“They ought to when it comes from the lips of mighty Haegr.”
Things had worsened over the past few minutes. Assembled en masse, the fanatics had attacked their position again and again. Most of the guards were wounded. None of the promised reinforcements had arrived. They were pinned down. The only consolation was that no enemies had penetrated the chamber where the Celestarch and Gabriella waited. So far they had held off all attempts to do so.
Haegr was right. The enemy did fight well. Ragnar was astonished at how well co-ordinated the fanatics were. He doubted that it was coincidence that they had suddenly started attacking this position in great numbers. A swift evil intelligence guided them. How high did the treachery within the House reach? Others would be thinking that too. Such thoughts would paralyse and demoralize their side while the enemy swept through them.
“I never thought I would have such a good fight in here of all places,” said Haegr. “It seems these Vaults have served a useful function after all.”
Did he know about the mutants, Ragnar wondered? Did he care?
“Somebody put a lot of work into this,” said Haegr with uncharacteristic astuteness. Right again, Ragnar thought. It had to be tonight, the meeting of the Navigator Council tomorrow ensured it. If the Celestarch died, House Belisarius would be disorganised and its allies thrown into confusion.
With the House in disarray and so many of the Elders dead, it would take weeks, if not months, to choose a new Celestarch. If Cezare was behind this, he could seize the moment, promise the Navigators strong leadership in the face of this new and ominous threat, and make his son one of the High Lords of Terra. He would score a victory such as none of the great Navigator Houses had in two millennia, and his power would become insuperable. Ragnar realised that he was making a huge leap of imagination, with absolutely no proof, but it fitted the facts well. The only problem with the theory was that the power behind the attack did not have to be the Feracci; it could be any of the great ambitious Navigator Houses. There would be no way to confirm or deny the thing until the election to the throne was held tomorrow.
“We’ll just have to see that they don’t succeed.”
“Well said, young Ragnar. Very well said indeed,” Haegr grinned, showing his enormous tusks, and Ragnar suddenly realised why Torin respected him so. Haegr might be coarse, brutal and a diplomatic liability but, in a tight spot, the giant was just the man you wanted at your side. He showed no doubts, no fear and had no need for reassurance. He was entirely what he appeared to be — unafraid. He was quite possibly insane, but he was a truly fine warrior.
“The only way they are going to get to the Celestarch is if they climb over my dead body,” said Ragnar.
“And they’ll have to climb over mine to get to yours,” said Haegr. “Can’t be having any young pups stealing the glory that is rightfully mine.”
Ragnar laughed, then glanced around at the carnage, the dead and stinking bodies, the limbless corpses, the blast marks on the marble walls. He breathed in the tainted stench of close combat in the hallways of the palace. The stench of opened guts and las-seared flesh, splattered blood and excrement. He did not see much evidence of glory here. His theories were all very well but they had to survive until the morrow. It was imperative they keep the Celestarch alive, for if they could the plot would fail, and the Belisarians would be in a position to fight another day. Perhaps they would even be able to ferret out and take vengeance on those behind their attackers.
He was surprised by his desperation. He would never have suspected things could get so bad so fast. Until this evening he had thought the power of House Belisarius unassailable. The Navigators had seemed so rich and so powerful, but not even their alliance with the Wolves had kept them from teetering on the edge of oblivion before daybreak. He realised that in the vast machine of Imperial power, the House was but one tiny cog and, by extension, so was his Chapter. It was not a pleasant thought.
“Well, it looks like we have some more visitors,” growled Haegr. “I suppose we had better get ready to welcome them.”
Xenothan bounded down the slope and heard the roar of battle ahead. It had been a long night, but it was almost over. One last push would see this thing finished. He checked his weapons one last time, and raced headlong towards his goal. From up ahead, he heard the howling of Wolves.
