Battle for the Abyss Read Online Free PDF

feet, but Cestus was already on him, pressing his advantage. He rained three quick, flat-handed strikes against Brynngar’s nose, ear and solar plexus. Staggered after the barrage, the Wolf Guard was unable to respond as Cestus drove forward and hooked both arms around his torso. Using the weight of the attack to propel him, Cestus roared and flung Brynngar bodily across the muster hall into a tall stack of barrels. As he moved backwards, Cestus watched as the rack holding the barrels came loose and they crashed down on top of Brynngar.
    ‘Had enough?’ Cestus asked through heaving breaths.
    Dazed and defeated, and covered in foaming Wulfsmeade, a brew native to Fenris and so potent that it could render an Astartes insensible should he drink enough, Brynngar looked up at the victorious Ultramarine and smiled, showing his fangs.
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    Ben Counter – Battle for the Abyss
    ‘There are worse ways to lose a fight,’ he said, wringing out his beard and supping the Wulfsmeade squeezed from it.
    Antiges, standing alongside his fellow battle-brother, made a face.
    ‘Up you get,’ said Cestus, hauling Brynngar to his feet.
    ‘Fair greetings, Cestus,’ said the Wolf Guard, when he was up, crushing Cestus in a mighty bear hug. ‘And to you, Antiges,’ he added.
    The other Ultramarine backed away a step and nodded.
    Brynngar put his arms down and nodded back with a broad smile.
    ‘It has been a while, lads.’
    It was on Carthis during the uprising of the Kolobite Empire in the early years of the crusade that the three Astartes had first fought together. Brynngar had saved Cestus’s life that day and had been blinded in one eye for his trouble. The venerable wolf had fought the Kolobite drone-king single-handed. The mighty rune axe, Felltooth, which Brynngar wielded to this day, had part of its blade forged from the creature’s mandible claw by the rune-priests and artificers of Fenris in recognition of the deed.
    ‘Indeed it has, my noble friend,’ said Cestus.
    ‘Drunk and brawling? Are the drinking holes of this space port insufficient sport, Brynngar? Did you build this muster hall for just such a purpose, I wonder?’ said Antiges with a hint of reproach.
    Lacquered wood panelled the walls, and a plentiful cache of barrels, filled with Wulfsmeade, were stationed at intervals throughout the hall. Huge, long tables and stout wooden benches filled the place, which was empty except for Brynngar and the groaning Blood Claws. Tapestries of the deeds of Fenris swathed the walls. The muster halls of the Ultramarines were austere and regimented; this one, fashioned by the artisans of Leman Russ’s Legion, looked more like a rustic long-house from the inside.
    ‘A pity you could not have joined in sooner,’ Brynngar remarked. ‘Perhaps tomorrow?’
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    Ben Counter – Battle for the Abyss
    ‘With regret, we must decline,’ Cestus replied, secretly relieved; he had no desire to go a second round with the burly Space Wolf.
    ‘We leave today for Ultramar. War is brewing in the Veridan system and we are to be reunited with our brothers in order to prosecute it. We are heading to the space dock now.’
    Brynngar smiled broadly, clapping both Astartes on the shoulder, who both felt the impact through their armour.
    ‘Then there is only one thing for it.’ Antiges’s expression was suspicious. ‘What is that?’
    ‘I shall come to see you off.’
    With that, the Wolf Guard turned the two Ultramarines and, putting his massive arms around their shoulders, proceeded to walk them out of the muster hall.
    ‘What about them?’ Cestus asked as they were leaving, indicating the battered Blood Claws.
    Brynngar cast a quick look over his shoulder and made a dismissive gesture.
    ‘Ah, they’ve had enough excitement.’

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    Ben Counter – Battle for the Abyss
    THREE
    God of the Furious Abyss
    Psychic scream
    Visions of home

    CORALIS DOCK WAS one of many on Vangelis. A wide, flat plain of plate metal stretched out from its