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Da Isle Of Doom Chapta 27 | |
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Chapta 27 |
The jet of flame from his weapon died suddenly and Skrath looked down at it in horror as he realised that there was no further ammunition. Almost immediately another ork jumped down through the hole above and raised a short sword above his head, but before he could take a swing at Skrath Mayleth stepped forwards to put a single shot between his eyes. “Take this!” she called out, kicking the sword as it fell so that Skrath caught it, “And fight!” Skrath needed no encouragement and as orks under the control of the enslavers began to leap through the hole he lunged forwards, roaring as he impaled the first of them to land. At the same time Mayleth danced around him, shooting and slashing at any target that presented itself. “Hurry my master.” She muttered to herself, “We will not be able to hold them for long.” Salia squealed as she ducked when a bullet struck the wall close to her head. “Thuggrim tell your troops to be careful!” Sophie snapped, realising that the shot that had narrowly missed her sister had been fired by one of the madboys. Thuggrim however, ignored her and continued to fire up the stairs towards the orks taking cover above them. The situation remained a stalemate, Thuggrim could not force his way up the stairs but the orks under enslaver control could not force their way down without exposing themselves to fire. Fortunately, they either had no grenades to hurl down or they had some concern about using explosives. The problem for the madboys was that many of them were expending their ammunition rather quickly and already two were now rummaging through the bodies of the orks killed by Drazzok for any they could use. If this continued then the only weapons left to them would be Salia and Sophie’s lasguns. There was a
scream and Sophie looked to see a madboy being plucked off his feet, his
limbs flailing about as a tentacle dragged him up towards the floor
above. “Geddoff me lads!” Thuggrim bellowed and he swung the butt of his rifle at the alien in an attempt to free the ork. There was a ‘crunch’ and the ork suddenly stopped struggling, his weapon dropping to the floor as he went limp and a moment later the enslaver let go of the body and let it tumble to the floor as well. The enslaver then simply descended from the floor above, keeping to the centre of the stairwell rather than drifting down the steps themselves. As it descended the enslaver lashed out at the madboys, knocking them backwards. Thuggrim turned his rifle around again and took aim, but the alien saw what he was doing and reacted by wrapping a tentacle around the muzzle of the weapon and dragged it aside just as Thuggrim fired. “Thuggrim!” Salia cried out as the alien began to wrap a tentacle around his neck. Reaching to her belt she drew her knife and rushed to Thuggrim’s aide. While she began to climb up Thuggrim’s back Sophie instead aimed her lasgun for the enslaver’s head and fired repeatedly. The energy bolts impacted the enslaver, but the alien barely appeared to notice, more concerned it seemed with choking the life out of Thuggrim. However, as soon as Salia stuck her knife into the tentacle around Thuggrim’s neck and began to cut through it the enslaver let out a psychic cry. It threw Thuggrim and Salia together against the wall behind them and briefly rose back up the stairwell before turning its gaze towards Sophie. She watched in horror as the alien descended ominously towards her. Hurriedly she ejected the spent power cell from her weapon, placed in her bag and began to search for a fresh one. But she quickly realised that she would not be in time to defend herself from the enslaver. The enslaver raised a tentacle to strike and Sophie cowered, holding her empty weapon above her head in an attempt to shield herself. But then a shot rang out and the enslaver gave another psychic cry. Sophie looked up just as there were more shots and saw that they came not from the remaining madboys but from further up the stairwell. “Kop dis!” she heard the familiar stereo sound of Two Heads yelling in unison followed by a burst of rifle fire that made the enslaver judder as it was struck. A roar followed this and a large, dark shape dropped down the stairwell to land on top of the alien’s bulbous body. The enslaver lashed out in all directions as Gorgoga dug his powerclaw into its flesh. Then it simply collapsed, dropping like a stone to the floor with a ‘squelch’ as what was left of the alien cushioned Gorgoga’s fall beneath him. There was more gunfire from the floors above, accompanied by the sound of footfalls as the orks under Two Heads’ command descended from the upper levels and began to engage those controlled by the enslavers. “Where’s Hazug?” Gorgoga demanded, looking around as he picked himself up. “I don’t know.” Sophie replied, “He went with Batrug to try and find a way of destroying the enslavers’ warp gates.” “And ‘e sent us ‘ere to secure da stairs