Ragnar met the first of the fanatics breast to breast, and sent him reeling with a punch from the hilt of his blade. Unbelievably, he had run out of bolter shells for his pistol, and the fighting was so close now, it seemed pointless to snatch up any sort of ranged weapon. Instead he grabbed a sword from a fallen guard officer and used it left handed while he wielded his chainsword with his right.
They had been forced to come out from behind the barrier and enter the battle in the chamber beyond. Now he raced through the melee butchering foes while Haegr smashed his way through more of the enemy warriors like a blood-mad bull let loose in a crowded bazaar. All around them, the enemy fell, but now it was only the two Marines who kept them at bay. Most of the guard had fallen, and still the zealots came on, reckless and fanatical.
It may have been the proscribed combat drugs they chewed on, but Ragnar suspected they would have been as bold without them. They simply would not have been so untiring and fierce and strong. Haegr did not care. He laughed as he slew. His hammer smashed skulls as if they were eggshells and snapped ribs as though they were made from dry twigs. Gore splattered his beard and his chest plate. Blood dribbled down his face giving him a daemonic look.
For all his bulk he moved so quickly that no enemy was able to draw a bead on him and few managed to land a blow. Suddenly, out of nowhere, flew a dart. It impacted on the giant’s forehead and stuck there. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen, and then a look of horror came into Haegr’s eyes and he stiffened and fell forward like a great oak.
If Ragnar had not known it was impossible, he would have guessed his comrade to have been laid low by some vile poison. Something flashed in his peripheral vision and he threw himself forward, smashing into the enemy warriors ahead of him. A dart whizzed past his ear, missing him narrowly.
A shriek from just beyond his position told him that somebody else had not been so lucky. A glance to his left revealed a man writhing on the floor in dreadful agony, his face turning swiftly blue, muscles writhing beneath his skin like tortured serpents.
Ragnar kept moving and more darts rattled off his armour. He caught the hint of a smell, the faintest suggestion of an unbelievably revolting mix of toxins. Wildly, he glanced around. He had yet to catch sight of the man shooting at him. No human being should have been able to evade his perceptions. He guessed that the assassin had arrived.
Xenothan cursed. He had not expected the youth to respond so swiftly. Tracking his evasive action had expended too many of the assassin’s precious poisoned darts and still he had not hit. All he had done was succeed in laying low half a dozen of his own side.
What now, he wondered? There was no more time to waste. If he was going to slay the Celestarch he needed to get over the barrier and into the Vault now. He headed for the doorway.
From the corner of his eye, Ragnar caught sight of a tall, thin, black-garbed man moving with blurring speed. He vaulted the barrier and headed towards the entrance of the inner Vault.
The stranger moved far too fast for a normal human. There was something almost insert-like in his scuttling swiftness. This was the assassin, Ragnar surmised, and in a few moments, if he wasn’t stopped, he would enter the Celestarch’s chamber. Ragnar did not give much for the chances of the guard keeping him from his prey. It was time for him to do his duty.
Ragnar sprang forward over the barricade, aiming for his opponent’s back, ignoring all the blows that flashed towards him from the fanatics, trusting his armour to keep him from harm. He lashed out with his chainsword, hoping to catch the assassin at the top of his spine. He almost succeeded, but at the last second, the assassin threw himself forward, stretching almost bonelessly to a
void the strike. More than that, he somehow writhed out of the way, rolled forward and caught Ragnar with his foot adding to the Wolfs momentum and propelling him head over heels into the chamber.
Ragnar had to let go of the chainsword in case he fell on his own blades. He tried to control the roll and bring himself to his feet. The chainsword skated away across the marble flagstones and came to rest against a far wall. Ragnar sprang upright but the killer was ready. His boot connected with Ragnar’s chin with a piledriver force that would have broken the neck of anyone other than a Space Marine. Ragnar was once more hurled off-balance, while the assassin vaulted over him. He was amazed by the speed of his foe. Never before had he encountered someone so much quicker and apparently stronger than he. There were many stronger, but none so fast. This stranger was a lethal combination of the two.
