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Da Big Mouf – Danie Ware

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Brutal Kunnin’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

DA BIG MOUF

by Danie Ware

Grimdak liked stomping.

It wasn’t that he was big, exactly; the boss was bigger. But Grimdak was smart. Grimdak knew all the best places, all the best scraps and corners and heaps of junk. An’ besides, the boss wasn’t out here, and right now, that made Grimdak the biggest ork there was.

Da biggest ork on da walkway.

That, and his deffgun was the bestest.

Stamping down the rusting, rotting tunnels of the great hulk, his muscled shoulders catching on hanging cables and old supports, his red eyes looking for the shiny, Grimdak liked the weight it gave him. He’d made it himself, because of course he had, scavenging the ruin for some bits, trading what he found for others. Razgog’d even let him use the mekboy workshop, so long as he did some of the welding and cutting. And that meant his deffgun was ginormous. It made him heavier, stronger. And it made his stomping loud, his boots bashing good on the metal.

He liked the echoes, the banging percussion that said:

Da ork is comin’!

Faded lumens flickered at the noise, showering sparks as he passed them; they made shadows jump along the walls, shapes like threats. As his own outline fell ahead of him, he let off a burst of rounds, just because he could. It boomed and roared and deafened him, but he liked it. He liked the spank of the ricochets, the big explosions that bellowed back from the far end of the tunnel. He liked the creaking and the smashing that came after.

They told everything to get outta da bleedin’ way!

Yaaah!

His deffgun was good, turning anything to a greasy smear. Carrying it, Grimdak wasn’t scared of nothing. Not those big scuttlies – fast, but not fast enough. Not those poncy, prancy things with their stupid hair, or those ranks of boring robots. Grimdak’d even seen a Space Marine once, hiding his backside in all that snazzy armour. Hadn’t done him any good – the boss still wore his pauldrons.

Remembering the battle, he snickered round his teeth. That’d been a big one, but Zoldag Legmangla, warboss, had claimed this hulk for the Deathskullz, and he wasn’t giving it up. The Space Marine’s skull, helmet and all, sat atop the warboss’ throne.

And his boyz’d never had it so good.

Two levels down and a big bag of loot later, Grimdak stopped by a ruined control panel. Its screen was shattered, half chewed off; its wires hung loose. They were red and gleaming, spilled like guts, and he knew that colour of metal. Razgog needed it, it was good stuff for fixing busted connections.

Yanking the front fully off the thing, he poked it with a curious talon, waiting to see if it’d catapult him back down the walkway…

Was slightly disappointed when nothing happened.

In the stomp-free quiet, however, he heard a noise. A noise like boots.

Big boots.

Grimdak stopped. Legmangla’s Skullz owned the hulk, but them was boots, all right. Loud boots, metal boots. Boots that moved all tidy-like. Military boots. Not as big as the Space Marine, but big enough. They were still some distance away, somewhere down by the old genny-rators, he reckoned. But he was sure of one thing…

Them boots weren’t orks.

He frowned, scratching hard at one metal-pierced ear. Bits of snotling were still caught in it, but he wasn’t worried about that now. Fink, he told himself.

The boss’ hulk was called Da Big Mouf and it was bleedin’ huge. It was more than one ship, all smushed together and stuck like that, roaring on though the void. It had lots of different ends and bits, sticking out all over the place, plus the central vortex that had given it its name – something to do with the tangled gravities of the individual ships. The boss’ throne was a way back, on the biggest command deck; the escape pods were used by the mekboyz; and old Skalagrog preached and sparked and ranted his way through the lower tunnels. Even the gunnery decks, used for sleeping and eating and fighting, were–

Them boots were getting closer.

He scratched his ear a bit harder, then inspected his claw and chewed the filth out of it. He was too big to sneak, and, anyhow, that wasn’t the way. He was an ork, the biggest baddest ork on the walkway. With the biggest, baddest deffgun.

Yeah! Da loota wiv da shoota!

Hoiking the thing a bit higher on his shoulder, he folded down the targeter and kicked in the scanners.

I is da big ork!

An’ I is gonna finds ya!

The boots were a level below him, he reckoned, down in the old helot tunnels where some of the mangled servitors still roamed, every one of them mad as a bucket of snotlings. Sometimes, if he needed the really good swag, he went down there after them. The ladder was nearby, and though its rungs were busted, he’d be able to see straight down.

Yeah, like shootin’ humies in a barrel!

Grinning though his snaggled fangs, he stomped that way.

And then, he heard something else.

Arriving back at the warboss’ throne, Grimdak skidded to a stop in a state of almost-panic.

‘Boss!’ He was pointing frenziedly behind him, though the deffgun made it almost impossible for him to turn. ‘We gots trouble! I see’d ’em! Dey’s comin’, an’ dey got boltas, an’ shootas an’ ’eavy fings. An’ fings dat…’

Catching Legmangla’s lava-eyed glare, he shut his mouth. Backed up a prudent step.

Framed by a wealth of trophies, the warboss unfolded to his feet. Zoldag was huge, his shoulders fully big enough to fill the yellow pauldrons, his ears heavy with scavenged metal. Parts of his armour were made from black chitin, and he bore a necklace of mismatched skulls. His filed teeth were tipped in sharpened steel and covered in shreds of Gork-alone-knew-what. And his left arm was fully augmetic, ending in a four-taloned claw bigger than Grimdak’s head.

The claw had come from a Dreadnought. And Grimdak should know – he’d found the bleedin’ thing.

At the warboss’ feet, a twitching gretchin stood ready to run his errands.