so ‘e’d ‘ave a way out.” Thuggrim added. “Ya got dat?” Gorgoga called out, looking up the stairwell towards where Two Heads and his orks were taking up positions on the floor above. “Yeah I got it.” One of Two Heads replied and then the other went on with, “Well da stairs is secure now, so where is ‘e?” Still pressed against the heated pipe, the explosive from Hazug’s rocket warhead was heating up. To the relatively stable primary charge this meant nothing, but the smaller triggering charge was already starting to be affected and a thin wisp of smoke began to rise up from it as it smouldered in the darkness. Mayleth twirled, lifting a leg so that her foot smashed into the face of an ork that was one of several attempting to overwhelm her and Skrath. Without the junior mekboy’s flamethrower they had been unable to prevent the orks from leaping down from the level above, but so far they had faced only small numbers of opponents and they had at least been able to keep them here. How long this would continue was not clear though. Mayleth was a skilled combatant, but even she would tire eventually. Added to which she had not seen any signs of enslavers trying to force their way down and she was concerned that those creatures would prove difficult to defeat. A roar from beside her told Mayleth that Skrath had been hit and she threw a glance in his direction. Fortunately the wound was only a superficial cut to the flesh of his arm and the next sound that cam from his direction was a ‘crunch’ as he slammed his fist into the face of his opponent before following this up by driving his sword into the other ork’s stomach. Mayleth’s keen senses spotted movement above and she spun to face their next assailant, raising both her dagger and pistol to defend herself. But as she looked upwards she froze upon finding herself staring straight into the clustered eyes of an enslaver. The wisps of smoke had become thicker now and the triggering charge began to swell, bubbles of gas forming here and there as the explosive compound began to become unstable and break down. The was a soft ‘pop’ as one of these burst and the gas contained within combusted on contact with the oxygen in the air. The flame from this caught the rest of the charge and it caught light, burning brightly and hotly until it reached a sufficient temperature to trigger an explosion. An explosion that in turn triggered the main charge and split the pipe wide open. A spray of molten rock erupted from the crack in the pipe and the pressure of the flow tore open the crack into a hole that allowed magma to begin to pour into the underground fortress. Both Mayleth and Skrath lashed out at the enslaver’s tentacles. The alien appeared too bulky to be able to easily squeeze through the hole so instead was attempting to lash out at Mayleth and Skrath form above. Skrath roared as a tentacle wrapped itself around his wrist, the barbs digging into his flesh. But he retained his grip on his weapon and tried to turn it round far enough to be able to cut through the tentacle. However, as he focused on this struggle he failed to notice a second barbed tentacle that shot out towards him until the last second. A quiet gasp was the only sound he made as the tip punched through his eye socket. Mayleth jumped back and now that she was the only one defending the hole the enslaver began to lower itself down from the level above, its flailing tentacles preventing Mayleth from getting close enough to strike. “Waaargh!” The war cry took both Mayleth and the enslaver by surprise just as the creature was fully through the hole and both turned to look in its direction to see Hazug charging headlong towards them, his warscythe held out in front of him. The enslaver attempted to swat Hazug’s warscythe away, but the energy field surrounding its blade allowed Hazug to not only parry the strike but at the same time slice through the tentacle without effort. The enslaver reared up, attempting to get out of the reach of the warscythe. But the ceiling was too low and Hazug simply thrust the tip of his weapon upwards, impaling the alien against the ceiling until he chose to withdraw the blade from the corpse. “Come on!” Hazug yelled at Mayleth as Batrug and Ratish caught up with him, “We needs to get outta ‘ere before-“ and then there was a dull ‘boom’ from behind him, followed by a roaring sound. “Too late.” Batrug said. “I ‘eard.” Hazug replied and he turned to Ratish, “Reckon ya can find da stairs?” he asked and Ratish grinned. “Yes master, Ratish find da stairs real quick.” “Good, cause we aint got much time.” “What was that sound?” Salia asked and she looked through the doorway from the stairwell into the lower level “What?” Sophie replied, “I didn’t hear anything.” Above them there was the continuous sound of gunfire as the orks led by Two Heads battled to keep those under enslaver control back away from the stairs and trapped. “It sounded like an explosion.” Salia said. “An explosion?” Sophie exclaimed and she rushed to her sister’s side and peered into the darkness. “There!” Salia suddenly snapped and she pointed to a bobbing light as it approached, “It’s Hazug!” “It is!” Sophie exclaimed, “It is Hazug. Hazug over here!” “Wot’s ‘appenin’?” Hazug demanded as he reached the door to the stairwell and saw far more orks than he was expecting. “Two Heads and
