Da Portal of Darkness

Chapta 18

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  Da Portal Of Darkness

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Chapta 7 

Chapta 8 

Chapta 9 

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Chapta 12 

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Chapta 18 

Chapta 19 

Chapta 20 

Chapta 21 

Chapta 22 

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“Shush,” Hazug said. Ratish and Sophie were quiet enough, as were Two Heads and Gorrid, and for the moment at least so was Drazzok despite his earlier insistence that he did not do things quietly, but all of the other orks were making far too much noise walking over the bare wooden floors for his liking. The madboys halted instantly and all began to repeat the sound to one another, making yet more noise as they tried to be the one to call for quiet the loudest.

“Thuggrim,” Hazug whispered, “keep ya lads ‘ere, everyone else follow me. Quietly.”

“Wot was dat?” Thuggrim said loudly over the sound of his madboys ‘shushing’ one another, “I didn’t ‘ear ya.”

“’E said stay ‘ere,” Drazzok shouted and he hit Thuggrim with his staff before turning to Hazug and with a smile on is face he whispered, “See, ya just needs to know ‘ow to ask ‘em to be quiet.”

“Den I reckon dat ya ought to stay ‘ere an all Drazzok,” Hazug whispered back, and Drazzok nodded his head in agreement.

Hazug crept into the next room, and was relieved to hear that the portion of the warband still following him was not making much noise. Hopefully, he thought, the racket that the madboys are making will distract anyone in here.

The room Hazug had just entered was little more than a short, narrow corridor that lead to another room at the end. But about half way along it there was a staircase that lead upwards to another floor. He beckoned to Two Heads, and the Evil Sun nob moved closer to him.

“Take ya lads straight through dare,” Hazug whispered, “check out everthin’ down ‘ere, I’ll take Sophie and Ratish upstairs.”

“Just ya git and grot?” one of Two Heads asked, before the other one added, “Ya may as well go alone.”

Hazug thought for a moment then whispered to Two Heads again.

“Den give us Gorrid,” he said, “I knows dat ‘e can move about quietly,” and both of Two Heads nodded and waved to Gorrid, indicating that he should follow Hazug up the stairs.

 

Jarr heard the sound of the staircase creaking as something heavy made its way up them. But what he really noticed as what he could not hear, unlike before there were no heavy footfalls that typically indicated the approach of orks. This suggested that it was either a gretchin or a human coming upstairs towards him. After all, he had seen one of each in the company of the group he had observed earlier. Whichever it was the first kill should be an easy one. Jarr moved as quietly as he could out of the room onto the landing, ready to meet whoever was coming up the stairs and he raised his pistol.

 

As Hazug neared the top of the stairs he heard something, for a moment he thought that it was just the sound of one of those who were following behind him, but then he realised that it had come from up ahead. He held up his hand for everyone following him to stop and he waited, listening.

Then he noticed something, one of the floorboards on the landing at the top of the stairs was loose, and he could see the end of it quivering as someone made their way along the floor carefully, as though they were trying to approach him without attracting attention.

Not good enough, he thought to himself. Carefully he positioned himself so that he could reach the landing in a single step and paused, watching the floorboard quiver. Then, in one rapid motion, he stepped onto the landing and spun around to face whoever was there.

 

The sudden appearance of the massive ork startled Jarr, he had been expecting a much smaller target, and had aligned his pistol lower in anticipation. Of course it was his own fault, had he not been wearing his mask then he probably would have smelt the approach of the ork, but it was too late to do anything about that now. Instead he raised his pistol.

In the moment’s delay that his surprise appearance bought him, Hazug swung out the hand in which he held his pistol, knocking the weapon out of his opponent’s hand. Hazug guessed that he was fighting a human, the size and proportions appeared to be correct for one, but he had never encountered one who was such an expert fighter before. Most would have tried to either retrieve their lost weapon or reach for another, this man certainly had a narrow fighting blade strapped to his leg. But instead he gracefully moved aside and delivered a blow to the back of Hazug’s hand that made him too drop his pistol to the floor where, thanks to the unreliability of most ork firearms, it discharged and sent a bullet into a far wall.

The man then leapt backwards, and only then did he draw his blade in a motion that was as smooth and effortless appearing as all of his others.

Having come here out of curiosity instead of a specific intention to do battle, Hazug saw his chance.

“Wait!” he called out in Gothic, and he lowered his blade to his side. Behind him, Gorrid, Ratish and Sophie suddenly appeared on the landing also, and he shouted to them, “’Old it,” he said. Then he turned back to the human who faced him from across the landing, “I didn’t come ‘ere to fight ya,” he said in Gothic once more.

Jarr stared at the group before him, a more motley assortment of opponents he had never encountered, a pair of orks, a gretchin and a young woman who appeared to be wearing only a towel. Then he felt a twinge from his side, it seemed that the medication he had taken was starting to wear off. For the moment at least he decided that perhaps it would be better to talk to the ork. Still holding his fighting knife at the ready, Jarr lifted up his mask, and immediately the putrid smell of the orks filled his nostrils.

“You speak Gothic?” he said.

