Contents

Cover

The Wolftime – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

Chapter One

TERRORSTORM
DELAYED GRATIFICATION
OLD BLOOD, NEW BLOOD

The traitors brought the storm with them and the heavens were clad in midnight. The broken miles-high spires of Holkenved were swallowed by dark clouds billowing down from the void, descending upon the ruin of the hive city as a flock of carrion eaters on a corpse. And like a scavenging flock there was movement within the cloud, churning and twisting, pushing into broken portways and sliding along cracked viaducts.

Where the miasma came, suffocating blackness followed. The last fitful stutters of lumen globes and lightstrips were snuffed out by the encroaching shadow. The whirr of atmocirculators became mechanical stammers that sighed into silence, throttling the least movement, as though every molecule had been seized in a freezing grip. Dead air chilled by altitude sank through the levels of the city, piling down into great crevasses of metal and ferrocrete carved by a twenty-day onslaught of orbital wrath. Shadow and chill stalked the corridors of palaces and swept into slave pens. The umbra flowed over bloating carcasses; it caressed time-rigid corpses; inhaling dying breaths still hanging in the air.

Tendrils of icy dark quested through the broken spire heights, pushing blindly through the devastation until they sensed the first traces of life. Sluggishly, but with increasing purpose, the blackness slithered towards these knots of warmth: it was not the mortal radiation of breath or blood that it hunted but the immaterial heat of human souls.

The first prey the creeping fog discovered were scattered survivors, cut off from the rest of the hive by collapsed walls, ruptured hallways and miles-deep shafts cut by starship lance strikes. Such barriers penned in noble and servant alike. To the deadly cloud all were the same, too. Each was a flicker of nourishment that tasted as sweet whether it came from the descendant of three millennia of inbred Holkenved aristocracy or the child that cleaned out the waste pipes. Some perished of fright, their final screams cutting ripples through the cloud before being quenched. Many hurled themselves to the depths or dashed their heads out upon the jagged rubble, driven by the whispers that presaged the blackness, unable to bear the voices’ constant urgings of self-hate. Others suffocated in the cloying un-air that followed the advancing miasma, or had their blood turned to ice as wisps of voidmist passed through their hearts.

Barely sustained by the morsels of the spires, the hungering fog flowed onward. Miles down from the summit, life glowed like the embers of a fire, stoked to flame in places. Though no soul was stronger than any other, in togetherness there was a strength, a combined light that baulked the shadow. Here and there such flames wreathed as protective rings, centred on officers and priests. But for every castle of faith there were also gaps where terror reigned still. As though guided on a leash, the darkness flowed back and forth across the city levels, probing, exploring the boundaries between the vulnerable and the strong, filling chambers of the factories and dormitories of the peasantry while steering away from the blazing cathedra and shrines.

When all the upper reaches of the hive were invested with darkness, the storm writhed again. Lightning clawed down from the boiling cloud, scattering over the cracked skin of the ancient city, driving into the open wounds upon its mountainous body. Pulse after pulse of white energy split the skies until the summit of Holkenved was aflame with strikes and the blackness convulsed with immaterial power.

The screaming, twisting column of energy drove deeper and deeper into Holkenved, splitting and merging as it raced along halls, avenues and tunnels, speeding through the darkness but a part of it also.

A fresh wave of pure terror struck the companies arrayed in defence of the hive’s mid-layers. Despite the barked warnings of commissars, veterans and new recruits alike cast down their weapons and fled, to be rewarded by sharp las-bolts in their backs. Those that remained clung grimly to their weapons, tears streaking their faces as every nightmare remembered and imagined welled up in their thoughts. Some were physically sick with dismay, others fought back with mumbled prayers that sounded weak against the cloying silence that possessed the hive.

There were wings in the tempest, but not of crows and ravens. The scarlet flare of jump packs and gleam of eye-lenses fell with the storm; sparks within a darker shadow with teeth of explosive bolts and claws of plasma. As though birthed by the storm itself, figures woven from darkness and lightning erupted from the gloom, joyous screeches and laughter filling the void with noise. Encased in suits of armour older even than Holkenved, carried upon crooked wings and infernal power, the traitors burst upon the defenders even as the thunderous storm broke, its detonation scattering the upper reaches as ash and debris. Amid defiant las-fire and the bark of autocannons, the warriors of the storm replied with their own guns and, scant seconds later, with cruel blades and claws.

