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Blood And Rocks Chapta 11 | |
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Chapta 11 |
Viktor Mortel panted as he struggled to get up the hill. “You should have brought a vehicle.” He said, glaring at one of the squad of soldiers who had met him soon after leaving the city. Mortel had not left the city alone, there was no way he could possibly carry all of the belongings that he decided he could not leave behind and so he had been forced to bring along several servants to carry them, a decision that had proven expensive since the men had all demanded significant payment to leave the city with him. There were also his concubines of course. Though they at least could move by themselves Mortel had had to allow them to bring along some of their things as well and that meant even more cost. However, just because he was moving to some camp in the middle of nowhere did not mean that he had to live in squalor. That was simply no how Viktor Mortel did things. “A vehicle would have attracted attention from the orks.” One of them replied, “We don’t even keep any at the main camp. Its better that way.” “Well if you ask me you’re being too cautious.” Mortel said. The soldier ignored this however, instead wandering to where a second soldier stood studying the terrain behind them through a battered set of field magnifiers. “See anything Higgs?” he asked quietly. “There’s a dust plume.” Higgs replied, “It could be a column of ork vehicles heading this way.” “Then perhaps
his lordship wasn’t quiet so subtle about leaving as he should have been.”
The first soldier commented, glancing at Mortel as one of his concubines
helped him up the slope. “Don’t worry.
We’ve got these to deal with them.” And Jansen produced a stone with the
eight pointed star of chaos carved into it from a large pouch on his
belt. “Oh don’t worry. There’s one for him as well.” Jansen told him. Keeping the trucks and wagons of his warband heading in the direction pointed out by the orks at the Northern Fort, Hazug allowed the trio of warbuggies more latitude and the three lightweight attack vehicles zoomed around and kicked up massive amounts of dust as they surveyed the terrain beyond what Hazug could see from his truck. The crews of the buggies were all members of the speed-obsessed Evil Suns clan and although Hazug had never worked with any of them before Two Heads had vouched for them. Of course Hazug could not entirely trust them not to simply go racing off at top speed without thought to coming back, but he trusted the gretchin riggers they carried to keep an eye out for their quarry and remind the larger orks of their task. “Pah!” Drazzok
snapped as one of the buggies suddenly cut across the path of Hazug’s
truck. “They’re gaining on us.” Higgs said and he passed his magnifier to Jansen, “Perhaps we should head for the woods.” The group of humans was more than half way into its journey now and had a significant head start, but with them being on foot while the orks were mounted on vehicles meant that the gap between them was closing. What was more the formation of the ork column; with the transport vehicles clustered together while the lighter buggies performed scouting duties around the edge suggested that this was a hunting party rather than raiders heading for a specific target. And the only thing out here for them to hunt was the human group. “We can’t afford the time. We’re expected to reach the camp by nightfall and given how slow his lordship is we may miss that even keeping to open ground.” Jansen replied as he focused the magnifier on one of the buggies. Like all vehicles of the type it carried a pair of full sized orks, one to drive and the other to operate the twin-linked belt fed automatic weapons. In addition this particular vehicle also carried a pair of the smaller creatures known as gretchin and as the vehicle tore across the countryside these gretchin seemed to be keeping watch, “But we do need to do something about these orks. It looks like they’re hunting us specifically and that means they must be onto him.” and he glanced at Mortel. Right now the man was sandwiched between two of the women he had brought with him while one of the other two was busy unwrapping some of the food they had brought with them. Jansen then passed the magnifier back to Higgs before removing one of the carved stones from their pouch. “You know what to do with this?” he asked. “Yeah I know.” Higgs replied, “But who do we use?” Jansen looked around again. “The other woman.” He said, “We stopped so she could relive herself. Go find her, then come back and claim she was killed by an ork. That’ll get his lordship moving.” “Got it.” Higgs said and he turned and walked away, following the path of Mortel’s fourth and final concubine. As he went he tried to remember the woman’s name. Mortel had listed the names of all four but Higgs had not really been paying attention. “Oh hi.” The woman’s voice said as she appeared from behind a hill, adjusting her clothing, “I was going as fast as I could.” Higgs paused before he realised that the woman had assumed he had been sent to bring her back to the group. “That’s alright miss.” he said politely and he faked a smiled, “But we need to get moving. We’ve spotted a group of orks heading this way.” “Orks?” the woman said, her eyes widening and she began to hurry. As she passed by Higgs he reached for his knife and slid the weapon from its sheath. The woman noticed the reflection of sunlight off the metal blade as he raised