Sker-Kin

[Pavement Artist]

Hail all.

 

This is the first part of a little tale im currently working on as part of my desire to tell more stories within the 40k universe. The sons of Russ have forever been my favourite chapter for many reasons, not least of all because they make for some thrilling literature. This is the first installment of the saga of Ketil Woe-Blade, a lone wolf seeking a glorious death upon the fields of battle. Comments and criticism always welcome and let me know if youd like me to post more.

 

Here we go:

 

Part one- The weregeld

 

The light from the chem-lamp guttered gently, pitching the cell into momentary darkness as it’s dwindling fuel cells fought to stay alive. The shadows danced over the brushed steel walls, flickering capriciously across it’s surface like sprites from a child’s bedtime story. The Hulking figure sat cross-legged on the floor inclined it’s head slightly, grunting as the light reasserted itself.

A knife glittered in the lamp light, cold and deadly as the muscled figure clutched it to his breast.

“For Russ and for Fenris” Ketil Woe-Blade growled, fangs bared as he brought the edge of the blade across his chest, drawing blood from his hardened Astartes flesh.

“For my brothers” He continued, slicing the blade diagonally, continuing to carve the Rune into his chest. He looked down and gave a grim grunt of satisfaction before bringing his left arm up close to his face and once more began to slice at the flesh.

“For honour’s sake” He intoned, casting his slate grey eyes up in to the heavens, feeling his blood drop rhythmically onto the floor.

 

He stood and moved to a rack set against the wall of his meditation cell. On it hung an axe and storm shield, both engraved with runes of wrath and ruin. He gently ran his fingers over them, almost sensing the power thrumming through them both. He could almost swear he saw them glow with a rising fire, as in anticipation of the bloodshed to come. In the dying light of the lamps, Ketil was a beserker god come to life, a hulking figure even when stripped of his ceramite plate. Runes covered his naked flesh, the skin already knitted together, the blood long clotted over as his enhanced physique went to work repairing him. The marks still remained however- forever a testament to his loss, the grief that raged inside him like a baying wolf. And yet there was one more cut to be made.

He held out his palm and brought the knife across it, cutting a great weal into the flesh. He made a fist, bringing his hand over the blade of the axe, squeezing his fingers together, forcing the blood out of the wound. He watched as the crimson fell onto the blade, running along the rim, looking for all the world like a tributary of some bloody river.

“In blood and in death we are bound.”

 

 

 

 

***

 

 

Jaeger Oldblood Found Ketil, many hours later, deep in prayer to Russ and the All father. He allowed his granite features to soften momentarily as he observed the lone space wolf, remembering with definite clarity, the day he had brought Ketil’s shattered body to the halls of Asaheim, to be forever brought into the company of the sons of Russ. It pained him to see one of his charges in such emotional turmoil, for it ill begat great warriors to be burdened by such sorrows and yet- underneath the veil of grief, the priest could sense a terrible undercurrent of rage, a dire need for vengeance that could not be hoped to be quenched, merely channelled and directed like a gout of flame; and that was his purpose here.

 

Ketil looked up from his meditations to find the wolf priest at his door. The sight of his mentor did little to lighten his mood and yet he was still glad of his company for he knew what his arrival heralded.

“Welcome Jarl” He spoke finally, being sure to use the correct mark of respect.

“Hail Woe-blade” Replied the wolf priest, stepping into the cell. Jaeger cast his obsidian eyes about the room, noting the bloodied knife and anointed axe before seeing the runes carved into the flesh of the battle brother. “Your preparations are complete?”

Ketil grunted in affirmation, finishing a blessing to beloved Russ before casting his cold grey eyes upon the wolf priest.

“My flesh and blade have been anointed with the crimson grey wolf. I am bound by the weregeld.”

 

The wolf priest simply nodded and sat beside Ketil. He set his wolf helm on the cot, the lupine skull glaring malevolently. For Ketil it was a potent reminder of his loss and he struggled to keep his anger in check. Jaeger did not fail to notice the turmoil raging on the younger wolf’s face and cast his eyes down to the helm.

