Tales of the Amber Vipers Chapter 332
Through the ashes of the dying planet they strode, fierce of eye and sharp of fang. Dread hung upon them and death was in their hands, for they were the doom of worlds. The Vlka Fenryka advanced in a wave of grey, their fetishes jangling and pelts growing indistinct as drifts of ash built on their shoulders. The Vanagandyr slinked back before their masters, lowly underdogs snivelling and whining before apex predators. The Sons of Garm ignored them, hastening after the fleeing motes of red.
"The Angel's whelps flee before us!" Jotnyr Fleshsmith snarled.
"They can run, but they cannot hide," came the grim response.
"If they reach the shuttles they will escape!"
"What of it?"
"You would let them flee, Nighthowler?!"
"It matters not if they die on this planet, or the next. Their wyrd is to die, none can escape it. All the weaklings can do is prolong their agony."
Jotnyr turned amid the loping pack and growled around tusk-like fangs, "The beast within craves carnage, Skoll!"
Skoll glared with bloodshot eyes, "You think my inner beast does not gnaw at the leash?! The eye of Russ is upon me but I do not blink. If you think you can do better, make the challenge and take my place in the pack!"
Jotnyr's golden eyes flickered at the thought, "Nay, Nighthowler, the Sons of Garm are yours."
Skoll strode on but behind Draugr Skinwalker cackled in scorn at the rebuke. Skoll ignored it as he led his packs on. At his direction the Sons of Garm loped after the fleeing prey, hungry for the kill. A few among them bore rune-marks of destroyed Fenris, but the majority were newborn, they sat uncomfortably in their armour and their faces told tales of sunny worlds and warm births. They had never walked the ice of Fenris, never withstood the man-killing frost of Hellwinter, nor sailed under the Wolf's Eye in summer. Yet they were still the lucky ones.
In their wake the Vanagandyr roamed, the rejects, the old and weak. The Canis Helix had twisted their genes, creating twisted by-blows of madness and hate. They sufficed for Skoll's purposes, so long as they killed. Skoll led them as a packmaster does his courses. His armour was broad and his pauldrons layered and covered by a grey wolfpelt. His head was unhelmed and twin braids sprawled from his jawline, falling past his chin. His hair was unkempt, his fangs were long and his eyes red with blood. Fetishes adorned his belt and his shoulder the icon of twin wolves circling, one black the other white. In his hands fumed two axes, bound with Maleficarum. Skoll Nightholwer, Jarl of the Wolftime, devourer of stars and herald of Ragnarok.
The Sons of Garm set off in a sprint, hastening to the heart of the city. The packs split up with instinctive ease, their coordination effortless and needing no direction. The Vanagandyr loped in their master's wake, scenting blood in the air. The dying world gave this miserable town a veneer of tragic beauty, its extinction the only important thing this hovel had ever done. Skoll saw the ash-cloud drifting overhead and swimming eyes formed a symbol, a black wolf curved over to ensnare a sun in its jaws. Its silhouette described a second wolf, this one white, with a moon about to be swallowed. The twin wolves of the End Times, the mark of the Sons of Garm.
Skoll glanced at his companions. To his right Jotnyr ran, his scored armour almost shorn of black. In the Before Times he had been a priest of Fenris, when the world of Ice and Fire still dwelt among the heavens. Now he was Wulfen-touched: golden of eye, shaggy of face with a swollen jaw and elongated fangs. The curse of Russ lay heavy but he still clutched his Crozius in a tight grip. Draugr was worse, the Wulfen had taken him for its own. His body was twisted and hunchbacked, with a drooling snout for a face and claws for hands. Scraps of armour hung from his frame, for his stretched body could not fit plate anymore, and a black ruff ran down the back of his spine. He spoke no more, but he could yet laugh and howl like no other.
Skoll spied a flash against the sky, one of the jetbikes of the Angel's runts, Morkai knows where they got them. Skoll's hearts stirred as the beast within every child of Russ awakened. It roamed his hindbrain, pacing hungrily. Wild and cruel, knowing nothing of mercy or compassion. It yearned only to rend and tear and eternally yanked at the leash of Skoll's will. Tenfold ten had Skoll faced the Angel's gets and each time he had broken their spines and sucked the marrow from their bones. The beast drooled for such slaughter and Skoll had no wish to restrain it.
