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The Burden of Loyalty – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Aboard the Stormbird Clawrend, the Old Guard of the Thirteenth Great Company shared a poignant silence. The growl of plasma jets and wind from the thickening atmosphere shook the hull around them. Bulveye stared at each of his veterans in turn, and met their gazes with his own knowing look.

They were armoured in bulky war-plate of storm-grey, gilded and silvered, decked with trophies, medallions and honours. Necklaces of alien fangs and bones hung about their gorgets, and their arms were bound with iron torqs. Tatters of parchment – oaths of moment and honours from the Allfather Himself – marked them as heroes of a hundred wars.

Each had been a grown man when the Imperium had rediscovered Fenris. Too old, they said. Too old to benefit from Great Russ’ gene-seed. Too old for the transformations.

‘Too tough to die, too stubborn to give up, eh?’ Bulveye grinned toothily. ‘We proved them wrong...’

Halvdan, his single eye shadowed in the light of the troop compartment, asked a question of the Old Wolf. ‘Will we offer terms to Magnus?’

Bulveye shook his head.

‘I asked that same question of the Wolf King himself. There is no chance of reconciliation. The sorceries of the Thousand Sons must be extinguished.’

Halvdan offered no argument. Ranulf nodded sombrely.

‘We are the Vlka Fenryka, brothers,’ Bulveye continued. ‘The Space Wolves, the Rout. We have come as the Allfather’s executioners, with a single purpose – to destroy a world, to annihilate its people and render its civilisation down to ashes. Prospero, home to the Thousand Sons, Legion of Magnus the Red, the Crimson King. Traitorous lord of a corrupt world. We are righteousness, and that cannot be held at bay.’

Jurgen let out a short laugh. ‘Yet the power of Magnus protects his capital. Mass drivers and magma bombs have burned all the rest of Prospero, but Tizca still stands.’

The others cursed their foes’ sorcerous ways, but Bulveye silenced them with a stern glare. ‘A Legion destroying another is a humbling matter,’ he reminded them. ‘We should take no joy from the destruction of our brothers. Be brutal and efficient, the Wolf King said, but do not glory in the fall of Magnus and his sons.’ He paused. A broad, toothy grin split his features. ‘But show no mercy either! The other Great Companies are already on the ground. We will have some catching up to do...’

The hull started to rattle with the detonation of anti-aircraft fire, and the rush of wind grew louder and louder as the gunship descended.

With a change of inertia that would have broken the spines of lesser men, the Stormbird fired its landing thrusters, forcing the Old Guard into their harnesses. Bulveye stroked the sealskin-bound haft of his single-bladed power axe, Eldingverfall – the storm’s strike.

They landed, the gear hydraulics shrieking below them and the hull shuddering from the impact. Bulveye stood, hitting the activator for the assault ramp.

The brightness and all-consuming roar of battle swept into the gunship. Bulveye lifted Eldingverfall, catching the ruddy light on its rune-etched blade, and raised his voice over the din. ‘Did you not think we would get our hands bloody today?’

The fire of countless explosions reflected from the crystal pyramids of the city, the skies lit with pulses of red and blue and orange from incendiary shells, las and plasma.

Regiments of scarlet-clad Prosperine Spireguard flowed down the roads and broad steps towards the Space Wolves. The defenders’ tanks and walkers followed, laying down a curtain of fire to meet the grey-armoured mass of legionaries surging through the capital.

Crystal shards and molten metal rained as Bulveye of the Thirteenth led his company through the maze of streets and cloisters. The towering structures of the Syrianus Precincts were one of several anchors for the enemy’s defence of the inner city, and Russ had tasked Bulveye and his warriors with overpowering the Thousands Sons’ flank.

Now the precincts burned beneath the fury of the Rout.

Las-fire from the Spireguard sparked azure beams along colonnaded roads and scoured down from balconies and windows, and a tempest of bolt-rounds snarled and cracked in reply. Dreadnoughts covered the advance of the Thirteenth, their autocannons and heavy bolters raking swathes of destruction through the defenders of Tizca. Bolstered by their presence, Bulveye and his warriors pushed further into the city of the Thousand Sons.

‘Give no thought to retreat,’ the Old Wolf snarled. ‘We leave this place with our names recited in the rolls of victory, or in the laments of the lost. The Allfather has called on us, his wolf pack, again, and we will see His enemies torn apart to the last remnant. Give no quarter, for we can expect none in return.’

It was not only physical forces and dimensions that broke the landscape. The pyramids and obelisks of Tizca gleamed with another power that distorted the heavens like a coruscating heat haze. Crimson lightning lashed down from the highest summits of glass and white metal, leaving shattered ceramite and fused flesh where they struck.

