Chapter 32, A Wolf Rage

San Katos

Tanya Russ

Preparing for the final assault was probably the easiest part of this whole campaign. There were already many companies across the planet, hunting down the last of the pirate scum with some adventures in vengeance trying to bring them to justice. We wanted at least to destroy anything they could use to ever become pirates again, leaving them trapped on this world.

I imagined that by the end of the month all the outer colonies would be completely burned or turned over to the slave population that we were turning into the now Freeman population. But as for the assault on the capital city, the main heart of this dark pirate empire, that would be a bit of a thing. The plan to take it out was already underway Vulkan's troops were marching to war and surrounding the city's land access, while my troops would soon be taking up to the sky for a contested landing on the city.

It looked to be a hell of a thing and we would take a few losses but we had to do what we had to do, and what we had to do was defeat these pirates in their nest.

How we were going to do it though, that was a bit of a thing. Alongside with the land trains that had been apparently altered to drive on water, it was also cheaper to not drop directly from orbit with some of the troops. Oh, certainly, there would be some drop pods landing in sections of the city that were a bit more stable, areas that were obviously islands that had been built over and not just wooden ramps and extensions built above the water. But for the most part we would be taking the aerial vehicles we had under our control and fly at low altitudes to the city. From there we would execute our part of the plan and cause so much mayhem behind the lines that Vulkan could push through the front of the city. Then, well, the burning would begin.

So instead of prepping up in the ship above today I was prepping down on the planet below, on a nice sunny beach in fact. Once this whole conflict was over I might give my boys and girls, the Valkyries as they had come to be termed by the boys, a day off to just relax on this beach. Maybe a week? We were in no rush and having a bit of time off would not hurt them. We had gone from campaign to campaign for the last few years, fighting our way across the stars and killing a lot of Orks. Sure there were parties but those were standard Fenrisian parties: find a nice warm place and drink till you dropped or wandered off with someone for a night on the town.

Beach barbecue parties were not on that agenda, mainly because Fenris didn't have many beaches where you could pull that off. Oh, sure, the beaches existed but they were kind of cold and there was always the chance of monsters living in the water inviting themselves.

Granted there'd be a chance of monsters living in those waters too but they could drop a few bombs in the waters around the beach, which would scare off most of the big things. Only real problem was… I didn't think any of my people would really have much in the way of beach wear. After all warriors don't usually have time to go buying bathing suits, and when salt water was usually just above the freezing point there wasn't much market pressure to invent such luxury items.

When I got back to Fenris I was going to have to see about that, I firmly decided. For the last 20 years of my rulership I had focused on building up the economy and security as well as education, to try and bring the people of Fenris to the more modern standards of living that I preferred, but I never really invested in luxuries. The fact of the matter was I probably could quite easily do that now. Fenris was a geologically active planet, it wouldn't be impossible to build hot springs resorts for people to enjoy. Once you had something like that they'd probably develop the technology of swimwear.

I'd also need to investigate another thing as well. As I sat on a crate, my girls helping me get my armor fully attached to my bodysuit, I noticed that several of the Valkyries were going into the water but never deeper than knee-deep. The same was true for many of the Wolves of Fenris, they enjoyed the shallows but they weren't going too deep, and I had a suspicion I knew why.

No doubt, none of them actually knew how to swim. Oh I'm sure there were some Fenrisians who knew how to swim, after all about a fourth of the population lived on water for most of the great year, but that was quite a small number amongst my troops as most of my warriors came from the main continent of Fenris and never had any reason to learn.

Now that was an important thing I needed to get solved, even beyond the luxury needs I had been reflecting on before. The ability to swim would very useful for these campaigns whenever we were fighting near and around water. Having the ability to actually swim and not just drown because you couldn't tended to be useful. When I got back to FenrisFenris I would have to see about building a system of pools. Or maybe could I build a heated lake? Fenris was geologically active so if I hired the Mechanicus to build some sort of system to keep our lakes warm all year long in the lowlands… That would benefit not only the population's swimming practice but could also very well be a generator of some economic boons. Warm water probably meant more things would be able to live around us. I was not an engineer though, maybe it would be just easier to build pools. Large ones for the people to swim in and learn how to.

That was something to look into when I got back to Fenris in a couple years. Amusingly enough I actually was feeling somewhat excited about it. I had been gone from the planet for 10 years and I had initially thought I wouldn't want to go back, considering how much of a frozen wasteland it tended to be. But I guess I had grown fond of that cold world after all and I wanted to see how it had developed in the time I had been away.

I'd put in quite a bit of laws and work into building the support network for this legion before I left, I wanted to see how it matured. Not to mention that the fortress for my legion had been under construction when I left and should be probably a good way done by now. There were a lot of things that needed to be done on Fenris if that fortress was done. Moving a lot of infrastructure to now service it, one way or another. Not to mention that, if it was done, I would need to schedule how we would conquer the rest of the mountain range and turn it into an area dedicated to the training of my Space Marines, and the valkyrie to some extent, and no doubt Fenris national guard or just the Housecarls. I made a note that I would need to upgrade them to more modern weapons when I had the chance. After all, on Fenris everyone fought to survive, quit and you died. By that same thought, everyone who could contribute to the war should have the best weapons and gear and training that I could give them, to make sure that they survived it.

