Wrath of Fenris
Ragnar studied the Tau stronghold from the cover of one of the gigantic rocks that dotted the edge of the rainforest that almost completely encircled the fotress of the enemy . The heathen tau had claimed one of the worlds that rightfully belonged to the Imperium for their own, an insult that could not be tolerated.
The massed forces of the Imperial Guard had succesfully drawn the majority of the defending tau army into open battle, where the technosorcery of the tau were tested to their limits by the owerwhelming numbers of guardsmen and battle tanks. While almost eighty-five percent of the tau were battling the guard, their Etherial leader took up refuge in their base of operations.
The Etherials were the charismatic leaders of the other tau castes, and their demise often broke all tau resistance, but as long as they lived the morale of the alien forces was nearly unbreakable. The task of eliminating this leader fell to the savage warriors of the Space Wolves chapter, specifically to the Great Company of Wolf Lord Ragnar Blackmane, whose battle brothers now crouched silently in the cower of the jungle and rocks.
The enemy fortress was well defended, it had six meters tall walls made from the resistant nano-crystalline alloy the tau used for their armours, and various automated drone sentry guns were deployed at the base of the wall, mainly burst cannons, but the genetically perfected eyes of Ragnar spotted also a number of turrets armed with fusion blasters, plasma rifles and missile pods, which represented a much bigger threat to the heavy armoured marines than the burst cannons that were designed to kill masses of light infantry.
Ragnar turned to Hrolf, the leader of on of the Long Fang packs and silently told him which turrets had to be removed , whispering in Fenrisian since he ordered a vox silence , aware of the fact that the Tau could easily pick up even encoded vox frequencies , and alerting them to their presence would be a fatal mistake , especially because they were still within the range of the Skyray artillery grav-tanks that formed the rearguard of the advancing tau forces. Ranulf, one of his Wolfguard apperead silently besides him despite the bulk of the ancient terminator suit he wore "All packs are ready lord" announced the large warrior. Like the other members of the Wolfguard and Ragnar himself, he carried a melta bomb in order to bring down a large section of the walls of the encampment, allowing the larger warriors in terminator suits to quickly charge inside where they would be protected from turret fire. The two Long Fang packs would stay hidden on two hills in the forest , from where they could look past the walls, providing support lascannon and missile fire in case of heavy resistance.
The company was ready, Ragnar could sense their fury and restlessness about the coming battle. He muttered a prayer to Russ and the Allfather, knowing that everything was prepared. He checked his weapons and armour for the last time, than jumped up to the top of the rock, drew his frostblade and yelled "For the Emperor and Fenris!". It was the signal that the others were waiting for, and the nearest tau turrets were suddenly blown to shreds by krak missiles or exploded as they were melted trough by lascannon beams. The warriors of Fenris charged at a supernatural speed, clearing the two hundred meters that separated them from the walls of the enemy base in five seconds. Ragnar armed a melta bomb and hurled it at the wall exactly in the same time as two warriors of the Wolfguard. The sun-bright explosions of the fusion charges melted a seven meters section of the wall. While the more agile Blood Claws and Grey Hunters could easily jump a wall only six meters tall, the more cumbersome Terminator armour did not make that possible. Ragnar waited a few seconds to allow the melted alloys to cool down a little, than charged trough the breach into the enemy fortification intent on finding , and if possible capturing their target before the enemy could realize what hit them.
The base consisted of roughly twenty oddly-rounded looking tau buildings, of which some were refuelling stations and landing pads, others barracks and storage facilities for supplies. The doors on the side of the nearest building, a half-sphere like barracks opened and a squad of Fire Warriors emerged. They were armed in some kind of carapace armour and carried pulse rifles, light but rapid firing plasma weapons. As soon as Ragnar spotted the opening door he primed two fragmentation microgrenades, and hurled them at the enemy troopers before they could bring their rifles to bear on him. The explosion shredded most of the squad, coating their surroundings with purple blood and organ fragments. Three warriors survived , but before they could do anything Ragnar was upon them, his ancient Wolfblade carving trough the first warrior's torso and decapitating the second in one fell sweep, while the last alien's chest exploded as Ragnar shot him at point blank range with his master-crafted bolt pistol. Ragnar quicly scanned his surroundings, seeing his Blood Claw packs tearing apart Kroot mercenaries, the close-combat specialists of the Tau forces. The Kroot were repitilian and sinewy, and it was rumored that they could defeat an ork in a duel. That rumor might had been true, but the Blood Claws were much faster and stronger than orks and the young fenrisians fought with all the savagery they possessed, tearing off limbs, massacreing the xenos easily. A pack of Grey Hunters used their superior speed and reflexes to mow down thirty Fire Warriors even before they could react to the incoming wall of bolter fire.
