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Chapta 11 | |
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Da Raiders From Da Shadows Chapta 11 |
The wyches were not prepared for what happened. They had expected that if the orks saw them then they would rush headlong towards them, breaking up their dense formation and allowing the wyches to slaughter them all. If they stayed where they were they the wyches would simply dance around the edges of the group, shooting and stabbing at the orks until they broke. But while the orks held their ground they did release a beast from their midst. Cuddles bounded across the decreasing amount of open ground between the two opposing groups snarling and spitting as he went. The wyches could not stop, to do so would invite the orks to shoot them down, but in keeping on they drew closer to the charging squig. Cuddles crashed through the charging dark eldar. A sideways kick with one clawed leg ripped open the stomach of one of the wyches and she fell to the ground screaming and trying desperately to hold her entrails inside her. He landed on top of a second one, his mouth wide open and before the wych could defend herself he bit down and shattered her ribcage. Instead of stopping to try and help either of their two fallen comrades the remaining wyches continued to charge towards the stationary mass of ork ahead of them. Their attention now shifting away from the jetbikes, the Evil Suns dropped their rifles and drew their axes instead. At the forefront of the group, Drazzok lifted his staff from the ground and felt the power build up inside him with nowhere to go. Sensing the minds of the orks all around him, he sent that power they created back at them. “Waaargh!” The Evil Suns screamed their war cry in unison as their eyes burned brightly with the power with which they had been infused. Rather than just stand and meet the charging eldar they rushed forwards at the last moment and charged the aliens themselves. Surprised by this sudden turn of events, the wyches were not ready and one was cut down immediately while the others were forced to dodge out of the way of the swinging axe blades instead of trying to land their own blows on the orks. There was a second cry of “Waaargh!” not from the orks engaged with the wyches this time, but instead from another direction and one wych turned to see Two Heads bearing down on her followed by another unit of orks. When they had disembarked from the raider it had seemed to the wyches that they were about to engage a roughly equal number of inferior troops. Right now even the original unit they had planned to engage outnumbered them and with the addition of this new group they would surely be overwhelmed. She was just about shout a warning to her fellow wyches when a swing of Two Heads’ axe smashed open her skull. The remaining reaver jetbikes circled the battlefield. Below them they could see the wyches on foot fighting a desperate battle against the orks. With dark eldar and orks in such close proximity to try engaging the orks would pose too much of a risk to the wyches. The reavers would have to move in so close and slow down so much to be able to pick out the orks that they would become easy targets for the greenskins themselves. Out of the three ork vehicles only one was still moving, the others having been fully abandoned by their crews now. This was the largest vehicle however and without the hitting power of the heat lance the reavers were powerless to stop it. Then the leader of the reavers noticed that there was still one ork on his own however, the large one in the camouflaged clothing that supposedly carried the webway portal. Smiling, the reaver realised that he had the opportunity to be the one to return the precious device to Lord Shraycht. “Reavers! Dive!” “Hazug look out!” Sophie screamed as she spotted the reavers heading towards him and Hazug spun around to face them. He reacted quickly, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder and taking aim. He place his finger not on the main trigger, the one that could send either just a single bullet or a hail of them depending on how his rifle was set, but instead on the secondary one. This trigger operated just a single projectile, an explosive rocket mounted beneath the rifle primary barrel. He snatched at the trigger and felt the weapon jerk as the rocket was thrown forwards. A split second later there was a flash as it motor ignited and the rocket sped towards the oncoming eldar. The first of the oncoming reavers, the leader of the squad rapidly jinked his vehicle to avoid the oncoming projectile and passed by him narrowly. But the reaver immediately behind him did not have time to react and the explosive projectile slammed into his jetbike and reduced it in moments to a cloud of flying debris. The reaver’s leader felt his own jetbike shake as it was peppered with shrapnel from his exploding comrade. The vehicle suddenly became difficult to control and would not maintain its altitude. Spewing smoke and flame, it plummeted towards Hazug. The Blood Axe rolled aside when he saw the jetbike coming towards him, its pilot desperately trying to keep it in the air. He lay flat on the ground as it passed above him out of control. The pilot was now clinging onto his jetbike sideways and Hazug swung the butt of his rifle upwards and slammed it into the eldar’s featureless faceplate. There was a smashing sound and the rifle was torn free of Hazug’s grip, but the eldar was dead, his neck broken and his jetbike crashed into the ground. Two more eldar jetbikes screamed overhead as Hazug found himself facing them unarmed. Holding the arms of an eldar wych outstretched, Two Heads bite down on both sides of her neck simultaneously. Her death scream distorted by the blood that poured into her throat, she fell limp and Two Heads hurled the corpse towards another eldar. That one dodged the improvised projectile, but in doing so she stepped closer to Drazzok. The weirdboy swung his staff towards her and released what power he had left. Unable to absorb the orkish psychic energy into her body, the wych was instead roasted by it. The charred remains of the wych dropped to the ground and Drazzok slumped down also, exhausted by the repeated use of his power. “Great one!” Thuggrim yelled when he saw the weirdboy fall and pushing aside both eldar and ork alike he rushed to his master’s side. “I is fine!” Drazzok shouted, batting aside the