“The touch of Morkai’s claw is the fate that awaits all of Russ’s sons my brother. Quiet deaths are not for warriors such as we for war is a demanding and untiring mistress and she cares who not she takes.”

Ketil nodded solemnly, eyes still fixed on the helm, it’s dire eyes piercing his very being.

 

“You have been dealt a great dishonour my son.” Continued the wolf priest, his voice suddenly gentler, filled with a paternal warmth. “To die by our pack brother’s sides in the service of the All-father is the greatest honour a wolf can hope for and yet the cruel fates have denied you this. Your pack has been taken beyond Morkai’s gates, leaving you to wander this realm alone.”

Ketil’s face was a mask of silent rage, his fangs bared in barely restrained fury as he remembered Hrofgar, Kjarl, Erik and his other brothers washed away in a sea of incandescent plasma, the flesh flensed from their bones, their howls of agony reverberating in his mind forever since.

“You have no place in our halls, for at the moment you are a lone wolf, he who is doomed to wander alone unless honour is once more sated.”

 

The wolf priest lifted himself from the bed, servos in his power armour whining gently as he strode to the weapons rack, reverently lifting the axe from the bracket. He held it out in front of Ketil, the blade gleaming in the lamplight.

“In blood you have made this oath and in blood only can honour be satisfied. You will roam the fields of battle, alone from your kin, a dire portent of our fury. There you will seek out the direst of foe and slay them or else fall upon their blades.”

Ketil looked up at the axe, the lamplight dancing in his eyes, casting a mad fire in his gaze.

“Bring the head of your foe back to us,” continued Jaeger, his voice like crumbling granite “and you shall be welcomed back amongst your battle brothers, placed amongst the wolf guard, dire warriors of your lord. Die with you wounds to the fore and you shall join your Brothers at the feasting table in the afterlife, your debt paid in full.”

 

Ketil stood and took the axe from the wolf priest, holding it in one hand, eyeing the blooded edge. His eyes burned with a fire that promised wrath and ruin, a hunger to never stop until the death of his pack mates was redeemed. “I shall not fail you Grey wolf.” He swore.

Jaeger smiled grimly in the dimming light, his fangs bared.

“You are a son of Fenris, we do not recognise failure.”

[Hibberyjoo]

VERY nice, i enjoyed reading this!

Is there any more to come, or am i to be kept in a state of suspense for a long time? :D

[Pavement Artist]

Ah there shall be more coming tommorow my good sir, just gauging peoples reactions to the first piece, see if they liked it. Thank you very much though!

[TheWulfen123]

amazing...

i like how the fluff of the lone wolves are made-and you just made it 100 times better

do more do more do more do more!

[Pavement Artist]

Sorry about the Threadomancy. Finally have internet access to bring you the second part. Hope you enjoy folks!

 

 

 

Part two- A song of ending

 

The planet screamed. An undulating cry spread across the planet of Styx, a keening howl of a planet in it's death throes. Sergeant Jeremiah Vane held his red raw eyes shut and took a hefty swig from his hip flask, praying the cheap amasec would go some way towards dulling his senses. The sky above him still wept, a hellish torrent of lashing wind and rain that had continued unabated for almost a month now. The ground under his feet was a treacherous, evershifting mass of wet clay; he swore under his breath as he nearly toppled over in the mire as he headed back to his camp to join the rest of the platoon. They greeted him with a mumbled series of greetings as he flopped down onto the mesh decking they had laid onto the campsite floor as a barrier against the soaked ground.

"Do you hear that?" Asked Trooper Kayle, the heavy weapons gunner staring up furtively from her bedroll. The rest of the platoon joined her, their eyes darting nervously towards the heavens. Once again, Vane was all too aware of the piercing howls echoing on the night air and he silently cursed the superstitious minds of soldiers.