Frankly now that I thought about it, I had a lot to do back on Fenris and I was somewhat excited to get back to that. Now that I had been on campaign I had a generally better idea of what threats the people of Fenris would face and I needed to prepare them for it. As much as Fenris was a death world because of its fauna they had not had to deal with Orks before and would need to learn how to handle them. no doubt I would need to send some of my more experienced veterans to train the local Housecarls on how to deal with them. And we'd never had to deal with raiders from space before, no doubt this whole conflict on this little know-nothing planet would pique the interest of anyone who was allied with them and they'd probably seek vengeance upon those who destroyed their allies. I'd need to prepare Fenris for any counter-assaults, just in case.

And maybe I would speak with the AllFather again. Been a long time since I'd spoken to him and I had a better general idea of what was down in those caves now, I think, after that vision I'd had. Perhaps it was time for a little expedition down there to clear out of as many of the cave dwellers as possible and see if there was anything worth scavenging. Yes all those years ago he said there was nothing but, considering Fenris was very active geologically, perhaps they had been using geothermal power to run those facilities. If so taking those facilities for ourselves and running the power up to the surface would bypass having to make it for ourselves.

Not to mention I still had to work out that deal with the Mechanicus, see if I couldn't get the planet Svellgard sold off or at least lent to them to build a mini Forge World to try and supply my troops with gear.

Really I had a lot of things to do and though the campaign was important I think it was about time to get home as quickly as possible. I'd just make a stop at that planet that Emperor wanted me to help out and then I'd head directly to Fenris.

With a snap, the final element of my armor was pushed into place by Helga Arndottir and she let up a sigh of relief as the suit began to power up.

"Thank you, girls," I said with a smile as I stood up, cracking my neck. "When this conflict is over make sure to visit me afterward. I imagine today is going to be a very exciting day and I'll need help getting this off."

"Yes, my Primarch!" The girls said, giving salutes before walking over to a table where my weapons and kit were and starting to bring things to me.

First was my short sword, Krakenmaw, which I attached to my side followed by my long sword, Mjalnar, that I put over my head and magnetized to the back of my armor. Finally came my spear, Dionysian, that I was still learning to use. There was definitely some strangeness to its existence as I noticed that, even though I had left it on the ship, somehow it had found its way down to the planet.

I questioned the girls about it but they said that they didn't bring it. I question many of the staff that would have been able to get in my room, to see if they possibly brought it down. As far as they were concerned they had never seen it.

This meant that either I'd somehow forgotten that I packed it, which was very unlikely considering my memory was probably the best it had ever been especially since I touched the golden sphere. Or it got down here on its own.

Now if it was a normal spear that would be crazy but this was some sort of magic spear or psychic spear. It was very likely that it had some sort of will of its own, a will that seemed to have determined it wanted to be with me. And I wanted to test that to some extent, see exactly how far that went, so I was bringing it along on this battle.

Carefully I put it to my back and let the magnets hold it there, I would have a chance to experiment with it later. For now, I turned back to the girls before saying, "Have a wonderful battle, my girls. Don't get too close to the main fighting and make sure the enemy can't escape." They nodded and gave a salute, smiles all the way.

I'm sure they wanted to actually be part of the landing forces going into the city but they would serve better as forces I was having dropped off on islands around the city that the enemy apparently had found no use for. Unfortunately for them, I did find quite a good use for those islands. Dropping my Valkyries on them, along with some heavy equipment, allowed me to easily build a line of anti-air equipment. Which meant once the battle started and they attempted to put their ships to space it was very likely that some of them would be shut down by groundborn guns on Islands they had just not bothered to hold control of. That would be the most humiliating thing I think a pirate would ever feel.

Turning from the valkyrie I moved along the lines of tents we had been building up this island we were using as the main deployment point for this assault since the last 36 hours. Most of the tents were mainly there to keep the environment from getting into equipment and ammunition, although I did see a few Marines using them. They were taking a few moments before this fight to catch a few hours of sleep by the looks of it. Good for them, as much as I had confirmed that the Marines could go possibly a week without sleep it was still better for them to get as much sleep as they could between times of combat. That way they would be at full mental capacity and able to do as much damage to the enemy as possible.

I stopped as I recognized one of the faces in the crowd. I recognized quite a number of them, of course, but this one was somewhat special in a way. "Kori Bretakollrsson," I said, giving a wave to the former king of the other side of the continent.

He turned and saw me before giving me a bow. "My king, it's been a long time. I don't think we've seen each other since the fighting on new Vietnam."

I nodded, I did not remember seeing him there but if he said so I would agree. "That was many years ago," I said, stroking my chin with my hand before asking, "How goes your life, get many combat honors?"

He nodded and said, "Yes, my king!" He stopped for a moment, thinking, before saying, "In fact I was wondering if my comrade Bjorn of Tra and I could be transferred to your personal guard."

Attempted nepotism? Not something I was expecting today but I should have expected it. My personal guards were going to be the force going in first on the combat today, I trusted them to be the best and so I knew they would be able to secure the initial landing points. He wanted to be at the tip of the spear but, unfortunately, I couldn't allow him to do that today. Operative word being today.

Nodding my head, I said, "I will look through your combat records and I will determine if you are worthy of joining the Varagyr. Everything is already all planned out for today's combat and it would be a bit of a stretch to shuffle some new man into the ranks today. But I will note that there will probably be a few openings when this is over and I will be looking over your combat record for the battle of San Katos. If you and your friend show yourselves to be Varagyr material I will have you transferred and you can be part of the next major assault."

Bretakollrsson immediately gave a sign of the Aquila, folding his hands over each other to form that two-headed bird, and said, "Yes, my Primarch! It would be an honor to join your guard and I will endeavor to make sure that it happens."

I clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Good luck then, and try not to die. I don't want to have to go through the record only to find out that you stepped on a landmine or something."

"Of course, my Primarch," he replied, bowing his head, and I moved on, walking towards the set of shuttles. Already several of my Varagyr were prepping for the assault but there was one shuttle that was not part of the assault waiting there. It was not part of my legion either, mine tended to be a gray to grayish blue in coloration while this one wore very green colors which told me exactly who it belonged to.

Those thoughts were interrupted as I heard, "Sister!" As two man-sized arms wrapped around my lower gut and brought me up into a hug, forcing the air out of my lungs for a moment.

"Brother, good to see you," I managed to croak out before he loosened his grip and put me back down, allowing me to get some air.

Turning around I saw my brother Vulkan smiling proudly as he struck a pose, several of his salamanders standing behind him rather nonchalantly. "Glad I made it here in time, I was worried I'd miss your flight."

"You're about 2 minutes early, I was about to begin the first preparations for the assault." I said matter of factly, still trying to get it enough oxygen back into my system.

Vulkan nodded his head, "Of course, of course. Well it's good I caught you then, as I wanted to give you this." He turned and one of his green-clad men came forward, carrying a case. Picking it up Vullkan turned and offered me a bolter gun, a rather impressive one if I do say so.

My original alterations were still there but they had been refined quite a bit, giving me a weapon that was a bit smoother in look than most of the guns out there. Taking it, I noticed that it was rather light, and looking down the sights I saw that had been calibrated. Damn well, too. Not only that, there seemed to be a slot for an underslung weapon built into it now. I would have to ask about that in a moment.

"I've reforged many of its pieces and its casings with some of the best material I had on board my ship. I've carefully replaced many of the internal components with, in my opinion, better materials. This should be much more accurate and much more fight-worthy than the older model you were using."

I nodded as I looked at it then at a nearby tree. I considered pulling the trigger, just to see how much it could do. No one would exactly blame me but there was some decorum about firing a gun in a camp to follow, so I lowered it back down. "Thank you, brother. I will use this in today's fight, give it a good first combat inspection."

"Good, good!" Vulkan said with a smile, clapping me on the shoulder as I had clapped Varagyr just moments before. I had to wonder if I was as brutal a clap, considering I felt like my shoulder was just barely holding itself back into its socket after that.

Moving my arm to try and make it feel better I asked, "How goes your preparations for the assault on the city?"

"They go well, most of the area around the city is already surrounded. It's all about moving forward at this point, there is one or two smaller outline outposts will have to deal with but once we're through them nothing is going to stop us from breaking through to the city. Then we'll just have to get through the walls."

"Well with any luck we'll have the gates opened by the time you get there and you can just drive right in with your armored vehicles." I commented as I carefully brought the bolter gun to my right side, activating the magnetic clamps to hold it there. It did look rather neat on my side and from this angle I noticed that there was a little wolf emblem emblazoned on one side that I initially missed.

Vulkan nodded, "I think we'll reach the gates long before that will be necessary."

"Oh, really now?" I asked, a thought occurring to me. "You want to make a game of it then?"

"A game?" Vulkan requested, curious. "What do you mean?"

"First legion to open the gate into the city gets to rename the capital city of this planet to something of their choosing."

"Hmm…" He thought for a moment, looking off into the distance in contemplation before saying, "That's not a bad challenge. Nothing major so we can take our time and it's an objective we already were planning to do… Yes, I think this would be a fun game my little sister." He held out his hand and said, "first one to the city Gates then."

I took it and we shook, though he really needed to work on his control of his strength as I felt like I was going to have my arm pulled out of its socket again. As soon as he let go I rolled my shoulder blade to put it back in place before saying, "See you in the city, brother."

"See you in the city, sister" he answered, starting to turn before adding, "Oh, silly me. I nearly forgot to tell you the name of the gun."

"You named the gun?" I asked as he turned back one of the other Green Space Marines coming forward with another box.

"Yes, any weapon worthy of a Primarch should have it's own name and its name is Scornspiter. Might it serve you well," He then turned and grabbed the container before offering it to me. "And may these serve you as well." Taking the box I opened it and saw about three or four underslung components for the gun, all of them masterly crafted, all of them looking like they wouldn't add much weight to the weapon.

"Thank you again, brother. I'm sure it will." I said as I examined the underslung weapons with some interest. There were quite a few choices but I decided to go with something I figured would be a good all-around use weapon, taking out what it was obviously a downsized plasma weapon and sliding it into the slot for the combi feature on Scornspitter.

"Now then let us drive out these pirates and Eldars." He said as he turned to his men and started walking back towards the green transport that would soon take him back to his legion.

"Yes, let's drive them out." I concurred, turning to a member of the Varagyr who came up beside me and was obviously waiting for orders. Handing them the box with the combi weapons I ordered, "Have someone who put this in my tent."

"Yes, my Primarch." he agreed, taking the box before walking away and leaving me there to look at the transports. Today would be an interesting day, I thought. This would be one of the first Aerial assaults across water that the Wolves of Fenris had ever participated in. We had done a few through water and a few near beaches but never over it, and we'd have to protect the bigger transports of the dwarves, but it would be a generally good fight I think. It would teach my men a few new skills.

Holding on to an overhead strap I looked at one of the open doors of the aircraft as we made our way closer and closer to the enemy city, the enemy anti-aircraft fire increasing at an alarming rate as we did. But thankfully their entire fire seemed to be absolutely trash, not that I hadn't seen one or two of the transports go down from my point of view but one or two out of a couple thousand was not a big deal and I deemed it unlikely to stop this advance on their position.

