Valkoth raised his bolter and aimed it directly at Pantheus’s head. “No more chatter. You’re coming with us. Ragnar, watch his back.”
Valkoth turned on his heel and moved with Torin towards the door. Ragnar put his bolt pistol to Pantheus’s spine. “Move,” he said. “Or you’ll have a hole in your stomach big enough to put your head into.”
Pantheus moved.
Haegr had advanced down the corridor. Ragnar could tell by the sound of bolter blast. Las fire splattered the walls. The surface had fused and run, and paintwork was blistering off to reveal the hard rock beneath. Torin and Valkoth moved out. Torin turned to cover behind them, while Valkoth bounced forward in the lowered gravity, adding his bolter fire to the blaze of Haegr’s pistols. Nothing much remained alive in the corridor now. A pile of corpses smouldered slowly. Haegr and Valkoth moved through them.
Ragnar prodded Pantheus with his bolt pistol again. The merchant moved forward effortlessly, well adapted to the low-gravity. For the moment he did not appear to be having much difficulty in keeping up with the Wolves. They would see what happened soon when he felt the increased weight of his bulk on the lower levels.
Comm-net communications told Ragnar that the crew of the asteroid had worked out what was happening. They knew Pantheus’s chamber had been breached and that he was taken. It should be fairly easy for them to work out what would happen next, although so far no one had. If he had been in charge, he would have had all the external airlocks and escape pods covered.
Perhaps he was being unfair to the enemy commanders. They had other things on their minds and normal men simply were not capable of thinking and responding as fast as Space Marines. The walls of their asteroid had been breached and unless they were resealed, they would be dead. He doubted there were enough reserves of air to replace what was being lost. And then there was the courier, a formidable enemy craft that had sliced through their long range comm dishes and defensive emplacements. It looked like the element of surprise had been overwhelmingly successful. His chronometer told him that less than ten minutes had passed since the operation had begun.
As they progressed down the levels, resistance stiffened. Everyone was aware that there were enemies on board. They were watchful, and armed, mostly garbed in light space armour. Such was the speed of the Marines’ advance that they swiftly overwhelmed anyone they encountered. They always fired the first shot, and often that was the last.
Pantheus’s breath came in gasps and he seemed in danger of foundering. Ragnar guessed he was feeling every extra kilo, although the gravity here was still far less than Earth’s. He wondered what the man did when he was on the surface of Terra. Doubtless he used suspensors to lighten his weight.
Ahead of them lay the escape pod they had marked for their escape. Just as they entered the corridor a group of men in brown uniforms appeared at the other end. Haegr opened fire cutting them down. Ragnar bundled Pantheus into the escape pod.
“Go with him, Ragnar,” said Valkoth. Despite feeling the urge to stay and fight, Ragnar did not. They could not take the chance that the merchant might activate the pod without them. Without their locator beacon, the pod would be destroyed by the courier. The Belisarians were not about to risk anyone escaping to tell the tale. Ragnar threw himself in beside the merchant, weapon at the ready.
Outside, the others continued to blast away. Ragnar understood why. Like elevators, escape pods could be death traps if attacked at the wrong moment. If someone tossed a grenade while the door was open, the blast could be catastrophic in a contained area. Las fire bristled all around the Wolves now. Some of it hit. Ceramite armour blistered in several places. One by one, the others jumped in through the pod’s doorway, until only Haegr was left.
“Come away now!” said Valkoth when it looked like he might want to blast away all day. Haegr growled. His beard bristled, and his piggy eyes squinted. It looked for a moment as if he might disobey. Valkoth growled and there was no mistaking the menace and command in his voice. It was like a wolf pack leader calling down a young and inexperienced challenger. Somewhat abashed, Haegr snapped off a couple more shots and then threw himself in.
“Strap yourself in,” Valkoth barked at the merchant. The rest of them were already fastening the restrainers, and slamming their helmets back into place.
Torin hit the quick release rune, and the escape pod blasted free of its restrainer bolts and headed down the launch slip into space. On the comm-net the Wolves finally broke silence as their beacons began to toll out. Acceleration pushed them flat into the padded couches. Pantheus’s fat rippled like waves. The effect was particularly noticeable on his double chins.
“Well, we made it,” said Torin.
“Only if the Belisarians manage not to blow us to bits,” said Haegr.
Ragnar looked through the porthole and saw the asteroid recede behind them. Moments later an inferno of explosions bristled on its surface as the courier began to reduce it to rubble.
“So much for an asteroid impact,” said Torin.
“I don’t think anyone will be coming to look soon. And once they finish with the devastator charges, there will be little enough to find.”
Pantheus gulped air. He was very pale. Ragnar was hardly surprised. He was watching billions of ducats worth of mansion being reduced to rubble. And he was in the grip of men who would not shrink from doing him serious personal harm. The merchant had doubtlessly known better times.
It was almost an hour before the courier picked them up, and waiting was uncomfortable for Ragnar. As always, there was the possibility of something going wrong. A stray rock or munition might hit them. The systems might fail and kill Pantheus. Such things had been known to happen. He was glad when the huge form of the courier appeared in the porthole and scooped them into its maw, like a whale gulping down krill.