"It's the wind Kayle" Replied Vane, making a futile attempt to light his last Lho stick against the buffeting winds.

"With all due respect Sarge, that's :) and you know it."

The sergeant pitched the soggy, ruined Lho stick over their encampment wall and turned to the gunner.

"Of course it's :cuss Kayle" His voice marked with irritation and exhaustion "what would you like me to say though? You want the truth?"

Kayle cast her eyes down at the muddied ground, chastened.

"We know the truth Sarge"

"Throne right we do. That's a planet's worth of demons out there all screaming Emperor knows what at the sky. I don't even want to try and pretend i know what theyre all screaming about, cause it scares the Hell out of me and i aint ashamed to admit that. So forgive me if for one night, i'd like to pretend it's just the wind i'm hearing, and not the end of this Emperor forsaken planet!"

 

He looked around the camp and saw the exhausted, drawn out soldiers huddled around the fire, caught the fear in their eyes and was immediately ashamed. When a man was scared out his mind, things became closed down around him, making it easy to forget he wasn't alone out here. He exhaled deeply- it was times like this that he understood why he would never make it past a line officer.

"Look, we all know what's out there. We've been fighting on the raggedy edge for weeks now. Throne knows we're exhausted, we're hungry, we're scared. You know what though? We ain't dead yet. For all the big bad we've seen come tearing its way through, it still can't bring us down."

He heard dark chuckles and affirmations flitter through the dark. Putting on his best sunday smile, he layed out his bed roll onto the mesh.

"Lights out Rifles, i need some damned beauty sleep sometime this month."

 

 

***

 

 

At midnight, the screaming stopped. Thrown from his sleep by the sheer absence of the noise he had come to consider a constant, Sergeant Vane sat upright in his bedroll, eyes scanning the Forest around him. He and his men were encamped on a rocky outcrop  that sloped down towards one of Styx's many heavily wooded areas. The troopers had bemoaned the lack of shelter from the punishing winds but one glance at the forest was all Vane needed to be convinced he didnt want to be sleeping under those boughs.

Everything was as still as the grave and he found that deeply unsettling. Not allowing his eyes to drop from the treeline, he drifted his hand with deliberate caution over to his las rifle. In the dark of the forest, eyes began to appear, baleful pin pricks in the dark, like dozens of fairy lights being illuminated at once. He swore under his breath, carefully curling his fingers around the foregrip of the gun and beginning to pull it up towards his body. The lights were out in the camp, there was a chance whatever was in the forest hadn’t seen them yet. If he could just wake the others without the creatures noticing, they may be able to get the drop on them…

 

“Fethin Throne!” Trooper Varth yelled out in surprise, the hefty guardsman stumbling from his bedroll as he stumbled around, reaching for his plasma gun. Sergeant Vane cursed aloud as the woods came to life with a chorus of howls. He brought the butt of the lasrifle into his shoulder and steeled himself for the coming battle. The rest of the camp scrambled for their weapons, their eyes darting fearfully to the eldritch lights in the forest.

“Dun Lochian 12th, on me! Fire at will!”

 

The things swept from out of the forest, sloughing off the shadows that they had worn like a cloak. In the moonlight, Vane could see how they glowed with a terrible Eldritch light. Each one of the creatures walked upright on double jointed limbs, hefting other worldly blades in their taloned hands. Their skin was red, glowing and fluid as if the things were formed out of molten lava. As they marched towards the scrambling guardsmen, the creatures opened their mouths, loosing the same undulating cry again.

Vane covered his ears, cowed by the terrible howling. He daren’t open his eyes, lest the feral beings be on top of him though he knew in his heart that if he didn’t start fighting then he would die.

 

The firing began, the sharp hissing rapport of dozens of lasguns as they sent searing crimson bolts into the onrushing daemons. The gunfire mercifully drowned out the screaming of the creatures and Vane brought his rifle up into his shoulder, flicking it onto auto, raking the treeline.