“Aye,” Hazug replied, “I learned it from some of ya trader’s wot used to come ‘ere years ago.”

Jarr made the connection immediately.  Octus Saval, the Rogue Trader who had been contracted to deliver hi to this world had visited it before, and he must have dealt with the ork before him. Perhaps, Jarr thought, I can persuade him to deal with me also. The alternative was to fight, and he could already hear the sound of more orks starting to rush up the stairs, attracted no doubt by the gunshot. Then he suddenly passed out.

 

When Jarr opened his eyes he found himself in the bedroom where he had set up his camp, and surprisingly all of his weapons were present. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, but the sun was beginning to set in the sky outside the window. He would need to be leaving for the webway gate soon if he was to complete his mission. There was a sound from the doorway, and Jarr looked over to see the young woman enter the room. Instead of the towel she been wrapped in the last time he saw her, she now wore a shirt and trousers that looked too large for her.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Sophie said to Jarr, indicating her clothes, “but Hazug found these in your pack and thought I’d be better off wearing them than the towel.”

“They’re not mine anyway,” Jarr said, sitting up on the bed, “I found them here, they must have belonged to the people who owned this place,” then he remembered what had happened before he passed out, and how the young woman in front of him apparently worked for the orks on this planet, “So who are you anyway? And who’s Hazug?”

“My name’s Sophie, and Hazug is the ork I work for, the large one you saw on the landing. What about you? You obviously aren’t from around here.”

“So you do work for the aliens,” Jarr said, avoiding answering Sophie’s question, “Why?”

An elderly man named Castus she and Hazug had encountered in the desert on another continent had asked Sophie that question the previous year, and it demonstrated further that this man was not from this planet.

“Because the orks treat us better than the man who ran this world for the Imperium ever did,” she answered as she sat down on a chair by the bed, “the man whose soldiers kidnapped me.”

“Governor Venris Highbalt,” Jarr interrupted, “I came here to kill him.”

Sophie was visibly surprised at this, Castus had suggested that the actions of governor Highbalt while in office had not been consistent with the standards expected of him by the Imperium, but she did not see why the Imperium would take an interest in him now when they did nothing while he was killing his own people.

“Why would you want him dead?” she asked.

“What I want is irrelevant,” Jarr replied, “I’ve been ordered to kill him because the Inquisition has intelligence that he’s about to gain an inordinate amount of power that will make him a threat.”

Sophie suddenly remembered what Rhia had been saying while they were both held captive, about how the former governor and the giant soldiers now working for him were planning something terrible for this world, something that was going to cause the deaths of a lot of people.

“We have to tell Hazug,” she said.

 

Venris Highbalt had not seen the eldar webway portal in person before. Until recently he had never even suspected that the ancient mechanism even existed on his world. Of course, had he know about while he ruled this world he would have destroyed it to prevent the decadent witches of that ancient species coming here, and he reflected on how it was in fact a good thing that he had not known about the gateway given that was shortly to become the means by which he would reclaim not only his rightful place as ruler here, but also give him the power to reach out and claim more worlds for himself.

His attention was suddenly drawn towards the sound of screaming from one of the trucks parked around the area. Turning to face the source of the sound he saw a pair of his men lifting one of his former agents, Rhia out of the back of the vehicle as she desperately struggled in a vain attempt to get free. Venris Highbalt grinned; he had always enjoyed watching the terror in his captives’ faces when they were being taken to their deaths. Whether Rhia knew how painful and drawn out hers was going to be, the former governor had no idea, but he was going to enjoy watching it happen non-the less.

“Bring her here,” a deep voice called out from by the webway portal, and Venris turned once again to see the massive bulk of Nillotep the Thousand Sun sorcerer now standing beside ht base of the eldar structure with a long and narrow knife in his hand. Obediently, the two soldiers carried Rhia towards her fate.

The soldiers set Rhia down on the ground at Nillotep’s feet and as they stepped back away from the marine he brought the knife down. Rhia screamed again, expected the blade to be plunged into her body, but instead Nillotep moved his knife along the length of her body and sliced open the straight cape without once piercing her skin. With her bonds now released, Rhia made an attempt to run. But before she could even get to her feet she was seized by Nillotep and pushed against the webway gate.

“Bind her,” Nillotep said to one of the Word Bearer marines who stood nearby, and the second armoured warrior stepped forwards with a set of manacles that he used to secure Rhia’s arms around the webway gate so that she stood facing the structure. As the Word Bearer stepped away, Nillotep swung his knife again and cut down the length of Rhia’s shirt to expose her back. Only after this did he use the knife on Rhia herself.

She screamed as the point of the blade was pulled slowly down her back by Nillotep as he chanted in a language that she couldn’t understand, one that sounded like no human should be able to form the words of. The knife did not go deep however; instead it just scrapped at Rhia’s flesh deep enough for the blade to come away covered in her blood. Nillotep then pressed the tip of the knife against the webway gate to which Rhia was bound and scrapped it across it, still chanting in the inhuman tongue, and forming narrow grooves in the bone like material that became filled with the blood that now ran off the blade. When the blood ceased to flow form the blade, Nillotep dragged it over Rhia’s flesh once more before returning to the webway gate and etching more bizarre shapes on it in blood.