Alarik awaited them in the landing bay. Sailors on the courier covered the escape pod with lasrifles, doubtless in case they had made a mistake and taken the wrong pod. Valkoth stepped out first, bolter pointed at the ceiling. Under the circumstances, when armed men were nervous, it was best to take no chances of there being any misunderstanding.
“I see that you got him,” said Alarik.
“Did you doubt it?” asked Haegr.
“Things sometimes go wrong,” said Alarik. “No matter how good the troops are and how good the plan.”
“Well they didn’t,” said Haegr. He sounded almost huffy. “They never do when mighty Haegr is involved.”
“Haegr fights like two men,” said Torin. “Which is easy for him since he has the bulk of four.”
“I see I have neglected your customary beating too long, Torin,” said Haegr. “All here know that I have the valour of five men.”
“And vanity enough for ten.”
“I see you are determined to deny the truth and get the last word,” said Haegr. “Fortunately I am not so base as you.”
Alarik’s men took Pantheus off into custody. He looked defeated and shrunken, like an inflated bladder that has had the air let out of it. Ragnar noticed he was limping. He was obviously not used to bearing his own weight, and was well aware of what was waiting for him in the interrogation chambers.
“I would not feel too sorry for him, my friend,” said Torin. “Pantheus has been responsible for the deaths of many good men.”
“I’m hungry,” said Haegr. “Killing always works up my appetite.”
“Sleeping usually does that as well,” said Torin.
“Go, get something to eat. Take a rest,” said Valkoth beginning to stride away, adding, “Well done.”
After the violence of the attack on the asteroid, Ragnar felt unsettled. The moments of battle lived in his memory with peculiar intensity, and everything else seemed dull and colourless compared to it. He had heard it said that Space Wolves were made that way. Parts of their brains had been altered to respond precisely that way, so they were keen for combat. Ragnar was not sure this was the case. Perhaps it was simply a produ
ct of the process that had awakened the beast within him. Perhaps the heightened memories were simply a product of his heightened senses working to keep him alive.
He prowled around the ship, like a wolf coursing for the trail of deer. He did not want to sleep. He had no desire for wine or ale. He was not hungry. He was uneasy. It was partly due to the unfamiliar scents around him. Normally when he came back from a battle there would be the scent of many brothers around him. If they were on a ship, the air would be filled with the familiar scents of Fenris and the flesh of those who had served in the Chapter’s fleets.
Now he was somewhere else. The incense in the recyclers, the icons on the duralloy walls, the uniforms of those around him were not what he was used to. All that reminded him of home were the faint scent trails of his fellow Wolfblades. But even these were different: they carried the effects of many years of living on Terra, consuming different food, being surrounded by different things.
He was a long way from home now. Get used to it, he told himself. It is your duty to serve the Emperor and the Chapter no matter where they send you. If you live long enough you will doubtless be sent to stranger and less hospitable places than this.
It was one thing to possess knowledge of the complex mix of Imperial politics. It was another thing to live through it, and learn it first hand, just as there was a world of difference between reading a tale of a battle in a scroll, and actually meeting a foe breast to breast, and sinew to sinew.
His footsteps had taken him to part of the ship he had avoided. He noticed there was an immediately recognisable taint to the air. Blood, he thought. And sweat, and pain all mingled with faint traces of ozone. He moved closer and his ears, keener than an ordinary man’s, picked up what could only be screams from what was meant to be a sound-proof door. As he rounded a corner, two men in the uniforms of Belisarius’s guard raised their weapons. Their movements seemed absurdly slow to Ragnar. Before they had brought their weapons to bear, he could have drawn his own, or sprung forward and snapped both their necks.
They recognised him and lowered their weapons once more. He could not help noticing that they both looked pale and there was a faint sheen of sweat on their brows. Clearly they knew what was going on beyond the sealed door. Ragnar did too.
Pantheus was being questioned. He shook his head in disgust as he strode past. This was something he did not like.
It was one thing to kill your foes in clean combat, it was another to torture them for information. He shook his head again as he considered his softness. He knew that torture was one of the instruments of Imperial rule. The Inquisition used it. Planetary Governors used it when information was needed. He knew all the arguments in its favour. Better a dozen heretics should know agony than a single innocent suffer. Did heretics not deserve whatever punishment was heaped on them?
Maybe, he thought. He understood the logic of it, but once again, it was one of those things where knowledge and reality were two separate things. And he knew that no matter how long he lived, he could never approve of it.
The idea that Pantheus might not even be a heretic but a devout follower of the Emperor gnawed at him. What was going on here was nothing to do with the protection of the Imperium or the preservation of humanity. It was about one faction seeking political advantage over another. It was just another skirmish in the long struggle in which one immensely rich and powerful group within the Imperium sought to gain the upper hand.
The beast within him stirred. It understood cruelty and darkness and the compulsion to triumph over your rivals. It whispered that his life might depend on the knowledge gained here, along with his honour and the security of House Belisarius that his Chapter had pledged to uphold. And it might not, came the response. The man whimpering beyond that mass of sealed metal might know nothing. Only time would tell.