For a fleeting moment, it seemed as if they would be able to turn back the fell creatures. Under the weight of the guardsmen’s fire, several fell, their forms punctured with dozens of cauterised entry wounds, the corpses coalescing back into the warp before they had even hit the ground. A sudden roar issued from behind Vane, a terrible wave of concussive force, slamming into his back, throwing him forward on a wave of boiling air. He landed heavily yards from his previous position. Cursing and spitting out lumps of earth, he looked up to find a pocket of scarred, blackened earth, at the centre of which lay the smoking remains of Trooper Varth. His plasma gun littered the ground in smoking splinters of twisted metal, the machine spirit angered into betrayal by the lack of proper supplication before firing.

 

As the dazed guardsmen climbed unsteadily to their feet. The Daemons fell upon them, Serrated blades singing a blasphemous dirge as they shredded the flesh of the soldiers. Vane yelled out stuttered orders as he and his few remaining troopers began to fall back, abandoning their equipment and firing wildly into the press. As he retreated backwards he saw Comms officer Kira fall, her body transfixed upon the sword of one of the creatures. He hefted the corpse up in one arm in a grim salute as the twitching guardsman slid down the blade. Tripping over an errant bedroll, the Sergeant fell to the ground, scrambling backwards desperately as three of the creatures loomed over him, blades raised high.

 

Then the forest began to howl again.

 

The creatures paused, suddenly wary. This call was not their own. They turned their ageless eyes to the forest, blades still readied, searching for the unknown beast- They never stood a chance.

A hulking mass of shadow barrelled into the daemons, splintering their unreal bones in their unreal bodies, sprawling them backwards. Vane got to his feet, his eyes locked on the unfolding scene as the creatures began to rise, sibilant hisses issuing from their mouths. Something heavy and terrible fell and one of the daemons was no more, rent in two, it’s body turning to wisps of smoke. The mass of shadow moved again and Vane caught a glimpse of something cold and wreathed in frost as it sang through the air, claming the heads of both the daemons. Crouching low over the bodies of the slain creatures, the monster let loose a ringing howl into the tumultuous night sky.

 

Suddenly more afraid than he had ever been, Vane began to run until a voice rang out, heavy and terrible with the weight of the grave in it’s timbre.

“You need not fear me.” It said.

The sergeant froze, sprawling to the ground, his eyes blinking against the heavy downpour as he stared out at the mass. His jaw fell as he noticed the sudden, unmistakable curvature of Astarte’s battle plate, illumined by a sudden flash of lightning, he saw the cold winter grey of the Space Wolves lit up for the briefest moment and his reply died in his throat.

 

The figure stalked over to him with heavy deliberate footfalls. One hand bore a huge rounded shield, finished with a wolf’s skull design, the sheer size of it held Vane in awe, it seemed to him to be little more than a bludgeoning tool rather than a protective piece of armour. In the warrior’s huger right fist, he clenched a double headed axe, it’s hilt decorated with runes that glimmered even against the night’s sky. The axe head was untarnished, flawlessly sharp and wreathed in a chill fog. The Astarte’s stooped low and hefted the stunned guardsman to his feet like an idiot child.

“Who…” Vane began as the warrior leaned towards him, cold eyes examining him, judging him almost. The cragged and scarred lines of the Wolf’s face were framed by a beard of fiery red.

“You must leave this place now,” he rumbled, his eyes flitting back and forth over the tree line like a seeking predator. “Take your men and make for the rest of your people. This fight is not yours and I wish not for your presence.”

Hefting his Lasgun, the remnants of his squad forming a dazed semi circle around him, Vane found the courage to speak

“You saved us! Why shouldn’t we fight for you?”

 

The Wolf hefted his axe and regarded the sergeant with eyes that spoke of a saga of murder.

“I do not want to share this death.” He spoke plainly, stalking into the woods.

[Nacho Wolf]

I like it! Its always good when some new space wolf work comes about