“So this will sever the gate from the passages beyond it then?” Highbalt asked Krixus as the Word Bearer stood beside the man.

“No,” Krixus answered,” the pain that Nillotep inflicts on the sacrifice serves to attract our patron to this place. When he arrives he will devour the woman’s soul and use that energy to break the link between the gateway and what lies beyond it.”

Highbalt grinned. Soon, he thought, he would be given more power than the administration of the false Emperor had ever given to him.

“In the meantime governor,” Krixus continued, “you must deploy your men around us.”

“Why?” Highalt asked the traitor marine, “why not use your own men?”

“Because I have only eleven warriors left governor, and Nillotep requires our presence here for his ritual to allow our patron access to this dimension. The orks we encountered earlier are likely to still be in the area, so we must take precautions against them stumbling onto our location and disrupting the ritual. Not to mention the Imperial agent my men engaged, we never found a body so must assume that he is still a threat to us, more so than an ork warband even.”

Highbalt nodded in agreement.

“Of course you’re right,” he said and he beckoned to one of his men, “Captain come here,” he called out to the man, “I have orders for you.”

 

Sophie helped Jarr down the stairs to where the ork warband was. The Imperial assassin had never been this close to orks before now, and he was unsure of how they would react. The one that seemed to be their leader, the one that Sophie had referred to as Hazug, was obviously of the Blood Axe clan, that element of ork society the would co-operate with humanity if it served a common purpose or, more often, if they were being paid to do so, so he was fairly sure that he would listen. But the other orks remained an unknown factor to him. Most of them, including a large mutant creature with two heads, wore clothing adorned with the colour red, suggesting that they were part of the cult of speed while the remainder wore a motley collection of mismatched colours giving Jarr no clue to how they thought.

“Is ‘e urt bad?” Hazug asked Sophie in orkish as she assisted Jarr to sit down.

“I don’t know,” she answered, so Hazug looked at Jarr instead.

“Is ya ‘urt bad?” he asked in Gothic.

“I’m bleeding internally,” the assassin answered, “I can control it for a time, but I’ll not last much more than a day or two at the most without proper medical attention.”

“Sophie says ya needs to tell us somethin’,” Hazug said to Jarr, “Somethin’ about da human wot took ‘er causin’ trouble for us.”

“The former governor is central to events unfolding here,” Jarr replied, “I don’t know what they are, but they will bring him a great deal of power if he isn’t killed.”

“Rhia said something similar,” Sophie added, also speaking in Gothic so that Jarr could understand what she was saying, “she said that the governor was a cultist, and he was going to use an attack on the airbase to distract you while he sacrificed us.”

“That fits with the traitor marines I saw,” Jarr commented, “they must be here to help with whatever ritual is being planned.”

“Rhia didn’t mention where dis ritual was goin’ to be did she?” Hazug asked Sophie.

“No she didn’t,” answered Sophie, shaking her head, “I don’t know if she knew or not.”

“Den we should ‘ead back to da city den,” Hazug said, “we needs to warn warboss Kromag about da attack on da airbase. If dey needs to do dat as a distraction den dis ritual must be obvious enough for us to se it when its ‘appenin’.”
”I think I may know,” Jarr said, interrupting, “my information points towards an eldar webway gate being important. I was there earlier.”
”Den ya can take us dare again,” Hazug said.

“Yes I can, “Jarr agreed, “and I think we should go there as soon as possible.”

Hazug turned to the other orks who had been sat listening, even though none of them had understood anything said, though several of the madboys had leant closer just in case that helped.

“Da human wot took Sophie is plannin’ somethin’ big,” Hazug explained, “and dis human is goin’ to take us to where it’s ‘appenin’ so we can stop ‘im.”

“I don’t know about dis Hazug,” one of Two Heads said, “Sophie’s one thing cause she belongs to ya, but we don’t know dis other git. Who is ‘e?”

Hazug turned to Jarr.

“Who are ya anyway?” he said.

“Jarr, of the Vindicare temple of the Officio Assassinorum.”

“’Is name is Jarr,” Hazug repeated in orkish, “and ‘e’s ‘ere to kill da git wot we is goin’ after. Da humans sent ‘im all da way ‘ere to get dis other one.”

“Why would anyone be sent anywhere just to kill one git?” one of the Evil Suns asked.

“Because dat git is important,” Drazzok said suddenly, and everyone present looked towards him, “Hazug aint da only one to know about gits ya know,” the weirdboy continued, “and I ‘ave seen ‘em send someone to kill someone dats real special, more dan one waaargh ‘as come to a sudden ‘alt because of dat.”

“Exactly,” Hazug said, somewhat surprised at Drazzok’s intervention, “so does anyone ‘ere reckon dat we should let some human wot reckons ‘e is so important keep wanderin’ about? Or should we kill ‘im?”

“Kill ‘im!” the orks shouted back almost as one, and they waved their weapons in the air as they did so. Then they cried out a single word.

“Waaargh!”

Hazug turned to Jarr and in gothic he spoke to the man.

“I reckon dey’ll ‘elp,” he said.

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