hand that Thuggrim offered, “I is just a bit knackered dat’s all.” Seeing him sat on the ground, a wych let go of the corpse of the Evil Sun ork she had just stabbed through the heart and leapt at Drazzok. But before her blade reached the weirdboy Thuggrim swung his rifle. First he smashed the butt into her stomach and knocked the breath from her then he turned it around and emptied the magazine into her head. Clearly outmatched by the overwhelming numbers of orks, the two remaining wyches attempted to disengage. They dodged and weaved their way towards the edge of the melee using the superior numbers of the orks against them, several of the greenskins delivered blows meant for the eldar to their own kind by mistake as the wyches moved their bodies aside at the last moment. There were howls of contempt and insults and threats of revenge were hurled amongst the orks as some of them began to openly fight each other. “Stop muckin’ about!” both of Two Heads yelled as he grabbed a pair of his orks who were battling one another and slammed their heads together with sufficient force to knock them both out, “Get da pansies!” Leaving Drazzok with Thuggrim standing watch, the Evil Suns of Two Heads mob gave chase to the eldar. Had any of them retained their rifles they could have just down the fleeing aliens, but those that had not discarded their guns before the melee had emptied their magazines and then just used them as clubs form then on. Both of the eldar on the other hand had pistols that they fired at the pursuing orks and a pair of them fell as the deadly shards the alien weapons shot struck them. The sound of an engine grew louder and the battlewagon came hurtling towards the eldar. Both of the aliens were sufficiently agile to jump out of the way of the massive vehicle, but in doing so one of them leapt back towards the orks chasing them. Two Heads caught hold of one of the eldar’s arms and yanked her towards him. He slammed both of his heads into hers simultaneously before hurling he into the midst of his troops. The Evil Suns ceased their pursuit and fell upon the hapless alien, still hitting and kicking her even after she was dead. On the roof of the battlewagon Mek Batrug turned his attention away from the reavers to the last wych fleeing on foot. He pivoted the automatic weapon and laughed out loud as he fired a sustained burst. The bullets tore up the ground behind the alien in a line that drew ever closer to her. Then a round went through her knee and severed her leg. The wych screamed as she tumbled then more bullets ripped through her body and her screams were silenced. Two Heads looked around. All of the wyches were dead, but two of the jetbike-riding aliens remained, dodging all the fire directed at them from the ground. Then he spotted Mek Cognailer just standing beside the empty rhino looking up into the sky at the jetbikes. “Wotcha doin’?” he yelled, but the mekboy ignored him. Two Heads ran up to mek and while one head took in deep breaths the other one looked him in the eyes and demanded, “I said wotcha doin’?” “Crossing targets confuse targeting.” Cognailer replied calmly, “Firing solution incomplete.” “Weirdo.” Two Heads snapped and he picked up a rifle that one of his troops had dropped nearby and fired it into the air at the eldar. Hazug rolled again as Sophie warned him of the reavers making another run at him. The ground beside him was torn up by a short burst of gunfire from one of the jetbikes that went wide. Getting back to his feet he had just enough time to get to where he had dropped his pistol and warscythe earlier before Sophie shouted out another warning. Hazug grabbed hold of his warscythe and lay flat on his back. He activated the ancient alien weapon and held it vertically just as one of the eldar passed over him. The strange alien blade cut through the jetbike effortlessly, but before it reached the pilot the power pack suddenly died. Though the blade remained sharp, the jetbike’s structure now offered resistance to its passage and the warscythe was ripped from Hazug’s grip just as his rifle had been. But the damage to the jetbike had been done and its engine cut out. The rider tried to leap clear, but travelling at such speeds his body crumpled as soon as it hit the ground. When some of the Evil Suns got to it they found only a corpse to dismember. “Crossing target removed.” Coognailer uttered, “Firing solution now complete.” And he raised his pistol. Hazug watched for the final eldar jetbike to make another run at him. But as the lightweight vehicle turned towards him neatly avoiding all of the gunfire form the battlewagon there was another shot. This was from a weapon much lighter than the twin-linked automatics carried the battlewagon and it seemed that only a single bullet was fired. But the bullet found its mark and the jetbike’s rider first twitched then fell forwards before his uncontrolled jetbike sped off and crashed. From the shadow of a standing rock the mandrakes watched the forces of the wych cult be destroyed. “Should we intervene?” one of the creatures hissed. “No.” its leader replied, “Those were not our orders. We were to scout out the location of the orks holding the portal so that Lyanil’s wyches could recover it, not assist in the recovery itself. We do not need the device ourselves. We will return to Lord Shraycht an tell him of their failure.” Then he stepped backwards and vanished into the darkness of the shadow. Without speaking the other mandrakes did likewise. As the orks picked over the battlefield Two Heads approached Hazug. “So is dat all of ‘em den?” one of him asked as the other nodded expectantly. “I doubts it.” Hazug replied as he picked up his rifle and inspected it for damage, “Even though dis lot ‘ad a wagon wot could ‘ave carried off da humans from dat farm we still don’t knows where dey been taken. I reckon da eldar got an ‘idey ‘ole somewhere around ‘ere.” “Like da tau ‘ad?” Two Heads asked, remembering another alien force that had struck at them. “Yeah like da tau.” Hazug replied, “But for some reason dis lot seems well interested in dis wot I took off one of ‘em.” And he took out the webway portal and held it up. “Dat thing wot Drazzok don’t like?” Two Heads asked before the other one added, “Why?” “Dat’s a bloody good question. “Hazug replied, “Why don’t we go find out?” “’Ow?” Two Heads asked. “I gots one alive.” Hazug told him and he smiled. |
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