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Blood And Rocks Chapta 16 | |
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Chapta 16 |
From his vantage point in the woods Hazug watched the unfolding battle, seeing a pair of Two Heads’ troops cut down as they tried to exit the battlewagon through a side hatch. “Shouldn’t we
go and ‘elp master?” Ratish asked. “Cause I is
waitin’ for somethin’.” Hazug told him. “Dat.” Hazug said in answer to his servant’s question and he fired a quick burst at the man. Most of the rounds missed their intended target, with only one striking the man’s leg and he fell to the ground, screaming in pain, “Move!” Hazug then shouted, knowing that his position had just been exposed and he rushed from the camouflaged hide, heading towards the rear of the ork convoy and to his truck in particular. There was a dull booming sound as the injured human saw him and opened fire with his shotgun, but his attack did nothing but graze Hazug and instinctively he fired a second burst that this time riddled the man’s chest with bullets. At the same time as Hazug was rushing towards the trail, the rest of the warband was beginning to spread out from it. They headed in both directions; forcing the humans to gradually pull back despite two more of Two Heads’ troops being hit. “Stay still ya gits!” Thuggrim bellowed, “’Ow is we supposed to smack ya when ya won’t stay still?” As the other madboys nodded in agreement with their leader there was a shriek that started out behind them and then suddenly passed over their heads as Mayleth made use of the trees to get ahead of them, leaping from branch to branch before a carefully timed drop brought her down almost on top of one of the humans. Clutching a dagger in her hand as she jumped down Mayleth made use of her own momentum to slice open his torso from his neck to his groin and wide-eyed in terror he collapsed as his organs simply dropped out onto the ground in front of him. The man’s companion attempted to shoot Mayleth in return for the death of his friend, but Mayleth leapt aside a split second before he pulled the trigger and the bullets passed through the space where she had been only a second earlier. He turned to follow her, but with his attention focused on the dark eldar woman he had neglected to keep an eye on what was happening elsewhere around him. Hazug roared as he grabbed hold of the man by his collar and lifted him off the ground. Then he hurled him against a nearby tree and when he fell to the ground he left a large red mark on the tree trunk. Mayleth grinned at Hazug. “He still
lives my master.” She said, glancing down at the human. Gorgoga’s mob was down to half the size it had started out as, but heavy casualties were expected by orks and perfectly acceptable. After all, there were always more orks to take their place. The Goff nob had ordered his remaining troops to form a line side by side, standing practically shoulder-to-shoulder. This allowed them to hold their shields out in front of themselves to form a single wall of metal and as they advanced into the woods on the opposite side of Hazug they did so in unison behind their armoured barrier. Behind them Two Heads led some of his troops into battle as well. “Stay behind dem Goffs lads!” he called out over the sound of gunfire and shots ricocheting off the hardboys’ shields. “Over dare boss!” one of the Evil Suns called out as he spotted a human running between the trees, his direction taking him around the side of the hardboys’ shield. “Sneaky bleedin’ git.” Two Heads replied, “Well spotted Gurth.” Then as he raised his rifle the other head called out, “Let rip!” Instantly there was a loud volley of rifle fire as the Evil Suns opened fire on the human attempting to get around behind them. Even given the poor marksmanship of orks the sheer volume of fire meant that some of the more than a hundred bullets fired found their target. However, even as the human fell the orks continued firing, getting carried away by the excitement of battle. “Cut it out!” one of Two Heads shouted and when some of the orks continued firing he reached out and punched the back of the head of the closest as the other head added, “I said cut it out!” Ahead of Hazug the last human sentry broke cover and ran. When Hazug had observed him through the tau viewing device the man had been armed with a rifle, but now he was unarmed. Clearly the thought of continuing to engage the orks now converging on him was too much for him and he was fleeing in fear. “I won’t let him escape my master.” Mayleth said. But before she could give chase the woods were lit up by a brilliant flash of light. At first Hazug assumed that Drazzok had used his psychic powers to channel a beam of energy at the fleeing human, but the weirdboy was behind him still complaining loudly about having to walk whereas the blast had come from the trail to his side. Looking in that direction he saw Mek Batrug standing in the hatchway of the battlewagon, clutching his invention. As Hazug watched the weapon emitted a second blast of energy and Batrug laughed out loud as it toppled a tree in front of the fleeing human, forcing im to grind to a halt. “Kop dat ya
cowardly git!” Batrug yelled as he strode from the battlewagon, “’Ere!