The airbourne wretch was flying back to the heart of the city, where his kin made their last stand. They thought to throw a ring of steel about the shuttle port, and buy time to evacuate more people. A fool's hope, there was nothing they owned that could stop the Vlka Fenryka, as nothing could stop Fenrir's Bite destroying the planet. Even now the weapon bore down from orbit, covering the surface in a tomb of ice.
"Danger ahead!" Jotnyr snarled, "Mortals, bedded in."
"I smell them," Skoll muttered, "Stay back, I'll handle this."
"Surely not, let me call up Gathor Hammerhand."
"I said, I'll handle this."
"But they may kill you!"
"So what if they do?" Skoll spat as he leaned into a run.
Skoll broke free of his packs as he ran straight at the foe. The beast within let loose a cry of savage fury, its howl filling his soul with the urge to rend and slay. Slaughter called and the wolf lent him ferocity as the distance shrank. A band of humans in red cloth and rubber rebreathers had dug in around a rubble-strewn junction, cowering behind piled sandbags. Thralls to the Angel's whelps, sworn to stand and die. They were brave, these men of skin and bone, but brave or not they would die. Skoll found it odd they bothered to resist, quick death was less painful than slow, but then none were so blind as those who clung to hope.
The thralls saw him coming and swung their weapons to bear. Twin Heavy bolters and an Autocannon, firepower enough to crack Ceramite. Skoll could have dodged, he could have ducked and weaved, but he did not, he ran straight on, embracing whatever fate awaited him. If it was his wyrd to die, it was his wyrd to die. He would not flinch from death, there was no point.
The courage of men held and they opened fire. A stream of tracers flew past Skoll's shoulder, the thrall's aim thrown off by Transhuman speed. They tried to compensate but Skoll was faster, closing as a blur of Ceramite. The Autocannon let rip with a boom and a shell slammed into his midriff, Skoll missed half a step as he staggered, but his plate held and he recovered before the others could seize the moment. It seemed it was not his day to die after all.
Skoll's left arm jerked forward and his axe flew free. Solulv spun in the air, a single head leaving trails of hoarfrost in its wake. The Maleficarum bound within chattered as it was given freedom, released from the prison of Skoll's hand. It struck the sandbags and the chill of absolute zero exploded outwards. Sand flashed into crystal glass, men's lungs shrivelled and where bare flesh touched metal skin fused to barrels, ripping away as mortals thrashed in agony at the instant frostbite. Skoll gestured again and Solvarg was set loose, the Daemonic sprite within spewing lightning in an aura of static. It struck the screaming defenders and unleashed an electrical storm. Ice-chilled flesh shattered like struck glassic, eyes boiled in skulls and hair caught alight, while those further out fell dead as electricity burned out their nerves.
Skoll slowed as he saw none remained to challenge him and was disappointed at the ease of the victory. His frustration was brief, for a wave of lasgun fire slammed into his flank, thermal exchanges making him stagger. His head snapped about and he saw a wave of fresh foes rising from the rubble all around, forming multiple firing lines with lasgun gleaming. It had been a trap, the offering of flesh had tempted him into the killing ground and they had him surrounded. Death turned its eye upon him and Skoll welcomed it, but the beast within was not so resigned.
Feral anger surged through Skoll's soul as the wolf broke its leash. A red mist descended, driving aside reason and rational thought. All became instinct and rage as Skoll's veneer of civilisation fell away, revealing the ferocity that lived under his hearts every day. Before a shot was fired Skoll was charging, feet covering the ground at thrice the rate of his previous run. His fingers twitched and Solulv and Solvarg leapt to his hands, flying back into his grip in an instant.
The thralls were shocked by the sudden explosion of speed and before they could respond he was upon them. Skoll threw himself into their midst, axes flashing as his lips drew back over his fangs. Men flailed in dismay, they thrashed as he barrelled them over, they screamed as he opened their guts and they fell with their threads cut. Solulv struck limbs free and parted ribcages, every touch blackening flesh with lethal frostbite. Solvarg burned men alive at the merest touch, electrical burns reducing bodies to charred cadavers. Skoll saw nothing but a wall of meat as he hacked and chopped, heard nothing but the rapid pounding of his hearts and his nose filled with the smell of rent meant and opened bowels. The beast within had him.
