Death or Glory, page 9
No such luck, of course, although we were able to open up a reasonable lead before our pursuers noticed us. Glancing back, I noticed a dozen or so of the hulking creatures jogging forward with that same unexpected fluidity of movement I’d noticed before, expressions of belligerent curiosity on their faces, their heads and shoulders bobbing incongruously above the stacks of sanitary supplies. A couple of them surged forward abruptly, bellowing something incomprehensible in their barbarous tongue, and halted, beckoning the others to join them. Clearly, they’d just found the trio Jurgen and I had dispatched a few moments before.
‘Time we were out of here,’ I muttered to my aide, and he nodded, not bothering to reply. I indicated the warehouse, now only a few metres away. A blue painted, metal door stood invitingly ajar, seemingly close enough to touch, but across an open space with no sign of cover. Going back the way we’d come wasn’t an option, so we’d just have to chance it. A sudden increase in the volume of the ork bellowing behind us drew my eyes in that direction for a moment, just long enough to confirm my guess that a brawl had broken out over the possessions of the ones we’d just killed, and I nodded decisively. We weren’t going to get a better chance, that much was certain. ‘Now!’ I said, in an urgent undertone.
‘Right behind you, sir,’ my faithful aide responded, and we sprinted for the sanctuary of the portal. We’d almost made it, when a concerted roar of ‘Waaargh!’ behind us, punctuated by a spattering of brick dust as a fusillade of badly aimed bolts and heavy slugs gouged their distinctive signatures out of the wall, made it abundantly clear that we’d been spotted.
‘Inside!’ I suited the action to the word, wondering an instant too late if there were greenskins already inside the building and whether it might have been more prudent to send Jurgen in first, but to my relief the place seemed deserted. A moment later, my aide joined me and we pushed the door closed behind us with a squeal of rusted metal. Clearly it had been hanging ajar ever since the orks had first attacked the town, left unsecured in the general panic, and for a horrified moment I wondered if it had corroded too badly to close. The surge of adrenaline I felt at the thought proved more than enough to overcome any residual resistance, however, and it thudded into place not a moment too soon.
‘That won’t hold them for long, sir,’ Jurgen said helpfully, smacking home a couple of reassuringly solid looking bolts. A moment later, the steel door shivered on its hinges as our pursuers caught up with it, presumably without bothering to slow down first. As usual, Jurgen sounded surprisingly unconcerned, seemingly convinced I had matters well under control, and I found his phlegmatism strangely reassuring.
‘Let’s hope it doesn’t have to,’ I said, and activated the commbead again. ‘Tayber, what’s your position?’
‘Reamed,’ he responded almost at once. ‘We’re pinned down and surrounded. How about you?’
‘Likewise.’ I flinched reflexively as a crude grenade, resembling nothing so much as a ration tin stuck to a length of piping, sailed through a nearby window and rolled under a shelving unit of what looked like air conditioners. Jurgen and I just had time to dive for cover behind a reassuringly solid pallet full of boilers before it detonated, spraying the room with shrapnel which ricocheted off the metal cylinders with a rattle like a Galavan[49]. rainstorm. ‘Do you have a plan?’
‘Take as many of the grox-reamers with us as we can.’ The vox went dead, with a suddenness, which would have left me fearing for Grenbow’s safety if I’d had any concern to spare from worrying about mine. Either way, it didn’t sound like much of a plan to me.
‘Are you all right sir?’ Jurgen asked, rising cautiously to inspect the damage. I nodded.
‘For the moment,’ I said as casually as I could, trying to ignore the rhythmic thudding from the door. From the bursts of raucous laughter which accompanied each impact, I deduced that the orks were taking it in turns to run at the barrier, hoping to batter it down with their heads, an impression Jurgen confirmed a moment later after a cautious look through another nearby window.
‘Why don’t they just blow it down?’ he asked, honestly puzzled. I shrugged.
