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Da Portal of Darkness Chapta 5 | |
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Da Portal Of Darkness Chapta 5 |
Mek Batrug made it quite clear before he began his search of the wreckage that anything he found in there belonged to him to offset the cost of borrowing the force field system from his neighbour, and now Hazug and Drazzok stood by Hazug’s truck watching as the mekboy and his gretchin servants scoured the area for any indication what caused the explosion. Behind them Hazug’s servants all sat in the truck itself, Hazug had noticed that Rhia kept glancing towards the group of humans led by the man Thayne at the end of the street, but he thought nothing of it. Hazug only took an interest in them when Thayne left them to speak with him. “This is all that is left,” Thayne told Hazug, “sixteen of us with side arms only and no transport.” “Well at least ya got Batrug figurin’ out wot ‘appened ‘ere,” Hazug said to Thayne in Gothic, “den ya can get to work puttin’ ya mob back together.” Thayne suddenly remembered the handkerchief. “About what happened here,” he said, taking the handkerchief from his pocket, “I shot whoever killed my man Edris, and I think that this is his blood. But it doesn’t look like any blood I’ve ever seen,” and he held out the handkerchief, displaying the bright red stain where he had wiped it against the liquid on the wall, “Whoever it was, they were huge, and they survived being shot and a fall from three floors up.” Hazug took the handkerchief and stared at it. He had seen plenty of blood in his life, orks, other greenskins, humans and a variety of other aliens, but he had never seen any that as this bright before. “Wot d’ya reckon to dis Drazzok,” Hazug said, passing the handkerchief towards the weirdboy. At more than thirty years old, Drazzok was one of the oldest orks on the planet, and had seen a great deal, “Thayne ‘ere says dat its blood from somethin’ big dat don’t die when ya shoot it.” Drazzok looked at the bloodstain, and a frown appeared on his face. “Ya do dis every time don’t ya,” he said to Hazug, “Ya gets me in
trouble.” “Its blood alright,” Drazzok said, “its from one of dem beaky gits, da big lads in da ‘ard armour.” Hazug knew exactly what Drazzok was talking about, every ork knew of the Imperium’s elite space marines, though only a few ever saw one. Fewer still survived an encounter with then. “What did he say?” Thayne asked when Hazug pulled the bloodstained handkerchief away from the weirdboy. “If wot ‘e says is right den it means dat we is in trouble,” Hazug replied, “It means dat we is in a lot of trouble.” “Do you think he’s right?” Hazug paused. Drazzok had been around far longer than he had, but it would be foolish to base a strategy purely on his initial impression from seeing nothing more than a small patch of blood on a piece of cloth. Though the description given by Thayne of a massive individual who was difficult to kill with close range gunfire certain matched what Hazug knew of space marines. “Found it!” The shout came from the walled courtyard beside the police station, and mek Batrug came striding out of the shattered gateway holding something in his hand. “Dis is da trigger for da bomb,” he said, holding the device up for Hazug to see, “I reckon dat it was stuck to da fuel tank of one of da wagons wot was kept back dare and wired into da startin’ mechanism so dat it blew up as soon as da engine was turned on. Would ‘ave made a nice big fireball dat would ‘ave burnt up da other wagons and da buildin’ too.” “Somebody got to ya wagons,” Hazug repeated to Thayne in Gothic so that the lawman could understand. “That doesn’t really help us too much,” said Thayne, “We keep the courtyard locked at night, but that wouldn’t stop someone from getting over the wall using the darkness for cover. Can your friend tell us any more?” “’Ang on, I’ll ask,” Hazug said before turning to mek Batrug and switching back to the ork language, “D’ya know anythin’ else?” he asked. “Only dat dis is a dead good bomb,” the mekboy answered, “I reckon dat da ‘splosive bit was real small, cos otherwise da gits would ‘ave seen it.” “Could da humans ‘ave made dis ‘splosive demselves?” Hazug asked. “Nah,” Batrug replied, “ya needs special machinery to make ‘splosives like dis, and dare aint none of dat ‘ere in Git Town. So either it was one of our lads wot made it or…” “Or dare’s someone bringin’ stuff in from another planet,” Hazug interrupted, and he threw a glance at Drazzok. “Told ya,” the weirdboy said grinning, his ‘told you so’ face, “Dare’s beakies about,” using the orkish slang term for space marines that came from the distinctive pointed faceplates on some types of marine helmets. “I needs to ‘ang to dis,” Hazug told Thayne, reverting to Gothic once more, and he tucked the handkerchief into his own pocket, “Now wot was ya sayin’ about ya lads earlier?” “Well what you see is all that’s left,” Thayne replied, “I had almost fifty officers and three vehicles. We had mainly small arms, but it was enough to keep things under control. Now we’ve barely got a pistol