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BANEBLADE

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IRON RESOLVE

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STEEL DAEMON

A novella by Ian St. Martin

YARRICK

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GAUNT’S GHOSTS: THE FOUNDING

An omnibus edition of the novels First and Only, Ghostmaker and Necropolis by Dan Abnett

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer 40,000

Astra Militarum Operations Report

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Astra Militarum Operations Report

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Steel Tread’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind. By the might of His inexhaustible armies a million worlds stand against the dark.

Yet, He is a rotting carcass, the Carrion Lord of the Imperium held in life by marvels from the Dark Age of Technology and the thousand souls sacrificed each day so that His may continue to burn.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. It is to suffer an eternity of carnage and slaughter. It is to have cries of anguish and sorrow drowned by the thirsting laughter of dark gods.

This is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope. Forget the power of technology and science. Forget the promise of progress and advancement. Forget any notion of common humanity or compassion.

There is no peace amongst the stars, for in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

- - - - - DEPARTMENTO MUNITORUM FORM 8712/AM/R03 - - - - -

ASTRA MILITARUM OPERATIONS REPORT

CORRESPONDENCE NUMBER: OR-12710735626

TO: High Command, Task Force Devotion of Pangea

CC: Departmento Munitorum – Office of Records – Correspondence Department

Office of the Supreme Commander Ultima Segmentum

Officio Tactica Logistics Division

FROM: Major General Niko Nillom, Officer Commanding Gondwa System Defence

SUBJECT: Gondwa System Defence Update

ENCLOSURES and REFERENCES:

1. Pangea Subsector Reference Chart

2. Gondwa System Defence Force Breakdown and Distribution Report

3. Final Casualty Report from the Purging of Karst

4. Request Form for Priority Two Transfer of Additional Reinforcements (Seventh Submission)

5. List of Approved Devotional Prayers for Upcoming Purge of Gondwa VI

In the name of the most Holy Emperor of Mankind I, (insert name here) MAJOR GENERAL NILLOM, submit the following report on (insert relevant operation name) THE GONDWA SYSTEM DEFENCE.

Following my last official report (see OR-12710735501), after successfully purging the planet Karst in the Regmenta System (see reference 1 for planetary location), the defence of the Pangea Subsector turns to the Gondwa System, specifically the planet Gondwa VI – jungle world status: minor agricultural/intermediate resources, planetary standard classification: C-.

My headquarters unit along with the newly deployed Skadi Second Infantry have arrived on Gondwa VI, where the greenskins have landed after retreating from Karst. Gondwa VI’s unusually active and fluctuating magnetic field causes difficulty with sensor scans from orbit and with vox communication on the surface; additionally the thick jungle that covers the majority of the planet makes visual reconnaissance all but impossible – as a result the number of xenos present is unknown. Despite this, I have no doubt the Skadi Second Infantry, although a relatively new regiment, are up to the challenge. Support is en route from the Catachan 57th Jungle Fighters, who are currently in warp transit. Refer to references 2 and 3 for current force breakdown and the casualty report from the battle for Karst, where the Catachan 57th assisted in ridding the planet of the ork menace.

I would also like to draw your attention to enclosure 4, where, despite my utmost confidence in the Skadi Second and the Catachan 57th, I have submitted a seventh request for additional reinforcements to the Officio Tactica.

The Gondwa System has known the threat of orks before and has overcome the green-skinned xenos numerous times, and I have no doubt that with the blessing of the Emperor we shall do the same again (see reference 5 for approved devotionals). All the Emperor’s warriors, from myself and my staff officers down to the troopers who wield the Emperor’s fury on the battlefield, are ready to purge the greenskin threat from Gondwa VI and continue the holy work of pushing them from this subsector of Imperial space. Our courageous Astra Militarum troopers are prepared to face the enemy, they are ready for the battles to come, and they stand in good spirits for war.

- - - - - END COMMUNICATION - - - - -

CHAPTER ONE

TORVIN

Trooper Ted Torvin was not in good spirits for war. He hadn’t been in good spirits since he’d received the official notice of his tithing some – what was it now? – five months earlier.

Congratulations and blessings of the Emperor upon you, citizen. By glorious providence and Divine hand, you, along with 50% of the population of your hive subsector, have been drafted into the Skadi Second Infantry Regiment of the Astra Militarum. You are called upon to serve the most Holy Emperor of Mankind in defence of the Imperium and humanity. Be thankful and give praise that your life will now have meaning alongside the billions of others who fight valiantly and die with distinction to maintain the purity and safety of the glorious Imperium. Through battle you shall live forever in the Emperor’s eyes and the light of the Golden Throne shall shine on you eternal.

One month after being tithed, Torvin had been shipped off for eighty days of basic training on Skadi’s moon of Edda and then had endured almost two months in transit through the warp aboard the Imperial Navy transport Shadow of Radiance.

Now he had arrived on another world, an idea that seemed absurd or at least like some kind of elaborate ruse. Yet the fact was undeniable. The pressing wet warmth that permeated even here, inside the thick stone walls of an Ecclesiarchy chapel, was a heat and humidity that never occurred on Skadi, which was far enough from its star as to be perpetually in icy winter. Still, even with the inescapable alien heat; even after flying over the dense jungle, seeing it spreading away in all directions in myriad shades of green such as he had never imagined; even with the constant smell of damp ground and decaying vegetation, so thick he felt as if he were drinking it in through his nose – even with all that, he didn’t feel like he’d travelled to a planet far, far from his own.

Conceptually, he knew he stood in the upper levels of Karoo City on the jungle world of Gondwa VI, but it didn’t quite feel real. It didn’t feel as though he’d been uprooted from the only home he’d ever known and deposited light years away. It seemed to him as if he’d remained perfectly still and the entire galaxy had pivoted around him.

Torvin looked around at the richly adorned chapel. It was a long space of alcoves and echoes. The rows of intricately carved wooden pews had been stacked against the walls to clear space for an entire Astra Militarum company to roll out their sleeping mats. Both the task force headquarters unit and the Skadi Second Infantry had occupied the vast Ecclesiarchy building soon after their arrival on Gondwa VI. The priests of the Adeptus Ministorum had praised the troopers of the Skadi Second and blessed them in the name of the Emperor with chanting and incense, but their scowling faces made it clear they were less than pleased with the Imperial Guard commandeering their place of worship as accommodation.

With its stone walls, high arched roof and enormous frescoes, the chapel was immediately familiar to Torvin. It was much like those on Skadi and, he imagined, much like those on countless other Imperial worlds. The focal point of the building’s design was the huge stained-glass window at the far end of the long space. Stretching from the floor to the cavernous roof, it depicted the Holy Emperor adorned in golden armour, His head rimmed with a halo of light and a flaming sword in His hands. Perhaps it was the familiarity of that image that made Torvin feel as if he could somehow still be at home; everywhere across Imperial space the Emperor was there, the great unifier of them all.

Despite all that was familiar, there were many depictions around the chapel Torvin did not recognise: saints and martyrs native to Gondwa VI or the surrounding worlds. Names he did not know but whose deeds, he was sure, the children of Gondwa VI could recite by rote. One wall bore an impressive fresco of the thick green jungle, and striding out of it were enormous figures in blood-red armour: Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes. Had those true angels of the Emperor once set foot upon this planet? The thought that he was on a world where the Adeptus Astartes had fought was enough to convince him he was indeed far from home. Nothing like that had ever happened on Skadi. He wasn’t on his frozen backwater any longer.

Around him, the troopers of his platoon sat on their bedrolls or stood putting gear into their packs, preparing equipment, delicately cleaning their lasguns in readiness. They chatted cordially. Some even laughed. How could they laugh at a time like this? When they were awaiting word about their orders from command. When they were waiting to learn how and when they would be sent out into the unknown jungle to engage the orks.

Slow-witted savage animals who somehow understand how to piece together the most rudimentary and barely functioning technology. Stupid, unsophisticated and lacking all but the ability to charge straight to their deaths at the hands of stalwart Imperial Guardsmen. They may seem imposing at first glance, larger than a human and more muscular, but appearances are deceiving. Their muscle is more plentiful but still weaker than a human’s, and though it may seem improbable from their size, do not shy away from them even in close combat as a human is stronger and can best them with a bayonet to the throat.

That’s what their briefing on the greenskins had said, but immediately after it had finished, as they filed out of the briefing room on board the Shadow of Radiance, Torvin had heard veterans of the regiment, as few as there were, chuckling and speaking to each other.

‘Stupid is right,’ one of them was saying, a corporal Torvin didn’t know, ‘but I sure as Throne won’t be lettin’ any of ’em get close enough that I have to stab the bastards.’

‘I know,’ another of the grizzled few answered. ‘I saw one of the greenies, half its jaw missing and all, grab hold of Trooper Hafden’s arms and rip them off still holding his lasgun. Hit them from a distance, I reckon. Las right between those red eyes from as far away as possible.’

‘Weaker than a human,’ the corporal continued, muttering as they moved away, ‘that’s some gold-plated crem right there.’

It was well known that from the time a new Imperial Guardsman arrived on their first battlefield, their average life expectancy was little more than fifteen hours. Torvin knew he would be tossed into his first battle soon and could just about hear some enormous clock ticking down the minutes to his inevitable doom.

He stared down at his equipment, laid out on the stone floor before him. He knew he’d humped all this down from the drop-ship but it suddenly seemed like a lot and he wasn’t exactly sure how to fit it all back in his pack. Torvin looked up and saw Frent, the vox-trooper from his squad, screwing a long antenna onto the vox-transmitter he would carry as part of his load. Not far away, a heavy bolter team was loading metal boxes with lengths of belt-fed ammunition. At least he didn’t have to heft around all that gear too. Take the small mercies, as his father would say. Though, a large mercy would be more welcome, like if the orks just decided to give up and leave Gondwa VI. From everything he’d heard about the greenskins, there was no warping chance that would happen.

‘Oi, Torvin.’

Torvin turned to see his squad’s corporal, Algarn, approaching. Algarn was a tall, thin man with a face all sharp lines and angles, and the white hair common to their icy home world.

‘Yes, corporal?’

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m packing my gear ready to move out,’ Torvin said. ‘Like Sergeant Troovey ordered.’

Algarn looked at his laid-out gear and empty pack. ‘You know you got to fit all this gear in your pack, trooper?’

‘Yes, corporal,’ Torvin said. ‘I was just making sure I had everything first. That’s what they told us to do in basic training.’

‘Right,’ Algarn said, looking at Torvin’s shiny new kit, carefully arranged on the floor, ‘and you’ve got everything, do you?’

‘Yes, corporal.’

Algarn sniffed. ‘That so, is it?’

‘Yes, corporal,’ Torvin said, but he was suddenly less sure than he had been a moment ago. ‘I think so, corporal.’

‘Got all your kit then do you?’

Torvin had now progressed to completely unsure. ‘I…’

‘We’re more’n likely heading out to shoot some orks, you know that don’t you, trooper?’

‘Yes, corporal.’

‘And what, by the Throne, are you going to shoot them with, Trooper Torvin?’

‘Uh, my las…’ Torvin’s voice trailed off. ‘Oh.’ He looked around, saw his lasgun still propped up near the door where his squad had left their weapons. It was the only one there.

‘Yeah,’ Corporal Algarn said. ‘Gonna need that to dispatch the Emperor’s fury ain’t you?’

‘Yes, corporal,’ Torvin said.

‘I know I told all you new recruits that looking after your socks and boots is even more important than your lasgun,’ Algarn said, ‘but that don’t mean you can leave it behind.’

‘Yes, corporal. Sorry, corporal,’ Torvin said, his face growing hot as he moved off to retrieve his weapon.

Torvin carried his lasgun back to his equipment, chastising himself for being such a fool. The punishment for misplacing a rifle during basic training had been seventeen lashes. Back then, the instructors had drilled it into every recruit: if you want to be one of the few that survives those first fifteen hours, you better remember your training; the Emperor blesses those that remember their training.

Torvin placed his lasgun down beside his pack where it would be impossible to forget it again. Then he began stowing away the rest of his equipment, wishing as he did so that he could stow away his fear just as easily. Everything the Astra Militarum had determined he needed to be an effective instrument of the Holy Emperor’s will went into the pack: lasgun maintenance kit including sacred cleaning oil and cloth freshly blessed by the tech-priests; two spare lasgun power packs; three days’ worth of nutrient-rich synthetic food rations; The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer; one roll of toilet paper; water canteen; holy purifying tablets; two pairs of socks (spare); one undershirt (spare); two pairs standard-issue underwear (male, spare); one raincoat; Guard-issue medi-pack including blessed tonics (small); sleeping bag and canvas tarpaulin; razors (x2); shaving foam, toothbrush and toothpaste; and a mess kit including plate, cup, bowl and the combination spoon, fork, knife generally referred to by the troopers of the Skadi Second as a FRED – a Fragging Ridiculous Eating Device.

The rest of his equipment, including his helmet, flak armour and webbing – containing another lasgun power pack, utility knife, bayonet and primary water canteen – he placed to the side, knowing he would need to don these prior to moving out. Last of all, he took out the only thing he carried not issued to him by the Astra Militarum: a small printed pict. He wasn’t sure whether he was permitted to carry it with him out on a mission, but he was going to. He couldn’t leave it behind. He’d only been a trooper in the Astra Militarum for two months but that had been long enough to learn many important lessons from the veterans: never volunteer for anything; troopers exist to hurry up and wait; if it isn’t yours, don’t touch it; and the only time it’s good to ask for permission is when you want the answer to be no.

He’d seen other troopers with personal items such as talismans hanging from their belts or tucked into their helmets. Some had images of saints or other iconography threaded onto the dog-tag chains around their necks. There were some with picts or letters from home, but these were few and far between. Letters were rare for the simple reason that most of the working population of Skadi could read only the barest amount necessary to do their jobs –for most that meant knowing how to read the shift clock in the mines – and they could write even less than that. Picts were even rarer than letters because it was only wealthier families that could afford a picter. Torvin was just going to follow the lead of the other troopers and assume he could carry the pict with him as long as it was kept hidden, particularly whenever Commissar Redvin was around.

He looked down at the image in his hand. Melina. She smiled back at him from the past. Torvin had never known anyone who smiled as much as Melina. Most people on Skadi had never smiled a day in their life. Though to be fair, life in the mines beneath the ice never gave anyone much of a reason to smile. But Melina smiled. On their icy home she had been his source of warmth. They would have been married last week. Now they would never be married. Even though he kept repeating the mantra that his training would keep him alive, Torvin had the sinking feeling that his fifteen-hour life expectancy would more than make sure he would never see his home world, let alone Melina, ever again.

‘Fourth Platoon, bring it in.’

The thunderous voice of Lieutenant Olga Gernson, Torvin’s platoon commander, boomed out from her heavyset frame, bouncing off the stone walls of the chapel like the blast of a frag grenade. Torvin saw her striding down the length of the nave wearing her helmet and flak armour, which only served to make her seem more massive than she already was. The troopers of the Skadi Second – even those not in her platoon, since her reputation was almost as big as her stature – called her Olga Ogryn because how anyone, woman or man, could grow that monstrously large without some hint of abhuman in the family, no one knew. Of course, no one would say this to her face or within earshot of an officer, or worse still a commissar, but there was no doubt she knew of the name and didn’t seem too concerned. Torvin quickly slipped his pict of Melina into his shirt pocket.

‘I said, bring it in, troopers,’ Gernson roared again, apparently dissatisfied with the lacklustre pace displayed by her platoon. Fourth Platoon moved to meet her where she’d stopped, taking a knee around her. This was it then, Torvin supposed, they were about to get the assignment the platoon had been promised. They were about to head out for glorious battle in the name of the Emperor, and Torvin’s clock was about to start ticking.

‘Right,’ Gernson said, ‘hurry up and get your kit squared away, we’re about to move out. Our first operational objective will be to hold Outpost Four, a watch station on the approach to Karoo City. We’ll be relieving a local militia, maintaining a presence there and engaging any greenskins sighted because it’s a vital location for tracking enemy movements. There have been orks spotted in the area. Apparently, this planet’s magnetic field is a bastard on comms and any monitoring is shot to crem because of that. Plus, all these blasted trees they’ve got here make it Throne-damned hard to see from orbit. So it’s old-fashioned boots on the ground to keep a lookout for the enemy. If we see them inbound, we send up a signal flare and then we start killing xenos.’ Gernson turned to Sergeant Troovey. ‘I expect the platoon to be boots out in one hour.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Troovey replied.

Gernson nodded to him and then turned her gaze back to the troopers of Fourth Platoon. ‘Carry on, troopers,’ she said before walking away. Torvin had half expected some words of encouragement or support, but he supposed that was it. He returned his attention to packing.

‘Here ya go.’

Torvin looked up from his equipment to see Corporal Algarn. He was holding out a data-slate. Torvin took it, turning it to look at the screen.

DEPARTMENTO MUNITORUM FORM 87390-B/MSG

CORRESPONDENCE REQUEST

‘You and the other newbies got a chance to write home if you want,’ Algarn said. ‘Tell anyone that cares you’re about to see combat for the first time, that you’re thinking of them as you fight for the Emperor. Whatever. I don’t give a crem what you write, just hurry up about it.’

‘Thanks, corporal,’ Torvin said.

‘Just hurry up.’

Torvin looked down at the data-slate. He immediately knew it was Melina he would write to, but he suddenly didn’t know what to say. He looked up to see Algarn still looming over him like a dark cloud. It was even more difficult to think with the tall, perpetually annoyed corporal hovering overhead.

‘Could you just give me a minute, corporal?’ Torvin asked. He watched Algarn’s eyebrows raise and immediately regretted the words.

‘Warp no, trooper,’ Algarn said. ‘I’m not giving you a Throne-damned minute. I need you to write whatever soppy crem is going to gush out of your green-arse face to your rich mummy and daddy so that I can get the other fodder around here to do the same before we move out. Throne-damned “give me a minute.” I’ll give you my boot up your standard issue, Torvin, that’s what I’ll give you.’

‘Sorry, corporal.’

Torvin looked back to the slate. Note that all correspondence is monitored and reviewed, it read. Any information about active operations will be redacted. Any heretical or blasphemous content will also be redacted and may be grounds for punishment up to and including death.

He filled out Melina’s details in the recipient section of the form and then wrote a quick message. With the warning that everything he wrote would be read, he obviously couldn’t tell her about the fear that had gripped him knowing that his life was very likely to end within the next day. Even leaving out his fears, nothing he wrote would be sufficient to explain the hole that had opened in him after losing her. He scribbled something down, constantly aware of the ever-present impatience of Corporal Algarn. Reading back over what he’d written, his message seemed particularly inadequate. My dearest Melina, I hope you are well. I am very likely soon to face the orks in battle. It is thinking of you that keeps me strong. I will miss you always. Ted.

They seemed such hollow words but there was no time for anything more; Algarn was already holding his hands out and clicking his fingers for Torvin to hand back the slate. He filled out his details at the bottom – name, rank, serial number – and then submitted the message.

Trooper Torvin, T. your request for correspondence has been submitted. The Departmento Munitorum will forward message once a servo-skull at your relevant regimental headquarters has checked and approved form X7132bDe/P01. Expect message receipt at destination between three and seventy-two standard weeks.

Corporal Algarn snatched the data-slate from Torvin’s hand and moved off to find other recruits who had yet to see it. Algarn obviously considered this a pointless exercise. He must have been ordered to get the unit writing home from someone up the chain of command. When he was younger, back on Skadi, Torvin had once overheard one of the nobility talking about the message he’d received from his brave daughter, who had been tithed and was fighting some alien menace elsewhere in the galaxy in the name of the Emperor. He remembered quite clearly how her father had said she’d spoken of the glory of war against the abhorrent alien and how she’d felt the Emperor at her back. Torvin wondered now whether she’d actually felt the same as he did: alone and afraid, but not wanting to admit as much in any monitored correspondence. It suddenly seemed obvious to him that messages home from the Astra Militarum were not at all for the troopers on the front line. They were to make everyone else feel safe and proud.

Torvin finished closing up his pack and placed it ready beside his webbing, armour and lasgun. He wandered over to where a group of other troopers from his squad sat speaking to each other. They had all completed their soldierly duty of hurrying up, and now came the waiting. Trooper Ernest Norsten, Trooper Freya Gorm and Trooper Henrik Gernt, like Torvin, were all freshly minted Imperial Guardsmen, having been tithed at the same time and completed their basic training together.

‘Has she even seen combat before?’ Trooper Norsten was saying.

‘Who’s that?’ Torvin asked, trying to catch up on the conversation.

‘Lieutenant Gernson,’ Norsten answered. ‘She’s all blast and bluster but no one seems to know if she’s actually been in combat.’

‘None of us have,’ Gorm interjected.

‘Yeah,’ Norsten said, ‘but we’re troopers, she’s a lieutenant – be nice to know our platoon leader knows something about what to do when the crem starts flying.’

‘So why don’t you go on and ask her then?’ Gernt said; the implication that this was a terrible idea was obvious.

‘Crem no,’ Norsten said, ‘I don’t have a bastard death wish. She’ll probably snap me over her knee.’

‘Yeah, so she can probably do the same to the greenskins,’ Gorm said. ‘She’s the lieutenant either way so what does it matter?’

‘I hope we find out quickly,’ Norsten said. ‘I hope the orks attack when we’re holding this outpost because I can’t wait to kill some xenos. I’m going to snuff a dozen I reckon.’

‘Yeah, all right.’ Gorm rolled her eyes. ‘You’re sure to be a hero of the Imperium.’

‘Maybe I will,’ Norsten continued. ‘They’ll be remembering my name on Skadi. We ain’t got many heroes but they’ll be remembering me. Norsten the Ork Slayer. Probably get two dozen if I can get to the front rank. Can’t wait.’

Norsten turned to Torvin, who had been quietly listening. How Norsten had the audacity to say Lieutenant Gernson was full of bluster while he sat there talking about becoming some legendary war hero was beyond him.

‘What about you, Torvin?’ Norsten asked. ‘How many orks are you going to slay?’

‘I haven’t really thought about it,’ Torvin said, which wasn’t exactly a lie. He had done little but think about being in combat with the orks and how he might survive, but he hadn’t thought at all about how many of the xenos he was going to kill. He’d just assumed the answer would be zero.

‘Haven’t thought about it,’ Norsten echoed to the other troopers around him. ‘Everyone’s thought about killing xenos.’

‘Sure,’ Torvin said. ‘I’ll probably kill some orks.’

‘Don’t sound very sure about that,’ Norsten said. ‘Are you some kind of xenos-lover?’

‘Norsten!’ Gorm jumped on him, her voice a harsh whisper. ‘Don’t even joke about that.’

‘Maybe I’m not joking,’ Norsten said. ‘I’ve seen Torvin moping about, and I saw this too.’

Torvin was too slow to react when Norsten lunged forward and plucked the partially exposed pict from his top shirt pocket.

‘Hey!’ Torvin called, trying to grab it back, but Norsten had already turned away and was looking at the pict of Melina.

‘Who’s this then?’ Norsten asked. ‘This the reason you’re afraid?’

‘Give it back, Norsten,’ Torvin pleaded. ‘It’s important.’

Torvin grabbed at the pict again, but Norsten moved it out of range of his grasping hand.

‘First tell us who she was.’

Torvin sighed. ‘Fine, her name is Melina. Now give it back.’

‘Your girlfriend?’ Norsten asked.

‘We were supposed to get married,’ Torvin said. ‘Now let me put it away.’

‘She’s cute. Nice smile,’ Norsten said. ‘Shame you’ll never see her again.’ He looked at Torvin. ‘Why do you bother carrying this? You’re an idiot if you think you’re ever getting back to Skadi. Let me help you get in the mood for war.’

Norsten grabbed the pict with both hands, making ready to tear it down the middle. With a reflex action Torvin jumped at Norsten, slamming him back against the cold, hard stone of the chapel floor. Straddling him, Torvin grabbed at the pict, trying to pull it free of Norsten’s grasp. Perhaps because he’d caught Norsten by surprise, Torvin managed to rip the pict free. He squeezed it in his fist as he pulled his arm back ready to punch Norsten square in the face. He never had the chance to follow through as a large boot struck him in the side, kicking him off the shocked Guardsman.

‘What’s this Throne-damned crem, troopers?’

Torvin rolled over, winded by the blow. He looked up to see the boot was laced to the foot of Sergeant Troovey. Troovey, second-in-command of the platoon, was a man almost as large as Lieutenant Gernson and there was no question about whether or not he’d seen combat during his Imperial Guard career. He was one of the few grizzled veterans who’d been transferred from other regiments to join the newly formed Skadi Second Infantry. His face was criss-crossed with scars and his eye had long ago been replaced with an augmetic after it had been torn from its socket by some multi-limbed, thick-shelled xenos on a faraway world.

‘Sorry, sir,’ Torvin stammered.

‘Did you just call me sir?’ Troovey asked. ‘I’m a sergeant, not an officer. Don’t call me sir, I work for my Throne-damned living. Now, you gonna answer me? What the crem is going on?’

It was Norsten who jumped in. ‘Torvin here was getting worked up because I was telling him he’ll never get back to Skadi, sergeant. We were talking about killing orks and he doesn’t seem to want to, he’s acting a coward.’

As if that word were a beacon calling out across the universe, Torvin saw someone even worse than Sergeant Troovey approaching: Commissar Mave Redvin. Like all commissars, Redvin wore a black peaked cap adorned with a shining gold aquila. Her polished breastplate was adorned with a decorative skull and, over that, her black greatcoat with gold epaulettes and red lining hung down to swish around her feet as she walked with slow, purposeful steps towards them. Even Sergeant Troovey remained silent as she approached.

‘A coward here is there, sergeant?’ Commissar Redvin asked when she reached them.

‘Not in my platoon, commissar,’ Sergeant Troovey said. ‘I can assure you of that.’

‘What’s the concern then?’ Redvin continued. ‘Your platoon is about to move out, we do not need a breakdown of discipline before you’ve even left.’

‘No, commissar,’ Troovey said, turning his attention to Torvin and Norsten. ‘These two are just so keen to start fighting greenskins they’re taking it out on each other.’

Commissar Redvin looked at Norsten and Torvin. ‘Well, troopers, you make sure you save your fighting’ – her eyes fixed on Torvin with an almost supernatural sternness – ‘and your bravery, for the enemy.’

Torvin swallowed. ‘Yes, commissar,’ both he and Norsten said, in almost perfect unison.

‘Good. Carry on, and good hunting,’ Commissar Redvin said as she turned to walk away, her greatcoat swirling out behind her. ‘The Emperor protects.’

‘Sergeant, I–’ Norsten said once Redvin had moved away to inspect the rest of the troopers around the chapel, but Troovey quickly interrupted.

‘Shut your crem hole, last thing I need is a commissar up my arse.’ He pointed directly at Norsten’s face. ‘You listen good. No trooper really knows how they’re going to react until the crem starts flying out there, so you save your accusations of cowardice and just worry about pointing your own lasgun where it needs to go. Now finish packing your gear.’

‘I’m already fin–’

Sergeant Troovey glared at Norsten.

‘Yes, sergeant,’ Norsten said.

Sergeant Troovey walked away and the troopers sat in silence. Torvin wondered whether Norsten was right. Was he a coward? He’d never considered himself a coward before he was tithed but since then it hadn’t seemed far from the truth.

Back on Skadi, after he received his notice of tithing, he’d considered taking Melina and running away with her. It wouldn’t have been hard to vanish in the labyrinthine squalor of the lower hive. But he couldn’t ask that of Melina, and he didn’t want to live as a deserter either, constantly knowing the Arbites would be searching for him. The punishment for desertion from a tithe was death on sight. If the choice to be a deserter made someone a coward then the truth was simple: Torvin was too afraid to be a coward. He looked at Commissar Redvin strolling down the lines and the troopers all around her quieting down, standing taller, looking like strong soldiers of the Imperium. Perhaps that was the irony of the entire Astra Militarum, he thought – every single Imperial Guardsman is too afraid to be a coward.

CHAPTER TWO

TORVIN

Torvin leant back and waved frantically at his face as something, some huge insect as big as his fist, flew close by. Seemingly unconcerned by his attempts to fend it off, the insect investigated him momentarily, circling his head, sounding like the buzz of a Valkyrie engine as it passed his ears. Apparently finding nothing of interest it flew away, darting between dense mossy trees and hanging vines to quickly disappear into the jungle. Torvin returned his attention to where he was going just as a springy branch, bent forward by Trooper Gernt in front of him, whipped back to slap him broadside across the cheek.

‘Throne damn it,’ he muttered as he raised his lasgun, bayonet fixed to the end, and slashed at the jungle.

New branches, vines and leaves seemed to fill the space in front of him with every step even if he tried to follow the path Gernt and the other troopers were cutting through the trees. When they’d looked out at the jungle from atop Karoo City it had certainly seemed thick, but this was even worse than he’d expected. He could be only steps behind Gernt and barely be able to see him through the green. When he looked up, the canopy completely blocked the sky and the diffuse light that filtered down was tinged with a yellow-green hue. Even the ground beneath his feet was only visible some of the time. More often than not he was pushing through ferns and monstrous ground-covering plants with leaves almost as wide as he was tall, his legs out of sight below the knees. It was like trudging through the worst blizzard back home on Skadi, but this was a living blizzard of reaching creepers and enormous flat fronds that couldn’t be waited out.

He might have complained about blizzards on Skadi but what he wouldn’t have given for the freezing touch of wind-whipped snow right now. The jungle heat made everything about this worse. It was a damp, concentrated, energy-sapping heat that made every step of lugging his pack and lasgun more difficult. He was sweating profusely, his fatigues drenched through. Then again, he didn’t know how much of that was his own salty sweat and how much was the moisture from all around him. Every leaf was wet. The ground was soft enough that his boots regularly sank sole-deep or further. The air itself was saturated to the point he thought it might have been easier to swim.

Now, after hours of slogging through the dense vegetation, the jungle was, mercifully, beginning to thin somewhat. They were finally emerging from the valley and drawing close to the location of Outpost Four, strategically very important for the early warning it would offer of any ork forces attempting to move on Karoo City.

‘Contact!’

The call came like a las-shot from somewhere ahead of him.

‘Contact two o’clock, fifty yards!’

Torvin wasn’t sure whose voice it was; he thought it might have been Norsten’s. The shout was followed, almost immediately, by the unmistakable ringing crack of lasgun fire. The jungle ahead was lit with flashes of orange-red as streaks of las illuminated the dense green of the jungle, burning through foliage and blasting chunks from trees. Torvin stood and watched. Shouts echoed around him, from troopers ahead and behind. Calls from Sergeant Troovey and Lieutenant Gernson to get a positive ident on the enemy even as other troopers seemed to fire blindly ahead. How many times had he been part of a contact drill during his basic training? Fifty, a hundred, more? They had repeated common battle drills so many times they were supposed to be ingrained, automatic reactions, so that on the battlefield there would be no need to think. Reaction to ambush (far), reaction to ambush (near), reaction to indirect fire, reaction to chemical or biological attack, or, exactly like this, reaction to enemy contact (visual, direct fire). They had trained each situation so many times, the instructors assured them muscle memory would kick in in combat, no Guardsman would need to consciously consider his or her actions, and no one, Emperor forbid, would freeze.

But Torvin had frozen.

The lasgun fire continued. The shouting continued. But Torvin was rooted to the spot, unable to move as if he’d become just another part of the jungle. Something slammed into him from behind, knocking him stumbling forward. Torvin turned back to see that Corporal Algarn had charged into him, shoving him forward with his shoulder. Algarn had been last in the platoon’s marching file but had moved up quickly at the contact call. His face was furious as he looked at Torvin.

‘Get your lasgun up and move into suppressing-fire position, Torvin!’ he roared.

Torvin stared at the corporal. He knew Algarn was speaking to him, but it was as if the words had no meaning.

‘Torvin!’ Corporal Algarn roared again.

Still, Torvin stared at the senior trooper, unable to process anything; everything seemed as meaningless as the eruption of fire in the trees ahead. Algarn growled at Torvin and then moved on through the jungle, barking at other troopers to get into better positions, to fan out, to move up, to do as they were Throning-well trained to do.

After what was probably only thirty seconds, maybe a minute, Torvin heard Lieutenant Gernson roaring for them to cease fire, a sentiment echoed by Sergeant Troovey. The barrage of las-rounds slowed. Several stray bolts continued through the trees.

‘I said cease fire!’ Lieutenant Gernson shouted, that finally being enough to bring silence to the jungle. ‘Circle up! Defensive perimeter! Whoever called that contact, get here now!’

Now that the gunfire had stopped it was as if Torvin’s mind had snapped back to reality; his brain had returned from warp knows where it had gone and slammed into his head with the realisation that he’d been completely left behind and that he hadn’t done a Throne-damned thing in that whole situation. He hurried forward to his platoon and dropped to a knee beside Trooper Gernt, raising his lasgun and pointing it defensively out into the thick jungle growth.

‘I called the contact, lieutenant,’ Norsten said, moving up to where Lieutenant Gernson and Sergeant Troovey stood in the centre of the platoon’s defensive ring.

‘What happened?’ Gernson asked.

‘I definitely saw movement in the trees,’ Norsten said, ‘something green, I swear it on the God-Emperor Himself. I thought it had seen us, so I called an immediate contact rather than dropping and reporting a sighting. I think I hit it too, at least someone did.’

Sergeant Troovey looked from Norsten to Lieutenant Gernson. ‘Well, we can be sure it weren’t no ork, ma’am.’

‘We can?’ Norsten said.

Sergeant Troovey turned to look at Norsten. ‘Yes, trooper. Notice how there wasn’t nobody returning Throne-damned fire? Orks would’ve been shooting back, wouldn’t they?’

‘Uh, yes, sergeant. I suppose so,’ Norsten said.

Lieutenant Gernson looked at Norsten. ‘All right. Norsten, take Gorm and scout out there, see what it was. Quickly now. The rest of you, keep your eyes open.’

Torvin watched Norsten and Gorm move out in the direction Norsten had first called contact. The jungle out there had been shot to pieces – burned leaves, singed vines and other organic debris lay scattered across the ground, and many of the thinner trees had been hit and cut through, lying flat or having fallen and landed propped up against larger trunks. Norsten and Gorm stayed low, creeping out into the trees, slashing at the foliage with their bayoneted lasguns to clear the way. They soon vanished from sight. It wasn’t long before they re-emerged though, and they were carrying something. They moved to where Lieutenant Gernson and Sergeant Troovey waited, and Torvin saw the two troopers had a four-legged animal slung between them, Norsten holding its forelegs and Gorm its rear. They dropped it on the ground at Lieutenant Gernson’s feet like a house cat delivering a gift to its owner. The animal was a large green-coated creature with long tufted ears, three eyes and black spots over its coat. It had been ravaged by lasgun shots.

‘Well,’ Sergeant Troovey said, ‘at least it’s green.’

‘Sorry, lieutenant,’ Norsten said, ‘it must have been this I saw.’

Lieutenant Gernson took a moment. ‘Must have been,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m not going to berate any trooper for a false contact in this festering place, especially because, like the good sergeant said, at least it’s green. It’s tough to see your hand in front of your face out here and I know we’re all eager to kill some orks, but let’s try to get a positive ident before we blast half the jungle, shall we?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Norsten replied.

‘Right,’ the lieutenant continued, ‘everyone form back up to move out, and keep ready because if there are any orks around, we’ve made a warping hell of a racket.’

Fourth Platoon collected themselves into formation again and continued their march through the jungle, the excitement of their false contact with the enemy dying down. As Torvin moved off he saw Corporal Algarn walk up beside him. He swallowed, keeping his eyes front, trying not to make eye contact.

‘All good then, Torvin?’ the corporal said.

‘Yes, corporal,’ Torvin replied.

‘That so, is it?’

Oh, Torvin thought, it’s going to be this again.

‘Yes, corporal.’

‘See,’ Corporal Algarn said, ‘if I’m not mistaken, in the middle of that contact you were just standing around like you were taking a piss, maybe daydreaming about something more fun to do with your junk.’

‘Lucky it wasn’t a real contact I suppose, corporal,’ Torvin said, trying to smile, hoping that he could make light of the situation and Algarn would leave him alone.

‘Well, see that’s the thing,’ Algarn said. ‘I didn’t know it wasn’t a real contact and if I don’t know somethin’ then you can bet your crem you don’t know it. If that was a real contact, you should’ve been up there laying down suppressing fire. Because if you’re not doing that then there’s a chance one of those troopers directly engaging the enemy gets wasted. You don’t want to be responsible for getting a fellow Imperial Guardsman killed, do you, Trooper Torvin?’

‘No, corporal.’

‘No, I didn’t think so. You’re lucky we don’t have a commissar attached to us on this little outing because imagine if Commissar Redvin had seen you just standing there. She would have shoved her bolt pistol so far up your backside, you’d taste the bolt coming out on your tongue. So here’s what’s going to happen, Torvin. Because I’m a nice guy, I’m not going to tell anyone about what you did back there, as long as you sort yourself out before we really get in the crem and you wind up getting someone killed. You freeze in combat and get your own arse blown off I don’t really give a crem, but I could be the trooper you’re supposed to be covering, so do your damn job.’

‘Yes, corporal. Sorry, I just–’

‘You just what, Torvin?’ Algarn snapped. ‘You going to give me an excuse?’

‘No, corporal. I don’t know what happened. I just froze up.’

‘Yeah, you did. Don’t let it happen again.’

Corporal Algarn began to move away, dropping back towards the end of the column.

‘I just don’t want to fight, corporal,’ Torvin said just as Algarn was leaving, immediately regretting it when the corporal about turned and hastened to move in front of him, cutting him off and stopping them both.

Algarn stared at him with a new fierceness. Torvin swallowed. ‘I’m just not sure why I’m here,’ Torvin continued. ‘I’m not sure I’m a very good soldier.’

‘You are here because you were tithed, Torvin, and you’ll be a good soldier because that’s what the Emperor and Imperium demands of you.’

‘I was supposed to be an Adminstratum scribe like my father,’ Torvin said. ‘We lived above Skadus Hive, recording quota information about the under-ice mines. I’m not meant to be here.’

Corporal Algarn stepped forward. He grabbed the front of Torvin’s flak vest and pulled him in close so that they were almost nose to nose. ‘I said I was a nice guy, Trooper Torvin. I didn’t say I would abide blasphemy. You are out here to kill the xenos. You best accept that and, Emperor knows, you best want to do it. You are bordering on heretical here, trooper. Keep your mouth shut and your lasgun up, and when the time comes you will pull that trigger and you will enjoy the euphoria of doing the Emperor’s work. Forget your life on Skadi, Torvin. From now on, killing orks is the only thing that matters.’

CHAPTER THREE

NOGROK

‘Krumpin’ humies is the only fing wot should matter to you, Nogrok,’ Warboss Kazkorg Gutstompa said in his guttural snarl, picking Nogrok out of the gathered warband and staring at him, his heavy green brow furrowed and his red eyes daring him to keep asking questions.

Warboss Gutstompa wasn’t the biggest warboss Nogrok had ever seen. His old boss, Warboss Ripspitta, had been taller, by at least a couple of snotlings, and he’d been wider too with a bigger head, which meant he was probably loads thinkier. Still, Gutstompa was more than big enough that Nogrok probably shouldn’t be getting on his bad side – though it was hard not to get on a warboss’ bad side because they usually only had one side and it wasn’t a good one. Where most warbosses had the meks fit them with an imposing power klaw or kit them out in a colossal suit of armour, Gutstompa had instead elected for two massive hydraulically assisted boots to be riveted directly into the thick green flesh of his legs. He wasn’t called Gutstompa for nothing.

Gutstompa had called the whole warband together in the middle of the small humie town they’d attacked the day before to explain what they were going to do next. Nogrok might have just been one of the boyz, especially in this new warband, but now that Gutstompa was laying out his plan he couldn’t help speaking up. He’d always seen better ways of doing things. At least Ripspitta had listened to him, even if he didn’t always follow what Nogrok thought would be the best taktiks. He’d known Nogrok and his kommando boyz had something to offer. Nogrok wasn’t saying that if Ripspitta had listened to him back on that desert planet things would have gone better, but maybe if he had listened, him and pretty much the whole warband wouldn’t have got proper krumped by the humies and left Nogrok and his crew to get stuck with Gutstompa and these thieving Deathskulls gitz.

‘Yeah, I get it, boss,’ Nogrok said, ‘but I woz just wonderin’ why.’

A low growl rumbled from somewhere deep in Gutstompa’s throat. ‘Dat’s the problem with you Blood Axes, ain’t it? Always wondering. We gonna attack dat humie base, Outpost Wotsit, coz the humies keep guardin’ it. If the humies keep guardin’ it den dey must think it’s important, ain’t it? So we gonna take it off ’em.’

Nogrok considered a moment. ‘I s’pose that makes sense.’

‘Of course it makes sense, you zoggin’ git! I is warboss, whatever I say makes sense coz I say it does.’

‘So,’ Nogrok said, continuing well beyond when any reasonable ork boy would have shut his mouth, ‘I can take my kommandos and we can do a recon-o-sance mission. We’ll sneak in da jungle and see where da humie base is weakest. Then you can smash in there.’

Warboss Gutstompa stared at Nogrok, the cogs in his brain slowly churning through fungal soup, mostly surprised, like the rest of the warband, that Nogrok was still speaking. ‘Wot?’ the massive ork said eventually.

‘Just helpin’ with da plan, boss.’

‘Helpin’ with da plan?’ Gutstompa said. ‘Wot is all dat unorky sneakin’ ya on about? I don’t care ’bout no sneakin’ and I don’t care ’bout you helpin’ with da plan. I ’as already got a plan. We gonna go up to dat humie outpost, we gonna line up, den we gonna yell Waaagh! and we gonna charge the humies and krump dere faces in. Den, after dat, we might yell Waaagh! again.’

‘Boss, I is–’

‘Oi!’

Nogrok turned to see he’d been interrupted by Warboss Gutstompa’s second-in-command, Nob Gruk Jaggedteef – another ork who was vastly larger than Nogrok. Jaggedteef had moved through the gathering of orks to stand right beside him.

Looming over Nogrok, Jaggedteef smiled, revealing teeth that had been filed into vicious serrations. Nogrok had just enough time to think how much Jaggedteef was a stupid Deathskulls git before the nob’s immense green fist flew forward and connected with his face.

When Nogrok opened his eyes he was lying flat. He sat upright. His thick spongy veins pulsed with runaway ork rage. The furious drive to fight filled him, made his head feel hot, and all he could think about was smashing that zoggin’ Jaggedteef git right in the face. He’d smack him back in his stupid jaw and crack those rough teeth off, and then he’d use them to buy a new choppa, and then he’d use that choppa to smash him in the face again. He would have done it too, except he had to wait for his eyeballs to realign so that he could zoggin’ see straight. That and, he soon realised, he wasn’t in the street with Gutstompa and the rest of the warband any more. He was back on the second floor of the ruined building he’d occupied with his kommando mob.

‘’Ere look, Nogrok’s awake.’

Nogrok looked in the direction of the voice. He saw too many versions of the same orks, so he slapped himself hard on the side of the head. That seemed to straighten something out and he could suddenly see again. The multitude of orks coalesced down to the five kommandos left in his mob: Grimguk, Ruktug, Nukka, Urkgob and Flik. There used to be more but not since everything went wrong on that desert planet. He’d managed to get some of his mob away though because he was a proper kunnin’ ork. Sneaked off like ghosts they had. That’s what some of the humies had called them once, ghost orks.

‘Wot ’appened?’ Nogrok asked.

‘Jaggedteef smacked ya,’ Flik replied.

‘I know that bit,’ Nogrok said, ‘I was dere when dat ’appened. Wot after dat?’

‘Gutstompa talked about takin’ dat humie base,’ Grimguk said. ‘Said we doin’ it when the sun comes up. Dat was it. We carried ya back up ’ere coz ya weren’t wakin’ up.’

‘Attackin’ in the day?’ Nogrok said, shaking his head. ‘Git. We should get ’em in the dark. You been keepin’ watch?’

‘Course,’ Grimguk said. ‘Like ya told us.’

When Gutstompa’s warband had attacked this humie town they’d managed to wreck just about every building. Some they’d blown up on purpose with direct rokkit attack, others by accident with rokkits meant for somewhere else. Some they’d smashed in the windows, doors and even walls with wild choppa swings. There were even buildings completely levelled after some overexcited ork boyz forgot that trukks have brakes – that had happened more than once even in this minor skirmish. Out of all the buildings they’d destroyed, this was the one Nogrok had told his kommandos to grab because the ruined second level provided good views down the main street while still having some walls left to take cover behind. It was the best place to keep watch for any humie counter-attack. Then they could be down there fighting as soon as they got here.

‘Oi, you up dere, ya zoggin’ bloody Blood Axe bloody zoggin’ gitz?’