‘Ave another!” and he raised his weapon again. But this time when it was
fired the flash did not come from the muzzle. Instead the side of the
weapon burst open and Batrug gave a yell of surprise and pain as he threw
the malfunctioning device as far from him as he could, “Dammit!” he
snapped, “Da bleedin’ coolant aint workin’!” ”Mayleth. Go.” Hazug said and he waved her towards the human who was now trying to get around the fallen tree. Without a word she ran towards her prey, rapidly closing the gap between them. As she drew closer Mayleth let out another shriek, deliberately alerting the human to her presence. Realising that he could not out run the eldar he instead came to a halt facing Mayleth and he looked around for anything he could use as a weapon now that he had dropped his shotgun. Spying a small branch that had come off the fallen tree the human bent down and quickly picked it up before he prepared to meet Mayleth’s charge. As the orks pressed deeper into the woods Salia and Sophie remained in Hazug’s truck, crouched behind the side panel for protection from the humans still firing at them. On the floor of the truck cowered Rhia, curled up a tight ball so that she was just about able to lift her hands high enough to cover her ears as she attempted to keep out the noise of the truck’s weapon being fired right above them all. Meanwhile Cuddles strained at his leash, growling as he attempted to break free and charge into the woods where he could smell prey. “What was that?” Salia yelled as she thought she saw something move in the undergrowth nearby and she pointed briefly over the side of the truck. Sophie bobbed her head up just long to take a look for herself and she caught a brief glimpse of a man as he darted between two nearby trees. “It’s one of the soldiers.” She said and then she raised her self up again, this time aiming her lasgun over the side of the truck as well. She fired repeated, the energy blasts impacting against the tree she had sent eh man disappear behind but unable to penetrate its thick trunk. From the gunner’s position in the roll cage the ork operating the weapon there spotted the bright flashes of light and looked down. “Wotcha up to?” he demanded. “Zartak.”
Salia replied, “There’s a man over there.” However, the human had allowed himself to be seen deliberately and while the two human women and the ork gunners were focused on him another of the sentries had been creeping closer to the vehicles with a knife in his hand. Carefully he moved between the truck and the rhino, keeping low enough to avoid being seen by the occupants of either. He reached up and placed his hands on the back of the truck and was just starting to pull himself up when Rhia noticed light glinting off the blade of his knife and just as his face appeared at the back of the truck she screamed and kicked out. “Look out!” she yelled as the heels of her chained feet struck the man in his face and knocked him back off the truck. Hearing this Zartak looked down and saw the man picking himself up off the ground. Instantly he knew that the man was too close for him to be able to depress the truck’s gun low enough o fire at him so he made the obvious choice. Abandoning his position Zartak jumped down, first into the back of the truck where he narrowly missed landing on Rhia and then down onto the ground behind the truck where he landed face to face with the knife wielding man. “Kop dis.” The ork said and he head butted the surprised human in his already bloody face. The man staggered back, but he recovered enough to lash out with his knife and Zartak caught hold of his arm by the wrist in both hands, wrapping one of them around the man’s hand to stop him from releasing the knife, “Dat’s a nice choppa ya got dare.” The ork said, “Mind if I borrows it for a bit?” and then he twisted the man’s arm enough to break it at the elbow and as he screamed Zartak pushed his hand so that the knife stabbed him in the stomach. Letting go of the human Zartak let him fall and as he landed at the ork’s feet he stamped his booted foot down on the already seriously injured man. With each impact there was the crack of a bone breaking and Zartak snarled as he delivered yet more blows even after the man was already dead. However, in jumping down to engage this man Zartak had left the cover provided by the roll cage of the truck and the human spotted by Salia emerged from behind the tree just long enough to fire a blast from his shotgun that struck Zartak in