Chapter 244: The Little Dreadnought (Patreon)

The battlefield was a roaring maelstrom of fire and steel, the clash of blades and the thunder of bolters echoing across the vast docking platforms. Abaddon, wielding the daemonic blade Drach’nyen, and Grey, armed with two scavenged chain-axes wrenched from the traitors, were locked in brutal combat, their duel spilling across the docking platforms. Though mere minutes had passed since their clash began, the violence felt eternal.

Grey, wreathed in fire like a burning iron skeleton, hurled himself at Abaddon with reckless fury. Nearby, Kossolax roared, swinging his chain-axe with murderous force at Sven Bloodhowl, the Wolf Lord of the Space Wolves. But just as his blow fell, a lance of agony tore through Kossolax’s waist. His strength faltered for the briefest moment, long enough for Sven’s great Frost Axe, Frostclaw, to bite deep into his armored shoulder.

Staggering back, Kossolax pressed a gauntleted hand to his side. When he drew it away, it was slick with blood. Only then did he realize he had been stabbed.

By whom? He didn’t know.

The wound bore the ragged, tearing signature of a chainsword.

The Butcher’s Nails howled in his mind, drowning him in bloodlust, numbing the pain, and urging him to slaughter. Yet as he pressed his attack against the Wolf Lord, he realized something was wrong. The wound was worsening, his body failing, his blows faltering.

It wasn’t that the Nails had gone silent. The damage was simply too severe, to the point where it was hindering his ability to fight.

As Kossolax reeled from the pain, Sven advanced again, his frost axe sweeping down. This time, he wasn’t aiming for Kossolax’s head, he was trying to shear off his last remaining arm.

In his prime, Sven Bloodhowl was near unstoppable in close combat, a whirlwind of fury and precision. Kossolax struggled to hold him off, his parries weak, his footwork faltering. Yet even through the haze of pain and the Nails’ screaming hunger, a plan coalesced in his mind.

“Look at you,” Kossolax snarled, eyes flickering between Sven and the pack of warriors behind him, “A pack of wolves? No, you’re nothing but beasts. Slaves of the lapdog Imperium.”

The insult struck home. Sven’s growl deepened, his blows raining down faster.

“Do you even know what a beastman is?” Kossolax sneered, spitting blood. “A mongrel, spawn of human and animal. Some say of human and daemon. Either way… that’s what you are.”

“I’ve seen true werewolves,” he hissed, his voice rattling through broken lungs. “You’re no different.”

The insults cut deep, feeding Sven’s wrath. His axe hacked harder, each strike carving bloody furrows into Kossolax’s flesh until bone glinted beneath shredded armor. But Kossolax endured it all, this was what he wanted.

At last, Sven’s blow shattered Kossolax’s chain-axe. The weapon’s teeth and haft exploded in sparks. Kossolax hurled himself back three meters, blood running down his armor, but anticipation burned in his eyes. He wanted the Wolf Lord to charge him recklessly. He wanted to see the Space Wolves howling in despair over their chieftain’s corpse.

Sven came at him, but not in reckless fury. His charge was measured, guarded. He was wary of traps.

“Come, filthy wolf,” Kossolax taunted, raising his broken, blood-slick hands.

The Wolf Lord raised his axe and surged forward, but before he could strike, a massive shape barreled across his path.

From Sven’s perspective, it was as if Kossolax had been struck by a speeding Leman Russ battle tank. The traitor’s body folded, launched into the air, and crashed into a circular crater at the far edge of the platform.

The “tank” wasn’t a tank at all. At first glance, Sven thought it was a Dreadnought. But no, this was no sarcophagus-bound brother. It was an Ogryn clad in powered armor, charging headlong.

And not just one. Across the battlefield, five more armored Ogryn rampaged, plowing through lines like living battering rams.

The abhumans did not distinguish friend from foe among the Astartes. They simply charged, crude instincts guiding them like beasts of war. Bolter fire punched holes in their armor and tore chunks of flesh, but nothing slowed their momentum.