The thick, slowly slurring voice came rolling up from the level below. Nogrok heard the sound of heavy footfalls on the stairs and clambered to his feet, turning to see a couple of the fightiest Deathskulls gitz staggering up to the second level, fungus beer sloshing merrily from the enormous cups they held in their hands. Snaga and Flogga stumbled up the last few steps and, because they went everywhere with him like a couple of well-trained squigs, Nogrok was unsurprised to see Gruk Jaggedteef, similarly clutching a flagon of fungal beer, thump up the stairs behind them.

Jaggedteef smiled his pointy grin at Nogrok.

‘Heard ya been sleepin’, ya puny git. Dat right? I knocked ya flat, did I?’

Nogrok sniffed. ‘I was just restin’ up,’ he said. ‘Need to be proper sharp for attackin’ da humies.’

Jaggedteef let out a small growl. Nogrok knew Jaggedteef didn’t like him.

‘I don’t like you, Nogrok.’

See.

‘I don’t like none of you Blood Axe gitz. You all humie lovers aren’t ya?’

‘Yes, Nob Jaggedteef,’ Nogrok said. ‘We love humies all right. We love killin’ ’em.’

Jaggedteef’s growl intensified. His large flagon of fermented fungus shattered as his large hands squeezed in an effort to contain his temper. Nogrok also knew Jaggedteef absolutely hated the way he always managed to deftly evade his insults, brushing them off and not giving the big nob the rise he was looking for. Jaggedteef wanted nothing better than an excuse to fight him. He wanted Nogrok to utter anything that might come across as a challenge to his authority so that he could kill him and be done with it.

‘Stop lookin’ at me wiv ya weirdboy eyes, Nogrok.’

‘Sorry, Nob Jaggedteef,’ Nogrok said, ‘I ain’t got any others.’

Jaggedteef wasn’t alone in being freaked out by Nogrok’s eyes. He’d always had one perfectly normal eye and one that was green instead of red, and as much as orks weren’t afraid of much, they could be unnerved by the smallest things. As such, his fellow boyz had always been wary of Nogrok and steered clear of him most of the time. Maybe that’s why he’d ended up as a kommando, an outsider from the beginning.

‘Wot are you lot doin’ up here anyway?’ Jaggedteef asked. Nogrok had no doubt he was trying to find something he could use to krump him.

‘Keepin’ watch,’ Flik said. ‘Like Nogrok told us.’

Jaggedteef turned his attention to Flik. Orks usually showed little in the way of emotion apart from anger, hatred, rage and, sometimes, fury, but Nogrok saw contempt all over Jaggedteef’s face. Flik was small. A runt, really. Plenty of orks started off a bit scrawny and they either died or survived by being particularly crazy or particularly good at specific types of killing. These orks soon got big enough that no one even remembered they started off small, but unfortunately for Flik, he was proper small. In fact, it wasn’t rare for other orks to call him a stinkin’ grot when they first saw him, which he took relatively well – at least it would seem that way at the time. Nogrok found it useful having a smaller kommando; it meant he could get him to squeeze into places the rest of them couldn’t, but really it was a zoggin’ surprise Flik hadn’t been krumped by some bigger ork long ago. Then again, Nogrok supposed he was one of them that was good at a specific type of killin’. Flik’s type of killin’ was hidin’ in tiny places and jumping out to slit throats – usually the throats of those who’d called him a grot. Maybe he’d be a risk when he got bigger, but Nogrok would deal with that later; until then he was handy to have around.

‘No one’s talkin’ to you, snotling,’ Jaggedteef said to Flik. Flik’s face hardly moved but Nogrok saw the hardening of his tiny red eyes. Jaggedteef had gone on Flik’s list, but Flik would have to get in line to have a crack at cutting this nob’s throat.

Jaggedteef turned back to Nogrok. ‘What are you tellin’ your gitz to keep watch for anyway?’

‘Humies,’ Nogrok said, thinking that even for a thick-headed nob like Jaggedteef that should be obvious. ‘Case they come counter-attackin’.’

Jaggedteef snorted a short laugh. ‘Watchin’ for humies. Real orks don’t need to keep watch. We always ready for a fight. Who told you to do that anyway? I’m da nob. You just a bunch of unorky Blood Axe gitz. Don’t know why Warboss Gutstompa decided to bring you lot along. You got done in by humies on dat last planet – still got sand in me boots from dat place – why we want to keep a bunch of you what got beaten? You got all your thinkin’ ’bout taktiks and special gubbinz and you still got smacked didn’t ya? What is this gubbinz anyway?’

Jaggedteef moved to where Nogrok’s equipment was stacked against the low wall.

‘Dat’s my gubbinz,’ Nogrok said, stopping himself before he added, you thievin’ bloody Deathskulls git, knowing that was exactly what the nob wanted.

Jaggedteef ignored him, pushing over his neatly piled gear with his foot – at least it was neat for an ork in that it was all in the same pile in the same place. The large nob bent over and picked up a pair of goggles with dark green lenses. He dangled them in front of his face.

‘Wot’re dese puny things?’

Nogrok looked at him. ‘Night-seein’ goggles,’ he said.

‘Wot you need night-seein’ goggles for?’ the nob asked.

‘Coz I’m a kommando,’ Nogrok said. ‘Then I can do killin’ in the dark and wotnot. Could ya put ’em down?’

‘Why?’ Jaggedteef said. ‘You worried I gonna break ’em?’

Nogrok didn’t reply.

Jaggedteef dropped the night-seein’ goggles on the hard stone floor. Nogrok saw one of the lenses crack and felt a rush of heat to his head.

‘Wot?’ Jaggedteef said. ‘It were an accident.’ He lifted his boot and slammed it down on the goggles. They crunched beneath his heel, smashing beyond repair. ‘Oops. Had another accident.’

Anger flared in Nogrok. He had to struggle against his very nature, every one of his ork cells calling for a fight, but he managed to hold himself back.

Jaggedteef smiled. He could probably smell the desire for violence pouring off Nogrok, but there was nothing Nogrok could do right now; his instinct to fight was hard up against his instinct to submit to the bigger ork. Jaggedteef turned to Snaga and Flogga.

‘You boyz come and take whateva ya want.’

Jaggedteef’s two lackeys came over and began rifling through all of Nogrok’s stuff – everything he’d managed to scavenge over the years. The bits he’d bought from mekboyz and, worst of all, the loot he’d managed to collect from the humies they’d fought against before. Snaga picked up Nogrok’s ’urty syringe. That had cost Nogrok a fortune in teef because Deathskulls painboyz were just as greedy as any of the other Deathskulls gitz. It was loaded full of a thick, purple liquid that the dok had said would knock out most orks and at least sap the strength from one as big as a nob. He was saving that for a special occasion. Thankfully Snaga, because he was thick, didn’t realise the value of it and tossed it back onto the pile. The loss of the night-seein’ goggles was bad enough – though he knew he had another set of them somewhere that, while they weren’t quite as good, would do the job – but then he saw Flogga grab his most favourite thing.

Nogrok had deliberately tried not to look at it because he didn’t want to draw the other orks’ attention to it, but now Flogga had spotted it. The Deathskull picked it up and slid it out of the leather sheath. He held the knife up. It was almost as long as the ork’s forearm, massive for a humie blade. It gleamed, still shining just as it had when Nogrok had plucked it off that dead humie. The humie must have cleaned it and he’d never managed to draw Nogrok’s blood with it before Nogrok killed him. It was a Catachan knife, a long-bladed, half-serrated fang of cold steel.

It was nothing as special as some of the humie weapons – their big fists, or those nice loud chainswords, or those glowy swords that some of them had. Didn’t matter to Nogrok though. He liked this better than all of them. This was a real cutta, simple and sharp. Plus, Nogrok liked the humies it came from, those Catachan ones – they were good for fighting against, and the way they sneaked around to do their killing, most orks thought it was nonsense, but Nogrok knew it was proper good taktiks.

‘Cor,’ Flogga said, eyeing the blade as he turned it in front of his face. ‘Look at dis.’

‘Give me dat,’ Snaga said, lunging forward to try to grab the Catachan knife from Flogga, but the other ork was too quick at turning and holding it out of reach.

‘Zog off,’ Flogga said, ‘dis mine.’

‘I wanna look,’ Snaga said, lunging again, but again Flogga moved it out of reach.

‘Nah,’ Flogga said, ‘I know you wanna pinch it and you ain’t havin’ it.’

Snaga bared his teeth. ‘I said give it.’

‘Oi,’ Nogrok said, unable to contain his rage that they were fighting over who was going to take his prized possession. Plus, these two at least weren’t as big as Jaggedteef. ‘Dat cutta is mine, you zoggin’ gitz. Ain’t none of you havin’ it.’

Flogga and Snaga turned on Nogrok, suddenly unified once again. They had been on the verge of beating each other senseless over this new-found prize, but now they seemed to have remembered there were Blood Axe gitz here they could fight instead.

‘Ain’t yours no more,’ Flogga said.

‘Yeah, ain’t yours,’ Snaga said. ‘It’s ours.’

‘Mine,’ Flogga said.

‘Yeah,’ Snaga continued. ‘Dat’s wot I said, it’s ours.’

Flogga looked sideways at Snaga but decided to deal with that problem later. He brandished the long-bladed Catachan knife and pointed the curved tip at Nogrok. ‘Unless you can take it back, this cutta mine now.’

‘I killed da humie I took it off,’ Nogrok growled. ‘I’mma kill you to get it back.’

Jaggedteef thumped forward towards Nogrok. He was at least a half again as tall as Nogrok, which meant he was intimidatingly large. You didn’t get to be a nob without being big and tough, and then when you got to be a nob you got even bigger and tougher. That’s what made it so hard to get rid of them, so hard for other orks to work their way up.

Jaggedteef stopped when he was close to Nogrok, standing over him, a menacing slab of green. He snarled, his thick green lips pulling back from his protruding tusks and teeth that had all been snapped, cut and filed into points seemingly as sharp and just as serrated as Nogrok’s Catachan knife. The nob swung his heavy fist but, unlike out on the street, this time Nogrok anticipated it and dodged back out of the way. Jaggedteef’s hooked punch sailed through the air in front of him. The nob’s face showed momentary confusion as he was surprised by how quickly Nogrok could move, but this expression soon slid back into anger.

‘This ain’t your fight, Jaggedteef,’ Nogrok said. He called past the nob to Flogga and Snaga. ‘Why you gitz need a nob to do your fightin’ for ya?’

They growled and snarled at Nogrok but didn’t reply.

‘They my boyz you threatenin’ to kill,’ Jaggedteef said. ‘You don’t get to kill my boyz.’

‘You forgettin’ Warboss Gutstompa put me in your mob too, didn’t he,’ Nogrok said.

‘So wot?’

‘So don’t that make us your boyz too? Why you tellin’ them to take my gubbinz? Why you tryin’ to krump me?’

‘I said you don’t get to kill my boyz,’ Jaggedteef said. ‘I didn’t say nothin’ ’bout me killin’ my boyz. If I wanna kill some of me own boyz I will, you included – ’specially you, coz you is a humie-lovin’ Blood Axe git.’

Jaggedteef swung his fist again. Again Nogrok managed to dodge. But this time Jaggedteef wasn’t going to relent in his attack. He swung his other stone-mallet fist. This time Nogrok couldn’t get completely out of the way. He had to stick his own arm up to try to block the strike. Nogrok took the force of Jaggedteef’s blow on his forearm but by Gork and Mork the nob was strong. The fist slammed through Nogrok’s guard. There was a crunching in his arm that made his hand go all wobbly, and then Jaggedteef’s punch connected with the side of his head. Nogrok felt the inside of his head go wobbly too and took several stumbling steps backward. He was readying to hit back when Jaggedteef kicked him in the stomach sending him arcing back across the room and sliding along the ground.

‘I ain’t gonna kill ya, Nogrok,’ Jaggedteef said, ‘but you needs to learn dat I am da biggest and I am da ’ardest and I am the nob. Get at ’im, boyz.’

Nogrok rolled over to see Flogga and Snaga hurrying towards him. The two Deathskulls began kicking him repeatedly. Nogrok thrashed on the ground, trying to strike at the other two orks, but there was little he could do as their kicks slammed into him. He growled and covered his head, knowing that was the bit he needed to keep from getting busted too badly.

‘Keep out of it, the rest of you Blood Axe gitz,’ Nogrok heard Jaggedteef roar as Flogga and Snaga rained large-booted kick after large-booted kick into him. ‘Or you’ll get more of a krumpin’.’

The other kommandos must have moved into action, but Jaggedteef’s threats were apparently enough to keep them from intervening.

As Nogrok lay on the ground being repeatedly booted by Jaggedteef’s little snotling pets, his anger grew and roiled inside him. Nobz might be big and tough and keep getting bigger and tougher, but Nogrok was going to find a way to tear Jaggedteef down. An outright stand against a massive nob like him with his loyal gang of boyz would just get him krumped like this again, probably get him killed dead next time, but he would find a way.

He was a kommando. He was a ghost ork. He knew loads more about taktikal killing than these Deathskulls gitz. He’d show them. He’d find a way to get his cutta back from that git Flogga and he’d find a way to shove it right through Jaggedteef’s eye and into his gitty brain. Then, after he’d taken Jaggedteef’s place as nob he’d show them all how good at killing a Blood Axe was. He’d start with any of these other Deathskulls gitz who deserved it, then he’d get onto killing the humies.

CHAPTER FOUR

NOGROK

Nogrok held up his hand, indicating for the kommandos behind him to stop. They weren’t far from the edge of the trees now. He could see up ahead where the jungle thinned out and opened into the much brighter clearing around the humie base. Nogrok crouched low in the thick, damp undergrowth, letting himself sink into the green foliage. He slipped off his pack, feeling a recurrence of anger when he noticed the empty spot where the sheath of the Catachan knife was usually buckled to the side. Thievin’ Deathskulls gitz.

He flipped open his pack and retrieved his long-seein’ goggles. He’d got these from that Catachan humie too. Those Catachan humies didn’t have as much stuff as other humies, but what they did have was good. They knew how to use it too. He’d fought against humies that had all kinds of flashy armour and helmets and rode around in tanks and whatnot, but they were just like Bad Moon gitz – all flashy gubbinz with no idea how to use it.

Some humies he’d fought against had even run away, and not like a taktikal running away either, just proper running away like they were scared or something. But those Catachan humies, they wouldn’t run away. They didn’t run anywhere. They crept up all stealthy like, coming out of nowhere to slit throats and cause carnage. Some humies had called his kommandos ghost orks, but the Catachan humies were the proper ghosts. That’s what his kommandos were going to be like. Let the other orks call them unorky or whatever, Nogrok knew doing stuff the way of Mork was just as good as doing stuff the way of Gork. Mork was proper kunnin’, so why shouldn’t an ork do that? If they weren’t supposed to go sneaking around in the jungle, then why did Gork and Mork give orks green skin? That was ready-made camouflage that was.

After Nob Jaggedteef and his zoggin’ gitz had come through, stole all his good kit and kicked him around, Nogrok had gathered his kommando mob together.

‘We gonna kill dem gitz?’ Flik had asked.

Nogrok shook his head. ‘Nah. We’ll get our chance. Forget about those gitz for now. We gonna go do our recon-o-sance of the humie base even if Warboss Gutstompa ain’t got the brain to know it’s good taktiks. Get your kit, we movin’ out.’

As the kommandos gathered their equipment, loaded up their packs, strapped on their choppas and sluggas, and left the humie town to disappear into the jungle, Nogrok didn’t tell them that even though he’d said to forget about those Deathskulls gitz, he wasn’t going to. He couldn’t forget. Those Deathskulls were all the zoggin’ worst and he was going to get even. Mostly he wanted to kill Flogga for pinching his knife, but Snaga too, and of course Jaggedteef. He just had to plan it. They’d need to be sneaky about it.

The kommandos had moved through the jungle as swiftly as they could while keeping noise to a minimum. It had taken them a long time to learn how to move silently. Nogrok might have believed there was just as much Morkiness in an ork as there was Gorkiness, but most orks couldn’t help but make a racket when they thundered along, especially through a jungle or forest where there was loads of stuff to step on and break, or plants to swoosh through, or trees to push over just for the fun of it. Plus, most orks couldn’t keep their mouths shut long enough to be sneaky.

Nogrok had made his kommandos practise keeping silent as they moved. At first, they’d been appalled by the idea that they had to train, not seeing the point in doing something when they didn’t actually need to. That just seemed like swinging a choppa around and pretending to kill a humie when they could just go out and swing their choppas at actual humies instead. But once they started to see results, started to realise they were getting better at being sneaky – which Nogrok assured them was the point of being a kommando – they kept their training up, and now they were proper good at stealth.

Nogrok was happy to be in the jungle. The last planet they’d been on was all hot and sandy with open space everywhere, not the most ideal for sneakin’, but this new jungle planet, this was where he knew his kommandos would be at their best.

Nogrok looked back and saw Flik and Nukka kneeling down amongst the trees. He could just make out the shape of Ruktug further back and Grimguk and Urkgob should be back behind them. Nogrok signalled for them to stay where they were while he scouted ahead. He left his pack where it was, taking just his long-seein’ goggles and the slugga hanging from his side, and crept through the thinning jungle towards the edge of the clearing.

He watched each step, showing patience near miraculous for an ork, putting his heavy foot down slowly, heel first, and rolling forward such that he could stop if anything beneath his sole began to snap or crack. He kept low, eventually dropping onto his stomach and crawling forward until he reached the treeline.

Up ahead, the jungle had been cleared in a wide area and at the centre, higher than the surrounding wilderness, was the humie outpost. Nogrok immediately saw why the humies kept defending this base – it was the best place to see anyone coming into the valley towards where the big humie city was. There was a lot of cleared space all the way around the outpost too, so that any attack from the jungle would be spotted well before it reached the outpost. There was a low rockcrete wall and then a high wire fence about halfway into the cleared area which would slow down any attack and give the humies in the base a good chance to start shooting before anything got to them.

Nogrok held his long-seein’ goggles up to his eyes to take a better look at the humie outpost. It was built from rockcrete, just like the outer wall, with what looked like only one thick metal door and no windows. The walls were tall and flat, made so they would be hard to climb. Walking along the top, moving in pairs, looking out towards the jungle, were humies.

These humies wore flashy armour and helmets, and carried those las-shootas they liked so much. Nogrok continued scanning the walls and saw several big shootas spaced along the top pointed out towards the clearing. That’s where the most dakka would come from. If Gutstompa would actually listen to him, Nogrok would be able to go back and report about the base’s defences, but he was sure the warboss and the rest of the warband were going to just blindly charge out of the jungle and try to smash their way through, getting shot at the whole time.

Nogrok moved the long-seein’ goggles back along the top of the wall and then stopped, moving them back again. One of the humies was looking towards him. Nogrok watched as the humie fumbled at his side and then lifted up some long-seein’ goggles of his own, pointing them right towards Nogrok.

Nogrok smiled. He’d been proper sneaky and didn’t know whether the humie could see him or not. Maybe it was because he was still annoyed at those Deathskulls gitz, but he decided to have some fun with the humie. He stood, lowering the long-seein’ goggles, and moved forward a couple of steps, enough that he was out of the trees and knew the humie would definitely be able to see him. He grabbed his slugga, pointed it at the humie, mimed shooting and then stepped back into the trees, dropping low and vanishing.

Nogrok chuckled to himself as he moved back to his kommandos. He hoped he’d given that humie a bit of a scare with his brainological warfare. When he reached the other kommandos, he called them over, keeping his voice low as he spoke to them.

‘Gutstompa’s gonna attack from this way,’ Nogrok said. ‘There’s walls and fences, and the humies have got shootas up on the roof. It looks better to attack from the sides – there ain’t as much room there but a small mob like us can get in easy. We’re gonna wait for Gutstompa to charge in and while they are gettin’ krumped and the humies are distracted, we attack. We’ll be able to get in close and actually kill some humies instead of just runnin’ into humie dakka like those gitz will.’

With that, Nogrok threw his pack back on and he and his mob of kommandos moved off, back into the dense jungle, to flank the humie base and await the main attack from Gutstompa’s warband. It didn’t take long and as Nogrok and his ghost orks were creeping through the jungle, he heard the roaring of the warboss.

‘WAAAAAAGH!’

Gutstompa, it seemed, was sticking with his plan.

CHAPTER FIVE

TORVIN

Trooper Torvin was on his second watch.

His first had been a graveyard shift the night before, Fourth Platoon’s initial night manning Outpost Four. The tall lumen towers around the area had been alight then, blasting white luminescence out over the clearing surrounding the outpost. The enormous globes were bright enough to illuminate the space around them as if it were day. The ground was lit more than enough to see anything that might be approaching – either heading for the outpost or looking to move into the valley towards Karoo City. The treeline had still been dark, though, and the jungle beyond had blended into a single plain of vast blackness, a looming unknown beyond their tiny patch of safety. Now, in the daylight, Torvin could see the individual trees around the clearing, but beyond that the jungle had simply gone from vast unknown black to an undulating green blanket that spread out to the horizon without end. He’d hoped it would all seem better in the morning, but the jungle still gave Torvin just as much of a feeling of crushing insignificance as it had the night before.

He walked the thin battlement that ran along the top of the outpost. There wasn’t much to Outpost Four; it provided the bare minimum necessary for a watch station and minor fortification. A small windowless, colourless fort with thick outer walls that formed the rampart atop which Torvin stood. There was an open central section, with thick metal doors on both the north and south sides, and stairs that provided roof access.

Straight corridors ran off to the east and west providing access to a small barracks, a rudimentary mess, a less than adequate number of amenities for a full platoon of troopers, a small communication and control room with vox-link back to Karoo – and emergency flare launchers in the event Gondwa VI’s magnetic behaviour interfered with that – and an armoury that didn’t seem to have been restocked with weapons or ammunition in the last few years, though Torvin had noticed there was a larger than necessary stockpile of demolition charges. Outpost Four was a small enough facility that the outer wall, the wire fence, the defensive ramparts and even the constantly manned heavy bolter emplacements didn’t make Torvin feel particularly well fortified.

Trooper Norsten, unfortunately assigned as Torvin’s partner for this shift, chattered incessantly as they walked the rampart.

‘How long do you reckon until the orks attack?’ Norsten was saying. ‘Hopefully not too much longer.’

‘Hopefully they don’t attack at all,’ Torvin said in reply. ‘We don’t actually want to have to defend the outpost, you know.’

‘It’s inevitable,’ Norsten said. ‘I’m looking forward to it. By the time we’ve fought them off, my name will be etched in Skadi’s history.’

Torvin muttered sounds of inattentive agreement as he kept his eyes trained on the edge of the jungle. For someone so keen to get into battle with the greenskins, Norsten did not seem to be too concerned with keeping watch for them. Torvin, on the other hand, could think of very little other than the fact that the vicious orks, who, by all accounts, were not as easy to kill as the Departmento Munitorum would like him to believe, were definitely out there lurking in the jungle, gathering their numbers to take this world.

Of all mankind’s abhorrent alien enemies, the orks are surely the most cowardly. They mass in great warbands and use their sheer weight of numbers to defeat their foes. Their numbers are their only strength and they use them like the cowards they are, knowing they cannot defeat you, a warrior of the Emperor, without attempting to overwhelm you. Never fear though, steadfast Imperial Guardsmen with lasguns in their hands and prayers on their lips are more than a match for any number of the green tide who would throw themselves against you.

‘I was the best shot in our training group,’ Norsten was saying as they walked, ‘did you know that? I’ll hit the greenskins as they come out of the trees. It’s not even that far.’

Norsten turned, likely because Torvin had not mumbled an affirmative response, and realised only then that Torvin had stopped. ‘What?’ Norsten asked.

Torvin squinted his eyes towards the trees. There had been a brief flash, almost like the sun had been at just the right angle to reflect off something. He stared at the distant treeline, watching to see if there was anything there, looking for signs of movement. The trees waved in the gentle breeze. Some of Gondwa VI’s native birdlife took flight over the jungle canopy. Threatening grey clouds rolled through the distant sky.

Torvin was about to forget it, chalk it up to his ever-fraying nerves, when he saw it again. It was smaller this time, but it was there: a flash low in the scrub at the treeline. He felt a growing tension, a knot of unease in his stomach. He grabbed at the magnoculars that hung from his webbing, almost forgetting he had them with him, and hastily fumbled them up to his eyes.

Torvin focused on the spot he was sure he’d seen something, ignoring the range information, wind velocity and terrain topography that appeared around his view. There was a thicket of fernlike plants grown dense around the edge of the clearing where they found access to sunlight more readily than deeper in the jungle. Torvin watched them, holding the magnoculars as steady as he could to avoid the amplified movements of his trembling hands. There was something there. He could see it now. Some shape low to the ground. Perhaps some equipment had been left there and maybe there was something on it, a tag on a backpack or the like, something that moved just enough in the light breeze to catch the sunlight and reflect it back at him. Torvin was just about ready to believe that theory when the ferns shook with a sudden overwhelming movement that took him by surprise.

The shape on the ground rose out of the plant cover almost as if it were unfolding, opening up, a flower unwrapping itself to show its petals to the sun. It took a split second longer than it should have for Torvin to realise what he was looking at.

It was an ork.

The creature emerged from where it had been hidden among the leaves. An actual greenskin. Torvin had never seen one before, but he didn’t need briefing notes or The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer to identify this creature. What else could it be? Every child on a million worlds knew about the big-headed, green-skinned brutes that ravaged the galaxy, and now Torvin was looking at one.

From this distance he couldn’t be sure exactly how tall the ork was – about as tall as an average human, maybe a little bigger? Torvin quickly scanned the trees, but the creature seemed to be alone. There was no sheer weight of numbers, no green tide like he had been led to believe. The ork just stood there, looking back at him.

More surprising than seeing an ork alone, staring out from the edge of the jungle, was that the greenskin was clutching magnoculars of its own. Then, when it lowered them, Torvin saw black lines painted in slanting stripes across its face. Even the two tusks that protruded from its mouth had been wrapped in black cloth. The clothes it wore were sewn together from patches of various shades of green. The cracked and worn leather of the ork’s belt and the empty bandoleer slung over its chest had been darkened. By the Emperor, Torvin thought, as realisation struck, this ork – this brutish, savage, apparently stupid beyond measure ork – was wearing camouflage.

While Torvin stood, stunned by what he was seeing, the ork pulled an oversized pistol from the holster at its waist. It lifted it, pointing it straight at Torvin, and smiled. The thing was smiling at him. It raised the gun once with a motion like it was firing and then it lowered the pistol. Torvin felt a rush of cold move through him: fear or adrenaline or both, he didn’t know.

The ork stepped back into the trees, keeping its beady eyes on Torvin as it retreated into the green dark of the jungle, human and ork watching each other until eventually the camouflaged greenskin vanished from sight. Torvin’s breathing was fast and shallow. His heart was thundering in his chest, and he could hear the whooshing of blood through his ears. It was only then, when the ork had disappeared and Torvin had lowered the magnoculars from his eyes, that he managed to speak.

‘What is it?’ Norsten was saying, in a tone that implied it wasn’t the first time he’d asked.

‘Ork,’ Torvin said, though it was little more than a tiny croak.

‘What?’ Norsten said.

Torvin turned to look at him. ‘An ork,’ he repeated. Then he finally managed to say it loud enough to get the reaction he thought it deserved. ‘There was an ork in the trees!’

Norsten’s face drained of colour just the smallest amount as he rushed over. He held out his hand, clicking his fingers for Torvin to pass him the magnoculars. Torvin did so without comment.

‘Where?’ Norsten said. ‘I don’t see anything.’

But Torvin had turned away. ‘Sergeant Troovey!’ he called. ‘Sergeant!’

Sergeant Troovey was down the other end of the battlement but turned at the call of his name and, apparently recognising the desperation in Torvin’s voice, jogged quickly towards him.

‘What is it, trooper?’ Sergeant Troovey asked.

‘I saw an ork in the trees.’

Troovey looked at him as if in evaluation. ‘Where?’

‘Down there, southern treeline, about midway along.’

Troovey turned to Norsten, who was still studying the edge of the jungle through the magnoculars. ‘Norsten?’

‘I can’t see anything, sergeant.’

‘You sure you saw an ork, Torvin?’ Troovey asked.

‘Yes, sergeant, absolutely positive. The thing was looking at me. It was wearing Throne-damned camouflage!’ Torvin felt himself getting more animated. Why weren’t they doing anything?

‘Pass me the magnoculars, Norsten,’ Troovey said. Norsten handed them over and the sergeant spent a not inconsiderable amount of time scanning the same area of trees before he eventually passed them back. ‘Torvin,’ he said. ‘Orks don’t sneak around the jungle wearing camouflage. I don’t know what you saw but it wasn’t an ork. I don’t know if you’re taking the piss out of Norsten here, I know you two don’t exactly get along, but let’s not report another false contact.’

‘Sergeant–’ Torvin started, but Troovey cut him off with a raised hand.

‘Enough,’ Troovey said. ‘Orks don’t sneak around, trooper. They couldn’t sneak up on a blind, deaf and Throne-damned dead ogryn. Keep about your watch and keep a look out for the real sign of orks – a tide of green monsters roaring and charging out of the jungle.’

In that moment, a roar of ‘WAAAAAAAAGH!’ filled the air. At first it was a single booming voice, but the call was soon taken up by a multitude of more guttural cries, and a tide of green monsters came roaring and charging out of the jungle.

In a single moment the jungle changed from an ominous but still landscape – darkness hiding the possibility of enemies – to an eruption of sound and movement: no longer the possibility of enemies but the horrific certainty of them. The trees shook. The smaller bushes and ferns were torn from the ground in sprays of dirt as the heavy feet of the greenskins smashed through them. Ork after ork after ork pounded from the shadows, pummelling the jungle floor to compost. In the blink of an eye, so fast that it might have been shockingly comical if it weren’t so terrifying, hundreds of the xenos piled into the clearing around Outpost Four.

‘Something like that, sergeant?’ Torvin said, mostly out of pure shock.

‘WAAAAAAAAAAGH!’

The horde of greenskins roared again, and with this second reverberating war cry and with the commotion of them stampeding from the trees, flocks of the native jungle birds took flight, clouds of them fluttering into the sky desperately fleeing from the xenos’ charge. Lucky bastards. What Trooper Torvin wouldn’t have given for a pair of wings at that very moment.

These orks were not, unfortunately, only holding magnoculars. They had massive axes and long-bladed swords of jagged steel which they waved wildly over their heads. Some of them wielded revving chainswords, dented and rusty. Others carried chunky rifles with thick cylindrical barrels, long rocket launchers, or huge belt-fed guns.

Neither were they wearing camouflage like the first ork he’d spotted. Instead, they wore mostly bright colours, makeshift armour of yellow and red decorated with patterns in black and white, though without doubt the most common colour was blue. Blue clothing, blue helmets, blue paint splattered across their weapons and faces.

‘Contact!’ Norsten shouted from beside Torvin.

‘You cremming think, trooper?’ Sergeant Troovey roared at Norsten. ‘This is not when you call a blasted contact. This is when you Throne-damned start shooting!’

Norsten looked at the sergeant. Troovey leant towards him and screamed, mouth open and spittle flying. ‘Fire!’

The whine-crack of lasguns finally burst forth from the rampart around the outpost as the men and women of the Skadi Second Infantry, Fourth Platoon beat back their shock and began unleashing the fury of the Emperor on the greenskins.

Sergeant Troovey hurried off towards the stairs down into the outpost, his voice booming over the sudden cacophony. ‘Defensive positions! All troopers to defensive positions!’

Torvin gripped his lasgun as he dropped to take cover behind the battlement wall. He watched more members of the platoon sprint up the stairs to join the firing line, hastily loading rifles or strapping on helmets.

Torvin heard the drumbeat thrum of a heavy bolter emplacement, increasing in volume as other emplacements joined to release a triumphant chatter of fire. He watched the heavy bolters turn on their mounts, the arms of the Guardsmen manning them shaking violently with the rapid pounding shots as they ran lines of fire over the front ranks of the orks, the white phosphorus tracer rounds leaving streaks of light even in the daytime.

Orks charged across the cleared ground to the rockcrete wall and wire fence. Some way back from the fence a booming shower of dirt flew into the air, parts of an ork soaring skyward along with it. Further down the line of orks another explosion sprayed a dozen of the smaller orkoid creatures, the ones they called grots, up in a circular pattern of squealing gore. The xenos had reached the defensive minefield but even as the ground burst under them, there were far too many for the mines to stop. When orks were blown limbless by the explosives more just trampled over them to take their place in the charge.

Behind the rampaging orks, back in the jungle, the motion of the trees became more extreme. Torvin watched as they shook aggressively from side to side, many of them falling, their tops disappearing from the canopy. Smoke billowed out in thick plumes and even over the sounds of shooting, the clanking and grinding of messy mechanical motion could be heard. Soon after, groups of bipedal mechanical walkers decorated with ork-skull motifs came thundering out of the jungle on rickety legs, their spinning saw blades cutting through tree trunks as they swung around seemingly at random, several of them even hitting each other and causing showers of sparks to spray into the air. Torvin could only describe these things as scrap-metal cannisters on legs, albeit massive cannisters with guns and several arms, each with a saw blade or a clanking claw. Several more walkers, apparently based on the same two-legged design but even larger, came stomping out of the trees moving faster than the smaller walkers and using their hydraulic arms to slam them aside if they got in their way.

Torvin had slid down with his back to the battlement wall, clutching his lasgun to his chest. He was vaguely aware of the commotion around him as the troopers of the Skadi Second were shooting out at the advancing horde. Shouts filled the air, gunfire, explosions, mayhem. Torvin had been afraid of the moment he would get into battle and now it was here, and it was even more frightful than he’d imagined. The sound of battle drowned him until he was unable to do anything but cower.

Beside him, Norsten was also crouching below the battlement wall, but at least he was facing the correct direction and popping out of cover to fire his lasgun towards the approaching orks. Torvin was doing none of these things. He shrank into himself, hiding from the chaos.

‘Come get it, you greenskin bastards!’ Norsten was shouting. ‘Come get it!’

Torvin squeezed his eyes closed and whispered prayers to the Emperor. He’d never doubted the Emperor’s protection of humanity before, even when he’d received his notice of tithe. But now, as he faced battle for the first time and wild brutish aliens charged towards him, he didn’t know whether the Emperor would hear him. Perhaps that was why Imperial Guardsmen died despite having the God-Emperor of Mankind on their side: the Emperor couldn’t hear their prayers over the cacophonous madness of battle.

‘Focus fire on the fence line!’ Sergeant Troovey was yelling from somewhere nearby. ‘Hit the ones at the fence!’

Torvin knew that meant the orks had reached the protective fence that ringed the outpost about halfway to the trees. He realised then that maybe he did want to see what was coming. Maybe not knowing what was coming was making things worse. He needed to force himself to face the greenskins.

After a number of steadying breaths Torvin turned, popping his head up above the battlement, and immediately caught sight of an ork rocket spiralling through the air towards the wall, trailing grey-white smoke in a twisting aerial display. He briefly registered troopers scattering to take cover and then a sudden, monumental explosion filled every one of his senses.

Torvin felt sudden blistering heat on his skin as he watched rockcrete debris spray across the rampart. He coughed and spluttered as the acrid aroma of burning explosive filled his nose and the taste of thick dust settled on his tongue. His ears rang with a high-pitched squeal. He turned to see the impact point a short distance down the battlement. A small area of the protective wall had been blown inward and several Guardsmen lay sprawled out on the ground. He couldn’t recognise them, but it was not for lack of trying; their faces, smashed to pulp by rock and burned away to black, were unrecognisable. Torvin’s stomach reflexively jerked. He felt acidic bile rise up the back of his throat and despite attempting to hold it back, he ejected vomit in a spray across the stone.

Dazed, he felt something strike the side of his helmet. At first, he thought he’d caught a glancing blow from an ork round but as he turned, he saw Corporal Algarn squatting down next to him. He seemed angry. Torvin stared at him blankly and Algarn smacked him in the side of the helmet again. Torvin realised then that the corporal was shouting something.

‘Fire your weapon, Trooper Torvin!’ Algarn screamed at him. ‘Turn around and do it now!’ Algarn grabbed Torvin roughly by his fatigues and spun him to face the advancing greenskins. Lifting him, he even positioned his lasgun on top of the wall. The corporal leant down until his mouth was merely an inch from Torvin’s still-buzzing ear. He shouted, ‘Throne-damned shoot!’ and smacked him on the back of the helmet once again.

Perhaps it was the shock of the shouting or being struck on the helmet, but Torvin’s finger snapped back and his lasgun cracked. Once this first las-shot appeared in the air, joining his weapon to the stampeding orks below, it suddenly became easier. He was terrified but now the fight was something he was part of, not just something that was happening to him.

Torvin squeezed the trigger again, and again, and again. His situational awareness returned and he took in the battle before them. The orks had breached the fence and were streaming across the clearing towards the base of Outpost Four. The walking cans were struggling with the wall and had drawn the attention of the heavy bolters, their explosive shells ripping into the ork walkers with concussive force. Several of the contraptions stumbled and fell, their armour punctured by sustained heavy bolter fire.

The larger walkers had much less trouble. Torvin watched as the first of them collided with the wall, staggering back like a confused animal that had crashed into a glass door. But with the roar of some orkish engine and with a pillar of black smoke ejecting into the air, the walker charged again, this time smashing its way through the wall and continuing on even as heavy bolter rounds sparked off its armour in bright yellow sprays.

Ork bodies littered the clearing, hundreds of them, and more joined them with every second as the xenos charged fearlessly into death, running towards the far superior position of the Imperial Guard. Still, it didn’t matter how many of them died. There were always more.

Torvin fired down into the mass of green, ducking as return fire pinged off the wall around him, but this time he managed to clamber up again and keep shooting. He didn’t know whether he’d hit any orks. His shots blended with all the others lighting up the battlefield, an onslaught of las-fire that was doing nothing to halt the ork advance. There were too many. He could already see that. They would not be able to stop them reaching the outpost.

Torvin heard a scream and turned in the direction of the sound. Trooper Gorm howled, gripping at her shoulder as she sank back against the wall, blood spraying from the stump where her arm had been. An ork round had all but torn the limb off, leaving mangled meat hanging from her shoulder by strips of white sinew and strands of red muscle. She was staring at it, trying to push it back up like somehow it might reattach itself. Torvin felt what minor resolve he had gained begin to flood out of him again.

‘They’re coming from the trees to the east too! They’re using smoke!’

The shout came from the eastern end of the rampart, not far from where Torvin and Norsten were hunkered down. Torvin turned to look and saw the panicked face of Trooper Heim, another of those he’d gone through training with, appearing from around the corner. Behind him, Torvin could see a thick grey cloud billowing up, obscuring the jungle to the east. ‘We need support over here! They’re using Throne-damned smoke to cover their advance.’

Lieutenant Gernson thundered along the rampart past Torvin and Norsten. She shouted orders in all directions. ‘You,’ she called, pointing to Trooper Heim, ‘if the orks are attacking from that side too then get your cremming arse back over there and stand your ground! I’m coming!’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Heim said, turning nervously and moving back around the corner to the eastern wall.

Gernson turned to those around Torvin facing the main attack. ‘Pick your targets,’ she yelled, her voice reverberating from her massive frame to bellow down the line. ‘Don’t just blindly fire! Pick a greenskin and put it down!’ She moved off in the direction of the east wall, continuing to fire off orders more rapidly than the Guardsmen could fire las-shots at the orks below.

Torvin turned his attention back to the mass of orks charging wildly across the clearing. It was not an encouraging sight. The first of the greenskins were reaching the base of the outpost wall. The Guardsmen all along the battlement began to fire almost straight down, massacring those below. Beside him, Norsten continued to shout as he unloaded the Emperor’s own fury into the aliens. At least they had the height advantage. The top of the outpost was almost twenty-five feet off the ground and the Guardsmen should be able to annihilate the greenskins while they tried to climb. Torvin hoped that advantage would be enough because the orks sure as crem had the numbers.

‘Hit the little bastards with the ladders!’ Sergeant Troovey called as he moved up the battlement. ‘The grots! Shoot the Throne-damned things!’

Torvin saw them soon after Troovey began roaring these orders. Throughout the green mass, partly hidden by the larger orks around them, many of the smaller creatures known as grots were carrying long wooden ladders that looked so rickety and poorly constructed, they might not support the weight of a human let alone an ork, but that was not a theory Torvin wanted tested. He began firing at the ladder-bearing grots. As he did, he could tell the battle was intensifying on the east side of the building. Lasgun shots continued to crack and heavy bolters continued to fire intermittently, but the booming sounds of ork weapons grew even louder and so did their howling, roaring, hooting battle cries. Troopers were shouting warnings.

‘There’s ropes on the walls!’

‘They’re coming over the top!’

‘Where? I can’t see crem!’

Then the screams began. Shouting troopers were cut off midway through calling out warnings with gurgling cries. When Torvin braved a look in that direction, the air was still thick with impenetrable smoke, which had now begun to float across the outpost. He couldn’t even see the corner of the building any more. As he watched, he saw a dark shape appear in the smoke, a silhouette that resolved into a figure – a Guardsman.

Trooper Heim, his uniform bloodied and his helmet askew on his head, came bursting from the smoke. He wasn’t even holding his lasgun. He was just running. His face ashen. His eyes dinner-plate wide. He was running for his life, and it didn’t last very long. A boom came from behind him and his entire body lurched forward. His feet were lifted off the ground as his torso burst open in an explosive display of blood, gore and jettisoned ribcage.

Behind Heim, Torvin saw an ork emerge from the smoke. The greenskin wielded a fat-barrelled pistol. It was an ork much like the one Torvin had spotted in the trees – not the same one exactly, but another dressed in makeshift camouflage. The greenskin fired its pistol and Torvin heard the shot whistle past his head. He didn’t dare turn to see who it might have hit.

Torvin raised his lasgun too slowly, as if he were moving through water. But with the repeated cracking of a laspistol firing three shots in quick succession, the ork jerked. Black burn wounds of instantly superheated flesh appeared on its shoulder and chest, and then a final one blew the side of its skull into cauterised chunks. Somehow the creature still stood, wavering on its feet. Sergeant Troovey charged past, lowering the pistol he’d just fired and opting to raise a chainsword. He brought it down in a howling strike to hit the ork in the neck. With an arc of red and green gore he decapitated the greenskin.

Sergeant Troovey turned to Torvin, Norsten and the several other speechless Guardsmen around them. ‘You lot,’ he barked, ‘the greenskins are on the wall down here, move up with me. We’re going to hold them off while the rest of the platoon maintains fire on the primary ork force. Weapons up.’

‘No,’ Norsten said from beside Torvin.

‘What did you just say to me, trooper?’ Sergeant Troovey said, but when Torvin turned to look at Norsten he saw he wasn’t really speaking to the sergeant. He was muttering to himself.

‘No,’ Norsten repeated. His face had gone pale. There was no hero of the Imperium in his boots now. ‘No, no, no, they’re not supposed to get this close. We’re supposed to shoot them from a distance.’

Sergeant Troovey glared at Norsten. ‘Throne-damned recruits!’ he roared. ‘Get your Emperor-damned arse up and move! Do it now!’

Troovey grabbed Norsten and dragged him along, getting him to move despite Norsten appearing not even to notice. Somehow Torvin managed to get himself to follow.

‘Hold here, weapons up,’ Troovey ordered when they’d moved down the rampart a short way, nearing the edge of the smoke. It was starting to clear slightly and Torvin could make out shapes moving in the grey.

Norsten did as ordered, raising his lasgun and aiming it into the smoke, but he immediately began firing. ‘No!’ he yelled as he fired blindly into the smoke cloud. ‘We have to keep them at a distance!’

‘Crem it!’ Sergeant Troovey yelled. ‘Wait for a target, Norsten, we’ve got friendlies in there!’

But Norsten wasn’t listening, at least not to Sergeant Troovey; he was listening only to whatever voice had cracked free and was rattling around in his head. ‘No! No! If we see them, they’re too close! We have to keep firing!’

Torvin had frozen during the battle. The mayhem and fear had got to him. He had slid down the wall in terror and projectile-
vomited up his entire breakfast ration. But what he saw in Trooper Norsten was even more severe. One moment he had been killing orks with confidence, maybe even enjoyment, and the next he had descended into lunatic ravings. His eyes were wide with panic but also distant, as if his mind had been evacuated and left only utter terror to run his body. He continued firing into the smoky haze again despite Sergeant Troovey’s protests.

From somewhere in the smoke came a bellowing ork war cry.

‘WAAAAAAGH!’

The shapes moving in the smoke were coming closer to them now, turning from misty shadow monsters to clearer figures, wide-
shouldered and menacing. Torvin gripped his lasgun, squeezing it tighter than his training told him he was supposed to, but if he loosened his grip at all he was sure the weapon would shake out of his grasp entirely. The frontmost figure burst from the smoke, yelling as it came.

