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Chapta 8 | |
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Da Raiders From Da Shadows Chapta 8 |
Rhulal had allowed his squad of reavers to halt for a rest. The powerful jetbikes they rode were lined up neatly, floated effortlessly at waist height while their riders consumed sustenance. The flapping of wings drew Rhulal’s attention upwards, his hand instinctively reaching for his sidearm. He relaxed when he saw the scourge descend and perch itself in a nearby tree. “The beasts move this way.” The scourge spoke, its head swaying from side to side while it kept its eyes focused on Rhulal. “How many?” Rhulal asked. “Three vehicles.” Rhulal snorted. He and his squad had just ambushed an ork force twice that size, surprising them when they stopped to refuel. The greenskins had been so unprepared for attack that Rhulal had not even needed to summon any of the warriors who waited in the webway for him to activate the portable portal device he carried. “They have two of the mon keigh with them also. Both young, one an infant.” This interested Rhulal. “An infant?” he repeated, “With its parent perhaps?” “Perhaps.” The scourge said, “It is uncertain.” Rhulal smiled.
The chance to take a parent and child was an opportunity not to be missed.
Torture the child and the parent would suffer too. Keep the child alive
and it could be sold to the haemonculus for altering. The scourge did not speak. Instead it reached out an arm and extended a finger towards the approaching orks. The noise came from overhead, an unrelenting screeching audible over the sound of the truck’s engine and Hazug looked up. He blinked as he found himself staring towards the sun and he held up a hand to shield his eyes. “Wot’s dat sound?” Drazzok demanded as he awoke and looked around. Then, their approach concealed by coming out of the sun the eldar dropped from the sky. Each of them rode atop some sort of jet-propelled vehicle about the same size as a warbike or death copter. Just as it appeared that the eldar would plough right into the ground they performed an impossibly sharp turn and streaked overhead. Most of the occupants of Hazug’s truck turned their heads to follow the eldar and watched as they past low over Two Heads’ battlewagon. The orks crewing the twin mounted automatic weapons on the armoured vehicle’s roof did their best to point their weapons towards the eldar, but the aliens moved too swiftly. One of the eldar vehicles past over the battlewagon at such a low altitude that it barely cleared it. However, it did not clear one of the ork gunners. A blade-like wing fixed to one side of the jetbike’s engine sliced through his neck and sent his head rolling from his shoulders, bouncing off the battlewagon’s roof before falling to the ground. “Thuggrim!” Hazug yelled, “Let rip!” “At wot?” Thuggrim asked, oblivious to the eldar while he stared at the human infant. “Here, let me take him.” Sophie said and she reached out and took the baby from the ork nob. Thuggrim snarled. “I almost ‘ad it!” he yelled and for a split second it seemed that he would actually attack Sophie. Then he noticed the eldar, “Bleedin’ pansies!” he yelled and he grabbed hold of the truck’s weapon. He pulled the trigger but nothing happened and it took a moment for Thuggrim to realise that he had not chambered a round yet. Rhulal looked back over his shoulder after his squad had completed their first pass over the ork vehicles. Already he had claimed a kill, decapitating an ork gunner. He saw the ork vehicles begin to turn around to come after his squad. At the same time the orks opened fire, sending streams of projectiles towards the eldar. Almost in unison the reavers performed mid air turns and flew back towards the ork vehicles, jinking their jetbikes to avoid the incoming fire. The headless corpse of the ork gunner was pushed out of the battlewagon by its other occupants, eager to get the second weapon emplacement into action. But as another ork climbed up from within the eldar were already upon them and he was ripped clear of the gun emplacement, screaming in pain as a barbed chain dragged behind a jetbike impaled his chest. “Bail out!” Hazug yelled and he slammed his foot on the truck’s brake, bringing it to a dead halt as fast as he could, “Stay low!” he shouted as he leapt down from his seat. Then he waved towards the armoured vehicles carrying Two Heads lads, “Stay inside!” he yelled, “Don’t give ‘em a target big enough to lop off!” At Hazug’s urging both the battlewagon and the rhino ground to a halt and the orks manning the roof-mounted weapons climbed back inside them. Then hatchways opened up and the muzzles of orkish small arms appeared in them, letting loose random and uncontrolled bursts of fire at the rapidly moving eldar vehicles. “Under da truck.” He urged the others who had bailed out of his own vehicle as he reached into the rear cargo area. “What about
you?” Sophie asked as she slid beneath the truck, clutching the baby in
