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Da Portal of Darkness Chapta 6 | |
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Da Portal Of Darkness Chapta 6 |
The painboy’s face fell when he saw Hazug standing in his waiting room. “Sod off git lover!” he yelled, and he slammed his surgery door shut. Hazug strode to the door and banged on it with his fist. “I just want ya to take a look at somethin’,” he shouted through the door. “Ya just wanted dok Brok to look at somethin’ an’ all,” the painboy shouted back through the door, “and it got ‘im killed.” It was widely known amongst the local painboys that dok Brok had been hired by Hazug to study the corpse of an ork that had attacked him to try and discover why he been so difficult to kill. “Dat was different,” Hazug said, his voice not as loud as before, but still loud enough for the painboy to hear him on the other side of the door. “’Ow was it different?” “Dat was an entire body, dis is just a bit of blood. ‘Ow can a bit of blood kill ya?” “D’ya want a list? Cos I knows lots of ways.” “I just wants to know wot da blood came from.” “Dare’ll be blood comin’ from me if I aint careful. More dan I can spare.” Hazug knew that he was getting nowhere fast like this, and he decided to gamble on deception. The painboy may not have been sufficiently intimidated by Hazug’s own superior size, but there was an ork that was big enough to intimidate every other greenskin on the planet, even if that particular knew nothing about what was going on. “Fine den,” Hazug called through the door, “I’ll go and tell da boss dat ya refused to ‘elp ‘im.” The door to the surgery suddenly opened a crack, and Hazug saw the painboy peering at him through the gap. “Da boss?” he repeated, “Dat would be Kazkal Kromag right?” “Ya know another boss?” “Wot about Fangpulla? Don’t ‘e normally do dis sort of stuff for Kromag?” Hazug had to think fast, Fangpulla was the most senior painboy in the tribe, and he served as the personal physician to the warboss as well as advising him on all matters regarding health and the medical sciences. “Da boss wants a second opinion,” Hazug answered, remembering that he had heard the term used among painboys on occasion. “Well why didn’t ya say so earlier den?” the painboy said, opening the door fully and beckoning to Hazug to come into his surgery. Hazug grinned as he walked through the door, not so much in gratitude but rather because he had correctly guessed that the painboy was more afraid of what warboss Kazkal Kromag would do to an ork that displeased him than anything that some other mystery individual may do to him instead. “Let’s see dis blood den,” the painboy said to Hazug, and he held out the handkerchief. “Is dis it?” the painboy exclaimed as he stared at the dried blood stain on the fabric in front of him, “It aint even fresh.” “Dat’s all I got,” Hazug answered him. The painboy just grunted, and took the handkerchief and its bloodstain from Hazug. The he sat down and rummaged through a drawer before pulling out a magnifying glass. “Hmmm, “ the painboy said, “dis aint from anythin’ orky.” “I’d already guessed dat,” Hazug replied, “I needs to know wot it is from, not wot it aint from.” The painboy lowered the magnifying glass and gave out a shout. “Grot! Fetch us me blood book!” The gretchin who had greeted Hazug when he first entered the painboy’s place of business came dashing in through the door surgery door and headed for a shelf that held what passed for books in ork society, crude collections of paper loosely bound together with string, and brought one that was about as thick as Hazug’s fist to where the painboy sat. There was a ‘clump’ as the gretchin dropped the book onto the table in front of his master. Hazug saw that the cover sheet of the book simply read ‘DA BIG BOOK OF BLOOD SPOTS’ in the orkish pictographic alphabet. “Now sod off back to da waitin’ room,” the painboy told his servant, and the smaller greenskin dashed back out of the room before his master decided that it would be better to give him instructions by means of a smack or smacks around the head. “Hmmm,” the painboy said once more, and he began to flip through the book. On each page there were row after row of blood stains, and under each one was a label to indicate what sort of creature had produced it, along with notes about the properties of the blood. The painboy stopped turning the pages when he reached one that had the heading ‘GITS AND DA LIKE’, and he began to move back and forth between the bloodstained handkerchief and the marks on the pages of the book, looking at them through his magnifying glass. Looking over the shoulder of the painboy, Hazug saw that there were blood sample, not only from humans on this page, but also from the various subtypes of human that existed, from the diminutive stunties to the massive ogryns that for some reason that orks had never figured out followed the orders of the much smaller humans. “Got it,” he said with a smile, and he put down the magnifying glass and instead held up the book and the handkerchief along side each other so that Hazug could see that he was holding the sample Hazug had given him next to a particular stain in the book. Three words stood out from the label for this particular sample. ‘MARINE, WELL ‘ARD.’ “I reckon dat ya got yaself blood from a beaky,” the painboy told Hazug, “I’ll ‘ave to run some more tests to be sure about it, but dat’s wot it looks like off da top of me ‘ead.” Hazug took a pair of teeth from his money pouch and put them on the table. “Run ya tests,” he said, “and don’t tell no-one wot ya ‘ave found ‘ere. Alright?” “Wot about da boss?” “I’ll tell ‘im,” Hazug lied, the last thing he needed now was for warboss Kromag to suspect that a force of marines was present on the planet. He would probably tear all of Git Town apart to try and get them to do battle with him, a marine’s helmet was one of the most highly sought after trophies in ork society, especially if it still contained the head of its original wearer. “So I can just leave dat with ya den can I?” Hazug asked the painboy who was now carefully scraping at the bloodstain on the handkerchief. “Aye, I’ll get da tests done and send da grot to ya with da results when dey is done. Deal?” “Deal,” Hazug agreed, and he left the surgery. Outside in the street, Hazug’s servants, Drazzok and the madboys all stared at him as he left the painboy’s building. “Well wot did ‘e say den?” Drazzok asked while Hazug got back into the truck. “Da dok reckons dat its one of dem space marines alright,” Hazug said. “Told ya,” Drazzok said smugly, a large grin on his face, “I knows blood from a beaky when I sees it.” Hazug didn’t reply, instead he just started up the truck, slamming his fist down on the dashboard to encourage the engine to turn over when it failed to start first time. Hazug drove his truck back home where the madboys who had been unable to fit on board his truck that morning were still waiting for Drazzok’s return. They rushed to towards the vehicle and crouched down beside it, forming an improvised staircase beside Drazzok’s seat. “Well I is off den,” the weirdboy said as he descended the living staircase, “ya’ve ‘ad ya tooth’s worth from me today.” Thuggrim and the madboys aboard the truck all disembarked and formed up around Drazzok. “Make way!” Thuggrim yelled as he began to walk ahead of Drazzok down the street with the entire mob of madboys close behind him, “Da great Drazzok is comin’ through!” “Oi!” Drazzok shouted to Thuggrim and his troops, “I live dataway,” and he pointed in the opposite direction. Thuggrim forced his way through the cluster of orks behind him, slapping any who did not move quick enough. “Dis way?” Thuggrim said, pointing in the same direction as Drazzok had just done, and the weirdboy nodded. “Right den. Make way! Da great Drazzok is comin’ through!” Drazzok turned back towards Hazug for a moment. “Dey is way too loud,” he said, “, and dey make me fall out of bed, but dey do ‘ave dare uses,” and he followed madboys towards his hut. Following Drazzok’s departure, Hazug looked up at the sun. While Sophie and more recently, Rhia, had taught him the way humans measured the passage of time using small mechanical devices and he had even been able to procure several such devices, he still defaulted to the traditional ork method of telling the time. The sun had passed its highest point in the sky for this time of year and had begun its passage back towards the horizon where it would set, so Hazug knew that it was past noon. “Right,” he said, turning to his servants who still sat in the rear of the trukk, “I wants Ratish to open up da garage door so I can put da trukk away, and den I is goin’ to pack up me weapons,” then he pointed towards Rhia and Sophie, “When I is done, I expects ya both to ‘ave got us somethin’ to eat. Goddit?” All three of his servants indicated to that they understood. “Well wot ya waitin’ for?” Hazug asked, “Get movin’.” Ratish, Rhia and Sophie disembarked immediately and went inside the house. Meanwhile, Hazug sat and waited in the truck until there was the sound of the garage door motor running and the door opened to reveal Ratish standing by the control pedal. Hazug drove his truck into the garage and turned off the engine. While Ratish closed the garage door behind him, Hazug got out of the truck and retrieved his weapons from the rear of the vehicle. “Ratish carry master’s stuff for ‘im?” Ratish asked, holding out his arms. “Nah,” Hazug replied, he had only just got the warscythe back and he didn’t want to risk the gretchin dropping the large alien weapon and breaking it, “just get da doors for us, and den get da big shoota off da trukk.” “Yes master,” Ratish said, grinning and he opened the door to the kitchen and held it for Hazug as the ork carried his weaponry through. He walked past Rhia and Sophie as they worked in the kitchen to prepare his meal and then went upstairs. Hazug’s home had been intended for a large number of orks to occupy. However, the previous inhabitants had