Moving with the speed and ease of veteran warriors, the Wolf Guard quickly formed up around the ventral hatch, ready to jump off. Ragnar keyed open the command channel on his vox-unit. For the moment, he could tap into the vox-network of Jotun Flight's transports and communicate with his scattered forces. He knew from experience that would change once he was inside the hull of the huge warship. 'Strike Team Surtur, status report,' he called.
The company's Wolf Scouts and Leif's Grey Hunter pack aboard Jotun Two checked in first. 'We're going in now,' the Wolf Guard pack leader reported. 'I mark your position at twelve hundred metres. Hogun's pack is closer. Do you want me and Petur to link up with the Blood Claws first?'
'You look to your own pack, Leif,' Hogun cut in. The Blood Claw pack leader's voice was rough-edged with fury. 'The Blood Claws hunt alone!'
The vehemence in Hogun's voice surprised Ragnar. The Wolf Guard had proven to be a cold, clear-eyed warrior, which was why he'd been given command of the hot-headed Blood Claws in the first place. 'What's the status of your pack, Hogun?' Ragnar snapped.
'Three brothers are badly wounded. They have slipped into the Red Dream,' Hogun snarled. Space Marines, with their enhanced physiology and redundant vital organs, were extraordinarily difficult to kill.
Space Marines in the field who had been incapacitated by their wounds often went into a life-sustaining form of suspended animation until they could receive proper treatment. 'A burst of shells tore through the assault bay,' the pack leader continued. 'The rest of us got away with minor wounds.'
'Does anyone know what happened to Jotun Three?' Ragnar asked.
'They were hit hard, just short of the target,' Leif reported. 'I can't be certain, but I think they overshot and landed on the starboard side of the ship.'
'Have they contacted you?'
'No, lord. It's possible their vox system was knocked out. As I said, they were hit hard.'
That left a pack of Grey Hunters and the company's Long Fangs unaccounted for and possibly dead. Ragnar drew his bolt pistol and considered his options. 'All right,' he said. 'I and my pack will activate our beacons now. Leif, you and Hogun home in on our signal. Petur, take your scouts and see if you can locate Jotun Three. We'll hold here until everyone has linked up. Then we'll head aft to the reactor vault. Now go, and Russ be with you.'
'For Russ and the Allfather!' Leif answered, and the channel went silent.
Satisfied, Ragnar activated his power armour's recovery beacon and instructed his Wolf Guard to do the same. Then he gave Jurgen a curt nod, and the Iron Priest turned a heavy dial on the control panel beside the hatch. With a sharp hiss and a column of scalding steam, the breaching hatch slid open. Ragnar stepped to the edge and peered down into a circular shaft of semi-molten metal that dropped away into darkness.
Baring his fangs in the close confines of his helmet, the Wolf Lord leapt into the shaft.
The drop was longer than he expected. Ragnar fell through the breaching shaft and into a cavernous space beneath, hitting the canted deck twenty metres below with an echoing boom. He landed in a crouch, servos whining, and then leapt to his feet and dashed forward, pistol at the ready. His sword flashed from its scabbard, its diamond-hard teeth whirring to deadly life with a faint, ominous moan.
He found himself in a long, high-ceilinged passageway crowded with debris. Armoured viewports let in the faint gleam of starlight, giving the silent corridor a ghostly cast. Fallen support beams and smashed masonry from toppled statues and broken containers were strewn everywhere. The dust of ages swirled in faint eddies around Ragnafs feet. His armour registered heat and atmosphere, heavy with nitrogen and laced with an acrid stink that set the Wolf Lord's teeth on edge.
The Wolf Priest landed next, power crackling menacingly from his crozius arcanum, and then came the Wolf Guard Terminators in rapid succession. The Terminators faced outwards in a circular perimeter to allow Jurgen and his thralls to lower down their cargo: an armoured case containing a plasma breaching charge. The Iron Priest reckoned that they would need a minimum of three charges to pierce the battleship's reactor cores and destroy the hulk. Ragnar had brought four, just to be safe. Leifs pack had one, Hogun's pack another, and Einar, the Grey Hunter pack leader on Jotun Three, had the spare. With Einar missing, however, they'd lost their safety margin, which Ragnar didn't like at all.
Powerful searchlights cut through the darkness as the Wolf Guard activated their suit lights. 'Ho, lord!' one of the warriors called out. 'Have a look at this.'
