“Ha bloody ha. I can see that becoming a leader of men hasn’t improved your sense of humour.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ragnar stared in wonder at the inner sanctum of the shrine. Ahead lay the avenue of heroes, its wall niches filled with statues of famous leaders of the Space Wolves, and tapestries depicting scenes of their most famous victories. He was glad the place did not seem to have been much touched by the heretics. It had been stasis sealed when the complex was invaded, and it had taken the attackers time to burn their way through into the massive fortified vault. And they had got what they came for too. The Spear of Russ was missing! Even now, the Great Wolf and his captains and the priests discussed what to do next. They had freed the shrine but its most precious treasure was gone. It was a calculated insult to the honour of the Chapter.
How would the primarch feel on his return to discover his weapon in the hands of enemies? Could he return at all, if the prophesy could not be fulfilled? Ragnar was suddenly glad that such questions were not for him to debate, or answer. He had a more personal mission here. This was a pilgrimage and a time to consider his place in the Chapter and in the world.
Ragnar limped forward. His leg still ached a little from his wounds although they were healing fast. It was a walk, not so much as through distance as through time. Every step took him deeper into the past. At the beginning of the walk, near the entrance hall, he passed the most recent heroes of the Chapter. He recognised the figure of Anakron Silvermane, who had directly preceded Logan Grimnar as Great Wolf, and looked in wonder at the tapestry depicting his last stand, fighting grimly against the eldar host that had surprised his command position on Melkior. Stranger yet was the realisation that he recognised some of the other figures depicted in that near legendary event. There was Grimnar himself, bloodied but unbowed, fighting some gaudily clad eldar assassin. There was even Sergeant Hakon, garbed as a Grey Hunter, battling with an eldar guardian. The death of Silvermane had taken place nearly four centuries before. It was strange to think that some of the men in the shrine today had been there. It was one thing knowing that the process that turned a man into a Space Wolf could vastly extend the span of his years. It was another encountering evidence of the fact.
Ragnar smiled. He was glad he had chosen to make this pilgrimage alone and in the darkest watches of the night, while most of his battle-brothers slept. He felt the need to make this journey, for the weight of responsibility that had fallen on his shoulders wearied him. It was reassuring to stand in the presence of these ancient artefacts and feel himself part of a long procession of men who had walked this way in the past. He had something in common with the generations of fearsome warriors that had preceded him. It made him feel as if he were connected to something greater than himself. He needed something to bolster his self-confidence. From now on, until he failed or was replaced, his decisions would affect the lives of his comrades and friends. If he made a wrong choice, Sven or Aenar or any of the others might die. Once he would not have minded, indeed would have exulted at being in a position to engineer the death of Strybjorn, but he did not feel that way now.
If anything, he knew he would feel worse if his former enemy died because of his orders, for he would never be able to tell whether he had secretly wanted the man’s death and caused it. That would be a great dishonour.
He strode past several more statues of Wolf Lords, looking for faces he recognised but found none. Hardly surprising, for a man had to be dead to get his likeness sculpted from stone in this part of the shrine. He asked himself if he should have turned Berek down and refused the promotion no matter how temporary. He knew that, despite his doubts, he would not have. Although part of him was near paralysed by the thought of his new responsibilities, another part of him revelled in the fact that he had been picked out from among so many worthy warriors and given this opportunity. It was a great honour to be singled out in such a way by Berek Thunderfist. He knew that he was being tested in the field, and that if he did well here, he could expect further recognition, perhaps one day even become part of the Wolf Guard. Did Berek see that potential in him? Would that not be a great thing?
He paused for a second to consider it. Once there had been a time when it had seemed a great enough honour merely to have been selected to be one of the Wolves. Now, he wanted more. Was his whole life destined to be like this? Would it always be a case of climbing one mountain, only to discover a greater peak lay beyond, and that he must climb that too? Where would it end — when he was a Wolf Lord, when he was Great Wolf? He smiled at the thought, even though he knew that part of his mind was seriously considering it. And why not? Someone had to be Great Wolf. Even Logan Grimnar had been a Blood Claw once, difficult as that was to imagine now.
