Blood of Asaheim Read online

  The runner’s captain, Rurik, a slab-faced man in snow-grey fatigues, shuffled up to him as he stood. Rurik had been trying to find an excuse to speak ever since the last tatters of the warp had slipped away behind them. It wasn’t obsequiousness, exactly; just an understandable desire to make contact, to exchange words with one of the lords. Sky Warriors did not often travel on support craft like Yvekk; his own presence was an unfortunate consequence of him having dropped out of command structures for too long.

  ‘Good to be back, lord?’ Rurik asked, daring a smile.

  Ingvar Orm Everrson, the one who had once been called Gyrfalkon, did not know the answer to that question. As he watched the planet growing in the viewer and saw the orbital defence stations swim up out of the dark, a whole host of emotions ran through him, none of which he was able to classify or analyse.

  It was the same, and not the same; you never trod in the same river twice. Callimachus had told him that, passing on a saying older than the Imperium itself, a fragment of commonplace wisdom that predated it all.

  Ingvar narrowed his eyes, as if he could peer through the scars of cloud and into the storm below. Somewhere down there was the ice, the place he had come from, the savage home that had forged him.

  Good to be back?

  ‘Land the ship,’ he said softly, his grey eyes never leaving the viewer.

  Once down, back with the granite of the Mountain under his feet again, he noticed how different it smelled. Or maybe it smelt the same and he was different. Fifty-seven years was a long time, even for him.

  Ingvar let the mix of aromas filter into him. His old human range of sensation had long been superseded by a richer, deeper, wider spectrum of awareness, and he picked up traces that even his old battle-brothers might have missed. All warriors of the Adeptus Astartes had their senses refined by the process of ascension; the Vlka Fenryka liked to believe that the process went further with them than any others.

  Ingvar had learned to doubt such boasts. The Wolves of Fenris were a boastful breed, and his time away from the halls of the Aett had exposed their foundations.

  Or perhaps not. He thought back to Onyx and its multiplicity of Chapters. Ingvar had always been sharper than Callimachus, picking up the scent of prey a fraction earlier than him. He’d been far quicker than Jocelyn too, though never really tested against Leonides. They had all laughed about it; the others had found his distended physiognomy both grotesque and impressive.

  ‘If you can smell so much,’ the Blood Angel Leonides had once asked, ‘how come you wash so little?’

  Ingvar remembered the laughter. He remembered joining in, playing along with his disjointed new pack of mismatched brothers, doing what every newly assigned Blood Claw had done since the days of the Crusade: finding his station, assessing hierarchy, doing what needed to be done to fit in.

  If he’d been tempted to reply seriously, he might have pointed out that olfaction was an easily underestimated capability. It gave early warning of danger. It allowed a trail to be followed. It exposed corruption.

  Would they have been impressed? It was difficult to impress an Ultramarine with anything: Blood Angels were nearly as bad.

  Ingvar let his nostrils flare, and took a deep breath.

  Old rock, damp with trace humidity. Mortal sweat, twenty metres down. Filter-engine lubricant, past replacement age. Cured leather. Embers, from a long way away. Bronze, etched in acid. Alien matter, recently introduced.

  Ingvar smiled at himself.

  That is me. I am an alien here, treading spores into stone from halfway across the galaxy. The Aett knows that I no longer belong.

  He looked up. The doorway before him was barred by two bronze panels, each etched in a riot of knotwork dragons, krakens and seawyrms. Framing the doors was bare rock, as blunt and jagged as the half-worked walls of the tunnel he’d just walked down.

  Typical Fenrisian juxtaposition: artistry the equal of any in the Imperium placed next to rude hackwork.

  ‘Open,’ he said, noticing the way his trial-hardened voice echoed dully from the stone around him.

  The bronze doors slid smoothly apart. On the far side was a half-lit chamber, pungent with smoking brazier pans.

  A figure waited for him in the darkness.

  ‘Welcome home, Gyrfalkon,’ said Ragnar Blackmane.

  ‘So it’s true?’ asked Váltyr.

  Gunnlaugur grunted. ‘It is.’

  Váltyr shook his head. ‘When did they tell you?’ he asked.

  ‘Six hours ago.’

