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Da Portal of Darkness Chapta 21 | |
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Da Portal Of Darkness Chapta 21 |
“Can’t we do something?” Sophie said in Gothic. She was lay in between Thuggrim and Jarr, all three of them observing the battle going on below using the various optics they had available. “They’re too close together and moving too fast,” Jarr answered, “I can’t be sure of who I’d hit if I fired into that. If I see Highbalt I’ll take a shot regardless, but until then I’m waiting for a clear target. The only other option would be to actually go down there and join in.” Sophie deactivated the tau viewing device and stuffed it into a pocket, then she drew the autopistol and checked that it was loaded. “Wotcha doin’?” Thuggrim asked as Sophie got up. “I’m going to help,” she answered him, “Are you coming?” “Hazug said we was all to wait ‘ere,” Thuggrim said. “Well I’m going to go and ask if we can go down there and help then.” “’Ang on den,” Thuggrim said, also getting to his feet, “I wants to ask dat too.” Jarr watched as the woman and the ork strode across open ground towards the battle below. His speciality was long-range killing, a job best done from back here, but he was adept at close combat too. Jarr sighed and stood up, leaving his rifle on the ground. Then he drew his pistol and sprinted after Sophie and Thuggrim. Nillotep was surprised at the amount of power that the ork shaman had been able to put into his attack. If it had been more focused Nillotep would have undoubtedly been killed, but the crude nature of the attack had reduced its effectiveness and his armour had done its job and protected him from the blow. However, he had lost his staff when he was hurled through the air and as he got to his feet he looked around to try and find it. The staff had landed sooner than he had, travelling only about two thirds of the distance but in the same path. Before Nillotep could set off to retrieve the staff he saw the unmistakeable form of the ork shaman running headlong towards him beyond it. Nillotep reached for his bolt pistol, only to find that his holster was empty, the gun also having been lost when he was thrown through the air. Rather than waste time looking for the pistol, Nillotep instead decide to try and retrieve his staff and he ran towards it, hoping to reach it before the ork did. As he closed on the staff, Nillotep dived through the air, deliberately this time, and he reached out for the staff. He had judged his leap perfectly, and as he slid to a halt on the ground Nillotep felt his hand wrap around the handle of his staff. But he was too slow, and before he could lift either himself or the staff from the ground, Drazzok slammed a foot down on the staff also. Nillotep let go of the staff and rolled sideways as Drazzok brought his own staff down where the sorcerer had been lay. With a kick of his foot, Nillotep sent Drazzok’s staff from his grip and it flew into the darkness. Then he leapt to his feet. “Now neither of us is armed greenskin,” Nillotep hissed, but then he realised his mistake, while he used his staff as a method of channelling his psychic powers into an attack, ork weirdboys more often used theirs to dissipate the energy that they focused safely. Removing the staff from one simply meant that the power had nowhere to go. Drazzok lunged at Nillotep with his arms outstretched. “Come ‘ere beaky,” Drazzok snapped, and before the sorcerer could react he clamped a hand on each side of Nillotep’s crested helmet. Then he let his power drain away. Nillotep screamed in agony as Drazzok poured his power directly into his head. The display of his helmet flickered as systems overheated and failed, then his vision turned red as the delicate blood vessels in his eyes burst open shortly before the fluid in his eyeballs began to boil. Only his enhanced physiology prevented Nillotep’s eardrums from bursting and deafening him, and instead he heard the sizzling sound of his flesh starting to cook before his agony ended in death. Drazzok felt the marine go limp, and he was unable to support the enormous weight of the massive warrior and his armour. Instead he let go and dropped to the ground along with the dead sorcerer, without his staff the best way to dissipate his power was to press his hands against the ground. “Drazzok, here take this,” a voice suddenly called out from the darkness, and Drazzok looked up to see Sophie coming towards him with his staff. Close behind, Thuggrim and Jarr followed her. “Nice one,” Drazzok said, reaching out and taking his staff from Sophie, and he used the staff to help him stand, “Wotcha doin’ ‘ere though?” his asked. “We couldn’t do anything form back there,” Sophie said, “so we’ve come down here to help.” “Den we best get a move on,” Drazzok said. Hazug sliced another marine in half, just as he was about to do the same thing to Gorrid. “Watch out lad,” Hazug said while Gorrid picked himself up. A sudden chill went down Hazug’s back, and he realised that he was standing right by the energy sphere eldar webway gate, and something looked different about it. The