‘We’ve lost the east side!’

Torvin was surprised to see the hulking shape resolve into Lieutenant Gernson. She was splattered with blood, both human and ork. Olga Ogryn was roaring orders as she came.

‘Prepare to hold h–’ The lieutenant jerked as the flash of a las-shot struck her in the shoulder. Her thick flak armour absorbed some of the beam, but her flesh was still burned black beneath.

‘No!’ Norsten was screaming. ‘We have to kill the xenos!’ And he fired again. And again.

‘Norsten! Hold your fire!’ Sergeant Troovey screamed, but it was too late.

Norsten’s second shot hit Lieutenant Gernson in the chest, vaporising the flak armour there and opening her flesh to the ribs. The third shot struck her in the centre of the throat, blowing her windpipe into a cavernous black hole and all but decapitating her. She dropped.

‘Shit!’ Troovey turned to Norsten. The Guardsman, still immeasurably lost to reason, continued to fire at Gernson’s already dead body.

‘I got one!’ Norsten screamed. ‘I got one!’

Sergeant Troovey smashed Norsten in the side of the head with the hilt of his chainsword, knocking the trooper to the ground.

‘That was the lieutenant!’ Troovey screamed at him.

Norsten, splayed out on the floor, his smashed cheek bleeding profusely, looked in the direction of Gernson’s body. ‘What?’ Some sense seemed to return to him, though his eyes went wide again. ‘Oh Emperor! Oh Emperor!’

Troovey lifted his laspistol and pointed it at Norsten’s face.

‘No!’ Norsten cried out. ‘Sergeant, I’m sorry. It was–’

Troovey executed Norsten with a single shot.

None of the Guardsmen had time to react. Thundering from the smoke came the screaming, wild faces of maniacal greenskins intent on murdering humans.

‘Fire!’ Sergeant Troovey roared.

Torvin did so. He was submerged in the carnage of battle so far that it had begun to drown out everything else. He felt disconnected from himself, as if all he could do was copy those Guardsmen around him. They fired and so he fired.

They hit the orks coming through the smoke with a dense stream of las-fire. Most of the orks ran at them with melee weapons drawn, hooting and howling, and the Guardsmen cut them down. One large ork who continued charging forward despite taking several lasgun shots to the stomach had almost reached them.

Now Torvin felt his panic rising again. This was the closest he’d been to one of the orks. He could see the shining red of its eyes; the scratches on the hooked tusks in its wide, roaring mouth; the muscles that bulged in its raised arm as it prepared to swing a large-bladed axe, gouged and rusted but certainly sharp enough to cleave a human skull in two. What he didn’t see was any of the supposed weakness these creatures had compared to an Imperial Guardsman in hand-to-hand combat. Still, with a bestial bellow of his own, Sergeant Troovey dashed forward to meet the creature.

Troovey swung his chainsword and took the ork’s arm off at the elbow before the monster had the chance to swing. Then he thrust forward and jammed the ripping teeth at the tip of the chainsword into the ork’s chest, mincing through flesh and bone.

Some of the orks coming behind this first wave still had their rudimentary rifles and pistols drawn and began firing in return. Here, facing orks already on the rampart, the Guardsmen had nothing to take cover behind. A trooper next to Torvin was thrown back when an ork round hit him in the chest. Another Guardsman nearby was struck in the forehead. His skull ruptured like a dropped melon, blood and gore spraying in all directions; a warm spatter of it struck Torvin on the cheek and he had to blink some of it out of his eye. Apparently, he had not freed himself entirely of his breakfast, as he felt thick acidic bile rise into his throat again. This time he managed to swallow it back down.

‘Keep them off the ramparts!’ Torvin heard Corporal Algarn shout.

Torvin glanced back to the defence against the main attack – only for a moment, but long enough to see the rickety ork ladders were on the wall and that, despite Algarn’s plea, they weren’t going to keep them off the outpost for long.

Sergeant Troovey hacked at an ork with his chainsword before turning to the Guardsmen defending the attack from the east. ‘Fall back, close up.’ He turned to Torvin. ‘You, come with me and watch my back.’

Troovey moved back along the rampart towards the stairs. Torvin was only too happy to follow, but as the first of the orks clambered up over the main wall he was sure this retreat was only an illusion of safety.

‘Algarn,’ Troovey called before he headed back down into the outpost, ‘the lieutenant is dead. I’m going to contact Karoo. Hold this Throne-damned wall.’

Torvin followed the sergeant as he loped down the stairs, clearing the steps two at a time. They turned and headed for the communications room. The door was ajar and Sergeant Troovey hit it at a run. Inside, perched over the vox-console and calling desperately into the microphone, was Trooper Revna, one of the platoon’s vox-operators. She was repeating the same message.

‘Karoo City, this is Outpost Four, do you read? Over.’

‘Can you get through?’ Sergeant Troovey asked. ‘Anything?’

‘Negative, sergeant,’ Revna said, ‘not a thing. It’s got to be that magnetic interference. I can’t get word to Karoo City.’

‘Sergeant Troovey!’

The shout drew Troovey back out of the comms room. Torvin, not really knowing what he was supposed to be doing, followed. Corporal Algarn was descending the stairs. His normally sharp, clean fatigues were covered with sweat, blood and other fluids of unknown origin. His face was harrowed. ‘We can’t hold them,’ he said, ‘they’re overrunning us already.’

‘Numbers?’ Troovey said.

‘Ours or theirs?’ Algarn replied.

‘Ours,’ Troovey responded quickly, ‘how many left?’

‘Some, but it’ll be none soon enough.’

‘Emperor damn it.’ Troovey turned to look at Torvin. ‘We’re going to the armoury to get the distress flares. Let’s go.’

But as they made to move forward, an explosion rocked the outpost from above. Dust and debris billowed down the stairs and a concussive wave threw Algarn off his feet. The sounds of cheering and roaring orks could be heard from above, and the sound grew suddenly louder as greenskins appeared through the dust at the bottom of the stairs. They were already pouring into the outpost. Algarn tried to gather himself and get to his feet, but he wasn’t fast enough. One of the orks shot him in the back with a booming pistol, the sound reverberating inside the space.

More orks descended the stairs. The armoury with the emergency distress flares was on the other side of the group of snarling greenskins and Troovey and Torvin weren’t getting past. They were now cut off from their only chance at letting Karoo know they’d been attacked. Torvin knew any help sent would be received much too late for them anyway – every Guardsman in the outpost would be dead in minutes – but now they couldn’t complete their primary mission, their whole reason for being stationed out here: they couldn’t alert the Imperial forces. The orks could pour down into the valley and Karoo City would receive no early warning.

It seemed the same thoughts had just gone through Sergeant Troovey’s mind. He turned to Torvin. ‘Torvin, go out the north door, head into the jungle and get to Karoo. Tell them Outpost Four is lost to the orks and the city is under threat.’

‘Sergeant–’

‘Go,’ Troovey said to him as he lifted his chainsword. ‘And you better Throne-damned make it!’ The sergeant turned and screamed as he charged at the group of orks. ‘For the Emperor!’

Torvin ran. He sprinted through the outpost, bashing his way through the heavy door, and was suddenly outside again. He didn’t look back at the cacophonous sounds of battle behind him as his adrenaline drove him across the clearing. It was quieting down. No, that wasn’t quite true. There were ork war cries still filling the air, and the sounds of their blasting, overly loud weapons, but what he couldn’t hear any more was the crack of lasguns firing or the shouts of Guardsmen. He didn’t want to think about what that meant. He reached the treeline without being shot at and plunged into the semi-darkness of the jungle. This time he ploughed forward unconcerned with the vines and branches that whipped and scratched at his face. Thorned plants tore at his uniform and he slipped and staggered through the thick, wet leaves around his feet.

He ran.

He ran for as long as he could, gulping air against his burning lungs.

He had to get to Karoo City.

CHAPTER SIX

TORVIN

The reliquary room of the Karoo City chapel had been requisitioned as headquarters for the operation to purge Gondwa VI of the greenskins. It was from here that the command staff dictated the orders Guardsmen like Torvin would carry out across this world. Now, Torvin waited outside.

Corporal Steig, attached to Gondwa System Defence Headquarters, had escorted Torvin straight here after his arrival back in Karoo City. Now, outside the door, the corporal kept looking over at him. Torvin knew why. He’d seen his reflection in every window they’d passed. His face was haggard, scratched, bruised and still covered with streaks of dried blood. His uniform was wet and torn, mangled almost beyond recognition. He looked like an old wrung-out sponge. He’d plunged headlong through the jungle on a desperate dash back to Karoo City for nine or ten hours. He was dehydrated, starving, almost passing out on his feet. The corporal was either surprised Torvin was still alive or dreading ending up looking the same way.

Corporal Steig knocked on the door.

‘Come.’

He pushed the door open part way and stuck his head inside.

‘Yes, what is it, corporal?’

‘A message, sir,’ the corporal said. ‘From Outpost Four.’

‘Go ahead then.’

‘Well,’ Steig said.

‘Yes, hurry up about it.’

‘It’s just there’s a Guardsman here with the message. It seems vox is down.’

Torvin heard the exasperated sigh from inside. ‘Come in then, we’re almost done. You’ll have to wait.’

‘It’s just–’

‘You’ll have to wait, corporal.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Corporal Steig gestured for Torvin to enter. Torvin gingerly did so. Inside, Major General Niko Nillom, commanding officer of the entire defence of the Gondwa System, Colonel Estrid Grimsson, commander of the Skadi Second, Commissar Mave Redvin and a small handful of other staff officers were gathered around a central table on which a large paper map had been unrolled. None of them so much as looked at Torvin.

The golden images of saints and martyrs, and heavy bound books of devotional prayers to the Emperor of Mankind, had been pushed to the sides of the space, leaving it looking like a war room overdecorated with religious clutter. Perhaps command thought if they planned their battles here, amongst such a plethora of iconography from the Cult Imperialis, the Emperor would bless their endeavour to purge the greenskins from this world and might even offer divine intervention should they need it. The officers leant in around the table as if discussing grand strategy, as though the fate of the entire Imperium depended on the decisions they made in this moment. The stocky, almost plump Major General Nillom was reading from a data-slate.

‘All right, three more items,’ the major general said, taking a sip from the cup of amasec on the table in front of him before wiping his bushy moustache. ‘First, how is discipline, commissar?’

‘Discipline is sufficient at this stage, major general,’ Commissar Redvin replied. ‘We are yet to have any incidents that couldn’t be rectified with minor floggings.’

‘Excellent,’ Nillom said. He referred to the slate in front of him again. ‘Ration distribution, Colonel Grimsson?’

‘Up to date, sir,’ the colonel responded. ‘The troops have enough protein gruel for three days.’

‘Good, good.’ Nillom checked something off his list. ‘Speaking of rations, I’m getting a little peckish myself.’ He turned to the staff officers, looking over them for the lowliest rank. He settled on a lieutenant present. ‘See if you can’t organise us something, lieutenant. Some of that local pastry-wrapped meat if it’s still around.’

The lieutenant nodded and hurried away, no doubt to pass the orders down the chain.

‘Right,’ the general said, ‘on to the final item on the agenda. The most serious topic for discussion in today’s meeting. It appears the Skadi Second regimental standard on display outside the chapel has been damaged. It was likely torn in transit, but I will not have that on display to the population of Karoo City until it is repaired. We are here to rid their world of the greenskins, but we are also representing the Astra Militarum, and we will not do so with shoddy standards. Can I leave this with you to be rectified, Colonel Grimsson?’

‘Yes, sir, of course.’

‘Excellent. Now, this message,’ Major General Nillom said as he turned to where Torvin stood beside Steig near the doorway. His eyebrows raised as he looked at Torvin for the first time. ‘You’re in quite a state, trooper.’

‘Ah,’ Torvin managed. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘What’s your urgent message then, trooper?’ Nillom asked.

‘Sir,’ Torvin said, ‘I’m Trooper Torvin, with Fourth Platoon.’

Nillom stared at him as if waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, the general’s forehead creased into deep furrows of annoyance. ‘And what does that mean to me?’

‘Sir,’ Colonel Grimsson said, ‘that’s Lieutenant Gernson’s platoon.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Nillom said, but Torvin was more than confident the general had no idea who Lieutenant Gernson was. Nillom took a sip of amasec from the clear cup in front of him, which looked to Torvin to be some kind of expensive crystal, and leant towards Colonel Grimsson. ‘And just quickly remind me what they were doing again?’

‘Sir, Fourth Platoon was sent to man Outpost Four,’ Grimsson said.

Before he’d been tithed to the Imperial Guard, when stories of the mighty Astra Militarum had been told on Skadi, Torvin had thought the high ranks of the Guard must be men and women on par with gods. They seemed as lofty and far above common humanity as a warrior of the Adeptus Astartes. But now, faced with this short, heavily moustached man who barely knew what was going on in the operation he was supposedly running, his assessment of the deities of the Astra Militarum was rapidly changing.

‘Ah yes, yes,’ Nillom said, ‘one of the watch stations.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Colonel Grimsson agreed, ‘but Outpost Four is one of the watch stations on the main approach to Karoo City, the one at entrance to the valley.’

At this Major General Nillom’s eyes grew slightly wider before narrowing, signs of concern touching his face that he quickly acted to quell. He ran his hand over his moustache. ‘Why aren’t you there then, trooper?’

‘That’s why I’ve come, sir,’ Torvin said. ‘Outpost Four has been lost to the orks. I think I’m the only survivor.’

‘What?’ the general blurted. His words began to splutter out from under his moustache. ‘How? How can that be? Why weren’t we alerted via vox?’

‘It’s down, sir,’ Torvin said, ‘the interference from the planet I think.’

‘Well, yes but what about the backup?’ Nillom asked. He turned to Colonel Grimsson. ‘There’s a backup isn’t there?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the colonel replied, ‘flares, sir.’

‘Well,’ Nillom said, returning his attention to Torvin, ‘what about the flares?’

‘The ork attack overwhelmed us so quickly they were inside the outpost before we could do that, sir.’

‘How did you survive then, trooper?’ Commissar Redvin asked, her words slow and deliberate. ‘If your entire platoon was lost, how are you standing here?’

‘Sergeant Troovey sent me, commissar,’ Torvin answered. ‘When he knew the outpost was lost, he sent me to warn you, to report what had happened.’

‘It sounds to me like you fled,’ Commissar Redvin said. ‘I overheard your fellow troopers calling you a coward before you left. Did you flee, Trooper Torvin? Did you desert your post?’

Torvin felt his extremities go cold – the kind of sudden, acute fear that had struck him when he’d first seen that camouflaged ork in the trees.

‘No, commissar.’ Torvin knew his voice was wavering. ‘Sergeant Troovey ordered me to fall back to Karoo City and warn you that we’d lost the outpost and the orks could attack the city without warning.’

Commissar Redvin stood from the table and moved towards Torvin. With a practised flourish she flicked her long black greatcoat aside and drew her ornate gold-inlaid bolt pistol from its holster with one smooth movement. Torvin found himself staring at the polished gunmetal end of the weapon, his eyes drawn to the dark circle of the barrel, a sunken black eye looking back with the glint of a loaded bolt inside.

‘According to Astra Militarum regulations the penalty for desertion is death. The penalty for cowardice is at the discretion of the commissar but is also up to and including death. As a commissar of the Officio Prefectus I am hereby authorised to pass summary judgement and carry out the sentence of execution.’

‘Ma’am,’ Torvin spluttered, ‘I swear on the Golden Throne, on the Emperor Himself, I was ordered to leave the outpost and return here. If I was a deserter, why would I come back?’

Commissar Redvin did not lower her bolt pistol, but she had not yet pulled the trigger.

‘Now, now, commissar,’ Major General Nillom said. ‘I’m sure there’s no need for an execution. There’s no evidence that Torren here is lying.’

Torvin opened his mouth to correct the general’s pronunciation of his name but then thought better of it. He shouldn’t draw any more attention to himself.

‘I agree, sir,’ Colonel Grimsson said. ‘It’s more important that we move quickly to act on this intelligence and resecure such a vital watch outpost from the enemy. Thank you, trooper.’

Commissar Redvin lowered the bolt pistol, which allowed Torvin to relax slightly, but not all that much because the commissar’s eyes seemed just as threatening as the pistol barrel. ‘Very well,’ the commissar said, ‘but I am in charge of drill and discipline in this regiment and I will be investigating the conduct of this trooper further.’ She looked to Corporal Steig, who had done a far better job than Torvin at vanishing into the background. ‘Corporal, arrest this trooper on my authority and have him locked away.’

Corporal Steig moved to Torvin. When the corporal faced away from Redvin he gave Torvin an apologetic look, but Torvin knew he would not disobey an order from a commissar, especially one that seemed to reach for her bolt pistol so easily. He took Torvin by the arm and led him out of the room.

He had felt guilty about it, knowing the fate that had befallen the rest of his platoon, but Torvin had been happy to be away from Outpost Four. He was happy to have survived. But now it seemed he had jumped, or as he’d tried to explain, been ordered, out of the frying pan and into the fire.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ALDALON

Colonel Haskell Aldalon was the first to exit the Devourer drop-ship, stepping off even as the ramp was still lowering. The ancient hydraulic mechanisms of the ship droned loudly, the moan of a machine-spirit that had served the Imperium for millennia, ferrying men and women to battlefields across the galaxy. Aldalon landed softly, almost soundlessly, on the space port landing pad. He took a moment to let his body acclimatise to the gravity of the world, bending and straightening his legs. It was close to that of the artificial gravity on board an Imperial Navy voidship. In fact, as always, the artificial gravity had been subtly adjusted en route to match that of their destination and prepare them for the gravitational acceleration they would feel on planetfall. Still, there was always a subtle difference to the pull of actual gravity. Actual gravity made him feel denser, more real. He much preferred the heaviness of solid rock underfoot to the simulation created by the technological machinations of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

It wasn’t necessarily that he distrusted the Mechanicus, but more that, like all those from his world, he had been taught from a very young age to put his faith in cold steel and cold wits. He flexed his right hand, feeling the fingers and thumb of his ever-present power fist open and close with servo-assisted strength. The fist’s disruption field hummed with a familiar low-frequency buzz. Aldalon had the tech-priests of the Cult Mechanicus to thank for his trademark weapon after all; he couldn’t bemoan them and their mysterious ways too much, even if all those he’d met had seemed off-putting at best and repulsive at worst.

Aldalon walked across the landing platform away from the drop-ship. Whenever they landed on a new world, he always ensured he was the first to step onto it. That was how things were done on Catachan, the world that had forged him. He might have been a colonel, in command of the entire Catachan 57th Jungle Fighters Regiment, but he would not lead from behind like Imperial Guard officers from other, softer worlds. His leadership philosophy was the same as that of all officers from Catachan. It was a philosophy of first and last. As regimental commander he would be first when required. First to step onto a new world, first to charge onto a battlefield, first to launch the ambush, first over the wall. He would also be the last when required. Last to eat, last to sleep, last to leave.

On the death world of Catachan only the hardest survived into adulthood, and of those that survived only those with a will of rockcrete made it into the storied ranks of the Catachan Jungle Fighters. Of the Jungle Fighters themselves, it required a body and mind harder than ceramite to climb the ranks like Colonel Haskell Aldalon had done. On Catachan there was no beginning as an officer, regardless of your family heritage. Every single member of the Jungle Fighters began as a trooper and worked their way up. On Catachan every rank, like every scar, like every breath, was earned.

The colonel walked to the edge of the landing platform, a massive circular pad large enough that drop-ships like the Devourer class or even small merchant voidships could land. He looked over the edge. Karoo City was spread out below, or at least stacked below, level upon level, like a pyramid punctuated by needle-thin spires, steeples with arched windows and hab-blocks grown tall with ad hoc construction over the years. Behind the city, looming over it like a watchful guardian, was a rocky, granite-faced mountain that rose, like the city itself, from the canopy of the jungle.

As with almost all Imperial cities the highest levels of Karoo City were home to the upper classes – the rich, the nobility, the merchants. Those for whom life in the Imperium was bearable and, in some cases, even comfortable. The architecture around the landing pad reflected this fact: he saw hab-blocks with large, multiroom apartments and among them even stand-alone residences, whole houses belonging to wealthy families. The next levels were primarily divided into sectors for the Ecclesiarchy, the Administratum, the Mechanicus.

Then with each descending stratum the quality of life likewise descended until, Colonel Aldalon had no doubt, you reached the lower levels, down beneath the canopy of the jungle, whose inhabitants scratched out a living from the squalor, men and women labouring in hidden workhouses and factorums or trudging out daily into mines or quarries. It was always that way. Always the same. Those at the top looked down, figuratively and literally, on the workers below them. The lofty heights of this world, like all worlds, was held up on the backs of the toiling masses.

Aldalon looked away from the city. It did not bother him. It was the way of things on Catachan so why should it not be the way of things everywhere? The strong would survive.

He took a deep breath. Even here in the upper reaches of the city, high above the green canopy, he could smell the damp, musty odour of the jungle. The native plants and animals may have been different, but the smell of every jungle was the same: the fresh wet leaves on those trees who’d won the battle for height mixed with the heavy rot and decomposition of the flora that had lost, fallen to the forest floor to fertilise the soil for those that would try again. The jungle was just like the city – a battle for height, an impossible battle to crawl out of the dark for most.

Aldalon turned at the feeling of someone approaching. Sergeant Learna Sappa moved to stand beside him. He hadn’t heard her footsteps, but she was a Catachan Jungle Fighter and so this was unsurprising. Sergeant Sappa was staring out over the jungle landscape as well.

‘It’s nice to be on a world covered in green again,’ she said without looking at him. ‘Better than the desert dust of Karst.’

Colonel Aldalon grunted something of an affirmative reply. Karst had been a battlefield on which they’d won, but personally he had lost. She knew this. She should understand it better than any other. He’d already told her not to speak of Karst.

‘Looks a little like Catachan, don’t you think?’ Sappa said.

‘It looks a little like home, yes,’ Aldalon said. ‘It doesn’t sound like home though.’

Sergeant Sappa looked at him. ‘No?’

‘No.’ He turned and began walking away. His troops of the 57th Catachan Jungle Fighters were disembarking the drop-ship and he needed to go and find whoever was in charge here. ‘There’s not enough screaming.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALDALON

Having left the Catachan 57th to get themselves squared away, Colonel Aldalon walked down the long chapel, past rows of Imperial Guard soldiers barracked inside. They looked up at him as he passed, hastily stiffening in respect for not only his rank but also the red bandanna he wore tied around his honestly ridiculously large bicep.

The Catachan Jungle Fighters were legendary among the Astra Militarum. In stories told to children they were almost as lauded as the Adeptus Astartes themselves, in a lot of ways maybe even more so, because the men and women of Catachan were just that – men and women. Everything they did, every storied battle they won, they did without all the advantages of the Emperor’s Space Marines.

Aldalon did not acknowledge the troopers around him in return. He had little time for soft-world Guardsmen, and these were worse than most. A new regiment apparently: the Skadi Second Infantry, a force who’d not seen combat from a world he didn’t care to learn anything about.

Around him, the chapel was resplendent with stained glass, painted frescoes and imposing statues of Imperial saints, but Aldalon did not stop to take that in either. He walked to the reliquary room at the end of the chapel, where he’d been told Major General Nillom, commanding officer of the Gondwa System Defence, would be waiting. One of the Skadi Second corporals, standing outside, snapped a hasty salute before opening the door for him.

Aldalon entered the room without waiting to be announced. The occupants turned and a short, round man wearing a stiffly pressed uniform bearing the single pip and aquila epaulette of an Astra Militarum major general stood from a seat at the table.

‘Ah, Colonel Aldalon I presume. I am Major General Nillom. You and the Catachan Fifty-Seventh have my thanks for joining us on our blessed mission to cleanse this world of the greenskin threat.’

‘Just going where we’re told, sir,’ Aldalon replied.

‘Yes, of course, but you have my thanks none the less. I am very pleased to have warriors of your calibre with us and I have no doubt your expertise in jungle warfare will prove most useful here. Please’ – Nillom gestured towards the table – ‘join us. We were just discussing our next steps in ensuring the orks flooding through this subsector are finally stopped on this world. I understand you’ve met at least some of these greenskins in glorious battle already?’

Aldalon nodded as he moved to the table. ‘Karst.’

‘Yes, some of the warband the Imperial forces pushed back from Karst appear to have joined forces with the warband pushing through the Gondwa System. They have a nasty habit of doing that, the greenskins, don’t they? Please, have a seat, colonel.’

‘I’d prefer to stand.’

‘Very well,’ Nillom said. Aldalon saw the general take note of his power fist. ‘I’ve read some of your dispatches. The troopers call you “Hell Fist” don’t they?’

Aldalon nodded.

Major General Nillom smiled. ‘Do you ever take it off?’

‘Have you ever put one on?’

The commissar sitting at the table rose so quickly that the legs of her chair squealed on the polished stone floor before the whole chair fell back behind her. ‘What insolence! You may be a colonel, but you are still addressing a major general of the Imperial Guard!’

Aldalon turned to look at the commissar and her blustering, red face. His face, as always, could have been carved from stone.

‘I have never had the misfortune of being attached to a unit from Catachan, but I know your reputation,’ the commissar spat. ‘Do not think I will accept ill-discipline from any member of the Astra Militarum, Catachan or not!’

‘If you are aware of our reputation, commissar’ – Aldalon let a controlled hint of disdain creep into his voice as he used her title – ‘then you will know that those of the Commissariat fare better if they take a gentle touch with us.’

‘Are you threatening me, colonel? My powers over the Imperial Guard are not limited by rank, you had best remember that.’

‘And you best remember that we Catachans are the real Imperial Guard, not some children playing at soldiers.’

‘A holy bolt pistol makes no distinction, colonel.’

‘All right,’ Major General Nillom said, ‘that’s quite enough. We are all feeling a little heightened with the task ahead of us. A task I’d like to focus on, if you please, commissar.’

‘Very well,’ the commissar said, though Aldalon did not miss that she pushed her greatcoat aside as she lifted her chair back onto its feet and sat, keeping her bolt pistol exposed.

Aldalon grunted for Nillom to continue.

‘Good. Introductions then,’ Nillom said. He indicated the commissar. ‘You’ve met Commissar Redvin. This is Colonel Grimsson, commander of the Skadi Second. And this is Governor Erwin Misom, planetary governor of Gondwa VI.’

The general did not bother to introduce the handful of other, lower-ranked staff officers around the room or, of course, the servitors mindlessly tapping at data-slates or shuffling paper. That suited Aldalon fine; the fewer people he had to deal with the better.

Aldalon quickly evaluated the others at the table. Commissar Redvin, it was obvious enough from their first interaction, was a prototypical commissar, used to keeping conscripts in line but likely nothing but a leash on the throat of real fighters. Colonel Grimsson looked bland enough that she could have been any officer from any soft-world. That wasn’t to say she wasn’t an effective regimental colonel, but she would have a lot to prove to earn the respect of the Catachans. Lastly, Governor Erwin Misom: the man looked like a wet swamp weasel. His dark hair was parted in the centre and slicked down in what must have been a local style, but it did little other than accentuate how thin his skull was. He wore a tunic inlaid with gold braiding and had gold rings on almost all of his fingers.

Aldalon did not judge the unfamiliar dress or customs he encountered. He had seen clothing, heard music and listened to slang language as varied as the worlds he’d visited. What he did judge, though, was how this man positively dripped with wealth and extravagance – things that, as a Catachan, he could not help but equate with weakness.

‘Your arrival is very well timed, colonel,’ Major General Nillom continued. ‘The Skadi Second have been doing an admirable job in defence but we have very real concerns about an attack on the capital.’

It was Planetary Governor Misom who spoke next. His voice was nasal and high to such a theatrical extent that Aldalon was sure he must have been doing it on purpose. Aldalon doubled down on his first assessment. This man was weak-bodied, and likely weak-willed as well, and though Gondwa VI might have been a jungle world, it was nothing like the death world of Catachan. This man could never have been governor there. Aldalon would be willing to bet Misom would not have lived past five years old. At five years old, Haskell Aldalon was already killing Catachan death cobras and had survived not one but two bouts of noxious blood fever.

‘The lower levels of Karoo,’ Governor Misom was saying, ‘where the commoners live, are quite far below the jungle canopy. I’m told the jungle approaches to the city there are quite dense and difficult to monitor. Plus, Gondwa VI’s magnetic field apparently causes all sorts of problems with communication and monitoring. We have outposts set up around the city to keep watch instead, you see.’

‘I read the briefing,’ Aldalon said, wanting to hurry this along.

‘The outposts have flares to signal that an enemy is approaching should vox communication fail,’ Misom continued.

‘That was in the briefing too,’ Aldalon said. ‘Contrary to rumour, Catachans can read. Has there been any change to the situation worth actually mentioning?’

‘Well,’ Governor Misom said, holding his hand to his chest in mock shock. ‘I was simply trying to be helpful.’

‘We’ve lost Outpost Four to orks,’ Major General Nillom said. ‘One of the main watch stations. The first task for you and your Catachans will be to take it back. Send your regiment to take back Outpost Four before any ork forces decide to appear out of the jungle right on the doorstep of Karoo City. While your troops are securing Outpost Four, we can discuss how you think we can push the orks back through the jungle and try to flush them off this world.’

‘No,’ Aldalon said. ‘I’ll be leading the troopers to take back the outpost. Has intelligence changed since the briefing I received?’

‘No, colonel,’ Nillom said, ‘intelligence has not changed, but I was hoping you could help plan for a larger offensive.’

‘We will,’ Aldalon said, ‘but it is the Catachan way that I lead the first battle here. Based on your intelligence I’ll only need two squads. My second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel Hurn, and the rest of the regiment will remain here. Besides’ – Aldalon closed his power fist until the fingers began to grind together and spark with energy – ‘I need to kill some orks.’

CHAPTER NINE

ALDALON

Colonel Aldalon walked down the wide stone steps from the chapel. In front of him, milling about the atrium, waiting for word of their mission, were the men and women of the Catachan 57th. They wore jungle-green camouflage, though most of them sported only tank tops and several were bare-chested. All, regardless of rank or gender, had their heads shaved to the skin leaving only a short mohawk over their scalps. Many were tattooed with skulls, Imperial aquilas or symbols of home. The curling shape of a Catachan Devil – the terrifying truck-sized scorpion creature native to Catachan – was always a favourite. What better to remind a Catachan of home than a monstrous living killing machine? Those of a higher rank – corporals and sergeants – shunned rank slides on their uniforms, instead opting to have their rank cut or tattooed directly into the flesh of their arms. All of them, even those without tattoos, were scarred, carrying the signs of battles past or simply wounds picked up during a life on Catachan.

Each of the soldiers sported a red bandanna, the symbol of the Catachan Jungle Fighters. How they wore it differed – most over their head or around their forehead, some tied around an arm like Aldalon’s, or hanging around their neck – but all wore it proudly. And though they wielded varying weapons – auto-pistols, lascarbines and flamers among others – they each carried a long-bladed Catachan knife, a weapon that was just as much a symbol of who they were as the red bandanna.

They looked up as their commanding officer emerged from the gothic archway. They did not snap to military attention as he approached – there was little pomp and ceremony within the Catachan Jungle Fighters – but he did not need to call for their attention or reprimand them for not listening; their conversation stopped instantly as he began to speak.

‘All right,’ Aldalon said. ‘We have our first objective. I’ll be taking Lieutenant Trast and two squads to reclaim an outpost the Skadi Second have lost to the greenskins.’

‘My squad will volunteer.’

Aldalon turned to the voice, but he already knew who it was. Sergeant Sappa had raised her knife in the air. Aldalon scowled, but the sergeant continued.

‘As we’re a new squad I’d like the opportunity to cut our teeth early.’

Aldalon ground his own teeth. ‘Fine.’ He could not make a display of telling a willing new squad leader they couldn’t get into combat, regardless of how he felt about it. ‘Sergeant Sappa, Sergeant Dram, your squads be ready to move out. We hit the jungle in thirty minutes. The rest of you will bunk here in the atrium, I don’t expect we’ll be gone longer than a couple of days. Lieutenant Hurn will be acting CO in my absence. Carry on.’

The Catachans dispersed. Those that would be moving out began to ready themselves, checking equipment and strapping on packs, applying camouflage paint to their exposed skin.

‘Sergeant Sappa,’ Colonel Aldalon said before the sergeant moved away to do the same, ‘a word.’

Dark-skinned, tall and thin, Sappa moved with a grace that hid her strength. She was a force to be reckoned with, Aldalon knew that, but that wouldn’t stop him from berating her. He eyed her sternly as she approached.

‘What do you think you’re doing interrupting me like that?’

‘Sorry, sir,’ Sappa said, but Aldalon knew she wasn’t. ‘My squad is just itching for a fight. We didn’t see much action on Karst and after my promotion I’m keen to get some unity in the squad.’

‘You’ll get your time, sergeant,’ Aldalon replied.

‘Will I?’

‘Watch it, Learna,’ Aldalon said.

‘Tell me,’ Sappa said, ‘is this about Brant?’

Aldalon let out a growl. ‘I told you not to bring it up.’

‘We are all Catachan Jungle Fighters,’ Sappa said. ‘All of us have earned our place here, you don’t need to protect me any more than the others.’

‘I’m not protecting you.’

‘You always taught me that unit cohesion is key to the Catachan way. I need to fight with my squad to get that.’

‘You got your way,’ Colonel Aldalon said, ‘you’re on the mission. But I’m telling you not to ambush me like that again.’

‘But, colonel,’ Sappa said, with the audacity to smile, ‘you taught me how to ambush too.’

CHAPTER TEN

TORVIN

Ted Torvin sat in the corner of his dank cell leaning back against the cool stone. It was musty and warm in the box they’d locked him in, the only respite being to slump against the damp slime dripping down one wall. Across the semi-dark space, which wasn’t even wide enough for him to lie down, he watched a drop of water run along a line of mortar between heavy stones, struggling to continue as long as it could before being absorbed into the grout.

Torvin knew what that felt like. He’d battled his way through life, done the best he could to survive despite being dragged into the Astra Militarum. Sure, he’d had a few missteps, he’d be the first to admit it. He wasn’t made for war, but he had, he’d swear to the Emperor Himself, done the best he could.

Now, despite following his sergeant’s orders to leave the outpost and get word of the greenskin attack back to Karoo City, he’d been locked up for cowardice and desertion in a tiny dungeon beneath the chapel, a cell normally reserved for heretics and traitors. He thought about his father’s stalwart advice – what was the small mercy he could take from this? He wasn’t dead, at least.

Torvin opened the top pocket of his shirt, glad he’d slipped the pict of Melina in there before he’d gone on his watch shift at the outpost, and that the troopers who’d patted him down for weapons hadn’t bothered to rummage through his pockets in detail before they tossed him in here. He pulled the pict out and looked at it. Melina was still staring at him with those same pretty blue eyes, still smiling that wide smile. He wondered if she was smiling now. Part of him hoped she was, and yet another part of him hoped she wasn’t. Selfishly, he hoped she hadn’t smiled at all since he’d left Skadi.

The heavy metal lock on the door unbolted with a sliding thunk. Torvin hastily tucked the pict away and when the ancient hinges squealed, the figure in the doorway was not one of the troopers bringing him food as he thought it might be. Instead, standing in the doorway in her long black greatcoat with its broad shoulders and her peaked cap of office pulled down menacingly low was Commissar Mave Redvin. Torvin climbed to his feet as swiftly as his joints, stiff from his time in the cell, would allow.

‘Commissar,’ Torvin said.

‘Follow me, trooper.’

Commissar Redvin turned and walked away with the supreme confidence of one who knew her instructions would be followed.

And she was correct. Torvin, despite knowing it would lead nowhere good, followed the commissar from the cell. ‘Where are we going, commissar?’ he asked as he trailed behind her, trudging back up the steps from the small Ecclesiarchy dungeon. The commissar did not answer. ‘If you’re going to execute me, you could have done it before making me walk up all these stairs.’

Commissar Redvin stopped in mid-stair climb and turned to look back at Torvin. He was suddenly unsure why he thought making a joke to lighten the mood might have had any possibility of working on a commissar.

‘Like the Holy Emperor we all serve I am going to offer you the path to divine salvation,’ Redvin said. ‘I am going to provide you the means to prove you are not a coward. I trust you will welcome that opportunity?’

‘Yes, commissar,’ Torvin replied. ‘May I ask how?’

Commissar Redvin held him with her rockcrete stare. ‘Have you ever heard of the Catachan Jungle Fighters?’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TORVIN

When Commissar Redvin led him back to the reliquary room, Trooper Ted Torvin found himself, once again, in the company of officers so far above his rank he felt as though he should be craning his neck until his head spun. He recognised several of the faces: Colonel Grimsson was there and of course he recognised Major General Nillom, who turned as he and the commissar entered, but there was another man in the room he didn’t recognise. He was a huge, dark-skinned man with shoulder-length dreadlocks on his otherwise shaved head. His muscular arms were as sharply defined as the granite mountain behind Karoo City. He wore a flak vest over the equally intimidating muscles of his chest and Torvin noticed that even now, inside the regimental headquarters, he wore a green power fist, actuators visibly sliding inside it as he flexed the fingers. His other hand looked to be bionic.

There was something else Torvin noticed: tied around his power fist-wielding arm was a red bandanna. He was a Catachan Jungle Fighter. When Commissar Redvin had asked whether Torvin had heard of the Catachan Jungle Fighters he’d almost laughed. She might as well have asked whether he’d heard of Cadia, or Armageddon, or hell, even the Adeptus Astartes.

There were countless worlds across the Imperium and most of them, like his home world of Skadi, hardly anyone had heard of, but there were those few so legendary that their names were known everywhere Imperial culture reached across the unfathomably large galaxy. The death world of Catachan was one of them, and the warriors that hailed from it were equally famous. Like many throughout the Imperium, Torvin had considered them almost mythical, maybe just propaganda inventions, but now he was face to face with one.

Together with the other officers in the room, the Catachan turned to stare at Commissar Redvin and Trooper Torvin as they entered. His face showed little change, but Torvin could almost feel the contempt radiating off him like a cold breeze. He wasn’t sure if it was directed at Commissar Redvin or himself, or maybe both of them. The man’s eyes flicked quickly between the commissar and Torvin, and then he sniffed dismissively. Oh, the derision was definitely for both of them.

‘Thank you for waiting,’ Commissar Redvin said. ‘Colonel Aldalon, now that you’re ready to depart you’ll be taking this trooper with you on your offensive to retake Outpost Four.’

‘What?’

The shocked words came from both Colonel Aldalon and Trooper Torvin in perfect unison. Torvin quickly pulled himself in line. He was lucky he hadn’t been shot by the commissar once before and he didn’t think he’d survive giving Redvin a second excuse to pull her bolt pistol. He hadn’t meant to say anything, but the shock had bested him. Still, he was surprised the same had happened to the granite-faced Catachan colonel. His expression had cracked as well. But just like Torvin, as quickly as it had broken, Aldalon returned to his straight-faced glare.

‘Not an option, commissar,’ Colonel Aldalon said. ‘Catachans work alone. We certainly don’t take soft-worlders with us.’

‘Trooper Torvin is the last survivor of the platoon that was stationed at Outpost Four and is a Guardsman like any other. He’ll be going with you to both prove his worth to the Emperor and to assist you in your mission,’ Redvin replied.

Colonel Aldalon looked from Commissar Redvin to Trooper Torvin again. As much as he tried not to, Torvin physically recoiled under the penetrating power of Aldalon’s glare. He wished he could disappear, or at least declare in no uncertain terms that this wasn’t his idea and he had no intention of going on a mission with the Catachan Jungle Fighters, where he was sure he would just get in the way.

Colonel Aldalon continued to stare at Torvin for much longer than was comfortable before he spoke. ‘This may be a Guardsman, commissar, but not all Guardsmen are created equal.’

Torvin felt the full force of Aldalon’s disdain. There was no misinterpretation; Colonel Aldalon did not think Torvin, maybe not even Colonel Grimsson or the major general himself, worthy of classification in the same Astra Militarum as himself and the Catachan Jungle Fighters.

‘Besides,’ Aldalon continued, ‘I fail to see how having a member of a defeated unit is of benefit to me or my mission.’

Commissar Redvin didn’t answer Colonel Aldalon directly but instead turned her attention to Major General Nillom. ‘Major general, having local knowledge of the area and detailed first-hand experience of the outpost and its surrounds can only be a good thing, and Trooper Torvin here, by order of the Commissariat, must be permitted to prove he is not a coward worthy of a bolt-round or a place in the penal legions. I consider this an excellent opportunity to accomplish my duty to enact disciplinary realignment on Trooper Torvin while also aiding our broader mission here on Gondwa VI.’

Colonel Aldalon raised a single eyebrow at Commissar Redvin.

‘Very well, commissar,’ Major General Nillom said. ‘I cannot say I agree with your suddenly dropping this on myself or on Colonel Aldalon, but you will have your wish.’ He turned to Colonel Aldalon. ‘Colonel, you will take this trooper with you on your mission.’

The Catachan remained silent for long enough that Torvin began to grow uncomfortable. Even Nillom started to fidget. Eventually the colonel’s power fist opened and closed.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘I can see no reasonable way out of this. If that’s all, sir, we’ll be moving out.’

‘Yes, thank you, colonel,’ Nillom said. ‘That will be all. The Emperor protects.’

‘The Emperor protects,’ Aldalon responded before heading for the door. He growled a single word as he walked past Torvin. ‘Come.’

Torvin threw one last look at the higher-ups in the headquarters room. Major General Nillom had returned his attention to a data-slate in front of him as if the whole thing had been a distraction from something more important, probably what colour the drapes should be in his regimental bedroom. Commissar Redvin smiled at him. It was not a warm smile of Emperor’s blessings. It was the smile of something about to eat him. He hurried from the room after Colonel Aldalon.

‘Sir,’ Torvin said as they left, trailing the enormous man. ‘I was only at Outpost Four for a day before the orks arrived. I don’t know how much help I’m going to be.’

Aldalon growled again. ‘You think I don’t know that, trooper? Just keep your mouth shut and follow me. That is a task far simpler than holding an outpost against ork attack, or is it something too onerous for you Skadi Guardsmen as well?’

‘Uh,’ Torvin replied, ‘I can do that, sir.’

‘Obviously not,’ Aldalon said without looking back at him. ‘The first part of my instruction was to keep your mouth shut.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Torvin said. ‘Sorry, sir, you asked a question is all and I wasn’t sure…’ Torvin let his voice trail off as Aldalon stopped.

The Catachan colonel turned his massive bulk to face Torvin, a deep rumbling growl building in his throat again. Torvin swallowed and suddenly wished for something that would have been unfathomable just a few hours before. He was pretty sure he would have been much better off if he’d stayed at Outpost Four with the rest of Fourth Platoon.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ALDALON

Colonel Aldalon stopped and listened. The jungle was quiet. There was the sound of insects buzzing incessantly and occasional birdsong, but there were none of the noises that permeated the jungles of Catachan: the shrieking of huge spur-winged megaraptors swooping and circling each other in mating season fights; the sounds of hidden predators thrashing in the undergrowth as they tore the flesh from still-living prey; the screams of humans ravaged by deadly, flesh-necrotising plant poisons or whichever of a hundred other deaths had proved their undoing.

On Catachan it was often the silence you had to be afraid of. The deadliest things moved in silence. They crept or slithered, or dropped from above to end your life before you were even aware they were coming. Aldalon held his hand up in a fist and then extended a finger and made a circling motion. Two squads of Catachan Jungle Fighters moved in towards him, emerging from the dense green as if appearing from nowhere, following his hand signal to assemble on him. They took a knee as they reached the colonel but kept their weapons up and at the ready.

The troopers weaved between trees and moved through hanging vines and underbrush as if they were incorporeal, hardly making a disturbance – after all, the deadliest things from Catachan moved in silence. The same could not be said of this Trooper Torvin they’d been forced to bring with them. He brought up the rear of the troopers, mostly because he seemed to have a hard time keeping up, but even despite being slow he slogged through the jungle pushing aside branches and wading through ground cover with easy-to-spot movement and sound that would carry. Aldalon might as well have been forced to drag a tank along behind them. He watched Torvin thunder in and drop into a kneel, holding his standard-pattern lasgun as if it were a death cobra that might spin around and bite him. Aldalon shook his head before turning his attention to the gathered Jungle Fighters.

Sergeant Sappa and her squad had formed up on one side, and Aldalon mentally checked them off: Devi, Ryhorn, Fletcha, Braker, Whirler, Setarn, Grast and Himrod. He did the same for the troopers in Sergeant Dram’s squad: Krall, Wetwer, Crusel, Tacter, Thorn, Grath, Krill and Holler. Aldalon ensured he knew the names of every member of his regiment – from the newest recruit to his most hardened veteran. With the two squads, himself, Lieutenant Trast and the dragged-along soft-worlder that made twenty-one of them.

