Travelers of Utgaard

[Warsmith Aznable]

Greetings, Librarium! In this thread I am writing short stories that support my DIY fluff. Any comments and criticisms welcomed and appreciated. The stories are meant to follow a general arc, but each will more or less be a vignette focusing on one aspect of my own take on 40k history, so I'm not writing a multi-chapter book in this thread, but more like an anthology of stories relating the pasts of my warband characters before the current era. That was a long sentence, and I promise the writing in the stories will be better than that.

 

The first story takes place well into the Siege of Terra. I don't know how many stories it's going to take to move this 10,000 years...

 

So, here we go:

[Warsmith Aznable]

Wolves At The Gate - Part One

Atli Thunorsson trudged mechanically through the rubble, the strained servos of his Tactical Dreadnought Armor complaining with each laborious, plodding step. There were no streets left. No courtyards or flat expanses of any kind. Just rock and twisted steel, broken glass and masses of wiring, burned out gun emplacements and tanks. And bodies. Limbs and broken torsos stuck out of the ruined landscape like savage blossoms of plant life, dotting the landscape with crushing regularity. Flesh rotted and burnt, armor and uniforms pulverized and torn beyond recognition. Most of the buildings in this sector were identifiable only as masses of rubble piled higher than adjacent areas, though some of the larger Administratum facilities were still standing. The Adjutant Generalcy tower loomed on the horizon, an imposing spike of drab utility stabbing the sky, the lone Space Wolf’s general goal.

It had been many days, of that Atli was sure. How many, he could not say exactly. The Terran sky glowed orange with the fires of unthinkable damnation during the night, choked on the ashes of lost glory during the day. Soot, smoke, fire, destruction. The Warmaster’s siege had reduced the cradle of humanity to an unchanging nightmare landscape of death. A wolf time, where brother killed brother, the end of days.

Brothers. The Space Wolf was alone, possibly the only one of his Legion in the system. Duties of the Great Crusade moved soldiers in strange ways at times, and even pack animals such as himself, bred for nothing but the violence and hatred of the battlefield, found themselves separated from kin to languish in diplomatic roles. Honor guards. Atli cursed the notion, sure that honor not maintained by oneself or one’s own kin wasn’t worth guarding. But here he was, at least, by a twist of fate honored to shed the blood of traitors defending the Emperor’s own home, a player in the final act of the betrayal of Horus, once the Emperor’s most favored son.

He stopped at a rise, surveying the blackened, still smoking earth from the lip of the expansive crater with his keen eyes. His helmet with its enhanced sensors had broken in two at one point, so his eyes were all he had to rely on. The crater was the result of an orbital strike, or perhaps wreckage fallen from the battle that still raged in the heavens. He couldn’t see the sky anymore, but he could feel the death above him. Flaming streaks of debris fell daily, sometimes visible on the horizon, swirling through the smoke of the eternal firestorms, sometimes only coming to him as the throaty sonic rumble of huge objects screaming through the atmosphere.

The whole world vibrated to the chorus of final war. Siege guns pounded methodically, drumming on the walls of bastions and salients. The staccato chatter of bolt guns and autocannons from every direction, different squads singing to one another. The rhythmic krump of ordnance falling, the krak of grenades, the snap of small arms fire. The noise was constant, the discordant symphony of cold fury mixed with hot rage. The soundtrack of the apocalypse.

He couldn’t cross the crater. It was the only open area for kilometers, and it was large. He would be an exposed target, and he moved too slow in his damaged TDA to risk it. It would cost him extra days to skirt the edge of the crater, picking his way through the rubble, but it would have to be done. He was alone, and a wolf without its pack was keenly aware of its vulnerability. He wasn’t afraid, there would be plenty of traitors to fight no matter which direction he took, but he didn’t want to die from sniper fire. He needed to look his enemy in the eye. He would stare death in the face. He would swing his rune carved power-axe into the face of Death itself. He had to; his bolter lay in pieces many hours of walking behind him. There had been little ammunition on hand for it anyway.

-Snap-. That sounded close. -Snap-. Definitely action nearby. Atli shifted his grip on his power-axe and concentrated on keeping his footing as he crawled over a shifting pile of shattered ferrocrete. -SNAP- His foot slipped sideways and he landed hard on his thigh, scrabbling with his free hand to keep from rolling over as he slid a short distance in the debris. He began to lever himself upright, but paused. -SNAP- He cursed. I am being shot at, he realized, no longer trying to stand up but scooting himself further down to take cover behind a chunk of masonry with a steel girder twisting out of the side. It lay at an angle on top of a cocked slab of stone, providing a convenient spot to get his bearings, to locate the direction of incoming fire.

Mind is dulling. Atli thought to himself. Awake too long. The catalepsean node allowed a Space Marine to shut down different parts of his brain. A Marine could fight for days without sleep, rotating functions throughout his brain to give it rest. The Space Wolf wasn’t sure how long he had been moving across Terra, fighting and killing, but he knew such exhaustion that even his perfected Astartes physique was straining to cope.
“Brother.” came the weak voice, so faint and broken that Atli at first thought it originated from within his own melancholy thoughts. “Brother.” The voice came again, and Atli filtered out the probing rifle fire to focus on the source.