My craft would be one of the first ones into the melee, with about another hundred around us carrying the spear point Onn company into the fray. Behind us was about another two to three companies that would come in waves every 5 minutes, theoretically that would put 4,000 soldiers into the city within the next 20 minutes. 4000 soldiers that would need to then fight their way to important points, take them and hold them or destroy anti-aircraft fire for the next wave of roughly 4,000 soldiers. Those waves would be carried by the same aircrafts after they had been reloaded with as many soldiers as could be stuffed in them.

And theoretically there would be another thousand or so soldiers dropping from orbit around the same time we were landing further into the city, closer to the wall. Hopefully they would be able to take it and provide an opening for the Salamanders to drive their forces directly to the city. If not they would at least divide a pretty good distraction and we would have an added objective to link up with them to establish lines of communication.

Another craft off to my left to went up in an explosion as several anti-aircraft fire shots got lucky and hit some sort of fuel tank. For the most part it looked like it still held together, though I started seeing Marines jumping from it already towards the sea below.

Over some parts of the ocean that would be a problem. After all if you got deep enough it didn't matter what kind of armor you were wearing as it would crack and you'd die. In this part of the ocean though it would be fine, those islands that I'd set up as anti-air positions to keep the besieged from escaping served as boundary markers of the continental shelf for the most part, which meant there was only about 30 to 40 ft of water before you hit the seabed. Now some of them might get stuck in the mud marching the rest of the way but it was very likely that they'd still be able to get themselves free and eventually meet up with us there. Though they may have to abandon their entire power armor to do it.

No doubt the Mechanicus would hate hearing how I had given the order that this was condoned if necessary but, well, what was more important? The man or the armor? In my opinion, the man with the experience.

Well if they really wanted that armor to be recovered they could always send their own forces to recover it and put up an effort to try and find any that was lost in this campaign. The fact of the matter was the Imperium could produce as many armors as it would ever need so why worry about a few losses here or there? It was not like it was in limited numbers.

More anti-aircraft gunfire started to unleash on us but thankfully the pilots were able to go even lower, below the range of most of them. There were probably too many buildings between our vehicles and their guns anyway, allowing us to complete the journey across the sea as shuttles began to come above various places above the city. Anti-aircraft fire, and now regular fire, was still coming up at us but it was a lot more limited. As my shuttle, along with four others, came above the mansion that we had identified as a possible center for Command and Control it was only three anti-aircraft guns firing at us. At this range even the lesser weapons of our transport ships were quickly able to decimate their crews.

As soon as we had the initial landing site cleared troops started pouring out of the transport ships, landing below into the mass of enemies waiting. Which were not many, most had already been butchered by the transport crafts, but a few still stood. They put up a decent fight, firing shard weaponry at my man. A few of them went down, lots more got on to the ground and immediately unleashed hell into those who dared to try to stop them.

Quickly the landing zones around this command and control center were established and, seeing that it was now safe, I jumped down from the aircraft with a rather loud bang. I Thought I was good but it seemed that I had made a mistake as the place I jumped to happened to have been weakened. There was a cracking noise as my foot went straight through the wood and I nearly followed it into the water.

Thankfully I was able to grip both edges of the hole to stop my fall and pulled myself back out. A little bit of a screw up on my part but I had it under control, I thought as I pulled myself out, looking around and seeing that most of my men were too busy dealing with the enemy trying to attack us to see that embarrassing screw up by their Primarch.

Shaking off my foot to get some water off of it I took my short sword and ran a little bit of energy through it before hitting the area underneath the dock area, freezing it so if any more of my men happened to jump down in that area they would not go through straight to the bottom. Once that was secured I got ready to deal with the next situation. Turning around I opened my arms and Freki jumped down into them. "Good boy," I said, setting him down before raising again so that Geri could jump down from the shuttle as well. Once they were both out I signaled the shuttle to get out of here and it started moving away, slowly but speeding up as it went.

Now to deal with the problems of this attack I thought, turning to the large Mansion across the lake-large pool of water that was obviously a wet landing Bay for spaceships. Already I could see my Marines opening fire at some of the Corsairs or Eldars, it was hard to tell which variant I was dealing with since they seemed to be intermingled here on this world. They were putting up a good fight it seemed, trying to push us from entering the main house but their weapons were not as well tuned for this fight as ours. They weren't penetrating my men's armor as easily when we knew which way they were coming from.

So, slowly and steadily, I watched my men push forward, taking parts of the dock piece by piece and forcing the Eldars to withdraw from the windows of the mansion. Soon enough only a few shots were coming from the mansion and was looking like it was almost under our control. And then my expected issue arrived.

The water in front of me began to bubble and boil as light sprung from it then fired and then a rather smooth and sharp design for a ship rose from the water, it immediately began to turn to bring what I guessed were its main guns to bear on some of my men to the left side of the mansion. Unfortunately for the pilot of that craft this had been what I was waiting for.

Studying my target, I pulled my spear t from my back. I quickly cast a few spells on it, piercing being the main one, and took aim at where I believed the pilot would be. To make sure that I hit that target I also added a bit of tracking to the shot so it would track toward that general location. And then, once I was sure that I had the target locked, I let fly.

