‘Don’t worry about them,’ I say, flashing a grin at the Colonel. ‘They’re just as keen to get out of here as the rest of us.’
The Colonel looms closer, passing a scrutinising glare over my militia.
‘How many orks live down here?’ he asks.
‘Hundreds,’ says Karol.
I sense the Colonel is formulating a plan, but this isn’t his company, this isn’t his mission.
‘But spread out mostly,’ I add, cutting him off.
‘Big green louder,’ Nazrek tells us, jabbing a bladed heavy pistol down the pipe. ‘Down-runts coming, hear the loud green.’
‘We’re here to get through, not raid,’ I remind Karol and the others. ‘Move fast, don’t get stuck in a big fight.’
‘Which way, though?’ he asks with a slight shake of the head. ‘Got to head east to get out-hive, but I don’t know anyone that’s gone maybe more than a kilometre that way. Could just run straight into a dead end and get trapped.’
I look back up the tunnel and see that a lot of my people have arrived, over a thousand altogether. They’re quiet, either sensible enough not to draw the attention of the orks, or too subdued by what’s happening to talk. Either way, that’s still a lot of dead weight to carry around.
Not dead weight, I remind myself. My people. The followers of the Burned Man. Servants of the Emperor, drawn by my faith.
‘We need to do this properly,’ I tell Karol, signalling for a few others to gather closer. ‘Lead squads to scout the way, advance in elements – five groups maybe, about a hundred in each.’
‘Your people are not disciplined enough for that,’ argues the Colonel, glancing over his shoulder at the huddling mass. ‘Even with escorts, which ones are going to have the courage to wait until last?’
‘Fine, good point,’ I growl back, hating that he’s right, and hating it more that I hadn’t thought of it. ‘Scout group and main group, it is. Put out two picket squads to watch the flanks, ten in each. Good eyes and ears, nobody flighty.’
Karol nods, looking away as he thinks of candidates. The Colonel steps closer, voice low. He addresses his words to Karol but his gaze lingers on me for a moment longer than I’m comfortable with.
‘We need dependable scouts. Nobody that is going to think it a good idea to just make a run for it.’
‘I’ll be with the main body,’ I add, somewhat quickly, I realise. Damn the Colonel and his doubts. Making me overreact.
A thump resounds down the tunnel, causing an outburst of cries and complaints from the jittery crowd.
‘That’ll be the barricades I lowered at the crossvents.’ Karol grimaces as he looks back. ‘That’s less than half a kilometre away.’
‘We need to go,’ I say, pushing him towards the filtration chamber. ‘Take the scouts ahead, we’ll follow.’
Karol moves on, picking out a few men and women as he does so. The others are shuffling closer, starting to push towards the downflow access. I’m aware of the looming Colonel, his presence distracting me.
‘How about you make yourself useful and stop any stragglers?’ I say to him.
‘You want me at the back?’ His eyes narrow. ‘Closest to the orks?’
I sigh and shake my head.
‘If none of us get out, that’s no good for me, is it?’ I say, disappointed by his low opinion but forced to address it in terms he’d expect. ‘I’d rather you watch our backs than anyone else.’
That seems to answer him, for the moment at least. He takes a handful of his squad and pushes back through the approaching people, urging them onward. I take up the call, telling them to move on fast but steady, sending several more folks with guns every few seconds.
In a line about five wide, a hundred metres long, we worm our way across the downflow – a great ferrocrete slope just about shallow enough to clamber down, illuminated by an ancient glowstrip nearly twenty metres long, powered from Emperor knows where. It’s the last light that we’re not carrying with us and as we snake into the tunnel beyond – an old outflow pipe that breaks about three hundred metres on – we bring out lanterns and hand-lumens. Beams of yellow, blue and white dance across the rusted pipeway, accompanied by the clatter of footfalls and the swell of mass breathing, the surroundings growing colder while exhalations fog the air.
Nazrek stomps along at my right shoulder, grunting every few steps. Behind, the patter of Grot’s bare feet. I glance back at the ork, its red eyes reflecting the light of the lanterns.