‘You wot?’ Legmangla rumbled, a bubbling snarl that started deep in his chest. It echoed round the throne room’s crumbling panels like a rolling boulder.

Words tripping over themselves, Grimdak tried to explain. ‘Dey… dey’s humies, boss, an’ dey gots all the armour. Shiny. Yeah, good. But dey was singin’…’

He got no further. The warboss gave a rippling roar, the noise enough to make the gretchin cower and cover its ears. Grimdak gulped, but refused to let himself flinch. Good thing too, as the boss idly booted the smaller creature and sent it sailing into an upper support. It squeaked in protest, crunched with the impact and crashed to the floor. It didn’t move again.

Stamping down three steps, Legmangla fixed Grimdak with a baleful, scarlet glower. ‘You runned away. You saw da humies, an’ you runned away.’ He bared his fangs, his breath reeking. ‘Is you an ork, or is you a stinkin’, snivellin’ grot?’

‘I is an ork, boss.’ Grimdak backed up another step. ‘I… I jus’ came to tells ya! Bring ya da newz. An’ I gots…’ With his best ingratiating grin, he grabbed a fistful of his captured swag, and held it out.

The boss paused, eyeing the copper wire. On the floor between them, at the foot of his seat, lay his huge pile of scavenged booty – more bits of Space Marine and Dreadnought, the claws of a genestealer, the plume from an aeldari helm. The Apothecary’s narthecium, his proudest possession. It glinted like an evil grin.

Legmangla eyed the wires, then the pile, then rumbled again, apparently thinking. Then he bellowed, loud enough to rattle the ancient glass screens.

‘Baz!’

Grimdak backed up even further, smack into the ork behind him. He jumped, turned.

And there was Bazruk da Stompa, ork nob, casually picking his fangs with a long and dirty spike. He leered down, grinning.

‘Awright, loota?’ His words were easy, dangerous. ‘Wot’s you done now?’

‘Nuffink,’ Grimdak said quickly, scrambling out of the way. Bazruk’s grin grew.

Behind him, more orks tumbled into the chamber, nobz and boyz, weapons in hands. A scatter of gretchin came with them, darting between their feet and trying not to get stomped on. Bazruk snarled at the massed pack, and it scuffled and shoved to quiet, waiting.

Legmangla eyed his troops. ‘Awright,’ he said. ‘Grimdak’s gots us somethin’ speshal.’ He grinned, a mouthful of knives. ‘Dere’s humies in da tunnels, an’ dey gots da good loot. An’ by the teefs of Gork an’ Mork, we’s gonna finds ’em an’ we’s gonna stamp on their ’eads. We’s gonna breaks dem outta dere shells, and squish all dere pink insides.’ The grin grew. ‘An’ I’s gonna gets meself a bran’ new prize.’ He threw a thumb over his shoulder, at the helm that topped the throne. ‘A li’l one, ta go by da big one.’

Orks nudged each other, snickering.

But Legmangla’s grin vanished. Fangs bared, his red gaze moved from ork to ork like a laser sight.

It settled on Grimdak.

‘But,’ he said. ‘Before we gets stuck in, you tell me somethin’.’

Greenskins eyed each other, their boots. Not one of them met the warboss’ gaze.

Still glaring at Grimdak, he said, ‘Oo founds da relic?’

Grimdak blinked. ‘Wot?’

‘Relic?’ Mutters and shuffles; each ork glared at his nearest neighbours. ‘Wot relic?’ Leaning casually on the nearest upright, Bazruk continued to pick his teeth.

Greatly daring, Grimdak answered, ‘We ain’t gots no relics, boss.’ He pointed at the throne, the pile. ‘All da good stuff’s dere. No relics!’

‘Dem singin’ humies, dey always come afta da relics,’ Legmangla said, his tone spelling it out. He fixed Grimdak with a nasty stare, and Grimdak gulped. He had no idea if Legmangla could swallow the deffgun as well as the ork that carried it, and he didn’t want to find out.

After all, look at what’d happened to ol’ Scarmush.

Never mind that now.

Bristling, Legmangla stomped down the last two steps. Still framed by the loot-encrusted throne-back, his pile of his swag at his boots, he made a swipe at where Grimdak was standing. The loota jumped out the way, but Legmangla’s grab had not been aimed at him.

Bazruk cursed as the toothpick was snatched from his hand. ‘’Ere! Dat’s…!’

The boss growled him to silence, examined the spike, then shook it, right in Bazruk’s face. ‘Wot’s dis, den?’ he roared. ‘Da ’and of bleedin’ Mork?’

Faced by the boss, even Bazruk backed up. He looked around him for support, but every other ork in the room was studiously staring elsewhere.

‘I… Uh…’

The boss shook it again. ‘Where’d ya gets dis?’

‘Dere was a coffin?’ Bazruk ventured. ‘Big stone fing? Out near da mouf–’

With a roar, Legmangla lunged. He drove the toothpick, sharp end first, straight through the hollow of Baz’s throat.

Bazruk gawked, startled, then went over backwards with a crash. He gagged, choked, kicked, and was still. Gore seeped out across the slatted metal floor. Orks chuckled and snorted; a few kicked at the downed body, just for good measure.

But Legmangla was not laughing. With a bellow, he brought the boyz to stillness. ‘When you gets da loot, you brings it ’ere!’ One massive boot kicked the glinting pile. ‘You gots that? You don’ts use it ta picks ya teef!’