been killed during an attack launched by Kazkal Kromag on an underling who Hazug had discovered was intending to usurp him. As a reward, and not least because few orks wanted to live so close to Git Town, Hazug had been given the entire building for himself and his servants. Hazug had of course claimed the room that had been occupied by the nob that lead the previous occupants for his own. That nob had been a member of the Bad Moon clan, like warboss Kromag himself, and the late occupant had left behind an armoured room adjacent to the room Hazug now slept in that he had used to store his wealth. While richer than many orks, Hazug did not have enough money, either as teeth or other negotiable commodities, for him to require such a vault; he did have a significant stockpile of arms that he felt better to be kept locked away when he wasn’t using it. So now the vault had become Hazug’s armoury. Hazug leant his rifle and warscythe next to the massive metal door and fumbled in his pocket for the key before unlocking the door. Inside, stacks of metal crates, each of which carried human markings, dominated the armoury. These represented Hazug’s share of the arms stockpile that he and the mutant Evil Sun ork Two Heads Smasha Butt Face had seized during the winter months. Hazug ignored the crates, instead placing his rifle and the warscythe on gaps on the shelves that lined the room and putting the energy cells that he had retained from the lasguns he had given away along side the warscythe. The he heard the sound of Ratish dragging the large automatic weapon that Hazug usually mounted on his truck up the stairs. He went to meet the gretchin and reached out for the weapon. “Give dat ‘ere,” he said, and as he took the gun from his servant there was aloud banging on the front door, “and go see who dat is,” he ordered. Obediently, Ratish ran down the stairs to the front door. “Master says Ratish is to answer it git!” he shouted at Rhia as she appeared at the kitchen door, also moving towards the front door, and she went back into the kitchen without a word. Ratish pulled open the front door and looked into the street outside, then he tilted his head back and looked upward into the faces of the pair of black clad Goff nobs standing there. “Wot d’ya want?” he asked. “Hazug!” one of the nobs bellowed, leaning over Ratish to shout directly into the house, “We knows ya is in dare, we was watchin’ from down da street.” “Who is it?” Hazug shouted back down the stairs. “Goffs master,” Ratish called out. “Out of da way grot,” the other nob said, and he kicked the gretchin aside and strode into the hallway. He stopped suddenly when Hazug appeared on the stairs, pistol in hand, pointing his gun at the nob’s head. “Dat’s my grot,” he said calmly, “so ‘ow about ya explain why ya is ‘ere kickin’ it without my permission before ya is feeling da breeze from da ‘ole I is goin’ to put ya face.” “Da boss sent us for ya Hazug,” the first nob said, staying just outside the door, “’e wants to speak to ya right away.” Hazug tucked his pistol into his belt and walked own the stairs to face the nob in his hallway. “Ya better lead da way den,” he said, then he turned his head towards the kitchen and shouted to Rhia and Sophie, “I is off to see da boss, and I is takin’ Ratish an all. Make sure me food is ready when I gets back,” then he strode out of the front door into the street. “How long do you think he’ll be?” Rhia asked Sophie as the pair worked on the meal they had been commanded to prepare. “I don’t know,” Sophie answered, “but they’re walking, so probably a couple of hours at least.” “Okay then,” Rhia said, “I’ll be back in a moment,” and she left the kitchen. Rhia went directly upstairs to her room and pulled a bag from beneath the bed. She rummaged inside it and pulled out a small metal tube. Then she took the tube to a window located at the back of the house and pointed the tube towards Git Town. Rhia depressed a small stud on the side of the tube and the end directed out of the window glowed red. She repeated this twice more and then just looked out of the window. From a building in Git Town she saw what she was looking for, another red light flashing three times. Rhia smiled and returned to her room where she put away the signalling device and pushed her bag back underneath her bed. Next Rhia went back downstairs, but rather than return to the kitchen she continued down the stairs that led to the cellar. Down there she sought out the thick wooden doorway that had been placed across an access point to the network of gretchin-dug tunnels that ran beneath the city. At the doorway she pulled back the bolt that locked the door shut before she returned to the kitchen. At the fortress of warboss Kazkal Kromag, Hazug was lead directly in to see the tribe’s chieftain himself. There was nothing new about this, Hazug had become one of the warboss’s inner circle of advisors in recent months, but the Blood Axe was all too aware of how quickly things could change for the worse if he did anything