Ignoring Ragnar the assassin moved towards his target. The guards were confused by the startling speed with which events were unfolding, and were not firing because of Ragnar’s presence.
“Shoot,” he bellowed, reaching up to snag the man’s ankle. He just managed to grab it and once more the stranger twisted, trying to break free. The first hail of bullets filled the air around them. Several smashed into Ragnar’s armour but he held his grip.
Xenothan cursed. What did it take to put this youth down? So far he had absorbed enough punishment to kill a dozen normal men and he kept coming. Worse, he managed to thwart Xenothan’s every effort to get to the Celestarch. The assassin realised he had made a mistake putting down Haegr first. The giant’s ferocity was legendary, and Xenothan had assumed he was the greater threat. Only now he was not sure. Another mistake, he thought, and one he had very little time to put right.
Somehow, superlatively swiftly, the assassin avoided being hit and returned fire with a weapon he held in his left hand. More darts flew through the air and Ragnar feared the Celestarch was about to be killed. She would have died there and then had not several of her bodyguard intervened, interposing themselves between her and the assassin. They had become a human shield.
Ragnar heard the assassin curse in a strange tongue, then he bent from the waist and struck Ragnar with his hand. The blow was aimed at Ragnar’s eyes. The young Space Wolf just had time to turn his head, while taloned nails sliced the skin of his forehead. He lashed out with the sword he had retained, but the man took the blow on his forearm. Ragnar expected to feel flesh slice open, but instead the blade rebounded as if it had hit solid metal. The stranger’s slashed tunic was only cloth. Ragnar realised at once that he possessed some sort of sub-dermal armour.
The assassin brought his free foot down on the wrist of the hand with which Ragnar immobilised him. The force was irresistible and the stranger was free. A moment later the man was airborne almost as if gravity had no grip on him.
He performed an arcing backward somersault and continued to fire his darts of death into the bodies of the men protecting the ruler of Belisarius. Ragnar hoped for her sake that he did not find any chink in the wall of flesh. He assumed that the men would already be dead from the poison in their veins. He threw the sword with all his strength directly at the stranger’s stomach, hoping it was not as well protected as his arms. The man twisted in the air, flailing his arm, and struck the blade away. It dropped directly into the guards, piercing one’s throat. If that had been deliberate, and Ragnar had to assume it was, it was an astonishing feat of coordination.
Ragnar rolled and snatched a lasrifle from the hands of a guard. He brought it to bear on the stranger and pulled the trigger. Lacking anything to gain purchase on, and forced to follow the arc prescribed by gravity, the assassin, for once, made an easy target. Not even his reflexes were swift enough to avoid coherent light, and Ragnar hit him. The beam burned cloth and seared flesh, charring it black. Somehow the assassin managed to keep his arm in the way all the way down, and as soon as he hit the ground, he came straight at Ragnar, despite the sizzle of fat and muscle.
Too late, Ragnar noticed the knife in the killer’s good hand. He caught the hint of faint deadly poison, like the stuff that had brought Haegr down. He desperately brought up his arm to try to deflect it but the stranger got the blade around it and punched it at his eye. Ragnar turned his head, and it caught him on the cheek just below the eye.
Searing agony passed through Ragnar instantly. All of his senses rearranged themselves. Sounds became colours, light became sound, touch blurred into taste, all in a way he would never be able to describe. For one who relied so much on his senses it was a sanity blasting experience. The pain flared through him in bright red and yellow waves of agony. His gasps came out in clouds of grey and green. He tasted the acid sting of the poison in his veins. Everything became roaring madness to his tortured, overloaded senses.
Desperately wondering if he was even doing what he thought he was doing, he threw himself forward, biting and rending, feeling his jaws close on something, and thinking his arms encircled his foe. He kept attempting to crush it and bite it long after the waves of red madness overwhelmed him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
He woke suddenly and found himself looking into the face of Gabriella. Above him he could see the ceiling of his own chamber. He breathed deeply but there seemed to be something wrong with his sense of smell. It had not seemed so dull since he had become a Wolf.
