The Young Wolf's Return by Robbie MacNiven

Author:Robbie MacNiven
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2016-04-06T13:01:14+00:00

Wolftide, in high orbit above Midgardia

Conran snapped his fingers at the nearest bridge huscarl and pointed at the open vision port. A swarm of spacegoing vessels filled the crystalflex glass, framed by the blotched, ugly purple orb of Midgardia.

‘Hail them again,’ the Wolf Guard ordered. The huscarl was no doubt thinking that they’d already tried a dozen times, but he clearly knew better than to question the filth-splattered, grim-faced Space Wolf. He bent to the vox bank, snapping commands at his scurrying kaerls.

‘How long have they been here?’ asked Kreg of the Ironjaws. The Long Fang pack leader had accompanied Conran to the Wolftide’s bridge as soon as their Stormwolf transport had docked. In truth Conran was thankful for the white-pelt’s presence. He had railed against Egil’s decision to give him command of the Ironwolves not simply because he’d wished to accompany his jarl on what would surely be a saga-worthy strike into the underworld, but also because of the pressures of command. The knowledge that the fate of the entire Great Company now rested on his actions gnawed at him. That, and the Great Company’s fleet, arrayed in a defensive spread around their flagship, the Wolftide.

The last aerial transports bearing the evacuated Ironwolves had docked with the flagship minutes before, but what was he to do next? Simply sit and wait for word from Egil, even while Sven and Harald’s Great Companies fought the wyrdspawn filth on Svellgard and Frostheim? And what of Midgardia itself? He surely could not compound the shame of the Ironwolves’ retreat by having them break from orbit and abandon the world? He’d already ordered the Great Company’s ships to open all available holds, hangar bays and storage spaces to as many of the planet’s human refugees as could still be evacuated from the Magma Gates. Now that their protectors had left them, the last human settlements would surely fall to the tide of decay sweeping the jungles. The Sky Warriors had failed their vassals.

‘The system’s augur sweeps report that they broke from the warp a little over six hours ago,’ Conran said to Kreg, still glaring at the vessels beyond the vision port. There were dozens of them, great and small – bristling Imperial Navy capital ships, like the spires of great Ecclesiarchy cathedrals cast adrift in space, flanked by the sleek, armoured bulkheads of Adeptus Astartes Strike Cruisers and lumbering, grox-like Astra Militarum mass transporters. And in the midst of them all, the great spire-tipped planet-shard that was the Rock, the mobile, warp-capable fortress-monastery of the Dark Angels.

The sight should have thrilled any loyal servant of the Imperium. Conran felt only uncertainty warring with his rising anger. They hadn’t asked for this, and his instincts told him nothing good would come of it. The presence of the Dark Angels alone was enough to make him distrustful. He spat onto the deck, warding off their evil with the old Fenrisian custom.

‘We’re reading activity among the crusade fleet,’ called one of the kaerls manning the Wolftide’s cogitator tiers.

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