her arms. “Yeah shut up git!” Ratish snapped as he too joined the others beneath the truck, pulling Cuddles along behind him. Hazug pulled his hand from the truck. In it he now held a long bladed weapon that mounted a crude assembly of electronics near to the blade. The alien weapon had proven itself capable of cutting through any material ever since he had taken it from the tomb located beneath the surface of the planet and though it had ceased to function when Hazug had destroyed the tomb, Mek Batrug had improvised a replacement, if limited power source using the ammunition clip for a human energy weapon. Hazug checked the electronics added by Batrug and switched it on. There was a slight hum and Hazug smiled. Then he stepped away from the truck. A pair of eldar on their flying machines headed straight for him, weaving heir way through the barrage of fire coming from the other two ork vehicles. The first one headed directly towards him, obviously planning to run him down. The rider screeched as she drew closer and her eyes widened with glee. Then her expression changed as she realised that Hazug was making no effort to dodge her attack. Inside the ork nob knelt down and planted the warscythe in the ground in front of him with its blade extending before him. At the last moment the eldar broke off her attack run at the last moment, but it was too late. Hazug twisted the warscythe and the impossibly sharp blade sliced her vehicle in two. The jetbike’s path also brought the blade through its rider’s leg and she fell screaming to the ground. There was a burst of fire from beneath Hazug’s truck as Thuggrim opened fire with his rifle and the eldar female twitched as bullets riddled her body. The burst ended only when Thuggrim’s weapon was emptied though the eldar was dead long before that. There was more gunfire, this time coming from one of the eldar jetbikes. Now well aware that the orks were not acting in a typical ork manner and charging headlong towards them where they could be run over and cut down the eldar instead chose to respond to the ork shooting in kind. Protected by the armour plating of their vehicles, the orks carried on regardless. Hazug rolled as another eldar made run at him. This one rode a jetbike that trailed barbed chains like the one that had pulled the ork gunner from the battlewagon. Hazug deactivated his warscythe and held it up, swatting at one of the chains so that it caught. Then, before the weapon could be ripped from his grasped he rammed it into the ground at his feet and hung on. The jetbike jerked suddenly as the chain held was pulled tight and in the fraction of a second before it snapped the chain brought the jetbike to a sudden halt. Unsecured in any way, the unfortunate rider was hurled forwards at the same he had been travelling. He screamed as he flew uncontrollably through the air towards Hazug’s truck before bouncing several times on the ground. Dazed, but protected by his bodysuit the eldar lifted his face out of the dirt and looked ahead of him. There he saw Cuddles looking right back at him from beneath the truck. “Fetch!” Ratish yelled and he let go of the squig’s leash. The creature bounded forwards and before the eldar could draw a weapon it opened its mouth wide, let the eldar’s entire head go into its mouth and bit down on his neck. Cuddles growled as he shook the eldar. There was a brief and muffled scream, followed by a ‘crunch’ as the eldar’s neck broke and the eldar reaver’s corpse hung limply from Cuddles’ mouth as the squig returned to the safety beneath the truck still gripping his prize. Sophie dragged herself further away from the creature as it began to rip lumps of flesh from the body. Inside the battlewagon Two Heads watched the fighting as best as he could through the various vision slits and hatchways. Close in the eldar jetbikes continued to dodge and weave and though it made their own shooting at the orks less accurate it also made it harder for the orks to hit them. Then one of him spotted a trio of jetbikes further out that appeared to be looping around for their next run. He tapped himself on the shoulder so that the other head could take a look as well and they both smiled. “Oi Kragglat!” one of him yelled. Then the other one added, “Load us some shot in da kannon.” There was an almighty ‘boom’ from the direction of the battlewagon and for a split second Hazug feared that the heavy vehicle, the most powerful weapon available to the warband had been damaged. But as he looked towards it he saw that the noise had in fact come from the heavy cannon that was mounted in an enclosed turret on its roof. A dark cloud was hurtling away from the weapon’s muzzle and Hazug realised that it had been loaded with a canister of shot. The cloud was a mixture of unburned propellant and whatever scraps of metal had been used for projectiles. The cloud expanded as it travelled and the trio of jetbikes that Two Heads had observed were enveloped