The Night Lords.

Terror heralded their coming and death rode the lightning.

Gaius had been commanded to ignore the screams, but it was hard. Enhanced hearing, boosted further by the auto-senses of his warplate, meant that the cacophony of dread-filled howls and panicked shrieking cut short was ever-present.

Even so, the Primaris Marine followed orders and remained where he was with the rest of the strike force. There were seven others in his Intercessor squad. They had landed on Caldon IV with ten. Heindal and Gestartas had died during the landing, blasted apart by defence guns once employed to protect the domains of the Emperor but now turned against His warriors.

The squad was one of six in the strike force, itself part of a deployment company of one hundred and twenty Space Marines. All were Unnumbered Sons – Primaris brothers that had yet to be formed into new Chapters or adopted by one that shared their gene-seed. When they had left Terra three relative-years ago there had been two hundred and fifty of them.

They might have been Unnumbered but Gaius hoped someone, somewhere, was counting the dead.

Against the urge of warrior pride it made sense to allow the Astra Militarum and the loyal defence regiments of Holkenved to take the brunt of the Night Lords’ counter-landing. Had the traitors been waiting for the warriors of the Lord Commander to attempt to retake Caldon IV? Or had the Night Lords been brought to a fortunate intervention by the vagaries of the warp – if indeed they were vagaries for servants of the Dark Powers?

Gaius did not overly concern himself with the grander affairs of the Indomitus Crusade. It was enough to be a part of it; to destroy the enemy before him and see their plans undone. To him the higher matters seemed abstract. Like pieces being exchanged on a game board, armies moved across the stars, fighting over worlds while fleets obliterated each other in the void. All that mattered was the singular purpose of the Lord Commander: to reclaim the Imperium from its foes.

‘Keep your focus, listen for the command,’ reminded Lieutenant Astopites. He spoke calmly and slowly. Though he did not move, his cadence matched the same tempo he used when pacing up and down the squad ranks during drill. Gaius pictured a ghost version of his superior moving among the strike force with deliberate strides and knew exactly where he would have been had he not remained standing by the great doors of the hall in which they were mustered. Astopites was a Firstborn warrior of the Novamarines, inches shorter and thirty decades older than Gaius and his Primaris companions.

‘Every cry you hear is a sacrifice. Just as He on Terra must endure for the Imperium to survive, so we too must endure this test now.’

Amid the noise of human suffering and desperate defence, Gaius caught the distant report of bolters and crackle of energy weapons. The Night Lords were butchering their way closer.

‘They must know we’re here, brother-lieutenant,’ said Sergeant Faulkstein in the Aggressor squad to Gaius’ left.

‘Of course they do, brother-sergeant.’

Imaginary Astopites was at the end of the second line, just in front of Sergeant Cormacca’s squad. Gaius pictured him without moving his head from parade ground straight-ahead or even a flicker of his eyes – a side-benefit of tactical visual mnemonic processes included in the Primaris psychodoctrination package. Possessing extended kinaesthesia that extended far further than a normal human’s senses, Gaius was instinctively aware of the proximity of his battle-brothers. There was a rumour that Astopites inloaded lens display feedback data to check whether any of his warriors ever faltered in their steady gaze during inspection. If he did, none of them had ever been faulted for it.

As he waited patiently for the coming confrontation, Gaius thought about the enemy force. A number of Night Lords flotillas and companies had been preying on worlds all along the Iron Veil – a boundary zone within reach of the Great Rift but not directly touched by it. More importantly, the worlds of the veil fell along a kind of political fault line, as Gaius understood it, surrounded by wilderness systems between the sectors historically aligned to Fenris and those patrolled by a Black Templars crusade. On top of that, it curved on the very fringes of the semi-official demesne of Ironhold and the Knights of House Kamidar. Before the arrival of the Iron Veil task force from Battle Group Retributus, the local Imperial commanders had suffered a lack of external allies to call upon.

At first Gaius had thought it remarkable that a few thousand Traitor Astartes had subjugated a dozen worlds. However, a communication from Lord Commander Guilliman had explained how so few could conquer so many. Not by strength of arms: that would have been impossible. Something far more devastating had been unleashed upon the Iron Veil: fear. Such was the terror of the Night Lords that the threat of attack was enough for each of the Iron Veil rulers to bow the knee to the Sons of Curze and pay tribute to stave off their arrival.