to upset Kazkal. As usually the warboss was not alone, a group of ork nobs, all of whom Hazug had seen here before, were clustered around him waiting for instructions. “So wot’s goin’ on den Hazug?” warboss Kromag asked before his human servant had even had the chance to announce the arrival of Hazug and his Goff escort. “Wot d’ya mean boss?” Hazug asked. “I mean why is ya goin’ rushin’ into Git Town with a bunch of madboys? And wot was all dat racket dis morning?” “I went to see wot all da noise was about boss, Drazzok and da madboys just tagged along cause dey was outside me ‘ome when I was leavin’.” “So wot was all da noise about den?” Kromag asked. “It was a bomb boss,” Hazug admitted, he didn’t want warboss Kromag to get the impression that Git Town was out of control, but he had to find out what had happened eventually, especially if someone intended to move against him as well. “I though ya told me dat dare was a bunch of gits wot is supposed to ‘andle all of dis demselves,” Kromag said, remembering what he had been told about the human constabulary by Hazug himself. “Dare is boss, but dey was da ones wot someone tried to blow up, I was givin’ ‘em a hand in findin’ out who did it.” The assembled orks muttered amongst themselves, Hazug heard enough to know that they were unconcerned; as far as they were concerned it was a human matter, not an ork one. “I reckon dat it was da same bunch wot brought dem missiles into da city,” Hazug added, and the orks all suddenly took notice. “Let’s kill ‘em all boss,” one of the nobs sudden shouted out, and several of the other nodded in agreement. “Dare’s no need for dat,” Hazug responded quickly before warboss Kromag could have to opportunity to give such an order, “da humans don’t like whoever it is wots done dis, we just need to make sure dat dey can take care of it demselves.” “So ‘ow does we do dat den?” another nob called out. “For starters we tells all da lads goin’ into Git Town lookin’ for a fight to knock it off,” Hazug said, and there were snorts of derision, but warboss Kromag held up his hand for quiet. “Shut up!” he bellowed when the orks didn’t get the hint, and there was silence, “Why in da name of Gork’n’Mork should I tell lads dat dey aint allowed to fight?” he asked Hazug. The question was a good one, orks lived to fight, and ordering them not to attack someone was something not to be done lightly. “Because dey is workin’ for ya,” Hazug said. “Wot?” warboss Kromag said, taken aback, “I aint ‘ired no gits to keep order.” “No but ya ‘ave let ‘em sort it out for demselves, ”Hazug pointed out, “and from wot I’ve ‘eard dey ‘ave been keepin’ an eye out for da humans wot want us gone.” The throne room was quiet as warboss Kromag thought about what Hazug had just said. Then he did something he rarely ever did, he sought advice from a human. “Is dis true?” he asked, turning towards the human servant standing beside his throne, a thin man who kept track of the warboss’s appointments. “Yes lord,” the man replied timidly, “the constabulary have
arrested members of the underground on many occasions, the trader’s
association demands it of them.” “Because many of them remember the times before the invasion, and they think that orks treat us better than the Imperium ever did.” Warboss Kromag was puzzled at this. He had never really given any thought to how humans were treated under his regime, and while deep down he had the same like for the willingness of humans to provide large, organised armies for orks to fight against face to face rather than running away and hiding like tau or eldar were likely to do, he was no Blood Axe and had no intention of dealing with humans on an equal basis. Then Hazug had a thought. “Technically boss,” he said, “every human on da planet wot aint carryin’ someone’s mark belongs to ya, so anyone wot kills one without askin’ ya first is stealin’ ya property.” Kazkal Kromag sat up straight at this suggestion, and every ork held his breath. The warboss was a Bad Moon, the richest of all the clans because of the increased rate at which they grew and shed their teeth, and suggesting that someone was trying to take any of their wealth away from them was a good way to provoke a response. “Stealin’? Dey is stealin’ from me?” the warboss shouted, and Hazug
feared that he was about to fly into a rage, “I aint ‘avin’ no-one
stealin’ from me,” and then he shifted his gaze towards the crowd of ork
nobs before, “All of ya get out of ‘ere now!” he shouted, “Tell al da lads
ya can find dat anyone wot kills a git wot aint askin’ for it gets treated
like any other thief I catches in me vault.” “Aye,” warboss Kromag replied, “da spikey thingy, and da thing wot as da grippas on it an’ all. Now go!” The ork nobs turned and left, and Hazug turned to follow them. “Not you Hazug lad,” Kazkal kromag told him, “I wants ya and ya grot to stay ‘ere and tell me about all dese gits wot I own, and ‘ow much I lost when someone blew up dat mob dis mornin’.” |
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