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Da 'Ole Of Death Chapta 9 | |
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Chapta 9 |
“Let rip!” bellowed Hazug before Castus’s headless corpse had even fallen to the floor, and in almost perfect unison, the orks that possessed firearms, joined by Ratish and Sophie, opened fire on the group of skeletal metal figures with eyes that glowed menacingly from within skulls that were identical to the one that Hazug had found on the shelf at the old human outpost that were now advancing through the open doorway. Just as when he had found eh skull, Hazug could not shake the sensation that these figures were something that he was meant to fight. The figures advanced in at a slow but steady rate, their arms hung by their sides, and large blades could be seen extending from their fingers. Only the figure at the head of the group differed, its greater size told the orks that this was the leader, and instead of blades built into its hands it carried a long staff like weapon that glowed at an end tipped in a straight blade, the same blade that had sliced through Castus’s neck seemingly without any effort being needed. Even though the orks were poor marksmen it was difficult for them to miss the figures in their close formation, but still the orks’ gunfire had little effect on them. The metal of their bodies provided excellent protection and most of the bullets bounced off them harmlessly. More frustrating to Hazug was that where he saw damage inflicted, plating cracked or wires severed, the figures seemed to repair themselves rapidly. Even Feggit’s heavier weapon seemed unable to harm them. Hazug raised his rifle to his shoulder rather than continuing to fire it from the hip and reached for the secondary trigger. There was a ‘whoosh’ as the rocket mounted beneath the barrel was launched, and one of the figures was blown apart as the explosive projectile struck its chest. Unfortunately there was no time for Hazug to load another rocket, so instead he dropped his rifle, drew his blade and let out a mighty cry. “Waargh!” and he charged directly for the leader of the advancing group. The other greenskins repeated Hazug’s yell and also charged their new enemy. One of the figures tried to get in between Hazug and the largest of the enemy, and with a single swing of his blade he knocked it aside, relieved to see that the impact of his weapon severed the figure’s arm and that it did not repair itself. Then he reached the leader. Rather than attack with his blade, Hazug dived at his opponent. Though larger than the other metallic figures this one was still considerably smaller than Hazug, and his impact knocked it from its feet. Hazug tried to force his blade through the figure’s armoured chest plate, but achieved nothing more than to scratch the surface as the tip of his weapon screeched across it. The figure tried to push Hazug from on top of it using its free arm, while with the other it attempted to swing its bladed staff at him. Hazug parried his opponent’s weapon with his own blade, but in doing so he was forced to roll to the side and the figure began to rise to its feet once more. There was the distinctive sound of Sophie’s small automatic weapon firing, and a shower of sparks indicated that the burst struck the side of Hazug opponent’s head. The distraction was just enough for Hazug to able to safely launch another attack and he brought his blade swinging down on the figure’s neck, but where a living target would have most likely have been decapitated there was nothing more than another shower of sparks as his blade cut into a cluster of exposed wires. As the figure stepped back away from Hazug he saw the once again the damage inflicted was repairing itself, but he had regained the initiative and he lunged forwards again, aiming his blade for what passed for the skeletal figure’s spine. Again the figure’s metal construction deflected his attack, but this time in addition to sparks a jet of fluid erupted as Hazug hit a pressurised line. The figure fell, floundering and for a moment Hazug was able to take how the battle was progressing. The greenskins vastly out numbered their enemy, and they were ganging up on individuals to strike at them from different directions. Event the gretchin were following this pattern, and Hazug could see one of the figures covered in a swarm of the smaller creatures using small, crude knives to try and find a weak point in its armour. Unfortunately the metal from which the skeletal figures were made provided them with excellent protection, while the blades that extended from their hands were razor sharp and Hazug could see that already several orks and gretchin lay on the floor in pools of their own blood. Not wishing to let himself get too distracted, Hazug stopped looking at what was happening around him and launched into another attack on the alien leader before it could recover from his last strike. The main effect of the battle on the orks was to increase their level of excitement, and this meant that the gestalt psychic field grew in strength. A strength that found its way straight to Drazzok. The weirdboy’s metal staff gave him away of dissipating the energy before it became harmful, but he preferred to put it to use. A ranged blast was out of the question, he was quite willing to fry a few random orks if necessary, but he wasn’t confident that he would avoid hitting