‘What do you feel?’
‘Green, everywhere,’ it says, turning its head left and right. ‘Green and blood, blood and green. Hurts in my brain.’
I take this to mean the down-runts are close, but there’s been nothing from the scouts yet. If there had been an attack, we’d have heard gunshots and shouts.
What are they waiting for?
Three
PASSING THROUGH ORKDOM
We pass through a few abandoned workshops and tool rooms – bare carcasses long stripped of anything useful, filled with shadows and disturbing creaks where machinery used to be.
It’s not just generations of human scavengers that have passed through. Patches of fungus puff clouds of spores into the still air, dusting the bare rockcrete. The smell is unmistakable, and I see Nazrek sniffing intently.
‘Old,’ the orks says. ‘Weak.’
‘Can you work out which way they are?’
The ork stomps about for a bit, while the rest of the crowd move through the workshops, huddling together like a prey herd, eyes in all directions. Those of us armed create a kind of corridor for them to move along, standing guard at stairwells and archways, passing ahead and keeping watch to the rear, a moving protective pocket. I’m surprised that we haven’t run into any of the down-runts. Whatever has stirred the orks from uphive maybe hasn’t reached down here yet.
‘Let’s keep going, quick as we can,’ I say now and then, repeating it slowly and calmly so as not to set off another stampede. If people panic down here they’ll head off in all directions and we’ll never get them out.
‘Gettin’ closer,’ warns Nazrek when we pass into the remains of an old scriptorium. I can tell what it was by the raised overseer plinth at the far end and the rust-lined holes in the floor where benches and lecterns used to be secured. Overhead, out of reach, rusting lumen chandeliers continue to flicker, intermittently leaching off the underground thermal energy grid.
Through a half-collapsed corridor we pass single file into the dormitories, probably of those long-forgotten scribes. Rooms large enough for a score of beds each flank a central passageway, eight on each side. There are scraps of metal and discarded rags here, and one of the rooms reeks of ork shit. As we get closer the stench becomes almost unbearable. Fungal growths as large as me cling to the walls, forcing us to hack and batter our way through, every blow of blade and gun butt releasing more pungent spores into the air. Strange bugs skitter along brightly coloured fronds, mandibles working with anticipation, while larger creatures scuttle noisily through an undergrowth of smaller, drab growths.
While we press on, Grot stops, stooping to pluck handfuls of mushrooms from the corner of the floor and wall, jamming some straight into its mouth, others into a small bag tied around its waist. Nazrek pushes past, carelessly snapping stems and trampling fungi underfoot, staining its green skin with smears of yellow and red. The ork crouches in the midst of the fungus and makes strange, soft grunts, a hand held out.
Something about as long as my forearm slithers out of the fungal copse, like a centipede but with disturbingly orkish features. A cluster of antennae wave over its red eyes, feeling Nazrek, who chuckles deep in its chest at the touch. I watch fascinated as the alien lifts up the orkipede, stroking a finger along its length. Nazrek straightens, pinching the orkipede hard behind the head. Glistening fangs stab out like switchblades, dripping green fluid.
Nazrek lifts the bug high, letting the venom fall onto its outstretched tongue.
The ork smacks its lips, takes the orkipede in both hands and twists the head off with a deft movement. Casting the head aside, Nazrek quickly opens up the hard carapace with long nails, exposing green oozing flesh beneath, which it deposits into an open mouth with relish.
The ork belches and turns to me.
‘Burned Man want?’ it asks.
‘Not hungry,’ I say quickly, which is saying something given what I’ve had to eat in the past.
Nazrek shrugs and bends to grab Grot by the neck. The smaller orkoid snatches a last few mushrooms into its mouth before being flung along the corridor, a threatening growl from Nazrek hurrying it along the way.
There’s a flutter of reaction ahead, preceding the arrival of Bentza, one of the scouts. She carries her lasgun slung over her shoulder, a long knife in hand.
‘We found prisoners, Burned Man,’ she says as she comes up to me. ‘Chained up in one of the rooms ahead.’
‘Okay, show me,’ I reply, beckoning for Nazrek to follow.