Intelligence was sketchy on the enemy force holding Outpost Four. Torvin claimed the initial attack had been at least five hundred orks and there were at least half that number remaining. Based on reports of ork sightings in the briefing and Aldalon’s experience of Guardsmen’s overestimation, he put the number in the initial attack at more like a couple of hundred, with maybe a hundred left, probably less. They’d do some initial recon to be sure, but it seemed likely that it would be twenty Catachans against somewhere in the order of a hundred orks. He could take Torvin out of the equation because that soft-worlder wouldn’t contribute worth a damn and Aldalon would be sure he wasn’t getting in the way – one way or another. So, twenty Catachans against a hundred orks. Not the best odds for ordinary Guardsmen, but for Catachans fighting in the jungle with guerrilla tactics, it was just an ordinary workday.

‘We’re somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour out from the objective,’ Aldalon said, keeping his voice low so that it didn’t carry through the dusk air. ‘We make camp here before it gets dark. I want a standard perimeter defence with supporting fire-lines. Sappa’s squad east side. Dram’s squad west side. Orks tend to wander about rather than send out official patrols. They’re haphazard at best and they’re unlikely to roam this far, plus they’ll make even more noise than Torvin here so we should have warning, but I want full concealment anyway – let’s not take chances. Lieutenant Trast and I will scout ahead while you prep this position. Move out.’

With well-drilled practice the troopers of the 57th Catachan Jungle Fighters kept low, moving just as silently as ever as they fanned out into the thick jungle. Sergeant Sappa’s squad did as instructed, taking position to cover the eastern arc. Sergeant Dram’s squad did the opposite, moving to the western flank. Each trooper knew the precise distance they needed to position themselves from the others.

The Catachans kept visual contact as best as they could as they set up defensive positions, but it was difficult in the dense green of the jungle with its all-consuming plant life. They would lose visual contact as night fell but were well within range of sound signals using clickers and other coded techniques almost indistinguishable from the sounds of the jungle.

The Catachan troopers carried only small packs; some had only a tiny haversack slung over one shoulder. They each pulled out a camouflaged tarpaulin, which they pitched angled low to the ground, barely above the height of the undergrowth, and secured with dark green cord to nearby trees. They stashed their gear inside, which now that their simple sleeping equipment was erected amounted to little more than a single water canteen and ammunition. They moved plant cover and fallen debris to conceal the tarpaulins even further until they were all but indistinguishable from the surrounding jungle, and then they slipped inside, weapons at the ready, eyes out into the jungle.

Aldalon watched the soft-worlder as the Catachans went to work. They’d left him alone; no one from Catachan had time for incompetence. Their world quenched them to be the hardest humans in the galaxy. They would not bother helping this fragile example of their species. It was not callousness. At least not deliberately. It was the way they had all been raised as a necessity for survival. On Catachan you did not associate with the weak because the weak would get you killed. Every one of its inhabitants knew they had to rely on those around them to survive, and there could be no fractured links in the chain. One shaky foundation and the structure would collapse. Children of Catachan learned early to distance themselves from those they perceived as liabilities. Not only that, but it also wasn’t uncommon for those seen as dangerously incompetent to disappear or to turn up dead with no witnesses.

Torvin stood around like a lost lamb wondering where his flock had wandered off to. Then, in an effort to perhaps seem like he knew what he should be doing, the liability walked a short way into the jungle and dumped his massively overstuffed pack onto the ground. Aldalon watched as he opened it and began pulling out an unimaginable amount of unnecessary equipment: spare socks, spare clothes, ration pack after ration pack, handbooks and manuals, toiletries; he even had one of those useless Munitorum multi-tools for eating with, for Emperor’s sake.

Finally, Aldalon was relieved to see him reach in and pull out his sleeping tarpaulin. Unfortunately, he also pulled out one of the bulky Departmento Munitorum-issued sleeping bags. So many things he didn’t need. Aldalon had instilled in the Catachan 57th the three Ws. They were all they needed. Weapons, water and will. As Torvin unfurled his sleeping kit, Aldalon took a quick look at where he’d positioned himself, right in the middle of Braker and Whirler’s fire-lines. It was unlikely they’d have an ork incursion, but if they did, Torvin would probably get shot in a friendly fire incident. He considered letting it go but then he sighed. Emperor damn it. He was getting soft in his old age.

‘Sergeant Sappa,’ Aldalon called and moments later she emerged from the jungle, materialising from her concealed position. Aldalon saw Torvin do a double take. Sappa had been less than twenty yards away but had been all but invisible until she stood and began moving towards Aldalon. Torvin’s face made it clear he had no idea where the troopers were now that they had hidden themselves. Seeing Sappa appear was like a phantom passing through a wall and solidifying right before his eyes.

‘Yes, sir?’ Sappa said as she approached.

Aldalon lifted his chin to gesture in the direction of Trooper Torvin. ‘That one. Sort him out, will you?’

Sappa looked to where Torvin threaded thin rope through the metal eyelets of his tarpaulin and then stood, searching the area around for somewhere to tie off as if he hadn’t planned the location of his shelter at all.

Aldalon smiled with mock encouragement. ‘He can be in your squad.’

Sergeant Sappa looked for a moment like she was going to argue before seeing the colonel’s raised eyebrow and thinking better of it. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good, find somewhere for him to sleep behind the perimeter where he isn’t going to get himself shot.’ Aldalon turned to Lieutenant Trast, who was waiting nearby. ‘Ready, lieutenant?’

Trast nodded. ‘Always ready, sir.’

‘All right.’ Aldalon flexed his power fist habitually. ‘Let’s get the lie of the land. Might get to dispose of some greenskins if we’re lucky.’

Colonel Aldalon and Lieutenant Trast moved away from the Catachan position in the direction of Outpost Four with Aldalon leading the way. None of the troopers would question the colonel’s decision to undertake this scouting mission himself; they were well aware of his idea of leadership. First into the fray. Still, he knew it wasn’t tactically sound for the two highest-ranking officers on a mission to move out together on a recon. He would have sent Trast anyway. He had the best surveillance equipment and was an expert scout and tracker. But he could have sent him on this recon with any of the other troopers. The truth was Aldalon wanted to be doing something. He wanted to distract himself with the thrill of guerrilla warfare, that constant invigoration of danger and deceit; and, if they happened to encounter any orks, he was keen to show them why he was called Hell Fist. For Colonel Aldalon, the greenskins had a lot more to answer for than just being xenos scum.

Aldalon moved a short distance into the dense, wet trees before stopping and turning back. From here the Catachan troopers were all but indistinguishable from the jungle. The wall of thick green was disturbed only by the movement of Sergeant Sappa as she stood over Trooper Torvin, trying to get that useless soft-worlder to pack up his equipment and move to a more suitable location.

To most people, even the small percentage of this world’s population who actually ventured out into the jungle, the location would have looked like any other – all but identical to the maze of mossy trunks, hanging vines and thick ground cover all around them. But Aldalon picked out the unique aspects of the spot immediately, taking a mental picture to remember where his troops were hidden. Several fallen trees, one on the ground and two others fallen in the same direction but propped up in the V-shaped branch attachment of a larger tree. A rare section of ground where the plants were thin enough to see damp, brown dirt. A collection of vines that hung in a looping pattern he would recall. He turned, confident he could find this place again, and began advancing slowly through the jungle, full stealth movement, and non-verbal and subvocal communication only.

The pair of Catachans moved through the trees for close to an hour, every movement slow and considered to disturb as little vegetation as possible, every step measured and controlled to avoid even the slightest noise. As the jungle began to thin, Aldalon gestured with palm down to indicate they needed to move even slower, and though they were already making barely a sound it was time to move silently – Catachan silent.

Aldalon stayed low as he crossed a creek of quietly running water and crested a small rise on the other side. He stopped, knelt and turned to where Trast was moving a short distance behind him. He pressed the transmit button for his vox. Both he and Trast wore throat mics that allowed whispered voice communication.

‘Orks ahead,’ Aldalon whispered.

Trast nodded. ‘I hear them.’

Shouting was coming through the jungle. Angry shouts in deep, thick voices. Barked orders in simple Low Gothic, almost childlike – if children spoke in booming growls and snarling reverberating shouts, and if they were thick-muscled green monstrosities. The sounds were greenskins doing what greenskins did. The sounds of arguing and infighting.

‘Move up,’ Aldalon said. ‘Get a count.’

Aldalon and Trast worked their way through the thinning jungle until they reached the treeline at the edge of the clearing. In front of them was their objective, Outpost Four. The air in the jungle was always thick, dense with smells of damp earth and wet, decaying leaves, but the clearing was filled with the stench of death. Not just any death though – this was the sickly-sweet aroma of ork death; of rotting, festering fungal organs. A smell both disgusting and satisfying. Aldalon could see thick, viscous ork blood on the tree trunks and dripping off leaves as it was thinned with water. All along the treeline were the scars of battle on the natural world, trees shredded by bolter rounds and scorched with the ultra-heat of lasgun fire.

The remains of the dead started here, greenskins cut down even before they’d made it out of the jungle during their attack on the outpost. In the heat, they’d already begun decomposing. Aldalon moved around one, crouched down beside it to examine it. The creature had fallen on its back, a rusty axe still clasped in its grip. Its chest had been opened in a cavernous hole and most of its insides had been ejected in a spray pattern on the jungle undergrowth behind it, a direct hit from a heavy bolter round. Its eyes were still open, but the red irises were vacant of life and stared straight up at the canopy overhead. It had three blue lines painted over its face in diagonal slashes. Deathskulls. A cursory glance at other bodies confirmed Aldalon’s thoughts. Most of the rest were Deathskulls too.

Aldalon moved right to the edge of the jungle, ignoring the rest of the ork bodies in the trees and taking in the scene ahead. On top of a hill was the outpost itself. It hadn’t taken long for the new occupants to stake their claim – a large blue ork skull had been sprayed on the outer wall. Around the outpost, maybe fifty yards from the building, was a protective fence of razor wire and a low rockcrete anti-vehicle barrier.

Or at least there had been. In front of where Aldalon and Trast crouched in the trees, a large section of the fence had been flattened and the rockcrete smashed through in sprays of debris. Aldalon could immediately tell what had been responsible for the damage because several of them had not made it much further. There were three of the smaller ork walkers they called Killa Kans and even one large Deff Dread on the ground. They were covered in ragged holes having soaked up enough heavy bolter fire to put them down.

The ground between the trees and the fence was cratered in areas where orks had tripped ordnance in the defensive minefield. Elsewhere, the soil had been chewed up by bolt-rounds and burned by las-fire.

Then there were the rest of the bodies. From just ahead of them, cut down quickly like those he’d already seen, to a mass green grave at the fence where they’d obviously been held up and mowed down, and then stretching all the way to the base of the high outpost wall, were hundreds of dead orks. The xenos had done what they always did. They’d charged straight at the enemy and, despite the outpost’s far superior position and defensive infrastructure, Aldalon knew from having faced the greenskins before, they’d probably enjoyed it.

Large sections of the outpost’s defences were still standing: the lumen towers looked undamaged and operational, and they would need to come back and see whether the greenskins had figured out how to turn them on or whether they were automated. A night approach would be greatly aided if those weren’t on. Although the battlement wall had been damaged, blasted in by probable rocket attacks in several places, all but one of the heavy bolter emplacements along the rampart seemed to be in place.

‘The greenskins charged straight across the minefield,’ Trast said from beside Aldalon.

Aldalon nodded. ‘The schematics in the briefing showed the minefield laid out in a standard segmented pattern. Doesn’t look like they’ve triggered them all. We can use that.’

‘Outpost still looks defensible,’ Trast said.

Aldalon nodded again. The orks had obviously used their numbers to overrun the Imperial forces as was their usual approach, but surely even the most inept Guardsmen could hold that outpost against this many orks charging through a clearing of mines, throwing themselves at the vehicle barrier, razor wire fence and then the high wall? It would have been a frontal swarm of green targets.

Scattered amongst the ork dead were small, human forms. The Skadi Second Infantry, all of them but for the one they’d been forced to bring with them, had been tossed over the side of the outpost wall and left in a messy pile at the base. Uniforms soiled with dried blood, tangled limbs both attached and detached from their bodies, decapitated heads. Aldalon may not have thought much of soft-world Guardsmen but the sight of xenos scum treating dead humans with less dignity than they deserved still caused a rise of anger. It was then that he noticed something else. To the east of the outpost, where the treeline and fence were closer, the fence looked to have been breached much more cleanly. A rumble of distaste rose in Aldalon’s throat.

‘Emperor’s Throne,’ he muttered beneath his breath.

‘What is it, sir?’ Trast asked.

Aldalon pointed to what he’d seen. ‘Look there, the greenskins flanked them.’

A major frontal offensive was expected but then a smaller force had moved in from the side to take advantage of the distraction. Aldalon saw from Lieutenant Trast’s expression that he too understood the implication.

One of these green bastards is a little smarter than usual.

‘Get your count,’ Aldalon said.

Trast nodded, pulling his magnoculars from his webbing. He took a moment and then lowered his magnoculars. ‘Half a dozen up on the rampart. Another group of ten I can see inside the outpost through the breach in the south wall. I think we’re safe to estimate sub-one hundred.’

‘Confirmed. Let’s head back.’

The two Catachans continued on for a short while before Aldalon heard voices. Gruff voices. Ork voices. Twigs snapped, leaves crunched and undergrowth swished as it was pushed aside without care. Aldalon shot his hand up in a fist and then sank as low as he could without going prone, still wanting to keep his eyes above the undergrowth. The sound was coming closer, the muted ork chatter solidifying into understandable words.

‘Why is we doin’ dis anyway? When I said I wanna krump I mean I wanna krump humies not krump trees.’

‘We is doin’ it coz the boss said we ’ave to do it.’

Aldalon signalled for Trast to come closer. The lieutenant, staying in a crouch, moved slowly and silently until he was beside the colonel, both of them remaining completely still behind a large, fernlike plant.

‘Simultaneous takedown,’ Aldalon whispered.

Lieutenant Trast looked concerned. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I think we should leave them be. Maintain concealment and let them pass. I’m certain we can keep out of sight.’

Aldalon looked at Trast. His face betrayed the fact that he wanted to berate the lieutenant for arguing with him, but he kept his voice low. ‘Pincer, I’ll go right, you go left.’

Despite the colonel’s obvious displeasure, Lieutenant Trast tried again. ‘Sir, you’re normally happy for my input. In this case I think we should keep the initiative.’

Aldalon pinched his lips in angry frustration. Normally he might take his lieutenant’s advice, but not today. The two orks were approaching.

‘Ain’t nothin’ gonna be out ’ere.’

‘Just shut up and keep lookin’.’

‘I’m lookin’. I’m lookin’ at trees.’

Aldalon looked at Trast. ‘Your objection is noted. Two-man pincer, silent takedown. You’re left. I’m right. On my mark. Clear?’

Trast nodded. ‘Sir.’

Aldalon waited, watching in the direction of the ork voices. He soon caught sight of the movement he was looking for. Off to their two o’clock. The orks were moving with such disdain for any sort of noise or movement discipline that the entire jungle, from the smallest rotting leaf to the trees extending out of the canopy, seemed to gyrate from side to side with their every step.

He soon caught sight of the greenskins themselves. There had only been two voices and he quickly confirmed it was two orks. They moved abreast, trampling through the dense foliage, the blue on their clothing, weapons and skin standing out as completely unnatural against the green all around them. They were going to walk straight across in front of them.

Aldalon looked sideways at Trast. His lieutenant was right: if they dropped to the ground, those idiotic creatures would stomp by without a single look in their direction. Still, Aldalon gritted his teeth. The only thing he could think of that would be better than keeping the initiative right now would be the chance to murder an ork. He gestured for Trast to move forward. And, like a good solider, Trast didn’t argue again. He followed his orders, slowly drew his knife from the sheath at the back of his belt, and headed off to the left.

Colonel Aldalon moved like a predator of Catachan, a venomous spine-backed blood-leech or a neurotoxin-wielding death viper stalking prey, terrifyingly quiet. He advanced in an arc around the path of the approaching orks to be ready to attack from the right-hand side. He dropped into a crawl, creeping forward inch by inch until he was positioned beneath one of the large, wide-leafed ground-covering plants, lying in wait for his moment to strike.

Orks were not creatures well suited to patrol. They had the intelligence of a fencepost and attention as changeable as the wind, and whenever they were sent out in groups of more than one their discipline was sure to deteriorate into arguments and fighting relatively quickly. In fact, Aldalon would not have been surprised if a single ork managed to start fighting with itself if left alone long enough. The two orks seemed completely unaware of the purpose of what they were supposed to be doing, trudging along shouting at each other and paying no attention to the jungle around them. Not only were they not keeping watch they were obviously oblivious to the nearby danger of Catachans lying in wait.

‘Nah, I is gonna krump more humies than you, ya git,’ the ork on Aldalon’s side was saying.

‘Zog off you is,’ the other ork snapped back. ‘I krumped loads of dem in their town.’

‘Dey weren’t even fightin’ humies, some of ’em was so tiny,’ the first ork said. ‘Back on dat stinking-hot sand planet I krumped loads more humies than you and I is gonna do that again.’

Aldalon had called for a silent takedown, a common approach when the Catachans wanted to maintain the element of surprise. According to standard operating procedure he and Lieutenant Trast should wait until the orks had passed and then carefully move out of concealment before swiftly attacking from behind, drawing their razor-sharp serrated Catachan knives across the tough, ropey flesh of the greenskins’ throats. Dropping to the ground with them to soften the fall of their bodies and, particularly in the case of orks, removing their heads to make sure the deed was done. Sometimes death had a bad habit of not sticking to orks as well as it should.

But as he watched the greenskins Aldalon felt fury boil inside him. Thumping blood rushed his ears. The hot urge to fight filled him. He wanted to kill these orks. He wanted them to die. He wanted all orks to die. Aldalon had called for a silent takedown. He had ordered Trast to do that, but instead of following his own orders, Aldalon, as if the fury inside him were guiding his movements, rose from his prone position directly in front of the two xenos and charged at them in sudden, roaring rage.

Aldalon had been so well camouflaged that as far as the orks were aware, a charging, shouting, power fist-wielding human just seemed to appear in front of them, and they were both momentarily shocked into stunned silence. Ork brains were not wired for carefully attentive patrols – but they were wired for fighting. The greenskins’ surprise lasted only a moment before Aldalon’s charge triggered something deep inside their genetic coding, the singular instinct for an ork to match aggression with aggression.

Aldalon saw the moment their wide eyes changed. The red marbles shoved into the green dough of their faces lit up like it was only fighting that switched them on. The two orks’ brows crunched down in anger, their teeth bared, and they roared. But Colonel Haskell ‘Hell Fist’ Aldalon gave them no quarter for their brief moment of inaction and he fell on the first of the orks as it was grabbing for its weapon. Aldalon had charged his power fist while he had been lying in wait and now it crackled with energy as he squeezed its knuckles tightly. He struck the ork in the face with all his servo-assisted might.

As far as non-genetically enhanced humans went Aldalon was strong, and with the strength amplification of the power fist he hit hard. Hard enough to cave the ork’s face in beneath the blow, its skull fracturing, red blood spraying in a fine mist in all directions. But it was the disruption field of the fist that added even more damage. In the carnage of the strike it was too small to see, but as the fist impacted, the high-frequency energy that arced around it began tearing the molecules of the ork apart. Like a microscopic shock wave moving ahead of the massive gauntlet, the energy caused atoms to vibrate so aggressively that they burst apart. Flesh erupted. Muscle fibres shredded. Bone disintegrated. With this added destructive power, Aldalon’s forceful punch ploughed through the ork’s head until the creature’s brain was crushed beyond even a greenskin’s ability to heal.

Seeing Colonel Aldalon’s mad attack, Lieutenant Trast scrambled to his feet to engage the second ork. Even as its colleague’s brain was being crushed into mushroom soup the second ork was already in motion. It lifted its slugga and aimed it at Aldalon’s head. Aldalon leant back out of the way as the ork squeezed the trigger. Trast slammed into the ork with a shoulder charge. The slugga fired with an overly loud boom, but the shot flew overhead into the thick jungle canopy.

The ork stumbled but recovered quickly to spin and take aim at Trast. Aldalon’s power fist shot out and clamped on the ork’s slugga, squeezing and crushing the chunky barrel. The ork tried to fire, but the crushed barrel caused the rudimentary pistol to backfire, shattering the slugga and sending jagged metal spraying back and embedding into the ork’s arm. The ork howled, not in pain but anger, ripping the destroyed weapon from Aldalon’s power fist and swinging it at his face. Aldalon brought his fist around to block the blow. The ork swung its arm back for a second strike, but Lieutenant Trast appeared and drove his Catachan knife hilt-deep into the ork’s throat, the end of the sharp blade protruding out the other side.

Aldalon slammed his power fist into the ork’s face, not fully charged with crackling energy this time but enough to send the creature sprawling onto its back in the wet, green undergrowth. Aldalon dropped onto it, straddling it on his knees. He punched the ork in the face once, twice, three times. He opened his power fist and slammed it down over the ork’s busted face, grabbing its skull.

Aldalon squeezed. Letting out a primal growl he clenched his fingers. The power fist that perpetually wrapped his hand responded, and with its amplified strength it crushed the ork’s head, folding both sides of the greenskin’s skull together like an empty ration tin. Red and green ichor leaked out from the ork’s mouth, eye sockets and nostrils. Its arms and legs twitched spasmodically before falling still. Colonel Aldalon looked up, huffing deep heaving breaths.

Lieutenant Trast stared at him. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. The question was written across his face: what in the Emperor’s name was that, colonel?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

NOGROK

Nogrok sat on the battlement wall dangling his legs over the side as he looked out at the jungle. He and his kommandos were always the only ones keeping watch. Sure, Gutstompa had been sending a few boyz out on patrol, but none of them had any idea what to do. They just wandered around the jungle, where you couldn’t see your own mitts in front of your face, making a racket. It was getting dark now, but Ruktug had found a switch that turned on the big lights so the whole area around the outpost was lit up like the middle of the day. Weren’t no humies going to be sneaking up on them now.

Nogrok could hear the rest of the warband inside the outpost, what was left of them anyway. They’d been celebrating their victory over the humies ever since they killed the last one and chucked it over the wall by looting everything they could. Warboss Gutstompa wanted them to find all the dakka they could before they attacked the humie city.

Nogrok looked down at the clearing littered with bodies. He did a quick calculation: there were loads of dead boyz out there and that meant there was probably that many loads less in the warband now. He shook his head. Stupid Gutstompa. He had wasted too many boyz taking this tiny humie base. None of the nobz or warbosses ever cared how many boyz they lost when they fought. Neither did Nogrok to be honest, but he knew that if they wanted to attack that humie city down in the valley they needed more boyz than they had. If Gutstompa had just listened to him Nogrok reckoned his taktiks would have got half as many orks dead. That would have meant, like, half loads dead.

Nogrok had lost two of his kommandos during the attack. Urkgob got messed up by the humies’ big dakka that was just shooting like crazy into the smoke. Just bad luck that one. Mork rolled his dice and got a dead ’un. Grimguk, on the other hand, got blood crazy and went charging into the humies like all of the Deathskulls gitz and got himself krumped. Serves him right for not doing taktiks.

Below him, the stack of humie bodies was beginning to smell. Humies smelled disgusting when they were alive but once they were dead and starting to rot, they smelled heaps better. Nogrok inhaled deeply through his wide, flat nose, savouring the odour. Dead humie smelled good, like a years-old squig pit. He was gonna make more of that smell.

Nogrok turned at the sound of metallic thumps behind him: hissing, squealing hydraulic steps. Warboss Gutstompa was coming up the stairs. When the massive ork reached the rampart he saw Nogrok and his brow descended in a scowl. He took a swig from the cup in his hand, his huge green fingers almost engulfing the whole thing.

‘Evenin’, boss,’ Nogrok said, even though what he wanted to say was evenin’, you stupid git.

The warboss’ reply was a rumbling growl in his throat. ‘Wot you doin’, Blood Axe? Why ain’t you–’ The warboss paused, waited, then let out a long rolling burp. ‘Why ain’t you drinkin’ to our victory and getting loot like I told ya?’

‘Just keepin’ watch for any humies coming for a fight.’

‘Why you always doin’ that?’ the warboss snarled. ‘We don’t need you doin’ that. We gonna go get the fight.’

‘Humies love to do a counter-attack, boss,’ Nogrok said. He stopped himself from asking whether the warboss knew what a counter-attack even was.

‘Counter-attack. Dat sounds like some dumb humie stuff. You humie-lovin’ Blood Axe git. Orks only care about one type of attack, and dat’s proper attackin’.’

‘The humies will want this base back. They gonna attack soon coz they know loads of your boyz ’ave been krumped.’

Warboss Gutstompa’s red eyes thinned. ‘Wot you talkin’ bout loads of my boyz got krumped? Who you think you are? Some krumped countin’ git? I ain’t had loads of my boyz krumped.’

‘Uh,’ Nogrok said, gesturing to the clearing in front of them.

‘Wot? Dat’s not loads. Dat’s only heaps. Besides, we got more boyz on the way now we’ve got hold of this humie base. You wait an’ see. More boyz’ll show up. And soon, after we krump even more humies and take dat city down there, my warband is gonna become a proper Waaagh! before you even knows it.’ As if suddenly remembering who he was talking to, the warboss growled again. ‘I don’t ’ave to tell you nothin’ anyway. You just do as I say.’

More heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs – not quite the pounding thumps of Gutstompa’s hydraulic legs but loud enough that it had to be a big ork – and moments later Nob Jaggedteef, the second largest ork in the warband, came onto the rampart.

‘Boss,’ Jaggedteef said as he spotted Gutstompa. ‘I sent two boyz out on a patrol round the jungle and they ain’t come back.’

‘Probably off drinkin’ then,’ Gutstompa said.

‘Nah, boss,’ Jaggedteef said, ‘the next patrol of boyz found ’em. They been krumped.’

‘Wot?!’ Gutstompa said, displaying much more emotion than when he’d looked out at all the dead ork boyz littered over the approach to the outpost. ‘Was there fightin’ I missed out on?’

‘Ah, I think so, boss, maybe just a little bit. Didn’t look like they krumped each other,’ Jaggedteef said.

‘Was it humies?’ Gutstompa asked. Nogrok didn’t miss the sidelong glance he gave him as he asked this.

‘Dunno. Da ’eads was squished pretty good. Must be a big humie if it was.’

Gutstompa growled again. He was always grumblin’ and growlin’. ‘Dem sneaky humies sneakin’ round in da jungle. Dey think they is proper kunnin’. Stupid gitz. Don’t know how to do a proper fight.’

Nogrok thought about humies sneakin’ around out there in the jungle. He’d seen orks sneaky-killed when they were on that sweaty, gritty desert planet. He wondered whether it could be the same humies they’d faced then, those Catachan humies. Secretly, he hoped it was. They were his favourite humies. They was proper sneaky humies. Jaggedteef said the other boyz had had their heads squished. That sounded like it might be the Catachan big boss. He was like a proper warboss with his big bit of power fist kit. Nogrok never got a chance to fight that power fist humie back then, but maybe, just maybe, if those same humies were here on this stinky, wet jungle planet he’d get his chance to try to kill the power fist humie this time.

‘Right then,’ Gutstompa said, seeming to come to a decision. ‘Jaggedteef, send out two more boyz wot can see if dey can find any more humies sneakin’ about. I wanna find dem and show ’em a real fight.’

‘Boss,’ Nogrok said.

The huge head of the warboss turned to Nogrok. The corner of his dark green lip twitched up to reveal the roots of his sharp yellowed teef. His red eyes shone with scorn and one of his pointed ears twitched with barely contained agitation. Warboss Gutstompa was giving Nogrok the look of contemptuous anger that instantly closed the mouths of most orks, those conditioned by instinct to the greenskins’ overall guiding principles of bigger is better and might makes right – but, as should already be quite clear, Nogrok was an outlier when it came to ordinary orkiness.

‘I ain’t talkin’ to you, Nogrok,’ the warboss said, attempting to ignore him by turning back to Jaggedteef. ‘Is that clear, Jaggedteef? Find me those stinkin’ humie gitz.’

‘Sure is, boss,’ the nob replied. ‘I’ll send a couple of my best boyz out. I’ll send Flogga and Snaga. They proper good at killin’ humies. If dere really is humies hangin’ around out dere those two’ll find ’em.’

Flogga and Snaga, Nogrok thought, those thieving gitz. They weren’t good at nothing. Patrols weren’t gonna do anything anyway. The humies already knew they were here – that’s what Nogrok had been trying to tell Gutstompa. The humies would launch a counter-attack any time. They needed to stay here being ready. Anyway, Flogga and Snaga would probably go out there and the same thing would happen to them. They would get proper smashed. That humie warboss with the power fist would use it to crush their stupid git heads in too. Flogga was the zoggin’ git that stole his favourite Catachan knife, and Nogrok wanted nothing but to see him dead, but he wanted to be the one to kill him. Plus, if that git went out in the jungle and got himself krumped then Nogrok would never get his good cutta back.

‘Boss,’ Nogrok said, trying to get Gutstompa’s attention again. ‘Boss.’

Gutstompa growled and spun to look at the Blood Axe kommando like a parent completely fed up with question after question after question. ‘What?’ he shouted. ‘What do you zoggin’ want? Why you always got to talk to me, you Blood Axe git? I dunno why I ever picked you and your mob up.’

‘Dat’s what I said,’ Jaggedteef added, unnecessarily if you asked Nogrok.

‘Boss, I just want to point out, sendin’ out a two-ork patrol is exactly the same as what you did last time, and they got krumped.’

‘Are you sayin’ I’m a dumb git?’ Gutstompa said.

‘Nah, boss, not at all.’ Yes, though, absolutely completely. ‘I just thought I’d suggest some taktiks to get the humies to come to us.’

‘I don’t need nothin’ from you,’ Gutstompa said. He looked at Jaggedteef. ‘You know what to do when I get sick of listenin’ to this git, Jaggedteef.’

Nogrok turned to see Jaggedteef’s large fist plummeting towards his face once again. It slammed into the bridge of his nose and Nogrok felt something crunch before his oddly shaped fungus brain slammed into his thick but porous ork skull. Nogrok slumped to the ground in a floppy heap of green flesh, dazed but not completely unconscious yet.

‘Should I just kill ’im?’ Jaggedteef asked.

‘Nah,’ Gutstompa said. ‘He is a proper git but what ’e did attackin’ this base from the side was real kunnin’ stuff.’ Gutstompa threw Jaggedteef a sharp look. ‘Don’t you tell ’im I said dat.’

‘Nah, course not, boss.’

Gutstompa was quiet for a while as he stared out at the clearing between the outpost and the edge of the jungle. ‘Oi,’ he eventually said to Jaggedteef, ‘you reckon that’s heaps of dead boyz or loads?’

That was when unconsciousness took Nogrok.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

NOGROK

This time when Nogrok came groggily back to consciousness, opening one eye and then the other, he was looking up at the light blue sky. It took only a moment to realise he was lying flat on his back on the rampart. He knew exactly what had happened. That Jaggedteef git had thumped him again.

He sat up quickly, this time not with the urge to immediately fight back like before – though he did have that urge, he just had something else more important on his mind. As he suspected, Jaggedgit and Gitstompa were gone, and if those two giant zoggin’ gitz were gone then Jaggedteef would have already sent Flogga and Snaga out on their patrol to try to find the humies – and Nogrok wasn’t going to miss this opportunity to be rid of them.

Nogrok descended the stairs into the noise and stink of an outpost meant for less than fifty humies but occupied by double that number of unwashed, drunken, rowdy orks whose satisfaction with having done some fighting was wearing off and who were all growing itchy for another bloody good fight – even if that meant it needed to be with one another. He was jostled around in the overcrowded space, ignoring aggressive pushes and insults hurled at him in attempts to provoke a response worthy of a brawl.

Eventually he spotted Flik. The small ork was similarly ignoring shouted insults, though these were a little more well earned as Flik, with his small stature, had decided that the quickest way to navigate the throng of orks was to just run over the top of them, jumping from shoulders to shoulders to head. Nogrok called to Flik, who turned to see him and changed direction, kicking off the back of one ork’s head, and made it across the crowd to him, dropping back down to the ground.

‘Boss,’ Flik said, ‘where ya been?’

‘Up the top,’ Nogrok said, purposely choosing to exclude the part where he’d been knocked out by Jaggedteef again. ‘Listen, you ’eard anythin’ about Flogga and Snaga goin’ out on a patrol?’

‘Yeah, those gitz left not long ago.’

Nogrok turned and began pushing his way through the crowd to the exit. He had his slugga on his waist and his second-best cutta hanging from his belt; that was all he was gonna need.

‘Nogrok,’ Flik called after him. ‘Whatcha doin’?’

Nogrok ignored Flik as he hurried outside. As he passed a mekboy who had his head deep inside a busted Deff Dread, Nogrok grabbed a tin of black grease from the bench-top, twisted the lid off and plunged his fingers inside. He let the tin drop and then drew his fingers in chaotic slashes across his face, drawing thick lines of goopy black. He pulled out his cutta and plunged into the jungle on the hunt for Flogga and Snaga.

It wasn’t a hunt that was overly challenging. The two orks were some way in front of him but not far enough that it was difficult to pick up their trail. In fact, as he moved through the dense jungle, as swiftly as he could while maintaining quiet, he knew he could have followed these stupid zoggin’ gitz even if they were halfway across the planet. They had ploughed forward, slashing and crashing their way through the trees in an obvious path of orkish destruction. Of course, the trail could have been made by any of the groups of orks Gutstompa and Jaggedteef had sent out on patrol, except for one thing that made it real obvious he was following the path of Flogga and Snaga: he could hear their dumb voices. Not only were they speaking to each other, boasting and arguing without giving a single thought to trying to keep quiet so the humies didn’t hear them, but also the zoggin’ idiots was even shouting out for the humies like they thought they was trained squigs what might come when they were called.

‘’Ere, humie humie humie,’ Nogrok could hear Snaga yelling into the jungle. ‘Come out, come out, wherevers you at.’

‘Yeah,’ Flogga called soon after, ‘we got a nice surprise for you, some real tasty food that is for humies and definitely not for orks.’

‘Dat’s right, humie food ’ere and not orks wot gonna krump ya.’

Nogrok drew closer, keeping low, using camouflage and concealment and all the silent movement he’d practised to remain undetected by the patrolling pair, not that they would notice much. Once, when moving towards them, he’d grown a little complacent and stepped on a large rotten tree branch that was hidden under a pile of dead leaves. It broke in two with a sudden, loud crack. Nogrok froze in place. The sound had pinged through the jungle, splitting the normal sounds with its brief intensity right in a lull when Flogga and Snaga had stopped speaking or calling out. Nogrok expected the jungle around him to burst with shots from the orks’ shootas and for him to burst right along with it. Nogrok waited, listening for the response.

‘What was dat?’ Flogga asked.

Nogrok slowly lowered towards the ground, hoping he could avoid enough of their shoota shots to fight back. He gripped the dirty leather-wrapped handle of his slugga where it was holstered at his waist.

‘What was wot?’ he heard Snaga reply.

‘Dat noise?’ Flogga said.

‘Wot noise?’

‘Dat one.’

‘Dat’s you talkin’, ya git.’

‘Nah, listen,’ Flogga said. He paused, listening. ‘I can’t ’ear it now.’

‘Yeah,’ Snaga said. ‘Dat’s coz you weren’t talkin’.’

‘Never mind. Come on.’

The two orks moved away. Nogrok shook his head. How were these two gitz higher up the warband food chain than he was? Still, that wouldn’t be a problem for long. He was about to make sure of that. The only food chain they would be part of was fertiliser for some jungle plants. Nogrok had crept after the pair of orks again, trailing them further out from the humie outpost, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike. His Gorkish desire for revenge, the desire to smash these two gitz in the backs of the heads as loudly as possible right now was, as always, difficult to ignore. But Nogrok focused on the Mork in him.

With patience almost beyond belief for a greenskin Nogrok followed Flogga and Snaga through the jungle for close to two hours. Eventually, Nogrok’s proper good kunnin’ was rewarded when he overheard Snaga.

‘Oi,’ the ork said, ‘look at dis.’

‘Wot?’ Flogga said as he came over to where Snaga had stopped.

The two of them were looking down at something on the ground.

‘It’s an ork,’ Flogga said.

‘I know it’s an ork, ya git. I’m an ork. Wot’s ’e doin’ ’ere? Is dere another warband ’ere?’

‘I don’t know. I ain’t an expert on warbands.’

‘You ain’t an expert on nothin’.’

‘Let’s just see if ’e got any gubbinz,’ Flogga said.

‘I found ’im,’ Snaga said. ‘You go see if dere’s any other gitz like dis around.’

‘Whatever,’ Flogga replied, ‘I’ll look over ’ere.’

Flogga wandered a short distance away, looking around for any other ork bodies to loot. Snaga bent down, searching the corpse in front of him.

Nogrok watched Flogga for a moment, making sure the ork was paying as little attention as he hoped, and then crept, with even greater care than he had shown so far, towards Snaga.

Nogrok moved like a shadow, a green, parthenogenetic fungal shadow. A ghost ork. When he was almost within striking range, he slowly slipped his cutta from its sheath, very aware that soon he was gonna have his good Catachan cutta back. This cutta was practically blunt compared to that one. Still, it would be sharp enough for this.

He gently pushed aside the curtain of ropey vines drooping down from a branch overhead – the last cover before Snaga was right ahead of him. Nogrok led with the point of his blade, slipping it through the vines first and following with his body. When he was a step away from initiating the kill, Snaga’s head snapped up and he turned to look behind him. Some orkish instinct had triggered at the last moment to tell him either he was about to get into a fight or about to get killed.

Nogrok, with no choice now, leaped on Snaga’s back, wrapping one arm around the ork’s face, covering his mouth as best as he could as he brought his cutta blade up to Snaga’s neck. Snaga twisted, trying to shake Nogrok off like a squig mounted for the first time desperately trying to dislodge its grot rider. But Nogrok hung on.

He felt the serrations of his cutta bite into Snaga’s throat and he maintained pressure, dragging the blade and opening a cut across the larger ork’s windpipe. But Snaga’s hands flew up and grabbed at Nogrok’s knife arm, managing to hold it at bay. Snaga’s strength proved too much for Nogrok and he managed to pull the knife blade away. Nogrok cursed. He’d managed to cut into Snaga’s neck but not enough for it to be fatal, probably not even enough to take him down; it was barely bleeding. Nogrok was also well aware that this silent takedown kill had been neither silent nor resulted in a kill. Plus, with Snaga stumbling under him he hadn’t even managed the takedown part.

As Snaga continued to thrash beneath Nogrok, he eventually stepped too far and tripped over the dead ork, causing him to slam heavily to the ground. Snaga lost his grip on Nogrok’s cutta arm and Nogrok took full advantage.

He jammed the tip of the blade into the side of Snaga’s neck. As Snaga desperately tried to buck and writhe, Nogrok used a sawing motion to rip his blade out the front of Snaga’s throat.

The result was a torrent of hot red blood that gushed onto the ground, sprayed further by Snaga’s gurgling gasps. Nogrok maintained his grip over Snaga’s mouth until the ork’s thrashing eventually stopped. Nogrok knew that had not gone well and he was certain Flogga had heard, and sure enough the second ork called out.

‘Oi,’ Flogga’s voice called through the trees, ‘wot you doin’ to dat dead ’un?’

Nogrok didn’t move, and neither did Snaga because he was, thankfully, dead. When there was no reply Flogga called out again.

‘Snaga? Wot you doin’, ya git?’ Flogga paused. ‘Right. I’m comin’ over.’

Nogrok climbed off Snaga and moved to the side, keeping low. He readied his knife. Just as he hoped, when Flogga breached the thick foliage the first thing he saw was Snaga’s body on the ground in a pool of dark blood. That sight was enough to keep him from noticing Nogrok, wearing camouflage and crouching low in brush nearby. Flogga held Nogrok’s Catachan knife in his hand. It was beautiful. Nogrok couldn’t wait to get it back.

‘Humies!’ Flogga called. ‘Get out ’ere.’

Nogrok couldn’t help himself. ‘Nah, not humies.’

‘Wot in the name of Gork and Mor–’ Flogga started as he turned in the direction of Nogrok’s voice, but Nogrok erupted from his concealed position to take advantage of the other ork’s confusion.

Nogrok slammed shoulder first into Flogga and despite the other ork being larger, Nogrok hit with enough force to send him sprawling onto his back. Nogrok jammed his blade, still wet with Snaga’s blood, hard up under Flogga’s chin, and slammed it into his head.

Flogga’s wide eyes showed recognition as he grunted, gulped and gasped against the steel blade shoved up into his jaw, through the roof of his mouth and into his brain. Nogrok was glad. He wanted him to know who had done this. He wanted the git to know this was payback. He reached across and grabbed the Catachan knife from where it had fallen to the ground nearby. He held it up in front of Flogga’s face.

‘Dis is mine, you thievin’ Deffskulls git.’

Then he turned his grip on his reacquired favourite cutta so that it was pointed at Flogga’s face. He lifted the knife and drove it hard into Flogga’s right eye, slicing through his eyeball with a squelch, feeling it grind against the thick bones of his eye socket, cutting its way through skull with its sharp edges and plunging straight into Flogga’s stupid gitty brain. That was two Deathskulls gitz he wouldn’t have to worry about any more. He yanked the Catachan knife free and wiped it on Flogga’s shirt. He held it up, smiling, and saw his black-striped face reflected in the shiny blade.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

TORVIN

Torvin had spent several nights on Gondwa VI now and none of them had been comfortable. The night on this world seemed just as hot and thick with humidity as the day.

Back home on Skadi, when the sun dropped below the horizon the temperature plummeted, resulting in nights that were bitterly cold. Of course, this presented challenges of its own, but at least inside the hab-blocks and houses citizens could huddle around the warmth of a geothermal-tapped vent, a powered heater or a coal hearth if they lived in the lower levels not blessed with electricity. You could wear thermal layers beneath your clothes, wrap yourself in blankets or animal furs to seal in your body heat. It was possible, despite the dark ice and howling winds outside, to warm oneself. Here though, there seemed to be no escape: day or night the heat was oppressive and inescapable. There were only so many layers of clothing one could remove.

Initially, Torvin had slept in the high-ceilinged chapel with the rest of the bunked-down Skadi Second. At the time he had considered this uncomfortable, lying on a bedroll over the hard stone, the heat of the planet amplified by the hundreds of warm bodies sharing the space, the air filled with the grunts, snores and smells of soldiers. Then he’d slept at Outpost Four, which had been much the same but with his sleep interrupted by his watch schedule, and of course then the orks had come. After that, it had only got worse when he was sent to the Ecclesiarchy cells beneath the chapel. There he’d been locked into a stone box for the treatment of heretics, a space where he couldn’t even lie down, and had been forced to sleep propped against the slimy wall with his legs tucked up. Rest had been difficult to come by in that place. He would wake regularly as one part of his body or another went numb beneath him or succumbed to the pressure of the stone and demanded he adjust his position. He hadn’t thought sleeping conditions could be worse than that, but now, here he was in the jungle.

The Catachans were lying in their concealed positions; half of them would sleep while the other half kept watch and then they would switch. Torvin had been told in no uncertain terms that he was just to stay in his position, eat something and then sleep; that he should keep silent and not do anything stupid.

That didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was exhausted. He felt like he’d barely had any rest since he’d been on this Emperor-forsaken planet and the Catachans had moved at an absolutely relentless pace. Still, as he slipped beneath the tarpaulin, he quickly realised this was even worse than his dungeon cell. Sure, he could stretch out here but when he did, he felt nothing but damp plants and sticky mud beneath him. More than once he was sure he could feel things crawling against his skin and there seemed a constant swarm of flying insects that invaded his shelter and buzzed around his face.

It wasn’t just this humid, wet, crawling bed that made this night worse than all the others, though. It was actually trying to sleep in the jungle. He’d looked out from the outpost at the crushing darkness of the jungle unable to determine what might be in there, but now he was part of it, right in the darkness and the fear. As night fell, the thick blackness was all around him. He could see barely a few yards and in the dark, the sounds of insects buzzing and chirping and things moving through the dense foliage seemed a hundred times louder. He didn’t know what animals or dangerous creatures crept through these trees at night, but one thing he did know was that there were orks out there.

Torvin may have been struggling but he could see the Catachans were not. They had settled down in the mud and bugs and darkness like it was a soft bed – but no, that wasn’t quite the right metaphor. The Catachans would scoff at the idea of a luxurious place to sleep. They were not behaving as if they were in plush surrounds, they were behaving as if they were exactly where they were – in sticky, wet jungle; they just loved it. They were jungle animals themselves.

