Despite being deathly afraid of wolves and other creatures with drooling maws and incredibly sharp teeth, Da Red Gobbo has braved the wilds of Fenris not once but twice this festive season. After offering us a helping of lupine fury with the Saga of the Great Wolf Detachment, he has handed us a short story straight from the snow-covered surface of the Space Wolves’ home planet.
… Maybe make sure you’ve got a nice warm cup of tea* before forging on.
The chains of winter had tightened their cold, iron grasp on Fenris’ ice-choked tundra. Through snowy hillocks a trail of hide-garbed hunters stalked, specks of brown on a field of purest white. The first of their number drew a fur hood tight around his frost-rimed beard and turned, squinting into the sheeting blizzard. He could barely see his companions, though they marched no more than a few yards behind him.
Two of the tribesmen – their heads lowered into the driving storm – were hauling something huge on a wooden sled: the frozen carcass of a giant carnyx. The dead beast’s shaggy fur was coated in a layer of ice. Nothing of the beast would be wasted. Its meat would feed the tribe for a week. Its hide would clad and clothe, its sinew would be used to string and snare, and its blubber and oil would provide the fuel for light and fire. So long as they could haul it home.
The hunter rested momentarily upon his stone-tipped spear. The sled pulled past, tribesmen breathing heavily under the strain of their burden.
Amid the banshee scream of biting wind, he heard something. Faint at first, then rising – a lonesome howl that pierced the roar of the icy tempest like a shard of ice to his heart.
The youth froze. His gloved hands tightened around the haft of his spear. He shielded his eyes and peered through the snow squall. He caught sight of the sled again, of the two tribesmen hauling it forward.
The hunter started back towards his tribesmen, snowshoes sinking into the powder, slowing his progress. Yells of warning were torn from his lips and devoured by the blizzard.
A movement drew his gaze right.
From the driving snow something huge erupted, all hoary fur and yellowed teeth. The lupine creature bounded through the drifting snow and crashed into a tribesman. Blood arced high and splattered stark against the endless white.
Another wolf thundered out of the blizzard on the far side of the trail, bearing a second tribesman into the snow and tearing at the struggling warrior. The wail of tempest winds bore away the man’s desperate screams.
As the youth struggled forward, spear clutched in frostbitten hands, a shadow rose behind him. He turned, bringing his onyx-tipped polearm up to meet the descending foe. He felt the weapon slide into the beast’s shoulder. Then the weight of the creature was upon him, and the spear was wrenched from his grasp.
The wolf’s fanged maw snapped and snarled, drool flying as it landed upon him, the hunter’s weapon protruding from its body.
Raising one arm to fend off the wolf’s biting maw, the youth scrambled with his free hand to free a long iron dirk from his belt. He knew already that death was certain, but he wouldn’t let it claim him without a fight. He dragged himself backward, freeing the blade and plunging it into the beast’s neck. Warm blood ran free.
The wolf growled, a low, menacing thrum that vibrated through the hunter’s body. The carrion stench of its hot breath washed over his face. It gnashed and snapped, seizing his arm in its jaws and biting deep. He met the beast’s cold gaze as it tore at his flesh. In its cold, blue eyes he saw more than hunger. He saw malice, too. Blood flowed from his ruined arm, the iron blade falling into the snow. He kicked and punched and bit with frantic desperation, cold and exhaustion sapping his strength.
The wolf bit down again, teeth puncturing layers of fur and savaging the flesh of the hunter’s shoulder. He roared, smashing his fist desperately into its snout. The jaws opened wide again, descending towards his throat. They never closed.
The wolf’s head snapped up, meal forgotten for a moment as it sniffed the frigid air. The fur upon its back stood up, lips peeling back as it snarled and bared its teeth, hackles raised.
The hunter felt his heartbeat slowing, the blackness in the corners of his vision closing in. He fought to stay awake, to deny the creeping cold as blood ran from his wounds. He moved toward his discarded spear, dragging himself painfully through the drifting snow.
The wolf howled again. Out of the storm, a figure strode, silhouetted against the blizzard. A tattered cloak whipped behind his towering form. The stranger swung a gilded mace as the beast pounced.
A snap-crackle of lightning erupted from the mace’s head. Bone splintered. The beast was cast aside, rolling lifeless into the white. The giant never broke stride, swatting a second wolf aside and bringing an armoured boot down upon its skull. Blood and brain matter steamed as it spilt onto frigid ground.
The figure came closer. The hunter saw him clearer now. His black armour was bedecked with bone totems, and his face was a lupine skull with eyes of burning red.
Lying in an expanding pool of his own frozen blood, the hunter gasped, struggling to rise as the figure knelt and placed a gauntleted hand on his chest. As he looked upon the macabre titan, fear gripped him once more, a fear more intense than the wolves had inspired.
‘Are you the Deathwolf’s guide, stranger? Come to bear me through his gate?’ the hunter managed, a ragged shout, barely audible above the wind.
The wolf skull tilted. Bone trinkets rattled in the dying gale.
‘No, boy. To meet Morkai’s embrace would be a comfort. Where you are going, you shall find no such mercy.’
Right, where’s the heated blanket? We’re freezing. Tomorrow’s entry is hopefully going to help warm us up, as we team up to play some fast and fun multiplayer games in the Mortal Realms.
* Ours is milk and two sugars, if you’re offering.
