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Da 'Ole Of Death Chapta 4 | |
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Chapta 4 |
As Hazug predicted the sea voyage lasted for another two days. Once clear of the river mouth the journey became rougher as the aging sea vessel was buffeted by the much larger waves of the open sea. Neither Ratish nor Sophie reacted well to this, and it was a source of great amusement to Drazzok, and to a lesser degree Hazug, to watch the pair of them retching and vomiting in the buckets provided by Squigbeard’s crew. Only Hazug left the cabin during the voyage, normally to check on his truck, but also to get updates from the crew on the progress of the journey. The ship reached its destination at the end of its journey just as the sun was setting at the end of the second day and immediately that it docked in port gangs of gretchin swarmed aboard to begin unloading its cargo. Hazug and Drazzok stood on the quayside waiting until the truck could be winched out of the hold while Ratish and Sophie both found somewhere out of the way to sit down until they recovered from the journey. Unlike the dock where they had embarked none of the old human machinery had survived here and all of the work was carried out by the gretchin using nothing more than block and tackle winches and what little strength they themselves had under the supervision of the specialist runtherds who trained them. “’Ere Drazzok,” Hazug said to the weirdboy as he looked around the dock, “’ave ya noticed ‘ow many flak guns dare are about ‘ere?” Drazzok took a look around for himself, and sure enough he spotting the tell tale clusters of elevated cannon barrels from anti-aircraft batteries silhouetted against the darkening sky on many of the buildings nearby. “Dare are quite a lot aren’t dare,” he said, “but so wot?” “Well d’ya know of anyone other than boss Kromag who ‘as any fightas or bommas dat dey could shoot down? I think dat da local boss is worried dat Kromag may decide to ‘ave ‘im replaced.” “So wot? Neither of us is ever goin’ to be a boss so why should we care?” “Because it means dat da boss around ‘ere may ‘ave more stuff than ‘e’s lettin’ on to Kromag and if we needs more lads to sort out wot’s goin’ on we can get ‘em ‘ere instead of ‘avin’ to go back ‘ome for ‘em.” “Don’t ya ever get tired of being sneaky?” Drazzok asked, but before Hazug could reply there was a loud ‘snap’ as the ropes suspending their truck as it was being lifted out of the ship’s hold broke and it fell to the ground. Hazug flinched as his new vehicle plummeted downwards but breathed a sigh of relief as its impact with the ground was cushioned by the sturdy orkish suspension it possessed and by the three luckless gretchin workers who failed to get out from beneath it in time. “Right you two,” Hazug shouted at Ratish and Sophie, “da trukk is ready so we is off. Oh and Ratish…” “Yes master?” ”Clean da gunk off da trukk when ya get a chance.” “Yes master.” At this time of day orks were beginning to gather after a hard day of work and random violence for a night of relaxation and more random violence. Hazug decide that it would not be a good idea to proceed into the city at such a time since the excitement of the orks would increase the strength of the gestalt psychic field that Drazzok drew upon and thus also the risk of his loosing control of his power. Instead Hazug drove around the edge of the city until he reached a cluster of small huts, each mounted on the top of a metal pole and accessed by a ladder. These were the weird huts, where weirdboys could live apart from the other orks in relative safety. “Find ya self an empty one,” Hazug told Drazzok, “and we’ll stay with da trukk for tonight. Den tomorrow we can start askin’ questions.” Hazug awoke early next morning to the sound of Drazzok complaining as he descended the ladder of a nearby weirdhut. “Not surprised all of dese things is empty,” he said, “da floors aint straight and I kept rollin’ out of bed all night. Now I know why so many of weirdboys from over ‘ere wind up movin’ to our city.” Hazug just grunted, he had slept in the front of the truck and his neck felt as though it had been trampled on by an overweight squiggoth. Ratish and Sophie had fared somewhat better, Ratish slept curled up in as small a space as possible anyway and this left more than enough room for Sophie to lie down. “Right,” said Drazzok as he climbed into the truck beside Hazug, “wot’s for breakfast den?” The city was much quieter at this time of day; the orks were sleeping off the events of the night before so Hazug was willing to drive into the city’s centre. During the short trip something caught his eye. “Take a look at dem,” he said pointing at a group of large machines. They looked like large effigies of orks with bulging bodies and heavy weapons mounted where their arms should be. Some were only partially built, but others appeared to be complete. “Are they gargants?” Sophie asked, remembering the word Hazug had used to describe the two massive war machines that were currently under construction for Warboss Kromag back home. “Don’t be so daft,” Drazzok snapped. “Yeah stupid git,” added Ratish. “Dey is stompas, gargants is much bigger,” Hazug told her, “Stompas aint as powerful as gargants but dey is much quicker