“I am Atli Thunorsson of the Space Wolves.” He challenged, his own voice was weak and cracking, startling him with its alienness. He needed a drink of water, badly. He looked around cautiously for the source. It sounded like it was coming from within, and Atli wondered momentarily if he were going mad. He knew that it happened to those who wandered too long on the wastes, too lonely among the ice and snow.

“Here, then: Cousin.” There had been a pause, a long one. But this time the voice was strong enough that Atli’s keen ears, long suffering from the constant noise of battle, directed him downward to the source. There was no ground, only overlapping slabs of ferrocrete and steel. Down through a gap, perhaps four meters below, Atli made out the faint outline of a fellow Astartes pinned beneath tons of rubble. Indistinct and shadowed, Atli’s quickly adjusting eyes could only make out a grimy face. Black blood mixed in with the copious dust. The voice was weak, but now it sounded defeated, despairing. “My brothers... they are not coming after all.”

“I can’t get you out, cousin.” Atli considered the wreckage. Another thought was itching at the back of his mind. “What Legion do you belong to? If I find your brothers, I will tell them where you are.”

“Do you have any water?” The trapped Space Marine asked weakly. Atli could see better now. This man had no eyes, only bloody sockets. His nose was a bloody mess mashed sideways against his face. His lips were swollen and blue, jagged teeth and bone cutting through the side of one cheek.

“I don’t, cousin.” Atli was wary. If this Marine were a Traitor, his brothers could be near by. He knew from the sniper fire that human traitor soldiers were operating in the area, but though they were certainly a threat to a lone, injured Space Marine, they were far less dangerous than even a few Traitor Marines. “I am dry myself.”

There was another long pause before the trapped Marine spoke again. “Do you have a grenade, cousin?” He asked calmly, swollen tongue compulsively licking dry, blood encrusted lips.

“Just one, cousin.” Atli considered the situation. He had not identified his Legion. It could be a trap. Did a traitor deserve mercy? Even one so miserable as this?

“Cousin.” The voice creaked painfully. Atli leaned in to look, to study the broken face. The sniper fire, he noted, had stopped, though a chorus of Demolisher cannons had come to life two or three kilometers away. The trapped Marine, still licking his dry lips with his dry tongue, went on. “Cousin, I have no hands.”

“I understand.” Atli made up his mind. He had no way to know who this Marine was. He could be hiding his allegiance, or he could be out of his mind with death pressing so hard upon him. He had just on grenade, an Imperial Army frag grenade he didn’t remember how he got. It was small in his gauntlet, and he held it delicately as he worked the pin out with his fingertips. Without further comment he dropped it carefully, watching it just long enough to see it fell true, before turning his face and body away from the blast.

He would have to be very careful leaving his refuge. If the sniper had believed he had shot him when Atli had slipped and fell sideways, he was sure to be alert to the possibility that he hadn’t with the sound of the grenade. He hadn’t pinpointed the direction of the fire due to his exchange with the trapped Marine, so he didn’t know which direction to move to for cover. It would be tricky, but he still trusted his battered TDA plating to still hold up to small arms fire. It was holed in several places, cracked in a few more, but it was still tough, and so was he.

There was a whoosh of air as some kind of Navy flyer skimmed overhead. It was low enough to kick up dust and debris in its wake, and the sound was deafening. Relying on his experience with the things, he readied himself to make a break if a second one passed over head. Flyers normally operate in pairs, he knew, and when he felt the rumble of the second approaching he sprang into action. He moved as quickly as he could manage, and even though his armor was bulky and slow compared to regular Astartes power armor, he still possessed the strength and agility of a Space Marine. He crouched near what turned out to be a MkI Rhino APC. It had been peeled open in great jagged tears from the side, and the hulk had been burned black days ago.

Atli became aware of a stiffness in his left elbow, and was dismayed to discover he had been hit, though he hadn’t heard or felt the shot. It was a large caliber rifle slug, nearly the diameter of a boltgun round. Probably an anti-vehicle rifle that used heavy stubber rounds. Either way, his elbow joint was nearly fused, catching in the middle when he tried to flex it. His armor had been relatively new, earned for valorous action during the Great Crusade. Since Horus had been declared Warmaster such things had become less commonplace, stores being diverted elsewhere. His treachery had proven the cause, and Atli cursed his name for the thousandth time as he tried to force the elbow joint to move more freely. At least he knew which direction the fire was coming from now.

He could hunt them down, he knew. Circle around using cover, find the spot that gave him the shortest exposure during a charge, and then wade into them with his power-axe. How many would there be? Would they be supported? Perhaps it was a single trooper with that big rifle. It could well be. The siege of Terra had degenerated into mere bloody madness in this theater. Atli knew that as recently as... two days? He thought so, though his sense of time was skewed. Before his helmet had taken its second to last boltgun round and knocked out his communications package he had listened in on Naval communications describing the situation closer to the Imperial Palace. There was still organized fighting. The World Eaters were building a ramp with their own dead to scale the walls of the Palace. The Iron Warriors were concentrating great cannonades on the Gates. The sons of Dorn were holding fast.