Suddenly a four meters tall battlesuit appeared from one of the buildings to his right, firing its plasma cannons and railguns directly into the swirling mass of Blood Claws and Kroot. Altough the lightning fast reflexes of the Blood Claws helped most of them to jump clear before the battlesuit fired its terrible armament, Ragnar saw Brother Skarljd and Byrnjolf melted to charred corpses by plasma, and Hrafnkel shredded by the hypersonic railgun projectile. As the remaining Blood Claws reached cover, Ragnar howled in grief and anger as he started running towards the bunker the battlesuit had came from, always keeping the buildings between himself and the xenos war machine. Ragnar jumped onto the top of the bunker behind the Broadside suit, holstering his pistol and gripping his Wolfblade in both hands. Before the enemy could even be alerted to his presence, he jumped direcly at the battlesuit, landing exactly on its top and plunged the eleven millenia old frostblade straight trough the headpiece of the enemy machine down into its cockpit, killing the pilot instantly.
The Wolf lord jumped down from the exploding Broadside, just in time to see two Hammerhead tanks flying back to the base from the battle with the Guard. Ragnar guessed that the Etherial had recalled the Tau army and watched one of the grav-tanks explode after being hit by a krak missile and two lascannons, while the other one landed roughly in the middle of the encampment , taking only one missile hit. He should thank Hrolf after the battle if they were both alive, Ragnar tought. He quickly checked the position of Ranulf with the Machine Spirit of his armour, finding him only seventeen meters from himself. Ragnar, remembering that Ranulf still had his melta bomb, swiftly ran to the Wolfguard. "Brother Ranulf, give me your melta bomb!" he asked the tall warrior, "I will cover you lord." he replied, already knowing what his young lord was about to do. They leapt up and Ranulf instantly began firing bolter shells into the enemy soldiers between Ragnar and the Hammerhead, which was rapidly demolishing the cover of Bjorgolf's Grey Hunter pack with its twin plasma cannons. Ragnar was not about to loose even more brothers in this battle, and he willed the ancient suit of his power armour to go even faster, putting strain on the fusion core in his backpack , until he was within twenty meters of the tank. He primed the melta bomb with the ease of thousands of battles, and threw the demolition charge straight at the less armoured rear side of the vehicle. The resulting explosion melted half of the tank into well-deserved oblivion, while what little remained of it fell to the ground as the anti-gravity fields failed.
Ragnar howled in triumph , but started scanning the skies as his Lyman's ear picked up the buzzing of wings. He looked up just in time to see a number of wasp-like creatures flying toward the fight, carring heavy rifles. Ragnar remembered the lectures about these vespid auxiliaries, of which the most important was that their weaponry had extreme armour-piercing capabilities. He did not waste time and fired his bolt pistol as soon as he drew it from its holster, exploding the insectiod fliers into shards of chitin and disgusting body fluids, dodging the aim of the enemy to avoid the neutron blaster fire. His warriors did the same, and nothing was flying after two seconds of bolter fire., but Ragnar's instincts still told him that the fight was not over.
Suddenly a torrent of light plasma fire started raining on his warriors as Stealthsuits opened fire from above. The Space Wolves dodged most of the enemy fire as they reloaded their bolters and started firing at the muzzle flashes of the circling enemy ambushers. Ragnar's preternaturally sharp eyes quickly found the shimmering edges of the tau stealth fields, the auto-senses of his helmet picked up the heat trail of their jetpacks, and he quickly fired where he tought his enemy's chest should be. The enemy was wearing heavy armour and each suit took at least two bolter hits before falling to the ground in a gory pile of metal and body parts after the first explosive penetrator round shattered their chestplate, and the second ones popped their bodies like over-ripe fruits.