From the darkness to Torvin’s right came the sound of two sharp clicks. At first Torvin tried to ignore it, thinking it was some insect or bizarre jungle creature. It was probably best if he didn’t look; there were doubtless things out there it was better not to see. Or maybe he should look. He didn’t really know which was worse. But when the clicks sounded again, in the same deliberate rhythm – twice then a break, twice then a break – he turned in that direction.

He was shocked to see a Catachan trooper emerge from the darkness. He hadn’t heard any sign of his approach. He was holding a small box in his hand, a thin piece of domed metal on top. When the trooper pressed his thumb down, the metal popped in and out, click click. It was obviously some kind of signal the Catachans used to draw attention without having to speak, a signal that seemed to fit into the sounds of a night-time jungle. Torvin didn’t know the trooper’s name – he hardly knew any of their names because they hadn’t bothered to introduce themselves. Torvin was under no illusions about how the Catachans felt about him. He wondered if it was any consolation to them that he didn’t want to be here either.

The trooper signalled and it took a moment for Torvin to realise the signals were directed at him. He made a series of hand gestures at Torvin, moving fingers, his fist and then pointing out into the jungle ahead of them. Torvin stared, completely lost as to what the trooper was trying to say. The Catachan noticed the lack of comprehension on Torvin’s face and sighed, setting his jaw in annoyed frustration. He moved through the undergrowth to where Torvin remained hunkered down in his concealed position beneath his camouflaged tarpaulin.

‘Emperor-damn soft-worlder,’ was the first thing the trooper said to Torvin, which was the standard greeting the Catachans had for him. ‘Don’t they teach other Guardsmen hand signals?’

‘Yes,’ Torvin said, suddenly feeling a desire, after the constant disparagement he’d heard from other Imperial Guard regiments, to defend himself and by extension the rest of the Astra Militarum, ‘we learn hand signals, but clearly different ones to what they teach on Catachan.’

The trooper grunted. It seemed to Torvin he had no response, but it certainly wasn’t a sound of acceptance. ‘I said I’m going out into the jungle. I don’t expect to be long and that means don’t shoot me when I come back. If you know which end the las-bolts come out of that is.’

‘Whatever,’ Torvin said.

The Catachan trooper actually smiled and gave a single breathy laugh. Torvin hadn’t yet got a read on how serious the Catachans were. They seemed ready to murder him in his sleep and each and every one of them had a look in their eyes which made them seem capable of snapping into psychosis at any point. Or maybe they were just trying to scare him. As Torvin watched the trooper move away in the dark, he swallowed. He hoped they were just hazing him, but he felt a very real undercurrent of fear that they absolutely weren’t.

Just as he’d said, it didn’t take long for the Catachan Jungle Fighter to return. Torvin had his head down, using the ring pull to crack the seal and peel the lid off a standard-issue Imperial Guard nutrient gruel ration.

As an Imperial Guardsman you will consume the Imperial Guard nutrient gruel ration, available in sixteen ready-to-eat flavours designed for easy field consumption. The Imperial Guard nutrient gruel ration contains all nutritional requirements for a fighting member of the Astra Militarum and has a shelf life of one hundred and sixty standard years. Note: if Imperial Guard nutrient gruel rations are consumed as a soldier’s sole source of sustenance for longer than five consecutive days, adverse effects have been observed including but not limited to headaches, stomach upset, birth defects and heart failure.

Torvin used his FRED to dig out a semi-solidified spoonful of nutrient gruel and ferry it to his mouth. He chewed – a somewhat useless gesture on the already porridge-like paste – and swallowed, working his tongue to try to determine the flavour. It was a little like the boiled purple cabbage and fermented fish soup commonly eaten as a traditional meal on Skadi. He looked at the lid, which declared this nutrient gruel to be Garthar Roast Chicken flavour. With no idea where Garthar was or what a roast chicken was supposed to taste like, Torvin couldn’t tell how good the flavouring was, but if he had to make an educated guess he’d say not very.

The sound of clicking from the jungle ahead of him drew Torvin’s attention. Now that he was attuned to it, he easily recognised the sound. It came from somewhere in the darkness of the trees, getting progressively louder as it drew closer. Torvin put down his meal – for want of a better word – and picked up his lasgun from where it lay beside him, just in case.

He watched the darkness ahead of him. Click click. His eyes traced the lines of what trees he could see in the crushing black. Click click. His eyes strained, trying to catch a glimpse of movement, desperate to confirm that the sound really was the returning Catachan trooper. Click click. He saw a flicker and pointed his lasgun in the direction of the shifting shadows. The shape of the Catachan trooper emerged as if the thick darkness itself had coalesced into his form.

The trooper looked at Torvin. ‘I said not to shoot me, soft-worlder.’

Torvin looked down and then relaxed his white-knuckled grip on the lasgun. ‘Sorry.’

He realised his sudden nervousness was unwarranted, foolish even. If the orks somehow knew they were out here, they wouldn’t announce their arrival with coded clicking; they’d announce their arrival the same way they always did, with roaring, howling war cries and a mad charge crashing through the trees.

Torvin watched as the trooper moved towards his position. It took Torvin a moment to realise he had something slung over his shoulders. When the trooper was close enough for Torvin’s night-adjusted eyes to make out details, he saw that it was an animal of some sort, a long dark-scaled serpent-like creature, but one that had four pairs of legs along the length of its slender body, a lizard of some type.

The trooper lifted the creature from behind his head and placed it on the ground. He slipped the vicious Catachan knife from the sheath at his waist and beheaded the lizard with a quick, businesslike chop. With eight similar motions he removed the creature’s legs. Lifting the lizard by the tail, the trooper ran the point of the blade down the length of the belly and then smoothly scooped out its innards with another run of the knife. A series of cuts at the tail and he took hold of the skin, pulling swiftly to rip the scaly surface layer from the white flesh, dropping it on the ground with the pile of still-warm internal organs.

After a cursory rinse with water from his canteen, the trooper cut the meaty body in half and tossed one half to another Catachan trooper who had emerged nearby. Then, the trooper who had been hunting lifted the lizard to his mouth and bit into it, using his teeth to tear into the raw stringy flesh. It came away in strips that he hastily gobbled down. As he was chewing he looked up at Torvin, who was staring at him. With a mouth full of raw lizard flesh he gestured with the remaining meat and spoke quietly.

‘You want some?’

Torvin shook his head, looking down and spooning more of his gluggy Imperial Guard nutrient gruel ration into his mouth. The trooper moved closer, crouching and moving in beneath Torvin’s shelter. He leant his face in close enough that Torvin could see the mashed lizard flesh between his teeth as he spoke, still chewing on the recently caught animal.

‘What is that?’ the trooper asked, looking down at the ration tin and the bland grey sludge inside.

Torvin was surprised. He’d thought this was one of the Catachan 57th’s veteran soldiers. He certainly looked that way with the greying hair on his temples and the latticework of scars that covered his face and body. ‘It’s an official Imperial Guard ration,’ Torvin said, ‘the ones we’re supposed to eat.’

The trooper reached out and snatched the tin from Torvin’s hand. He turned it in his grip, looking it over, and without warning plunged two fingers into the contents, scooping out a small amount and licking if off to taste it. He worked his mouth and then made a face of disgust. ‘I’ve never actually tasted one of these.’ He tossed the tin back to Torvin, who caught it awkwardly. ‘Won’t be doing it again neither.’

‘I thought they were standard-issue for all Imperial Guard,’ Torvin said.

The Catachan trooper laughed. ‘In case you haven’t figured it yet, we Catachans ain’t standard Imperial Guard. How many of those tins you got in your pack?’

‘I don’t know,’ Torvin said, ‘nine or ten.’

The trooper shook his head. ‘Why would I carry all that extra weight around?’ He lifted his partially eaten raw lizard. ‘You can get food anywhere.’ He took another bite. ‘I’m going back to my hole. Enjoy your… whatever that is.’ With that the trooper moved away into the dark.

Well, Torvin thought, sure, he’d watched a Catachan catch, kill and eat some raw jungle lizard that may or may not have been highly toxic, but at least he’d had something resembling a conversation with one of the Jungle Fighters. It hadn’t just been a Catachan berating him for being a soft-worlder or an incompetent Guardsman or any of the usual things they said to him.

Torvin jumped as the trooper reappeared, spilling some of the nutrient gruel he was lifting to his mouth. He had emerged suddenly from the dark again.

‘Oh, and by the way,’ the trooper said. ‘Just leave your lasgun alone. You’ve been put here so you don’t have to guard anything. Don’t touch your weapon again, soft-worlder. You might hurt yourself, or worse, one of us.’

The trooper vanished again. Torvin wiped the spilled Garthar Roast Chicken-flavoured nutrient gruel from his shirt and sighed; that seemed more like it.

Torvin had settled down to sleep, or at least attempt to sleep, when he next heard the voice of Colonel Aldalon.

‘Circle up.’

Torvin tentatively emerged from his concealed position, his ‘hole’ as that other trooper had called it. He saw the power fist-wielding shape of the colonel. When his eyes adjusted, Torvin saw Aldalon was covered not just in camouflage but also in random splatters of blood, almost slightly luminescent in the dark. Ork blood. Torvin had seen enough of it in the battle over Outpost Four to recognise it. He watched the other Catachan Jungle Fighters emerge from their holes and so, guessing it was best if he followed orders too, he climbed out from under his tarp and joined them. Once the two squads were assembled, kneeling in an arc in front of the colonel, Aldalon spoke.

‘We’ve had a run in with the greenskins,’ Aldalon said. ‘Took down a pair on patrol but we may have alerted others to our presence.’ Torvin saw the way Lieutenant Trast looked sideways at Aldalon, but he wasn’t sure what that meant. ‘They probably won’t notice a couple of their boyz not coming back from patrol but eventually they’ll realise there’s probably something in the jungle worth fighting. We’re moving up the mission timetable and going on our first raid on the outpost now.’

Torvin swallowed. He had no idea whether that included him, but he didn’t particularly want to go back and face the orks that he’d only just escaped from last time through right-place-right-time luck.

‘Lieutenant Trast will accompany Sergeant Dram’s squad. I will accompany Sergeant Sappa’s squad. The first raid objective is still the same as outlined before we left. Sergeant Dram’s squad to take east-side perimeter around the outpost, Sergeant Sappa’s to take west. Our objective is to disable as much of the still-active security as possible. That includes cutting power to external systems like the lumen towers and any perimeter motion detectors, cutting tripwires, and mapping an approach to the outpost. I want to collect unexploded ordnance from the minefield too. Plus, we’ll whittle down the ork numbers by taking out any patrols or sentries wandering too far from the outpost. You know what to do. Standard perimeter raid on a fixed position. Soften them up. Clear?’

The Catachans nodded. Torvin didn’t know what to do, but he wasn’t going to say anything. He still wasn’t even sure all this included him, and they didn’t just want him to stay here and not get in their way.

‘Good,’ Aldalon said. ‘Break down camp, gather your equipment. We move out in fifteen.’

Torvin watched as the Jungle Fighters moved quickly and quietly, dismantling their carefully constructed concealed positions. They were just as deliberate at replacing the leaves and branches from their shelters back into the jungle as they were when they had built them. They scattered the foliage around, not wanting to leave any trace that they had been here at all.

It was a testament to the skill of the Jungle Fighters that the area was almost entirely unchanged from before they had arrived. As much as he didn’t think their attitude towards Imperial Guardsmen from other worlds was entirely fair, he had to admit, if the Skadi Second Infantry had trudged through the jungle and camped here, there would be signs everywhere, flattened foliage, cut branches, firepits and probably even whole swathes of felled trees.

Torvin couldn’t believe they were going on a raid now. Had the Catachans managed to get any sleep? He sure hadn’t and Emperor knew, he was exhausted, barely able to stand. Did these Jungle Fighters ever need to rest?

‘You too, soft-worlder – break down and get ready to move out.’ Torvin turned to see Sergeant Sappa watching him. ‘You deaf?’

‘No, sergeant,’ Torvin replied. ‘I just wasn’t sure whether that included me.’

‘Colonel Aldalon put you in my squad, didn’t he?’

‘Yes, sergeant.’

‘Well, my squad is going on a perimeter raid on the outpost,’ Sappa said, ‘so break down camp and gear up.’

‘Yes, sergeant,’ Torvin said. ‘And sergeant?’

Sappa stopped as she was walking away and turned back. ‘What?’

Torvin suddenly regretted speaking but swallowed down the lump in his throat and continued. ‘My name isn’t soft-worlder, it’s Torvin.’

Sappa rubbed the bottom of her nose with her forefinger and then sniffed before turning and moving off to pack up her own camp and get her equipment.

Torvin moved as quickly as he could, doing his best to return the jungle plants he’d used as cover for his scrape to some approximation of where he’d found them. He thought he’d done a reasonable job, but he didn’t miss the raised eyebrows and looks of derision from the Catachans watching him. He rolled his wet tarpaulin and stuffed it into his pack along with the rest of his equipment. It took him longer than the rest of the Catachans to finish. Sergeant Dram’s squad had already moved out when he was ready and looked up to see Colonel Aldalon, Sergeant Sappa and all her squad waiting.

‘Right,’ Sappa said, ‘let’s move. Soft-worlder, you’re just ahead of me.’

The squad, Colonel Aldalon in the lead, moved off into the dark, wet jungle.

After an hour of moving steadily forward, trying to advance as silently and carefully as the Catachans, Torvin saw Colonel Aldalon ahead. He’d brought them to a halt. Once he caught sight of Sergeant Sappa, the last in the line, he indicated with a circling finger for the squad to rally up.

‘Devi, Whirler,’ Aldalon whispered, ‘you two, scout ahead but do not engage. I want to know if the lights are on and how many greenskins are on the rampart.’

The pair of troopers nodded and then headed into the jungle. Without being asked, the rest of the squad moved into defensive positions. Torvin did what he’d grown accustomed to already and sat down out of the way.

As he waited, Torvin pulled the pict of Melina from his pocket and unfolded it. The darkness in the jungle was thick now; the brighter of Gondwa VI’s two moons had sunk below the hilly horizon and so there was almost no light penetrating through the canopy. Torvin unclipped a pouch on his webbing and pulled out his small, finger-sized flashlight. He clicked it on, shining the light down on Melina’s face. She smiled at him, but now, her smile didn’t seem so comforting.

In a shocking instant the flashlight was slammed from his hand in a mighty swat. Torvin reeled back, beginning to stammer out words of shocked surprise, but anything that might have escaped his throat was cut off as a powerful, mechanical grip closed around his neck. From the gloom, Colonel Aldalon had seized Torvin with his power fist.

Torvin grabbed at the power fist in a futile gesture to try to free himself as Aldalon squeezed and lifted him to his feet. Torvin spluttered against the crushing force engulfing his windpipe. The colonel slammed him back against the trunk of the closest tree. Torvin’s legs dangled beneath him, tangling in hanging vines as he kicked.

Aldalon’s face was a mask of rage. Torvin half expected lightning to fire from his mouth like some furious deity, but it was only furious words that emerged. Still quiet to maintain stealth, but that was perhaps even worse.

‘What do you think you’re doing breaking light discipline, you putrid little idiot?’ Aldalon snarled. His free hand appeared bearing his Catachan knife, and it was suddenly pressed against Torvin’s cheek, hard enough that it began to cut a line from mouth to ear. ‘We are near the outpost. Well within range of wandering greenskins and you dare turn on a light. You do something as stupid as that again, you dare endanger my troops again, and I’ll kill you.’

The power fist opened and Torvin dropped, choking, to the ground. He tried to whisper an apology, but managed nothing but vapid gasps. Around him the other Catachans had turned to look at the confrontation, but none had moved from their positions, except Sergeant Sappa.

‘Sir,’ she said, her voice low so as not to carry, ‘go easy on him. He’s just a soft-worlder. Perhaps we should leave him behind.’

Aldalon growled. ‘Our orders are to bring him, so we bring him. I put him in your squad, so you get his head right.’ Aldalon reached down with his power fist and picked up the flashlight from where it had fallen into the mud. He squeezed, crushing it between servo-driven metal fingers, the light flickering out, then dropped it in front of Torvin. Next, he plucked the pict off the ground and held it up to look at it. He turned his eyes to Torvin. ‘Who is this?’

‘Melina,’ Torvin managed against the burn in his throat. ‘We were to be married.’ He swallowed, trying to push down the pain. ‘Before I was tithed.’

Aldalon looked at him and then knelt. He slammed the pict up against Torvin’s chest, forcing him to catch it. ‘You are a Guardsman,’ Aldalon said in his low rumble. ‘You exist to kill xenos. If it isn’t abundantly clear, I don’t want you here. You are soft, but you better become hard very quickly or one way or another you will die.’ He pointed to the pict still pinned to Torvin’s chest. ‘As soon as you were tithed, your life was over. Accept it. There isn’t room for anything but war any more.’

Torvin sucked in a painful breath. ‘What’s the point then?’

‘What?’

‘What is the point of fighting,’ Torvin said, ‘if we aren’t fighting for those we love?’

‘The point,’ Aldalon said, ‘is to kill orks.’ The colonel stood. ‘The only thing you need to love any more is the Emperor and a fresh lasgun power pack.’ He turned and walked away.

Torvin sat where he’d been dropped. He looked at the pict of Melina before folding it and putting it back in his pocket.

‘Listen, soft-worlder,’ Sappa said. ‘My father is harsh but fair, you better listen.’

Torvin looked in the direction of the fading colonel. ‘Aldalon is your father?’

Sappa nodded. ‘I took my mother’s name, wanted to make it as a Jungle Fighter without relying on him or his reputation. He’s right though. Get your shit together or you’ll have more to worry about than orks.’

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ALDALON

The rain had started twenty minutes earlier as little more than a misty drizzle that drifted down and barely made it through the treetops, but it had intensified now into a powerful jungle downpour. It hammered through the canopy, slamming aside the initial shield of leaves like lasgun fire through simple ork armour. It pounded down on Squad Sappa of the Catachan 57th Jungle Fighters as they drew nearer the outskirts of Outpost Four.

‘It’s getting wet fast,’ Sergeant Sappa said. ‘We’ll need to be careful with footing.’

Aldalon watched as the soft soil, always close to saturated anyway, turned to slushy mud and then became spotted with dark, ankle-deep puddles rapidly growing in width and depth.

‘It’ll mask our approach,’ Aldalon said as heavy drops thundered down, leaving them drenched beneath the torrential shower. ‘I’ve been on worlds as varied as you can imagine. Landscapes of lifeless rock and dust, worlds entirely covered with water or volcanoes, or cities that float on gas where there’s no real planet at all, and you know what’s always there?’

‘What’s that?’ Sappa replied.

‘Rain,’ he said. ‘Or something like it at least. In some places it’s constant, in some almost non-existent. Sometimes it’s acidic or methane instead of water. But there’s always rain. Something falls onto the planet to wash it clean. At least as much as possible in this galaxy. The rain’s on our side, sergeant. We are here to clean this place.’

Aldalon looked at Torvin, the soft-worlder. As the useless trooper’s foot sank into a deep puddle he stumbled trying to pull it free, crashing forward and catching himself on the trunk of a thin tree. The whole thing shook and all that useless equipment he carried rattled around noisily in his pack.

Aldalon growled. Movement could be difficult in the rain, sure, but apparently it was more difficult for some than others. He should have squeezed harder on the soft-worlder’s throat, should have killed him. How long until the imbecile drew attention to them? If they’d been facing any enemy but the orks he might have already alerted them.

Why in the God-Emperor’s name did the rest of the Astra Militarum have such insufficient training in everything other than how to fill out paperwork? How had the Imperium stood against the constant barrage of foes if it was men like Trooper Torvin manning the defences? But Aldalon knew how.

It was because there were men and women from Cadia, men and women from Armageddon and Krieg and Elysia, and men and women like him, from Catachan.

They would hold the line for the Imperium when all the Trooper Torvins, Major General Nilloms and Governor Misoms folded.

After a short time Aldalon brought the squad to a halt again. He pulled out his small command data-slate. Apart from the few pieces of uniform he wore, trousers and a flak armour vest, there were only four pieces of equipment he carried that were officially issued to him by the Departmento Munitorum: his throat vox-mic, his plasma pistol, his power fist and his command data-slate.

His data-slate contained mission briefings, maps and intelligence reports, and was constantly uplinked to regimental headquarters when in the field – or at least it was supposed to be. He knew the magnetic field of this planet was reported to cause ongoing issues with communications. He was sure that would be blamed for his inability to get a signal back to Karoo City, but the truth was the uplink functionality on this thing barely worked on any planet, magnetic interference or not.

He checked the time: ten standard minutes until when he’d ordered Lieutenant Trast and Squad Dram to begin the raid. He would synchronise with them. If they were discovered and the orks attacked in response it was best they engaged the xenos on two fronts simultaneously.

‘Trast and Dram will be waiting on the eastern side of the perimeter,’ Aldalon said to Sergeant Sappa. ‘There was a smaller breach through the fence there, a flanking attack.’

Sappa nodded. ‘The soft-worlder confirmed your theory when I questioned him about it. There was a smaller group of orks that attacked from the east. He’d seen an ork in the trees too he said, an ork in camouflage.’

Aldalon knew none of those back at headquarters had believed Torvin, but despite him being from a useless, poorly trained regiment, Aldalon was not so quick to dismiss the soft-worlder’s claims. All evidence suggested the orks had undertaken a concealed surgical strike to breach a heavily defended position already focused on a massed siege from another direction.

‘Intelligence indicates at least some of these orks are the same ones we faced before,’ Aldalon said.

‘On Karst?’

Aldalon took a long breath. ‘Yes, on Karst.’

‘You think it’s them, don’t you? The orks who killed Brant.’

Aldalon was quiet. He’d been right beside Brant when the attack had happened on Karst, an ambush from orks even he hadn’t seen lying in wait. One of them had pounced on Brant, slit his throat before he had a chance to react, an ork wearing camouflage. An ork that had later faded away in the heat of battle, but he remembered him – an ork with one red eye and one green eye.

‘Ghost orks,’ Sappa said. ‘Apparently that’s what other Guard regiments call them.’

‘They’ll be ghosts when we’re done with them,’ Aldalon said.

Devi and Whirler soon returned, confirming that the Outpost Four perimeter lumen towers were lit, casting bright light over the entire circumference of the clearing around the outpost. The minefield, tripwires and perimeter defence guns were within the range of that bright light. There was no way for an approaching enemy to breach the trees without a near certainty of being spotted. The lights were likely on a centralised timing switch – on at dawn, off at dusk. He doubted the orks would think to operate them if they were manually controlled. That made the first objective clear at least. They would need to find the power line into the outpost and cut it.

Aldalon swiped at the surface of his data-slate, stopping on the plans of the outpost he’d been provided with by the planetary government. They were old, dating from the time of the outpost’s construction just short of a century earlier. He just had to hope they were still accurate. According to the plans there was a power transformer on the north side of the outpost, but it was hidden behind the outer wall. What he could see that was useful was the dotted path of the underground power line running into the facility. It extended in a north-east direction, almost impossible to find without these plans.

Aldalon keyed his throat mic. ‘Trast, do you copy?’

The response was nothing but hissing static.

Aldalon looked to where Trooper Grast, the vox-trooper for Squad Sappa, waited nearby. Aldalon tapped his head, signalling for her to come to his position.

‘Can you raise Lieutenant Trast?’ Aldalon asked, keeping his voice low.

Grast slipped on her headset, checked the channel, then keyed the transmit button on the side. ‘Squad Dram,’ she said quietly but clearly, ‘this is Squad Sappa, do you read? Over.’

He waited but Aldalon could tell from Grast’s face that there had been no reply. Besides, he could hear the harsh spray of static coming from the trooper’s headset.

‘Squad Dram, this is Squad Sappa, do you read? Over.’ Another pause before Grast looked at Aldalon. She shook her head. ‘Sorry, sir, nothing.’

‘Fine,’ Aldalon said, ‘carry on.’

The trooper nodded and returned to her position. Aldalon knew Lieutenant Trast would not attempt an incursion to deactivate any of the outpost’s defensive systems and acquire some explosives from the minefield while the area was lit so prominently by the lumen towers. Aldalon would have to lead Squad Sappa around the north side of the outpost and cut the power. This was not an unexpected outcome, but it would alert the orks to their presence in the area.

Aldalon knew he’d probably already given up the initiative with his unrestrained attack on the orks before. He couldn’t let himself give in to anger like that again. He was more disciplined than that. Still, cutting the power to the outpost would certainly give away their intention to attack, but it had to be done.

Aldalon called over Sergeant Sappa and showed her the image of the outpost plans. ‘We’re going to move in around the north and cut this power line here. Split your squad. Defensive sight lines here, here and here. Pick whomever you want to go in and dig for the power line.’

Sappa looked at him. ‘You got your entrenching tool, sir?’

Aldalon scowled.

‘What?’ she said. ‘I’m joking.’

Sappa moved away to prepare the squad. Aldalon growled as he watched her leave. Since when had he raised someone who made jokes?

The jungle around the north side of the outpost proved to be thinner than that on the westerly approach. Aldalon watched as Sergeant Sappa spread her squad out into twin extended file, keeping the distance relatively large between each trooper thereby presenting a more difficult target to spot moving through the thinner jungle than a close-packed knot of soldiers. He hadn’t needed to ask her to do this. She was well trained. Of course she was, he had ensured it. No daughter of his would be anything but the most well-trained Jungle Fighter. She had taken her mother’s name to avoid comparisons to him; that did not bother him, and he knew the truth of any accusations of nepotism from those who did know she was his blood kin.

There was no advantage to being the child of the great Colonel Haskell ‘Hell Fist’ Aldalon, no prestigious shortcut to the upper ranks. In fact, the truth was he was harder on his children than any other trooper on Catachan. He trained them harder, pushed them harder. He thought that had been the advantage he had given them – the best preparation for the life of war they had ahead of them. It had not seemed so for Brant. He had failed him.

Aldalon moved at the back of the squad, forcing himself not to take the lead. Learna had asked for her and her squad to get the combat experience she felt they needed, and he couldn’t deny her that. She was right. She was a newly promoted squad leader in command of a new squad. Several of them were veterans of the 57th. She needed to earn their respect. And even with those veterans in the squad, none of these particular soldiers had operated as a squad together in the past. She was right to want to take control; she had to establish her leadership and the squad needed cohesion. So, Aldalon stayed at the back and let her take command. Besides, it meant he could watch the Emperor-be-damned soft-worlder in front of him, make sure he didn’t completely ruin their mission.

From his position as the rear soldier Aldalon saw the halt signal passed back through the squad. He stopped, dropping to his knees and reflexively pulling his plasma pistol from where it was holstered at his waist. The next signal relayed down the lines of troopers was an ears-out signal – be silent, listen, someone in the squad has heard something.

It took only a moment for Aldalon to hear it too. Stomping feet and ork voices. They’d stumbled on a greenskin patrol – though it was probably more accurate to say the greenskins had stumbled on them. From the sounds of the footsteps, and the number and volume of the voices, there were more in this patrol than the two Aldalon had encountered earlier. It was difficult to say but Aldalon estimated there were at least ten in this group. Perhaps they’d learned their lesson; perhaps they knew there were enemy forces around now and were increasing numbers. The order came down the line from Sappa, passed in hand signals – down, take cover. She was going to hide from the orks, let the patrol pass. They would keep hidden until they had at least managed to disable the power. Good call. It’s what Aldalon would have done. At least it’s what he would do if his anger did not overrule him.

The Catachans went into full concealment, taking cover in the vegetation around them. Despite the jungle being clearer here it was still plenty dense enough for them to vanish. It took less than a minute and they were gone from view. Gone from view and silent.

The ability of the Catachans to disappear was almost otherworldly. It was almost like they became more than part of the jungle, black holes in the vines and leaves that sucked in their surroundings to keep them concealed. All of them were black holes, except for Trooper Torvin, who Aldalon could see was making an attempt to hide but, as far as Aldalon was concerned, might as well have been a supernova. Aldalon could see his helmet, not at all camouflaged, above the fern he had hidden behind.

By the sounds of their voices and their crunching, bulldozering footfalls, the orks were drawing closer. Would the greenskins see Torvin where he was half hidden amongst the dark green? Likely not, but Aldalon could not bear such a poor display of jungle warfare in his presence.

Aldalon pulled his clicker from a pocket on his trousers and thumbed down the small sliver of metal. It click-clacked but Torvin did not look in his direction. He tried again, clicking twice in quick succession. Still, the stupid soft-worlder did not look towards him.

‘Torvin.’ Aldalon kept his voice low but hissed the trooper’s name in his direction. ‘Torvin.’

Finally, Torvin looked back. Aldalon gestured for Torvin to get down. Obviously what Aldalon thought was a fairly obvious signal was not so obvious, because the Emperor-damned soft-worlder stood up. He stood up like he thought Aldalon was calling him over. Aldalon almost leapt out of his skin to tell him to get back down or to smash him back down himself with a swift power fist strike to the top of the head. He managed to restrain himself though and instead continued his wild waving.

‘Get down,’ he hissed again, but with the orks almost on them he knew he was keeping his words too quiet for them to carry. The idiot trooper finally got the meaning of his wild hand waving, or perhaps he managed to read his lips, because he suddenly realised what he’d done. In his haste to return to his hiding space he stepped backwards, tripped on something hidden in the undergrowth and stumbled, his feet tangled beneath him and his pack full of useless gear weighing him down. He dropped. Aldalon squeezed his eyes shut at the noise, sending a silent prayer to the God-Emperor that the orks hadn’t heard.

‘Oi!’ The gruff voice of an ork immediately told Aldalon that this particular prayer would go unanswered. ‘What was that zoggin’ racket?’

‘Dunno.’

‘Well go and ’ave a look, ya git.’

The orks were in sight now. Aldalon’s quick count gave thirteen of them. These were not wearing camouflage, instead clad in the blue of Deathskulls. One of them, the top half of its face painted in blue, its armour decorated in the chequered pattern the greenskins commonly wore, split from the main group and moved in the direction of Torvin.

At least the soft-worlder seemed to have found, or at least fallen, into cover. Aldalon watched as the ork drew closer to Torvin; it seemed to be sniffing the air as if it were some animal searching for prey, which he supposed was exactly the case. The greenskin moved closer to Torvin’s position, its gaze falling on the spot where the soft-worlder was hidden.

‘Break cover! All engage!’

The shout came from Sergeant Sappa. She’d obviously considered the squad compromised as the ork was just about to find Torvin.

‘Humies!’ the orks shouted.

To his credit, at least Torvin started shooting. Leaning out from his location behind the fern, he sent las-shots streaking towards the ork that had almost found him. The first shot missed wide, bursting a small tree, but Torvin’s second shot hit the ork in the leg. It was not enough to kill the greenskin, but it dropped to the ground as it struggled to draw the oversized pistol hanging from its belt. Aldalon charged from his nearby position.

The blue-faced ork turned to face Aldalon as he charged madly out of concealment. The ork’s eyes went wide as it saw the power fist coming towards it. Aldalon hit hard and the ork’s blue-painted face became a red-painted face as the front of its skull caved in and bright ork blood exploded out like a bursting firework.

For a split second, there was quiet. It always seemed to happen that way. A shot rings out and a Guardsman drops or a xenos is splattered across whatever ground they are fighting on, and there comes a moment of near tranquillity – like the universe is pausing, taking a deep steadying breath to ready itself for the violence to come.

The fraction of a second passed in a loud exhalation and carnage ensued. The crack of Catachan lascarbines rang out, subtly different to the sound of Torvin’s more standard-pattern lasgun, quieter by virtue of being smaller and less powerful. And those shots were answered by the roar of ork firearms. There was nothing so consistent to the sound of ork weaponry. Each cracking, blasting, booming shot was different, but they all had one thing in common – they were louder than necessary.

‘WAAAAAAGH!’

The war cry, now so familiar to Aldalon after years of meeting greenskins in battle, was hollered into the air as the orks, unsatisfied with a near-proximity firefight, charged in to engage in what they liked best: up-close hand-to-hand combat. This was their natural advantage and Aldalon knew, in the jungle environment with so many blocked sight lines, the Catachans would not be able to avoid melee. They needed to thin the orks’ numbers as much as possible while they had even a slight distance on them.

The greenskins had dropped their pistols and rifles in favour of their brutal swords and axes as they thundered in for a charge. Catachans were deadly when they had their knives in hand, but against the strength of greenskins, and lacking the element of surprise they so often operated with, they were still at a disadvantage. In his peripheral vision, Aldalon saw the rest of Squad Sappa closing back towards him and Torvin.

‘Cut them down,’ Aldalon called.

The Catachans continued their barrage of las-fire at the orks and, as they drew in range, those Jungle Fighters with hand flamers sprayed cones of superheated promethium at them, melting the green skin from their bones. The Catachans did their best to drop as many of the orks as possible before the moment when they would need to draw their knives.

The Catachans moved as they fired, closing ranks, and by the time the xenos reached their lines at least four more of the orks were dead. That left eight orks against the ten Catachans. Better odds. Aldalon’s power fist crackled as it drew energy, and he felt the thrill of the imminent fight rise within him. As the orks came upon them Catachan steel flashed in the dark. The Jungle Fighters paired up or fought in threes, standard operating procedure for fighting the stronger orks. One Catachan would engage an ork directly and fight defensively as the second or third attacked from the side or struck as the greenskin showed an opening.

Aldalon noted the soft-worlder was still hiding behind his fern. So be it. Aldalon didn’t want him in the way anyway, and he didn’t want to worry about that fool’s safety. All he intended to worry about was adding some more ork lives to his growing collection.

The red mist descended over Aldalon’s eyes. Orks were strong, certainly stronger than a human, but Catachans hadn’t gained their reputation for nothing. None of them backed down. They dodged, parried and lunged forward with their knives, covering each other and fighting in teams. Aldalon, of course, had an advantage that left him stronger than any of the orks. His charged power fist disintegrated ork flesh and easily shattered their bones. He swung so hard at the first of the xenos to come for him that he decapitated it with one clean strike to the side of the neck.

Beside him Aldalon saw Trooper Setarn cry out in agony as an ork axe sliced across his abdomen. He clutched desperately at the blood and organs that spilled, but Aldalon instantly knew there would be no saving him. Especially when the ork’s axe came back across to lodge in his neck and finished the job. Aldalon’s rage boiled up again. There was at least one Catachan dead. There should have been zero. He looked around for his next target.

He turned to see one of the larger orks charging at Sappa. For some reason she was away from the main group of Catachans, away from the support of others. She dodged to the side, slashing at the overcommitted ork as its momentum carried it past her. Her razor-sharp Catachan blade sliced through flesh on the side of the ork’s neck but not quite deep enough to be fatal, certainly not to the resilient xenos. The ork spun and lashed out with its axe. Sappa was quick enough for the blade to sail past her, but the hilt and balled fist of the ork struck her in the shoulder, sending her tumbling back. The ork began to reposition for another blow, the killing blow.

The red mist of battle rage cleared and Aldalon was running to his daughter. Even in the dark, the ork’s axe seemed to shine as it rose over the greenskin’s head and despite the xenos moving in apparent slow motion as Aldalon’s adrenaline slammed through his veins, he too seemed to be moving as if through thick resin. The axe came down with a thunk before Aldalon could reach the ork. He smashed his power fist into the side of the creature’s head and it crumpled to the side. He looked down at the axe still in front of him, expecting to see it splitting the skull of his only daughter, his last remaining child, and yet it was only stuck in the jungle mud. Sappa had rolled aside and risen smoothly; her Catachan knife was buried in the ork’s guts.

Her eyes flashed at him. The anger he knew to be a daughter’s disappointment and rage at her father rather than battle fury or annoyance at her superior officer.

‘What are you doing? I had it covered. You don’t come to the rescue of other troopers so don’t do it for me!’

‘Focus on the battle, sergeant.’

‘You never protected Brant like that!’

Aldalon spun to her. ‘And look what happened to him, Learna!’

Learna went quiet. ‘We are Catachan,’ she said. ‘Death in battle is our destiny.’

Aldalon gritted his teeth, furious at himself for that crack in professionalism. ‘I said focus on the battle, sergeant.’

She turned away, hurrying back to where a pair of Catachans fought an ork. Aldalon watched her go. She was right. There was no retirement for a Catachan Jungle Fighter. They fought for the Imperium as long as the Emperor deemed them worthy, and then they gave Him the ultimate sacrifice. Aldalon had always known this. He had known it when Brant and then Learna had been selected to become some of Catachan’s finest. It hadn’t bothered him then. In fact, he had felt honoured that both his children would continue his proud legacy for Catachan. Why then did it bother him now? Had he lost his edge?

Brant’s death did not feel like the ultimate sacrifice for the God-Emperor of Mankind. It felt like Aldalon himself had given the ultimate sacrifice – a piece of him was gone. He may as well have been dead and yet he was still here to fight on for the Imperium. A dead man walking but for the sliver of life remaining, and that sliver of life was with him now, in battle, in the same grave danger that Brant had been.

The soft-worlder’s words came back to him. What is the point of fighting if we aren’t fighting for those we love? Aldalon growled under his breath, scowling at his own thoughts. Love. There was no room for love in a Catachan Jungle Fighter.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

TORVIN

Torvin remained in cover behind the large fern, crouching down in what concealment it offered, though he was certain any orks that cared to search would find him. One thing was clear though, he wasn’t frozen in fear this time.

He was aware of the situation in front of him, able to follow the ebb and flow of the carnage rather than feeling completely overwhelmed by the very thought that he was in combat. He’d even shot at the orks as they charged, and he’d hit at least two of them that he was sure of. He’d only grazed the first one in the leg, but he was certain it had been his las-round that had blown open the chest of another, leaving a cauterised crater. It wasn’t fear that held him in place this time. Instead, it was horrific fascination – not at seeing the snarling, hulking orks again, but the Catachans.

This was nothing like the combat he’d seen when the orks took Outpost Four. In that battle the Guardsmen of the Skadi Second had been defensive, conceding ground to the xenos as they backstepped with desperate defensive parries, trying to position themselves to maintain as much distance as possible. They had lunged forward to strike at the greenskins only when a perfect opening appeared and even then, if they managed to hit their target the orks had barely seemed to notice.

They may seem imposing at first glance, larger than a human and more muscular, but appearances are deceiving. Their muscle is more plentiful but still weaker than a human’s, and though it may seem improbable from their size, do not shy away from them even in close combat as a human is stronger and can best them with a bayonet to the throat. What a load of crem was right.

In the battle over Outpost Four, the Skadi Second had always appeared as men fighting monsters. They faced down the greenskins with the constant sense that they were at a vast disadvantage and the fight was not one in which they hunted for victory but in which they fought to survive.

This was different. The Catachans fought like bloodthirsty maniacs. They fought like he was sure the Departmento Munitorum propaganda was intended to make all Guardsmen fight. They slammed into the orks as if they honestly believed these monstrous greenskins were far weaker than them. Torvin knew that wasn’t the case. The Catachans understood this enemy better than most; they had fought them before, some of them more times than they could remember. They knew the physical advantages the orks had over humanity, it was just that they didn’t care. They didn’t fear them.

As one Catachan trooper charged, screaming, long knife raised over his head, he was met by an ork screaming too, axe raised in turn. Torvin already knew the Catachan Jungle Fighters were nothing like other Imperial Guardsmen, but here, watching them, he saw them for what they were. Covered in black and green paint, displaying their red clan colours with their bandannas, they were rippling-muscled insane jungle-dwelling killers, howling as they charged their enemy with a complete absence of anything that might resemble rational fear. They were human, but there was nothing in that moment that separated them from the greenskins they fought.

While all the Catachans were occupied fighting like beings possessed, one of the orks rounded the fern, gaze fixed on Torvin, bloodlust shining across its beady red eyes.

‘Help!’ Torvin said as he clambered to his feet. ‘Need some help here!’

He knew it sounded pathetic but what else could he do? He couldn’t take on an ork alone.

The greenskin came for him. This was it then; this was the moment he found himself in true, up-close, heart-pounding, sweat-sharing melee combat with an ork. This was the moment he would die in service of Emperor and Imperium light years from Skadi, Melina and everything he’d ever known.

It was entirely by reflex that he lifted his lasgun. He didn’t have time to get a shot off and hadn’t fixed his bayonet, which he realised might have been useful at that moment, as cursory as using any weapon against this beast might have been, but when the ork growled, swinging its chipped and pitted machete-like blade down at him, Torvin managed to get the body of his lasgun in the way.

He held the rifle out in front of him with two hands, one near the butt and one wrapped around the barrel, awkwardly catching the strike. The ork’s strength sent the blade well into the lasgun until it came to a stop embedded in the rifle’s body. The force slammed Torvin’s hands back towards him until the rifle was across his chest, the curved end of the ork’s weapon stopping an inch from splitting his forehead right down the centre. The greenskin growled and leant forward, pushing down against Torvin’s guard. It was truly close to him now. When it exhaled in a sharp huff, Torvin felt the hot, stale breath on his face.

‘Break!’

The shout came from somewhere over the ork’s shoulder. It was Sergeant Sappa; she was coming towards him at a rapid pace.

‘Torvin, break now!’

Torvin didn’t immediately understand her meaning, but some synapses in his brain connected and he let go of his lasgun and dived to the side. The ork stumbled with the sudden removal of the resistance but quickly righted itself.

Sappa’s shout had not only alerted Torvin to her presence but alerted the ork as well. It spun, swinging its blade in a wide horizontal arc. Sappa ducked, anticipating the strike. Unfortunately, she had not anticipated that the lasgun would remain stuck to the ork’s blade. The butt of Torvin’s lasgun clipped her on the cheek, and she staggered. It was only a glancing blow, nothing that would result in anything more than a purpling bruise, but it had thrown off her attack.

Sappa used her right hand, her knife hand, to catch herself on the wet jungle ground. The ork stomped down with a heavy black boot, pinning the serrated blade of her Catachan knife into the soil. She had no choice but to release it, an act that clearly pained her more than any ork strike to the face. She rolled and regained her feet.

The ork shook its blade, trying to free Torvin’s lasgun. When the weapon didn’t budge, it grabbed at it and tried to pull it off. Torvin watched as Sappa pulled another knife from her belt, this one much smaller than her Catachan blade. She probably used it for cutting and eating food.

She lunged at the distracted ork, who was still battling at trying to free its weapon from the clutches of Torvin’s lasgun. Her quick strike hit the ork’s upper arm. The greenskin growled and, as if the wound had given it more energy, it wrenched the stuck lasgun off its machete.

As Torvin collected himself he watched the ork return its attention to Sappa, freshly freed blade ready. The ork smiled a devilish grin, its nose crinkling. For her part, Sappa showed nothing but the famous Catachan stoicism as she faced it down, her eyes burning. She brandished her weapon, which seemed little better than a fancy butter knife, before her, and Torvin was almost certain this was what had made the ork smile.

His heart pounded. His stomach dropped. He couldn’t let Sappa take on the ork alone. Torvin dashed for where Sappa’s knife had been left in the muddy ground. He grabbed it and turned back to see the ork rush at Sappa using its size and strength in an attempt to overwhelm her.

Sappa back-pedalled, wildly swinging her tiny knife, but the ork closed the distance and smashed into her, sending her sprawling to the ground. Knowing this was his opportunity, Torvin stabbed the Catachan blade as hard as he could into the ork’s side.

The ork wasn’t wearing armour on the side of its torso, just a thick vest over its front and back, and the sharp blade penetrated flesh. Torvin could feel the thick, gristly muscle resisting and the scrape of the blade as it met hard ork ribs. Even as finely honed as the knife was, and as hard as he tried to stab it in, the blade made it less than half its length before slowing to a stop. Still, half a Catachan knife embedded in its side was more than enough to draw the ork’s attention. As the greenskin turned, Torvin yanked hard on the blade’s hilt to pull it free. The serrations ripped and tore as Torvin managed to get the knife back out, sending a thick ooze of blood down the ork’s side.

The creature roared and swung at Torvin, who reflexively dropped to his knees. That brutal blade whipped across above his head. From behind, Sappa jumped onto the ork’s back, wrapping her arms around its neck. She held on as the ork tried to shake her loose. She lurched back, knife gripped hard, and then stabbed the greenskin in the side of the throat, pulling back again with a spray of blood and then stabbing once more.

The ork slammed its fist back at Sappa with a desperate strike to knock her free. She fell back and landed heavily on the ground, appearing dazed. The greenskin lifted its blade to drop a powerful blow, but Torvin launched into action again. He sliced at the ork’s machete-wielding arm before it could swing and his blow landed squarely where he’d been aiming. The Catachan knife with its razor edge cleaved almost all the way through the ork’s wrist. The greenskin lifted its arm as if unsure what had happened and why it suddenly couldn’t swing its sword. It seemed confused at first, staring at its hand hanging by thin strands of tendon and twisting muscle, the whole mess dripping with ichor.