Fear had enslaved twelve worlds more swiftly than any occupying force.

Astopites continued, breaking Gaius’ chain of thought.

‘The Night Lords’ scans, perhaps even that filthy warp tech shadow they unleashed, must certainly detect our presence. It is to tempt us into premature engagement that the traitors are making such a show of slaughtering our allies.’ A sudden pause in the lieutenant’s tempo gave the impression of a similar pause in his steady tread, about three yards to Gaius’ right. ‘Remind me, Brother-Sergeant Faulkstein, why our allies are deployed to the front when we might hold the line ourselves?’

Astopites was as painstaking in his briefings as he was everything else. He firmly believed that his field-company, such as it was, would go on to be the glorious officer corps of the future. To that end he briefed them thoroughly on all strategic decisions and encouraged his Primaris Marines to tactically improvise when necessary.

‘The Night Lords rely upon morale-sapping attacks, swiftly initiated and moving from target to target,’ Faulkstein replied, repeating the lieutenant word for word. ‘The disposition of our allies will blunt the enemy’s momentum and draw them into a disadvantageous and divided position. We will counter-attack when they are at their most vulnerable.’

‘And not a millisecond before,’ Astopites concluded. ‘No matter how many of the Emperor’s servants fall. To act earlier jeopardises victory and would be a waste of their sacrifice.’

Planetary governors, ruling councils and Imperial commanders had been so terrified of the Night Lords bringing their warriors that they had willingly spread the fear themselves. They had reason to be fearful: the Night Lords were hated and dreaded almost as much as Abaddon, especially along the Iron Veil, which had been subjected to many raids over the millennia. Ten thousand years of murder and torture were warning enough that the Lords of the Night did not make idle threats. Every violence and humiliation they said they would visit upon dissenters was backed up by millennia of proof. Every capitulation had hastened the next, as each world sought to comply and pass the threat along the Iron Veil, on to their neighbour.

If that first world – Endlespin – had stood firm and called for aid the Night Lords might have been undone. But the lord regent had not blamed the Imperial commanders.

‘Selfishness is the companion of fear,’ he had said. ‘The cataclysm of the Cicatrix Maledictum has made every system feel as though it is fighting alone against the darkness.’

The battle group had been tasked with liberating these systems from the bloody-fingered grip of the Night Lords, to bring hope to the Iron Veil. Lord Guilliman had sent them off with sound words.

‘Fear multiplies when not confronted, gaining strength when unchallenged because its true potency is never tested.’

Gaius and his brothers were here to challenge that fear, just as thousands of others did likewise across the broken Imperium.

The energy of the terrorstorm flowed through Ektovar, filling him with vitality just as the stacked crystal reactor in his jump pack powered his warplate. He was the storm, feeding it the horror of his foes while it sustained him in return. Its flaring embrace caressed his armour; its driving hunger filled him with desire, stoking the emptiness of his soul until it was ignited by a fire of need that could only be sated with rapturous slaying.

As one of the Darkstrike it was his honour to be at the forefront of the attack, becoming the maw of the terrorstorm as it fed on the dread of the hive occupants. For too many days he and his midnight-clad companions had waited in orbit, poised to unleash their heavenly slaughter yet held back by the tight leashes of their masters. Day followed by endless day, dry and dusty, the life-thirst unslaked and growing. Every passing hour an agony of wanting, until he had felt the first hint of soulwash as the sorcerer Ke’Hiva channelled the misery of the Emperor’s lackeys, becoming the conduit for the terrorstorm.

At first the wave of sudden shock and panic had buoyed him up, sending jolts of pleasure through Ektovar even before his blade tip had pierced flesh to release the blood of his victims. The Darkstrike attacked like flesh-feeders in the underlakes of night-wreathed Nostramo. Striking quickly, they butchered without art, while their senses reeled with the influx of despair.

Once the edge of his desire had been taken off, Ektovar started to seek more particular morsels. Gifted the dreadtaste by his binding to Ke’Hiva, the Raptor followed the undulating curves of fear that rippled through the living fog that had carried him and the others to the hive city. Moans and sobs, the sickly sweetness of hormone release, the flicker of movement in his peripheral vision confirmed the presence of new prey.