Ragnar looked around and caught sight of a group of elite Fire Warriors protecting a robed tau who were heading towards a building that looked suspiciously like a vehicle hangar. Ragnar activated his vox "The etherial is trying to escape, Brother Thorolf with me!", and waited a half second as the eight remaining members of Thorolf's Blood Claws reached him, than he charged directly at the fleeing enemy. The honour guard of Fire Warriors however was the best the Fire cast had to offer, who spotted the charging Space Wolves and started firing at the blurred warriors running towards them, hitting some of them despite their inferior reflexes and senses. Ragnar sensed the Wulfen in him growing stronger, feeding on his surge of anger as one of the Blood Claws fell, his head melted by a lucky shot. Altough Ragnar had told them to don their helmets, some of the more headstrong younglings obviously ignored his orders and now poor Kveldulf had paid the ultimate price. Ragnar let the fury of the berserkergang engulf the feral part of his mind as he charged into the mass of the enemy, slicing trough a Fire Warrior and shattering the helmeted skull of another with the adamantium butt of his bolt pistol. He watched as some of the aliens tried to bring their guns to bear on him, moving at slow motion due to the enhanced metabolism of the Astartes that ensured their superior speed. Before any of them could actually take aim, Ragnar was among their ranks, slicing off limbs with quick cuts, decapitating aliens with lightning-fast swings of his frostblade, smashing heads with the butt of his gun . He could hear armour and bone braking as the Blood Claws started chopping and rending any tau they could find. Quickly he pointed at the Etherial and yelled "Grab him!" , and hoped that the blood-maddened fenrisians understood his order and they would not tear the enemy leader apart.
Ragnar was relieved as Gunnbjorn picked up the Etherial like a weightless doll after disarming it. Noticing that the gunfire had ceased he looked around to see his Wolfbrothers securing the camp. The voice of Iron Priest Ingvar sounded in his ear from the vox "Lord Ragnar, I had disabled the defensive turrets, and in a few minutes they will be rewired to open fire on the remains of the tau army already retreating to the base". Ragnar caught the scent of sacred incense and turned to see Wolf Priest Sigurd walking towards him "This was a costly battle , Wolf Lord , we lost six Blood Claws, two Grey Hunters and we got nine men heavily wounded, but they will heal fast if Russ wills it." Ragnar scowled at the bad news "The enemy leader was better guarded than we excepted, and reinforcements were even recalled from the battlefield to save him." The red optical sensors on Sigurd's wolf-skull helmet flared brightly as he spoke "No matter how well defended, nothing can stand the fury of the Wolves". Ragnar nodded in his agreement, and jumped up the wall just in time to see the fleeing tau stop in surprise as their own guns opened fire on them, while he spotted the column of Imperial tanks that appeared on top of a hill, firing into the ranks of the momentarily stunned enemy indiscriminately. He could see the Guard's rugged and reliable Leman Russ battle tanks , Chimera APCs, the swift and deadly Predators and fortified Land Raiders of his own Company firing high-explosive cannon shells and beams of lascannon fire until nothing remained between them and the captured encampment.
Arngrim, the Rune Priest attached to his company looked out of the top hatch of the Land Raider Crusader Stormwolf, commanding the tanks in Ragnar's abscence. Once the imperial vehicles reached the walls, Arngrim disembarked while Ragnar jumped down the wall to greet him. He listened to the elder priest as he debriefed him on the battle "When the tau army received word that their leader was under attack, their morale broke instantly and many of them left to reinforce the base. Their warriors became nervous and unsure while their battle plans collapsed, as thier leaders resolve quickly faltered because of their fear for their Etherial. Many brave guardsmen died, but our surprise attack on the enemy base saved a lot of good soldiers from death, and the Guard's casaulities are in the hundreds instead of the thousands that would be dead without our aid." Ragnar was glad that the death of his warriors saved so many others " It is our duty to protect the Imperium and its servants, we can not ask for more than to fight for the glory of the Emperor . Primarch Russ himself tought us to respect the Guard, no matter how frail the individual guardsmen is ." The wise psyker nodded "Praise Russ, glory to the Wolves".
Ragnar removed his helmet , his lupine golden eyes looking straight into the blue ones of the priest "And woe to all those who would stand against the wrath of the Wolves." He and Arngrim walked to the warriors gathering at the middle of the enemy camp. They had done their duty today, but Ragnar knew that new battles already waited for them.