Bazruk’s toothpick was now stuck straight up in the air like a monument, marking where the nob’s stupidity had ended. Its blunt end, Grimdak realised, was the familiar round hip joint of an ancient, humie thigh bone. And, while he couldn’t read them, the thing was engraved with words, all the way down.

‘Oops,’ he commented, when Legmangla couldn’t hear.

‘WAAAGH!’

Bellowing, bristling with weapons, the boyz surged out of the airlock door, running straight for the main companionway. Grimdak had tried to sidle from the boss’ line of sight, but Legmangla grabbed him by one ear, and dragged him right up the front.

‘You found ’em,’ he said. ‘You go finds ’em again.’

‘Boss.’

In the deffgun, he had a motion detector, of sorts. It was a bit twitchy – picked up the bilge rats sometimes – but it was enough. With Legmangla pounding beside him, and a surge of gleeful greenskins behind, he ran.

We gonna krush dem humies good an’ propa!

At first, however, the hulk seemed empty. Covered in the orks’ garish graffiti, it clanged and bashed and echoed to the sounds of their charge, creaking and groaning. Squeaky things scattered from the orks’ boots; they stamped at them, laughing. Junctions and ladders were daubed with colours and pictures and warnings, with the skull symbols of their tribe and with caricatures of its various members. In other places, old Skalagrog had sent up warnings, standing totems of bones and captured booty. Marking the parts of Legmangla’s territory, they said:

Don’t mess wiv da orks!

Skalagrog himself had joined them, though the rest of the tribe were giving him a wide berth. More than one ork had met a sizzle-fried end when ol’ Skalagrog got carried away. They sang as they ran:

‘Mash ’em, bash ’em!

Crunch ’em, munch ’em!

We da boyz, an’ we lives ’ere!

Fite ’em, smite ’em!

Beats ’em, eats ’em!

We da boyz, we gots no fear!’

As they chanted, they pushed and shoved, mocking and jostling. Bazruk’s demise had left a gap, and the biggest of the remaining orks were eager to fill it. At the back, a few voices started raggedly shouting, ‘’Ere we go, ’ere we go, ’ere we go!’

Grimdak, however, didn’t join the fun. His feet bashed to the main rhythm, but he was watching the motion detector in his flip-down eyepiece.

Nuffink.

Occasional, scuttling blips – more rats, and a distance away; there was nothing big enough, or well-ordered enough, to be the force he’d seen. And he could feel the close, watchful rumble of Legmangla’s authority. It said: Don’t get dis wrong, loota.

The tribe continued to chant:

‘Thump ’em, whump ’em!

Crash ’em, bash ’em!

We da boyz, an’ we’s awright!

Tromp ’em, stomp ’em!

Smack ’em, whack ’em!

We da boyz, an’ we can fight!’

Steadily, the companion-route led out into the main body of the hulk. The graffiti faded back to red and gnawing rust, and the lumens grew weaker, casting almost no light. Around them, the space soon opened out into a vast and looming darkness, and their boots rang hollow on the now suspended walkway.

A cold and empty wind began to pluck at them, teasing. It stank of dead stuff.

Here, Grimdak wanted to slow down. He was smart, right; he knew the hulk better than his mates, and he knew that they were heading for the central hub, for the point where the vast ships all collided. He’d seen it many times, all the tunnels that led up and out and away, and at impossibly bonkers angles that just hurt your brain…

And out there, in the middle of it all, was the thing that Legmangla had called the ‘mouf’. It was ever-hungry, the place where everything twisted, round and round, pulling everything down into itself. Grimdak didn’t know where the stuff went, though Razgog had once tried to explain to him. He did know, though, that more than one ork had got too close, trying to prove how scared he wasn’t, and had gone bawling over the railings.

It wasn’t long before they all felt the change, the charge, the sucking greed in the air.

‘Fink you’s big, wiv all dat noize?

Gots news for youz, ’cause we’s DA BOYZ!’

The chant reached its end, bled out into the open darkness. The air was full of sounds: phantom yells, cries that they couldn’t quite hear, the creak and grind of unsettled metal. The orks turned grim, stamping fast and focused, their faces furrowed, fangs bared.

Yeah, Grimdak thought, as they closed on the location of the vortex. Mouf or no mouf, dey wuz ready.

The ambush hit them hard.

Grimdak had not seen motion; there was only the sudden flare of muzzle flash, the boom of heavy weapons, the rip and roar of carbide fusion rounds, cutting through air and flesh and metal.

And singing, the sort of powerful, humie tunes that could only mean one thing.

The loota bellowed a warning, but the noise was lost in the racket. Cries, shrieks, shouts. Detonations, sudden splotches of exploding warmth. Flying flesh. Tumbling bodies. Orks cursing and colliding, the confused bang of their boots and the screeches of crushed gretchin. The whoosh of a handheld flamer. Burning boyz, stumbling into each other or from the walkway’s edge. Falling, flailing sideways as the vortex took them and gobbled them down. The spang of a snapped cable and the walkway lurching, knocking boyz from their feet…

Grimdak stayed upright, his legs splayed apart, riding the slewing metal with knees like gimbals; his motion detector was blipping, movement ahead and behind.

Two, four, six dots.

Six? Dat was all?

But the ambush had been well placed. Here, the bridge was curving through a right angle, avoiding the sick, dark whirl of the mouf, and the boyz were straggled out, all around the curve. Illuminated only by erratic flashes of gunfire, Grimdak could just make out the attackers, a distance back. Three at the front, their ceramite armour gleaming darkly scarlet, their cloaks in black and white, and flapping in the vortex’s wind.