‘End him now,’ Sappa said.

Torvin stabbed again with the Catachan knife, jabbing it into the ork’s stomach. Here it slipped in much further, squelching into the creature’s fungal organs.

‘I said end him!’ Sappa roared at Torvin. She was up on her feet again, grabbing Torvin’s arm. She pulled, getting Torvin to drag the knife back out. She forced his arm up and slashed the knife into the side of the ork’s neck. With their awkward two-person strike the blade did not penetrate far, but Sappa began a sawing motion. ‘Cut its head off!’

As the ork thrashed, Sappa forced Torvin to hold strong and continue to saw back and forth. Warm xenos blood sprayed over Torvin’s face, in his eyes, on his lips. Sappa stayed with Torvin, her hand on his as they cut into the ork’s neck, slicing and ripping through muscle and flesh, grinding and crunching through bone, until eventually, as they hacked through dense ork vertebrae and cut the last of the green flesh, the creature’s head came free and dropped, as did its large body, to the jungle ground.

Torvin stared down at the bloodied knife in his hands; he could feel the warm splatters up his arms and on his face. He turned to look at Sappa. She nodded at the knife in his hands. ‘Keep that for now,’ she said. ‘I’ve got another.’

Around him, just as he had reflected, the Catachans fought not to survive but to win, and so they did. The orks lay dead on the ground, all of them shot on their approach or killed in hand-to-hand combat by the wild, bestial attacks of the Jungle Fighters. The Guardsmen had not gone without casualties, though. There were two of the Catachans who had fallen, given their lives for the Emperor in this place.

‘Soft-worlder!’

Torvin turned. Colonel Aldalon was storming towards him and while the battle with the orks may have been over, the look on Aldalon’s face showed he still felt he had a target. He reached Torvin and without hesitation slammed his power fist into Torvin’s chest. The colonel had restrained himself, not charging the fist with flesh-disintegrating disruptive energy and holding back the weapon’s full strength, but he still hit hard enough to send Torvin sprawling, gasping and painfully winded, to the ground. The colonel stood over the top of Torvin, bending down and pointing at him aggressively in rage and disgust.

‘What did I tell you about getting my troopers killed, you Emperor-damned fool?’

Torvin stammered a reply which was little more than rasping whining sounds as he fought against his spasming diaphragm.

‘Why in all the warp can’t you stay hidden?’

Torvin sucked in as much air as he could against the pain in his abdomen but as he tried to speak, he instead broke into a fit of coughing.

Torvin expected to be murdered right there where he lay, but he saw some of the rage drain from Aldalon’s eyes, replaced instead with disappointment and contempt. He shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t expect any better from whatever planet you’re from.’

‘I thought… I thought you were calling me over.’

Instead of responding Aldalon turned away in disgust. ‘Sergeant Sappa,’ he said.

‘Sir.’

‘I told you to babysit this soft-worlder and keep him from doing anything stupid. Take him back to camp while the rest of us go on to cut the power.’

‘You can’t–’ Sappa said, seemingly about to grow animated but managing to restrain herself. ‘Colonel, that is my squad. I should be leading it. I’ll send Torvin back to camp with someone else.’

‘You’ve got your orders, sergeant,’ Aldalon replied, unblinking.

For a moment, longer than Torvin thought most people could, Sappa stared down Colonel Aldalon. ‘Fine,’ she said, turning to Torvin. ‘You’re with me, soft-worlder.’

Torvin followed Sergeant Sappa into the jungle. She moved with purpose into the dark and he struggled to keep up and not lose her in the dense black. She still moved in close to silence despite the fact that Torvin could barely see in front of him. He knew he, on the other hand, was stumbling forward, crashing through leaves, branches and vines, but he had no choice if he didn’t want to lose sight of her and be left completely lost in the wilderness. He had no idea how she knew where their camp would be, but she seemed more than confident of their direction. After ten minutes of moving, Torvin broke into an almost-run to catch up and speak to her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was doing my best.’

Sergeant Sappa stopped and Torvin almost ran into the back of her. She turned on him, hissing her words. ‘We move in silence. Are you as much of a slow learner as my father thinks you are?’

He didn’t speak for the rest of the journey, not that Sappa ever gave him the opportunity to.

After a long time passing through what seemed to be unknowable, unrecognisable surrounds, Sappa finally halted and turned to him. ‘Find your hole and hunker down,’ she said, her voice low. ‘It’s just over there.’

Torvin looked around, suddenly recognising the location he’d set up his tarpaulin in concealment before they’d moved out. Sappa wandered off without giving him any further instructions, so he dropped his pack, pulled out the tarp and began setting up somewhere to sleep again. This time, once he’d erected his low, tentlike roof, covered it in branches and leaves, and shuffled inside, pulling his gear in with him, he found, despite everything, he was exhausted enough to fall into a quick, heavy sleep.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

NOGROK

As an ork, Nogrok did not have much awareness of his own psychology and probably didn’t realise that happiness was not an emotional state greenskins could achieve. They came close to some equivalent during the heat of battle, a state of rapturous delight brought about by fulfilling their fundamental evolutionary purpose, but they were never truly happy.

Though they felt driven to kill, and felt satisfaction in the moment of the kill, the thing they were fighting was suddenly dead after that and they immediately felt the urge to kill again. There were always more things that needed killing. This inbuilt instinctual desire made fighting and killing for the ork species more like a blissful drug they were constantly suffering withdrawal from than an actual conscious choice or reasoned pursuit. This state of constantly seeking their next dose of the closest they could come to satisfaction was what drove the greenskins’ constant expansion through the galaxy on the hunt for more things to fight. This was why, despite waging epic wars on a galactic scale, they never seemed to have any strategic goal. For the orks, the act of fighting was the goal.

So, when Nogrok considered himself quite happy sitting on the rampart of Outpost Four examining the sharpened edge of his recently reclaimed Catachan cutta, it was more accurate to say that he was momentarily content. Even for orks like Nogrok who, for whatever genetic reason, weren’t quite so beholden to the addiction, there was still the constant gnawing draw to be satisfied. Nogrok had been occupying himself with good taktikal thinking about the next kunnin’ step in his plan to get rid of Nob Jaggedteef, when his thoughts were interrupted by the raging shouts of Warboss Kazkorg Gutstompa somewhere in the building below.

His booming voice was so loud that it carried outside, clearly understandable over the almost constant noise and shouting of the population of orks who were still holed up here waiting impatiently to be given their next opportunity to fight something. Nogrok knew those Deathskulls gitz were ready to burst. They had taken to even more constant and prolific infighting than usual, part of the reason Nogrok and the other Blood Axe kommandos spent most of their time on the roof.

Whenever the urge to fight got too overwhelming for one of the Deathskulls, if they happened to spot one of the Blood Axes it would be them they directed their frustrations at. They’d fight one of their own klan if they had to, but it was better to seek out some git from another klan. It wasn’t cowardice that drove Nogrok and his mob to the roof, it was simple maffs about self-preservation. Almost the entire warband were Deathskulls and it didn’t take a mekboy genius to figure that meant bad odds for living.

‘Why do I keep missin’ the krumpin’?!’ Warboss Gutstompa was shouting, his anger obvious from his volume and tone. Nogrok had heard the rumours, of course; rumours spread through an ork warband faster than a squig escaped from a milkin’ pit. Another patrol of boyz had not returned, this one loads bigger than the ones and twos that had been goin’ out before. ‘I am boss,’ Gutstompa was continuing. ‘I should get to fight whenever a fight ’appens.’

Nogrok rolled his eyes, looking back out at the jungle around them. Warboss Gutstompa didn’t seem to understand that if you weren’t there when the fighting happened then you wouldn’t get to be part of the fighting. If he wanted to fight so bad, he should go out on a patrol. Nogrok ran his finger along the edge of his knife. Actually, that would be great – maybe he could sneak out and kill Gutstompa just like he did with Flogga and Snaga. Probably not, but it was a nice thought.

Nogrok was watching the jungle when, without warning, the clearing around the outpost was plunged into darkness.

‘Oi, did anyone else go blind or was it just me?’ Nogrok heard Flik ask from nearby. ‘Wait, nah, someone just turned out the lights, innit?’

Nogrok’s eyes were adjusting quickly as well.

‘What now?!’ Gutstompa roared from down below and was soon thundering up the stairs to the rampart. The imposing shape of the warboss looked out at the suddenly dark scene. He looked around and his eyes fell, predictably as far as Nogrok was concerned, on him and his Blood Axe kommandos. ‘What you Blood Axe gitz been doin’ up here?’

Nogrok stared at him. ‘You think dat was us?’

‘Of course I fink it was you, you always doin’ stuff.’

More orks, including Jaggedteef and his gitz – what was left of ’em anyway, Nogrok thought to himself with pleasure – paraded up to the roof level of the outpost to see what had happened with the lights. Jaggedteef’s eyes landed on Nogrok as well.

‘Wot did you do, you git?’

‘Zog off,’ Nogrok said. ‘We ain’t done nothin’. We was just sittin’ up ’ere and the lights went off.’

‘Who did it then?’ Gutstompa asked, which surprised Nogrok because he thought it seemed obvious, though he’d always known Gutstompa was much better at stomping guts than he was at thinking.

‘Humies innit,’ Flik said. ‘Dem humies out dere are cuttin’ da lights so we can’t see ’em comin’.’

Nogrok nodded. His mob knew what was what. ‘That’s right. It’s da sneaky humies out in the jungle. Same ones wot was in the desert against us. That’s wot they do, sneak about turnin’ lights off and whatever. Gettin’ ready to attack.’

‘Dat ain’t right.’

‘Why da humies wanna fight in da dark? Can’t even see what ya krumpin’.’

The comments came from some of the orks who’d joined them on the roof. Nogrok wouldn’t go as far as to say they were frightened, but they were confused. Most orks weren’t like Nogrok. When Nogrok saw the humies do something, he wanted to learn about it; most of the orks couldn’t comprehend what they were even doing. The idea of the humies sneaking around out there, attacking without being seen, it was too much for their fungus-mush brains to handle.

‘Stupid gitz,’ Gutstompa boomed. ‘Why don’t they fight proper?’

Nogrok looked at the furious confusion on Gutstompa’s face – his brain was just as mushy as all the others.

‘They are fightin’ proper,’ Nogrok said. ‘Like proper humies is all, not like proper orks.’

Jaggedteef rounded on Nogrok. ‘You always was a humie lover.’

‘I ain’t never said nothin’ about lovin’ humies,’ Nogrok said. ‘I’m just tellin’ it like it is. You expect ’em to fight us like we wanna fight ’em. That ain’t what they gonna do. Why would they?’

‘We should send all our boyz out there, boss,’ Jaggedteef said to Gutstompa, pointedly ignoring Nogrok. ‘Dey won’t expect that. Charge at ’em with a proper loud Waaagh!’

Nogrok huffed and this time when Jaggedteef spun towards him, he could see the nob was ready to storm him.

‘Look,’ Nogrok said, ‘you think I’m a humie lover but I ain’t. I just think we should learn from ’em.’ He turned to Gutstompa. ‘Boss, Jaggedteef’s way of fightin’ the humies hasn’t worked, has it? They been pickin’ us off while we is here waitin’ for your reinforcements, and if you send all the boyz out there then they is gonna take the humie base back while we is gone, which is the whole thing they want anyway. I say we need to fight ’em the same way they fight us. If the humies ain’t gonna fight like orks then we are the ones wot need to change.’

Jaggedteef had heard enough. He moved towards Nogrok, his eyes seething. ‘You tellin’ me my way ain’t workin’. You sayin’ I is stupid, you Blood Axe git.’ It was predictable that Jaggedteef would respond in this way, rushing towards Nogrok ready to attempt to knock him out again or maybe krump him properly dead – so predictable that Nogrok already had his Catachan knife raised before the nob had even started moving. Nogrok whipped the blade up, the point directed right at the face of the larger ork. Jaggedteef stopped himself just short of being run through with the savage serrated knife.

‘You raisin’ a weapon at me. Dat’s grounds for a proper dead krumpin’, Blood Axe.’ But Jaggedteef paused as he took in the blade being wielded in front of him, grimacing at what he saw, not out of any fear of the fact that Nogrok had a weapon, but because of which weapon it was. The nob’s red eyes peered out from beneath his furrowed brow, examining the knife in Nogrok’s hands before his eyes moved to meet Nogrok’s. ‘I know dat cutta.’

‘Oh, dis little thing?’ Nogrok said. ‘Yeah, dis one my favourite cutta. Lost it for a bit but I got it back now.’

Jaggedteef growled. ‘Flogga had dat cutta.’

‘No,’ Nogrok said, unable to keep the fury from his voice. ‘Flogga pinched this cutta from me, now I got it back.’

‘I seen Flogga take dat cutta on the patrol dat him and Snaga ain’t come back from. How did you get dat cutta back?’

Nogrok smiled, knowing his refusal to answer would drive Jaggedteef to boiling point.

‘I said, how did you get it back, you zoggin’ git?’ Jaggedteef roared. ‘You killed me boyz!’

Jaggedteef batted Nogrok’s blade aside and grabbed at the smaller ork’s throat. Nogrok struggled but the nob was far too strong.

‘You killed Flogga and Snaga ain’t you? Dat’s why you got dat cutta back?’

‘I got it back,’ Nogrok managed to rasp through the nob’s crushing grip on his windpipe, ‘coz it was mine. You gonna kill me for gettin’ back wot was mine? Dat’s between me and Flogga. Ain’t got nothin’ to do with you, nob or not.’

Nogrok had chosen his words carefully. He knew all orks loved fighting and killing and being brutal, even with each other, but they did have a kind of code. When there was a disagreement, orks were generally left to settle their differences without interference from others.

In this case, the orks watching this showdown understood the basic chain of events. Nogrok had hunted down and killed Flogga because Flogga had stolen his knife. That was fair game as far as they were concerned. Now Jaggedteef was annoyed that Nogrok had killed one of his boyz and was gonna krump him. Fair enough that was, too. The part that worked in Nogrok’s favour was that ordinarily if one of the boyz attacked a nob out of nowhere, they’d not only have to deal with the nob but probably a load of his boyz protecting him too. Here though, Jaggedteef was attacking Nogrok and if Nogrok managed to kill Jaggedteef in self-defence then that was just how it went for the nob.

Nogrok lashed out with his knife, bringing it back around to slash at Jaggedteef’s face. With his free hand Jaggedteef caught Nogrok’s wrist, stopping his swing in mid-arc. Jaggedteef scowled at Nogrok. His voice was as serrated as Nogrok’s knife.

‘I been waiting to krump you.’

Nogrok glared back. Jaggedteef’s grip tightened around his throat and the nob lifted Nogrok off the ground; still Nogrok managed a brief reply before the passage of air into and out of his lungs was completely exhausted. ‘Same.’

Nogrok had his Catachan blade back but that didn’t mean he’d done away with the other cuttas he had. He’d purposely kept Jaggedteef’s gaze on the massive blade. It was imposing and easily held attention, especially the attention of orks, whose only interest outside of killing things was the weapons used to do it. While Jaggedteef was distracted, Nogrok slipped a second knife from his belt and rammed it upwards. Jaggedteef did not have a third arm with which to catch this strike. Nogrok drove the blade straight up under Jaggedteef’s chin. It punched easily through the soft flesh there and continued upwards, cleaving his tongue in two and then piercing the roof of his mouth, coming to a stop only when the hilt slammed into the underside of his jawbone.

With his eyes wide from shock, Jaggedteef’s grip on both Nogrok’s wrist and throat relaxed. Nogrok dropped, anticipating the outcome and landing on his feet. The nob grabbed at the knife sticking out from the bottom of his head. With no hesitation Nogrok launched forward. Jaggedteef swiped at him, but at the last moment Nogrok changed direction.

Nogrok had thought this through many times. To get to be a nob you had to kill a nob, but killing a nob was easier said than done because they were, by definition, bigger and stronger than other orks. The answer had been clear to Nogrok for a while. To kill a nob, you needed to remove those advantages. He’d long needed an opportunity to get Jaggedteef in a fight no one would interfere with. He’d needed to be ready, to have a plan in place. And he did.

Nogrok slashed at the back of Jaggedteef’s knees, cutting through the sinewy strands of tendon beneath his green skin. Jaggedteef’s legs collapsed, and he dropped with a jolt to his knees.

Nogrok kept moving, circling quickly around Jaggedteef. That was the first issue dealt with – the nob’s size. A growl escaped Jaggedteef’s scowling face as he pulled Nogrok’s knife free from his jaw and used it to slash at the Blood Axe moving around behind him. Nogrok managed to hop back and arch his body so that Jaggedteef’s wild swing passed in front of his stomach.

Nogrok might have cut the nob down to a more manageable size, but he still had the second issue to deal with – Jaggedteef’s overwhelming strength. Even wounded as he was, a single strike from Jaggedteef would be enough to end this fight. Nogrok knew there would be no holding back at simply knocking him unconscious this time. Jaggedteef would pummel him into fungus paste.

Keeping his eyes on Jaggedteef, who was turning quickly to track him for another attack, Nogrok reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out the next step in his plan. His ’urty syringe. If the painboy git who’d fleeced him for it was right, it should make Jaggedteef no more stronger than Nogrok himself was. Nogrok gripped the ’urty syringe tightly. He could only afford one dose with the zoggin’ daylight robbery price the painboy offered it for, and so he’d only get one shot at this. If he messed it up, he was as good as permanently knocked over.

Nogrok waited for Jaggedteef to lash out at him again. He jumped back, the knife Jaggedteef had pulled from his own jaw once again sailing past Nogrok. Close, but not close enough. Nogrok took his chance and launched forward, extending the ’urty syringe as he did so, leading with the long pointed needle. He landed the blow right in the flesh of Jaggedteef’s back. The end of the needle hit and at first Nogrok thought it had pierced easily, but then he saw the needle had snapped clean off near the body of the syringe. He heard snickering from somewhere in the watching crowd. Zoggin’ painboy, it had to be; he’d zoggin’ well sabotaged the needle.

‘Stupid git,’ Nogrok swore under his breath.

Jaggedteef swung and this time Nogrok was hit hard with a backhand that sent him flying across the rampart. He slammed into the battlement wall with a brain-loosening crunch. He dropped to the ground, barely conscious but lucid enough to know that he’d dropped his Catachan blade, but that he was still holding the syringe.

Jaggedteef clambered to his feet, stumbling once as his right knee gave out again, but he managed to stand eventually and stalk awkwardly towards Nogrok. He reached out and grabbed Nogrok around the throat again, snarling.

‘Now I’mma show you why they call me Jaggedteef,’ he said. He opened his mouth, revealing every one of his filed teeth. He leant forward and bit down hard on Nogrok’s left ear. He pulled his head back and ripped the lobe completely off in a tearing spray of blood. He spat the torn flesh onto the ground. ‘Bit by bit.’

Jaggedteef opened his mouth again, ready to chomp down on Nogrok’s other ear. Nogrok moved quickly, shoving the syringe into Jaggedteef’s mouth and jamming it as far back into the nob’s throat as he could. He slammed his other hand on the plunger at the rear of the syringe and injected the purple goo directly into Jaggedteef’s gullet.

He didn’t get very far before Jaggedteef bit down with all the tremendous force of his massive jaw muscles, cutting the syringe in two and shattering the glass cylinder. Half the purple ’urty stuff inside sprayed out onto the ground, but at least the other half had gone down Jaggedteef’s throat. The nob coughed and spluttered but maintained his grip on Nogrok’s throat with one hand while he grabbed at the broken syringe in his mouth with the other. He pulled it clear and spat out purple slime, dragging his fingers along his tongue to clear off shards of glass. Nogrok struggled to break free from the still-superior strength of the nob.

Nogrok watched Jaggedteef’s face. The nob’s eyes widened as he felt the change, his sudden inability to squeeze Nogrok’s neck into a squig noodle. In place of the usual potent rage in Jaggedteef’s eyes, Nogrok saw panic. It seemed he’d stumbled upon perhaps the one thing in the galaxy that could strike fear into the heart of an ork nob: the loss of their terrific strength.

Nogrok struggled hard, mustering all the strength he had, and managed to kick against Jaggedteef, breaking his grip. Jaggedteef was accustomed to fighting with brute strength, overwhelming his victims in seconds. He had no idea how to win a fair fight.

Nogrok slid to the side, ducking out from under the nob’s imposing frame. He darted for where his Catachan knife had fallen to the ground, grabbed it, and turned back to Jaggedteef. He had to be quick, before the effects of the ’urty syringe wore off. The nob lashed out at Nogrok with a hooking punch, a swing that would ordinarily have levelled Nogrok, but he raised his free arm in an attempt to block the strike. The two orks’ forearms connected, smashing against each other. Nogrok braced himself and, as he’d hoped, stopped Jaggedteef’s blow.

Jaggedteef, on the other hand, was shocked at the result and stared, stunned at the fact that Nogrok was not splattered across the rampart. Nogrok took the opportunity to jab his Catachan knife into Jaggedteef’s stomach. He dragged the blade all the way across the huge ork’s torso. When he reached the opposite side, Nogrok pulled the weapon free; as the serrations caught, he extracted not only his blade but also a large percentage of Jaggedteef’s internal organs. With a slurping sound and a stench not unlike an overfilled ork toilet, Jaggedteef’s guts spilled across the rampart of Outpost Four.

Jaggedteef stared down at his insides, seeming to take a moment to notice that they were now on the outside. He grabbed at them, attempting to shove them back in so he could get on with the fight. Orks could survive some horrendous injuries. Given the correct care Jaggedteef might have even been able to survive complete evisceration of a third of his insides but, as he stumbled forward trying to collect his guts, Nogrok made sure no one would have the chance to patch him up by leaping forward with the Catachan knife again. This time, he stabbed the nob right through the eye socket and into his brain not once but six times, ripping the ork’s brain into mush. As Nogrok pulled his blade free for the last time, panting his exertion, he stepped back and let the body of Nob Gruk Jaggedteef drop with a thump.

‘Told you I’d get you, you git.’

The orks were quiet. Nogrok hadn’t expected celebration from the onlooking Deathskulls – he was a Blood Axe after all – but still, that had been a proper fight and a nob had been krumped, and that usually drew more of a reaction than silence deader than Jaggedteef. Nogrok looked around. Most of the greenskins just looked shocked. Nogrok’s eyes eventually fell on Warboss Gutstompa. Jaggedteef had been one of his most trusted nobz, but the warboss didn’t seemed overly concerned that he was dead. If he was weak enough to have his guts spilled on the floor, then he wasn’t worth being a nob after all.

‘You fink you is a nob now?’ Gutstompa asked.

Nogrok shrugged. ‘I killed one, didn’t I?’

Gutstompa walked over to Jaggedteef’s body. The warboss nudged the fallen nob with the end of his enormous armoured foot. ‘Yeah. Looks like you killed Jaggedteef, but it weren’t a proper fight, was it.’

‘What?’ Nogrok said. ‘I killed ’im, ain’t I?’

‘You had to give ’im that purple juice, didn’t ya,’ Warboss Gutstompa said, returning his attention to Nogrok. ‘Needed to weaken ’im or whatever, didn’t ya. I can’t ’ave no nob of mine be an ork wot needs to weaken stuff ’fore they fight.’

‘I killed ’im,’ Nogrok said. ‘Since when does it matter ’ow I did it? Ain’t no rules ’bout fightin’. Winning’s winning, ain’t it? Nothin’ wrong with usin’ Mork’s own kunnin’. Ain’t that right?’ Nogrok directed this last question to all the watching greenskins. ‘I said’ – Nogrok spoke louder when they didn’t answer – ‘you kill a nob, you get to be a nob, ain’t that right?!’

‘Yeah.’

‘S’pose.’

‘Nah, not when you couldn’t beat ’im one-on-one.’

‘Nogrok cut ’is guts out still, didn’t ’e? Proper good dat was.’

A flurry of voices fired up from the crowd, most in favour of Nogrok’s statement, but many not. Gutstompa eyed Nogrok. He growled, a sound of annoyance but also of resignation.

‘All right,’ Gutstompa said, ‘dis is it then. I still think you is unorky the way you did in Jaggedteef, but you did do ’im in, I can’t say you didn’t. So, you needs to do somethin’ else to prove you got wot it takes to be a nob in dis warband. What you gonna do?’

‘Killin’ humies is orky, ain’t it?’ Nogrok asked.

‘Yeah,’ Gutstompa said, ‘course it is. Proper orky.’

‘Right and none of you lot ’ere ’ave even killed a humie since we been waitin’ ’ere. If I go and kill a humie then I get to be a nob, and I get to do things my way.’

‘Yeah, all right. You go out dere in da jungle and kill a humie and bring me back its ’ead and you can ’ave wot you want.’ Gutstompa smiled. ‘But you gotta go alone.’

‘Fine,’ Nogrok said. He stared at Gutstompa. ‘I is best alone.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN

NOGROK

Nogrok lived up to the ghost ork nickname as he moved wraithlike through the jungle. With refreshed camouflage paint and his fungus brain focused on the task, carrying nothing but a small – by ork standards at least – slugga hanging from his belt, and his Catachan knife gripped in his hand, he had set out to find and kill one of the humies that had been sneaking around the outpost.

Nogrok was a sneaky ork, much more naturally inclined to subterfuge and the kunnin’ arts than most greenskins, so he was always going to find his way to the kommandos, those orks that appreciated that type of thing. But even when he was surrounded by other orks who wanted to be sneaky, it was from the humies that he’d learned how to be proper sneaky.

He knew it was the Catachans out here, the best humies at being sneaky. At least he hoped the humies were Catachans. Killing one humie didn’t seem like much, but killing one Catachan was a big deal – a bit like killing a nob. They were always together, always doing good taktiks, and they were proper tough. The thought of trying his kunnin’ skills against the Catachans was too good to pass up.

He’d get to show Gutstompa too. He’d prove he could do what none of them had managed to do and kill one of the Catachan humies and bring his head back to show the big git. Nogrok had killed one of them before and he’d do it again.

He wasn’t sure where the humies were, but he knew they had to be close. They’d cut the lights to the humie base and Nogrok knew what that meant: an attack was coming, and the humies had to be close enough for that. They’d be hiding in the jungle somewhere nearby.

As Nogrok moved around the edge of the jungle on the northern side of the outpost he found, a short distance into the cover of the trees, a series of holes and a trench cut into the ground, as if someone had been trying to dig something up. Near one end of the trench Nogrok looked inside to see a thick cable buried underground. He crouched down to take a closer look and could see the cable had been cut through.

It didn’t take a mekboy to realise this cable ran straight to the humie base and must have been the power for the big lights, and probably everything else there too. The humies had been here. Nogrok wouldn’t be able to track them through the jungle. He knew the Catachan humies wouldn’t make it that easy, but he knew the direction they were probably heading – back towards the humie city in the west – so Nogrok started in that direction, moving as fast as he could without making too much noise. He was the hunter now. He had to catch up to the humies.

All he needed was one.

What he found was two.

Maybe it was luck or maybe Mork was smiling down on Nogrok. Nogrok had revered Mork much more than Gork for as long as he’d existed, always praising him to other dumb gitz who thought Gork was best, so it was about time Mork finally did something for him.

He’d been hunting less than an hour when ahead of him, barely visible in the dark foliage, he spotted two humies. They spoke quietly, trying to stop their voices from carrying, but Nogrok was close enough to hear.

‘Thorn,’ one of the humies said, ‘I can hear your movement from up there. I told you to move back to camp with sound discipline.’

‘Lieutenant,’ the other humie said, ‘the orks will never hear us. They’ll be too busy stomping around and yelling at each other.’

‘I don’t care, trooper, I told you to go silent, so you go silent.’ The humie’s voice sounded like a nob trying to keep from blowing his top. ‘You’re a Jungle Fighter so act like one. We don’t get complacent. Doesn’t matter if you’re worried about the greenskins or not.’

‘Yes, lieutenant.’

‘Good. Hold here to put some distance between us, then move with full sound discipline.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The nob-humie moved away and Nogrok could see the other humie waiting where he was. Nogrok smiled. That humie had been part right and part wrong. He might not have been moving through the jungle as quietly as Nogrok knew the Catachan humies could, but he wasn’t exactly being loud either. He was probably right that most orks wouldn’t have noticed him.

Nogrok had seen some of those Deathskulls gitz so wrapped up in an argument over whether one of them had bet the other one two bags of teef or three bags of teef that he could throw a baby squig further than the other one, that both of them failed to notice an actual explosion as humie bombers flew over the top of them and dropped massive bombz. He was also wrong, though, because Nogrok had heard him. Nogrok had heard him and so that humie should definitely be worried about greenskins. That humie should be worried about him.

Nogrok moved with all the stealth he’d learned, his Catachan knife held in a steady grip in front of him. He moved slowly, sidestepping to manoeuvre around behind the humie, keeping his eyes fixed on the shape in the darkness.

Nogrok slowed as he saw the humie move. He was only a few steps from him now. He paused, stopping midway through parting a drape of hanging vines, when he realised the humie was lifting a weapon. In a flash of light he saw the humie had a small burna pistol in his hand, and Nogrok stiffened as he thought the humie was about to spin and shoot incinerating fire in his direction. Instead, the humie used the pilot flame on the end to light a cigar.

Nogrok relaxed. He was a little disappointed. He’d been ready for the challenge of killing a Catachan Jungle Fighter, but this one was not on his game. Still, that wasn’t going to stop Nogrok from cutting his head off. Like Warboss Ripspitta used to say, you snooze, you get krumped.

In any normal jungle the thick vegetation concealed a lot, especially from the air, where it was difficult to see through the thick cover of the tallest trees – the canopy on Gondwa VI was even worse, an almost impenetrable blanket of rolling green when viewed from above. But Nogrok was sure Gork and Mork could still see him. Moving up on this humie so stealthily as to be undetected was kunnin’ enough for Mork for sure, and what came next was brutal enough to please Gork. Nogrok was an ork that managed to please both aspects of orkiness in a way that few truly mastered.

Nogrok crept up behind the smoking humie in silence – not ork silence, which was often far further from noiselessness than they thought, but actual, proper silence.

He readied his blade, took that last stride quickly, and launched with a motion so fast that it would have impressed a Catachan coiling death cobra.

Nogrok clamped one green palm tightly over the humie’s mouth to stifle any noise. The humie grunted in shock and attempted to call out, but Nogrok was already drawing his blade across the humie’s windpipe and his muffled shouts ended as gurgling red bubbles pouring out his gouged-opened neck. Proper kunnin’ attack.

Next came the proper brutal bit. Nogrok pulled his Catachan knife free and plunged the blade into the humie’s back. Again and again and again. He relished the slice and tear of the blade going in and out, in and out, ripping the humie’s flesh and insides to shreds.

The humie flopped to the ground. Nogrok was unsure exactly when he’d died, but he was proper krumped. Nogrok slammed the knife down on the humie’s neck with a strike powerful enough that it sheared straight through muscle, sinew and spine. He grabbed the short-cropped humie hair and tugged, pulling the humie’s head off.

Nogrok lifted the head to stare at it. The humie still looked shocked. Should have been paying attention, shouldn’t ya! A trickle of blood pattered down from the ragged neck onto the jungle ground. Nogrok sheathed his Catachan blade and stuck his fingers out beneath the trickle of warm crimson blood. He let some splatter onto his fingers and then painted it in stripes over his face. He bent down and picked up the bloody cigar from the ground. It had gone out in the blood and mud, but Nogrok stuck it between his teeth anyway and walked off through the jungle back towards the humie outpost, where Warboss Gutstompa would be waiting, as would Nogrok’s promotion.

As dawn approached, light began returning to the jungle. Nogrok moved through the trees, passing the spot he’d prepared before he’d left to kill the humie just in case he had to kill something else.

It didn’t surprise Nogrok when he emerged from the treeline and immediately came face to face with six Deathskulls boyz waiting for him. He’d expected Gutstompa to do something like this.

‘Mornin’,’ Nogrok said, ‘you lot goin’ on patrol?’

The frontmost Deathskull and the largest of the boyz was Grink, one of Jaggedteef’s most loyal gitz and a wannabe nob in his own right. Grink growled under his breath. ‘Nah, not patrol, just waitin’.’

‘Oh yeah, and wot ya waitin’ for?’

‘You obviously, ya git,’ Grink said. ‘I thought you was supposed to be smart.’

‘Not smart,’ Nogrok said, ‘just sneaky. Bit like Warboss Gut-stompa’s tryin’ to be sneaky sendin’ you out ’ere.’

‘I ain’t said Gutstompa sent us,’ Grink added hastily, but orks, as a species who existed solely for war, were terrible at lying.

‘Course Gutstompa sent ya, none of you bloody gitz do anythin’ without Gutstompa shovin’ his mitt up your rump and wigglin’ ya about like a puppet.’

Grink’s face bloomed with anger. ‘You goin’ the right way for a krumpin’! We out ’ere coz of wot you did to Jaggedteef.’

‘No you ain’t. You think you shoulda been next in line to be nob after Jaggedteef, Grink, and coz I krumped dat git you is worried I is gonna take ’is place. Dat’s why you ’ad no problem comin’ out ’ere to krump me when Gutstompa told ya to. Probably told ya you would be made nob when I was a dead ’un, right?’

Grink’s face almost glowed in the still-purple early morning light, though he said nothing. He said nothing because Nogrok was right.

‘And the rest of you gitz,’ Nogrok said, gesturing at the remainder of the Deathskulls boyz, ‘you is ’ere coz you’d rather ’ave Grink as ya next nob ’stead o’ me.’

None of them said anything. Most of the clumps of fungus they called brains raced with the amazement that Nogrok had figured everything out so fast, like he was a weirdboy or somethin’.

Grink growled again. ‘Whatever. Let’s just get ’im.’

The Deathskulls ran at him and Nogrok turned and ran back into the jungle.

‘The git’s runnin’ away!’ Grink roared.

Nogrok’s feet pounded against the ground. He ripped through ferns, blasted through branches and batted hanging vines aside with reckless abandon. It wasn’t easy to run from a bunch of Deathskulls wanting a scrap, but he had to fight the Gorkiness and stick with Morkiness right now. He had to reach his preprepared spot with enough time and with enough distance between him and the Deathskulls.

He kept going, putting himself at a safe remove before stopping. He turned back. Grink and his boyz were approaching. Nogrok pulled the detonator from his pocket. He’d spent a bunch of his teef on the ’urty syringe he’d used on Jaggedteef, and this was what he’d spent the rest on. When the Deathskulls reached the location where he’d buried the explosives, he pressed the big red button on the detonator.

Nothing happened.

He pounded the button a series of times with his thumb but there was still nothing. Zoggin’ stupid mekboy had sold him a dud! As bad as painboyz those mekboyz. Hard to know whether this one had done it on purpose like that zoggin’ painboy had or whether it was just a standard mekboy balls-up. Either way he supposed it didn’t matter. The bloody thing didn’t go boom.

Nogrok chucked the detonator towards the approaching orks in frustration. It hit one of the Deathskulls on his blue-painted forehead and bounced straight off. Nogrok pulled his Catachan knife, readying himself for a fight. He wouldn’t be able to hold off six other orks – that’s what the zoggin’ mine was supposed to do – but he wasn’t going to go down without a scrap.

Nogrok watched as the Deathskulls charged, planning which of them he’d take down first, when shapes dropped from the jungle canopy. Ork shapes. Camouflaged shapes. Flik, Nukka and Ruktug, the remaining Blood Axe kommandos, leapt from the treetops and landed on the rear three orks, slamming them into the ground and quickly cutting their throats, sawing through far enough to make sure they were dead.

At least Nukka and Ruktug managed to drop their targets to the ground; it was a little more difficult for Flik, who didn’t quite weigh enough, but he made up for it with the vigour he used in cutting his ork’s throat. As the front three orks turned to see what had happened behind them, Nogrok was already running forward. He slammed into Grink, running him through with his Catachan blade before pulling it out and slashing at his face, almost cutting the top half of his head off. The last two orks found themselves suddenly outnumbered four to two. They were put down with a quick, no-nonsense kommando slaughtering.

‘Thanks, boyz,’ Nogrok said.

‘No worries, boss,’ Flik said. ‘We overheard Warboss Gutstompa tell that lot to come after ya, make sure you didn’t come back. Couldn’t stand for dat.’

‘I was thinkin’ he’d do something like that,’ Nogrok said. ‘I had a plan. Probably woulda been better if I killed ’em all meself, then I coulda dragged all the ’eads back an’ really showed Gutstompa.’

Flik looked from Nukka to Ruktug and then back to Nogrok. ‘Still can do that, boss, we ain’t gonna say nothin’. Just make it look like ya killed ’em all yourself.’

‘Bit sneaky ain’t it?’ Nogrok said.

‘Well, we’s kommandos ain’t we?’

Nogrok nodded. ‘’Spose so.’

‘What was yer plan anyway, boss?’ Flik asked. ‘How was you gonna krump all of them boyz?’

With a concussive blast that shook the foundations of the jungle around them, rattling tree trunks, dislodging branches from the canopy overhead and causing the local birdlife to burst into flight for miles around, the ground where Nogrok had buried his remote mine erupted in a blooming dome of dirt, mud and plant life, showering debris down on them and peppering the undergrowth all around.

‘Huh,’ Flik said. ‘Shoulda done that earlier, boss.’

Stupid zoggin’ mekboyz.

CHAPTER TWENTY

NOGROK

Nogrok walked up to the humie base dragging a sack along behind him. A myriad collection of orks watched from the rampart, staring down over the battlement at Nogrok crossing the clearing alone. Warboss Gutstompa was among them. Nogrok had spotted him before leaving the treeline, but now he made sure not to look up at him. He wouldn’t give the giant git the acknowledgement. The observant among the orks noticed the sack Nogrok pulled with him was made from torn and mouldy ork-sized clothing decorated with the distinctive blue of Deathskulls and they suspected what was coming. Most didn’t, though, because they were about as observant as a pile of squig turds.

Nogrok reached the outpost and pushed his way through the crowd of orks that had gathered, shoving their way forward to see whether or not the Blood Axe had managed to kill a humie after all.

‘Oi! Ya get one?’

‘Nah, no way ’e did, stupid git.’

‘What’s in the bag then, you git? Callin’ me a git!’

‘I ain’t callin’ you a git, I’m callin’ ’im a git.’

Nogrok ignored the orks, who parted far more easily for him than they ever had before. He hoped it was because they suspected he was about to become a nob and not because they were eager for him to get up to Gutstompa to see the monstrous warboss put those mechanical legs of his to good use in squashing him.

Nogrok climbed the stairs to the roof of the building, lifting the sack so that its contents didn’t knock against each step on the way up. Gutstompa was there to meet him as soon as he emerged at the top.

‘Ya made it back then?’ the warboss grumbled, not at all disguising how bloody disappointed he was.

‘In the green flesh, boss,’ Nogrok said, then lowered his voice. ‘No thanks to you.’

‘Wot?’

‘Nothin’,’ Nogrok said. ‘Here ya go, I got a present for ya.’ Nogrok reached into the sack and pulled out the head of the humie he’d killed. The Catachan humies never had much hair so he had to pull it out upside down with two fingers in its dried-out mouth and his thumb on its chin. Nogrok tossed the head towards Gutstompa. It hit the ground and rolled, wobbling, coming to rest against one of Gutstompa’s overly large shining metal boots.

The warboss reached down and picked up the decapitated humie head, examining it as if to make sure Nogrok wasn’t trying to trick him.

‘If that ain’t enough for you to give me Jaggedteef’s place as a nob then here, dis should do it.’ Nogrok turned the sack upside down and six ork heads plummeted out and rolled across the ground, the six heads of those Deathskulls Gutstompa had sent to kill him.

Gutstompa’s wide jaw pulsed as he ground his teeth. ‘Fine. You’s a nob. Nogrok Sneakyguts.’

All around him, orks bellowed at the promotion of a new nob.

‘WAAAGH! Sneakyguts! WAAAGH!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

TORVIN

Torvin woke in chaotic confusion.

His body had yanked his consciousness back to the surface in a panic as it suddenly found itself unable to breathe. Torvin thrashed, his groggy mind thinking at first that his hastily erected tarpaulin had collapsed on him, but he quickly realised there was too much weight on him – the weight of a person.

Torvin’s tarpaulin shelter was torn off him, draped branches, carefully arranged vines and all. A Catachan trooper was standing above him. The jungle had turned to lighter greys and desaturated greens as night neared its end. It was light enough for Torvin to recognise that the trooper towering over him was the same one who had caught and eaten that lizard-like creature before they had left for that ill-fated mission to cut the outpost lights.

‘What are you doing?’ Torvin stammered.

‘They call me Poison Guts, did you know that, soft-worlder?’ the trooper said, leaning close to Torvin’s still-startled face. ‘Holt ‘Poison Guts’ Fletcha.’ Torvin saw the flash of a blade before his face; it was coated in a viscous slime that dropped from the top along the sharpened edge. ‘Why do you think they call me that?’

Torvin swallowed. ‘Probably something to do with what I’m guessing is poison on your knife.’

‘Yeah, it’s an easy one, ain’t it?’ He turned the blade admiringly. ‘One stab in the guts from this and you’ll be on the ground seizing, shaking and frothing bloody bubbles from your mouth in five minutes. Dead in six.’

‘That doesn’t sound great.’

‘No, it’s pretty much the worst way to go.’

Torvin nodded, not knowing what else to say.

‘There’s another name you should know too,’ Poison Guts continued. ‘Trooper Mort Setarn. He was my friend and you got him killed. Those orks would never have found us if it wasn’t for you. You’re a risk to all of us. Give me a reason why I shouldn’t plunge my poison dagger into your belly right now?’ Poison Guts leant forward even closer until their foreheads were almost touching. ‘One reason, soft-worlder, that’s all – you got one?’

Something shifted in Torvin. He almost felt the realignment within him, the flick of a switch. He pushed himself up until his forehead pressed into Trooper Fletcha’s. He spoke through teeth gritted so hard it was lucky they didn’t crack. ‘Go on then,’ Torvin snarled. It wasn’t anger, at least not just anger; it was something much more complex than that. There was fear and hopelessness and anger and desire. ‘Do it then. Do it!’

Poison Guts Fletcha pulled back from Torvin, surprised. He hesitated and it was long enough for Torvin to swing his head up, slamming his forehead into Fletcha’s nose. Torvin felt a crunch beneath the blow, a sound that just a week earlier he might have found disconcerting but now found somewhat satisfying.

Fletcha reeled back, blood spurting from his nose, his top lip already swelling. Torvin grabbed for the Catachan knife that Sappa had given him. His hand found the handle and he swung it at Fletcha with an anger-fuelled viciousness. Though Fletcha was rattled by his suddenly shattered nose, his Catachan instincts flared, and he dodged back. Torvin’s knife blade slashed through the space in front of him, catching Fletcha on the forearm. The tip dragged a long red line through the skin.

Fletcha’s disadvantage lasted only a moment before he brandished his knife in a fighting stance. His eyes locked on Torvin’s. His body was coiled like a spring, ready to release its potential energy for combat. Torvin knew he was going to die here, but he didn’t care any more. The life he thought he was going to lead was gone. Ted Torvin accepted he was already dead, and that made all the difference.

He charged at Fletcha with at least some of the fearlessness he’d seen in both the orks and the Catachans. Fletcha watched him come. He took a backstep – not from fear, but to put himself in a better position. He did not swing his poisoned blade, at least not yet; he swung his fist. It connected with the side of Torvin’s face, knocking him stumbling. But Torvin was not deterred. He slashed with the knife again, a wide deadly arc, which Fletcha twisted to avoid, but Torvin again drew a line of blood, this time across the Catachan’s shoulder. Torvin watched, ready to try to fight as Fletcha rose again, but it was not a scowl of anger he saw on Fletcha’s face. It was a smile. His front teeth stained red with the blood that flowed freely from his nose, he smiled.

‘That’s enough.’

Torvin looked to the voice and saw Colonel Aldalon watching on. Fletcha looked at his commanding officer as well, and for a moment Torvin wasn’t sure what he was going to do. Then he pulled a cloth from his pocket and wiped the poison from the blade of his knife. He looked back at Torvin and nodded, as if in acknowledgement. Torvin, so shocked by this change, nodded in return.

Torvin looked back at Colonel Aldalon expecting a scowl of reprimand, but instead the colonel was eyeing him with a face of passive granite. The colonel looked down at the blade in Torvin’s hand.

‘Clean that and then put it away,’ Aldalon said. ‘We don’t draw blades on each other.’

‘He was going to kill me,’ Torvin stammered.

‘You’d be dead if that’s what he really wanted,’ Aldalon said. ‘From where I was standing, he didn’t look like the one who wanted to kill.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ALDALON

Colonel Aldalon watched the jungle. Dawn was breaking over the canopy, but little light had penetrated its depths yet. At best the shadows were slightly less than at their darkest, tinged green with what light could fight through the dense upper layers.