each.” Hazug considered this for a moment, he doubted that whoever had destroyed the police station intended to do nothing more than cause trouble in Git Town, especially if space marines really were responsible for the explosion. So that meant that it would probably be a good idea if Thayne’s force had better weaponry available to them. “Come ‘ere,” Hazug told Thayne, and he beckoned the lawman to follow him to the rear of his truck. Once there, Hazug reached into the vehicle and picked up the pair of lasguns that still rested there. Cradling the weapons in one arm, Hazug removed some of the spare energy cells from the bandoliers wrapped around each weapon so that there was just one in each, plus the cells actually loaded in the weapons. “Take dese,” Hazug said, handing the lasguns to Thayne, “I’ve just given ya one spare battery for each cos I know dey is worth a lot of money. I ‘ear dey recharge demselves if ya put ‘em in da light or somewhere warm so ya shouldn’t need any more for dese two zappas.” Thayne took the lasguns, slinging them over his shoulder. He didn’t really know what to say, the two weapons represented a significant boost for his force, aside from the machine guns that had been mounted on the now destroyed vehicles they offered greater firepower than anything else that they had ever possessed. He would, of course, have preferred to have more spare ammunition for the guns, but Hazug was right about them being self recharging and also about their value. A handful of them, apparently sold to a local trader by Hazug himself, were being to power vital equipment in the hospital that had previously been out of service for lack of a power source since the ork invasion. Hazug was about to put the energy cells back in his truck when mek Batrug called out to him. “’Ang on a mo Hazug,” he shouted, and he made his way to the vehicle that he had arrived in, “ya goin’ to need a couple of dem.” The mekboy returned clutching something long and thin that was wrapped in a dirty blanket. “I got ya choppa workin’,” mek Batrug said, smiling, and he removed the blanket, throwing it over his shoulder. The weapon that mek Batrug held out towards Hazug had a long, thin blade mounted at the end of a pole about the same height as Thayne. Hazug had taken the weapon from an alien leader that he had fought in an underground complex hidden on a continent across the ocean from here. Another one of the aliens had referred to it as a warscythe. The weapon had proved to possess unnatural cutting capabilities, slicing through even the toughest of armour effortlessly. But when Hazug had destroyed the alien complex with a bomb far more powerful than the one that had destroyed the police station this morning, it had the effect of not only shutting down the entire army of metallic alien warriors, but it also stopped the warscythe from cutting through anything so easily. “Give us one of dem batteries,” mek Batrug said, and Hazug handed him one of the spare lasgun energy cells. Hazug now noticed that mek Batrug had added some parts to the warscythe. A long cable trailed a short distance from near the bladed head of the weapon down its handle to a socket that was firmly clamped around it. There was a ‘click’ as the mekboy inserted the energy cell into the socket. “’Ere ya go,” mek Batrug said, passing the warscythe to Hazug, “Ya press da button below da battery to turn da choppa on,” and he pointed at a bright red button mounted next to the socket, “Only use when ya really need it though, cos it’ll really run down da battery if ya keep it on all da time.” “’E’s stuffed it up!” Drazzok suddenly shouted, “Wot good is a choppa dat runs out of ammo?” Hazug took the warscythe from mek Batrug and felt the weight of it. It was a heavy weapon, but it didn’t feel any different to when he had first taken it as a trophy. He pressed the button to activate the blade, and there was a soft hum as it charged up. Then Hazug swung the weapon in an arc, with the blade pointing towards the ground, and watched with glee as it cut a deep groove in the surface of the road without his noticing any resistance. Hazug held the weapon vertically again and turned off the blade. “It’ll do,” he said, staring at the blade, “Job’s a good ‘un.” “Well if dare’s nought else I is goin’ to gather up wotever scrap I can find,” mek Batrug said to Hazug, and he paused until Hazug nodded in agreement at which point he turned and walked back to the remains of the police station and began yelling at his gretchin, telling them to start gathering up anything that looked useful. Hazug turned back to Thayne who was still beside him. “I is goin’ to go and see if I can find someone to tell us wot dat stuff on ya rag is,” he said, “Batrug is stayin’ put with ‘is grots while he loots everythin’ ‘e can. I’ll be back later when I finds out anythin’ more. Go tell ya lads to get back to work,” then, as Thayne returned to his men, Hazug spoke to Drazzok, “Right, let’s be getting’ out of ‘ere.” “At last,” Drazzok replied, and he began to climb back into Hazug’s truck, “Dare is too many gits around ‘ere,” then he remembered that the truck