‘Frak knows,’ I said. The longer they kept the game up the better I liked it; it gave us a fighting chance of finding another way out of there. It was only as I began to understand more about what passed for the thought processes of these creatures that the incident began to make sense in retrospect. So far as they were concerned, we weren’t going anywhere, and given their tendency to impulsive behaviour and constant jockying for social status it was almost inevitable that trying to get at us would develop into another of their interminable competitions of strength and bravado.
‘They’re on this side too,’ Jurgen reported, somewhat superfluously, as the thudding began to be echoed from the direction of the truck-sized doorway giving access to the loading dock. It didn’t look as though there’d be much point in trying to get out that way either, I thought. Shame really, there was a lorry parked in the bay, which would have been a damn sight more comfortable than the ork boneshaker we’d commandeered. If we could have got it to run, that is; a dribble of lubricant ran from somewhere underneath it to vanish down a drainage hole in the corner of the floor.
‘Jurgen. Look for an inspection hatch.’ I pointed to the drain, which was only about a quarter of a metre across, far too small for either of us to fit. It seemed a pretty fair bet that it led to a sewer or something, though, and that wherever that was it would require periodic maintenance. Prosperity Wells was far too small to have accumulated a proper undercity over the centuries, but there was bound to be a tunnel system of some kind we could access.
Of course there wasn’t. Convenient drain covers leading to easily accessible escape routes may be abundant in the cheaper kind of escapist fiction, but if my experience over the years has been anything to go by, they’re depressingly rare in real life. (All right, I’ve found a few on occasion, but nowhere near as many as you’d expect given the number of times I’ve been stuck in situations like this.) A few moments of frantic searching was enough to convince me of the fact, and I was just beginning to think about firing up one of the torches I’d noticed on a nearby shelf in a futile attempt to burn through the grating over the too-small hole I’d found before, when a rather more practical notion occurred to me. I pointed to the truck.
‘See if you can get that thing started,’ I ordered, before grabbing an armful of the torches and running back towards the besieged rear entrance. To my relief, the door still held; although it was looking pretty battered now, and the bolts securing the hinges to the wall were beginning to work clear of the brickwork. Judging by the noise outside, the crowd of orks had grown too, considerably, but there was no time to worry about that either.
Fortunately, everything I needed was within easy reach, including the pallet of boilers we’d sheltered from the grenade explosion behind. I selected the nearest, and tipped the pile of brazing torches inside, pausing only to unscrew the nozzle and igniter unit from the last one; the gas inside the little pressurised cylinder began to hiss out, and I dropped it on top of its fellows hastily, holding my breath as I screwed a metal cover snatched from a nearby shelf over the large hole in the top of the boiler intended for the main outlet pipe. Within seconds the thick metal vessel would be full of flammable vapour, or so I hoped. I stopped up the inlet pipe with the igniter unit, sealing the join with some mastic I’d grabbed on the way, and paused to inspect my handiwork. So far so good; now for the tricky part.
Praying fervently to the Emperor (who I was sure would be far too busy to be listening in any case) not to let me fumble now, I threaded a thin piece of wire through the trigger of the igniter unit and looped it round the handle of the door. As I stepped back, it shifted again on its frame, with a louder thud than hitherto, and a correspondingly loud chorus of approbation from the assembled greenskins outside. My heart skipped as the wire tightened, but my luck held, and the makeshift trigger didn’t give enough to detonate the improvised booby trap. Mouth dry, I hurried back to Jurgen, hoping he’d made some progress in the interim.
‘It doesn’t look good, sir.’ My aide shook his head glumly, and indicated the trickle of lubricant beneath the truck. ‘The sump’s cracked. That’s a job for an enginseer, or a tech-priest.’ I felt a thick cloud of despair begin to wind itself around me, as though my shroud was already reaching up out of the grave to claim me, as his words sunk in. So much for my brilliant plan, and the last slim chance I could think of to save my neck, and Jurgen’s too, of course, probably. ‘The engine’ll seize up solid within a klom, two at the most.’