But all of that was so very far away from Atli, who had been whiling away his time with drink and tales of the Crusade with his squad-mates in the diplomatic sectors of Old Merika before the siege. Here there was no rhyme or reason, only destruction, senseless anger inflicted in fire and steel by the traitors on the world around them. Ranks and formations had rolled into the fight, but within hours the war on this side of Terra had devolved into a free for all without any semblance of order and no front lines. Random and mindless... Pure, savage chaos.

Atli realized he had let his mind wander again. His face was hot, his throat was dry and his eyes burned. His ears perked up at the change in tempo when the Demolisher cannons that began their plodding rhythm not long ago suddenly ceased, replaced by an ominous, expectant silence. It did not last long, and Atli felt the collapse mere seconds before he saw it. The Adjutant Generalcy tower that had been his destination was enveloped in a rising plume of brown and black smoke. The building seemed to hang in the air for a moment, then slowly collapsed downward, straight down to be obscured by the horizon of destruction, replaced by hanging smoke and fluttering debris.

Atli’s spirit sank with the tower as he watched. Second hand information that what was left of his honor guard squad had been spotted there was what kept him moving that direction. Or perhaps moving at all, he thought gloomily before pushing that thought back hard. Terra was supposedly the safest place in the galaxy, and before the Warmaster’s invasion the handful of Space Wolves on Terra had been living in military limbo, trying to make the best of it. Their official detachment duties discharged, they had awaited a vessel returning to Fenris, or even some Navy transport going in the general direction. But Fleet movements were frantic, hectic, and changed often. The war that Horus had waged for seven years kept the Navy guessing, and the timing for Atli’s squad couldn’t have been worse. The small squad was not even all in the same place when the planet was suddenly besieged.

He noticed a group of bodies in power armor that he hadn’t before. These were recent kills, and looked to have been taken under fire while they were making their way for the cover that now served as Atli’s position. Three Marine troopers, an Apothecary and a Tech Marine, all in the colors of the Sons of Horus. Atli spat at the thought, the traitorous Warmaster’s own. But they had supplies with them, and he needed badly to replenish his own.

As he considered this he heard the heavy rifle of his tormentor begin a series of steady but rapid firing. He did not hear the the familiar snap of shots whizzing past, so he knew he was not the one being targeted. His spirits lifted at the thought that there might be an ally close by. He had seen no one since the Az-tech gene-trooper company he had been with when he lost his helmet and boltgun. He didn’t know what happened to them, only that in smoke, fire and confusion he had found himself alone again at the end.

A teeth jarring explosion caused his ears to pop and he felt himself lift off the ground momentarily. Blood of the kraken, that was a big one. He felt the down draft of a rotary wing attack craft as it banked over him. How did I not hear that approaching? He admonished himself as he watched the craft swing back around his direction. Identifying the markings on the side as friendly he raised an arm in salute, and hopefully mutual recognition. The gunner in the nose turret locked eyes with him and stared hard, obviously considering whether Atli was friend or foe. Atli forced himself to ignore the autocannon that tracked his movement as he strode over to the dead Sons of Horus and began looting their bodies for equipment. These were terrible, paranoid times. A wolf time, when brother killed brother. The end of days.

Atli was startled by the roar of the autocannon. He looked up and the ‘copter was moving toward the far side of the crater, cannons blazing away at some traitor target there. The door gunner hanging out behind his light machine gun from a strap hooked to the cargo compartment gave him a casual wave as the ‘copter banked away, oblivious to the pair of rockets streaking from pods mounted to its munitions wings. Atli didn’t return the wave. His arms felt heavy and he needed the water that these Marines had on them. Behind him was a smoking crater where his recent foe had once been.

The Tech Marine had a twin-linked bolter he could use. He gathered up ammunition from the troopers, including a couple of krak grenades. They had been carrying power-bars and a winch when they were gunned down, holed by heavy stubber fire. Atli frowned, connecting the dead Sons of Horus to both the Marine trapped under the rubble and the sniper that had been trying to kill him. It was a grim irony, the chaos of this siege causing troops to fire on their own allies. Another grim thought crossed Atli’s mind. What if the sniper had been a loyalist who had never seen a Space Wolf before? He knew after days, possibly weeks, of fighting that he was battered and blackened enough that perhaps his own friends might not know him if he still wore his helmet. He never missed his pack so much as he did right then.

Secondary objective... The tower was gone, and so were any brothers he might have had in it. Atli hoped that they had not been there, that what he heard from Az-tech troopers was wartime confusion and amplified exaggeration. It happens. One soldier idly muses and then several iterations down the line the story is repeated as solid fact, some even swearing on their mothers’ lives to have seen it with their own eyes. You can never really trust the trench gossip. But this could be wishful thinking too, Atli knew. And now he had no leads at all, nothing to do but wander this mad world. A lost spirit.

Or, he thought with forced cheer, find some traitors to shoot at. The dryness washed from his mouth and a loaded boltgun in one hand and his rune carved power-axe in the other, Atli set out once more, trudging mechanically through the rubble, the strained servos of his Tactical Dreadnought Armor complaining with each laborious, plodding step.