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Blood And Rocks Chapta 19 | |
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Chapta 19 |
Yale turned to look back the way the group had come when he heard the first of the gunshots and then he looked again when everything went quiet a short time later. “Those were close.” He said. “Perhaps.” The Mason responded, “But were your men successful I wonder?” and then there was a sudden scream that ended abruptly. Having considerable experience of fighting orks Yale knew that the scream he had just heard was human had that could only mean that his men were dead and the orks would soon be coming after them once more. “It doesn’t
sound like it.” Yale said, ”We need to keep moving. If we can just reach
the vehicle we’ll be fine.” Then he glanced at the two men he had carrying
the case of stone tablets, “Perhaps we should consider leaving those
behind.” “Yes I do.” Yale replied, “But what good are they if we die here with them?” “Trust me captain, there are things far worse than death.” The Mason said, “And those stones are dedicated to them. Disrespecting them is a worse thing than dying at the hands of the orks.” “Fine.” Yale said, “But those orks could be here at any moment.” The humans continued on their way and despite being slowed down by the weight of the stone tablets and having to guide The Mason carefully through the dense undergrowth they came to the edge of the woods ahead of the orks and saw the wheeled getaway vehicle waiting for them a short distance away. “There it is!” Yale exclaimed and he began to rush across the open ground between it and him. The vehicle was similar in deign to the basic ork trucks, featuring an open topped wheeled chassis and a single belt fed weapon on a pintle mount. The vehicle predated the ork invasion of three decades earlier and the bodywork showed this age with dents and scratches all over it. There were two humans waiting with the vehicle and as Yale led his group towards it one of them suddenly clambered up to the pintle mounted weapon and began to swing it around towards them. Yale ground to a halt, reaching for his sidearm as he briefly considered the possibility that these to men were not rebels at all but instead were some of those who worked for the orks who had been lying in wait for him. But then he noticed them pointed back towards the woods and shouting. Yale could not make out their words but he realised instantly that it was a warning and also what it was about. Spinning around he completed drawing his pistol and he took aim just as Hazug stepped out of the woods and raised his rifle to his shoulder. There was a sudden flash of light and a ‘Whoosh!’ as Hazug fired the rocket that was slung beneath his rifle towards the rebels’ truck. His aim was true and the powerful warhead detonated against the vehicle’s fuel tank, producing a blast that threw Yale and his group backwards as a ball of flame enveloped the truck and then headed skywards. “No!” Yale yelled, still lay on the ground as he watched what was supposed to have been his method of escaping the orks burn furiously. In anger he drew his pistol and rolled over, firing on the orks as they emerged from the woods behind him. Around him the four soldiers that he still had at his disposal copied him, forgetting about the crate and The Mason for now as they aimed their rifles and began to fire short controlled bursts. “Waaargh!” Hazug bellowed, holding his rifle above his head. “Waaargh!” the other orks copied and then in unison the orks charged forwards as bullets flew towards them. Drazzok ran along with them, his power building up steadily as the orks prepared to fight the handful of humans ahead of them. Then all of a sudden he collapsed, dropping his staff and clutching at his head. “Drazzok’s been hit!” Sophie exclaimed from where she and her sister were still taking cover in the trees. “Wait no.” Salia replied, “He’s still moving look.” “Then we need to go and help him.” Sophie said and without waiting for Salia’s response she leapt up and ran from the woods towards the weirdboy. “Sophie wait.” Salia called out as she ran after her sister. With the
rebels focusing their attention on the charging orks Salia and Sophie were
able to reach Drazzok without even a single bullet coming near them and
they ground to a halt by his side. “Salia get him his staff.” Sophie said and her sister scrabbled across the ground to retrieve it. “Dat’s better.” Drazzok gasped as he grasped his staff tightly and pushed its tip into the ground. “What happened?” Salia asked him. “Dem gits ‘as
got some of dem rocks with ‘em.” He replied. “Too late.” Salia responded, “Look.” And she pointed to where Hazug and Mayleth were just reaching the human rebels. Hazug had been hit twice during his charge but neither injure had even slowed him down, the puny human bullets lacking the stopping power to bring him down without hitting a vital organ. Roaring he swung the butt of his rifle at the nearest human, one that wore a battered set of body armour and knocked him backwards. Sprawled out across the ground the man struggled to either get back to his feet or bring his rifle around to point at Hazug, but before he could manage either the Blood Axe nob pressed the muzzle of his own rifle to the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger, firing a burst of powerful rounds that took off the top of the human’s head. From beside Hazug Cuddles promptly began to tear at the corpse, barely chewing before swallowing the chunks of flesh he bit off. At the same time Mayleth sliced open the chest of another of the human soldiers while simultaneously kicking the pistol from Yale’s grip. “Grab ‘im!” Hazug snapped when he saw Yale, “’E’s dare boss!” Reacting to this Ratish darted around Hazug and leapt at Yale as the man was attempting to get to his feet so he could try and retrieve his lost gun. The gretchin’s impact knocked Yale back again and the pair rolled across the ground. Meanwhile the
other two soldiers kept firing at the madboys who were almost on top of
them. One was struck by a bullet that pierced his heart just as he was
about to pounce and instead he fell dead, his body tumbling into the man
who had just shot him. In turn the human fell onto his back and began
struggling to get free of the weight of the dead ork on top of him. In
this he was assisted by Thuggrim who with one hand reached down and
dragged the body off the man. Grurkun was the first to reach the final rebel soldier and he went to punch the man in the face. But he threw the punch with his injured arm and the pair of the both cried out in pain as the blow connected. “Out da way ya wimp!” Fruggit snapped as he barged past Grurkun, his blade in his hand. The human still held his rifle and he was able to get off one last shot that just clipped Fruggit’s ear before the madboy plunged his blade into the man’s chest. Yale was able to push Ratish off his chest and he looked around to see what had become of his gun. But when he saw a discarded rifle that had belonged to one of his men lay nearby he instead reached out for that. But just as he laid his hand on the weapon’s grip Mayleth brought her heel don upon it and he cried out. The eldar woman then lifted her foot off his hand and instead delivered a sudden kick to his abdomen that forced the air from his lungs. Seeing that he was helpless Mayleth then dropped down to her knees and reached out a hand, jabbing at his neck with just enough pressure and in just the right place that she cut the blood flow to his brain and knocked him out. “Yale? Yale help me.” The Mason’s voice called out easily heard now that the rest of his group were either dead or unconscious and as Hazug looked at him he saw The Mason on his hands and knees, crawling away with one hend reached out in front of him as the blind man attempted to determine what was around him. “Leave ‘im.”