He allowed himself to consider it for a while. He pictured himself on Logan’s throne, issuing orders to the Wolf Lords, listened to respectfully by the warriors of the whole company, commanding a fleet, standing as an equal to any of the great lords of the million worlds of the Imperium of Man. He pictured himself not as he was now, but grown old and grey and ragged, with features hewn from stone, and a voice that sounded like granite cracking. He pictured himself giving orders that affected the fate of worlds, striding heroically through desperate battles on a hundred planets, writing his name in the annals of Chapter history. He saw himself immortalised here in statue and tapestry and painting. There was a thought that thrilled his young heart, and not his alone. He knew that every Wolf, even Sven, must think these things sometimes.
He strode on for a dozen paces wrapped in his dreams of glory, but as he did so, other thoughts filtered into his mind, less bold, less bright, more chilling. He turned and looked up at the massive oil painting of the Battle of Balinor, a canvas depicting one of the most famous fights of the 38th millennium. Beneath it stood the statue of Great Wolf Fenrik Grimheart. The statue held a battered old helmet under one arm, and a notched chainsword in the other. It was the same sword that the painter had depicted covered in blood in the picture.
Where was Fenrik now, wondered Ragnar? Gone, along with all the others whose statues lined this corridor. They had found glory and they had found greatness, but in the end the grave had claimed them too. No matter how famous, men had still sung their funeral songs, and toasted them with the burial cup. Their gene-seed had been returned to the Chapter just like the gene-seed of the common warriors who had followed them. Yes, they were remembered in song and saga and the annals of the Chapter, but they were gone. Their thrones were occupied by a different man. In the end, what had all their striving got them but the same reward as everyone else?
Even as the thought occurred to him, Ragnar knew that it was not so. Those men were remembered. They had written their names in history in blood and fire. They had shown themselves to be worthy companions of Russ on the day of the Final Battle. But had not the warriors who followed them done that too? It would not just be the Great Wolves remembered here who would fight on the Last Day. Others whose names had not been remembered, who had perhaps been even more worthy would be there too.
Ragnar looked on down the corridor, to the almost endless parade of statues, to the hundreds of works of art and battle honours that lined the way. Strange, he thought, he had expected to find glory here, but he had not expected to discover melancholy at the same time. Perhaps the two were inextricable. He was contemplating the greatness of elder days, but in doing so he was also being made aware that such days had passed. It was at once a depressing and a reassuring thought.
The old days were gone. The future was a palimpsest on which nothing had yet been written. He found his mood had come full circle. Men always passed on, always had, always would. Only the Emperor was eternal. One day, Logan Grimnar would be gone, and someone else, maybe Berek, maybe Sigrid, would sit in his place. And they in turn would be gone, and a new man would stand where they had stood. Why should that man not be Ragnar?
Still there was a kernel of sadness in the thought now that had not been there w
hen thoughts of future glory had entered his mind. In order for him to reach that distant goal, good men would have to pass away. Men he liked, or at least respected. It was one thing to tell yourself that such was the way of the universe. It was another to think about what it really meant.
He tried to bring back his earlier bright dreams in all of their radiance. He tried to feel as he had felt but a few short minutes ago that this first promotion was but one first step on the long march that would lead him to the Great Wolfs throne. He brought them back but now he found them grimmer and darker. For he knew that command was not simply going to be an endless series of heroic deeds committed with the eye of history upon him. It also involved great responsibility and great weariness.
