The column rumbled on through the foothills, occasionally grinding its way over fallen trees and wrecked vehicles strewn in its path. Navigating by orbital maps, the procession passed through the ruined and deserted villages, past the splintered villas and up a series of cracked and pitted roads that led towards the fortress. The mountain had been hacked and riven by searing beams and bombardment cannons, its flanks scoured clean and split by massive blasts. Deep craters in the mountain slope contained the wreckage of orbital laser batteries that had attempted to contest the arrival of the Imperial invasion fleet.
Two-thirds of the way up the mountain the road emptied out onto a broad, artificial plateau, carved like a shelf into the side of the mountain and paved over with ferrocrete. The wreckage of more than a half-dozen military ornithopters lay scattered across the landing field, surrounded by the burnt corpses of their aircrew. On the western end of the expanse, sheltered beneath a massive brow of scorched and splintered granite, stood a towering, featureless metal door.
The armoured vehicles spread across the plateau in a carefully orchestrated routine. APCs halted and lowered their rear ramps, disgorging platoons of battle-hardened Dragoons. Sergeants barked orders and shouted streams of leathery curses, and soon the troops were dragging away the bodies of the enemy and battle tanks were carefully nosing the wrecked ornithopters to the far edges of the plateau. Within thirty minutes the field was clear, and the troops had assembled by companies into two large formations to the far left and far right of the plateau. Off to the east, the great city built by the Tyrants flickered and glowed like a bed of dying embers.
Fifteen minutes before dawn there came a brassy growl of thunder from over the horizon, a steady, building drumbeat that drew nearer and nearer through the overcast sky. The heavy, leaden clouds seemed to roil over the plateau, lit from within by a rising, blue-white glow. Finally the smoke-stained overcast was rent by the rakish noses of a trio of Stormbird assault craft, their landing gear deployed like grasping talons as the pilots flared their engines and brought the huge craft down in a three-point tactical deployment, right in the midst of the waiting Imperial troops.
No sooner had the transports touched down than the heavy assault ramps lowered with a hiss of hydraulics. The crimson glow of battle-lanterns shone from the depths of the crouching Stormbirds, silhouetting the armoured giants waiting within.
Sergeants shouted along the ranks. The Arcturan Dragoons snapped to attention with a crash of hobnailed boots as the Emperor’s Wolves set foot on the blasted earth of Kernunnos.
The assault ramps on two of the transports rang with swift footfalls as grey-armoured warriors dashed out onto the plateau, their huge boltguns held at the ready. They were Space Wolves, gene-engineered supermen of the Emperor’s VI Legion and the pinnacle of the Imperium’s military might, yet their appearance was a study in contrasts between the advanced and the archaic. Servos whined beneath the overlapping plates of their Mark II Crusader-pattern power armour; helmeted heads swept left and right, scanning the landing zone with augmetic optical systems that perceived wavelengths from the infrared to the ultraviolet. Yet their broad shoulders were framed with heavy cloaks of wolf or bear skin, and strange fetishes of iron, wood or bone were affixed to their scarred breastplates. Every one of the warriors carried a sword or a battle-axe at their hip, and many boasted gruesome battle-trophies, like gilt skulls or exotic weapons slung from equipment hooks at their waists. Even the hardest veteran among the Arcturan Dragoons lowered their eyes as the Emperor’s Wolves went by.
The Space Wolves fanned out in a tight arc, advancing past the lead Stormbird and forming up by squads a few yards ahead of the transport’s assault ramp. They continued to scan the plateau for a few moments more, then the warriors raised their weapons to port arms and a silent signal was relayed to the lead ship. At precisely the appointed time, just as dawn began to stain the overcast sky to the east, Bulveye, Wolf Lord of the Space Wolves’ Thirteenth Great Company and commander of the 954th Expeditionary Fleet, descended the ramp of the lead Stormbird with his senior lieutenants and the champions of his Wolf Guard in tow.
The Wolf Lord and his chosen men were resplendent, their power armour polished to a mirror sheen and adorned with tokens of honour and courage earned in the crucible of war. Gold wolf’s head medallions glittered from their grey pauldrons, each one bearing a frayed strip of parchment inscribed with war-oaths or invocations to the Allfather. Their breastplates were decorated with medals of silver or plaques of rune-etched iron, each one representing an act of valour against humanity’s many foes. They wore their best cloaks of wolf or ice-bear hide, and at their belts hung their most prized battle-trophies: gilded fangs, cracked skulls or ivory finger bones taken from enemy champions slain in single combat. Bulveye’s armour was more ornate stilclass="underline" fashioned by the master-artificers on distant Mars, the edges of his pauldrons were chased in gold, and the curved surfaces were inscribed with ornate scenes of battle. Trophies from scores of hard-fought campaigns hung from his cuirass and his war-belt of adamantine plates, and a circlet of hammered gold rested upon his brow. A heavy, single-bladed battle axe was clenched in the Wolf Lord’s gauntleted hand; the steel haft was wrapped in strips of cured sealskin, and the casing of the power weapon’s field generator was etched with runes of victory and death.
His expression grim, Bulveye strode past the waiting squads of his honour guard and approached the fortress entrance. Two warriors fell into step behind him, eyeing the massive doors warily.
‘They’re late,’ Halvdan Bale-eye grumbled. Bulveye’s chief lieutenant was a grim, brooding figure even at the best of times, more at home on the battlefield than in the mead-hall. His wiry copper hair, streaked with grey, hung in two heavy braids that draped across his breastplate, and a bristling beard covered the lower part of his face. He had a nose like an axe blade, and sharp-edged cheekbones criss-crossed with dozens of old scars. His eyes were mismatched, shining from deep-set sockets beneath a craggy brow. Halvdan’s left eye socket was seamed and uneven, the bone broken by a sword stroke that had put out the eye as well. He’d survived the terrible wound and had disdained an eye-patch afterwards, using the empty socket to unnerve foes and shipmates alike during his raiding days on Fenris. Now the unblinking lens of an augmetic eye shone from its depths, its focusing elements clicking softly as the warrior surveyed the entrance and its splintered overhang. Halvdan growled deep in his throat. ‘The damned fools might have changed their minds. They could be planning treachery at this very moment.’
To that, the warrior beside Halvdan let out a derisive snort. ‘Can’t get those big doors open, more like,’ Jurgen replied. He was lean and rangy, his skin drawn taut over the bones of his face and showing the cable-like muscles cording his neck above the rim of his breastplate. His black hair, speckled with grey, was cropped short; lately he’d adopted the Terran tradition of shaving his chin, earning no small amount of jibes from his pack-mates. ‘After six hours of bombardment it’s a wonder they weren’t all buried alive.’ He gave his lord a sidelong look, his dark eyes glittering with raven-like mirth. ‘Did anybody think to bring shovels?’
Bulveye gave Jurgen a look of brotherly irritation. They were all old men by the standards of the Astartes, having been reavers and sword-brothers to Leman, King of the Rus, for many years before the Allfather had come to Fenris. When the truth of Leman’s heritage was finally revealed, every warrior in the king’s mead-hall had drawn their iron blades and clamoured to fight at his side, as sword-brothers ought. But they were all too old, the Allfather told them; not a man among them was younger than twenty years. The trials they would have to endure would very likely kill them, no matter how courageous and strong-willed they were. Yet the men of Leman’s mead-hall were mighty warriors, each man a hero in his own right, and they would not be dissuaded by thoughts of suffering or death. Leman, the king, was moved by their devotion, and could not find it in his heart to refuse them. And so his loyal thanes undertook the Trials of the Wolf, and true to the Allfather’s word, the vast majority of them died.