Red Ascension.

[Grey Mage]

Try again,Vermundr the voice echoed through his head, soft and lilting.

A flash of pain ran through his mind like a chainsword set to armor plate and he dropped to a crouch low on the ground, his Thunderhammer humming softly a few centimeters from the broken plascrete flooring. He could feel the battle rage flowing through him, the anger that had always been there and lately had threatened to overwhelm his emperor-hardened soul.

The Wolf within.

In the next room he could hear the chanting of cultists in some obscene language hed taken pains to never listen closely to. As before he know not what they were saying, nor did he care. All that he knew was that right now there was nothing he wanted more than to destroy them all.

The wall cracked under his blow like it was made from the shell of a seagulls egg and he followed it through under the cover of his crackling stormshield. The stunned cultists struggled to adjust to this new internal threat as he lashed out. A handful of them fell like coardwood in a line as the disruption field of his weapon simply annihilated what had once been human chests. Lasfire deflected off the shield in his right hand as he howled foward into the next clustered group of filth striking down like a god of old into heretics before him.

One of them beat on his leg as he jumped through an archway to gain cover against the remaining score of cultists. An almost negligent backhand with his shield ended the mans life as hundred of kilos in pressure dented his skull.

Mere seconds later ass Vermundr readied a grenade to cover his charge into the massed traitor-gaurds he felt a heat upon his leg, and looked down in time to see a meltabomb incinerate his body.

***

 

You must continue Vermundr, try again. A voice echoed through his head, soft and lilting.

Vermundr had no time for the commstatic in his ears, a score of traitor gaurd were to his his right and his blood was up. With a howl he cast forth a microgrenade from his shielding arm and charged forth. Lasbeams kissed over his armor and left their faint trails as his left arm lashed out in ring of crushing death. A stray beam went through his gaurd and cracked the lense of his helmet. With a howl of rage he smote the offending pistol and cleaved through the torso of the man holding it to find his officer awaiting fate on the far side.

One of the traitors struggled to rise, the boils on his face streaming puss as he clutched his shattered arm. Vermundr kicked him in the head savagely and watched for a moment, confirming that the rest were dead.

He looked around him, the half-shattered ruins of an ancient hab building seemed souless and wasted. Grime was layered on the sweeping archs of the hallways and rust abounded on the doorpannels. It was said these cultists worshipped a god of decay and filth, and it seemed to Vermundr that they must have taken their insane ideas from the place they lived in.

He removed his helm, the cracked lense inpairing his vision was intolerable.

And as he turned to investigate the next stairway, his head exploded as a hotshot round came home.

***

 

Again Vermundr, again! He thought he heard a soft lilting voice in his head as a lasgun shot slammed into his helmet. His HUD screamed a warning as he brought up his stormshield for cover and ran towards the stairwell and away from the windows.

Snipers, :D me he thought. He advanced slowly towards the stairwell, removing his helmet with his right arm as he went. The lift shaft was broken, the lift itself in a hundred peices on the bottom floor. The line was nowhere to be seen. He tensed a muscle in his throat to activate his secondairy comm bead.

"Snipers in sector Brown, building seven by the trajectory." He said in a voice that sounded of anger gone cold. Static was his only answer, as it had been all day.

He had been part of the Retinue of Vali Snowwalker and this was to have been one of his last battles before his fate was decided. The Wolf Priests felt he was dangerously close to falling to the Wulfen Curse, his battle lost having overcome his senses in the last campaign on several occaisions. Such things could be afforded in a bloodclaw, but there was no place for them in the form of a Wolf Gaurd. The Rune Priest waited to plumb his mind after this battle and determine his mettle.

There had been an ambush. A vile walker with seven legs had crashed through the wall, tearing Sigvardr in half. Vali and Oddr had moved to flank it and encountered resistance in the form of a hundred traitor gaurd. Vermundr had lost himself in the rage and knew nothing of what happened next, save the abomination was smote and his brothers were gone. The cultists had littered the area, but if it had been him or his pack, he knew not.

He knew they were not in Red Sectors building 2 however. They had been tasked with taking this building, believed to harbor an intact Hyper pulse comms system on floor 213, and the call for reinforcements must be made or this hive would be lost.

He looked upon the doorway as he made it slowly, cautiously, to the top the stairs. 208. He was close then, so very close. If only he could hold his rage a bit longer he could save his brothers and free this place.

The stairs above him were cracked and shallow. A charge of some sort had hit here and the floor was to unstable to walk on. The barricade above the cracking section made a jump unlikely to succeed. Still, he couldnt waste the time to advance through this floor and russ only knew how many more heretics.

He ran up the 8 meters of stairs and leaped, his hammer outstretched and slammed into the barricade. He caught ahold of the flakboard as he followed his weapon through and attempted to arrest his momentum. He strained to go back the way he had came, the flakboard breaking under the stress 700 kilos placed on its disentigrating form.

The ground came swiftly to meet him.