We overtake the others and find Karol at a branch junction, a smaller corridor of rough ferrocrete heading off to the right, a set of steps a few metres along. I can hear moaning and whispered urging for silence coming along the passageway.
‘Prisoners? Ours?’ I ask as I fall in beside Karol, turning towards the steps.
‘Don’t recognise them,’ he tells me, leading me to the left on the landing at the bottom of the steps, through a doorless frame into a low, broad chamber barely high enough to stand in.
It smells like a company latrine, mixed with the ever-present fungal stench of ork spoor. There’s nothing in the room except for a gaggle of seven people – three women, four men – chained to a ring in the far wall, the wheel of a pumpcycle protruding from a metal plate next to them. There’s a fly-ridden pile of human waste in the far corner, at the furthest extent of the chain’s reach, and scraps of food scattered about.
Some of the slaves cry out when they see me, shocked by my scars, I guess. They babble, trying to form words, lifting bloodied hands towards us. The light from Karol’s lantern causes them all to flinch back. I grab his arm, directing the beam away, seeing the pain it’s causing them.
‘Frag,’ I say, at a loss for any other words. Scabs circle their ankles where the shackles bind them, their legs covered in filth, hair down to their waists and further. They’re pretty much the same grimy colour as the walls, and when they speak I see bloodied gums studded with a few teeth, like bunkers on a defence line.
‘Frag,’ I say again. I thought I’d seen everything, but I was wrong.
‘He… help,’ one of the women manages, pushing herself, trembling, to her feet. They’re all naked; I can see whorls where fleshworms have burrowed through the skin, and dark lesions from rustdagger spores.
Then I see that one of them hasn’t moved since I entered, lying near the wall. I direct Karol’s lamp onto the supine form and see flies buzzing around empty eye sockets. Dead for some time, ork fungus growing from patches on the skin, maggots creeping through rotting wounds.
This time it’s Karol that gives vent to our disgust.
‘Frag.’ He covers his mouth, retching. ‘Frag this. Frag this.’
‘Keep it together,’ I grunt, grabbing his arm. I take the lantern away, swinging it to illuminate the chains. Not thick, but also not thin.
The sound of movement causes me to turn.
‘What is…’ The Colonel trails off, standing in the doorway, head tilted. If it’s bad enough to unsettle the Colonel, you know it’s bad. There’s a moment when he looks disgusted, replaced by visible anger. Not often you see a reaction like that.
Mumbled pleading from the prisoners drags my attention back to them; they’re straining at their chains, pawing at the dirty floor with blistered fingers. It’s like they’ve forgotten how to talk, just grunting and saying ‘please’ and ‘help’ over and over.
‘What are you going to do?’ asks Karol, as if that’s any kind of sensible question. It’s obvious there’s not a lot we can do.
‘They will slow you down,’ says the Colonel, face impassive again.
It’s true, but the words feel like an accusation, coming from Schaeffer. What goes unsaid is that I’ll just abandon these unfortunates to look after myself. He doesn’t say it but I feel the judgement all the same.
‘Gun,’ I say, gesturing to Karol. He hands over his rifle and I pull the magazine out. I pop a bullet from the top, reload the magazine and pass the weapon back to him.
‘What are you doing, Kage?’ asks the Colonel, concerned. ‘The orks will be here in minutes, one way or the other.’
I give him silence in reply, walking over to the wall where the ring is embedded in plascrete. I dig a small hole with my knife, just enough to wedge the bullet between the ring plate and the wall.
Stepping back, I drag the laspistol from my belt and take aim.
‘Kage!’
I ignore Schaeffer and pull the trigger, the bolt of light striking the bullet square. The small detonation tears a chunk out of the wall, enough so that two of the bolts in the ring plate break free. The prisoners realise what is happening and surge together, their wasted muscles straining at their chains.
I grab links in my fists and pull too, Karol behind me, and a few seconds later rusting metal screeches and the plate falls clear, throwing us all to the dirty ground. The prisoners start laughing, clustering around me, grinning madly.