Ragnar followed the beam of the warrior's searchlight and saw a curious pile of weapons lying in the dust. Frowning, the Wolf Lord walked over and inspected them. They were crude swords and axes shaped from bulkhead plating, the hide grips tattered and grey. A massive, ungainly firearm, clearly built for something much larger than a man lay nearby. A long, twisted belt of corroded shells lay pooled beneath the weapon.
'Greenskins,' Ragnar growled. 'There were orks on this ship at some point, but what happened to them?'
'The previous owners must have seen them off,' the Wolf Priest replied. 'Someone turned those turrets on us.'
'Not so,' Jurgen said, lowering the breaching charge carefully to the deck. With a hiss of pneumatics, the Iron Priest's powerful servo-arm retracted against his backpack. 'It could have been an automated response triggered by the ship's machine-spirit,' he said, and shrugged. 'At least now we know the battleship's reactors are still active.'
Ragnar nudged the pile of crude weapons with the toe of his boot. 'Then what happened to the greenskins?' he mused, 'and why were their bodies removed, but their weapons left behind?'
A sense of foreboding crept upon the Wolf Lord, prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. Something was very wrong. He turned and peered warily down the rubble strewn passageway leading aft. Ragnar could feel a chill creeping over him, like a rime of frost spreading inexorably across the surface of his brain. He suddenly regretted not having the services of a Rune Priest at his disposal.
Ragnar keyed his vox-unit. 'All packs report in,' he ordered.
A hissing screech of static answered. Words came and went in the torrent of noise. It might have been Hogun, but Ragnar couldn't be sure. 'Damned armoured bulkheads,' he muttered.
'Hist!' The Wolf Priest said. 'Did you hear that?'
Ragnar cocked his head and listened, straining his enhanced senses to the utmost. There! He heard it, a whispery sound, like wind over broken stones or the hiss of a distant tide.
Or like the dry clatter of claws, hundreds and hundreds of them, scrabbling along the deck of an ancient battleship.
They swept up the passageway in a seething wave of chitin, their armoured shells shining dully in the searchlights. The xenos swarm flowed over obstacles and along the pitted walls like a swarm of spiders, their four arms and powerful legs scrabbling for purchase on the slick metal bulkheads. They were almost as large as Space Marines, with broad, taloned hands that looked capable of rending adamantium plate, and armoured carapaces that shone a mottled green beneath the Wolf Guard's suit lights. Their heads were bulbous and vaguely humanoid, each with a leering fanged mouth and black eyes as cold as the Abyss itself.
The people of Hydra Hydalis were in far greater danger than anyone imagined.
'Genestealers!' Ragnar snarled, raising his bolt pistol and firing into the oncoming mass. Carapaces burst, and torn limbs spun through the air as the mass-reactive shells found their marks. Keening inhuman shrieks echoed along the passageway, and were lost in the rattling thunder of storm bolters as the Wolves of Fenris answered their foes.
The front ranks of the xenos horde writhed and rippled as streams of explosive shells tore through them, blasting frenzied monsters apart. One of the Wolf Guard stepped forward with a roar and levelled a heavy flamer at the oncoming horde. Scores of shrieking creatures vanished in a seething blast of promethium, but the rest came on, trampling their burning kin beneath the weight of hundreds of clawed feet.
Shouts and gunfire echoed from the forward end of the passageway as well. The xenos monsters had them surrounded. Ragnar caught a glimpse of the Wolf Priest on the other side of the perimeter, directing fire from half the Wolf Guard into the new wave of attackers. A second Terminator opened fire with his heavy flamer, sweeping the forward passage in an arc of all-consuming flame.
A genestealer leapt at Ragnar from high on the starboard wall of the passageway, reaching for the Wolf Lord with its taloned hands. Ragnar pivoted on his left foot and shot the creature point-blank, hurling its shattered body into the oncoming mob. More alien monsters were leaping at him, dropping from the walls or bounding ahead of the oncoming horde. Ragnar's frost blade howled as he decapitated one attacker in mid-leap, and then spun and severed the limbs of another. A fourth monster reared before him like a cobra. Howling his battle lust, Ragnar shot the creature in the face. Then the air filled with mindless, screeching cries as the tide of horrors swept over the Space Wolves.
Claws slashed and rang against Ragnar's armour. Rending talons jabbed like knives, striking hip, shoulder, neck and face. The Wolf Lord's heart hammered in his chest, and his blood seethed with righteous rage. He swept his ancient sword in devastating arcs, splitting torsos, severing limbs and slicing throats. The stink of xenos fluids filled the air, and every blow the monsters landed on Ragnar only enflamed him further. The battle madness was upon him, and he embraced it gladly.