the knife and she spun around. Seeing the weapon just before Higgs brought it down she screamed. Higgs plunged the knife into her chest, the blade missing her heart but puncturing her lung and silencing her scream. Higgs withdrew the knife and as the woman fell he slashed it across her throat, slicing it open. Then she fell forwards and lay still, face down on the ground as the pool of blood grew around her. Returning his knife to its pouch Higgs took out the stone and tossed into the pool. “Blood for the Blood God.” He said and he walked calmly away. Behind him the pool of blood had stopped growing as the blood instead began to be absorbed by the stone, the carvings glowing red with increasing brightness. Darket laughed as he drove his buggy over the rise at high speed, causing both the gretchin his vehicle carried to make emergency repairs to squeal as they struggled to hang on. Behind him stood his gunner Gruddon and this other ork was better prepared for the violent manoeuvres that Darket put the buggy through, making use of an improvised tether to keep him in position on his platform. It had not been either Darket or Grudden’s idea to join the Blood Axe ork on this trip, but the leader of their mob, another Evil Sun by the name of Krorden had told them that he had been assured that wherever Hazug Throatslitter went violence followed in great amounts. So now here they were, tearing across the countryside in pursuit of a handful of measly humans who it seemed were nowhere to be found. But still, at least Darket could push his buggy to its limits out here rather than being constrained by the road layout of the city. “Dat way!” one of the gretchin yelled and he began to wave towards an area of uneven ground. “Yeah, dat does look good.” Darket replied with a grin as he imagined the feel of the buggy if he drove over such terrain at full speed, “Nice one grot.” “Dare was a scream.” The gretchin then added, “Sounded like a git.” Darket slammed
his foot down on the brakes and swerved, the thick tyres of the warbuggy
creating a spray of mud as they dug into the soft ground. The gretchin did
their best to hang on still, but one gave out as yell as he was thrown
from the buggy and bounced across the ground before coming to a halt. Then
as the gretchin picked himself up, shook himself off and ran back to the
warbuggy Darket and Grudden waited, listening as Grudden flexed his
fingers on the grip of his weapon. “But I ‘eard
it. ‘Onest.” The gretchin protested. “So ya is sayin’ we should just sit ‘ere and wait?” Grudden asked. “Nah.” Darket replied, “I is sayin’ ‘ang on.” And he put his foot down hard on the gas pedal. “Where is my dear Charome?” Mortel asked when Higgs reappeared, moving quickly. “Dead.” Higgs
replied, “There are orks here and one of them got her before I could do
anything to stop it.” “I told you I heard an engine.” One of his other concubines said. “Never mind that now.” Jansen said, “We need to get moving quickly. That means we leave everything that’s not essential.” “Yes of course.” Mortel said and he looked towards a pair of men who had been carrying the bulk of his luggage, “You heard the sergeant.” He said, “Pick up my-“ “Everything none essential gets left.” Jansen said sternly, “That includes fancy clothes and jewellery. We can send someone back to recover it later but we have to get moving. Now.” “Oh – But –Well of course. I suppose so.” Mortel said, obviously not happy at having to leave behind the possessions he was also unwilling to carry for himself. In life Charome had been nothing special. She had used her looks to get the attention of a rich man who had then supported her so long as she was willing to act out his fantasies. But this did not lessen her sacrifice, for the Lord of Skulls did not care where the blood came from. The very fact that she had been an ally actually made her death more valuable than it would have been and Khorne responded to the summons from the material realm all the more quickly because of this. There was a roar from something not quite alive as the daemon engine burst into the real world. It looked much like an oversized warbike that possessed a massive fanged maw at the front. But this vehicle required no rider to steer it, instead relying on its own malign intelligence. Instead the pair of sword wielding passengers stood atop a small platform positioned just behind a massive forward facing cannon. Sensing the approach of the ork warbuggy, the skull cannon turned to face its enemy. Darket heard
what sounded to him like a engine and he grinned. Both gretchin screamed in terror as they saw the daemon engine bearing down on them while the buggy’s ork crew just stared at it wide eyed. They had expected to encounter the human equivalent of their own vehicle, lightweight with a weapon mounted on top of it. But both this vehicle and its obviously non-human crew came as a total surprise. “Now dat’s a warbike.” Grudden said suddenly and he swung the buggy’s weapon around to face the skull cannon and fired. At first the stream of heavy calibre bullets just tore up the ground in front of the skull cannon but as the daemon engine continued to close with the warbuggy it ran right into their path and there were sparks as the rest of the burst just bounced off the unnatural vehicle’s bronze coloured plating. “Master!
Ratish ‘ear gunfire. Bug shootas.” Ratish exclaimed excitedly and the
gretchin climbed up on the truck’s roll cage and began pointing in the
direction of the gunfire.
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