Purple fire rained from tortured storm clouds that swirled about the pyramids, each burning droplet hissing as it smouldered through armour and seared into flesh. Plasma blasts and cannon fire screeched harmlessly from glimmering shields of unnatural power.

Bulveye felt the psychic field prickling his skin even though clad head-to-foot in power armour, its ceramite plates no barrier to the otherworldly energies manipulated by the deviant Thousand Sons. Waves of sorcery, like a hot wind inside his flesh, were emanating from the cluster of domes and ziggurats towards which the Thirteenth Company advanced.

Another psychic storm swept across Bulveye’s warriors, lacerating battleplate with its touch, churning exposed flesh down to the bone.

Not one shout of pain or protest rose from the throats of the Space Wolves as they fell. Instead they roared their defiance of the Thousand Sons’ arcane powers and spat oaths of vengeance upon the traitors of Prospero.

The Old Wolf pointed his axe at the tallest pyramid of the precincts, the temple-library’s glassy sides cracked and broken by artillery and tank shells that had penetrated the psychic force fields by weight of fire alone. Dark smoke issued from the many rents upon its reflective surface. Through the fume he could see a flickering corona as uncanny energies leaked from the pinnacle.

‘I’ll raise a feast of honour to the wolf-brother that slays the sorcerer within,’ he promised.

It was Ranulf that answered first, over the vox. ‘Ahh, my name shall be toasted that night!’

This was met by a chorus of good-natured jeers from the others. Jurgen in particular laughed loud and long.

‘And the Allfather Himself would come to pay His respects, no doubt!’ he jested. ‘But I’ll wager it is our own cyclops that strikes the final blow. As Russ will fell the one-eyed Crimson King, so Halvdan Bale-eye will chop down this upstart of a sorcerer. One eye for one eye. It is only fair.’

But Halvdan said nothing, perhaps expecting a punch-line jibe that did not come. The vox fell quiet, leaving only the roar of guns and pounding of armoured feet.

They were ancient fighters – hearthlords of Russ from before the coming of the Imperium, bound by a camaraderie longer than any normal lifetime. They were the heart of the Thirteenth Great Company, as well as the tip of its blade.

As they advanced, they passed other groups of VI Legion warriors. Bulveye recognised the quick-eyed Asmund amongst them, surveying the path ahead.

‘Beware the sorceries of Magnus’ brood,’ Asmund urged him. The words might have seemed redundant, but he continued with a more precise warning. ‘This whole city is steeped in the power of the wyrd, Old Wolf. Illusion is a weapon as powerful as any bolt or blast.’

‘So, we can trust nothing we see or hear, Rune Priest?’

‘You can trust my words, and the strength of Russ!’

The Space Wolves fired on the move, leaving the streets carpeted with hundreds of red-coated corpses as they pushed hard into the outer reaches of the precincts. Stormbirds and Thunderhawks scoured the broad avenues and plaza with battlecannon and lascannon fire. Bulveye and his company advanced past smouldering wrecks of fighting vehicles and armoured walkers.

Though progress was swift, the lord of the Thirteenth Company knew better than to underestimate the task ahead. ‘Stay alert,’ he urged them. ‘Magnus’ warriors have yet to show themselves. Know that when their fury comes it will be fierce, and we must ride the storm together. Listen to my command. Fight as one.’

‘There is not a son of Prospero yet born to match the Rout,’ Halvdan’s reply growled across the vox-link, ‘even if there are any brave enough left amongst them to dare face us.’

‘Not if they were the Ten Thousand Sons would they casually confront the Bale-eye. Not if they have the wisdom they claim so proudly.’

Jurgen was without mirth for a change. ‘The ravens feed on those that fall to the guns of cowards just the same.’

Hard fighting delivered the Old Guard of the Thirteenth onto the steps of the inner sanctum, the last two hundred metres fought through a bloody melee. Like phalangites of ancient Terran history, Spireguard with melta-pikes formed lines sixteen deep across the streets leading to the library-temple, the tips of their weapons glowing like heated brands.

Where they struck the plate of the charging Space Wolves, the long spears erupted with intense blasts of energy, piercing armour and snapping thickened bone.

The Rune Priest Asmund called out to Bulveye once more. ‘These foes are real enough, Old Wolf, but the temple-pyramid burns with malefic power. The enemy that lies within is strong in the ways of the Broken Path. He shields himself and his followers from my gaze with a curtain of beguiling gold.’

The sons of Russ hacked at their foes. Bulveye stepped into the breach of the phalanx, his plasma pistol annihilating the body of a Prosperine defender.

‘Press on! The skald’s scorn on the hindmost!’