A las-bolt glanced from his chestplate, the spark of it bright red among the white and pale blue energies coursing over the ancient ceramite. He retraced its trajectory, desire rising, but Felskas found the cowering woman first, the wings of his pack obscuring Ektovar’s view as her whimpering became a howl of despair that sent a quiver through the storm and Raptor alike.

Ektovar moved on, filtering one scent from another, following the strongest spoors of fear-hormones. In blackness he moved, forked tongue flickering at the air passing through the adapted vent of his visor.

With silent bounds, the Raptors sought their prey. With them came umbral companions, flitting along the ebony fog bank that forced its way through cracked ferrocrete and seeped along fractured pipes. From the questing fingers of the terrorstorm Ektovar caught a surge of synthetic hope – cortical stimms to improve reasoning, to quench the fear. Coming out into a broad, semicircular hall, the Raptors were met by a sudden hail of las-bolts and the slower, deeper thud of an autocannon. Just behind Ektovar, Serius cried out amid the cracking of armour and snapping of wings.

‘Ruinbrother,’ he wheezed across the vox as Ektovar ignited his pack and leapt towards the muzzle flare of the heavy weapon. ‘My flesh ails. Sustain me!’

Ektovar felt the spirit of his dying Darkstrike companion like fingernails scratching at a door, insistent and demanding. He swatted the psychic pulse away as if ridding himself of distracting flies. He had been starved too long, he would share his meal with no other.

A couple of seconds later Serius realised he would die, scorned by his ruinbrothers, alone in the darkness. His own fear spiked and within moments Nordra and Elizir fell upon their wounded companion, ripping his fear-tainted breaths from his lungs as snarling chainswords opened his armour and body, suckling on his last despair.

Firing his ornate pistol, Ektovar landed among the hive defenders, his boot-talons raking the face from one gunner, the pommel of his sword smashing open the head of another. The autocannon collapsed as he alighted, its tripod buckling beneath the weight of armour and occupant. Perched upon the crumpled metal, Ektovar allowed the fog to roll back, revealing himself before his true victim. The shrieks of the faceless gunner crackled across the Raptor’s senses and lightning flared over his armour in response. But the trooper’s fear was tainted with raw pain, innervating but not satisfying.

He turned on the officer commanding the defence platoon, bedecked in a long grey frock coat with a silver breastplate bound tightly over the thick fabric. Not a commissar, but still a worthy morsel. An Imperial aquila was moulded into the armour and Ektovar briefly wondered if the Corpse-Emperor enjoyed the same thrill of completeness from those He consumed.

Ektovar fixed the lenses of his helm upon his prey, letting the man see himself in their blood-red mirror. Defiant, the officer lifted a basket-hilted blade and pistol. The Night Lord allowed him a shot, a blast of blue careening from the side of his helm that brought a surge of hope from the Imperial lackey – a hope that made the spike of fear that much greater when the Raptor let out a shrill cry and pounced.

Gaius was not enamoured of strategic thought, beyond what he needed to know to kill traitors. As sergeant of his squad, his focus was more localised, trying his best to create an effective fighting unit for every situation. His task had become harder in the recent months of fighting against the Night Lords, with only himself and three other members of his squad as survivors of the unit that had originally deployed with Fleet Primus; over that time eleven other Space Marines had fought and died at his side.

The Night Lords had been unwilling to engage in a massed battle, but rather than abandoning their victim-worlds back to the Imperium they had instigated widespread uprisings, which had turned what should have been reconnection missions into bloody reconquests. Such was the hold they had on their prey, the vassal planets would rather face the wrath of the lord regent’s armada than a Night Lords punishment attack. The three Iron Veil worlds so far retaken had drawn away valuable fighting resources – Astra Militarum, Naval and Adepta Sororitas assets required to reassure the populations and their rulers that they were safe from Night Lords reprisals.

And then, after more than half a Terran year of evasion and raids, the Night Lords had come to Caldon IV in strength. That they had arrived while the task force landings from orbit were commencing could not have been coincidence.

‘Estimate one minute until counter-strike begins,’ Lieutenant Astopites informed the force, quiet and confident. ‘Final weapons check.’

As he revved the motor on his chainsword and slid his pistol from its holster, Gaius could feel the battle-eagerness growing inside him. Since the breakout from the landings he and his warriors had suffered enforced idleness, concealing their strength and conserving warriors and materiel.