‘WAAAGH!’

Legmangla bawled the command.

Howling, the orks attacked. The bark and roar of weapons fire, the flash of axes in the half-light. Right at the front, Grimdak targeted the deffgun. The boss thundered past him, claw champing, his captured tech-priest choppa ready in his other hand.

With a yell of his own, the loota opened fire.

The weapon boomed, the noise incredible; it crashed back from the metalwork like some vast, steel drumbeat. The red-clad figure in front of him was smaller than the others; he could see the distinctive pattern of its helmet, its bolter held hard in both hands.

His suppression went over the humie as it dropped neatly sideways, then rolled back up, still shooting. Behind it, explosions blossomed, the flames sucked away by the vortex’s pull. The walkway shivered, quaked again. The whirl sucked and crackled and spat. Eager. Starving.

Grimdak roared, bared his teeth. ‘We iz da orks!’

In the bad light, it was almost impossible to see. There were bodies everywhere, orks shooting back, orks falling down. Bolter rounds struck the loota and spanged, repelled by the deffgun’s shoulder-mount. He juddered at the impacts, but he didn’t go over. Sparks burned his cheek.

Shouts were rising now, boots crashing in an upsurge of defiance.

‘We owns da hulk!’

‘We’s gonna krush!’

‘Stompin’ an’ shootin’! Stompin’ an’ shootin’!’

Ahead of Grimdak, Legmangla hurled his full body weight at the central armoured figure, bigger than the other two.

The figure let off a shot with the bolter, then stepped from the warboss’ path. With a tidy throw-and-catch, it reversed its grip on its weapon and slammed the butt sideways into the ork’s face. Snarling, Legmangla lashed out with the choppa, simultaneously slamming the claw into the figure’s chestplate, then opening it out to gouge a screaming hole in the metal. In the flashes, Grimdak could make out the third figure, a flamer in its gauntleted hands.

The singing continued, like knives in Grimdak’s brain.

‘Down!’ he yelled, and the warboss ducked.

The flamer’s gout missed him, and torched the two orks behind. A detonation of ammunition was sucked away by the mouf.

But Grimdak only glanced; he didn’t have time to waste. He heard shouts, crashing, smashing, roaring, shooting, pandemonium. Another cable spanged, the walkway lurched again. He could hear Skalagrog chanting, feel the flicker and flash of his gathering power, fed by the other orks.

Mork alone knew what good that would do…

‘Grim!’ The boss’ command was a bark. ‘Go gets da big shoota!’

‘Boss!’

Understanding, Grimdak dropped back towards the corner. In front of him, Legmangla executed his signature move, stamping sideways on his enemy’s knee, and snapping it clean, armour and all. The figure went over, but still managed to reverse its grip, again, on the weapon and shoot upwards at the boss’ head.

It missed.

The flamer roared again, the wash of its heat enough to crisp the hairs in Grimdak’s nose. The flames, like everything else, were sucked sideways and away. Then a roaring gaggle of boyz broke past him, heading for the attackers, and he was abruptly caught in the centre of the mêlée.

And Mork’s teef, it was a mess.

There were orks everywhere, getting in his way, tripping him over as he tried to move. They were confused, some injured, some dying; the pull of the air was tugging them all towards the walkway’s now-dangling edge. In some places, they fought back, bawling defiance; in others they struggled with the fall, or with each other. Gretchin scampered here and there, some of them trying to fight, others chortling gleefully and looting their downed comrades. One squeaked protest as the hulk’s mouf took him; he was a thrashing silhouette, and then he was gone. Somewhere, Grimdak could hear the roar and whip-crack of their herder, demanding that they ‘Attack da humies!’ Somewhere else, there was still Skalagrog, crackling like a bared wire, now, and ready to throw his bright and unstable energy in all directions…

But hey, it meant that Grimdak could see. Kicking at a grabbing green hand, he turned the corner fully.

And found turmoil.

Three more figures were standing at the back of the ambushed tribe, one with a running chainsword, another with a heavy bolter, aimed from the hip, and all covered in shiny symbols. One part of his brain jumped up and down at the find, desperately wanting to grab the things and get them back to the workshop – the stuffs that Razgog could make! – but the other part was smarter, and could see the devastation that the weapon had made.

Even as he looked, there was a bellow, and four of the biggest nobz charged straight at the attackers.

The one with the heavy weapon dropped back, still firing, then clunked to a halt. The figure swore. The first two orks were caught by the suppression; they shuddered at repeated impacts, skidding to the floor. Another went down to the third figure, a shot going clean through his forehead.

Ragbad, unhurt, surged forwards. But the figure with the chainsword came to meet him, and Grimdak stopped.

Though not as big as the one Legmangla had charged, it moved like pure, tight hostility, smooth and furious. Sneering, Ragbad raised his forearm to block, and the blade just carved straight through, shrieking briefly as it cut the bone. Rag screeched like failing steel, but kept going, trying to leap on the figure and bear it to the ground.

‘Yaaaa! I don’t needs me arm anyhowz!’

The figure stepped back, bringing the chainsword up, two-handed, and cutting him almost clear in half, armour and all.

For a split second, Grimdak stopped, gawking. But Legmangla was still up, still bellowing ‘WAAAGH!’

Belatedly, the loota opened fire; hit all three figures with a full suppression. The heavy weapon was down, changing magazine; he saw his own rounds spark from the thing, flashes of violent orange. They chewed a line across the user’s armour, throwing it backwards.

It screamed at him, savage, rolling back to its feet. ‘Domine! Libra Nos!’