The press of bodies was thick, but such was the strength and bulk of the Space Marines that even the backswing of a weapon would crush a man’s skull, and they trampled over their close-packed foes like a stampede of wild beasts. Though some fell to the melta-pikes, such gaps were quickly filled with more eager warriors, cutting down all in reach so that not a foe was left to strike at them from behind.

Ranulf was the first to break through and ascend the steps, others following swiftly towards the main doors of the pyramid. The great gate was flanked with tall statues of Magnus: cyclopean guards with arms crossed over their chests, a rod in one hand and a curved khopesh blade in the other.

‘Still they do not show themselves!’ Ranulf bellowed in frustration.

The ground started to shake, vibrating as if to the footstep of some impossibly vast beast. Cracks ran down the steps, parting the stone to swallow legionaries and Spireguard alike, hellfire glowing from the depths as though they were fractures into the abyss itself.

The entrance to the pyramid yawned wide, its two great doors swung outwards with a crack like thunder and a flare of white light. From the unnatural brightness emerged a column of Space Marines armoured in plate of dark red, edged with gold and silver.

Bolter fire raked down the steps, the rapid crack-and-boom of propellant and detonations in perfect time to the step of the Thousand Sons legionaries. The fusillade struck attacker and Spireguard without favour, pranging from the armour of the former, tearing apart the latter. So precise and ruthless was the counter-attack that Bulveye had thought at first that automatons assailed his warriors. He saw also in that moment that to pause in the slightest would be disaster. If the Thousand Sons were to sweep the Space Wolves from the threshold of their citadel, they might well drive them out of the precincts entirely.

Into the teeth of the snarling fire raced the Wolf Lord, a shot from his plasma pistol vaporising the head of an advancing legionary of Prospero. ‘Into the storm! We are the thunder of Fenris! We are the Allfather’s lightning!’

He raced up the steps three at a time to come alongside Ranulf and the others that had been caught in the open. Ranulf’s left arm was clenched across his chest, blood on his hip and breastplate. The rest of the Old Guard poured onwards, ignoring the torrent of bolts, heedless of their foe’s wrath as they returned it in kind.

Ranulf waved away Bulveye’s proffered hand of assistance. He grunted as he stood up.

‘It is nothing, Old Wolf. I can still fight.’

‘I did not say otherwise, brother,’ Bulveye replied. ‘Lead the assault!’

The gap swiftly closed, the Thousand Sons soon abandoning bolters for gleaming halberds and bayonets against the chainswords and power axes of the Space Wolves.

Through the fighting Bulveye spied a figure with a coat of dark blue over his armour, its thick cloth stitched with many archaic sigils and devices. Several hooded acolytes stood around the sorcerer, lightning and fire spraying from their out-thrust hands.

‘There he is, the witch-warrior!’

Redoubling his efforts, Bulveye hewed down one enemy legionary after another, shouldering his way past his own warriors in his eagerness to bring the fight to the psyker. Yet he was still more than twenty metres from the grand entrance when the sorcerer turned and retreated across the threshold, disappearing into the bright light within.

The Old Guard formed up around their lord and, like the tip of a spear, they punched through the Thousand Sons, trusting to the rest of the company to guard their backs as they surged up the steps again, ignoring the flicker of incendiary bolts that followed them. Beyond the doors, all was shimmering gleam and wisps of flame-like streamers of fog.

There was no time for a subtle strategy. The precincts had to fall. Bulveye plunged into the shifting light with a last roared command.

‘With me! We sheathe our claws in the heart of the foe!’

The noise of the fighting seemed distant and dulled inside the arched hallway of the library. There was no ceiling, the walls simply came together in a huge vault some twenty metres above Bulveye, Ranulf and the handful of warriors with them.

The air thrummed with ambient power, a low hum that occasionally rose or fell in pitch, as though from a faltering generator. The light that suffused everything was similarly inconsistent, not so much flickering as dimming and brightening unexpectedly.

Eight arches led away from the central nave-like chamber. Directly ahead, opposite the great doors, three huge winding stairways disappeared into the upper floors. Between them, Bulveye could see gateways leading into a cloister, lit by explosions that continued to fall upon the upper levels of the pyramid.

Halvdan came up beside the Wolf Lord. ‘They went ahead. I can smell them.’

It was true. A trail of incense-like fragrance marked the sorcerer’s exit between the stairwells. Bulveye felt a detonation not so far above them as it shook the walls, and pale dust and plaster flakes fell onto the grey armour of his warriors.

‘Only a fool would go higher into a storm of shells,’ he growled, scanning the corners of the room. ‘They must have some exit or bolthole on this level.’

Boots clattered on the tiles behind as more wolf-brothers burst into the library. Bulveye glanced past them but could see little outside – the light seemed blinding from both sides of the threshold. Jurgen led the next group swiftly after the first.