Throwing the golden wolf spear I don't know what I was expecting. What I got though was significantly more spectacular than I thought it would be. The spear, of course, had been augmented with a couple of my spells so it moved rather quickly through the air and should have penetrated through the craft without issue. And as far as I can tell it did do that. It also cast an illusion of a giant golden wolf's head biting the damn craft in its teeth. I did not expect that. That was not a power I had added to its abilities, which meant that was something it could just decide to do on its own. More evidence that there was something a bit odd about this spear. Thankfully it appeared the wolf head was just that, an illusion, but it seemed to have scared the pilot for a moment and it had stunned him enough that he didn't move.

So the spear, moving at penetrator levels speed, went right through the craft in a shower of golden light. For a moment nothing happened then the spear came back through the other way, literally cutting through the front of the ship and leaving another needle hole there as it returned directly to my hand. Well… that suspicion that the spear would want to return to me if I threw it away proved both correct and a useful thing. I could get a lot of use out of the ability to throw something that would come back to me, the real question was how much could I really throw on this. Could it survive an explosive spell? I would have to be careful to test that but that was something to keep in mind for the future.

As of right now I watched the craft slowly start spinning and lose its ability to stay up. After about a minute of smoking through the holes that had been left in it and spinning it crashed into the dock on the right of the mansion, slowly sinking back into the water from there. A great cheer went up from my men as they saw the thing sink and I was myself rather impressed. One-shot one kill was always a good average to have though, again, if it could go through one target and come back could I get more in one shot? Testing for future combats I decided again.

Shaking my head I walked along the wooden dock to the front lines of the right attack vector. There I saw a company Commander doing his best to organize a defensive action on one flank, as apparently reinforcements from within the city had tried to reinforce the HQ complex, while trying to organize the attack on the HQ complex itself.

As soon as I came into view he immediately snapped off an Aquila sign before saying, "My Primarch, we are almost into the main headquarters now but this counter-assault is slowing our efforts."

I nodded before asking, "Have we secured all entrances and exits to the headquarters?"

The captain nodded before confirming it. "As far as we can tell, yes. There may be underwater exits that we don't know about but at the moment all above ground ways in and out are closed. I have several Marines dropping over the side to see if there are any tunnels, they have explosives and they'll tig any tunnels to explode. At the very least it'll flood the lower levels and prevent anyone else from escaping, if someone has already."

I nodded my head in approval before saying, "Good, good. Hold the line here, I'll take control of the attack."

"Of course, my Primarch!", He said, giving another Aquila salute before turning to go get better control over the defense against the counter-assault.

I myself moved further along, quickly finding myself at the front lines of our siege of the headquarters.

The firing from the house had diminished quite a bit since our arrival, indicating that the defenders were either low on ammunition or nearly dead or knew that anytime they popped their heads up they would probably get more bolt rounds and volkyte fired at them than it was worth popping up for. This meant, theoretically, that I could order an advance and we could break in. Of course fighting in a house was a pain and there was another option open, might as well give it a bit of a try.

Stepping forward I activated several speakers on my armor that would magnify my voice and exclaimed, "To the Eldar Lord of this house and this city! This is your one and only chance to surrender, if you do so we shall negotiate the end of your pirate career but not your life. If you agree to hear the terms out wave something white out of any window."

As I was calling this I waved off my men so they would stop firing and give the opportunity for whoever was inside to attempt to wave out the window. It made no sense to blow off the hand of the person trying to surrender after all.

There was a pause, a bit of silence settling around the house while fighting was clearly going on throughout the rest of the city, but finally a white dining room tablecloth was waved outside the window. They were willing to surrender then, I was tempted to congratulate myself on finding an opportunity for a peaceful resolution. Turning to my men, I said, "Hold the line, I'll go in and talk to them."

"My Primarch, shouldn't some of us come in with you?" One of the Marines asked and I shook my head before saying, "I think I have full control of the situation at this point, everything will be safe. Just wait for me to come back outside."

They nodded and I turned, stepping forward towards the house. My wolves started to come with me but I waved them off. They weren't needed for negotiations, not yet I thought. Plus there was a chance that, as I made my way across the field, they would open up fire on me to betray the white flag of truce and all that. I could survive that, I was sure, but better to leave those who didn't wear armor to safeguard their back.

As I crossed the open square not a single shot was fired, so obviously they weren't betraying the ceasefire. I made it easily enough up the steps to the front of the mansion, there the doors opened revealing a tall female Eldar in… not very much, it was a few pieces of armor over vital areas but there were also a few rather glaring openings in that armor that would make them easy to kill in a good fight.

"The Honorable pirate lord Arzursar will meet you," She said, giving a bow, "but he asks for the name of his conqueror before you are allowed into the mansion."

I nodded my head before saying, "Tanya Russ, leader of the Wolves of Fenris, child of the Emperor of Mankind and leader of the Imperium of Man."

She bowed before closing the door on me for a few seconds, seeming to walk away and then come back. She opened the door again and invited me in, "Please come in, Miss Russ of the Wolves of Fenris."

The door opened and I stepped into a rather lavishly decorated entryway. The place was probably more expensive than the Mansions of the Kaiser I had visited on one or two occasion in my second life. Heck some multi-billionaires from my first life would have been hard pressed, I think, to match the opulence on display. One thing though that was drawing my notice was there was someone singing, in a rather beautiful voice all things considered. It was in some foreign language, probably Eldar in nature, but it sounded rather sweet. For some reason it evoked thoughts of young love, which was strange considering I had no idea what language it was… Could this language have some sort of magical context to it, some psychic way of making itself be clear even to those that were not aware of the language enough to speak it? A mystery for another time I decided as I followed the half-dressed elf woman to a room off to the left. Carefully she opened the door, revealing a man in somewhat heavier armor and furs. He was sitting at a desk and, like before, the room was optimally decorated. however damage from the counterfire had streamed across the windows and the walls, indicating that this room had been used as one of the redoubts during the fighting.