  ‘Skítja,’ Váltyr swore.

  ‘He came in on a runner. They didn’t send a warship. If they had, I’d have known sooner.’

  Váltyr placed his slender hands together.

  ‘Will he return, then?’

  Gunnlaugur smiled wryly, a look that said, Why would they tell me?

  The two were alone, hunched over a firepit and surrounded by lambent shadows. Gunnlaugur’s chamber was high up on the eastern flanks of the Fang, close to the edge where the biting winds of Asaheim came over the Hunter’s Gap. Ironhelmsshrine was within reach; on rare clear days, it could be seen from the narrow realview portal mounted on the external wall.

  Out of battle armour, there were only marginal physical difference between the two warriors. Gunnlaugur, the one they called Skullhewer, was a fraction heavier-set, a finger’s width shorter. His shaven head still had residual traces of flame-red hair in the stubble, though his beard was slush-grey and stiff with age. His features were the same tight, brutal ones that had propelled him to clan chief of the Gaellings when he had been mortal, only now filled out and made heavier by aggressive muscular augmentation.

  He sat on a stone slab in front of the fire, massive and stooped, his shoulders draped in furs. He ran a dagger through his hands, playing with the killing edge, flicking it between thick, dextrous fingers.

  ‘We are wounded, brother,’ Gunnlaugur said. ‘Tally it up. We lost Ulf on Lossanal, Svafnir on Cthar, Tínd to the greenskins.’

  As he spoke, his dark eyes reflected the warm light of the coals.

  ‘We’re under strength,’ he said. ‘He’ll have to come back, just to make us viable. And where else can he go? Who else will take him?’

  Váltyr listened intently. His narrow face was hot, and the glow exposed the many scars latticed across his cheeks.

  His hands were still. Váltyr never played with blades. His longsword, holdbítr, was strapped across his back just as it ever was. The weapon was only drawn to be used in combat, or for veneration, or for ritual maintenance, and even then he never left its side, watching the Iron Priests intently as they invoked the sleeping spectres of murder that dwelt within.

  Blademasters – sverdhjera – were a strange breed, guarding their weapons as if they were children.

  ‘He chose to leave,’ said Váltyr. ‘He could have stayed, and we would have welcomed him then. He could have contested for the–’

  ‘You’d have made the same choice he did,’ said Gunnlaugur. ‘I’d have done it too, if they’d asked.’

  He hacked up a gobbet of phlegm and spat it into the fire. Trace particles of acid made it fizz angrily against the coals.

  ‘I could protest,’ Gunnlaugur said. ‘Blackmane has a Blood Claw waiting in the wings as well, one he’s eager to give us to knock into shape. That would make us six – enough to hunt again.’

  Váltyr snorted. ‘That’s what we’re reduced to now?’

  Gunnlaugur nodded.

  ‘Plenty of packs are running with losses,’ he said. ‘Every Great Year more come back diminished. Remember when Hjortur died? Remember how shocked we were? Tell me truly, would you be shocked now to hear of a vaerangi dying on the hunt?’

  Váltyr grinned.

  ‘If it was you, yes.’

  Gunnlaugur didn’t return the smile. He stared into the fi
re, and the blade spun and flashed absently in his fingers.

  ‘I’ll take the Blood Claw,’ he said. ‘We need new blood, and he’ll learn quickly from Olgeir. But as for him…’

  Váltyr looked steadily into Gunnlaugur’s eyes.

  ‘Blackmane will choose,’ he said.

  Gunnlaugur nodded slowly. ‘That he will.’

  He stilled the movement of the dagger.

  ‘Our Young King,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘Barely fanged. What in Hel are we coming to, brother?’

  For a moment it looked as though Váltyr had an answer. Then the blademaster shook his sleek head.

  ‘I really am the wrong person to ask,’ he said.

  Ingvar stood before Blackmane. Out of habit, his eyes ran over the Jarl’s armour, scanning for weaknesses, assessing strength, gauging the likely route of attack. The process was automatic with him, as unconscious an act as breathing.

  The experience was sobering. When Ingvar had last served as a member of the Rout on Fenris, he had barely known the name Ragnar Blackmane – a Blood Claw in Berek’s Great Company, already tipped for an illustrious future, but no more so than many of the headstrong berserks they pulled off the ice.