***

 

Try again,Vermundr, and have patience. He thought he heard the old Wolf Priests advice echoing through his head as he contemplated the unstable stairs before him. The voice was off somehow though, to soft... to high. The pain in his head faded quickly, and with it his thoughts of the voice.

Now was not the time to be contemplating the broken stairs, it would lead him nowhere. He must reach the top floor, and quickly. He stooped, dropping his head the half meter he needed to see through the clear plasteel pannel of the door. His golden eyes picked up no sense of the enemy, or his friends.

He opened the door, a man in a childs playhouse as he took care to make no noise. He kept to the arches, and looked constantly to the shadows for signs of movement. His nose was of no use in this cesspool of a building. This floor seemed cleaner than the one below it, but the smell remained like a gauze over its pale walls. The imperial eagle and carved marble crossers had been shattered on the walls, and the dust of their ruin was spread underfoot.

This hall would continue on for 300 meters, with a stairwell halfway and at each end. The halls were quiet, though he felt more than heard that there were bodies above him, moving quickly and shouting. The servomotors in his power armor increased power as he move swiftly towards the central staircase. The emptiness of the place was strange compared to the crowded halls he had encountered below.

He came to the central stair and out of reflex more than instinct he brought up his stormshield on his right as he checked the stairs. He could the thread of an antipersonnel mine accross the third stair like a spiders silk. The gurgled cry of sore-filled throat was the only warning he had as a gaurdsmans missile launcher hit his stormshield and sent him flying into the stairs.

The mine detonated and tore into his skull, a grim repear visage screamed in pain as he sought his feat. Adrenaline pumping he staggered quickly and turned, ready to rend his attacker apart bare handed. All sense was lost in the consuming rage that demanded one thing- vengeance. The gurling thing already had another RPH in hand, and it slammed into Vermundrs chest, stormshield forgotten and existance was gone.

***

 

Quickly Vermundr, theres no time! a soft and lilting voice rang in his head as a white fire rang through his temporal lobes. The pain faded in an instant and the wulfen within him howled for release. The chaos traitors in this place obviously wanted all the time he would give them, and their demonic allies sought to slow him down with pain. They knew nothing of the emperors finest, russ's kin.

He would teach them the meaning of pain. They would never sense his coming if he scaled the lift-shaft quietly. He needed speed and stealth now, despite his inner thirst for the kill.

He harnessed his thunderhammer and stormshield to his armored carapace, between the power core and his backplate. He put one hand forcably through the divide between the shafts doors and flexed his fingers apart. It groaned as his other hand came down and parted its plasteel surface. A centimeter at a time it opened- not for strength, but for the quiet that settled on the process over time.

He brought forth his Thunderhammer again, keeping the deadly field off for now as it slid out to catch on the ribs of the lift-shafts rear wall. He hooked the ancient silver of its wolfhead over the plasteel girder and let himself swing out to it, grabbing with his right as his legs did their best to lightly arrest his arc.

Considering the weight he was suprisingly quiet about it as he inched his way up the shaft a meter at a time.

[Hfran Morkai]

I like it, nice work brother. Have an nice ale.

[OnlyInDeath]

Definately a good read! We should perhaps try to convince Ragnarok or Max to see if we could get a sticky thread for our fan fiction once we get done and edited with our stories. It seems we've got plenty of creativity here in the fang, and It would be nice to keep it accessable.

 

Any chance of this Max?

[Roguemarine]

good work brother.

[hendrik]

Definately a good read! We should perhaps try to convince Ragnarok or Max to see if we could get a sticky thread for our fan fiction once we get done and edited with our stories. It seems we've got plenty of creativity here in the fang, and It would be nice to keep it accessable.

 

Any chance of this Max?

well the saga of the wolves topic was made for that actually if i remember correctly

[Beef]

Great story bar a few spelling mistakes #((but who am I to judge on spelling and grammer)

 

Cant wait for the second part,

[Grey Mage]

Within minutes he was outside of a double doorway that was once serviced by the now shattered lift. There was an old script above the doorway, proclaiming this to be floor 212. The door parted slowly at his touch, and a sybaritic scene unfolded before him.

The cultists on this floor were not summoning demons, but if Vermundr hadnt know otherwise hed think that some of them already were demons made of the grotesqued limbs of a dozen people. Foul smokes of blue and purple hue laced the air of the room and assaulted his nose. There was enough food being thrown about and consumed out of hand to feed several villages back on fenris.

His gauntleted hands reached behind him for a bolter that wasnt there. He wanted no part in this room, but he most assuredly wanted every occupant dead. The ferrocrete beneath his boots creaked as his body tensed for a killing pounce, the rune of his Thunderhammer began to glow as his hands tensed.

I dont have time. I must reach the communications center. Ill be back for these kraken-steamers. As he slowly creeped up the passage again, hammer in hand the wolf inside him howled in rage. His vision shown red, and part of him flashed to a vision from his training.