had been full on the journey here, but that it certainly was not now, “’Ang on a mo, “ the weirdboy said slowly, “where’s Thuggrim and ‘is lads got to?” “What’s going on chief?” one of Thayne’s men asked when he returned to the group of survivors standing at the end of the street. “The orks are leaving,” Thayne replied, “that engineseer of theirs has confirmed that someone planted a bomb on one of ours vehicles.” “Do the orks have any idea who did it?” Jaris asked. “No, but whoever it is, the ork leader, Hazug, is worried about them. That’s why he’s given us these,” and Thayne took the pair of lasguns from over his shoulder. He passed one weapon to two his men, along with a spare energy cell each. “Take these,” he said,” I want you two to go the market and keep an eye on things there. Make sure people know that we’re still around. Everyone else with me, we’re going to go and see the trader’s association to find out what they can offer us.” “Ya sure dat it was Hazug?” Warboss Kazkal Kromag asked the human who stood nervously before him in his throne room. The man had worked for the ork chieftain for some time now, though exactly how long it had been the ork neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was that he did his job and knew his place. So when he came to the warboss and told him that he had seen the last Blood Axe on the planet, one of the warboss’s inner circle poking about at the scene of a large explosion in Git Town, Kazkal wanted to know more about what was going on in his capital city. “I’m sure lord,” the human replied in good orkish, “he had his female servants with him,” the man used the human word ‘female’ since there was no equivalent in orkish, but Kazkal knew what he meant. “Well Skargak?” Kazkal asked, now looking at another of his inner circle. This ork was large, even for a nob, though he was still smaller than warboss Kromag himself. Had he been any larger then it would be inevitable that the pair would fight one another for command, but for now the black-clad Goff was used by the Bad Moon as an enforcer who kept violence in the city to an acceptable level. “Me lads said dey saw ‘im drivin’ into Git Town boss,” Skargak answered, “and dey said dat ‘e was with dat Snake Bite weirdo and Thuggrim da Mad.” “Thuggrim? Da one wot keeps ‘is eye in bag?” warboss Kromag exclaimed, “Wot’s Hazug doin’ with dat nutter?” “Dunno boss,” Skargak answered, shrugging, “But me lads said dat ‘e was on da gun when Hazug drove past ‘em, and dare was a bunch of other madboys sat in da back of ‘is truck.” “Hmm,” the warboss said, leaning back in his throne and rubbing his china s he thought, “maybe madboys is da only ones who’d go into Git Town with ‘im.” There was murmuring from the assembled orks, complementing their leader’s great wisdom and denouncing Hazug as little better than a madboy himself. “Shut up!” Kromag bellowed, and the assembled orks ceased their chattering immediately. The handful of humans present, even though most were used to their employer’s sudden outbursts, all jumped with shock at the unexpected noise. “Right den Skargak,“ the warboss said, more calmly now, “I wants ya to Hazug’s place and wait for ‘im dare. When ‘e gets back bring ‘im ‘ere, I wants to know wot ‘e’s up to dis time.” “Right boss,” Skargak replied, and he turned and barged his way through the other assembled orks and out of the throne room. Jarr opened his eyes suddenly as his vessel sounded an alarm. Swiftly, he checked all of the displays for the reason for the sound. No faults were being reported, and there were no ork vessels near enough for him to be under attack. Then he looked at the navigation panel, and saw that the vessel was approaching the atmosphere of Crasus Minor. Jarr checked his harness to make sure that it was secure, and then leant back in his seat. The small craft began to shake violently as it entered the atmosphere, and the friction from the air as the craft flew through it in a ballistic trajectory began to heat it up. Much of this heat was kept out by the structure of the craft, but still the cabin in which Jarr sat heated up noticeably. Suddenly another alarm sounded, and Jarr braced himself. Moments later the chair in which Jarr sat dropped through the cabin floor and the Imperial assassin found himself propelled out of the dimly lit cabin and into the bright sunshine outside. Seconds later the chair fell away and Jarr was in freefall. He straightened out his legs, keeping them together, pressed his arms against his sides and let himself fall towards the ground. Inside his facemask a display activated and his altitude was shown to him clearly, and he watched as the numbers decreased rapidly as he grew closer and closer to the ground. When the display showed that his altitude was ten thousand metres, Jarr braced himself again, and then when his altitude reached two thousand metres he felt a sudden strong tug upwards as his parawing deployed from the pack on his back. He reached out as the control handles of the parawing folded out beneath him, and after checking that the device had deployed correctly, he began to pilot the