Several sculptures up one wall appeared to be completely destroyed and some of them looked to have been from Earth in make, all were unfortunately lost to whatever history they belonged to. Shaking my head I stepped forward and said, "I'm here to discuss your surrender, Lord Arzursar."

The eldar Lord looked up and nodded before saying, "Yes, yes, my surrender. An unfortunate thing but these things happen." He shook his head, saying, "The good days are ending again. Order will be restored to some extent in this little space, it shall be somewhat sad to see the world turned right but the important part is not to continue in the past but to adapt to the Future."

Standing up he came around the desk, saying, "My pirates would be willing to go under contract of this Imperium of Man, working for them if you would be willing to spare some of our fleet and not continue your campaign of destruction across this planet."

Well that was to be expected, I thought. Of course the moment things were going bad he would seek to try and create a situation that was favorable for him and his people. Nodding my head I said "We may be willing to work out some deal but I'm afraid that your stance on slavery is rather disgusting to me and my people, especially what we have heard of your ties to the darker members of your brother species."

The Corsair seemed to think before saying, "So to get peace we must renounce our ties to the Dark Eldars? This is understandable, I could see that as a possibility. If I have guarantees that this city will stand I will expunge all official members of the dark Eldars from the city and you can deal with them as they return to their hidey holes. As for slavery itself I understand that you humans have an issue with it so I could pass several laws preventing slavery of humans if that would be amenable to you."

Not really I meant to leave that flavoring itself was a crime at the top of my list of things I hated, right next to Communism. In theory they weren't exactly the same but in practice they were the exact same, they took away a people's abilities to decide their own fate. Taking away someone's ability to do that was a crime that I considered an almost immortal sin, humans were a free people with a free will and to dictates one's fate without giving them a choice was a disgusting practice.

However I had to admit that getting humans safe from being enslaved would be a step in the right direction and I could impress upon these elves to continue to emancipate their slaves as time went on.

Nodding my head I replied, "That will do for a start."

"Wonderful!" the elf lord exclaimed, clapping his hands in front of him before putting them behind his back, "Now can you call off the attack across the city? I would very much like to save as much of it as possible. After all this world is going to rebuild and I'm going to need an economic power base."

I nodded and started to reach for my coms before I noticed the singing again. It was louder now but I didn't see where I was coming from off the top of my head. There was no woman in this room beside the half-naked one next to me and she was not singing. In fact she looked absolutely creeped out and terrified.

Raising an eyebrow, I said, "What is that noise?"

"Oh that? Well that's my predecessor, the former Lady of San Katos," he turned and pointed to a statue in the corner that I hadn't noticed before, which was not surprising considering for the most part it looked like an exact statue of some female Eldar appearing to wear some fancy dress… however, on closer inspection, I realized that though everything about it appeared to be stone the jaw was real living flesh and was moving along with the voice.

"What the…" I said, trying to piece together what I was seeing.

"She was the greatest ruler of San Katos, some say. Of course she wasn't that great, if she was I would never have been able to replace her."

"She also used to say that she had the best voice. In my opinion that wasn't so true but I was willing to help her perfect her form, removing every flaw until there was just the perfection of her voice as it should be. Now she really does have the best voice in all of San Katos."

"Removed?" I asked, feeling something I didn't think I had ever felt before. Not in this life at least, this life had been rather easy-going when you really thought about it. Yes, I had to fight for my life in several incidents but that was fighting for your life. This… This was something else.

"Yes! Unnecessary limbs, eyes, some parts of the brain, everything that was not necessary for the voice to be perfection was removed and what remained was encased in some of the finest Stone craftsmanship I could get at the time. One of my proudest works I think." The Eldar said, seeming to be lost in his own world as he looked upon the stone mockery of a sentient being.

There were many things in this galaxy that I felt I had proven pretty good at handling: fighting, killing, building, and growing. It seemed that I could not handle righteous indignation very well.

What was standing before me was a mockery to free will, a person who had been able to rule a city reduced to nothing but a set of lungs, throat, voice box, and mouth so that they may sing for eternity at the pleasure of the person who did this to them. Their free will and ability to decide for their future having been taken from them and replaced with being an object.

And I just felt anger.

Out of my own control my hand went to my combi-Bolter, released it from my side, and pointed it directly at the elf Lord. Without even thinking twice I pulled the trigger on the plasma gun and, as the elf Lord turned to find out what the noise was, blue fire engulfed his head and killed him nearly instantly.

I turned the gun on the half-naked elf minion who immediately fell to the ground and started begging for her life. for a moment I considered sparing it, for another moment I considered ripping her skull out of her own head. For now I pistol-whipped her unconscious with the edge of my bolter gun, just to get some anger off, before bringing the bolter gun back to bear on the stone statue that used to be a person.

I quickly fired off a few shots, ending the infernal torment that that woman had been put through, before walking over to the corpse of the now fallen down Elda lord and putting a couple shots into its chest to be sure. Yes, I had taking his head off but I wasn't seeing the world as it was at the moment, I was seeing a monster that needed to be killed and you need to double check your kills when it comes to monsters.

There was a turmoil noise behind me before the doors that had led into the study burst opened and three Eldar in heavier armor entered the room, bringing their guns to bear. I fired off a dozen shots at them, forcing them to retreat though one of them lost his legs as he fell to the ground.