Hazug said out loud in the ork language, “I’ll deal with ‘im.” And then
The Mason halted as Hazug strode towards him. “Nah.” Hazug replied in Gothic, “If Yale’s ya boss den ‘e’s sleepin’ at da mo.” And then The Mason gasped as Hazug dragged him to his feet, “Now ya is da one wot makes all dem rocks wot summons daemons right?” he asked, staring into The Mason’s blind eyes and the old man cackled. “The Changer
Of The Ways has granted me great power.” He said, “Through my hands runs
his will.” “My hands!” he cried out as Hazug let go and The Mason held up his hands in front him, unable to see the damage that Hazug had inflicted for himself. “Now ya’s comin’ back with us.” Hazug explained as he picked up his rifle again, “I reckon dat da boss’ll be real interested in ‘earin’ all about wot ya’s been up to.” And then he drove the butt of his rifle into The Mason’s face and watched him collapse. “Hazug!” Sophie shouted as she and Salia walked with Drazzok towards the rest of the group, “Hazug there are some of those rocks close by.” Hazug looked around, anxious not to be suddenly surrounded by daemons with only six other orks as well as two humans, one eldar, a gretchin and a squig as a fighting force. “Where is
dey?” Hazug said out loud. Hazug smiled. “Dat looks good.” He said and as Hazug and the madboys began to crowd around Ratish undid the latches that held the crate closed before pushing the lid away. There inside the crate the orks saw three carved stone tablets, all larger than any that they had seen before now, “Mayleth, wot d’ya reckon to dese?” Hazug asked, looking around at her. Mayleth squeezed between the orks and knelt beside the crate, studying each of the tablets in turn. “Nurgle, Lord
Of Flies. Slannesh, Prince Of Pleasure. Tzeentch, Lord Of Change.” She
said as she looked at the symbols carved in each. “So dey can give me a bigger ‘eadache.” Drazzok called out from where he was stood. Because of the effect that the carved tablets had on him the weirdboy had decided to remain further away from them. “I cannot be certain.” Mayleth said, “But it seems likely that these would be used to summon daemons of much greater power than those we have witnessed so far.” And Hazug frowned, remembering the creature that had inhabited the body of Venris Highbalt, “But there is something that worries me more my master.” Mayleth then added as she looked up at Hazug. “Wot?” he asked. “There are only three stones here.” She told him, “There is none dedicated to Khorne, The Blood God.” “Maybe gits not ‘ave time to make one master.” Ratish suggested. “Yeah, or maybe dey already sent it somewhere else.” Hazug said. Gaining access to the city had proven straight forwards for Jansen. After abandoning the motorbike that would have immediately attracted the attention of the orks of the Northern Fort he headed in on foot with the stone tablet wrapped in several layers of cloth in a pack. When confronted by the ork guards he had simply handed them some ork teeth. The habit of the greenskins for using their own teeth as currency meant that every time the resistance killed an ork and was able to keep control of his body they were able to remove his teeth and make use of them themselves. Satisfied that Jansen understood his place as a human the guards then waved him through the checkpoint, barking instructions he could not understand in their own crude language. Still on foot he had then made his way through Git Town and to the ork inhabited area of the city. Ironically here it was the order that Hazug had encouraged Kazkal Kromag to issue protecting humans from being killed at will by the orks that made his task easier. Where once any human not clearly marked as the property of a specific ork would have had to keep a low profile to avoid being attack Jansen was able to walk through the streets in broad daylight, though he was still careful to avoid places where he could be the victim of an unfortunate ‘accident’ as he made is way towards the fighting pits. At this time of day there were only a handful of orks present at the pits, some of them fighting in some of the smaller outer arenas while runtherds made sure that their gretchin underlings were taking proper care of the squigs that would be used in some of the fights. Finally what few guards there were remained close to the dungeons where unwilling combatants were held until it was their turn to entertain the crowd. Jansen’s final destination was completely deserted however. The main arena. He looked around cautiously, just in case there happened to be any gretchin nearby still cleaning up after the previous night. Satisfied that no one was watching he walked out into the arena, right to the centre and then knelt down and began to dig a shallow hole in the ground with his knife. When this was big enough he took out the tablet and unwrapped it before placing it in the hole and covering it over. Smiling to himself he then got up and walked away, wanting to put as much distance as he could between himself and the stone.
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