He bellowed back, ‘I iz da bestest ork! Da loota wiv da shoota!’

With a cry like pure rage, the figure with the chainsword came forwards, the weapon still running, sending flicks of Rag’s gore to spatter against the metalwork. Grimdak lowered the muzzle of the deffgun and hit it with a full, directed burst–

The deffgun jammed.

‘Mork’s teef!’ he cursed, backing up fast. More of the tribe surged past him, Skalagrog included. The enemy bolter took out one target, two, then was buried by a pile of green. But Grimdak wasn’t looking, he was trying to unjam the–

Skalagrog struck. A blaze of static energy exploded on the walkway, its lightning slanting towards the vortex. In response, the deffgun crackled and sparked, and the motion detector in his eyepiece went dead.

‘Wot’s you doin’, you–’

The full blaze of Skalagrog’s fury hit the chainsword figure in the chest. The figure stood stock-still for moment, its armour sputtering, smoking at the shoulders and ablaze with every colour Grimdak could name…

‘Yaaaa!’

Somewhere, Legmangla was still shouting; Grimdak couldn’t turn but he figured the boss was ripping his way through the enemy, breaking legs and heads.

The flamethrower coughed again, a wide arc of fire. Gretchin screamed, fell. Their flesh aflame, they were everywhere and underfoot. More of them were tumbling from the walkway now, being sucked sideways into the vortex.

And the vortex… The mouf was growing.

Grimdak didn’t understand it, and Razgog wasn’t there to ask, but the lightning flashes of old Skalagrog’s energies were being sucked sideways, just like the fallen orks. And the mouf was getting bigger, tugging at hair and pulling flame and smoke and flesh down into its ever-churning belly.

And then, the unthinkable happened. Grimdak didn’t see it, but he heard the noise.

A third spang as another cable snapped, and the walkway lurched again, now swinging dangerously in the vortex’s winds. Impossible corridor angles led away in all directions; they messed with his head, but that didn’t matter.

What mattered was the roar of rage as Legmangla lost his footing.

The walkway itself was twisting, now, screeching in protest; it hurt Grimdak’s eyes to look at it. Then something massive skidded past him, grappling for hold, and went straight off the walkway’s edge.

With a gawp of disbelief, Grimdak saw Legmangla shoot past him, swearing. But the boss didn’t fall. The Dreadnought claw lashed out, grabbed the railing, and hung on. He swung there, over the drop.

The walkway creaked and groaned at the boss’ massive weight, twisting even further. More and more orks were losing their footing now, shrieking obscenities. Skalagrog was sliding. Grimdak, too. Legmangla hung over the drop, kicking his boots, snarling in outrage.

From the armoured enemy, a barked command. Responding instantly, the heavy weapon opened fire – straight down.

For an instant, Grimdak didn’t realise what they were doing, but he caught himself up as the rounds chewed holes in the metal, and the part the orks were standing on started to come away. The walkway screamed as it tore, the noise cutting at his ears.

His deffgun was too heavy.

Any bleedin’ minute…!

Grimdak had a split second to make a decision. In front of him, the three attackers were now standing on a stable steel platform, its edge cut free. The vortex was growing, reaching out hungrily as more orks slipped towards it. Skalagrog’s lightnings seemed to be feeding it, somehow, making it–

No time, Grimdak told himself. You’s da smart ork. Fink!

To the front, one of the figures was tending to their downed mate; the other one, the small one, was covering, bolter ready. As he glanced, he saw the bolter was aimed at the still-dangling warboss, his claw slammed closed on the creaking railing.

And Legmangla’s huge weight was pulling the whole walkway down. Cut free at its other end, it was starting to hinge like a door…

Grimdak couldn’t back up – the walkway was broken and the heavy weapon would cut him to pieces. He had to go forwards…

Jump!

Legmangla caught his gaze and said something, the words torn away by the vortex. But Grimdak was past caring. There was an old ork saying, he remembered, one that Razgog lived by. Not the biggest ork in the tribe, the mekboy was definitely the smartest – he wasn’t out here, for a start.

‘Bestest way to win when dere’s too many?’ Raz had once said. ‘S’called da Air Gap Teknik.’

‘Wot?’ Grimdak had asked him.

‘Air gap, clunk-brain. Da bigger da betta.’

Fink, Grimdak told himself, again.

Razgog had been right – he knew what to do. And besides, the mekboy was still in the workshop, and Grim knew the hulk – he could circle back around the mouf, back to the warboss’ chambers…

Pick up the relic. The good loot.

Warbosses came and went, but Grim… yeah, he always survived. I iz da smart ork.

Letting off a single, suppressive volley at the three figures, he made them keep their heads down.

Then he jumped, right for their position.

They swore, swinging weapons to cover him, but he was fast, deffgun or not. He broke past the bolter-figure and the crouched one with the flamer, and he just ran for it. As he did so, he heard the massive screeching creak as the railing finally gave way and Legmangla tumbled, howling, towards the vortex.

He didn’t know what had happened to Skalagrog and he didn’t pause to worry. He put his head down, and he ran.

Behind him, the figures were moving. A bolter round whisked past his ear; he heard the cough of the flamer, felt it singe his skin.

Flames chasing him down the tunnel, Grimdak made his escape.

‘Well, Sisters?’

Her armour still crackling, Sister Superior Augusta Santorus switched off the chainsword’s mechanism. Viola, despite the line of dents in her chestplate, was covering the still-whirling vortex; Caia was checking the auspex for anything else incoming. On the far side of the now-fallen walkway, Sister Alcina was down. Melia was on one knee beside her, sanguinator in hand. Akemi covered them both, but her attention was on the fleeing ork with the shoulder-mounted weapon.