Holkenved was the capital hive, seat of the Imperial commander, and had signalled its surrender to the Imperial forces even before they arrived in orbit. Yet it was an island among a sea of insurrection, the rulers of rival hive cities having thrown in their lot with the Night Lords and rebels to oust ancient adversaries. Now it seemed the Night Lords thought to crush all resistance, and reinforcement, with a single devastating attack. If Holkenved fell, Caldon IV would revert to the traitors and – as sure as snow fell on Fenris – the whole of the Iron Veil would be in open revolt again.

That could not be allowed to happen. The Lord Commander had been most adamant.

The people of Holkenved paid for their loyalty with their lives, as did any good servants of the Emperor. Ships were vital to the continuing impetus of Battle Group Retributus, while architecture and people were not. The command staff had feigned weakness, not wishing to scare away their enemies, dispersing the fleet as though fleeing attack. A predator acting like prey, playing dead. The gambit had meant less orbital support and Gaius could not help but wonder if Heindal and Gestartas would be alive if the landing zone had been targeted with a saturation bombardment prior to the drop.

Virtually unopposed, the Night Lords had targeted the hive from orbit. The void shields had failed on the second day, the defence lasers and missiles on the fourth. The further sixteen days that had followed served no military purpose but to ensure the total eradication of all life in the upper spires.

‘Bait,’ Captain Veirsturm had warned, when asked why the Night Lords were allowed to inflict such death and misery upon the hive city. ‘The hive is the young goat staked in the clearing, their assault companies are the arrow set in the bow poised to be let loose. They torture the people to draw our attack, and if we bare fangs too large for them, they will withdraw.’

The sergeant thought of the pict-grabs and vid-feeds that the lieutenant had used during the briefing. They had been intended for tactical assessment, but while Astopites had talked about the layout of passageways and damage absorbency reckonings of various materials, Gaius had fixed upon the hands jutting from rubble; the rictus grins on children’s faces covered with the ash of their parents; the walking wounded scrabbling at debris piles with bloodied fingers. The images both still and moving were silent, but cries for help, desperate moaning and noisy death had been the soundtrack of Holkenved for the past sixteen days, only drowned out by the thunder of starship shells and the irregular hiss of lance strikes wreaking more devastation.

Gaius’ grip on his chainsword tightened at the thought of bringing bloody reckoning. The idea that warriors created to be the cutting edge of the Emperor’s blade had been forced to hide behind a shield of civilians, Imperial Guard and defence troopers brought a bitter taste to his tongue.

Every day, every hour and every minute spent waiting would lend speed and strength to his arm when he was finally unleashed.

‘By squads, attack pattern alpha.’

The words the Unnumbered Sons had been waiting for issued across the vox from Captain Veirsturm.

The lead squads broke into a run, swiftly moving past Lieutenant Astopites. Gaius and his Intercessors were in the third line. Without a word they set off after another four seconds, fifty yards behind the squads in front. As he accelerated to combat pace, Gaius was aware of the smallest of weight differences at his hip, caused by the book he now carried in one of his ammunition pouches. Or perhaps it wasn’t the physical weight but the emotional burden that made him hyper-aware of his new acquisition.

A disruption to the routine of pre-drop doctrine caused a momentary ripple of disturbance across the muster deck. Gear checks and squad assembly perfected over thirteen previous drops suffered a second-long stutter as the gathered Space Marines each reacted to the foreign presence in their midst.

No remarks needed to be uttered for the intruder to be noted. An extra breath in the hymn. Movement where there should have been stillness and stillness where there should have been movement. Glances that caused split-second hesitation amid arming protocols. To anyone not a Space Marine, it would have been nothing at all of remark, perhaps not even felt. To Gaius it seemed like a sudden crash of unexpected percussion amid the pre-battle symphony; a discordance that grew as he realised it approached him.

A figure dressed in a simple grey military uniform, small amongst giants, picked his way over trailing refuelling pipes and charging cables that snaked across the muster hall floor. He glanced from one squad to the next, eyeing each carefully as though appraising a room of interesting antiquities, but to the transhuman senses of the occupants his nervousness betrayed itself in a dozen tiny ways.

The interloper stifled a flinch as Brother Kemi lifted a bolt rifle and sighted on him.

‘Just calibrating my targeter, historitor,’ the Intercessor said with a chuckle, lowering his weapon.

The adept smiled without humour and looked around, seeking his objective. He hurried forward as his gaze fell upon Gaius’ squad.