by it before they could move out of its path. The cloud shred two of the lightweight vehicles and their riders. The third jetbike, only just clipped by the shrapnel fired towards it began to trail smoke and the noise of its engine became erratic. The eldar rider slowed his jetbike and allowed it to settle to the ground. Unfortunately for the eldar, by slowing down he gave the orks and easier target to aim at and they focused their shooting towards him. The generally poor standard of ork shooting gave the reaver enough time to dismount and take cover behind his ruined jetbike. But when he bobbed up to take aim at the orks with a pistol a single shot fired by Thuggrim form beneath the truck took the top of his head off. Rhulal began to panic. Half his reavers were now dead and it seemed that these orks were not the mindless beasts he had expected them to be. Not only had they formed themselves into a good defensive formation in good order, but they also seemed to be quite prepared to hold those positions instead of making themselves easy targets in the open. He could of course order a retreat, but that would run the risk of suggesting weakness to his underlings. Plus of course he still wanted the humans that the orks were protecting for some reason. Rhulal brought his jetbike to a halt at a spot where he did not think he could be seen from the hatchways of the ork vehicles and reached for the webway portal that Lord Shraycht had entrusted to his care. Hazug saw one of the jetbikes break off. “Where’s ‘e goin’?” he said to himself. He looked around at the positions of the other remaining eldar and after reassuring himself that they were not about to run him down Hazug ran after the eldar. Having unwrapped the webway portal, Rhulal began the process of activating it. Ideally he would have liked to summon ravager anti-armour vehicles, but this device was intended just for allowing the movement of infantry between real space and the webway. However, he knew that a squad or two of warriors equipped with dark lances should be able to make short work of the ork vehicles and turn the battle in favour of the dark eldar. Ancient runes on the portal device glowed as Rhulal moved his hands over them. Already he knew that the dark eldar waiting in the webway would be aware that a portal was about open and would be readying themselves to pour through it and do battle. Suddenly there was the sound of heavy footfalls and just as a shadow fell over Rhulal he turned around to see a large ork bearing down on him and brandishing a weapon he instantly recognised as being of ancient necontyr manufacture. “Wotcha got
dare?” Hazug yelled as he saw the webway portal Rhulal was only part way
to activating. His words were translated for the dark eldar by the
advanced technology in his helmet and Rhulal tried to hide the device from
Hazug’s view at the seem time as he reached for the pistol on his
hip. “Where ya goin’?” Hazug said as he wrapped an arm around Rhulal’s neck from behind and tightened his grip. Rhulal’s arms flailed about as he tried to break Hazug’s ever-tightening grip. But even when he scratched and hit the ork Hazug would not let go and Rhulal’s vision began to blur. Hazug let go of his warscythe and reached for Rhulal’s head. Placing his hand over the dark eldar’s face he pulled his head to one side rapidly and there was a ‘snap’ as Rhulal’s neck broke. Hazug let go of Rhulal and the eldar’s lifeless body dropped to the ground at his feet. “Dat’s wot ya get for messin’ with us!” Hazug shouted at the body and he picked up his warscythe from beside him. Then he spotted a tiny sphere lying on the ground nearby. Made of some strange material, the device had glowing marking son it and Hazug realised that it was what the eldar had been trying to conceal from him. He strode to where the object lay and bent down to pick it up. As soon as he touched the device he felt a tingle in his fingers and the glowing markings faded and became invisible. Shrugging, Hazug stuffed the sphere into a pouch on his belt and then ran back towards the battle he had just left. There was a ‘whoosh’ as the ork vehicles came back into view and Hazug saw an ork leaning from the rhino’s rooftop hatch firing one of the human rocket launchers from there. Hazug shook his head at the thought of one of the precious weapons being wasted on targets such as these eldar and their fragile vehicles, but it was too late to do anything about it now. Doubtless Two Heads would have something to say about it later though, the Evil Sun nob would likely rip teeth from the mouth of the ork responsible to pay for the missile. It was not to be however, because in exposing himself from the large top hatch of the rhino, the ork that had fired the missile had made him an easy target for the eldar. Two jetbikes dived towards him and opened fire. Blood sprayed from the ork’s shoulder as part of one of the bursts directed at him clipped his flesh. Hazug had seen many orks take hits