“I must be alive then,” he said. “Else you have somehow accidentally found your way into the halls of hell.”
“Yes,” she said. “You are alive.”
“The Celestarch?”
“She is well too, all things considered, and she prepares for the great council. It looks like there will be much else to discuss along with the selection of the new throne.”
“What happened?”
“I think I can answer that,” said a familiar voice from close by. Ragnar caught the scent now as well. “Torin?”
“Yes, old son, I am here. I came up just as you were fanging the assassin.”
“Haegr?”
“He’s too stupid to die. He is even now engaged in single combat with all the pies in the kitchen.”
“That is exactly the sort of foul slur on mighty Haegr’s honour I would expect from a jealous toad like you, Torin,” said Haegr. He and his collection of meat pies found their way into Ragnar’s field of vision too. “And one that will be richly rewarded with a beating later.”
“The poison did not kill you?”
“There is no poison strong enough to kill me,” said Haegr. “Although I admit it did slow me down a touch. Seems to have blocked my nose for the moment as well.”
“He recovered before you, because he had not taken quite the beating you did.”
“I was in the chamber before you,” said Haegr outraged.
“By one step.”
“Between us we proved more than a match for the killer despite his noxious tricks.”
“Ignore this great fat liar, Ragnar, old son, he was almost dead from the beating you gave him.”
“He was very dead after the bolter shells mighty Haegr put in him.”
“I have never fought anybody so powerful,” Ragnar said. “He was faster than me and stronger. I never expected that from anyone, except perhaps one of the slaves of darkness.”
“No doubt he would have said the same of you.”
“What happened?”
“When I entered you were holding him all but immobile and rending his flesh with your teeth. We finished him for you, then hustled the Celestarch to safety.”
“The traitor?”
“It was Skorpeus. Or so we surmise. His dead body was found near the breached security gate.”
“Why did he betray his own clan?”
“Why does anybody? Because he wanted power and prestige and he felt he had been passed over. Doubtless Feracci promised that he would see him installed as the new Celestarch. He would do. Skorpeus probably figured better to be a puppet than a servant,” There was something false in Torin’s explanation but Ragnar could no
t quite put his finger on it. Yet.
“Can we can prove Feracci was behind this?” asked Ragnar.
“We don’t know that it was. It would be our word against his. Cezare would simply say we were lying, and that it was a plot to discredit him. Even those who disbelieved him would admire him, and fear him for being able to corrupt one of the Belisarians. It would just enhance his prestige.”
“So he will get away with it then? All those people will have died in vain.”
“I would not say that, Ragnar,” said Torin. “He will not get to control a High Lord since the Lady Juliana will block his son’s appointment and that was his dream. He has been planning for this day for decades, that much is obvious. And he failed because of you. He will be seeking vengeance for that.”
“Let him,” said Ragnar.
“Spoken like a true son of Fenris,” said Haegr with almost paternal fondness.
“Ragnar, you will either have a short career or a glorious one, possibly both,” said Torin. “In your very brief stay on Terra you have managed to make an enemy of one of the most powerful men in the Imperium. I shudder to think what you will do as an encore.”
“What about the Imperial assassin? How is that being dealt with?”
“What Imperial assassin?” said Torin. “If you made any inquiries I am sure you would find he was some sort of renegade.”
“That’s not what you said a few hours ago…”
“No, but it’s what the Administratum would say were we foolish enough to lay this matter before them.”
“That is not fair.”
“Life is not fair, Ragnar, get used to it. But again, if it’s any consolation to you, I think we have ruined somebody far higher placed than Cezare tonight as well. There will be repercussions there too.”
“I would wish for something more than that.”
“Don’t worry, Ragnar,” said Haegr. “I am sure something else will come up that you can get your teeth into.”