the others chased the enslavers and their orks back down here.” Sophie
explained. “Good.” Hazug said, “Now let’s wake up Drazzok and get outta ‘ere before we is all drowned in red ‘ot melted rock.” Two of the surviving madboys helped Drazzok back to his feet as the warband began to move back up the stairs, leaving their dead behind them. The air was already starting to heat up as the lowest level began to fill with magma escaping from the pipe. “Not too quick.” Hazug said as Two Heads and his troops began to retreat from the doorway on the level above, “We needs to keep ‘em stuck in dare until dey can’t get out.” “Gotcha.” Two Heads replied, nodding in agreement and he fired a burst of rifle fire through the doorway. A dull red glow began to seep out of the lower level as the magma flow reached the stairwell itself and Hazug decided that now was the right time to complete their withdrawal. “Move!” he yelled, “Get up da stairs as quick as ya can!” As the level of the magma increased it inevitably came to the attention of the enslavers and the orks under their control. They reacted by heading for the stairs, hoping to escape from a fiery death. But as soon as they stepped into the stairwell they came under fire and were forced back. Clearly trapped and with the magma set to soon start filling the level where they were located the enslavers headed for the only other escape route available to them. They headed back to their warp gates and left the material universe behind. The pounding of feet mixed with the sound of gunfire echoed up the stairwell as the warband began to retreat, still laying down fire to catch any enslaver or ork under their control that emerged in an attempt to escape the magma now rising up the stairwell below them. Even over the sound of running and shooting, the screams of orks caught by the magma flow could be heard. There was the sound of tearing metal from below and Hazug looked back down to see that the lowest sets of stairs had now collapsed into the magma, permanently trapping the enslavers and their warp gates. But this meant that the structure of the stairs themselves had been weakened and if the warband did not hurry then they too would be sent tumbling into the glowing magma below. “Keep movin’!” he shouted, “Dis place is comin’ down!” First in the charge up the stairs was Mayleth. The eldar’s graceful movement easily allowing her to outpace the orks following as fast as they could behind her. The orks themselves were having little difficulty with the climb either. Though lacking Mayleth’s speed and grace they possessed great amounts of stamina and could continue to exert themselves for some time before tiring. To Ratish Salia and Sophie however the climb was taking its toll and in front of Hazug Sophie stumbled. “Geddup!” Hazug snapped as he pulled her back to her feet, “Ya needs to keep movin’.” And he glanced back down the stairs just in time to see another level give way and drop into the magma. Sophie just gasped and nodded and as she stood up Hazug noticed her wobble. “We aint got time for dis.” He commented and he scooped Sophie up off her feet and threw her over his shoulder, “Oi Druken!” he then yelled, “Grab Salia. Thuggrim take Ratish. Dey aint gonna be able to keep up otherwise.” The warband burst out of the fortress and into the jungle clearing and immediately the lead orks halted. “Keep goin’!” Batrug yelled as he ran past them. “But we is back outside.” Two Heads commented. “Yeah, well dat fort aint gonna be dare much longer.” Batrug shouted back at him, “And ya don’t wanna be next to it when it comes down.” “Ya ‘eard im!” Hazug yelled as he emerged with Sophie still on his shoulder, “Get to da trees.” Behind the fleeing warband there was a sudden rumbling and then the sound of falling masonry as the structure of the old human fortress, its foundations now undermined by the flowing magma began to give way. The rumble became a roar as the fortress finally collapsed just as the orks reached the edge of the jungle clearing and a cloud of dust spread out to fill the clearing. Hazug dropped to his knees, panting as he finally put Sophie down and looked around. “Did we leave
anyone behind?” he asked out loud. “Yeah, well we aint gonna be seein’ dem no more.” Hazug said and he looked at Mayleth, “Right?” “Correct my master.” She answered him, “They will need to find a new way into the universe.” “I don’t suppose anyone remembered to take dem dead lads’ teeth did dey?” Drazzok then asked, looking around him at the ork nobs and Hazug looked back towards the crater that was all that remained of where the fortress had stood. “I tell ya wot,” he said, “ya is welcome to go back and ‘ave a look if ya wants.” |
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