like that before and barely even notice. No bones were broken and the flesh would heal quickly. However, on this occasion the ork screamed out in pain and clamped and hand over the wound as he slumped back into the rhino. Even from inside the armoured vehicle, Hazug could still hear the ork screaming in pain. There was the sound of a jet engine from behind Hazug and he turned just in time to see the eldar closing on him rapidly. He dropped to the ground and jabbed upwards with his warscythe just as the eldar passed overhead. The blade punched through the nose of the vehicle and sliced through it as kept going. Hunched low over the controls, the rider suffered the same after and dropped to the ground in two halves as his vehicle crashed further on and burst into flames. With only three of their number now remaining, the last of the dark eldar reavers decided to call it a day and flee. “Don’t let ‘em escape!” one of Two Heads yelled as he leant out of his battlewagon’s rear hatch, waving a fist in the air. “Da big shootas!” Hazug shouted, “Da eldar aint goin’ to lop ya ‘ead off for usin’ ‘em now!” Beneath the truck Drazzok prodded Thuggrim. “Didn’t ya ‘ear ‘im? Get on da gun again.” And the madnob scrabbled out from under the vehicle and clambered back up to the weapon mounted on its roll cage. While the orks in both the battlewagon and the rhino were still trying to get back into position to fire their automatic weapons Thuggrim let off a sustained burst in the direction of the dark eldar. The ammunition that Hazug used was not built by gretchin like most ork bullets were. Those crudely built rounds that were churned out by the thousands everyday were frequently inconsistent in performance. This did not really matter if a shooter was merely laying down a random curtain of fire, but it did not lend itself well to precision shooting. Hazug had recently negotiated a deal between Warboss Kazkal Kromag and the humans of Git Town to guarantee the humans’ safety in exchange for a steady supply of higher quality ammunition made by them. What the warboss did not know was that the humans were in fact making more ammunition than they were required to under the agreement and building up a stockpile just case they ever fell short in production. In exchange for keeping quiet about this, Hazug received frequent shipments of some of the surplus rounds for his own use. So it was that the automatic weapon on his truck was loaded with a belt of human made bullets. One round in every five of these had a red mark on the tip. At first Hazug had assumed that it was to increase their velocity, but it was explained to him that it marked them out as rounds known as ‘tracers’ and that they would create a visible trail in the air to help accuracy. The weapon let out a rattle as it fired and Hazug saw a stream of bright red flashes rush towards the fleeing eldar. To begin with the burst of fire went wide but, seeing the trail left by the tracer ammunition Thuggrim adjusted his aim and the burst cut down one of the eldar riders. Another massive ‘boom’ signalled the discharge of the battlewagon’s main gun once more. But by now the eldar had put enough distance between themselves and the battlewagon that they were out of range of the cloud of shot. “Shells!” Two Heads bellowed in frustration as he watched the shot pattern fall short, “Let ‘em ‘ave some ‘splosives!” As Kragglat worked to reload the cannon a pair of orks had made it into the twin automatic weapon mounts nearer to the front of the battlewagon and they directed their guns towards the last two eldar. Lacking the superior ammunition that Hazug used they instead just concentrated on getting as many rounds into the air as possible, reasoning that they were bound to hit something. A third stream of bullets joined these two as the rhino’s gunner opened fire also. With so much metal hurtling towards them, it was inevitable that one of the eldar would be hit. At first smoke erupted from one of the jetbikes as its engine faltered and then the rider jerked in his seat as rounds tore into his body. He slumped over his controls and the jetbike nose dived into the ground and erupted into flames. Another booming sound rang out as Kragglat fired a shell towards the last reaver. The heavy round whistled as it travelled in a high arc overhead, the sound slowly fading as it got further away. The orks watched as the shell passed over the jetbike and landed in the ground ahead of it. At first it seemed that the eldar would escape - there was no time to load another round before he was out of range - but the shell detonated just as the eldar got close to it. Splattered with dirt and grass and buffeted by the shockwave of the explosion the jetbike tumbled in midair and threw its rider from his seat. The orks let out a mighty cheer as they saw the last of their enemies die, his body smashed against the ground. What the orks did not see was the other figure that was perched in a tree from where it had