lightweight flying apparatus towards a suitable landing site. For a brief moment he looked to his left and saw the fiery trail of the spacecraft that had brought him here as it continued to fall towards its destruction in the ocean. Then Jarr turned his attention to finding a suitable landing site. He wanted to avoid any settlements, but fortunately for him, it appeared that there were none in his immediate vicinity anyway. But then he caught sight of a small cluster of buildings. Jarr guessed that this was some sort of farmstead. This could be good news, he could easily overpower the small number of inhabitants that such a place was likely to have, and then use the buildings as shelter for himself. As the parawing continued its gentle descent, Jarr steered it towards the farm. As he came lower, Jarr saw that the buildings appeared to be of human construction rather than ork built. This was unfortunate, Jarr was quite prepared to kill anyone, human or xenos, whose death would advance his mission, but the death of an innocent human who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time was not something he wanted to be responsible for. Imperial assassins were trained killers, not murderers after all. The parawing landed in a field next to the farm buildings, and Jar rapidly detached himself and his equipment pack from it. His rifle had been dismantled for the drop, and rather than waste time reassembling it, he dropped his pack, drew his sidearm and dashed towards the nearest building with it raised in front of him. Now that he was on the ground, Jarr could see that the farm buildings were in a poor state of repair. This was good news; it made any current inhabitation less likely. Less likely did not mean impossible however, and Jarr paused when he reached he farm’s perimeter wall and took cover behind the simple stone barrier. “West.” Jarr stopped suddenly at the sound. The voice had been clear in his head, but he not determine the direction from which it came. “Look to the west.” Jarr turned full circle, sweeping his pistol around as he searched for the source of the voice. Then he remembered the talisman that inquisitor Rell had given him. A great deal of eldar technology worked by psychic means and it appeared that the talisman worked that way also. He reached for the talisman that hung around his neck and held it in his hand, staring at it. “The gateway is to the west,” the mysterious voice in his head said, and behind his mask, Jarr smiled. It actually works, he thought to himself before he tucked the talisman back in his webbing and got back to the task of searching the farm. He crept along the length of the wall until he reached the point where it drew closest to one of the buildings. He leapt over the wall and ran for the building. At this distance Jarr began to get the impression that the damage to the building had been inflicted recently rather than as a result of long-term neglect. In addition to broken and missing windows, the walls were marked by clusters of small holes that were the distinctive calling card of someone using a projectile weapon to shoot in shorts bursts of automatic fire. Initially Jarr believed this to be the work of orks, but when he burst through the doorway he discovered something that challenged this belief. Had Jarr not been masked, then he probably would have smelt the bodies he found, but as it was his sense of smell was limited. They had been dead for some time, and decomposition was advanced. Had they been killed by orks; then the greenskins would likely have eaten the bodies afterwards. Even if the orks did not decide to consume them themselves, then any one of the other smaller subspecies would have found the dead humans a tempting meal. While humans looked on the consumption other sentient creatures, even those of other species, with disgust, most varieties of greenskins took a more pragmatic view and rarely let good meat go to waste. Keeping his pistol at the ready, Jarr made his way through the farm. He found no more bodies, apparently the occupants had either gathered together themselves, or they had been brought together by force before they were killed, but he did find something else that was significant. Beside the bodies was a footprint in what had once been a pool of blood. The print came from a boot that had seen better days, its tread was severely worn, but the pattern was familiar to Jarr, he had seen such tracks many times. Every time he had been deployed near anyone who was supplied by the Adeptus Munitorum in fact. The boots were standard issue to all of the Imperium’s fighting forces. The inhabitants of this farm had been killed by other humans. Satisfied that the area was secure, Jarr holstered his pistol and went to retrieve both his equipment pack and the now useless parawing. From the pack he removed a folding shovel and began to dig in the ground behind the farm. The purpose of his digging was two fold, firstly he needed to dispose of the parawing before someone found it, and secondly he would give the people who died here a proper burial.
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