Feeling nothing but rage and anger I smashed open the window enough so I could peer out at my own Marines and called out, "Burn this cesspit to the ground."

Vulkan of Nocturne

Enemy fire was rather unimpressive I would say. Oh they kept it up quite well as our tanks moved into position but as the rounds binged off the old Rhinos as they trundled forward and friendly forces began landing within the city. The fire slacked and we were able to drive right up to the front gates, from there the job of breaking in was rather easy. My men quickly strapped several layers of explosives on the gate and blew it up. Oh yes they did blow it. Blowing it up would have been a lot harder, of course, but blowing it in? That was easy. Once the doors were hanging off their hinges, inward facing, all we needed to do was drive in.

And that's what we had done, taking the gate first I think. I thought that perhaps the Wolves of Fenris would have been able to do it first, Tania was after all dropping forces into the city from orbit during this fight so it would make sense that they'd be able to take it first and open it for us, but something must have not going to plan.

Well my sister may be a good thinker about tactics and strategy but it must be expected that she would find something she couldn't get her head around, once in a while. We all had those things I assumed.

Hell, I even was a bit suspect about her thoughts about letting some of the Dark Eldar flee into the woods. Sure they would be rendered a toothless enemy over time but I didn't trust the Dark Eldar or these supposedly 'Corsair' Eldar to do nothing and stay out of the way of the human colonization efforts. In my opinion they should all be burnt down but my sister wanted to be a little bit tactful and I was willing to hear her out.

At least that's the situation as I understood it before I entered the gates. Then I saw a Wolf of Fenris chasing down a Corsair Eldar, a large blade in his hands as he slashed at the retreating elf. One lucky strike managed to find a weak point in the armor and skewered the elf, killing it as the Wolf raised the entire elf up above his head on the blade before throwing him away.

The Wolf turned and saw me along, with about 30 of my Marines, staring at him with confusion. He seemed unsure of what to say before finally saluting and saying, " Primarch of the Salamander Legion, it is an honor to meet you."

"Yes, an honor…" I said, looking across the street and really getting a good look at what I was seeing. I had seen plenty of battlefields fighting Dark Eldar across several planets but this seemed off, at least when compared to how I'd seen the Wolves operate before.

Across this planet, wherever they went in, I had noticed a lack… of what's the term? I would say 'enemy civilian casualties', an effort put forward to make sure that the only one harmed were soldiers themselves.

That seemed to have gone out the window as large sections of the city were already burning, well before my own troops had entered the city to start unleashing their own flamethrowers. Black smoke was blurring out the sky and I could see that several transport ships of the Wolves of Fenris were circling, appearing to have trouble finding a place to land. Confused, I stepped forward and asked, "Wolf of Fenris, what is going on here? I was under the impression that I would be the one setting the city to burn after we had defeated the enemy here."

The wolf nodded before saying, "King Russ put out an order about 20 minutes ago to burn it all down, we are following that order."

I blinked in confusion. She had put out an order to burn the city? That was unusual for her, from what I had seen. She had always seemed to have a preference for order during a battle, to start burning down the city would assuredly cause chaos in the midst of battle. And chaos tended to not go well for those fighting in it.

Confused, I asked, "Do you know where your king is? I must speak with her."

He shook his head before replying, "Last report I had before the order of the extermination on the city was put out was that she had entered the headquarters of the Corsair pirates to negotiate a surrender. Things must not have gone well and they must have betrayed her or something."

Had they now? Well that was not a good look, attacking someone while under the flag of truce. It was a monstrous act so I could understand the Dark Eldar wanting to do it but why would the corsairs do it? Perhaps they were more Dark Eldar than Corsair. Ahh they were too hard to tell apart and that had been the most annoying bit of all this, how were we going to separate the Dark Eldar from the Corsair? Apparently we were not anymore though. If Tanya's orders were to be followed to the letter extermination was the game now. Whoever managed to flee the city may survive but anyone inside it would burn with the city itself.

Shaking my head I pointed to several of my men and said, "You are to follow me into the city, we'll search for Primarch Russ and get a full story of what happened. The rest of you spread out through the city find any human slaves and save them. Pass the message to anyone else that if any Eldar surrenders you're to round them up and keep an eye on them, there's a chance that they are simply trying to buy their time for a counter-attack."

The green-clad troops smacked their foot down onto the ground, creating a racket before saying, "Yes, Primarch Vulkan!" before breaking up into their component formations. Already a communication team near the back of the 4th was spreading my orders throughout the rest of the break-ins across the wall. No doubt the city would fall rather quickly now with the Wolves running throughout the entire city and my force is pushing in slowly. The Dark Eldar and the Corsair were soon to be squashed underfoot, it was only a matter of time.

That said I started to march into the city, watching the streets with careful eyes and wondering what had resulted in this unleashing of chaos. Tanya had seemed very put together every time I had seen her in combat. To let something go out of control like this was not like her, it was concerning in a way I did not think I had ever felt before.

Moving forward my formation soon came across a barricade of Dark Eldar or Corsair, their weapons were so interchangeable you couldn't really tell sometimes, and they unleashed a hail of fire on us. Fortunately they didn't have anything too heavy so I simply stepped out into the fire and walked forward, keeping an arm up to block any shots that would go for my face, before arriving before the blockade and using my power hammer to smash it to debris. Already the Dark Eldar had seen that their attempt to slow us down would not work and were starting to run but several of my Marines had followed me in and they rushed through the gap I made, unleashing their bolters into the backs of the fleeing enemy.