‘You mean you can get it started anyway?’ I asked, relief flooding through me again as he concluded his remarks. My aide looked even more baffled than usual, and nodded.
‘For a few minutes, I think. But like I said, sir…’
‘A few minutes is all it’ll take,’ I assured him, beginning to fling the rest of the torches, and anything else I could find which looked potentially flammable, explosive, or both, into the rear cargo compartment. In that respect at least we could hardly have chosen a better refuge; the warehouse was stuffed with such things. Once I’d collected a goodly assortment of solvents and pressurised gas cylinders I taped a small timer unit intended to control a central heating system to a domestic powercell, then added another igniter, and a bottle of cleaning fluid with a gratifyingly large flame logo in a yellow warning triangle helpfully labelled Flammable: Toxic: Keep away from children and ogryns. No doubt a tech-priest would have been horrified at such a blatant misuse of the Omnissiah’s bounty, and I had no confidence at all that it would work without being properly sanctified, but killing orks was the Emperor’s work if anything was and I hoped he might cut us a bit of slack[50].
‘Very good, sir.’ The expression of bafflement never left Jurgen’s face, but he fired up the engine nevertheless. It did indeed sound about as well tuned as our purloined buggy, but the revs built up into a howl of protesting metal with gratifying speed.
‘Out of the cab.’ I wedged the throttle open with a large canister of screws, and gestured to the bolts securing the garage doors against the ork horde outside. I’d set the timer for about two minutes, and hoped that would be enough. The crowning irony would be for us to be immolated by my own cunning plan. ‘And undo those, quietly.’
True to form, my aide complied, though looking as confused as ever, sliding the metal rods back against their stoppers before looking back at me for further instructions.
‘Get the frak out of the way!’ I told him, pushing the truck into gear and jumping for it myself.
I have to admit, even after all this time, the memory of what happened next leaves me with a warm, happy glow. In short, it worked like a charm. As Jurgen dived to one side, the press of orks outside suddenly found the doors they’d been leaning against beginning to give. With another bone rattling yell of ‘Waaaaaargh!’ they surged through the widening gap, just in time to meet the truck coming the other way. Engine screaming, the abused vehicle ploughed straight through the middle of them, scattering the lucky ones and flattening the others, who disappeared under its wheels with crunching and squishing noises, uncannily reminiscent of Jurgen eating a bowl of seafood. If any of them screamed, the sound was drowned by the enraged warcry of the rest, who turned as one to race after the fleeing vehicle, firing their weapons wildly as they went.
‘Come on,’ I called to Jurgen, running in their wake. As I’d hoped, the diversion had worked beautifully; every ork I could see was now chasing the empty lorry. I found myself hoping at least some of them would catch up with it before the timer reached the limit I’d set. ‘This isn’t going to be a healthy place to be in a moment or two.’
Well, I’d got that right. I led the way at an angle, away from the warehouse, away from the truck and it’s wildly yelling escort of greenskins, most of which were continuing to waste ammunition on it with a gratifying lack of success; if I’m honest, just in the general direction of away from there as quickly as possible. We’d just reached the perimeter fence, which a quick slash with my chainsword was sufficient to let us through, and were glancing around trying to decide which direction to take next, when the party of orks at the back door must have finally succeeded in gaining entry. A loud whump!, surprisingly flat I thought, although I suppose the walls of the warehouse kept most of the sound in, echoed across the flat space between the building and the large, ruined structure facing us. Slowly, with a cloud of dust rising around it like a shroud, the roof caved in.
‘That’ll teach ’em to go barging in without an invite,’ Jurgen said, with clear satisfaction. The crowd of orks chasing the lorry just had time to mill around in confusion, glancing back and trying to work out what was going on, before that detonated too, spreading its load of burning solvents in a far wider circle than I’d anticipated. The roar of anger and pain intensified, many of the greenskins staggering around drunkenly, turned into briefly living torches, before slumping to the sunbaked rockcrete. Jurgen smiled, his mood turning even lighter. ‘We won’t need to take the promethium to that lot.’