He strode down the corridor, wishing that he could leave his evil thoughts behind, but knowing that he could not.
“What’s the matter with you, Ragnar?” Valkoth asked as he strode into the chamber where the others meditated. “You look like orks pissed in your ale.”
“There are some ales on Terra that would improve,” said Haegr knowledgeably.
“I passed the place where Pantheus is being questioned.”
“And?” Valkoth sounded genuinely interested, and his scent confirmed this. The others were giving him their full attention.
“It sounds like they were carving the blood eagle on his back.”
“I doubt the Navigators would do anything so unsophisticated,” said Torin. “They are using machines. Neural induction coils, electrodes. Drugs as well, I would imagine.”
He sounded a little too knowledgeable for Ragnar’s liking.
“The old ways are the best,” said Haegr. “Though I doubt any of those effete Terrans would have the stomach for the eagle. They might get some blood on their nice uniforms.”
“Maybe you should go and show them how it’s done,” said Valkoth sourly.
“Don’t suggest it,” said Torin. “Haegr would only forget what he was supposed to ask and try and learn where he kept all his food.”
Ragnar did not find the joke funny. He was shocked by their attitude. They obviously shared none of his qualms or queasiness about what was being done. He could tell from their manner, their voices and their scents. Was it possible that he was the only one who saw anything wrong here? If so, was it possible that he was the one who was wrong, who was out of step with his comrades and his world? Was all this just the sign of some weakness in himself?
He shook his head and stared bleakly out of the porthole. The steel clad mass of Terra was visible once more. He was not glad to be back.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ragnar lay in his chamber in the palace and stared at the ceiling. He could not help but notice the elaborate plaster patterns there, complex swirls of leaves and coins forming what he thought was the star pattern over Fenris. He would have much preferred the actual stars himself, but it seemed no one was consulting him.
Gravity tugged at him again, and the air held the distinctive tang of Old Earth. He considered it. This was air that had been breathed a billion, billion, billion times. It was tainted with the dust of ages. The weight of the buildings around him appeared incredible and oppressive. He realised that this palace was older even than the Fang. Yet the Fang was a solitary miracle, a huge base hidden in a gigantic mountain that was one of the wonders of the galaxy. This palace was surrounded by buildings just as old and situated atop layers of buildings even more ancient. He had heard it said that all the ancient civilisations of Earth could be found here still, buried in layers. And if you dug deep enough you would find the remains of even such legendary ancient places as Atalantys and Nova Yoruk. It certainly seemed possible.
A strange languor filled him. The events of the previous day could have happened to someone else in a different lifetime. The thick pile carpet, the heavy wooden furniture, and the ancient works of art conspired to make his memory of the battle dream-like. Such things could not happen here, they whispered. Everything was too ancient, too civilised, too comfortable.
He forced himself upright. That was an illusion, he knew. Many many times, the streets and warrens of old Terra had run with blood. No doubt battles had been fought within the walls of this very palace. Certainly there must have been killings, and stealthy murders a plenty.
Someone knocked on the door. The scent told him who it was before he said: “Enter.”
“Greetings, Ragnar of Fenris.”
“Greetings, Gabriella of Belisarius. What brings you here?”
She paused for a moment. “I wanted to see how you were finding things here,” Ragnar rose from the pallet and moved across the room towards the food on the table. It was simple Fenrisian fare.
“Strange,” he answered truthfully. “Not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Holiness. Sanctity. The radiant presence of the Emperor.”
“Yo
u will find all of those on Terra, though not in the Houses of the Navigators. Our religion is commerce. For us gold has a sanctity all of its own.”
“Ragnar knew he should have been shocked to hear such words spoken but he was not. They echoed only too well what he thought himself. You sound as if you do not approve.”
It was her turn to smile. “I fear I have spent too much time among the stalwart warriors of Fenris. It may take me a little time to get used to being back here.”
“You’d better not take too long,” said Ragnar. “It might prove fatal.”
“Yes,” she said. “That is the hard part. In all my time among the Wolves I have seen a great deal of action and faced no small amount of danger, and yet I was never threatened by those around me. I had no need to guard my words or thoughts. I knew who my enemies were. They did not smile or offer me wine or feign interest in my conversation. They fired weapons at me across the gulfs of space. I miss such simplicity. And I fear I shall miss it more in the days to come.”
He studied her closely, wondering if he should take her at face value. He thought about it from all angles, as he always did. It was a mark of how his few days on the holy soil of Terra had changed him, he thought. If he took them at face value, he could sympathise with her. He too felt out of place amid the murky waters of Navigator politics. But there were other things to be considered. If she was not speaking generally, and he doubted she was — for he had learned that Navigators rarely did anything without purpose — then she had talked with those she felt were her enemies. It was possible she did fear for her life.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you are a familiar face from the time before I came back. You are a link to that simpler time.”
It could be, Ragnar thought. It made a certain emotional sense although he was hardly what she could call a close friend. And he had saved her life, so maybe she felt secure with him. Furthermore, she had every right to feel threatened: her father had just been assassinated and her clan was surrounded by potent enemies.