Hazug. So instead he lifted his staff from the floor and charged at the nearest of the alien figures with the traditional ork war cry of “Waaargh!” Hearing Drazzok’s shout, the figure ceased fighting against the two other orks attacking it and moved directly towards the charging weirdboy. Drazzok’s held his staff out in front of him, and he jabbed the end of it into a space in the figure’s structure before releasing the energy stored inside him. The figure was suddenly swamped in white lightning that cascaded across it, and has Drazzok continued to scream he saw that the figure’s surface was starting to crack. Within from those cracks there came more brilliant white light. The cracks widened as the figure’s metal body began to peel open until there was a sudden burst of light and an explosion as the alien was utterly consumed by Drazzok’s psychic attack. The blast distracted several of the orks, who turned away from the bright light and instinctively shielded their eyes. The aliens did not react to their comrade’s destruction, however, and when the orks turned away from them they struck and several more fell dead. Hazug meanwhile was continuing to rain blows down on the alien leader, who was unable to do more than crawl backwards away from the large ork and try to block his attacks with its staff. Most of Hazug’s attacks did no damage, either parried by the retreating alien or unable to pierce its armour plating. A lucky blow hit the hand that the alien was using to keep hold of its weapon, smashing its fingers and causing it to drop its weapon. Seeing his opportunity, Hazug dropped his own blade and dived onto the prone figure. He wrapped his hands around the figure’s neck; gripping it in the same way he would grip a living opponent to choke it to death. Knowing that figure did not breathe, Hazug did not attempt such a futile method of attack however, instead he used his grip to lift the alien’s head off the floor and then slam it back down against the hard stone surface. The alien tried to break his grip as he repeatedly bashed its head on the floor, with each impact the alien’s head jerked and the lights in its eyes flickered. The alien became limp beneath Hazug, and instead of continuing to slam its head against the floor, he instead pulled with all his might. There was a groaning, followed by a snapping sound as the alien figure’s head was pulled away from its body. Hazug threw the severed away from him, and he got back to his feet. Around him, the orks were still battling the strange skeletal aliens and Hazug looked for his weapon. However, rather than the blade he had cast aside, Hazug caught sight of the bladed staff that his opponent had dropped and remembering how it had killed Castus so easily, he picked it up. “Hazug! Look out!” Sophie’s warning came just in time, as an alien who had just finished off the trio of orks who had tried to kill it swung a bladed arm at him. He sidestepped the attack and, rather than slicing open his chest, the alien just caught his arm. Ignoring the pain, Hazug swung his new weapon. He felt no resistance in the swing and assumed that he had failed to hit his attacker, but as he got ready to attack for a second time he saw that the alien had been sliced in two at the waist. Its legs staggered backwards under the influence of whatever signals had been sent before they were quite literally cut off while the body floundered on the floor before it stopped moving all together. Then, as Hazug watched, a pale green light enveloped both halves of the fallen alien and they faded away. He turned to look at where he had killed the alien leader, and he saw that it too had vanished. Gripping his new weapon tightly, Hazug charged towards the nearest of the remaining alien figures and just as it was about to slice open an ork as it had clearly done to the two lying dead at its feet he rammed the tip of the weapon into its back. Again he felt no resistance, and the unexpected ease with which the blade penetrated the metal body of the alien caused Hazug to stumble slightly. As he steadied himself, Hazug saw that like the previous two aliens he had despatched, as the weapon cut its way through this one’s body it was enveloped in a greenish light and faded away leaving no trace that it had ever existed in the first place. “Where did ‘e go boss?” the ork whose life Hazug had just saved asked in amazement. “Dunno lad, but dare’s still so left for us to kill,” and he ran towards another of the alien figures. Another alien faded away as Feggit was able to jam the muzzle of his weapon under its chin and fired a burst directly into its skull, which promptly shattered from the impact of the heavy calibre bullets. In spite of these few successes the greenskins were still taking casualties, over half of the orks and most of the gretchin lay motionless on the floor, many of them missing body parts that had been cut away by the aliens’ vicious blades. Hazug reached another alien just as it impaled another ork on a set of blades that were now coated in the dark red of fresh blood. As it turned to meet Hazug’s charge he brought up the staff weapon and sliced it in two from groin to head. Now expecting the blade to slice easily he retained his footing and saw that the two halves of his opponent had faded away before they even hit the floor. Feggit’s weapon roared as he got a clear shot at an alien who had just killed the last of the orks who had