,’ he said, before turning his dust-lined lenses to her. ‘They say I am proud, but I am not stupid. Some foes are beyond all but the mightiest of us.’

He looked back out over the plains.

‘No,’ he said. ‘His brothers lead this attack, but he is not with them.’

The canoness couldn’t draw much comfort from that. The forces against them were so immense that the presence or otherwise of one warlord, no matter how dreadful, seemed to make little difference.

‘Then I do not understand why they chant,’ she said.

‘Neither do I,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘But if his name is invoked here, then this battle is a part of something larger. The Terminus Est has been hunted for millennia. Whenever it draws clear of the warp it is the harbinger of some great terror.’

His tone was sombre. The ebullience that had coloured his words on arrival seemed to have faded.

‘I have the sense of something unfolding,’ he said. ‘I have the sense that long-prepared plans have been mobilised. This world – your world – had the misfortune to be in the way of them.’

‘Misfortune?’

‘Fate, then.’

De Chatelaine unclasped her hands. Absently, her right strayed to the grip of her holstered bolt pistol.

‘Nothing you say makes me optimistic, Space Wolf,’ she said. ‘For a long time, even after they began to march on us here in Hjec Aleja, I was optimistic. I prayed that some outside force would come to deliver us. When you arrived, I thought it might be you.’

Gunnlaugur snorted in amusement. ‘We haven’t started on them yet.’

‘But you yourself do not believe it.’

‘Oh, I do,’ said Gunnlaugur, at last injecting some resolve into his deep voice. ‘We all believe. That is what makes us who we are.’

He held up his gauntlet and turned it in the sunlight. The grey ceramite was criss-crossed with scratches, scorches, gouges, chips and bloodstains.

‘These are just tools,’ he said. Then he tapped his finger against his chest, just over the angular markings on his breastplate. ‘This is what makes us Fenryka. We believe. If any one of my pack wavered in that, even the closest of my battle-brothers, I would disown him. When the urge comes on us, when we enter the fight, none of us doubts. Not for a second. That is Russ’s legacy.’

He clenched his fist before lowering it.

‘Some things are eternal,’ he said. ‘When this thing starts, I will enter battle in the full certainty that I will crush them utterly.’

De Chatelaine laughed. She wasn’t sure whether that was because his words inspired her or because they were ludicrous. In any case, it felt good to release some small portion of the tension she had carried with her for so long.

‘And you would say the same even if this Typhus were here?’ she asked.

Gunnlaugur nodded. ‘I would. And you would see then what contradictory creatures we are.’

De Chatelaine inclined her head amusedly. ‘I already see that,’ she said.

They stood together after that, watching the clouds of dust drift across the plains. The sun was at its apex, hammering down over defender and besieger alike. Smoke wafted lazily up from the enemy lines. It was hard to make out what they were doing. In the far distance, the hazy outlines of huge vehicles could just be made out. Some looked like bloated artillery pieces; others like massive fuel tankers.

‘So Typhus is not among them,’ said de Chatelaine, musingly. ‘But they are led by one from his Legion. Who, I wonder?’

‘Do not worry on that score,’ said Gunnlaugur, his voice bleak. ‘We will know it soon enough.’