We started moving again but we were soon interrupted as several Eldar ran off a street in front of us, seeming to be in a panic. They didn't get far as several Fenrisian wolves, the actual wolf-wolf type, rushed out of the same street and began ripping the soldiers apart, tearing at them with their claws and teeth as if they were nothing but easy game for a hunt.

I looked at the wolves, they seemed even more feral than the usual. They were not the pair that followed Tanya around so they must be some of the wolves belonging to higher-ups amongst the Wolves of Fenris. They looked back at me, licking their muzzles and observing me, before going back to their lunch and seeming to give me no care, allowing me to pass. I suspected that if I followed the general direction this fighting had come from I might find my sister, after all what else would these Eldar be fleeing than the biggest and meanest soldier on the battlefield.

And my suspicions were right. As I passed through an alleyway I came out into an empty square not too far between the center of the city and the mansion and found Tanya… I think. I had seen her in combat a couple times since this campaign had started and she had always been under control. The creature in front of me did not appear to be under control. In one hand was her massive sword, in the other was Scornspitter, and both were active. She was moving across the field, quickly slashing at Eldar as they came out of their hidey holes to attempt to assassinate her, leaving nothing but ice sculptures in her wake Those who were out of range and attempted to shoot her would often fall to a bolt from her bolter gun as she would quickly locate where the fire was coming forward, then unleash a hail of fire of her own. Marines were already moving into the square but they seemed superfluous to Tanya who was… Unleashing the beast by the looks of it, that was the best way to put it. Her helmet was off, her air was flying in the wind, and her teeth were bared like one of her own wolves with incisors that seemed to have grown into proper fangs. I thought I'd spotted those before but she never smiled enough for me to have observed that properly and confirm it but there they were.

Stepping out into the field I wondered if she would have enough control to stop herself in her rampage or if she would attack me. It was hard to tell, she seemed to be operating on some sort of bestial instinct to murder, rip, and tear. I was happy to see I was wrong as, though she did immediately come to face me as soon as she seemed to sense my presence, the primal rage that seemed to be guiding her assault appeared to dissipate and she gained control of herself.

Stepping past the ice sculptures that had been Dark Eldar, I said, "Sister, what goes today? You seem to be in an extremely bad mood."

"A bad mood doesn't describe what I feel right now," She retorted, sounding filled with righteous indignation. "I've seen what the Eldar are capable of on their own and I think I now understand your interest in burning them out."

Ah, that explained some of this then. Though Tanya had taken part in several of the attacks on the lesser settlements the worst she'd only ever seen was most likely the best cases of slavery instances. She had probably run across something so wretched and horrid that it just triggered some deep-seated need for vengeance for the human race and what it suffered, the same sort of feeling I had felt upon seeing the Dark Eldar at their work.

Nodding my head I walked closer to her till I was almost in front of her as I said, "Little sister, it is to be expected that you would see the worst in these creatures eventually but you seem to be a bit out of control right now. Try and take a breath."

"I don't need a breath, I need to make sure this degenerate pit of monsters is cleansed of its filth!"

Well she had a point but she needed to get more of a control over that point so I reached forward and took her into a hug, squeezing her tight into my chest. "That may be true but you need to have more focus, being nothing but a ball of rage and murder will do your Wolves no good. They are scattered throughout the town, working as lone soldiers, and that will get them slowly picked off. So, with me, take one breath." I took a breath and let it out and I let it out. "Now, we repeat."

Tanya made some sort of noise, muffled as she was by my armored chest, and did struggle a bit but eventually she stopped. She even let go of her sword, letting it fall to the ground. Taking this as a sign that she had come down I slowly lowered her back to ground and let go of her.

Looking down at her I saw her face was not as rage-filled as moments ago but seemed to have calmed down. "There. Are you feeling better, my little sister?"

She sighed then smiled and said, "Much better, Onii-Chan."

I looked at her, confused, before she snickered and said, "Always wanted to do that. Yeah, I'm calm now." Snapping her bolter gun to her thigh she pointed past me to a marine and ordered, "Bring me a communicator! Let us see if we can get this back under control." Turning to look back at me she said, "Thank you. Let's get back to the work of clearing out this Liberty forsaken Hell hole." Kneeling, she picked up her sword before putting it back in place on her back.

"That I can agree with, we have much freedom to spread to the people here who have been unjustly tormented by these monsters." I declared, putting my hand on her shoulder before we both turned to face the direction of the city. There was still a bit of it to be burnt out and cleared and I had the feeling we would not rest until this city was rubble at the edges of the sea.

Writers note: and there we go the end of San katos, in fire and wolves, tanya got to see dark ness of eldar and found point she gose murder happy. Also brother sister bonding it was cute. This was fun chapter and i hope everyone enjoy so feel free to give me your that and what not.

On subject of Eldar there, there this quote i heard where some stone sculptur said perfection was found be removing eveythign unnecessary... That where idea for that living hell i presented came from.

Edited by: Pierre,Guardsman Pius,

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Reviews

NineEyedSorceror: hmm will see soon enough hahaha
Valerious Lake: hmm we shall see
Chronolocked: as it should be
HonorGuardElite: assuming you seen female Mortarian ... i will say it is tempting
herohero21: oh man i'm sorry!
shinetur0204: become ing British but be terrible fate
Qinlongfei: hmm perahps
SomePervyGuy: yeah seen that art man did not know if he was having good time or bad time
LuluViBritania: ah what?