‘Historitor Mudire,’ the sergeant said with a nod of greeting. ‘What brings you to the muster? Are you going to be dropping with us?’

There was a hesitation as Mudire mastered an involuntary twitch.

‘As much as I appreciate the thrill of plunging towards a war-torn planet with my fate entrusted to a few inches of armour and the timing of a retro rocket, regretfully, no,’ the historitor said. He took a moment before continuing, blinking quickly as he regained his train of thought. ‘After Gelsepllan… When you… When that…’

He swallowed, eyes sliding past Gaius as memories took him elsewhere, lips forming a grimace.

‘When I saved your life, historitor?’ prompted the Primaris Marine.

Mudire nodded, focusing again on Gaius. His gaze flickered to the sergeant’s shoulder pad and Gaius recalled that it had been his pauldron that had taken the brunt of the fusillade when he had shielded Mudire during a heretic ambush on Gelsepllan.

‘You asked if we had anything about the world of your gene-father,’ the historitor said brusquely. ‘Something “authentic”, you said, which would link you back to those ancient times.’

‘Great Cawl gave us much during our long sleep,’ said Gaius, raising a gauntleted finger to tap the side of his head. ‘Facts and figures. Verified stories. Accounts and reports. Nothing…’

He could not find the words for what he sought: a connection beyond mere genetic manipulation and historical data. He spread his fingers and approximated a shrug that made his armour whine.

‘Spiritual?’ suggested Mudire.

Gaius nodded even as he heard the grunting laughs of a couple of his squad-brothers behind him.

‘It is not primary, as a source,’ said Mudire, reaching into a satchel. He brought forth a book that was small but thick, the pages yellowed and worn, the cover missing. ‘But it is almost contemporary to the time of the First Founding.. And though the tone is a bit convoluted and archaic, it requires no translation.’

‘I look forward to reading it on our return,’ said Gaius.

‘It’s for you,’ said Mudire, thrusting the book forward, suddenly awkward. ‘For… A gift. I have come to know myself a bit differently since Gelsepllan. Perhaps it will help you know yourself too.’

Gaius looked at the outstretched hand and the thin paper ruffling in the vent breeze.

‘This is unnecessary, historitor,’ he said. ‘I performed my duty, nothing more.’

‘I have some influence in the ranks of the historitors,’ Mudire said, straightening, his gaze hardening. ‘It took considerable effort to retrieve this for you, as a sign of my gratitude. It would be impolitic to refuse. Consider it an award, a commendation from my organisation.’

‘Impolitic, you say?’ said Heindal, moving up beside Gaius. ‘You’d best take it, brother-sergeant, or Mudire will complain to the Lord Commander.’

Mudire’s stare was unwavering. He still held the book out in a steady hand. Gaius took it and read the details on the frontis page.

He smiled.

‘It is perfect, historitor,’ he told Mudire. ‘Thank you.’

Fear was infectious, leaping from one weak mind to the next, coursing through unseen veins of mutual need. As one line of resistance toppled, the resolve of the next was weakened, the taint of dread followed swiftly by the assaults of Ektovar and his companions. The shrill death cries of the Emperor’s slaves, baying howls of the Raptors and unearthly keening from the storm-spirits carried the contagion of terror into the minds of those ahead.

‘Seldom has butchery been so easy,’ boasted Lenthe as he eviscerated a thrashing defence trooper. Unsheathing his claws from his victim, the Night Lord waved a hand towards the gutted and decapitated corpses littering the corridor. ‘Their defence seems ill-prepared and random. Had they met us in force, the challenge would have been greater.’

‘They are weak because they do not understand the nature of their foe,’ crowed Keslos, jump pack bright as he landed next to Ektovar. ‘They reckon not with the power of the terrorstorm.’

The defenders had indeed been sporadic in their placement and reaction, but Ektovar retained enough sense amid the thrill of the hunt to question whether it was incompetence or design. The terrorstorm – its concealing, demoralising miasma – was certainly something the hivers would never have encountered before, rendering their layered defence more vulnerable. But he hesitated as the others moved towards the half-closed security gate ahead of the squad.

‘It is not the humans that guide this, but the hand of the Misguided Son,’ he said to his companions. He felt the last juddering escape of the soul from the corpse at his feet and paused to feel its presence slide through the dark fog that permeated his flesh. ‘There will be a counter-attack.’