attempted to mob it, and it collapsed to the floor as its left leg was shot away below the knee. Whereas any normal opponent, even a large ork, would have been at least temporarily incapacitated by such an injury, this alien instead began to drag its way across the floor towards the nearest member of the warband. This was Sophie who had spent much of the battle keeping out of the way, she was reluctant to fire her gun indiscriminately into the melee for fear of hitting one of the orks and was too afraid to try engaging any of the aliens in hand to hand combat herself. Fortunately for her, this meant that she saw the crippled alien crawling towards her, and with no orks in her line of fire she brought her gun to her shoulder and emptied the magazine into it. The alien’s head jerked about as the burst of bullets hit it, and with a ‘crack’ that was barely audible in the mayhem one of the bullets punched through one of its eyes. The crawling alien’s other eye ceased to glow and it collapsed, moments later it too faded from sight surrounded by same eerie green light as the others had done. Drazzok attempted to send a second psychic blast into one of the remaining aliens, but with the number of orks seriously depleted and his power still drained from his last attack, he could do little more than make the alien convulse as he sent as much energy through it as he could. This at least gave the other two orks attacking the alien an opportunity, and they rained blows on their temporarily helpless target. Some of their attacks struck vulnerable point, exposed wires and joints, and the alien vanished as it ceased to function. The ancient mind studied the battle and saw that it was not going well. Though they had taken a heavy toll on the intruders, only three of its troops were now left fighting. Rather than leave the remaining troops battling the intruders, the mind decided to withdraw them and investigate alternative strategies. Hazug was about to engage one of the last three alien figures that remained when all of them began to glow with the same green light that had surrounded their colleagues when they had been destroyed, and as these other figures had done, the remaining ones faded away leaving the warband staring into thin air. For a moment everyone just looked around the room in bewilderment. Then Feggit spoke up. “We is too ‘ard for ‘em, dey ran away!” and he lifted his gun over his head as he let out a cry of “Waaargh!” which the others orks joined in. While the other orks celebrated their victory, Hazug took stock of their situation. Aside from himself and Drazzok only a dozen orks remained, though he was relieved to see that the largest two, Feggit and Ghukil had both survived, and there were only four gretchin including Ratish left. Sophie still crouched on the far side of the room to where they had found the doorway, cradling her gun in her arms. “Right lads,” Hazug shouted, “pick up wot weapons ya can, and Ratish…” “Yes master?” “Start pullin’ teeth from da dead lads.” “Yes master, Ratish do it right away.” The casualties suffered by the orks meant that there were now enough guns to go around with one left spare, though Hazug was concerned at the shortage of ammunition. Each pistol armed ork had started out with two full magazines, and each of them had fired between one half and a full magazine at the metal alien skeletons as they had advanced. What was more, the high rate of fire of the larger weapon that Feggit carried had depleted the amount of ammunition remaining for that weapon also. Only he and Sophie still had more than fifty rounds left. “Dis will just ‘ave to do,” Hazug said as he made sure that ammunition was shared out equally. Then he took the spare pistol and passed it to Drazzok, “Take it,” he said, “just in case ya run out of zappin’ power again.” Silently, Drazzok took the weapon and tucked in one of his many pouches. Then Hazug spotted Castus’s headless body still lying near to the doorway, the device he had used to open the door was still grasped in his lifeless hand. Hazug strode over to the body and crouched down to take the device he had watched the now dead human use earlier, then as he was about to get up he remembered that Castus had brought more than just this one piece of machinery with him. Hazug removed the bag and stood up as he took a look inside. As he had expected, it was full of human devices with functions that he could not fathom. Instead he fastened the bag shut and turned towards Sophie, “’Ere ya go,” he said as he tossed the bag towards her, “carry dis lot.” “Wot d’ya want dat stuff for?” Drazzok asked, “Its just a bunch of mek gubbins dat ya can’t use.” “I know,” Hazug said, “but I might get a few teeth for da stuff from Batrug.” “And wot about dat fancy choppa den?” Drazzok asked indicating the alien weapon that Hazug still held. “I think I’ll hang to dis,” Hazug said, “it cuts better dan me old choppa, though it is a bit bigger I’ll give ya.” At this point the pair were interrupted by Nizz. “So is we leavin’ now?” he asked. “Leavin’?” Hazug said in amazement, “why would we be leavin’ now?” “Because dare’s no one left to smack boss,” Nizz replied. “Don’t be so daft,” Hazug said a she gave the young ork a clip around the ear, “dat lot were just guardin’ da doorway. Wot we want is through dare,” and he pointed through the doorway into the empty passage beyond.
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