watched the battle unfold. Using the advanced alien optics built into its helmet the scourge zoomed in on Hazug and noted the sphere that could just about be seen poking out of a pouch. Letting out a screech that made the distant orks look around, the scourge flew into the air and headed of into the distance. Through the already open hatches of their vehicles, the orks poured out onto the field of battle. “Wotcha waitin’ for lads?” one of Two Heads bellowed before the other one finished with, “Get lootin’!” There was a cheer from the Evil Suns and they rushed towards the downed jetbikes. “Ya can come out now.” Hazug said to the group beneath his truck, “Da eldar is dead.” At this point the Evil Suns orks discovered that one of the eldar was yet quite dead and finished him off by clubbing him with their rifle butts. “Well dey is all dead now.” Hazug said, “I reckon.” “So is that is?” Sophie asked as she pushed the baby’s basket out from under the truck before she followed it. “I doubts it.” Hazug replied, “Dare was only a few of ‘em. Dey couldn’t ‘ave taken da humans from dat farm, dare wasn’t enough room on dare warbikes.” Then Hazug noticed that Drazzok was rubbing his forehead. “Wot’s up?” he asked the weirdboy. “Somethin’ aint right.” Drazzok replied, “Da battle is over, but I is still feelin’ power movin’ through me ‘ead. It aint proper power from da lads neither. It weird.” Hazug remembered the device that he had taken from the eldar and pulled it from his belt. Drazzok snarled and stepped away. “Get rid of dat!” he snapped, waving his hand at the device and pushing his energy dissipating staff deep into the dirt at his feet. “Why?” Hazug asked, “Wotcha feel?” “Dare’s power in dat thing.” Drazzok said, “Power wot is tryin’ to get out.” “Is it a bomb?” Sophie asked, edging away cautiously. “Git coward!” Ratish snapped, “Master can use bomb to kill pansies!” “It aint a bomb.” Drazzok said, “Its somethin’ else. Smash it, smash it now!” Hazug put the alien device back in his belt pouch. “I reckon dat I’ll ‘ang to it for a while longer.” He said and Drazzok snarled again. Copying the weirdboy, Thuggrim did the same before he looked at Drazzok and grinned. “I is ‘ungry!” Drazzok snapped, turning towards Sophie, “Wotcha got to eat?” Sophie patted
the top of a box in the back of the truck. “Well dat was a bunch of crap!” Two Heads interrupted as he stormed towards Hazug and the others, “Dem pansies make dare warbikes from weird stuff wot aint worth lootin’. Batrug says dare aint no meks goin’ to pay a tooth for da lot!” “Cor! Dese look good.” Drazzok said, oblivious to Two Heads’ approach and he pulled a handful of pies from the box. “Careful with dem Drazzok.” Two Heads warned, recognising them immediately, “Dey is-“ but before he could finish the weirdboy shoved as many of them into his mouth as he could. “Wot?” he said, spitting fragments of half chewed pie at the Evil Sun nob, “Dare’s nought wrong with ‘em.” As Two Heads scratched his heads while he watched Drazzok gobbling down the spicy pies Hazug just stood and stared. Ahead of him he could see the Evil Suns of Two Heads’ mob picking over the remains of the eldar. Though they had found little to loot they were still taking trophies and chewing on burnt limbs. Mek Batrug was there with them also. Though the remains of the eldar vehicles may not be worth much as scrap, a mek like him could still make use of at least some parts. But what really interested Hazug was Mek Cognailer. Rather than join in the looting, the mekboy was sat on the rear ramp of the rhino. He was clutching his bag in his lap and seemed to be looking straight down into it. Talking to something inside. “I reckons dat ya should ‘ave a look at Dubbug though.” Two Heads suddenly said to Hazug, tearing his attention away from the mekboy, “Somethin’ aint right with ‘im.” Hazug
nodded. “’Ere ‘e is.” Two Heads said and he pointed to where the ork Dubbug lay dead on the floor of the vehicle. Hazug knelt down beside him and looked at the wound he had suffered. Dubbug was the ork that had fired the missile from the rooftop hatch and in return been shot by the eldar. “I was goin’ to give ‘im a good kickin’ for wastin’ a rokkit like dat.” Two Heads explained, “Only when I got ‘ere ‘e was dead and da lads was pullin’ out ‘is teeth already.” Hazug opened the orks mouth and sure enough there were no teeth left inside. Then he looked back at the wound. Just as Hazug had thought when he saw Dubbug shot, the wound was not serious enough to slow down an ork in the midst of battle, let alone kill one. The limb was still fully attached and no major blood vessels had been severed. However, there was a dark staining around the wound and the tissue appeared swollen. “Go get Drazzok for us.” Hazug said to Two Heads. “Wotcha want da weirdo for?” one of Two Heads asked while the other one just scratched his head. “Cos Snake Bites knows about poisons.” Hazug replied. |
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