Logan Grimnar looked old. Not feeble, for he was as hale as a gnarled and weather-beaten old oak, but still old. There were other men in the Chapter as old as he and they did not seem so obviously ancient. Command had weighed Grimnar down, and carved some of those lines on his face, and even from his own limited experience of it, Ragnar was beginning to understand why. By his own decisions, Ragnar might bring death to himself and his comrades, but the Great Wolf could conceivably bring ruin to the entire Chapter, and end the existence of something that had endured for ten millennia. The thought of it made Ragnar shiver. It was not a good thing, on this dark night, to contemplate such things, particularly not in this place. Perhaps the loss of the Spear was an omen. Perhaps far worse things were yet to come.
He paused for a moment, about halfway along the great approach, for he could see figures coming towards him. It seemed he was not the only one who had chosen this late hour to make his devotions. As the figures approached he could see that it was Sigrid Trollbane and his hulking bodyguard.
Ragnar was not surprised. Sigrid had a reputation for piety. As he stalked closer, he noticed Ragnar and the company markings on his armour and his face froze. His scent acquired a slight acrid under-taste of hostility. He swept past Ragnar without a greeting, not even appearing to notice him. Ragnar shrugged. If a Wolf Lord deemed him beneath his notice, it was none of his business.
Perhaps though there was more to it than that. It seemed all too possible that the man was hostile because of the company to which Ragnar belonged. If so, that was madness. They were in a war here, and they were all on the same side. Internal dissension could easily prove fatal.
Ragnar knew he was being unrealistic. Such tension was common, perhaps even normal, given the structure of the Chapter. All of the companies competed with each other in many ways, as did their Wolf Lords. There were many competitions and tournaments between companies, and much good-natured banter too. Within companies, the various claws and packs would often develop rivalries as they attempted to prove their superiority. And, of course, it was not unknown for there to be long-standing rivalries between individual soldiers. All warriors wanted glory: for themselves, for their squads, for their company, for their Chapter, and probably in that order, unless they were very unusual men.
Ragnar found himself remembering an old saying among his people: “When a man seeks the hand of a woman, he may have at most a dozen rivals. When a man seeks glory, the whole world is his rival.” And Ragnar supposed, all of history too, for the Wolves constantly measured themselves against the mighty deeds of their ancestors. In this place, with the footsteps of Berek’s great rival fading behind him, such thoughts came easily.
Ragnar wondered exactly why Berek and Sigrid had so great a dislike for each other. It seemed more than they were simply rivals for the position of next Great Wolf, or at least, they perceived themselves to be. Perhaps it was just their wildly varying personalities. The two seemed polar opposites, as different as night from day. There were rumours that once, long ago they had even been friends, and that a rift had sprung up among them. Ragnar decided that, when he had the time, he would investigate.
He strode on, passing figures of men from the dawn ages of the Chapter, and scenes from the first two millennia after its founding. He hurried his footsteps, keen now to see the inner sanctum itself, resolving that he would return to look upon these ancient artefacts later, when he had more time.
Ahead of him, he could see a blue glow, flickering through the mighty archway. The arch was surmounted by the head of a wolf, and each massive stone was marked with the runic writing of his Chapter. The stones themselves radiated an aura of awesome age. Ragnar knew he was approaching the very heart of this mighty temple complex.
He stepped into one of the most ancient shrines of his brotherhood. It was a vast chamber with a vaulted ceiling and odd crystalline slits in the ceiling through which lights descended in mighty beams. The way to the sarcophagus of Garm was worn smooth by the feet of all the Wolves who had approached this sacred site over the preceding centuries. The enormous coffin was also a shrine. It dominated the northern part of the sanctum. The rest of the vault was plain and undecorated save for the tiled floor which depicted a scene of the heads of four mighty, fearsome wolves, opening their mouths to swallow a gigantic moon.
The sacred flame leapt almost ten times the height of a man above him, and it glowed with a chill blue light that illumined the fane. He stood before a sarcophagus carved from the tusk of a gigantic, long extinct sea monster, the notorious dragon whale of Garm which it was said Russ had slain with a single cast of the Spear.