‘We should signal the main force to begin the assault,’ said Keslos. ‘Their sudden attack will crush the spirit from the survivors and dull the cut of the enemy’s riposte.’

‘We shall be the point of the blade driving deeper, with their weight to push us on, direct for the heart,’ said Elizir.

Ektovar knew of what his companions spoke. The terrorstorm could feel the cold knot of the Emperor’s Space Marines behind the lines, waiting for their moment. Greyness descended on his senses as the bodies cooled around him and the dread of their departure flittered away to be absorbed by the semi-sentient mist.

‘Do it,’ he decided, despising the emptiness in his soul, its gnawing at the edge of his awareness. ‘The Dreadmaster shall descend and we will lead the way.’

He cut open the ironwork of the gate with two swings of his glittering blade and stepped beyond, while his vox crackled with the effect of long-range transmission from Elizir. Just a few dozen yards ahead the next enclave of defenders waited, surrounded by the probing appendages of the terrorstorm. He felt discipline there, a solidity that had been missing from many of the defenders.

He would enjoy breaking it.

The corridor was too low for his jump pack so Ektovar swept forward with long strides, carried along by the warp miasma. His sword left a trail of pale blue energy in his wake, occasionally flickering into a bright arc as the energy earthed through an exposed lumen or power conduit.

Sharper than any auspex, the terrorstorm showed him the way, guiding him from the main passage to a smaller access corridor. His wings scraped sparks from metal-clad walls as he ran along the ducting, hunched slightly to avoid the cable-lined roof. The maintenance tunnel brought him out into the hall where the Imperials waited, several dozen yards above them.

Ektovar burst through a rusted grating amid a billow of blackness. His jump pack responded to his desire like the wings of a bat, spiralling him down towards the panicked defenders as tatters of the storm wreathed his descent.

More than fifty troopers manned makeshift barricades built across the hall, blocking two exits. A bellow from one of them drew his eye – a commissar in burnished carapace armour and peaked cap, a power sword in one hand and pistol in her other.

Ektovar’s bolt pistol barked, picking off the soldiers around his chosen target, isolating his prey. From behind him the others opened fire, explosive rounds illuminating the stunned expressions of the troopers with brief flares of yellow. The plunging warriors knew instinctively what their leader desired, and directed their own attacks to other parts of the defensive line, the wall of overturned furniture, dismounted doors and piled ration boxes no barrier against vertical assault.

Panic swelled like an undercurrent, rising to meet Ektovar as he swooped. His next bolt took the commissar in the ankle, turning booted foot and lower leg to a ruddy mess, toppling her with a sharp cry. Yet there was only pain there; the schola-ingrained stoicism of the commissar was like a fortress protecting a golden treasure just out of reach.

Her mind was not like that of a Space Marine. The iron will of the Emperor’s sons was cold and dry, bereft of nourishment. The commissar’s mental walls were thick but not impenetrable; prising them open would be a delight in itself, to eventually release the delicious morsel within.

Gaius’ squad turned east, heading towards the left flank of the counter-attack. The ferrocrete floor cracked under the pound of their tread, the plasteel-lined walls reverberating like an immense war drum. The sound of gunfire ahead had quietened but there were still screams of fear and cries of pain in plenty.

Gaius checked the auspex feed from the receiver in his forearm. ‘Multiple signals half a mile away,’ he confirmed to the squad.

‘Augurs confirm secondary enemy wave incoming. Respond as necessary but maintain strategic objectives,’ Brother-Lieutenant Astopites ordered over the vox.

‘This is it,’ said Gaius, looking at his companions. They ran so fast along the corridor, the lumens seemed to strobe across their blue-grey armour. He held up his chainsword and brought the teeth into snarling life.

He remembered a line from the book and gave voice to an old battle cry as the Sons of Russ charged into battle.

‘Vlka Fenryka!’

Click here to buy The Wolftime.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2021.
This eBook edition published in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Represented by: Games Workshop Limited – Irish branch, Unit 3, Lower Liffey Street, Dublin 1, D01 K199, Ireland.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Johan Grenier.

Dawn of Fire: The Wolftime © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2021. Dawn of Fire: The Wolftime, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-80026-584-4

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

Dedicated to Wolf Brother Dave Cybergut.

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

the purchaser of a Black Library e-book product (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase a Black Library e-book (“e-book”). The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media.

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.