  Now, six decades later, the whelp had grown. Ragnar’s face still had the supple bloom of youth but his armour was scarred as badly as any other Jarl’s, draped with age-bleached trophies of a hundred kills and carrying the clenched-fist sigils of Berek’s old company amid the howling wolfshead device of his own. The blackmane pelt was slung over rune-graven shoulder guards, tight with weathering. A huge chainsword hung idle at his side, chipped and scratched from use.

  Ragnar smiled, exposing short, sharp fangs. Glossy sideburns ran down each jaw, each as black as the long top knot that mingled fluidly with the pelt on his shoulders.

  ‘I never knew you,’ Blackmane said. ‘I heard much, though.’

  Ingvar bowed. He could feel every hair on his forearms standing up.

  Why am I threatened by him?

  ‘How does it feel to be back?’ asked Ragnar, gesturing towards one of two stone benches. ‘Strange?’

  Ingvar sat on the nearest bench, feeling exposed without his armour. Even with dausvjer sheathed at his side, his grey shift and fur-lined cloak felt like flimsy protection against the Fang’s permanent chill.

  ‘Somewhat,’ he replied.

  Ragnar sat opposite. His movements were easy and unencumbered. The machine-grind of his suit’s systems was barely audible. Something about him radiated confidence, ebullience, vigour. The Young King had none of the grizzled majesty of Grimnar, nor the raw elemental potency of Stormcaller, but now that Ingvar had witnessed him in the flesh he finally began to understand why he had been elevated so far and so quickly.

  ‘I am curious,’ Ragnar said. ‘I served away from Fenris myself. What can you tell me?’

  Ingvar didn’t meet the Jarl’s gaze.

  ‘Little, I am afraid,’ he said. ‘Forgive me, lord, but…’

  ‘…the Inquisition would have your lungs on a salver,’ said Ragnar. ‘And then mine. Very well, then – keep your secrets. But be aware: others will press you harder.’

  ‘They are welcome to try,’ said Ingvar. ‘There’s little to tell. The hunting was good. I learned the ways of others, they learned ours. After a while we worked well together. That surprised me.’

  ‘But you were the strongest.’

  Ingvar shrugged. ‘I expected to be,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I was.’

  Ragnar looked at him carefully.

  ‘Service in the Deathwatch is considered an honour by many Chapters,’ he said. ‘Here it carries less weight. You broke your pack up when you accepted the summons to join them. I will be honest with you, Ingvar: if I had been Jarl when they came for you, I am not sure I would have given leave for you to go.’

  Ingvar said nothing.

  ‘Berek was indulgent,’ said Ragnar. ‘He had favourites, and he didn’t care about appearances. Believe me, no one loved him more than I did, but we have to recognise fault when it appears. He saw something in you, Gyrfalkon, that much is certain, but you know what was on his mind at the time: Hjortur was dead, and Berek had no way of knowing what was intended for the pack.’

  Ingvar listened silently, reluctant to hear old history recited again but unwilling to interrupt.

  ‘Did it never occur to you that it looked like you were running away?’ Ragnar went on. ‘Gunnlaugur became Wolf Guard by default, without trial, without ever being pitted against you. You denied him that.’

  Ingvar shook his head wearily. He had not expected an interrogation, and they were old allegations.

  ‘I denied him nothing,’ he said. ‘The summons came and I accepted it. I would do it again. I am proud of what we did. I am proud of what my brothers did.’

  ‘Which brothers?’

  Ingvar realised that his fists had clenched tight, and relaxed them.

  ‘All of them,’ he said. ‘All those who fought beside me.’

  Ragnar nodded. ‘Very good,’ he said.

  He cupped his hands. Ceramite clinked as he linked his fingers.

  ‘Perhaps you think I’m being hard,’ he said. ‘I merely express sentiments that others will keep to themselves.’

  ‘I can handle the others.’

  Ragnar raised a ragged eyebrow over red-rimmed eyes. For the first time, Ingvar noticed that he looked tired.

  ‘We have not escaped envy, up here in the realm of the gods,’ Ragnar said. ‘You think I am deaf to the whispers that run through this place? They say that I’m too young, that I should never have become Wolf Lord, that Berek was a fool to promote me.’