‘Permission to go after the greenskin?’ she said.

‘Denied,’ Augusta said. ‘Our priority is the mission. We have one Sister badly injured, and we’re running out of time. We must locate our target. Melia, did you catch it as it fled?’

‘I believe so,’ Melia answered. ‘It wasn’t quite fast enough.’

‘Enough that we’ll know it if we see it again,’ Akemi commented.

‘Agreed,’ Augusta said. ‘I hate to leave a loose ork roaming, and we should move location before it comes back with reinforcements. Caia, do you have a lead on the relic?’

‘Report said it was in the casket on the nose of the Might in Vengeance,’ Caia said. ‘But we know the casket’s empty. I suggest we find the warboss’ hoard. If it’s anywhere…’

‘Agreed,’ Augusta said. ‘Melia, can Alcina be moved?’

‘I can move, Sister.’ Alcina’s voice was hoarse, but determined. ‘But I fear I will not be swift.’

‘Truly, the Emperor is with you, Sister Alcina,’ Augusta commented, a smile in her tone. ‘You are made of His mettle.’

With a groan, the squad’s second came to her feet, staggered, righted herself. The hole in her armour was impressive, but beneath it, Melia’s skills had stopped her bleeding.

‘He is with all of us,’ Alcina answered. ‘Now, if the holy thigh bone of Saint Finiang is here, then we had better regroup, and seek it swiftly.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Danie Ware is the author of the novellas The Bloodied Rose, Wreck and Ruin and the short story ‘Mercy’, all featuring the Sisters of Battle. She lives in Carshalton, south London, with her son and two cats and has long-held interests in role-playing, re-enactment, vinyl art toys and personal fitness.

An extract from Brutal Kunnin.

It had been a weird trip through the warp.

Ufthak Blackhawk knew full well that there wasn’t such a thing as a normal trip through the warp, because Gork and Mork had their own senses of humour and liked to mess with the boyz every now and then. He still remembered that time he’d ended up seeing out of his own kneecaps for a while. Then there were all the interesting things you might encounter on a space hulk, like those bugeye wotsits with different numbers of arms that moved like a cyboar on nitrous. That was the great thing about space hulks – never a dull moment. Even when you thought you’d killed everything on board, you’d probably still missed a bit. And even if you hadn’t, odds were you’d still have some ladz with you to have a punch-up with if everything got too boring.

This journey, though, hadn’t been on a space hulk; it had been on a humie vessel, one that Ufthak and his boyz had boarded and taken, and on which Da Boffin had installed and then activated a device he’d called Da Warp Dekapitator. This had caused a katastroffic warp implosion – which was apparently a good thing, although Ufthak thought that ‘catastrophic’ sounded like something that should be happening to someone else – and it had dragged not only the humie ship but also all the ork ships around it into the warp and along the path of its last jump, to arrive back where it had come from.

(There was also the part where most of the bodies of the dead humie crew had merged together into a reanimated mass of flesh and steel that hungered for ork blood, and also the screaming humie faces that ran around on varying numbers of insectoid legs and spat poison, but the boyz had needed something to keep their spirits up on the way.)

Now they’d reached their destination, and had emerged from the warp again with nothing more than the sudden but quickly fading sensation that Ufthak’s skeleton wasn’t where it was supposed to be. And what a destination it was.

‘Dat planet,’ Mogrot Redtoof said, looking out of a viewport, ‘is made of metal.’

Ufthak nodded sagely. Back before they’d boarded the humie ship, he and Mogrot had been rivals – two warriors jockeying for position under the command of Badgit Snazzhammer. Thanks to a series of events involving a large robot, several fatalities and a head transplant courtesy of Dok Drozfang, Ufthak’s undamaged head had ended up on the decapitated Snazzhammer’s undamaged and significantly larger body. After a brief meeting of the minds via a headbutt, Mogrot had settled back into a role as Ufthak’s right-hand ork. That didn’t mean that Ufthak trusted him, of course, but at least he was fairly certain Mogrot wouldn’t try to shank him unless he was already wounded.

‘Looks like a humie mekboy place,’ Ufthak said. ‘Humie mekboy ship, coming from a humie mekboy planet. Makes sense to me.’

‘Why do dey do dat, anyway?’ Mogrot asked. ‘Make dere planets all shiny so ya know dey’ve got flashy stuff ya might want, and den when ya go to get it, dey get all annoyed an’ try to kill ya?’

‘Dat’s da problem wiv humies,’ Ufthak opined knowingly. ‘Dey ain’t logickal.’

‘Boss!’

The shout came from the other side of the bridge, where Ufthak and his ladz had taken up residence after they’d tossed out the corpses of the crew formerly stationed there. Ufthak clumped across the deck, absent-mindedly twirling the Snazzhammer as he went. It had been Badgit’s weapon, a two-handed affair as tall as a humie with its legs still attached, with an electrified hammer on one side of the head and a choppa blade on the other. He was starting to get used to the feel of it now, and couldn’t wait to krump a few more enemies with it.

‘Wot?’ he demanded, coming up alongside Deffrow. The other ork pointed with the few fingers that remained on his right hand, having blown most of them off by hitting a humie with a stikkbomb.

‘Look at dat, boss! Dat ain’t one of ours!’