Skoll's mind was brushed aside, become more wolf than man. It drove him forward with wild abandon, uncaring for the bayonets scoring over his body. Hunger rose in his gullet as the beast tasted blood, fury burned in his limbs as it lent him its strength. All was slaughter, all was destruction and woe. The ending of lives, the final extinction of life; this was the apex of existence. Somewhere in the back of Skoll's mind grew the desire to bring this truth to all men.
The fighting was close and fierce, too close for the thralls to use their guns. In the white heat of combat he was king, but yet outnumbered greatly. Skoll would kill many, but he would be dragged down eventually. But then they came, Vanagandyr falling upon the rear, lashing out with tooth and claw. Blood was spilt and flesh devoured as the feral creatures joined the slaughter. Draugr was at their front, his killing great and fury boundless. Where he fought the Vanagandyr grew bolder, inspired by his example. He was closer to them than any other and his presence sharpened their fury.
Skoll was barely aware of it, for he had seen a greater challenge. Among the dying thralls strode a single figure in Ceramite, one of the Angel's striplings, fighting as part of the unit. A sword with golden wings for a hilt flashed before his faceplate as he cried proud defiance. Noble was his bearing, his words worthy of a hero of mankind, but Skoll didn't hear it. The beast's howl consumed his mind and he fell upon the prey in a frenzy.
The whelp was caught by surprise, but retained Tranhsuman reflexes. The sword's point struck Skoll's shoulder and bit deep, tearing a vicious furrow through Ceramite and plunging into the flesh beneath. Pain arose but Skoll rode the wave of agony, his burning need to see this weakling die drowning out all other sensations. He crashed bodily into the foe, knocking him back as Solvarg tore over belly armour. Ceramite blackened under the Daemonic touch but the wretch drove a fist into Skoll's midriff, driving the wind from him.
Skoll should have staggered, he should have stepped back to recover and had he done so he would have died to a swordpoint. Instead the beast drove him forward, sending him slamming into the fool. Bones rattled and organs quivered, but it was the Angel's puny offspring who faltered. A step back, a moment of redress, that was all Skoll needed to bring Solulv high and then chop downwards. The fuming axehead caught the arm bearing a sword and sheared straight through, carrying on to strike the hip. Ceramite frosted over instantly, becoming brittle as ice while flesh and bone ripped. In one blow Skoll tore the wastrel in half, allowing the upper half to drop to the ground in truncated heaps.
Hot breath in the lungs, the urge to fall upon the body and sink fangs into meat and drink blood. The beast within demanded to rip and tear as the most rabid of mutts, to gulp hot meat and gnaw on the marrow of bones, but Skoll's will was reasserting itself. The red mist faded as the fire of deep wounds penetrated his mind. The Vanagandyr continued their slaughter but Skoll was once more himself, flushed with killing and in need of more than raw carnage.
Skoll laid Solulv at the neck seal and Ceramite frosted over as the flexible seal cracked, "Tell me why."
"For the Great… Angel," the dying fool gulped through a mouthful of blood.
Skoll growled, "I was once like you, head filled with glorious sagas. It was pointless, the galaxy died, the sagas are sung no more, the throne of gold fell to ash. Terra is gone, Fenris is gone, Baal is gone! Mankind is dead, the corpse has only to yet stop twitching."
"And yet we… defy you…" the wretch whispered.
Skoll's disdain was pricked, "There is no point! The stars contain nothing save endless suffering. These humans live for a fleeting sense of hope or happiness, pretending they are not fleeing loneliness and death. They tell themselves that life is a gift, and their brief lives hold meaning, but the truth is this: life is pain and death mercy. You can't save anyone, there is nothing to save!"
Solulv fell and the wretches' head was parted from his neck. The body fell back, pumping blood onto the cold stone, but Skoll did not stay to watch. He left the dead in his wake and strode on to the killing fields, hearts burning with anger. The Angel's whelps refused to see the truth, so he would explain it to them at the edge of his axe.