the side of his head that tore off the other side. “No!” Sophie screamed as she saw Zartak’s body fall sideways and she switched her lasgun to fully automatic before firing the remainder of the power pack at his killer. When she was forced to pause to reload the man took the opportunity to try and move to a new hiding place, ducking and weaving to avoid the fire still coming from Trudlor. However, Salia had been waiting for this and, lining her lasgun up on him carefully she fired a single shot. The blast struck the man, though not in the centre of his back like she had been aiming for. Instead it hit his hip and he tumbled, no longer able to support himself with that leg. As he rolled across the ground Trudlor lowered his weapon while still firing and the man’s body jerked as it was riddled with high calibre bullets. Mayleth could have finished her fight with the terrified human at any time she chose. However, the extent of the man’s fear was such that she lapped it up as instead of making any serious attempts to land a blow on him she simply danced around him, avoiding all of his clumsy attempts to strike her with his improvised weapon. “Stop prancin’ about ya stupid pansy!” Drazzok’s voice called out as the orks following behind her came within sight. “Ratish’ll
finish da git off master.” Ratish exclaimed and he raised his pistol, but
before he could fire Hazug knocked the weapon aside and the shot missed by
a wide margin. Smiling Mayleth looked her opponent in his eyes and adjusted the translator device around her neck to produce Gothic instead of the ork language. “I’m sorry mon keigh.” She said, “But I must bring our game to an end.” And then she lashed out with her dagger. The swipe was not intended to kill and the man screamed as his club dropped to the ground along with the fingers of his hand. Then as he clutched at his ruined hand Mayleth levelled her pistol and shot him between his eyes, the projectile killing him before the poisons it was coated with had the opportunity to do their work. Only one human remained now and like the one that Mayleth had just killed he was retreating, the thought of facing an ork warband alone convincing him that in this situation discretion was the better part of valour. However, unlike the other human this one had not discarded his weapon and as he fell back towards the camp he occasionally turned to fire at the orks chasing him. It was easy for him to determine where the orks were given the amount of noise they made both in the form of the unintelligible shouts they directed at him and the sounds of them forcing a path through the vegetation. The orks returned fire of course, but firing on the move meant that their usual poor marksmanship was made even worse by the lack of opportunity to aim properly. “Dis is useless!” one of Two Heads exclaimed as another of his shots missed the human by a narrow margin. Then the other head responded with, “Well let me ‘ave a go. I is a well better shot dan ya is.” “Never mind dat.” Gorgoga called out before Two Heads’ argument with himself could degenerate into a physical fight and he plucked a grenade from his belt. Dropping to his knees and holding his shield up in front of him the nob pulled out the pin and waited. Then just as he saw the human come to a halt and turn to fire again he hurled the grenade, “Fire in da ‘ole!” he shouted in warning to the other orks. The human dived for cover at the same time as the orks. He did not understand Gorgoga’s shouted warning, but he recognised the stick grenade for what it was as soon as Gorgoga threw it. The explosion ripped through the undergrowth, sending fragments of shrapnel and wood flying in all directions. Before the cloud of smoke and debris from the explosion had cleared Gorgoga was already back on his feet and charging forwards. He charged right through the cloud and emerged on the far side, looking around for any sign of the human. At first the man was nowhere to be seen and Gorgoga considered the possibility that he had been killed, but then he heard a groaning sound and turning around and looking down he saw the man dragging himself away leaving a trail of blood behind him. Gorgoga strode towards the man and he rolled over to face the ork. The human had lost his weapon and as he stared at Gorgoga he coughed up a mouthful of blood. Snarling, Gorgoga loomed over the human and raised his power claw before he brought it down on the man’s chest.
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