Ragnar's vision narrowed. A howling filled his ears, rising and falling in volume like a spirit of the damned. The sounds of battle blurred, as though echoing from far away. Even the blurring speed of the aliens seemed to slow. A talon found a chink in his armour and bit deep. The Wolf Lord decapitated the monster with a backhanded slash, and then coolly shot three more monsters point-blank. A warning icon at the corner of his eye told Ragnar his pistol was empty. He smashed the butt of the pistol into the skull of another leaping xenos and dashed its body to the deck.
All around him, the Wolf Guard lashed out at the frenzied creatures with fist and blade, their Terminator suits splashed with alien blood. Ragnar glimpsed Jurgen the Iron Priest hurling knots of broken creatures through the air with sweeps of his powerful servo-arm. The Wolf Priest stood at the other side of the circle, laying about with his fiery crozius arcanum and bellowing a fell battle chant in the tongue of Fenris.
A monster leapt at Ragnar from the left. Without thinking, the Wolf Lord stunned the creature with a blow from his pistol and then split it from shoulder to hip with his blood-stained blade. Another, seeing its opportunity, dashed in from the opposite side, talons slashing for Ragnar's throat. Yet before it could reach the Wolf Lord, the monster was torn apart in a stream of storm bolter shells from a nearby Wolf Guard.
Ragnar spun around, seeking more foes to slay, but everywhere he looked he found only the heaped bodies of the fallen. Terminators moved among the enemy dead, smoke rising from the barrels of their storm bolters as they finished off the wounded. Three of the Iron Priest's thralls were dead, their flesh-and-metal bodies ripped apart by alien claws. Jurgen knelt beside the fourth, attempting to repair a damaged leg joint. The Wolf Priest stood off to one side, bloody and indomitable, his Terminator armour limned in lurid red light from still burning pools of promethium.
The Wolf Lord breathed deeply, trying to master the fire burning in his blood. His hands worked of their own accord, dropping the bolt pistol's empty magazine and slapping in another. The howling continued to echo in his ears, a savage, bestial sound, devoid of reason or sanity.
With a chill, Ragnar realised that it was coming over the command channel. It sounded like Hogun's voice.
'Hogun?' Ragnar called over the vox. 'Hogun, answer me!' Abruptly, the howling ceased, but Hogun made no reply. Cursing silently, the Wolf Lord switched channels. 'Leif? Do you read?' Immediately Ragnar heard a response, but it was too garbled by static to make out.
Suddenly the Wolf Priest whirled, raising his storm bolter. 'More scrabbling sounds,' he warned, 'coming from further aft.'
Now that they had been discovered, the genestealers were swarming from their hiding places and seeking out the intruders. It was likely that all of the packs were under attack, and the Blood Claws sounded like they were in dire trouble. If Ragnar didn't act quickly the whole company might be overran, and the fate of the system would be sealed. 'Follow me!' he ordered, heading down the forward end of the passage in the direction of Hogun's pack. 'Heavy flamers cover the rear. I don't want any of those xenos beasts overtaking us.'
The Wolf Guard fell into formation without a word, surrounding Jurgen and his demolition charge as they moved down the passageway at a rambling trot. The Wolf Priest loped silently beside Ragnar, peering warily into the gloom. No doubt he'd heard the howls over the vox-net as well, and could guess what they portended.
It had been a long time since Ragnar had heard such a cry from a brother Wolf. Every Space Wolf had to contend with the beast within. The gifts Russ gave to his sons were double-edged, like everything else about Fenris. The strength and ferocity of the wolf could not be tamed, but constantly tugged at its chains, testing the will of its master, and made no distinction between friend or foe. To the wolf, there was only the hunt and the joy of the kill.
Ragnar had travelled almost seven hundred metres down the passageway when he came upon the first xenos bodies. The dead monsters had been burst by bolt pistol shells or split by axe and sword, and the further he went the more numerous they became.
The field of slaughter stretched for almost a hundred metres down the passageway, with dead aliens piled in drifts almost as high as Ragnar's chest. Hogun's Blood Claws had waged an epic fight, driven slowly but steadily backwards by the sheer weight of their foes. Ragnar fought back a wave of dread, expecting to find the torn corpses of the pack somewhere ahead.