Objectively, their raid on the outpost had been a success. Aldalon and Squad Sappa had managed to cut power and disable the lumen towers. Lieutenant Trast and Squad Dram had used the cover of darkness to recover a generous supply of explosive ordnance from the minefield. They had achieved their objectives and yet it had been far from good enough. Squad Sappa’s skirmish with the orks had resulted in two casualties and then, on rendezvous, Trast had informed him that Thorn was missing. Instead of preparing for the next phase of their mission Aldalon had to send Trast and a small party out to find a missing trooper. He ground his teeth with frustration. Not good enough for the Catachans.

Most people would have been unable to discern movement out there in the trees, between the mossy trunks, twisted limbs and gnarled vines, but most people were not Catachan, and even then, most Catachans were not Haskell Aldalon. He knew Lieutenant Trast was returning before even the Jungle Fighters watching the perimeter.

Aldalon moved to where Trooper Ryhorn was on guard. The trooper turned to look at the colonel, expecting some instructions or an order. Instead, Aldalon kept his eyes on the trees. After a moment he spoke.

‘Here they come.’

Trooper Ryhorn looked at Aldalon in surprise and then looked out at the jungle, thinning his eyes in time to catch sight of Lieutenant Trast emerging from the trees. He raised his eyebrows as he looked back at Aldalon, even more impressed by his commanding officer than usual.

Trast approached and nodded. Behind him, Trooper Crusel was carrying a body drooped over his shoulders. He bent in front of Aldalon and gingerly set the corpse on the ground. There was no doubt it was Thorn: he was wearing Thorn’s uniform and had a Catachan red bandanna tied around his bicep. The thing that made it more difficult to identify him was the fact that he was missing his head.

Aldalon looked up at Crusel. ‘I’m going to assume you didn’t just leave a piece behind, trooper?’

Crusel shook his head. ‘No, sir. Whatever did it took a trophy.’

Aldalon sniffed.

‘He was tail-end, sir,’ Lieutenant Trast said. ‘Last time I saw him I had to give him a dressing down over sound discipline. It’s possible he was taken by the orks.’

‘We would’ve heard that wouldn’t we, sir?’ Crusel asked. ‘The greenskins make a hell of a racket. Unless it was the ghost orks.’

Aldalon turned to Crusel. ‘What did you say, trooper?’

‘Uh, the ghost orks, sir,’ Crusel said. ‘You know the stories about ork kommandos. No way orks could move that quietly unless they were dead.’

Aldalon wanted to agree. He wanted to be certain there was no way an ork could sneak up on a Catachan Jungle Fighter and ambush them. He would have believed it once too. But the image of that ork attack on Karst jolted to the front of his mind once again. A whole squad of Catachans caught off-guard by orks in camouflage, striking without all the normal ear-splitting cacophony and booming war cries of a greenskin attack. Brant getting his throat deftly cut from ear to ear. The ork with different-
coloured eyes.

Aldalon pushed the thoughts away. He wouldn’t share his concerns about preternaturally stealthy orks prowling the jungle. Not because he thought his troopers would be afraid but because he wanted them focused on the task at hand, not giving in to the unknown – many good soldiers, even Catachans, had lost their lives focusing on stories and legends instead of what was right in front of them. He needed them to stay sharp but wouldn’t let the idea of ghost orks spread.

‘All right, Catachans, gather in,’ Aldalon said.

The two squads moved in and took a knee in front of him.

‘I don’t know what attacked Thorn, so everyone needs to be on their guard, but let’s be clear here – greenskins are dangerous when they charge in large numbers. They can’t take us in the jungle. We are Catachan Jungle Fighters. We own the jungle.’

The Catachans stared at him. They didn’t make a sound, but Aldalon saw the acknowledgement in their eyes.

‘Our next objective is to set up the orks with a feint into an area booby-trapped with the mines Squad Dram collected, wipe out as many as possible before we take the outpost. We’ll prep now, rest and then execute the attack once it’s dark.

‘And, be clear on something else – there are no ghost orks. I do not want to hear nonsense stories designed to scare common Imperial Guard. The Catachan Fifty-Seventh does not lower itself to the spreading of ghost stories. Greenskins are the loudest, most rambunctious, and most feral of the xenos enemies of the Imperium. Whatever they do, we will hear them.’

As if to punctuate his last words there was an almighty boom, a distant explosion from the direction of Outpost Four. Aldalon recognised it as the somewhat muffled detonation of an underground mine. He cocked an eyebrow as he looked at the troopers before him, his meaning obvious: I told you so.

The Catachan 57th were the only Imperial unit operating in this area – or at least they were supposed to be – so either the fools at headquarters had decided to send in another or the orks were fighting among themselves. If the greenskins were distracted with some internal dispute, then now would be a good time to act.

‘Get ready to move,’ Aldalon said. ‘Lieutenant Trast, Sappa and Dram, bring it in for briefing.’

The troopers moved off to prepare their equipment. They’d had little rest, some of them none, but Aldalon knew that sometimes you had to push hard. They could handle it. Lieutenant Trast, Sergeant Sappa and Sergeant Dram moved in close.

‘We’ll prepare the kill-zone where we planned, south sector, central approach, just inside the trees around the Outpost Four clearing. Dram, your squad will lay the demo. I want the mines on det. cord, not pressure triggered. Tonight, you’ll execute the feint attack, drawing as much ork attention as possible, pulling them back through the kill-zone. Once you clear the ambush zone you’ll establish as far-end security.’

Sergeant Dram nodded. No complaints about being given the most dangerous aspect of the task.

‘Sergeant Sappa, your squad will scout the best crossfire sight lines. You’ll be the attack element. When the greenskins hit the kill-zone, you’ll blow the demo and open fire.’

‘Sir,’ Sappa said. ‘We can handle the feint.’

Aldalon looked at her. He should have known it would be whoever was tasked with the safe job that would complain. These were Catachans and Learna thought she had more to prove than most.

‘You’ll do as ordered,’ Aldalon said.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good,’ Aldalon said. ‘Get your squads ready to move.’

The NCOs got to work quickly and Aldalon noticed that even the soft-worlder was ready to move out when the others were. He was still lugging his standard-issue pack around but had at least started leaving some of its contents behind. He’d finally realised that despite the instructions outlined in Munitorum manuals and The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer it wasn’t strictly necessary to carry spare underwear into battle – though on second thoughts perhaps most of the galaxy’s Guardsmen did need some spare undergarments when the shrapnel began to fly.

The Catachan fighters moved to the location Aldalon had determined for the ambush – the south side of the outpost. It was from this direction the main ork force had first attacked the outpost, which meant the defences in that direction were the most damaged. It was where Squad Dram had cleared the minefield and the fence and wall were now non-existent. It served as the most obvious direction for a real attack and provided the clearest retreat for Squad Dram.

At the ambush site Squad Sappa began eyeing their sight lines and preparing camouflaged firepits the length of the kill-zone while Squad Dram dug shallow holes under the wide-leafed ferns and undergrowth to lay the mines.

The entire time this was happening Aldalon had those sharp senses on high alert; he heard the occasional shout from the orks inside the outpost but little other than that. There was no movement; there didn’t seem to be any greenskins outside the outpost at all.

The two squads soon reported in. The ambush area was ready. Aldalon looked in the direction of Outpost Four, even though it was hardly visible through the trees.

‘See you tonight,’ he muttered.

The Catachans left as quietly as they’d come. Just as on their way to the outpost, on their return to camp they encountered no patrols and not even any randomly wandering greenskins. It seemed as though the greenskins were keeping themselves holed up in the outpost now. That wasn’t a bad thing; hopefully it meant the few actions they’d taken against patrols and in shutting off the power had forced them to change their behaviour. It was a military rule almost as old as the ambush that whichever force was dictating changes in the other’s tactics had the upper hand.

Just as long as tonight, when the Catachans launched their feigned withdrawal, the orks would be willing to come out after them. Aldalon was sure they would. There was only so much the greenskins, or any xenos race, would change their behaviour.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

NOGROK

Nogrok ignored the stabbing from the brambles he hid within. Though ignored wasn’t quite the right word because to ignore them he’d have to have felt them in the first place. His hard skin and natural orkish resilience to pain meant he didn’t feel the jab of the sharp spines at all as he crouched, motionless, watching the Catachan humies as they moved through the jungle.

Nogrok couldn’t keep the grin off his face as he watched. It really was the same sneaky Catachan humies from that stinkin’-hot desert planet – he recognised their boss, the dark-skinned one with that big smashin’ power fist on his arm. Nogrok’s favourite humies were here just like he’d hoped. He’d killed one of ’em, and now that he was finally in charge he could lead a sneak attack against them, see if he couldn’t kill a few more. He wanted to show these humies just how much he liked ’em by sneakin’ up and cuttin’ their heads off.

Nogrok had scouted ahead, leaving the rest of the boyz back closer to the humie base, not trusting that they wouldn’t alert the humies to their presence as they moved with their big clodhopper feet making a ruckus. He had no concerns about the few remaining Blood Axe kommandos with him. Flik, Nukka and Ruktug had grown proper kunnin’ but the new Deathskulls he had under his command needed a lot of work to beat some Mork into ’em. Still, in the way of orks everywhere, some of them had already started to adopt the ways of their nob. There were a bunch that were acting like they might take well to sneaking even if they were Deathskulls gitz.

As Nogrok watched them, the Catachans came to a stop. They spread out, disappearing into spots all around the area, and Nogrok realised this was the humie camp. Proper sneaky it was too. All the spots where the humies sat or lay down were hidden with camouflage. Nogrok would have to remember that. He knew about camouflage for yourself or hiding if you were going to jump out and krump something, but hiding a whole camp, that was proper good taktiks.

But now Nogrok Sneakyguts knew where their hiding spots were and the humies didn’t know Nogrok Sneakyguts knew. That meant Nogrok had the elephant of surprise. He slowly retreated into the jungle. Time to get his new mob together.

Nogrok moved back to where he’d left his boyz. He spotted them well before they spotted him – at least he spotted the Deathskulls; his kommandos were doing the proper thing and staying well hidden.

‘Cor!’ one of the Deathskulls remarked when Nogrok emerged from the trees in front of them. ‘You just bloody appeared outta nowhere, boss! No wonder you called Sneakyguts.’

Nogrok looked at the ork: Gront, he thought his name was. He hadn’t bothered learning the names of most of the Deathskulls gitz before, but he supposed he should now. ‘Yeah well, you lot is my boyz now, so we need to get your guts sneaky too. Gonna have to wait on that though coz I been followin’ da humies. They were gettin’ ready to do some ambushin’.’

There were some grumbles about sneaky humies not knowing how to fight – more attitudes Nogrok would have to adjust with some good ol’-fashioned nob teaching by threatening to krump ’em all.

‘That don’t matter now though coz I seen somethin’ else,’ Nogrok continued. ‘I seen where the humies is hidin’. I seen the humie camp and we gonna attack ’em.’

‘Wot ’bout Gutstompa?’ one of the other Deathskulls asked.

‘Wot ’bout him?’

‘Shouldn’t we tell ’im if we gonna attack da humies?’

‘Nah, listen, we ain’t got time. We go now. Wot’s he gonna do, be mad we krumped some humies? Warboss Gutstompa can’t argue with that.’

The Deathskull nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s right, boss.’

‘We got more boyz than the humies out there and they don’t know we is comin’,’ Nogrok said. ‘We gonna use proper taktiks too, so listen careful. My Blood Axe kommandos gonna lead a group of Deffskulls each. They gonna make sure you do your best to not make a bloody racket movin’ through the jungle. We gonna surround the humies. We gonna make a circle around the humie camp and move in quiet like. Then we gonna attack ’em from all directions ’fore they know we is comin’.’

‘But, boss,’ another of the Deathskulls said, ‘if we in a circle, we gonna be chargin’ at each other, ain’t we?’

‘We ain’t chargin’,’ Nogrok said. ‘Remember, you part of Sneakyguts’ mob now. We sneakin’ in and then we start the killin’.’

‘Right, right,’ the Deathskull said, nodding. ‘Got it, got it. But then if we ain’t chargin’, boss, when do we yell Waaagh!?’

Nogrok looked at the Deathskulls boy and spoke slowly and seriously. ‘We don’t yell Waaagh! until you already krumpin’.’

The shock was evident on the faces of the Deathskulls, their red ork eyes growing wide at what sounded like complete crazy talk, like utter strategic incompetence being levelled before them.

‘We don’t yell Waaagh! until we already krumpin’?’ the Deathskull called Gront said, voicing the confusion many of them felt. ‘If we don’t yell Waaagh!, how do the humies know they is about to get krumped by us? How do they know orks is best?’

‘They don’t know we comin’, they ain’t supposed to know we comin’,’ Nogrok said. ‘That’s the point of bein’ sneaky, ain’t it.’

Nogrok looked at the Deathskulls in front of him, focusing particularly on those that, despite his trying to choose the most kunnin’, were still heaps more Gork than Mork.

‘We is kommandos. You is gonna be kommandos. There ain’t many kommandos in orks because most orks ain’t good enough. They gonna tell you, you ain’t orky, or sneakin’ about ain’t proper fightin’. They only sayin’ that coz they isn’t good enough to be with us. They proper jealous.

‘What Gutstompa and all them other big bosses don’t want ya to know is chargin’ in and yelling Waaagh! is easy, any ork wot’s green can do that. But we do what only kommandos can do. Every ork knows there is two gods, but they only think ’bout Gork. We is the orks of Mork and he is kunnin’ but he is brutal.’ Nogrok leant in, making it clear what he was about to say was important, a secret, real proper meaningful. ‘You wanna know why we don’t need to yell Waaagh! so the humies know orks is the best? Coz when we sneak up on ’em and krump ’em ’fore they know what’s comin’, then we just showed ’em we is best. We proved to ’em orks is best.’

Most of the Deathskulls stared, but Nogrok saw something flicker behind their eyes. The ork brain was, quite literally, like a sponge and in that way it tended to soak up what it was told without too much critical thinking. It wasn’t exactly like one of the speeches the other nobz or warbosses would give about crackin’ skulls and cuttin’ up whatever they were about to fight, but they felt something rising in them, the same desire to do what their nob was asking.

Plus, Nogrok hoped they were realising that being sneaky was orky after all.

‘You wiv me?’ Nogrok asked, adding this because now seemed like the time he needed to win over his new crew; probably they needed something quick to cheer at, that might help get some noise out of their system.

‘Yeah!’

‘We wiv ya, boss!’

‘For Nob Sneakyguts!’

The Deathskulls responded as expected and Nogrok chalked this up to good leadership. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Let’s move out and kill some humies.’

‘Yeah! Waaagh!’

‘Oi!’ Nogrok said. The few Deathskulls who’d got a little too worked up went quiet, lowering their heads.

‘Sorry, boss.’

‘Let’s move out and kill some humies,’ Nogrok said again, pausing for effect, ‘but do it sneaky.’

Nogrok led them through the dense jungle in the direction of the humie camp. He was, for at least a short while, pleasantly surprised by how well the Deathskulls did at moving quietly through the jungle. Of course, he wouldn’t call them stealthy. Compared to the Catachan humies or even Nogrok’s kommandos they might as well have been firing their shootas into the air, but compared with the standards of ordinary orks Nogrok had to give them credit where it was due.

That was until one of them tripped, cursed, tried to catch himself on a hanging vine which wasn’t firmly attached to anything and pulled it down, shaking the whole damn jungle canopy and causing birds to fly squawking from the treetops. When the ork stood back up, Nogrok didn’t give him time to look sheepish; he was on him like a flash of green, slamming him back against a tree and holding his bright Catachan knife to the Deathskull’s throat. Nogrok felt the gentle push down the length of his knife as the ork swallowed. He could smell the pungent stink of fear coming off the ork. It was a little surprising, but it smelled good, and it felt good to know he could cause fear in other orks now. Nogrok felt the eyes of the other boyz on them. He needed to make an example here.

‘What do you think you is doing, you git?’ Nogrok snarled, pushing the knife harder against the ork’s green throat. ‘We is goin’ to the humie camp. They probably heard that innit? You do somethin’ so stupid as that again and I’ll krump you meself.’

The ork nodded. ‘Sorry, boss.’

Nogrok pulled the knife away, feeling the ork relax. Nogrok smacked him in the nose with a quick punch just for good measure. ‘Don’t say sorry, ya git, just do better.’

‘Sorry, boss.’

Nogrok punched him again before letting him go and turning away. ‘Flik, Nukka, Ruktug. On me. We gonna go recon-o-sance the humie camp. The rest of you, wait ’ere.’ Nogrok stopped, turned back and reiterated. ‘I mean that. Don’t even move.’

The three kommandos joined Nogrok and he led them into the trees further towards the humies. With just the four kommandos moving through the jungle, Nogrok realised exactly how much work he had to do with the Deathskulls.

When they were a short distance from the location of the humie camp Nogrok stopped, crouching down. He squinted, peering through the suffocating green, unable to see the humies but knowing they were there. This was the spot. He signalled for Flik, Nukka and Ruktug to move up beside him. The three kommandos crept through the undergrowth to move in beside their nob. Nogrok pointed, indicating the camp through the trees ahead. The kommandos looked ahead as well, trying to see any sign of movement. Nogrok was sure they couldn’t see anything either, but he gave them a moment to take in the area before standing and signalling for them to follow.

When they had rejoined the Deathskulls boyz, who he was glad to see had not moved, Nogrok stopped and turned to his fellow Blood Axes. ‘You three see that spot we was at?’

‘Dat was da humie camp?’ Flik asked.

Nogrok nodded.

‘Mork’s teef, they is proper hidden.’

Nogrok nodded again. ‘You remember where it is?’

The kommandos nodded.

‘Reckon we can find our way back, boss,’ Nukka said.

‘Good,’ Nogrok said, coz you three is gonna be me squad leaders, and for me plan to work we need to split up. I need to know you can get back there. Like I said, you is each gonna take a squad of boyz, keep ’em as quiet as ya can and circle round the humies. Then we gonna attack at the same time.

‘Flik, your squad gonna come straight on from this direction. Nukka, from round that way. Ruktug, from that way. I gonna take the last group right around and attack from the other side. You’re gonna get yourself as close as you think you can without the humies spotting you. It’ll take me longer to get into the right position so you lot is gonna wait, and then when you see me lead my squad in to attack the humies, that’ll be your signal to get to krumpin’ too.’

After organising his new Deathskulls into four squads, which was a little like herding squigs, Nogrok allocated a squad each to himself, Flik, Nukka and Ruktug and sent them off to encircle the humie camp. After his example threatening the Deathskull, the boyz with him moved like they were walking on broken glass – sure, they were hulking great squiggoths walking on glass, but at least they were trying to be careful.

Still, Nogrok gave the humies a wide, wide berth, much wider than he would have if he was moving just with the kommandos. As a result, it took much longer to get into position than it would have had he taken a more direct route.

What Nogrok hadn’t anticipated was that despite the Deathskulls trying to maintain some sneakiness, the longer they had to keep it up, the more difficult it got for them. Towards the end of the approach on the humie camp the Deathskulls boyz began to lose grip on their admittedly already very slippery attention span. They snapped sticks, rustled leaves and banged through hanging vines, which shook in long waves all the way up into the canopy.

The final straw was when one of them – it was bloody Gront too – having lost concentration completely and forgotten what it was he was supposed to be doing, actually zoggin’ well spoke.

‘Oi, boss, are we there yet?’

Nogrok rounded on him, but it was too late. A las-shot cracked through the jungle, blew through the side of Gront’s face and hit the tree behind him in a burst of superheated sap.

‘Ah, zog,’ Gront said, the words even more garbled than usual when an ork spoke because the side of his mouth had been blown open in a cauterised mess. ‘Sorry ’bout dat. I forgot about tryin’ to be qui–’

Whichever humie had fired through the twisting green of the jungle had obviously corrected his aim because the second las-shot took the top of Gront’s head off in a melted burst of boiling flesh and charred bone, leaving the acrid smell of burnt ork floating in the air. Gront thumped back, crushing a fern beneath his large dead mass. Nogrok sighed. He should have known he was asking too much of the Deathskulls gitz to manage a sneaky attack already.

Nogrok raised his Catachan knife and screamed in his most Gorky way.

‘WAAAAAAAAAGH!’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TORVIN

Torvin sat staring down at the Catachan knife in his hand, the one he’d been given by Corporal Sappa. He turned the knife from side to side, rotating it as he ran a piece of cloth wet with Departmento Munitorum-issued blessed blade-cleaning balm along its length, wiping off the dried blood and the dirt that had stuck to it.

He rubbed his thumb unconsciously at the patches of red still spotting the back of his knife hand too, picking the chunks off with the underside of his fingernail. His hands and arms were covered in streaks of greenskin gore with hard outer husks that had to be scratched off. Unlike human blood, which seemed to lose most of its iron tang as it dried, the smell of ork blood seemed to grow more intense, the blood inside the dry outer shell fermenting and growing rancid. Torvin got a whiff of the acidic stench every time he knocked a piece of crust free from his skin.

‘Soft-worlder.’

Torvin looked up at his name – at least the name he’d grown familiar with. Sergeant Sappa was watching him.

‘What’s on your mind?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘It’s different doing it like that, isn’t it?’ Sappa said. ‘Up close and personal, not at a distance like most Guardsmen are taught to do it. I can see how it might be hard the first time.’

‘It wasn’t hard for you, sergeant?’ Torvin asked.

‘Ha. I’ve lived this life since I was a child.’

‘Right.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Sappa said. ‘Get some rest and be ready for tonight’s assault on the outpost.’

Sappa turned to walk about, going to check in on the rest of the squad, though Torvin was sure they wouldn’t need the same pep talk.

‘That’s the thing,’ Torvin said, almost before he realised he was going to speak. ‘I am fine. I thought I’d feel something after that – horror at having killed or elation at having survived – but I don’t really feel anything.’

Sappa let out a single, breathy laugh. ‘That’s the secret, soft-worlder. You think great Guardsmen call upon some deep part of their humanity in war, love for the Imperium or love for the Emperor or whatever, but they don’t. The legendary regiments of the Imperial Guard, like the Catachans, fight with inhuman ferocity because that’s what we are – inhuman. The war changes us.’

‘What makes us different from the greenskins then?’ Torvin asked.

Sappa smiled a crooked smile and shook her head as she walked away. ‘You’re almost there, soft-worlder, almost.’

As Torvin sat cleaning off ork blood he wasn’t sure which was worse, intense hatred for the enemies of mankind or unfeeling coldness.

‘WAAAAAAGH!’

Torvin’s philosophical musings were interrupted by the very subject matter he was considering: the battle cry of orks filled the air. It seemed the time had come for more cold, uncaring war. The shout had come from the opposite side of the wide Catachan perimeter. The flank in that direction was covered by the troopers of Squad Dram.

‘Orks!’ Torvin heard the shout and recognised the voice as Sergeant Dram’s. ‘Breaching cover, twenty yards, my twelve, fire at will!’

Torvin, hidden beneath the low covering of his hole, couldn’t see what was happening behind him, but he could hear the eruptive cracks of las-shots and plasma rounds as the Catachans opened fire. He could smell it too: the stench of wet jungle plants instantly burning as leaves, trunks and branches were struck by stray lines of concentrated las-beams. He could even feel it, the faint static buzz as humid air was ionised.

Torvin pulled himself forward until his head and chest extended out from his camouflaged hole. He turned to look. Even in the now clear morning light the jungle was still wrapped in green-hued shadows, but they soon burst into bright life with the streaks of iridescent red/orange las-shot and punches of blue plasma. There was, predictably, an answering cacophony of smoke-billowing, flame-belching, booming ork shootas. Almost nowhere in warfare was there such a distinct difference as between the elegant straight lines of lasgun fire and the eruption of ork rounds leaving their barrels and somersaulting through the air like misshapen cannonballs.

‘Squad Sappa!’ came Sergeant Sappa’s voice from nearby. ‘Squad Sappa, gear up and stand to! Break cover and move to support Squad Dram!’

Torvin saw movement coalesce from the hidden places in the jungle around him as Sappa’s squad did as ordered, breaking from their camouflaged positions with lascarbines, pistols and Catachan knives in hand, ready to support their fellow troopers in the direction of the ork attack.

Torvin slid back into his hole to grab his weapons. He saw, on top of his pack where he had left it earlier, the fold-worn pict of Melina. This time, as he slipped his Catachan blade into its sheath and took hold of his lasgun, he left the pict behind.

Torvin clambered out of his scrape and to his feet. He saw Sergeant Sappa standing nearby, her lascarbine primed with an audible hum. Poison Guts Fletcha climbed out of a nearby hole. Fletcha hadn’t bothered with his lascarbine at all; instead he gripped only his Catachan knife with its blade, even longer and more viciously saw-toothed than most, dripping with some purple poison.

‘Come on,’ Sappa said as her squad emerged from hiding. ‘Support the far line.’

Squad Sappa moved through the trees, weapons up. Those with their lascarbines raised began firing at motion in the trees, but even though it was morning now, it was still difficult to pick out targets through the dense foliage, and their firing slowed.

Torvin raised his lasgun and fired several blasts into the trees as well before realising it was more than just difficult to find a clear shot at an ork, it was also too treacherous; it would be too easy to inadvertently loose a shot at a friendly. The image of Lieutenant Gernson being blown away by Trooper Norsten’s shots flashed into his mind.

He lowered his lasgun, slipping the sling over his shoulder, and pulled out his Catachan blade. He was about to follow the others of Squad Sappa who had already made the decision to charge forward and engage the orks in hand-to-hand combat, when the tree beside him burst, showering him with dust and splinters of wood. The booming shot, obviously that of an ork weapon, had come from behind him and the accompanying war cry confirmed it. Torvin stopped and spun, seeing what Colonel Aldalon obviously saw in the same moment.

‘Squad Sappa! About-turn!’ the colonel roared, appearing like a rolling storm, bursting into view as if the jungle had exploded around him in a hail of shattering glass.

‘Squad! Turn!’ Sergeant Sappa echoed. ‘They’ve surrounded us!’

Torvin turned to see Aldalon rushing towards the newly attacking orks. His power fist crackled with energy as he roared. Torvin watched as he swung it forward, punching a large ork through the chest and sending a spray of xenos ichor and shattered spine out its back.

Nearby, another trooper – Torvin thought her name was Braker – was not fast enough to turn to the newly arrived threat and a greenskin slammed into her from behind, hacking her down with its rusty blade.

‘Soft-worlder!’

Torvin responded to the shout and turned to his right to see Poison Guts Fletcha brandishing his knife as more orks came from the trees nearby. These ones were charging from the side. Sergeant Sappa had been right. They weren’t just outflanked by orks, they were completely surrounded.

Torvin glanced back to see Lieutenant Trast, Colonel Aldalon and Sergeant Sappa all engaging orks pouring in from other directions. Beside him, Poison Guts roared and charged at the orks in front of them. Torvin, in an instinctual motion that would have seemed impossible just days ago, maybe even hours ago, charged with him.

One moment he saw Fletcha heading for the enemy and the next Torvin’s boots were slamming into jungle mud, his legs slashing through low ferns right beside him. He had seen the Catachans fight orks enough now to know they needed to at least pair up. Fletcha shouted what Torvin thought might have been ‘For Catachan!’ as he charged. Torvin joined in with a bellowing war cry of his own, but what escaped from his mouth had no meaning. He roared as if he’d known battle his whole life.

Fletcha reached the orks first. He ducked as an ork swung its large-bladed axe, and then launched forward with a thrust of his poisoned knife, jabbing it into the relatively soft flesh of the ork’s belly. The ork raised its axe again but stopped, its brow furrowed. Then it buckled forward and vomited hot, red blood and green bile on the ground before dropping.

‘One to me, soft-worlder!’ Fletcha yelled.

Torvin charged up beside Fletcha and was met by an ork bursting from the trees. It opened its mouth and bellowed something that sounded like the word ‘Die!’ in a shower of spittle, raising its huge cutta.

Torvin lifted his Catachan blade and slashed at the green-skinned monster. He did not have his pict of Melina in his pocket and in that moment, if time could have been stopped and he was asked, Ted Torvin would not have been able to remember what she looked like, or what his mother and father had looked like, or what it was he thought he liked about Skadi. He couldn’t remember anything about his old life because, in that moment, this was home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

ALDALON

‘Squad Sappa! About-turn!’ Aldalon roared as soon as he realised what was happening.

He spun from where he’d intended to support Squad Dram and saw the greenskins thundering out of the trees. They were coming from all directions. All of them were dressed in rudimentary camouflage, black paint in patches or slashes across their face, and where they had been decorated in the bright blue of the Deathskulls, their clothes had been covered in jungle mud and leaves to dull the colour and hide it from view.

Just as Aldalon had feared, the greenskins were adapting. They were learning, or at least, with what Aldalon understood of ork society, there was one ork somewhere that was learning and influencing the others. He thought of that camouflaged ork on Karst, the one who had taken Brant from him. The one with the different-coloured eyes. This was the one, Aldalon was sure of it.

The orks stormed in with a roaring, blustering charge now, but they’d managed to get close enough to launch a surprise attack. They had got close enough that Colonel Aldalon and the 57th Catachan Jungle Fighters were not ready for them. If he weren’t about to smash into the whirlwind of combat, the thought that greenskins had surprised Catachans yet again would have been enough to make Colonel Haskell Aldalon nauseous to the pit of his usually rockcrete guts.

‘Squad! Turn!’ Aldalon heard Learna echoing his orders to her squad. ‘They’ve surrounded us!’

Learna Sappa was strong, as strong as any Catachan, as strong as he had been as a newly minted sergeant, but he heard the panic in her voice. They’d all underestimated the orks.

Aldalon leapt over a series of the low, wide-leafed ferns, each in a single stride. He roared, jumping again as he reached the first ork to come near him. With an audible crackling-hum and a tingling sensation that worked its way from his palm, down to his fingertips and up his arm, Aldalon’s power fist burst to energetic life, and he struck with the intensity of all his anger and frustration. His hatred of the orks, his anger at himself for letting them get to his troops – all of it added weight to the blow.

The power fist landed square in the centre of the ork’s chest and buried its way inside. He ripped it out with a spray of hot gore and kicked the ork over with his heavy boot.

Aldalon caught Learna’s eye briefly before she dashed forward with blade in hand. To one side Lieutenant Trast was engaged in combat and to the other he saw Poison Guts Fletcha ramming his poisoned knife into the belly of a greenskin. Beside him, much to Aldalon’s surprise, Trooper Torvin was howling like a mad banshee and slashing at an ork with the blade Learna had given him.

The ork that Torvin hacked wildly at leant back to dodge the blow. He still had to teach that soft-worlder how to fight. If an ork could dodge a blow it must have been blatantly telegraphed. As the ork prepared its own retaliatory swing, Aldalon watched Poison Guts deftly swoop in, deflecting the blow into the dirt, protecting Torvin from the powerful strike.

Catachans were raised from birth to have each other’s backs because nothing else on that world would protect them. Still, Aldalon knew that of all the Catachans, Poison Guts would have been happy to see the soft-worlder take an ork blade to the cranium. Fletcha had not allowed that to happen, though.

In return the soft-worlder leapt onto the ork, who was still bent over from the deflected swing, landing on its back. As the ork roared and stood to full height, Torvin wrapped his arms around its neck and held on like a rider trying to break in some wild mount. The ork thrashed, trying to throw Torvin free but the soft-worlder held on, dangling down the greenskin’s back. Torvin wrapped his legs around the ork’s waist for leverage, shoved his fingers up the creature’s overly large nostrils for grip with one hand, and then slashed his blade across its throat with the other.

Blood sprayed out in an arterial fountain before Torvin, still holding on against the creature’s now desperate bucking, hacked at the ork’s throat again and again until he was through the spinal cord and the greenskin’s head hung on by little more than green sinewy flesh. As the dead ork finally collapsed forward, Torvin rode it to the ground.

‘That’s the way, soft-worlder!’ Aldalon heard Learna call from nearby, having also witnessed Torvin’s actions.

As Fletcha reached down to him, Torvin pulled his fingers free from where they had been jammed deep in the ork’s nostrils and wiped the snotty slime on his trousers before taking the Catachan’s hand.

‘You can’t claim that,’ Fletcha said as he pulled Torvin to his feet. ‘You’d be bleeding out on the ground if I hadn’t swooped in.’

‘Groxshit I can’t,’ Torvin said in the no-nonsense, no-argument way of a Catachan Jungle Fighter before he turned back to face more oncoming orks. Despite himself, Aldalon smiled.

Then he turned his attention, and his crackling power fist, to the destruction of more orks. As a veteran who’d served the Imperium through some forty years and countless battles against almost all the major threats that beset it, Aldalon, even in the centre of carnage, could take in the greater battle in a way that most confronted with the slavering, snarling visage of greenskin madness could not.

Even as he slammed his power fist into the face of one greenskin and then immediately spun to backhand another on the side of its head, caving its skull in with the ferociousness that had earned him the Hell Fist moniker, he scanned the scene. The jungle was as dense with fighting as it was with foliage. Flashes of green-skinned mayhem met streaks of red-bandannaed insanity. It was difficult to get as much situational awareness as he would have liked in the glimpses he could spare, but it was clear to Aldalon that a handful of Catachans – he couldn’t be sure exactly how many – were dead. The only positive was that there were clearly more dead orks.

‘You lot! We fallin’ back!’

Over the clash of weapons, the shouts and the guttural roars Aldalon heard a single ork voice cut through the fray. It was coming from the direction of Squad Dram. For it to be that loud and clear it had to have been the leader of this group.

Aldalon smacked aside an ork that was coming for him, ending its howling war cry as his power fist smashed off its entire jawbone, and headed in the direction of the ork calling the orders.

He sped up as he saw some of the orks begin to pull away. Not all of them were listening though; at least half the remaining orks were still locked in ferocious fighting with his troops and showed no sign of being willing to listen to an order to retreat. Still, the fact that an ork had even ordered a retreat, and that some of the greenskins were listening, was another major alteration in greenskin behaviour and Aldalon needed to see the ork who was pulling these strings. He suspected he knew which one it was, and he wouldn’t let him escape. Not after what he’d done.

Aldalon turned to where Lieutenant Trast fought nearby. ‘Hold here, lieutenant!’

Trast looked at him as more orks breached the trees. Aldalon felt that same anger, and now Trast was giving him the same look, as when they had been out on reconnaissance together, when Aldalon had lost his composure.

‘Sir,’ Lieutenant Trast said. ‘That side of the perimeter is holding. We need you here, this is where the greenskins are outnumbering us. This is where they could hurt us!’

‘We taktikal retreatin’, boyz!’ the leader yelled again, and Aldalon decided. He began moving in the direction of the ork’s shouts.

‘Sir!’ Trast called. ‘We need you here!’

‘I said hold here, lieutenant,’ Aldalon said as he hurried away through the trees. Trast could handle that flank of the battle. Aldalon could not let that ork escape him.

‘Right, stuff ya then, ya gitz – the rest of ya, come on!’

Aldalon quickened his pace, slamming aside one of the orks. When he burst through a particularly dense thicket of trees Aldalon finally caught sight of the retreating xenos. The one in the centre, the largest of them, turned at the sound of Aldalon careening through the jungle. Aldalon stopped. He and the greenskin locked eyes.

It was him. Just as he’d known it would be. He was looking at the distinctive eyes of the ork that had killed Brant. The ork that seemed to be single-handedly changing the way orks behaved. The ork he was about to single-handedly slaughter.

The ork looked back at Aldalon with what he was sure was similar recognition. To confirm Aldalon’s suspicion the greenskin raised its hand, which held what Aldalon immediately recognised as a Catachan blade, and put the point to its forehead in a kind of salute.

‘Colonel! Your six!’

Aldalon spun by instinct. An ork was bearing down on him. He ducked to the side to dodge the ork’s blow before reaching out and grabbing the creature around the throat with his power fist, squeezing until he felt the pop of the windpipe and the crunch of spine. When he turned back, the ork with the red and green eyes and those that had followed him were gone. The only thing that stopped Aldalon from charging off into the jungle after the mysterious creature was another shout from behind him. A shout that drained his anger in an instant and left him full of a sudden cold.

‘Trast is down! Lieutenant Trast is down!’

Aldalon hurried back towards Trast’s last position, ignoring the battle around him. His troopers were still locked in combat with the last of the orks who hadn’t retreated, but the Catachans clearly had the upper hand now. They would deal with the rest. Aldalon had eyes only for the fallen body of his lieutenant. He dropped to his knees beside him and rolled him over onto his back. He’d been run through with a savage ork blow right in the centre of his chest, his ribs shattered and caved in. The life was already gone from Trast’s face as he stared up at the canopy overhead, flecks of jungle dirt stuck to the surface of his unmoving eyes.

‘Sir.’

What had he done?

‘Sir.’

He would tell himself later, and the rest of the Catachans would believe, that Aldalon had abandoned Trast in that spot because he had full confidence in his lieutenant’s ability to hold his own. But in that moment Aldalon knew the truth: he had been reckless in his pursuit of the ork with the mismatched eyes. His anger at all orks, and that one in particular, had clouded his judgement again. This time, though, it had resulted in one of his best and most loyal veterans lying dead in the jungle dirt. The orks had managed to get inside his head in a way he couldn’t allow. He was a Catachan colonel. He needed to pull himself together. Anger was a weakness only one step above fear. He was Catachan. There was no weakness in the Catachan.

‘Father!’

Aldalon looked up from Lieutenant Trast’s body, finally realising that Learna was yelling at him. He wasn’t quite sure how long he’d been there, kneeling beside Trast, but the battle was over. He stared up at his daughter for a long moment, too long, before he shifted back into the correct frame.

‘Action report?’

‘The orks that didn’t fall back have been dealt with. The area is secure. Perimeter re-established.’

Aldalon looked around. As Sergeant Sappa had said, the Catachans had not only finished off the orks but had already returned to defensive positions in a standard, albeit tighter, perimeter. ‘Casualties?’

Sappa looked at the body splayed out in the mud in front of Aldalon. ‘Including Lieutenant Trast, five dead. Two wounded.’

‘Who?’

‘Braker, Krall, Holler, Krill and’ – she paused – ‘Lieutenant Trast are KIA. Whirler and Crusel are both wounded but still fighting fit.’

Aldalon nodded slowly and then sighed. ‘Get their red.’

Sappa held out her hand. Four red bandannas were clutched tightly in her fist. ‘Already done, sir.’

Aldalon reached down and slipped Trast’s bandanna off his head, then held his hand out. Sappa laid the rest on his open palm. Aldalon squeezed them tightly, muttering a common Catachan ode to the dead under his breath, and then rose to his feet, stuffing the bundle of red cloth in his pocket. He would carry these deaths with him just as much as he had Brant’s, he promised himself that. But this time he would not let it turn to anger, to weakness that cost lives. He would not fail these Guardsmen again. He would not fail in his duty as a leader of the greatest Imperial Guardsmen the Emperor was fortunate to have fight in His name.

He was Catachan Colonel Haskell Aldalon and he would use death as it was intended for the people of Catachan: as motivation to become better, more resilient, more deadly. It was not to be used as fuel for anger or sadness. It was only fuel to be stronger. It did not matter that his son had died. Countless sons and daughters of Catachan had died. He would not let himself be controlled by that any more, nor would he let his feelings of loss hold back his daughter. She deserved the right to be Catachan too; to live, to fight and maybe to die in service of the Emperor, the Imperium of Man and the glory of their world. That was the love he needed to have for her. Letting her be Catachan.

‘Catachans, form up.’

The Guardsmen that remained pulled in close to their colonel.

‘You can all hear this. You all need to hear this. You all know my son Brant was killed in our last encounter with the orks on Karst. I have let that affect me. I have been fighting angry and as a result I have made mistakes. That was wrong of me. It is not the Catachan way. We fight hard but we fight clear of mind. Sergeant Sappa?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You are right to have accused me of holding you back. As my daughter, as my only other child, I have been concerned for your well-being after Brant’s death. But you deserve to forge your path and serve the Emperor however He chooses, whether that be a long life of war or a short one. Effective immediately you are field-promoted to acting lieutenant.’

‘Sir, I–’ Sappa began, but Aldalon held up his hand. He wasn’t sure whether she was going to thank him or argue with him. Either way it didn’t matter. The decision was made.

‘We’ve been hit hard by the greenskins, but we are going to finish this now. We are taking back Outpost Four because it belongs to humanity and because that is what we have been tasked to do. The plan remains the same – feign an attack and lead as many orks as possible to be slaughtered like a line of grox in the abattoir.’

The Catachans around him were steel-faced and calm, but Aldalon could feel the anger radiating off them. He needed to harness that and use it to end this fight.

‘Lieutenant Sappa, you will be leading the feigned attack with your squad. Sergeant Dram, your squad and myself will make up the ambush element. We’re executing now. Any questions?’

The troopers watching on, including newly promoted Lieutenant Sappa and Sergeant Dram, were silent. They already knew the plan of how they would take back the outpost, or perhaps, more than that, they were shocked that Hell Fist Aldalon had admitted fault.

‘Good,’ Aldalon continued. ‘There’s one other thing to do before we move out. Soft-worlder?’

Torvin looked up, surprised to be addressed directly. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Stand up and come here.’

Torvin did as he was bid, moving towards the colonel until he was standing in front of the watching Jungle Fighters. He walked hesitantly and Aldalon saw his throat bob as he swallowed nervously. He likely didn’t know whether he was about to get praised, torn a new arsehole or killed on the spot. Luckily for him it was the former.

‘Stop looking like you’re facing the firing squad,’ Aldalon said. ‘You fought well. You’re still a soft-worlder but at least you didn’t piss yourself this time. You’re a soft-worlder who beheaded an ork and maybe, just for a moment, you made a greenskin piss themselves instead. Because of that, you’re going to need one of these.’ Aldalon reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the red bandannas that had been taken from the dead Catachans. He held it out and Torvin stared down at it. ‘Go on, soldier, take it.’

Torvin reached out and took the bandanna, folding it over into a strip and then wrapping it around his forehead, tying it tight at the back. Aldalon looked at him, stone-faced, unsure really whether he had done the right thing.

The red bandanna was a simple object and yet it meant a lot to the men and women of Catachan – it represented what it meant to be more than a simple Imperial Guardsman and to be one of the greatest warriors the Imperium had at its disposal. This trooper from Skadi was not one of those, but in the last battle he had shown growth and bravery, and had stood by Poison Guts – who had threatened his life – as if he were one of them. So, for now at least, he could be an honorary Catachan Jungle Fighter.

Aldalon took in the expressions of the troopers around them. They all watched Torvin with faces of unreadable granite. He worried they thought he was giving that away too easily, but he was relieved to see that when he returned to take a knee, several troopers patted Torvin on the shoulder. Aldalon had headed into the jungle with a mind that retaking this outpost would be a simple matter, an easy guerrilla activity, but he had underestimated the orks – the one with the two-toned eyes, and his ghost orks in particular – and now he needed all the Catachan Jungle Fighters he could get. More importantly, he would not, under any circumstances, let down the men and women under his command again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

NOGROK

‘I sent ya out with way more boyz than that, ya bloody useless git,’ Gutstompa roared when Nogrok re-entered the humie outpost. ‘I knew ya should never ’ave been made a nob, and don’t fink I don’t see all the ones that didn’t come back are Deffskulls, ain’t it? All you Blood Axe sneaky gitz is ’ere. You tryin’ somethin’ to take over, ain’t you?’

A crowd of Deathskulls had gathered, all the boyz that were left in Gutstompa’s small warband. Not that there were that many now. Gutstompa reckoned he’d been looting and preparing and waiting on reinforcements to roll down and take the humie city, but as far as Nogrok could see, all he’d done was lose boyz. None of the orks at Outpost Four, even the most intelligent like Nogrok himself, could count high enough, but if they could they’d know there’d been two hundred and fifty-three orks in the original attack against the outpost and now there were sixty-four.

The loss of three-quarters of one’s fighting force would be staggeringly unacceptable for any army in the galaxy, but Warboss Gutstompa barely gave it a thought. As far as he was concerned, he was gonna be warboss of a proper Waaagh! He was just waiting for Gork and Mork to send enough boyz his way.

The remaining sixty-four orks gathered around as Nogrok returned, pushing and shoving to get to the front. Gutstompa had obviously riled them up, getting them ready for a fight.

Gutstompa himself stood in the middle of the orks, blocking Nogrok’s entrance, his head and shoulders ducked down and hunched forward to fit under the ceiling. His thick metal-framed legs were spaced wide, planted on the grey-painted rockcrete like massive pillars sunk into the ground to support a bridge, or maybe an entire space port.