Ufthak sucked his breath in through his teef as a jagged piece of darkness eclipsed the stars. The ships that made up the Waaagh! fleet of Da Meklord – Da Biggest Big Mek, and a warboss in his own right – were many and varied, but Ufthak was familiar with them, and Deffrow was correct: that wasn’t one of theirs. Impressive though Da Meklord’s flotilla was, none of them looked quite that… killy.

‘Dat’s Da Blacktoof,’ Ufthak said in something close to wonder, as the shape of it became clear. It was a monstrous kill kroozer, bristling with guns and ordnance. And there, leering down at them from under the prow, was a single, huge glyph: a monstrous, one-eyed ork skull, with crossed bones behind it. ‘Dat’s Kaptin Badrukk’s ship.’

The rest of his mob made suitably impressed noises. Badrukk was a legend across the galaxy, a freebooter of infamy and renown, and his presence here surely meant that Da Meklord’s own star was in the ascendancy.

Assuming, of course, that Badrukk was here because Da Meklord had arranged for him to be. If not…

‘Message from da boss!’ Da Boffin shouted, bursting into the bridge in a gust of fumes. At some point in the past, Da Meklord’s favourite spanner had, either due to injury or simple curiosity, replaced his legs with a gyro-stabilised monowheel, and as a result he was now both much faster than a normal boy, and spectacularly poor at navigating stairs. ‘All nobs are to get over to Mork’s Hammer right now!’

Mork’s Hammer was Da Meklord’s flagship, and Da Meklord only called his nobs and bosses together if he had something very important to say… or, alternatively, if he wanted to yell at them all. As a new nob, Ufthak had never attended one of these Waaagh! meets before. His chest swelled with new-found pride, and he slung the Snazzhammer over his shoulder as he turned on the spot.

‘Right den!’ He frowned, as a thought struck him. ‘Wait a minute. Do da ’Ullbreakers go backwards?’ He and his mob had arrived via boarding pods, which were still locked into the side of the humie ship after they’d broken through its ferrous hide.

Da Boffin shook his head. ‘Nah. Dey got just one gear – go.’

‘So how’re we s’posed to get back over dere, den?’ Ufthak demanded. What was the good in being a nob if you couldn’t go listen to your boss telling you what he wanted you to go and stomp?

Da Boffin shrugged. ‘Da humies have shuttles on dis fing. We’ll nick one.’

Ufthak frowned at him suspiciously. ‘You know how to fly one?’

‘Can’t be hard,’ Da Boffin grinned. ‘After all, humies can do it.’

The Waaagh! room of Mork’s Hammer was crowded with orks mashed in shoulder to shoulder. Ufthak saw many faces he recognised and many more that he didn’t, because every single ork of any authority under Da Meklord’s command was here. Surly, black-clad Goffs glowered at camouflaged Blood Axes and blue-painted Deathskulls, while the stench of fuel from the Evil Sunz was almost overpowered, but instead just sickeningly offset, by the smell of squig dung that accompanied the Snakebites. However, most numerous by far were the yellow and black colours of the Bad Moons, which wasn’t only Ufthak’s clan, but also that of Da Meklord himself. They were smartest, the richest and the flashest clan of all, and the reason why the Tekwaaagh! had risen so quickly and so unstoppably. Sure, the Evil Sunz might drive a bit faster, and the Blood Axes might be a bit sneakier, but if you wanted the ladz with the best guns, you wanted Bad Moons.

This many orks in such close proximity was a pretty good recipe for a massive fight, especially given the egos involved. Ufthak could see the huge, horned helm and multiple back banners of Drak Bigfang, the Goff warboss; the collection of junk and scavenged armour plates under which was Gurnak Six-Gunz, the self-proclaimed SupaLoota of the Deathskulls; and the fur-clad bulk of Da Viper, the Snakebite Overboss, whose gargantuan squiggoth was so large it allegedly had a hold all to itself in his kroozer. Any of these orks were capable of leading a Waaagh! in their own right, but no one was starting any trouble worse than jostling their neighbour a bit. No one wanted to end up like Oldfang Krumpthunda, who’d taken Da Meklord on one on one and had been… Well, no one was quite sure what he had been, other than it involved getting hit with Da Meklord’s shokkhammer and then ending up in lots of very small pieces in very different places. Some of the boyz said they were still finding bits of him in the stew, now and then.

Horns blared, a brassy note of challenge and conquest, and everyone shut their gobs and snapped their heads around to look at the dais built at the far end. Part of the wall behind it had been turned into a massive effigy of the face of Mork – or possibly Gork, but Ufthak reckoned it was Mork – and this was now yawning wider and wider as the mighty lower jaw dropped away. Steam and smoke gushed forth, obscuring the dais but accentuating the piercing red glare of the eyes lurking near the ceiling.

Then, first as a looming shadow in the murk, and then as a mighty figure resplendent in his yellow-and-black mega armour, Da Meklord emerged from the mouth of a god.

He was a titanic figure, and that wasn’t just down to the size of his armour. Ufthak’s new body was large enough that he was a head taller than most of the mob under his command, but Da Meklord would have towered over him had they stood next to each other. He made ordinary orks look like grots. His mega armour made him nearly as wide as he was tall, and the bosspole rising up above his head and carrying his personal glyphs and banners added another dimension of awe to his appearance. Half of the overlarge skull that housed his enormous brain was plated in metal; in his left hand he held the shokkhammer, and his right hand disappeared somewhere into the gigantic mess of barrels, ammo feeds and coolant pipes that formed his kustom supa-shoota.

‘ALRIGHT, LISSEN UP!’

