Lords of the Space Marines [00] Arjac Rockfist: Anvil of Fenris by Ben Counter

Author:Ben Counter [Counter, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781849706513
Goodreads: 21860723
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2014-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

There was at that time a single doctor in this apothecarion, named Thelrid of the Ice Bear people. Some of you hail from that same people, who hunt through the chill caverns of the Frozen Sky glacier. This Thelrid was tending to a thrall whose arm had been crushed in the gears of a generator, and when Arjac entered the hospital this Thelrid held up a hand to silence the newcomer while he finished setting the thrall's broken bones.

It was only when his work was done that Thelrid saw he had silenced a Space Marine, and he all but fell to his knees. 'My apologies, Lord Space Wolf,' he said, 'I was engrossed in healing this man.'

'Think not of it,' said Arjac Rockfist. 'We all have our duties. I, like you, am here to see my duty done.'

'Then speak of what you would have of me.'

'I hunt a predator,' said Arjac. 'A killer, and it is hungry. Tell me, for you would know better than any in the Fang, have there been found this last day any dead, violently slain, for which a cause has not been found?'

Thelrid's face turned grim and he nodded, and walked to the back of the thrall's hospital where lay the beds on which the long-term sick and injured lay. Most slept. Behind a curtain lay more beds, separated from the rest, and to these Thelrid walked. Thelrid was an elderly man and walked with a limp, but still the old red and black tattoos and the tangled braids in his beard spoke of his youth among the hunters of the Ice Bear people.

'Here,' he said, drawing back the sheet from one bed. 'He was found but eight hours ago. We have yet to give a name to him. A tally must be taken of all the thralls, and the only name left unclaimed will surely be this man. As you can see, it is the only way we will know who he was.'

Thelrid spoke truth, for the man's face was gravely ruined. The lower half was torn open, the wound running from the jaw to the upper chest.

'I had believed,' said Thelrid, 'that this man had befallen some accident among the machinery of the generators, for he was found wedged in a vent that draws hot air from the turbine hall. But your being here, Lord Space Wolf, tells me that it is not by accident that he died.'

'I believe not,' said Arjac. 'His throat has been torn open.'

'Either at the moment of his death,' said Thelrid, 'or in the moments immediately thereafter. A wolf might go for the throat, but I have seen many bodies of those killed by wolves on their Blooding and these are not the marks of a wolf's fang. No, the killing blow was dealt by an instrument far longer and keener. I had thought it the violence of another man that did this, for while murder among thralls is rare it has not been unknown in our history.

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