‘Now what?’ growls the Colonel. He points to the chains, still shackling them together, threaded through the heavy ring.
‘Get some others,’ I tell Karol. He hesitates, not sure what I mean, so I pick up a length of chain and haul it over my shoulder. ‘Five strong backs should be enough.’
‘This is idiotic,’ says the Colonel as Karol leaves. ‘We will all die if we carry this burden.’
The prisoners start shuffling to the door, urged on by me, carrying as much chain in their arms as they can. The Colonel steps aside as we reach the opening, eyeing me with a grimace.
‘You’d love that, wouldn’t you?’ I tell him, meeting his stare. ‘Prove yourself right about me? You’re wrong. I’m not that person any more. I’m not leaving these people.’
‘If you want to help them, put a las-bolt in them, but do not risk all of our lives for this.’
I shoulder past him.
‘Frag you.’
In the end it turns out to be quicker to carry the emaciated prisoners as well as their chains – they’re in no state to walk any distance at all. With the load spread over twenty people it’s hardly any burden – each of them is so starved they don’t weigh all that much.
A few minutes on and we’re into unknown territory. Most of our scouting and raids against the orks is west of here, through a maze of broken habspaces and empty manufactories. Truth is, most of Acheron’s underhive was cleared out the first time the Beast Ghazghkull invaded, so there was little enough down here at the time of the second attack. What I hear of it, von Strab – former governor and target of my last mission with the Colonel – had promised the orks control of the whole hive, inviting them in as occupying forces. Anyone that got word of that came down here, but most of them either starved to death, died of rad-rot from the broken reactor lines in the north, or had to go back up.
This area we’re heading into, what the locals call the mirecrack, is a wasteland half-flooded with toxic filth that’s been eating away at the hive foundations for centuries, probably millennia. Very unstable and very dangerous. Also empty of orks, which is the only point in its favour. We’re not out of down-runt territory yet though; it’s about another half a kilometre ahead and a kilometre down until we reach the first levels of the mirecrack.
I avoid the Colonel, losing myself among the front of the mob while
he takes up the rear again. I can’t work out if I’m sticking it to him, or if he deliberately goaded me into rescuing the prisoners. I thought I knew what I wanted, what I believed, but his reappearance has turned my thoughts upside down.
‘This Colonel,’ says Karol, sticking close on my right. ‘What’s he got in mind for us? When we get out, I mean.’
‘I don’t think he has anything in mind. What’s your point?’
‘We’re all deserters. If he thinks we’re heading back to the Imperial lines with smiles and handshakes…’
‘He just came for me,’ I tell him, but choose to leave out the part where my body was as good as me still breathing. ‘I was the one that said everyone had to come, or I wasn’t leaving.’
‘You said that?’
‘I’m the Burned Man, I look after my people,’ I say to him, tapping the muzzle of my laspistol against his wooden flame-plaque. ‘I remember when you started wearing these. Thought it was a joke at first. I mean, why would you want to remind me of getting burnt all the time?’
‘It wasn’t for you,’ he says. ‘It’s a reminder to us of what you’ve done, what you went through for us.’
It’s been a while since I’ve talked to anyone that was there at the beginning. With all the distractions of being in charge, I’ve kind of forgotten a lot of what happened.
‘You burned, purging your sins through the flames,’ Karol continues. I can barely see him in the lamplight but there’s a glisten of tears in his eyes. He doesn’t look at me, gaze fixed ahead as though seeing something else. His hands start to tremble, knife and pistol shaking with the power of memory. ‘You showed us what could be endured if we had faith. When the Beast came the first time, the Emperor gave us blessed Yarrick and Lord Dante and we found the courage to fight, and we won. When the Beast came back…’
‘You got von Strab.’
He glances at me, pure hate in his eyes.
‘Yes. Von Strab, the traitor.’ Karol shakes his head. ‘Sold us out, not even to the Beast but one of his warlords. And those poor bastards,’ he jerks a thumb towards the prisoners being carried behind us, ‘are just a few of those that suffered.’
Armageddon Saint - Gav Thorpe Page 4