glowing sphere had grown to be bigger than an ork now, and Hazug was certain that he saw something moving in the darkness. Something that had just come from out of the gate. What he definitely saw was his own breath as he exhale, though the weather was not nearly cold enough to cause that. Then a snapping sound from behind Hazug caught his attention, and he turned just in time to see Two Heads ripping the head from a marine that had his axe embedded in his neck. He turned again when he heard the sound of a pistol shot and he saw Ratish roll beneath a human vehicle to escape a marine that wielded a weapon that resembled an ornate club with a glowing end. Hazug decide that this was his next target, and he charged. Meanwhile Jerile and Xerxan were beginning to see their opponents movements become slower as they began to tire themselves out, and Jerile chanced a lunge forwards that sliced the arm from a madboy. The ork screamed and staggered back from the combat, clamping a hand over the bloody stump of his limb. But the reduction in the number of their opponents was short lived as Two Heads charged into them. Approaching from the side the large ork did not lash out, instead he just use his own weight that was roughly equal to a marine in his armour to bash the two marines apart. The orks surrounding them then all piled in, instead of attacking with their weapons they grabbed hold of the marines’ arms, keeping their weapons pointed away from the orks. With great effort, Jerile pulled his arm loose from the grip that an ork had on it and he brought the pistol he held in that hand around to point at the ork holding the other one. But the shot that rang out did not come from his pistol, instead it came from Jarr’s, and the powerful round split Jerile’s chestplate open before it destroyed one of his hearts. A moment later Jarr followed up the shot with a second one and Jerile died as his secondary heart failed also. Xerxan lived only a short while longer, unable to shake either arm loose, he was helpless when Two Heads picked himself up and rushed back to where the orks held the marine down. Two Heads lifted his boot and stamped down on Xerxan’s exposed neck, his head jerked backwards suddenly and there a ‘snap’ as his neck broke from the blow. Krixus turned just in time to see the last of his marines die at the hands of the orks, ignoring the gretchin that had just fled beneath the vehicle now at his back. Amongst the greenskins he caught sight of the shaman that he had last seen running into the darkness after Nillotep, and he concluded that the Thousand Son sorcerer must also be dead. That left just him facing the entire warband. Even worse he saw the unmistakable form of the agent of the Officio Assassinorum fighting along side the aliens. Krixus knew that his enemies would charge him imminently, and he drew his bolt pistol and prepared to meet them head on. There was the sound of a gunshot from below, and Krixus felt the pain as a bullet penetrated the weak point at his ankle. No longer able to support his own weight, his leg gave way, and Krixus dropped to his knees, letting go of his bolt pistol and using that hand to grab hold of the vehicle beside him to prevent himself from falling all the way to the ground. It was obviously the gretchin that had shot him, and Krixus caught sight of the creature as it retreated back beneath the vehicle. The chaplain reached out swiftly, and grabbed hold of Ratish’s leg before he could get away and dragged him out from beneath the vehicle. Ratish squealed as he looked up at Krixus, and behind his mask the chaplain grinned as he raised his crozius arcanum up above his head ready to deliver a killing blow. Krixus swung his arm down, aiming to strike Ratish’s head with his powerful weapon. But there was something wrong, part way through the swing, Krixus realised that he was no longer holding the crozius arcanum. Then he corrected himself, he had not lost his weapon, but part of his arm, and he saw that the limb had been neatly severed midway between wrist and elbow. Already his enhanced metabolism was sealing the wound. He had no idea what sort of weapon could inflict such an injury with so little effort that he did not even notice when it occurred. Krixus looked up, and he saw Hazug standing over him with his warscythe held in front of him. “Dat grot,” Hazug said in gothic, “is mine,” and he rammed the warscythe’s blade into Krixus’s chest. Hazug pulled the weapon free immediately, and Krixus slumped at his feet. The dying marine turned his head slightly and before his life finally slipped away he spoke. “My lord,” he gasped, “I am your loyal apostle,” and then the dark gods he sold his soul to so long ago finally got what they had paid for. “Wot was dat about?” one of Two Heads asked Hazug as he walked over to him. “I reckon dat ‘e was admitin’ dat I was better dan ‘im,” Hazug replied. “Well dat was obvious,” Two Heads said back, his heads nodding up and down alternately, “ya is an ork for starters.” “Actually,” Venris Highbalt said in fluent orkish, “I rather think that he was talking to me.” |
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