‘They scatter like leaves in the long winter. Krodus is sweeping them up.’

Bulveye spied two more of his lieutenants among those that had entered. ‘Redclaw, clear two floors above. Hroldir, I want squads scouring these corridors. Everyone else – kill anything you meet.’

The Space Wolves company parted in several directions – three squads sprinted up the stairs, while others fanned out into the surrounding galleries and passages. Shouts and death cries rang back. Bulveye pressed on with his Old Guard, smashing down a silvered gate with one blow from his axe.

Stepping over the twisted metal, he found himself in a courtyard nearly a hundred metres long. The walls on each side were sheer, rising up to a small rectangle of clouded sky far above, unmarked by window or slit. The ground was covered with stones, each a perfect sphere about three centimetres in diameter, of quartz and amethyst, garnet and andulasite. They had been artfully arranged in swirling patterns, pathways of tiled black between them.

The footsteps of the sorcerer and his acolytes had left a wake of disturbed stones directly across the meditation garden. Rough breaks in the harmonious geometries jarred Bulveye’s nerves as he followed their course towards another gate at the far end of the cloister. Ornate pebbles crunched underfoot, some turning to powder, as they followed the trail.

The vox chimed in his ear.

‘Old Wolf, this is Geigor.’

He recognised the voice of Geigor Fellhand, the honoured Wolf Guard charged with command of the Blooded Claws. The veteran warrior did not wait for any acknowledgement.

‘We have encountered unusual portals throughout the city. The Thousand Sons have been using them as a transportation system, some kind of localised teleport network.’

Jurgen sniffed. ‘That explains our prey’s intent. He scurries for a rat-tunnel.’

‘Aye,’ Bulveye muttered, then spoke back into the open vox-channel. ‘We are pursuing one of their warlocks, he might be heading for just such a portal.’

‘Then catch him before he reaches it. If your foe eludes you, hold position for the Sisters of Silence. These are not mortal technologies.’

‘None stay the hand of the Thirteenth – not even you, my hearth-brother. Russ himself tasked me with this duty, and only the abyss itself will come between us and victory.’

‘The portals are dangerous. If the Allfather had wanted to hurl someone mindlessly at the enemy, then He would have sent Angron. This is no saga of old, Bulveye!’

‘This is the greatest saga of our age, Geigor! But if you wish your name to be spoken softly in the telling, then that is your choice. Not for the Old Guard! These portals may be dangerous, but our foes are the greater threat.’

Bulveye cut the link and broke into a run.

‘For all that, let us hope to catch this slippery eel before he bolts,’ he called back over his shoulder. He barged the next gate, his warriors close at his heel.

Crashing into the chamber beyond, he was met by billowing jets of flame. As promethium lapped at his armour he twisted and rolled sideways to avoid the worst of it. Behind him, Dannet was not so swift – he thrashed past his Wolf Lord, bathed waist-to-throat in blue fire.

Halvdan entered a second later, his bolter barking fiercely as he laid a salvo of shots into the flamer-wielding Thousand Sons legionary who had been lying in wait. More traitors opened fire, scything bolts and autocannon shells into the enraged Space Wolves spilling into the great hall.

From the cover of a thick stone pillar, with bolt shrapnel and masonry shards rattling against his war-plate, Bulveye peered out to see the sorcerer. He was in front of a large, freestanding gateway a few metres from the back wall of the amphitheatre, made of gleaming metal and white marble, its keystone shining with golden light.

The robed psyker stood with three acolytes, the corpses of two more at their feet, and a squad of Thousand Sons, trusting to their protection while his hands traced lines of runes set into the portal. Other Thousand Sons were stationed on the descending levels of the amphitheatre, and fired up at the Space Wolves. Bulveye stepped out, returning fire with his pistol.

‘Surrender to your fate, witch-kin!’ he howled. An acolyte stumbled backwards, robes on fire, his chest turned to molten pulp. ‘The Emperor’s Wolves will never give up the chase! Spare yourself the torment of hope!’

The sorcerer turned at the challenge. He wore no helm, his gaunt face framed by a shock of black hair and a broad collar that rose up from the gorget of his armour. His eyes were pits of blackness, his features contorted in an expression of such rage that it startled Bulveye.

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A Black Library Publication

The Thirteenth Wolf first published as an audio drama in 2017.
Into Exile first published digitally in 2016.
Cybernetica first published in 2015.
Ordo Sinister first published digitally in 2017.
The Heart of the Pharos first published in 2016.
Wolf King first published in 2015.
The Binary Succession first published as an audio drama in 2017.
Perpetual first published as an audio drama in 2016.
This eBook edition published in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover and internal artwork by Neil Roberts.

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