The assembled nobs quietened down a bit more, each one intimidated into silence by his stentorian bellow. Ufthak stood as straight and tall as he could, to try and make sure his face was visible, even though he was standing quite far back and there were other, bigger orks with more impressive weapons and armour between him and his warboss. There was something intangible about Da Meklord that grabbed a lad by the throat, focused his attention and drove it home to him that this ork, this ork, was one who knew where he was going, and on whom glory and renown would be showered.

‘Da humies call dis world “Hephaesto”,’ Da Meklord rumbled. ‘Dere’s a lot of ’em down dere. Da red-robe types, da ones what look like Evil Sunz, but squishier.’

A bubble of laughter ran through the assembled nobs, save for the Evil Sunz present, who were doing their best to look like they weren’t glowering.

‘Dey’ve prob’ly got a lot of interestin’ tek, cos dose humies tend to,’ Da Meklord continued. ‘An’ normally, I’d be sendin’ all you down dere to get it, and kill ’em all. But dere’s a little snag.’

Ufthak glanced sideways, and saw his own confusion mirrored on the other green-skinned faces around him. What could possibly be a snag to a Waaagh! as mighty as this one? Unless…

‘See, some uvver gitz got ’ere first,’ Da Meklord said. ‘An’ we could fight dem too, dat could be a good larf, but while we woz doing dat, da humies might get away, an’ dat would just be a waste.’

Heads nodded. Humies weren’t exactly a scarce resource, but you couldn’t always rely on some being about when you wanted a scrap, so it made sense to use the ones that were here.

‘I talked to–’

The temperature in the Waaagh! room plummeted. Ufthak could see his breath in front of his face, and faint tendrils of frost began to creep along the walls. Orks readied their weapons, unsure what was going on but ready to fight it, or, if no better options presented themselves, each other.

The air pressure increased rapidly, from unnoticeable to the point where Ufthak felt like something was pressing in on his eardrums. He shook his head and growled, trying to clear the sensation, but it persisted until–

Vorp!

A bubble of energy washed out from the other end of the dais to where Da Meklord was standing, sending the smoke of his entrance billowing, and incidentally knocking the fumes aside to give every ork in the room a clear view of…

Kaptin Badrukk.

The mightiest freebooter kaptin who’d ever lived. The hero of the War of Dakka, the Breaker of the Grand Guard, and the Plunderer of Tanhotep. He stood resplendent in his lead-lined greatcoat, his bald head crowned by his mighty bicorn, which was as tall as a well-fed grot and dripping with medals taken from the corpses of humie commanders. He was leaning casually on his longblade choppa, and had Da Rippa, a gun so radioactive its simple presence in a room practically constituted an aggressive act, tucked under his arm. He was flanked by three more Flash Gitz, each one imitating him so far as possible in their mode of dress and armament, but not coming close to rivalling his sheer ostentatiousness and utter gaudy magnificence. Lurking behind them all was an ork that had to be Badmek Mogrok, another Bad Moons big mek, who fought under Badrukk’s banner and was undoubtedly the source of his teknologickal advances.

For the first time in his life, Ufthak Blackhawk laid eyes on an ork who might just be as impressive as Da Meklord.

‘Ta-daaa!’ Badrukk bellowed, as though he hadn’t just tellyported into the middle of his rival’s command structure, on his rival’s warship. The sheer guts of the git was jaw-dropping.

Da Meklord turned towards Badrukk with a clank of metal and a hiss of pistons. He looked thoroughly unimpressed, but he hadn’t powered up his supa-shoota or sent the triple heads of his shokkhammer whirling around each other, so violence wasn’t imminent.

‘Kaptin,’ Da Meklord growled. ‘I woz just telling da ladz about how we woz going to be havin’… a friendly kompetition.’

‘Dat’s right!’ Badrukk beamed, showing more teef than it should have been possible to fit into one gob. ‘Plenty of loot to go round down dere, I reckon. Of course, my ladz’ve had a bit of a head start, but dat should just help ya out! Cleared a few obstacles out da way, dat sort of fing.’

‘So we’re all gonna stomp da humies, an’ take dere tek,’ Da Meklord said. ‘An’ your boyz ain’t gonna be shootin’ mine in da back, right?’

‘So long as yours don’t shoot mine first,’ Badrukk leered back at him. ‘Dat would be a shame, when dere’s so many humies to go round.’

‘My forts exactly,’ Da Meklord agreed. ‘So we got a deal, den?’

‘We got a deal,’ Kaptin Badrukk said, nodding. ‘Last one to da gubbinz mucks out da squiggoffs!’ He clicked his fingers, and Mogrok did something. A moment later the temperature dropped again, crackling energy surrounded the freebooterz for a second, and then they were gone once more, as abruptly as they’d arrived.

Da Meklord turned towards his assembled nobs.

‘Get down dere, and wotever ya do, don’t let dat git’s boyz get to da good stuff before ya!’ His face broke into a grin every bit as toofy and menacing as the one that had graced the freebooter kaptin’s. ‘I fink dere’s gonna be a few “accidents” before we’re done ’ere, so make sure yer aiming at Badrukk’s ladz whenever ya fink yer gun might go off by mistake, like when dey’z between you and da best loot. Got it?’

Ufthak joined his voice to the others in a roar of assent to assure their warboss that they had indeed got it.

‘Good!’ Da Meklord drew himself up to his full, magnificent height, and filled his lungs.

‘Now get down dere, an’ get fightin’!’

Click here to buy Brutal kunnin.

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First published in Great Britain in 2020.
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