Sven’s eyes narrowed. The Lamenters moved with practiced familiarity around the brutes, their formations shifting seamlessly to complement the Ogryn’s rampage. They knew how to fight alongside these abominable auxiliaries. These abominations were no wild auxiliaries, they were now acting as shock troops to them.

Elsewhere, Chapter Master Phoros was dueling Typhus. Phoros caught the Manreaper’s downward sweep on his blade, lashed out with a brutal kick, and sent an charging Executioner reeling straight into the path of a charging Ogryn.

The poor fool slammed into the wall, only for the Ogryn to plow into him a second later.

The impact pulped him. His armor caved, a gout of blood and meat burst free from the ruined armor like a grisly fountain.

“Don’t let those little Dreadnoughts hit you!” Sven bellowed to his pack, then hefted his axe and plunged into another melee, rushing to aid a struggling Wolf-brother.

....

On the battlefield’s edge, Grot was exchanging fire with mortal thralls of the Foresworn. He cut them down with controlled bursts, all while shouting into the vox as well.

“No one saw where that bastard got flung?”

Grey, still crossing blades with Abaddon, heard him. He cast a single glance over his shoulder, enough to confirm Grot was unhurt, then returned his full focus to the Despoiler.

The other Astartes were too consumed by their own battles to pay attention.

Cursing, Grot considered dropping it, but the thought gnawed at him. Before the fight began, while they waited for the platforms to link, he had seen that traitor standing at the enemy commander’s side, shoulder to shoulder with that green-armored Astartes commander. A position of prominence, not some expendable pawn.

That thought hardened his resolve. He broke into a sprint and hurled himself into the pit after the fallen warrior.

....

Kossolax tumbled through steel conduits and utility shafts for what felt like an eternity before he crashed out into a vast corridor below.

He rose slowly, staggering, scanning his surroundings. The passage stretched far into the dark, lined with automated drones, some ferrying ore in endless loops, others dormant in their alcoves.

For the first time since the fight began, Kossolax allowed himself to breathe. The corridor felt safe enough, for the moment. He slumped against a wall, sucking down ragged breaths.

He didn’t need medicae scans to know the tally of his wounds.

His body was a fortress of gene-forged organs and self-repairing tissues, but even the physiology of an Astartes had limits. His secondary heart labored under strain, his lungs filled with iron-tanged fluid. He could feel the sus-an membrane struggling to dull his pain, but it was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of his injuries.

His waist still bled freely, the chainsword gash refusing to clot despite the coagulant glands struggling to stem it. Sven’s axe wounds were deep and ugly, carving through ceramite and muscle alike, but survivable. No, the worst was the internal damage. When the Ogryn struck him, his ribs and spine had shattered. He could feel jagged shards grinding inside his gut with every step. Every movement was a reminder that even an Astartes was still, at his core, flesh bound by bone.

His armor, too, was broken. A shard of ceramite jutted into his chest, sawing deeper with each breath. Each inhale was agony.

“I should never have come to this damned place. Fuck the Warmaster, fuck Cadia!”

Grimacing, Kossolax gripped a wall recess and dragged himself onward. Each step was a torment, but he forced his vox to life.

“—zzzzt… This is… zzzzt… the Conqueror…”

The connection sparked, fragile. Just as he prepared to order extraction, static swallowed the channel whole. Of course. Since landing on this accursed iron world, the vox had been unreliable, flickering in and out like a dying star.

Then, a voice cut through the silence.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?”

The voice came from behind. Kossolax ripped the ceramite shard from his chest with a snarl, brandishing it like a crude blade as he turned.

But what he saw disarmed him. Not an Astartes. Not a wolf.

It was a mortal. A man, clad in powered armor, standing in the shadows of the corridor.

Kossolax let out a slow breath, lowering the shard slightly. Relief washed over him.