A sculptor of genius had turned the tusk into an amazing work of art. Its entire surface was carved with an incredible level of detail. Ragnar looked closely and saw scene after scene of battle and conflict in which thousands upon thousands of Space Wolves in the antique style of armour favoured during the Great Crusade fought with hordes of monsters, aliens and daemons. Ragnar knew from his studies that each and every warrior who had still been alive when Russ had strode this world was represented here. Every suit of armour bore its own individual markings. Every visible face was different. If you looked closely you could see character and emotion expressed on their miniscule features.
Here was a Wolf Lord, his mouth open in a bellow of rage as he slew the mutated worshippers of Chaos. There was a sergeant smiting the monstrous tyranids. There was Russ himself, larger than any mortal, wrestling with Magnus the Red, the wicked cyclopean primarch of the Thousand Sons. The intricate sculpture made it obvious how little some things had changed in ten thousand years.
Here were Rhino armoured personnel carriers, looking exactly the same as the ones stationed outside the shrine now. There were Thunderhawk gunships that might have been the craft that Ragnar himself had ridden in recently. The products of the great templates of the ancients represented a peak of engineering perfection that had never been surpassed, and most likely never would.
The top of the sarcophagus was a representation of Garm as he had been in life. His image lay like an ivory giant atop the casket that held his bones. Its open hands were held on its breast in such a way to be obviously clasping something. Ragnar knew without being told that they had held the Spear of Russ.
Standing on this spot, Ragnar could feel its holiness. Russ himself was said to have had some part in the creation of the sarcophagus, imbuing it with a portion of his power, granting his blessing to the master sculptor Corianis. A flickering flame of light burned in the air above the shrine, illuminating it, and by the casting of shadows lending the battle scenes an illusion of life, making the figure on it seem almost alive.
But there was definitely something missing. This was the place where the Spear of Russ had rested. If something could make you aware of itself merely by its absence, it was the Spear. This whole shrine was meant to be its resting place, and with the sacred weapon gone, it seemed somehow meaningless. No, that was not true. It just did not feel whole. Even Ragnar, who had never been here before, could tell something was missing, and could have done so even if he had not known the significance of the place.
Ragnar reached out and touched the shrine. He thought he felt a faint tingling pass through the tips of his gauntlet. It was amazing to think he
was touching something that Russ himself had touched, that he was in the presence of something the primarch had created. He closed his eyes and felt renewed. Energy flowed into him from the shrine. The ache of his wounds dulled. He had no doubt whatsoever that he was in the presence of holiness.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the cool air of the shrine. The flame gave no warmth, merely light. The tingling in his fingertips increased and he made to draw his hand away but could not. Strangely, he felt no sense of panic. The warmth continued to flow from the tomb. He tried to open his eyes, but they felt as if the lids had been glued shut.
Strange patterns flickered across his darkened field of vision. The silence intensified till his own heartbeat felt like a drum. The smell of ambergris from the censers drowned out all of the scents around him. Perhaps he was having some sort of delayed reaction to his wounds. Perhaps he should try and break away and seek help. He dismissed the thought. He did not feel as if anything were wrong. In fact, he felt a growing sense of wellness, of Tightness, of benison.
The glow increased. The warmth deepened and flowed through him. He knew that in some strange way he was reaching out and touching the spirit of Russ, that all of the years intervening between the Primarch’s time and his own meant nothing. In some timeless time and spaceless space, a spirit still hovered and looked out on his followers. He knew that he was touching the divine directly, and the feeling awed him. The ground on which he stood, and the shrine which he touched, were both holy. He knew that for as long as he lived he would not forget this moment.
His eyes opened. His grip was freed. He turned to depart the sacred place, renewed. They would find the Spear, he knew. They had to.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Why are you looking so bloody happy, Ragnar?” asked Sven. He waited only a moment for a reply and returned to squeezing the tube of field rations into his mouth.