to build. Da question is why da boss ‘ere as ‘em, never mind Kromag replacin’ ‘im, ‘e may be thinkin’ of replacin’ Kromag.” “Should we try and stop him?” Sophie asked. “Hah,” said Drazzok, while Ratish just stared at her blankly. “If Kromag can’t stop another boss takin’ over den ‘e don’t deserve to be da big boss, its da ork way things is for orks,” Hazug explained, “I’m more interested in ‘ow many weapons dare are around ‘ere in case dey is needed.” Hazug stopped the truck when he saw the first sign that indicated a business that served food. As the group entered the building Sophie noticed that nearly all of the greenskins around were staring at them, though they appeared to be keeping a safe distance from Drazzok. “What is everybody looking at?” Sophie whispered. “You,” Hazug said. “Why?” “Cos you is ugly,” Ratish said before Hazug gave his answer. “Dare aint no other humans around,” he said, “all of ‘em around ‘ere wos killed in the invasion.” “Dey made a fight of it,” added Drazzok, “but dey wos crap, most git armies is much more fun to fight.” There were no other customers when Hazug and the others entered the building, and Hazug selected the nearest table for them to sit at, positioning himself where he could keep an eye on his truck. “Grot!” Hazug yelled and one of the gretchin who had been cleaning the room rushed over to serve them, “We wants food and drink. Two big lots and two small ‘uns,” and Hazug handed over a tooth to the gretchin. Before the gretchin could return with the food an ork emerged from the kitchen brandishing a large cleaver and stormed over to the table. “I aint seen no gits in ‘ere before,” he said seriously, “Is it yours?” “It’s mine,” Hazug replied, “is dat a problem?” “Not so long as you keep it under control. If it craps on da floor den your grot ‘ad better clean it up.” “Hey!” Sophie protested. “Dare won’t be a problem,” Hazug said, “and in da mean time maybe ya could ‘elp us with some information,” and he held up another tooth. “Da name’s Fegrid,” he said to introduce himself as he took the offered tooth and sat down between Hazug and Ratish, placing his cleaver in front of him on the table as he did so. Hazug noticed that he had positioned himself as far from either Drazzok or Sophie as he could get. “So wot d’ya want to know?” Fegrid asked. “Did ya see da kroozer come down?” Hazug asked. “See it? Wot wos left of it went right over ‘ead, a couple of bits even fell in da city and a bunch of meks ‘ad a big fight over who got ‘em. Da boss ‘ad to send to lads to bash dare ‘eads together when dey started shootin’ dem blasta things at each other and blowin’ up too much other stuff dat wasn’t dares to blow up.” “Dat’s all well and good,” Hazug said, utterly uninterested in issues of civil disorder, “but we wants to know where da kroozer crashed and whether anybody’s been out to take a look at it.” “Didn’t ya notice da cloud?” “Cloud, wot cloud?” Drazzok interrupted. “Dare’s a big cloud of smoke comin’ from where it crashed cos of all da burnin’ stuff. Ya can just follow dat top get dare.” “Great, now can ya tell us if we’ll be da first ones to get dare?” Fegrid leant back in his chair. “I aint ‘eard of any lootas ‘eadin’ out dare,” he said after a moments thought, “dey can’t take anythin’ from da wreck until da burnin’ stops and it aint goin’ nowhere and dey can afford to wait cos dare’s still plenty of stuff dat da gits left behind.” “Let’s ‘ave another look at dat map Drazzok,” Hazug said to the weirdboy who promptly rolled out the map he was carrying on the table. “Grab ‘old of it den,” he said as the ends began to curl up again. Sitting on opposite sides of the table Ratish and Sophie were perfectly positioned to hold down the map as Hazug began to question Fegrid some more. “We also need to know wot’s goin’ on ‘ere,” he said, pointing at the cross where Drazzok had said the ork cruiser had detected something out of the ordinary. “Dunno,” Fegrid replied, “da gits didn’t leave enough out dare for it to be worth lootin’ and nobody reckons dat dare’s anything else dat far away from ‘ere wot’s worth takin’. Could be some wild boys and squigs but nought civilised.” “Dat’s all we need,” Hazug said, “so just ‘ave ya grots bring us our breakfast so we can get on.” Fegrid left the table and Drazzok returned the map to its tube just as the serving gretchin appeared with a tray of food and drinks. Ratish made the mistake of trying to take one of the larger bowls of mushrooms. “Get off ya thievin’ grot,” Drazzok snapped as he slapped Ratish over the head and took back his breakfast. “Eat up quick,” Hazug said, “I wants to get out of ‘ere quick.” The group ate quickly and after this they returned to the truck, Hazug was pleased to see that it was still early enough for there to be little activity on the streets. The sky was now light enough that the dark plume of smoke that was emanating from the crashed spaceship to be clearly visible. “Dat’s where we is headin’ first,” Hazug stated as they climbed aboard the truck. “’Ow far d’ya reckon it is den?” Drazzok asked, “We aint got more dan three or four days of stuff in da back.” “Yeah but we got a grot we can use to find more, right Ratish?” “Yes master,” Ratish replied, a large grin spreading across his face.
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