A fierce elation took hold of me then, and I could hardly prevent myself from punching the air as though I’d just scored the winning goal in a scrumball match; only the reflection that Jurgen would consider such a gesture undignified, and take on the mien of a dyspeptic puppy (which he seemed to think signified longsuffering tolerance), held me back. It was just as well really, as any celebration of our victory would undoubtedly have proven somewhat premature.
‘Oh nads,’ I said, with considerable feeling. ‘You have got to be frakking joking.’ Another knot of greenskins was emerging from the ruin ahead of us, weapons at the ready, and as they began to sprint in our direction I heard that all-too-familiar warcry once again. I glanced around, looking for cover, and at that moment an ork rose from a drainage ditch in front of us and swung its oversized cleaver at my head.
CHAPTER TEN
How we’d missed the thing I’ll never know, it was certainly big and nasty enough, but I suppose our attention had been almost exclusively focused on the carnage we’d wrought in and around the warehouse. I parried its first attack instinctively with my chainsword, which, thank the Emperor, was still activated after carving our way through the wire mesh surrounding the compound. Sparks flew as I deflected the cumbersome weapon and turned aside, keeping the greenskin moving in the direction it had thought it had wanted to go until I’d inconsiderately got out of the way. As it straightened, disengaging its blade and trying to get back on balance, I struck backwards, slicing deep into its chest and eliciting a roar of anger and pain along with a spray of foul smelling ichor. It staggered back a pace, trying to rally, and I shot it with the laspistol in my other hand. After my previous encounter with the things, I was by no means sanguine that even after taking so much damage it wouldn’t simply rally and come at me again, but Jurgen was quick to follow my lead, shredding its torso with a burst of automatic fire from his lasgun.
For another instant, the greenskin seemed to sway, an almost comical expression of surprise beginning to curdle on its face, and then it toppled backwards into the rockcrete channel it had so unexpectedly erupted from. I glanced down, half expecting to see it scrabbling back up towards us again, but by the grace of the Emperor it lay still.
There was no time to savour our victory, as a dozen or so of its fellows continued to charge towards us. I dived for cover behind a large metal pipe, crowned with a valve of some kind, and began to take stock of our surroundings. A moment later, the familiar odour of unwashed socks informed me that Jurgen had taken cover too, and not a moment too soon, as the fusillade of badly aimed small-arms fire I’d begun to associate with these creatures began to rattle and ping off our makeshift refuge.
‘Where the hell did they come from?’ I asked rhetorically, and Jurgen shrugged, switching his weapon back to single shot mode.
‘That building over there,’ he explained helpfully, beginning to pepper the onrushing horde with his usual commendable accuracy. He scored several hits, downing a couple of our would-be assailants, but just like the ones we’d encountered in the desert, most of the others simply shrugged off wounds which would have disabled a human instantly. At this range, my chances of doing any real damage with the laspistol were virtually nonexistent, although I joined in with alacrity, and at least had the satisfaction of seeing a couple of them stagger[51].
I stared at the ruin Jurgen had indicated. It was huge, towering over most of the other buildings in the vicinity, and a positive forest of pipe work ran in and out of what remained of the structure. Well, that was good; it seemed the conduit we were hiding behind had connections all over the site, so at least we could remain under relatively solid cover while we were running away. The question was, in which direction? Going back the way we’d come wasn’t an option; despite the havoc we’d wrought behind us, I was in no doubt that enough of the orks had survived to make attempting to leave in that direction problematic at best. Straight ahead was out too: apart from the greenskins charging at us, the rockcrete channel that my opponent had erupted from was too wide to jump, and there was no sign of a bridge. I didn’t think that little detail would stop the greenskins, from what I’d seen of their musculature they could probably hop across it without breaking stride. Jumping down, hoping to use it for cover as we had the watercourse, would be suicide. It was only a couple of metres deep, but trapped down there we’d have been shot to pieces as soon as the greenskins arrived.