  He smiled dryly.

  ‘Berek had his weaknesses, but I do not doubt he was right. I have never doubted it. I have never listened to the whispers, but I know they are there. That was why I needed to speak to you. I needed to know that you were sure.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Ingvar.

  ‘I feel certain that you do. But just in case, let me tell you what has taken place since you left us. Gunnlaugur has led Járnhamar pack with distinction. He has combined lethally well with Váltyr, but the whole group is strong. It has recovered from Hjortur’s death and compensated for your absence. So now I have this dilemma: do I send you back to them? They could use another blade, but I fear for you there now. You were once a rival with Gunnlaugur for command – can you serve him?’

  Ingvar looked up, directly into the tired eyes of the Jarl, meeting the gold-centred gaze.

  ‘You shame me by asking that,’ he said.

  ‘I am not asking you anything. I am making up my mind.’

  Ingvar felt his pride stir within him. It was hard to remember that Blackmane was elevated far above him in the arcane hierarchy of Fenris, that the Jarl’s word was law, that if he ordered Ingvar into the maws of Hel then he was honour-bound to obey without question.

  So young.

  ‘Send me back, lord,’ Ingvar said. The tone of his voice was less of a request and more of an insistence. ‘Gunnlaugur was always ahead of me: he would have been vaerangi even if I had not left, and I would have followed him then. Nothing has changed. I belong with my pack.’

  Ragnar’s expression remained impassive.

  ‘I did not know you then,’ he said, ‘so I cannot tell if the Deathwatch has changed you. They will know, though. If the Inquisition has turned your head then they will turn on you. Never forget what blood runs in our veins – we are wolves in temper as well as name.’

  That was too much. Ingvar leapt to his feet, drawing his sword from its scabbard in a sweeping movement. He held it out, aiming the tip at Ragnar’s throat.

  ‘Do you know what this is?’ he asked, his voice hard.

  Ragnar regarded it coolly.

  ‘It’s a sword, Ingvar,’ he said. ‘I’ve se
en plenty.’

  He made no move to defend himself. Both of them knew how things stood: if Ingvar had truly been a threat to him, Ragnar would have killed him before the blade had left its sheath.

  ‘It is ancient,’ said Ingvar. He could feel his blood pumping in his temples. ‘As old as this place. As old as the Annulus.’

  Ragnar held Ingvar’s gaze. ‘This place is full of relics. What of it?’

  ‘I was given this by Berek.’ As Ingvar spoke, he remembered the events of decades ago with complete clarity. ‘It belonged to him. Before him, it belonged to many others. It has passed through a hundred hands, each one leaving its imprint on the hilt. It has never been broken. The blood it has drunk would drown worlds. He honoured me with it, and I never used another, not even when they ordered me to take up xenos glaives that could carve Terminator plate like parchment. I carried it across the void with me, listening to its dry whispers of home, cleaving to what it reminded me of.’

  The sword glinted in the semi-dark, its power-field inoperative, the outlines of runes evident in thread-thin lines of silver.

  ‘It has borne many names,’ said Ingvar. ‘Berek called it fjorsváfi. Others call it helsverd, and blodstefna, and doomhringir. Long ago it was dausvjer, carried by Ogrim Raegr Vrafsson in the age of legend. It is part of our lifeblood. None but the elect will ever wield it.’

  Ragnar’s golden eyes flickered down to the point of the blade, and lingered there.

  ‘Berek thought me worthy of it,’ said Ingvar. ‘The same who judged you worthy of elevation before your time. You trusted his judgement then.’

  Ingvar held the sword level. The metal didn’t move.

  ‘I am a Son of Russ,’ he said. ‘I have nothing to prove.’

  Ragnar’s gaze snapped back up. For a moment, the two of them stared at one another. Blackmane’s amber eyes scrutinised Ingvar’s grey ones, narrowing fractionally, as if he somehow could penetrate into the soul beyond.

  Ingvar felt the heavy pressure of Blackmane’s countenance. Ragnar’s stare was almost unbearable; it possessed an absolute conviction, a pure strain of certainty. No one, not Berek, not even Hjortur, had been able to project himself with such innate command.