‘I ain’t tryin’ to take over, boss,’ Nogrok said. ‘Trust me, I don’t want a bunch more useless Deffskulls anyway. The only reason it was Deffskulls that didn’t come back was coz it was only Deffskulls what were the stupid gitz wot didn’t listen to my orders.’

Warboss Gutstompa growled. ‘What orders?’

‘I told ’em to do a taktikal retreat so we could get ready for another attack, but dey didn’t listen, so now they is krumped fungus for the jungle.’

Nogrok heard shocked gasps from the onlookers. Gutstompa’s face twisted in more disgust than Nogrok thought he’d ever seen on an ork’s face.

‘You ran away,’ Gutstompa said, not even sounding all that angry, just shocked or amazed, ‘from a fight.’

‘No,’ Nogrok said. ‘I ain’t run away, I taktikally retreated. It’s different, ain’t it.’

‘Don’t seem no different to me,’ Gutstompa said. ‘You ran away. Orks don’t run from a fight.’

‘And dat,’ Nogrok said, unable to stop himself, ‘is why we keep losin’. Orks ain’t never gonna be the best if we don’t win.’

‘Orks is best!’ Gutstompa roared. ‘Orks is best at fightin’!’

‘Orks could be best at fightin’,’ Nogrok said. ‘But da big problem is orks ain’t best at winnin’.’

Gutstompa’s shock and disgust had given way to proper anger now. ‘You is talkin’ unorky zoggin’ words!’

‘No I ain’t,’ Nogrok said. ‘I is tellin’ the truth. Us orks could krump the whole galaxy if we used taktiks like the humies or the pointy ears or the fish ’eads. Don’t you wanna be warboss of the whole galaxy, boss?’ Nogrok was very deliberate in adding this last part because of course Gutstompa wanted to be warboss of the whole galaxy; every warboss wanted to be warboss of the whole galaxy. Zog, every ork down to the scrawniest snotling probably wanted to be warboss of the whole galaxy. It had the desired effect too. Gutstompa was suddenly a lot calmer, at least a little calmer, as his mushroom-brained thoughts turned to galactic domination.

‘The Deffskulls you give me needed to be weeded out anyway,’ Nogrok continued. ‘It’s like squig farmin’, ain’ it. You know how them snotling squig keepers wot breed up the squigs only keep the big ’uns or the fastest or the most tasty? Dat’s wot I is doin’, boss. The boyz wot got krumped was too weak or too stupid, not strong enough to win. Same thing ain’t it? Natural election.’

‘I ain’t gave you boyz to do whatever natural election you on about, Nogrok,’ Gutstompa said. ‘I oughta krump ya right now for messin’ up me boyz.’

Nogrok, still standing only to the shoulder of Warboss Kazkorg Gutstompa, was nevertheless now larger and bulkier than most of the orks watching on. He pulled himself to his full height and stomped to stand in front of Gutstompa.

‘I is Nob Nogrok Sneakyguts,’ he boomed – not shouted, but boomed, projecting his voice with orky power. ‘They was my boyz, and whether you like wot I asked ’em to do or not, I told ’em to do somethin’, they ain’t done it and they got walloped coz of it. You ain’t got grounds for krumpin’ me at all, boss.’

Gutstompa growled again, but this time it was a growl of acceptance. He had made Nogrok a nob and whether he liked it or not, Nogrok was right. If his boyz got krumped for not listenin’ to their nob then that was their own stupid fault.

‘You are gonna be–’

Warboss Gutstompa was interrupted by an explosion from outside. A concussive blast that reverberated through the walls of the humie base and caused a shower of dust to fall from the ceiling onto the orks standing and watching their warboss confront this new upstart nob.

Gutstompa spun to those orks nearest the stairs. ‘Go!’

Most of them looked at him blankly, which didn’t much surprise Nogrok because he was sure their minds were as blank as their faces.

‘Go and ’ave a look wot all dat noise is, ya gitz!’ Gutstompa roared at them.

Half a dozen of the orks dashed up the stairs, and moments later booming shots came from the roof. ‘Humies! Humies is attackin’!’

Orks moved in a flurry of excitement like feeding time in a squig pit. Gutstompa moved through the centre of them, shoving boyz aside to push his way through the crowd to the stairs.

‘Get outta me way, gitz.’

Nogrok tucked himself in behind the warboss and trailed along in his wake like a snotling following a massive war trukk. Gutstompa ploughed through the gathered orks and charged up the stairs to the roof.

Up on the rampart, Nogrok peeled off and saw the humie attack. It was smaller than he’d expected. Six of the Catachan humies were charging across the clearing. They’d already made it past the destroyed fence, almost all the way to the humie base, because just like every idiot warboss, Gutstompa hadn’t left any boyz on watch.

One of the humies was a little further back than the front five, crouching down with a rokkit launcher thing on his shoulder. A rokkit burst from the tube and flew towards the outpost with a long plume of smoke trailing behind it. That explained the explosion they’d heard from inside. Nogrok saw a smoking crater in the wall of the base where the last rokkit had hit and, because humie rokkits tended to go where they pointed them instead of wherever else they wanted to like ork rokkits, he could see the next one was going to hit the same spot.

Nogrok dived to the side, anticipating the result of the impact in a way that few other orks did. The humie rokkit slammed into the wall right at the already weakened point and erupted in a ball of black soot and a ferocious fireball. The wall burst inward, and an entire section of the rampart collapsed in a shower of broken rockcrete, soot, dust and ork swear words. The orks standing above the point of impact were blown to fragments by the concussive shock while most of those nearby were flung off the wall.

Warboss Gutstompa was standing near the destruction of the outpost’s wall, but the bulky warboss didn’t move his armoured feet at all. The front of the base collapsed in a landslide of rockcrete and debris, but he remained entirely still, staring out at the Catachans crossing the long grass towards him.

It was an orky truth universally acknowledged that bigger is better, red ones go faster and purple is the sneakiest colour. It was also well understood that a warboss could stand in the middle of the most outrageous scene of carnage and mayhem just like this and nothing, not a ricochet, not a fragment of secondary projectile, not even much in the way of splattered gore, would touch them.

So it was that Warboss Kazkorg Gutstompa stood, completely unharmed, with the end of his mammoth boots hanging over the jagged edge of the rampart. Lasgun fire began coming from the humies, zipping into the battlement and the occasional ork forehead. This was when Gutstompa’s face hardened and he lifted his own massive shoota.

‘Well,’ he boomed, ‘I can’t believe I gotta tell you gitz to start shootin’ back!’

The puny humie las-shots with their cracking zaps were joined by the much more satisfying – at least to green ears – booms of ork-built weapons, weapons that some crazed mekboyz had spent as much time optimising for peak noise level as they had for anything related to accuracy.

Nogrok watched the humies as the dirt around them started bursting into the air from shoota rounds slamming into the ground. The humies headed in the direction of a downed Deff Dread that had almost made it all the way to the humie base during the first ork attack. The Catachans dived behind the fallen Deff Dread. It had been blasted full of holes by the big humie guns but was still solid enough for the six Catachans to take cover behind as Gutstompa’s greenskins fired down at them.

Rounds pinged off the Deff Dread as the humies huddled behind it. They popped out to shoot their zappy lasers back at the orks occasionally, but mostly the only thing that came from the humies behind the Deff Dread was shouting. They were shouting at Gutstompa and his orks.

‘Come on, you green bastards!’ Nogrok heard one of them shout.

‘We’re going to kill you all!’ another of the humies yelled as they leant out from behind cover and fired three rapid shots. A Deathskulls boy further down the battlement took one of the shots right in the nose, the front of his face caving in and stuff bursting out the back. That was one of the different humies, the girl ones. Weird how there was two different types of humies. Even Nogrok didn’t know why they weren’t all just the same, like orks. What was the point of that?

Nogrok watched as Gutstompa finally snapped out of his tough, angry warboss pose and did exactly what Nogrok knew the humies wanted him to. Gutstompa, with the type of brutal roar that only a warboss could muster, leapt from the top of the wall, out over the destruction below, and landed with a ground-shaking thump on the grass. His huge mechanical legs hissed and sprayed as they absorbed the sudden force of his landing.

‘WAAAAAAGH! Come on, boyz! Let’s get ’em! There’s ’ardly any!’

At the call of their warboss, orks began to move. Some jumped from the rampart trying to emulate their boss with varying degrees of success – from those that landed in the rubble and crumpled as their very much non-mechanically reinforced legs snapped beneath them, to those that managed to land on something a little softer and stumble on after Gutstompa.

Most of the orks hurried down the stairs and were soon flooding out of the recently opened hole in the wall. Gutstompa was right that there weren’t many humies. Nogrok knew this wasn’t enough humies for a proper attack on the base. No matter what Gutstompa might like to believe, humies weren’t stupid, especially not the Catachan humies. Plus, Nogrok had watched the humies setting up for an ambush, and this felt a lot like what they might try to do to draw the orks into it.

‘Oi!’ Nogrok shouted. ‘Warboss Gutstompa!’

Nogrok had expected the enormous ork to completely ignore him, but to his surprise the warboss turned back to look at him; maybe being a nob gave him a little more sway after all.

‘Wot, you Blood Axe git? I is about to do fightin’!’

‘Pretty sure this is a trap, boss,’ Nogrok said. ‘Da humies are plannin’ somethin’ sneaky.’

‘You da worst nob I ever had. Dere’s ’ardly any humies there an’ loads of us boyz. If you is too scared to come fight, you can stay ’ere.’

‘I ain’t scared,’ Nogrok called down to the larger ork. ‘I’m tellin’ ya the humies are settin’ a trap. I seen ’em doin’ it. You wanna keep dis base, you should shoot ’em from ’ere. Don’t chase ’em into the trees.’

‘No humie trap gonna stop me, even if dey is tryin’ sneaky stuff like you love so much. You stay ’ere and miss da fightin’ whateva, but I ’ad enough of ya now. Nob or no nob I’ll be killin’ you when this is done.’ The warboss turned and called to the Deathskulls flooding out of the base. ‘Waaagh! Get ’em, boyz!’

As Gutstompa began to shout, Nogrok watched the humies start to move back. They kept the Deff Dread between them and the base, but they kept firing at the orks charging towards them. They were doing a taktikal retreat, Nogrok was sure of it, but this taktikal retreat was different. This was a taktikal retreat where the humies wanted them to follow. Then, as one of the humies tossed a grenade back behind them, they began to run.

‘Dey is running!’ Gutstompa yelled. ‘Charge ’em down!’

The humie grenade rolled over the ground but didn’t explode. Instead, it burst into sprays of thick grey smoke, so thick that it was immediately hard to see through. Nogrok smiled. He’d done that when they’d attacked the base. The humies were covering their escape. But they’d made sure the orks had seen the direction they were running. Thick-skulled Gutstompa was leading most of the boyz right into the humie ambush.

Nogrok’s Blood Axe kommandos stood around him watching, as still as he was, but Nogrok could tell the rest of his mob of boyz, those Deathskulls who’d actually done what he’d said in the attack on the humie camp, were just about vibrating with desire to charge with the rest of the warband. He could see the muscles quivering under their green skin. He held up his hand. ‘No,’ was all he said.

‘But Sneakyguts,’ one of the Deathskulls boyz who seemed the most jittery with the barely contained desire for violence said, ‘da warboss is goin’!’

‘Da warboss,’ Nogrok said, ‘is about to get krumped.’

There was audible shock from the twenty or so boyz standing with him – well, the Deathskulls at least; the Blood Axes couldn’t have cared less. But for the Deathskulls, Nogrok might have been their nob now, and most of them might have even been coming around to the idea, but he was still lower on the food chain than the warboss and just straight out saying the warboss was gonna get killed by humies was almost as bad as saying orks wasn’t the best or that Gork and Mork were weaklings.

‘Look,’ Nogrok said to the boyz, who’d actually started backing away from him like he was a weirdboy whose head was about to blow up, ‘da humies is probably gonna kill all them running down there.’ He waved his hand dismissively at the orks running with whoops and howls across the clearing after the humies. ‘You ’eard me. I tried to tell the warboss da humies was settin’ a trap, didn’t I? But ’e wouldn’t listen to me would ’e? Runnin’ off straight into a trap ’e is. Don’t matter how much an ork wanna fight, a dead ork don’t do no fightin’. I know most of you ain’t never thought ’bout it before, but if you ask me, the first step in fightin’ and bein’ da best ork is not bein’ dead, ain’t it?’

The faces of Nogrok’s boyz all showed the familiar expression of orks trying to jam a new idea into their mossy brains.

‘You Deffskulls is not Blood Axes,’ Nogrok continued. ‘I know dat. But you is kommandos now and part of bein’ a kommando is doin’ fightin’ a little different. For most warbosses, the thing they is best at is goin’ chargin’ off to krump stuff.’ The Deathskulls nodded. They weren’t sure ’bout all the rest of what he was saying but this was definitely true. ‘Problem is that sometimes, even though I know it seems ’ard to believe, chargin’ in and krumpin’ might not be the best thing.’ Nogrok tried to continue quickly again before too many ork brains broke. ‘Part of our job as kommandos is to do other stuff. We are the orks wot gotta think ’bout doin’ big strategiks. Sometimes we gotta try and tell the warboss when we think chargin’ and krumpin’ ain’t the best thing. They ain’t always gonna listen to us, like Gutstompa ain’t listened to me, but we still try. Then, we do da taktikal stuff, and the most taktikal stuff we can do right now is stay ’ere and hold dis base. We gotta try and stop da humies from gettin’ it back. You lot understand?’

Some orks nodded half-heartedly, others didn’t look so sure; some still seemed to be bouncing with unreleased fightin’ energy. Nogrok sighed. ‘We is guardin’ dis base or I is gonna smash ya, ya get that right, ya thick-headed gitz?!’

This time they all nodded their agreement with the bigger ork.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

TORVIN

Torvin’s boots pounded against the ground. He felt his ankle twist as his foot landed in a dirt hole left from the removal of some buried mine. He stumbled, felt the roar of the ligaments in his leg as they were stretched beyond their ordinary limit, but he did not stop, he could not stop.

Orks poured from Outpost Four after them, the largest and most ferocious leading the chase. Torvin didn’t risk turning and looking behind him, but he could hear them. They were charging after them roaring their standard war cry of ‘Waaagh!’ among other more guttural sounds of adrenal rapture like a pack of the slavering ice-wolves that roamed the frozen plains of Skadi – not that Torvin had ever left the city to see them.

Torvin did not run from fear, though. He ran with Sergeant, no, Lieutenant Sappa now, and the rest of her squad because that was their mission – to lead the orks into the kill-zone where Colonel Aldalon, Sergeant Dram and the others would hopefully eviscerate them. The rest of the squad was fast, zigzagging, changing direction frequently to make themselves more difficult targets, but it was all Torvin could do to keep up.

The orks behind them were shooting less frequently now anyway, most having drawn their melee weapons and joined the chase. They didn’t want to shoot the Catachans from a distance, they wanted to be up close and hit them in hand-to-hand combat where the orks were at their most brutal.

Once, Torvin would have thought that the orks had the advantage over Imperial Guardsmen in hand-to-hand combat too – regardless of what The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer had tried to tell him – but after fighting alongside the Catachan Jungle Fighters he wasn’t sure that was always the case. Aldalon had been right: the orks didn’t care about the tactical implications of chasing them into the jungle; they didn’t care about whether they really did or did not have the advantage in combat.

The orks were enraged, desperate for combat, and were making a huge mistake.

‘You all right, soft-worlder?’ Lieutenant Sappa called to him as Torvin recovered from his stumble.

‘Fine,’ Torvin called back, then added, ‘And don’t call me soft-worlder!’

Sappa laughed as an ork round burst somewhere beside her, throwing a tuft of muddy ground upwards. ‘You want me to call you something else!’ she shouted over the sound of the roaring orks. ‘You better earn yourself a Catachan name!’

Torvin and Lieutenant Sappa’s squad hit the edge of the jungle at a run, plunging into the trees. Almost as soon as they breached the treeline and the dense foliage closed around them, the noises of the pursuing orks quieted, like they’d entered a sound-deadened room. The jungle had enveloped them. For the first time since he’d been on Gondwa VI, even as the trees surrounded him, pressing in with a claustrophobic embrace, Torvin felt that the jungle was not an entity to be fought against, to be feared, to be survived. No, instead he began to feel as he imagined the Catachan Jungle Fighters felt. The jungle was not an enemy. The jungle was a shield. The jungle was theirs, and woe to any enemy who would try to fight them within it.

Torvin twisted his body sideways at almost a full run to squeeze through a gap between two trees. Branches ripped at his cheek, opening a warm gash, but he barely felt it. The thick undergrowth grabbed at his legs in an attempt to trip him, but he pushed through and then found himself, almost by instinct, stepping lightly across it, his boots landing close to the centres of the plants where they were the stiffest, the long, whipping leaves and vines unable to slow him.

Sappa slowed. She began moving through the jungle more carefully than Torvin had known she was capable of. The other members of the squad did the same, and for the first time ever Torvin found himself moving faster through the jungle than the Catachan Jungle Fighters. After a moment he slowed himself too, realising what she was doing, ensuring the pursuing orks did not lose sight of them and followed them exactly along the path they intended.

The squad changed direction slightly, leading the orks down the tunnel-like area of trees that Aldalon had selected for the ambush, a perfect natural funnel into what would be an unnatural barrage of death. Torvin kept moving with the squad as they passed into the kill-zone. No doubt he was imagining it, but as soon as he passed into the area laid with explosives and designated as crossfire zones for those Catachans hiding in dug-in positions off to his left, the air seemed thicker, buzzing with an electric anticipation, as if the jungle here were tense, knowing what was about to take place.

Squad Sappa had slowed enough that Torvin could hear the greenskins behind them. He could sense them closing in. They were bunching up together as they struggled through the gaps between trees and fought through hanging vines. Aldalon had made it clear that at least some of the orks were behaving unexpectedly in this skirmish over Outpost Four, but these orks at least were behaving just as the Catachans had planned, packing themselves tightly together as they pursued the feigned retreat, creating the perfect density of xenos in the kill-zone. Torvin had barely passed through the kill-zone and out the other side into the security zone before the jungle received what it had been nervously awaiting.

Sergeant Dram, from where he had been lying in wait for Squad Sappa to get clear, hit the detonator and, with the pop of carefully laid det. cord, the jungle floor erupted.

There was not one blast but several – at least a dozen, maybe more, each one separated by a fraction of a second but enough that each distinct explosion could be heard running into the next, a percussive series of boom, boom, boom, boom, and on and on, linking into a chain of jungle-destroying destruction.

With each detonation the ground above the explosive ballooned upwards, spraying dirt, mud, plants and tree roots out in a spherical shock wave. The released energy stripped leaves from branches, disintegrated moss and vines, and even upended entire trees that were close enough, completely tearing them from the ground. And with the destruction of the jungle came the destruction of the orks.

Those greenskins who had been moving over the buried explosives stood no chance – they were simply shredded, the blasts tearing flesh and muscle from bone and eviscerating it all into sprays of gore that fell back down with the rain of dirt and floral debris.

Those that were a handful of steps away from each explosion were not so universally dispersed but were torn into larger pieces: torsos, limbs and chunks of heads still wearing coverings of shocked green faces all fell with heavy thuds into freshly turned mud. Torvin had thrown himself to the ground to take cover, shielding the back of his head with his arms to protect himself from the torrential fall of dirt, wood and pieces of ork.

Those greenskins who were thrown, injured but still mostly whole, into the surrounding jungle, slamming into trees or other orks or simply sliding across the ground – maybe twenty in total – clambered back to their feet. Despite most of them missing chunks of their bodies that would have been enough of a problem to incapacitate a human, they found what weapons they could – theirs if they hadn’t lost them, or those of some ork now blasted into pieces. They turned in mild confusion, looking for something to kill. Most decided to continue on in the direction Squad Sappa had been running. At least before Squad Dram opened fire.

If the explosives had been the single crushing hammer blow, what followed was the precision of a death by a thousand cuts.

Squad Dram and Colonel Aldalon began firing even before the last piece of ejected ork torso hit the ground. Positioned in three different firing dugouts, they opened up with a carefully planned criss-cross of las-fire.

The jungle was lit by as many orange streaks of las-shots as the Catachans could fire from their lascarbines. On full-auto they unloaded the maximum amount of firepower possible, their weapons beginning to overheat in moments and their power packs draining at an ordinarily unacceptable rate – but in this situation Hell Fist Aldalon’s orders had been perfectly clear: empty your ammunition and ensure that not a single ork walked away from the massacre.

The still-floating dust and debris lit up in an impressive ground-level display of fireworks as the las-fire cut through it and any falling material caught in its path burned hot and bright. But more importantly for the Catachans, though it was more difficult to pick their targets than they would have liked through the floating results of the explosive carnage, there were still plenty of orks caught in their fire that also burned hot and bright. At least, they melted and were blown open with the instantly cauterising wounds inflicted by las-shot.

When the hail of debris from the explosions ceased and the shooting started, Torvin gathered himself. At this point Squad Sappa was tasked to perform final security detail and gun down any orks that made it through the ambush. The others had made it further to take cover and so Torvin was closest to the ambush area when he turned and grabbed for his rifle. The kill-zone was still partly obscured with floating dirt and soot from the explosions, all alight with the criss-crossing fire from Squad Dram.

Aldalon’s planned ambush had gone perfectly. The kill-zone was absolutely living up to its name. Torvin couldn’t believe anything would survive the explosions and the web of las-fire that now lanced across the area, but to his astonishment there were several orks coming out the end of the kill-zone towards him.

At the sight of the first ork that came stomping out of the carnage of dust, blood mist and las-fire Torvin’s eyes went wide. It was enormous. It was, without any doubt, the creatures’ warboss. Its legs and feet, though it seemed to be labouring as one limb dragged with difficulty behind it, were massive and encased in armoured sleeves ringed in pistons, several of which were twisted and mangled from the explosions. One shoulder was wounded, leaving streaks of blood down its chest, as was its face, something which Torvin soon realised was a fragment of ork bone protruding from its cheek. The warboss reached up and pulled the bone free, looking at it as one might examine a thorn pulled from a finger, before tossing it to the ground.

‘WAAAAAAAAGH!’

The warboss howled with rage. Torvin was no expert on ork psychology, but this seemed clear enough. The warboss’ red eyes found Torvin. He was the nearest target and, from the look in those piercing eyes, the nearest outlet for the warboss’ overflowing aggravation. The monstrous ork roared again as it moved towards Torvin.

Torvin rose quickly from a prone shooting position to a drop-knee, knowing he was going to have to be ready to move. He shouldered his lasgun and let loose with several shots. They struck the warboss in the leg, which did nothing but spark off a small abrasion on the thick armour there; the stomach, again striking thick armour plates that had been riveted to the leather-like vest the ork wore, ablating their surface but seemingly unable to penetrate; and the side of the arm – this blew a smoking black gouge in the warboss’ flesh, the only shot that did any real damage, and yet the greenskin did not seem to have noticed.

By now Torvin had enough experience fighting the greenskins that it did not surprise him when the ork warboss shrugged off a wound that would have taken a human’s arm off. Torvin snapped off a single extra shot, which hit the ork somewhere else on the armour, before he dropped his lasgun, drew his Catachan knife and prepared for hand-to-hand combat with the largest creature he’d seen outside of picts of the Emperor Himself – a figure who was always portrayed as towering over even the primarchs of the Adeptus Astartes. The warboss carried an axe that would have seemed comically large had the creature not been pulling it back over its shoulder preparing to swing at Torvin like it was about to chop wood.

A veteran of the Skadi Second – who was, like they all were, dead now – had once told Torvin and the rest of the new recruits not to be surprised when death came for them.

‘Everyone always seems so surprised when they die,’ that grizzled salt-and-pepper vet had told them, ‘like they thought Saint Celestine or the God-Emperor Himself was gonna appear in a blaze of light and sweep down to save them at the very last moment because they’re so damn special they couldn’t possibly die. Well, you ain’t special, and sorry to say, you’re gonna die just like everyone else. Just because that’s the body you happen to be ridin’ in don’t mean it isn’t going to explode like everyone else’s.’

Torvin thought it would be quite a nice turn of events if Saint Celestine or the God-Emperor Himself did decide to descend on fiery wings and put an end to this ork warboss, but he knew the veteran who’d told him that was right. Torvin was going to die, and he wasn’t surprised by this. At least he was going to die having played some small part in helping the Catachans retake Outpost Four.

Torvin stood, taking the best approximation he could of the fighting stance he’d seen the Catachans use when they were preparing to fight in melee combat with their knives. He even twirled the knife around like he’d seen Lieutenant Sappa do – albeit slower and with less flare – because if he was going to go down, he was going to go down like a damn warrior.

The warboss stomped towards him awkwardly, still struggling with its damaged legs, and swung the axe. Torvin, having learned the lesson the hard way once before, did not try to block the warboss’ mighty axe swing – it likely would have shattered his arm into a billion pieces and the axe would have cleaved him in half anyway; instead he dodged, diving to the side and rolling.

The warboss’ axe continued down, the blade driving deep into the mud. Torvin had intended to take a quick swipe at the warboss as he came out of the roll, but before he could even move to slash at the ork he saw the massive axe swinging back towards him again.

In that fraction of a moment, as the warboss’ weapon was coming towards him, the world sharpened. The colours of the jungle, the face of the warboss, so much he would have just called green but in reality was a million different colours, highlights and shadows – bright limes and emeralds, dark green-browns of moss and decay. Spears of light daggering in through the canopy, seeming almost divine, like the lines of blazing glory that would radiate out from depictions of the God-Emperor. The smells were clearer too: the humid damp, the pungent layers of rotting leaves on the jungle floor. He could hear the growling shouts of orks, the cracks of las-fire, the movement of the leaves in the wind high in the canopy. But even with all that it was the axe blade moving unstoppably towards his skull that was in the sharpest relief.

He heard the faint swoosh as the axe cleaved through the air towards him. The blade itself was not sharp; it was chipped and scratched and pockmarked with rust, but it came at him with such force that it wouldn’t need to be sharp to split his skull completely in two.

Even with this sudden, almost supernatural clarity, Torvin could not make himself move any faster; he could do nothing but be a passive witness to his own demise as it took place in ultra-slow motion. Maybe everyone experienced this when they died, he thought, the moment of death stretching and stretching until it extended itself out for all eternity – some sort of sick cosmic joke that saw you trapped forever, unable to intervene, as your inevitable death came ever more slowly towards you.

It was not Saint Celestine and it was not the God-Emperor, but something did appear in a blaze of light to intervene – the crackling and sparking power fist of Haskell ‘Hell Fist’ Aldalon. The colonel arrived as if he’d indeed descended on the wings of a saint and with the vengeance of the Emperor behind him. His power fist punched the head of the axe directly on the edge of the blade as it was carving through the air towards Torvin’s face. The crackling energy field and the momentum afforded by the power fist’s amplified strength allowed Aldalon to slam the axe to a stop. Aldalon looked down at Torvin.

‘Your bravery is noted, soft-worlder, but leave this one to me.’

Torvin did not wait to be told again. He hastily stood, bringing his lasgun to bear on the ambush kill-zone as he backed away towards where the rest of Squad Sappa waited. He heard the crack of ionising air and felt the static-like fuzziness as las-shots flew past him. Squad Sappa firing at the few other orks that had escaped the kill-zone.

They downed them quickly and the eyes of the squad, including Torvin’s, turned to the duel between the warboss and the Catachan colonel. Several times the warboss tried to lift its massively armoured legs to use as weapons, kicking out at Colonel Aldalon, but they sprayed sparks and gushed almost arterial sprays of black oil. It seemed the warboss’ weapons of choice were too damaged to be of much use and so the ork was left with its still-hideously intimidating axe.

Aldalon recognised this weakness quickly and began sidestepping around the ork to take advantage of its impaired mobility. He dashed forward and back, in and out of the warboss’ reach. Every member of Squad Sappa had their weapon raised and aimed towards the warboss.

‘Hold your fire,’ Sappa said. ‘You’ll risk hitting the colonel. Besides, he’ll take him, I know he will.’

This was no doubt meant to be encouragement, but even Torvin caught the hint of hope in those words, like she was raising a prayer to the God-Emperor, or more likely just throwing it out into the universe hoping it would stick.

Both the warboss and Aldalon carried heavy, unwieldy weapons. The warboss’ axe was massive, more than any human other than a Space Marine could handle, and power fists were always difficult for ordinary humans to use, though Aldalon wielded his as though it were his own hand – which if the rumours about the entire inside of his arm being reinforced with augmetics were true then it basically was.

The ork and Aldalon each swung their instruments of war relatively quickly for what they were, but it was still like watching two immense warriors pounding at each other with an unstoppable force and an immovable object. Neither could land a clean blow. Axe struck fist in showers of yellow-and-blue sparks, as forceful strikes from each were not so much blocked as redirected.

In other ways, the two weapons could not have been more different: the warboss with its simple piece of massive metal swung with the inherent strength of its rippling green muscles; the Catachan colonel with his advanced power fist humming with its field of disruptive energy and amplifying his strength to that far above an ordinary human. Still, each combatant recognised that a single impact from either axe or fist would be devastating; they knew that the first to land a blow would likely be the victor.

The warboss swung with the reckless abandon of a disgruntled lumberjack, a wild arcing blow that Aldalon swiped upwards with his power fist. The colonel ducked under the axe and moved inside the ork’s guard. His free hand suddenly bore his Catachan knife as if it had materialised from thin air. He drove it with all the strength he had into the ork’s side. As he tore it out, letting the serrations do their vicious work, the ork dropped its bottom hand from its axe and grabbed Aldalon’s knife hand, pinning the blade inside itself but squeezing tightly around Aldalon’s wrist.

‘Dis your puny humie hand,’ the warboss growled. ‘Shouldn’ta used your puny humie hand.’

The warboss squeezed. Even from where Torvin was, he could see the muscles and tendons popping out of the ork’s fist, not so much white-knuckled but mint-knuckled. With a growl the warboss gripped harder and pushed, driving Aldalon towards the ground. The colonel buckled as the ork crushed his fist and forced him down. Aldalon dropped to his knees but did not show pain. His non-power fist hand was bionic but the warboss likely didn’t realise that. Instead, he growled back at the warboss. He swung a punch with his power fist that the ork parried away with its axe, before the xenos seemingly increased the strength of its grip and slammed its arm down to drive Aldalon into the dirt.

‘I am Gutstompa!’ the ork roared at Colonel Aldalon as he bent down over him. ‘I gonna stomp ya! You is nuthin! You is a puny, weak humie!’

The warboss partly lifted his right leg, but a series of sparks and a jet of hydraulic fluid ejected from the joint, and the heavy armoured leg fell back to the ground. He roared in frustration and tried again. This time, even with more sparks and grinding, Gutstompa managed to lift his leg higher, preparing, Torvin knew, to slam it down on Aldalon. Despite apparently being called Gutstompa, the warboss was clearly aiming to crush the colonel’s head.

More orks had come from the kill-zone, drawing Squad Sappa’s fire. Torvin was the closest trooper and knew he was the only one who stood any chance of making it in time. He darted forward and drove his Catachan knife as hard as he could into the apparently faulty knee joint in the ork’s armour. Something within burst and Torvin was covered with a spray of oil as he fell back.

Gutstompa tried to slam his heavy foot down but the joint sparked and whined and, from the look on the ork’s face, seemed to have seized in place. Gutstompa released Aldalon’s wrist and bashed his fist down on top of his leg in an attempt to free the joint and make it move. Aldalon rolled to the side and swept his power fist out as he did so, this time as if he were the crazed lumberjack, taking the ork’s other leg out from under him and causing the massive greenskin to slam onto his back.

Aldalon scrambled quickly, not even making it to his feet but sliding on his knees towards Gutstompa’s head, not giving the warboss time to recover. The colonel reared back and slammed his power fist down onto Gutstompa’s face. The ork tried to block, but he was too slow this time and Aldalon’s disruption field-encased fist ripped apart the molecules of his flesh and the servo-driven metal cracked his hard skull.

As Torvin wiped at his face to clear away the thick black oil, he saw Aldalon rearing back again and again, punching his power fist down on the warboss’ face. Each time, the impact bored deeper into the greenskin’s skull and widened the splatter of blood and bone fragments. Eventually, when Aldalon’s fist had struck almost nothing but jungle mud three times in a row he stopped. He dropped back onto his heels, his chest heaving with exertion.

Eventually, once his breathing had returned to normal, Colonel Haskell ‘Hell Fist’ Aldalon stood. He turned and looked at Torvin, who stared back at him. Aldalon wiped sweat, mud and ork blood from his brow and flicked it off his hand onto the ground and then, while maintaining intense eye contact with him, he nodded to Torvin. A nod of thanks and a nod of respect that, even without words, caused Torvin to flush with pride.

Aldalon turned to Squad Dram, emerging from the ambush firing pits, and then, after putting down the last of the orks, the rest of Squad Sappa, approaching from where they’d been set up as security fire-team. When the Catachans had gathered, Torvin could see Aldalon quickly assessing them, then he asked for confirmation.

‘No casualties?’

‘No, sir,’ Lieutenant Sappa replied with a smile. ‘At least none without green skin.’

‘Excellent. Any targets make it out of the kill-zone?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Sergeant Dram, everything in there dead?’

‘We’ll confirm,’ Dram replied.

Aldalon nodded. ‘Make sure of it. If there’s a head attached to anything remotely resembling a torso, you cut it off.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Have you got an estimate of enemy KIAs?’ Aldalon asked.

‘I’d put us at a good forty toasted greenskins, sir,’ Dram said.

Aldalon nodded. He turned to look at Torvin. ‘A nice day’s work in retribution for your old unit don’t you think, Torvin?’

‘Yes, sir!’ Torvin said, then stopped, confused. ‘My old unit?’

‘That’s right. Don’t see much point sending you back to the Skadi Second now we’ve put in all this bloody effort in getting you to grow a pair. You’re halfway resembling a Jungle Fighter now, maybe we’ll make a Catachan Devil of you yet. You’ll stay with us. Unless you’d rather return to your idiot soft-worlders?’

He thought about Melina. The pict of her was no longer his most prized possession. Now, the most important object he had was something he’d earned, a red bandanna.

‘I’ll be staying with you, sir,’ Torvin said, ‘if you’ll have me.’

‘Very well. Don’t make me regret it.’

Torvin stood up straighter. ‘I won’t, sir.’

And he swore by the God-Emperor Himself he meant it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

ALDALON

Aldalon watched the dumb smile spread across Torvin’s face and almost changed his damned mind about letting him join the Catachans. But the kid had stepped up, even Aldalon had to give him that. He wouldn’t go so far as to say the soft-worlder had saved him, but it had been fifty-fifty in that fight with the warboss. Torvin had spotted the weakness in the ork’s knee and had acted on it, managing to help turn the fight in Aldalon’s favour. He was still a soft-worlder, maybe he’d never have the true spirit of a Catachan – what many would call the madness of the Catachans – but he had survived this long and there hadn’t been many soft-worlders Aldalon had seen make such a rapid transition from incompetence to showing signs of being a warrior. He’d give him his shot and, if nothing else, more time with Catachans would wipe that idiotic smile off his face.

‘All right,’ Aldalon said, turning back to the rest of the Jungle Fighters. ‘Commendable effort, troopers. Barring that tangle with the warboss, this was a near-perfectly executed ambush. A nice reminder of our Catachan expertise at inflicting surprise death on xenos scum. Once we’ve ensured every greenskin in the kill-zone has been squashed beneath the Emperor’s boot, we’re going to move out and execute our main attack on Outpost Four. We aren’t sure exactly how many greenskins are left, but given the number of dead here and the intelligence we’ve gathered it can’t be more than twenty. By the time we’re done, it will be zero. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the Catachans responded in unison.

‘Good, see it done. We move in ten minutes. We assault as one unit. Extended line across the open. Pull into an arrowhead a hundred yards out and breach the outpost. Left arm, room clear left. Right arm, same to the right. Clear lower level and then move up. I will take point.’

‘Sir,’ Lieutenant Sappa said. ‘May I–’

Aldalon held up his hand. This small mission had taken a turn and it had seen him be more open with his subordinates than he ever had before. It was not the way he had been taught to lead on Catachan, nor something he had needed on hundreds of battlefields previously, but here, the fight for this Emperor-damned outpost had changed him. Once they were gone from here maybe he would go back to cutting off an interruption like this with his ordinary growl, but he knew he owed more to this small contingent of troopers; he owed more to his daughter. This place was different because he had screwed up here, in ways he hadn’t before.

‘Before you say anything, I understand I’ve shown both some recklessness and some reluctance to see you, in particular, in danger, lieutenant. I can assure you that isn’t the case here. We’ll hit this building the right way, clear it out methodically, and I have no doubt you’ll be neck-deep in greenskin melee quick enough. I’ve mended whatever snapped in me – I won’t be going off half-cocked, but there’s an ork in there that I’ve got business with.’

The Catachans moved over the ambush kill-zone doing a final sweep for surviving greenskins. There didn’t seem to be any, but Aldalon watched as they carried out his orders to the letter. Any ork head, or anything vaguely head-shaped despite cavernous holes and flayed skin and flesh, was cut from its torso or partial torso or even just overly thick neck – you could never be too careful with orks.

If there was one thing that still amazed Aldalon about the greenskins, even after the dozens of times he’d met them in battle, it was just how much their barbaric painboyz were capable of. More than once, Aldalon had hit an ork with what should have been a killing blow – he’d even torn some in half – and then, in some later skirmish, seen what he could have sworn was the same ork, somehow stitched together and sent back into the fray. Well, not so much sent back but willingly throwing itself into the fray. Orks could survive more than most in the Imperium truly understood.

Once the work of ensuring none of these orks would have the opportunity to be stitched, stapled or nailed back together was completed, the Catachans prepared themselves, tending and dressing wounds, giving rifles and blades a quick wipe down with blessed oils, and redistributing ammunition between them. They were down to a single power pack per trooper, but with the tight confines they’d face during their assault on the outpost, Aldalon was sure one each would be enough; they’d have their Catachan Fangs out soon enough.

When they were ready, they assembled again. Aldalon took another look at them, evaluating each in turn, ensuring they were capable of this. He had no concerns about their skill level of course; he was checking them for signs of battle-weariness, physical fatigue and the even more dangerous mental fatigue.

These were Catachans but it was a lot to ask of any soldier to move straight from one engagement to another and then to another with no real chance for recuperation. Aldalon had learned over his career how to spot the signs that his troopers were not fighting fit, or in need of a rest or even a complete rotation out. All twelve of the Jungle Fighters he looked at now were tired, their eyes ringed with purple and heavy with bags. This was natural enough after several days on mission and particularly given how this mission had proceeded. Missions that turned much harder than expected were always the most tiring, and these soldiers looked war-weary. Maybe a less experienced commander would have considered that enough to scrub this attempt at immediately counter-attacking.

Aldalon was not an inexperienced commander, though; he was the regimental commander of the Catachan 57th, a veteran of not just fighting the wars of the Emperor, but of leading men and women into them. He saw through their tiredness to the fiery spark in their eyes, the determination to put an end to this here and now, the glimmer inside them that would fuel their adrenaline for long enough to take back Outpost Four and ensure it would continue to act as the early warning station for Karoo City. They had it in them to make this last push.

Aldalon turned to Learna. ‘Lieutenant Sappa, are we ready?’

The troopers stood taller.

‘Always ready, sir,’ Sappa replied.

‘I’ve admitted some missteps on this mission,’ Aldalon said. ‘I believe we’ve all underestimated our foe, but the responsibility lies with me. I should never have allowed us to do that. We have lost Catachans because I was so determined to avenge my son that I made poor tactical decisions. But we will respond in the way Catachans always have, we will avenge the fallen by fighting at our best. We owe it to the brothers and sisters we’ve lost to finish this.

‘Remember, these greenskins are not ghosts. They are flesh-and-blood xenos. They just happen to be a little less stupid than most of their kind. They move well through the jungle, I’ll give them that. They fight well in the jungle, I’ll give them that too. But you know what I’ve realised? They fight like us because they’re pretending to be us. But they are not us. They are orks. We are the real Emperor-damned deal. We are Catachan Jungle Fighters and we’re going to show them why no one in the galaxy ever, ever underestimates us.’

The thirteen Catachan warriors moved out in an extended line, side by side but each separated by several yards. Thirteen was considered unlucky for some, Aldalon knew, but it was only going to be unlucky for the orks today. Aldalon was in the centre, ready to take the point position when they transitioned into arrowhead, six troopers on either side. Farthest to his left was Sergeant Dram, holding the formation there, and farthest to his right was Lieutenant Sappa, doing the same.

They advanced silently from the ambush zone back to the edge of the clearing around Outpost Four. Aldalon had no doubt those greenskins remaining at the outpost would have heard the battle that had just taken place, and the fact that they hadn’t charged into the jungle to find out what fight they were missing was more than enough to convince him he was right about the occupants – it had to be the odd-eyed ork and his camouflaged brethren.

Aldalon moved the Catachans further around the perimeter of the clearing to the eastern side of the outpost, not wanting to emerge from the same location they had retreated to. From there they would still be able to make a straight line for the caved-in wall that would serve as their entry point into the outpost.

As they came to a halt ten yards inside the treeline, Aldalon sent hand signals in both directions along the line asking for confirmation from either end that they were ready to move. When the returning signals answered in the affirmative, he stretched his neck from side to side, letting it crack, rolled his shoulders and then armed his lascarbine. The sound of humming lasguns echoed along the line as the others did the same, a call and response sweeter than any Ecclesiarchy choir.

With a nod in each direction, Aldalon stepped forward and then breached the treeline, moving into the clearing at a sprint, keeping as low as he could. The Catachans sprinting across the open grass did not spew some war cry like hammer-headed orks. They were a scalpel; they moved fast, they moved quiet and they would be sharp.

The Catachans were a third of the way to the outpost before the orks started shooting. The camouflaged greenskins that popped up on the rampart to fire at them confirmed Aldalon’s suspicions about which of the orks were still here.

As he ran, setting the pace for the troops on either side of him, Aldalon’s calm battle-tuned mind, like a carefully programmed cogitator, registered the number of visible orks and the rate of fire of their cacophonous weapons. He estimated the number of orks left at somewhere between fifteen and twenty, about what he’d expected.

The inaccurate xenos fire posed little threat – though of course there was a chance one of the greenskins would get a lucky shot to land true. These orks might have been more tactically savvy in some ways, but it seemed their long-range shooting relied on standard ork tactics: massed fire and luck. Aldalon knew that when they drew closer to each other in their arrowhead formation, the danger increased.

The Catachans sprinted across the clearing. Two hundred yards from the outpost. Boom. An ork shot struck close by. One hundred yards. The oddly harmonic whistling of a tumbling ork round passed overhead. Fifty yards. The Catachans fired up at the battlement, their lascarbines set on fully automatic while they continued running, trying to lay suppressing fire against the orks as they drew closer to the outpost. Even the absolute best marksmen in the Imperial Guard, hell the whole damn galaxy, would struggle to hit the broadside of a grox under those conditions, but accuracy was not a concern. All they needed was a rapid peppering of las-fire that would keep as many green heads ducked down below the battlement wall as possible.

Aldalon stuck his arms back in the shape of a V behind him – the arrowhead formation signal. The Catachans, already anticipating the order at any moment, reacted immediately, closing in sideways and dropping into a staggered diagonal line either side of Aldalon, matching the direction of his arms. They pulled in closer to each other too, the distance between them decreasing from around ten yards to only two or three. Ready to close the gap to less than a yard when they reached the outpost.

Even as they kept up their suppressive fire, a sound down the line told Aldalon that an ork had found luck with at least one of their thundering shots.

‘Tacter is down!’ Sappa called.

‘Leave her,’ Aldalon called back. ‘There’s no time.’ Aldalon knew Tacter was wearing a flak armour vest so there was a chance she could have survived the hit. Hopefully she’d been lucky, but they wouldn’t know until this was over. Assuming they managed to clear the orks from Outpost Four, then Tacter could be retrieved for medical treatment – until then she would have to tough-out survival like a Catachan.

The rest of the troopers understood. They didn’t miss a step, not even looking back as they closed the gap in the formation where Tacter had been. To an outsider it might seem like cruelty, the way the Catachans regularly left their dead and wounded behind, seemingly without a thought. But for them it was the opposite. Being born and raised on Catachan, the cruel thing would be to stop and try to help a fallen comrade. It was cruel to the Catachan who stopped to render aid as they were just as likely to fall victim to the same danger, and it was cruel to any other Catachans you were with, taking away one set of eyes and ears, and reducing fighting capability, making the group even weaker. The weakness of one could get many more killed on Catachan, and that mentality travelled with them to the battlefield.

As planned, Aldalon reached the blown-in section of the wall first and the rest of the troops had closed in tight. There was no need to begin room clearing for orks because, having seen them heading for the breach in the wall, the greenskins were more than happy to meet them at the front door with a very orkish welcoming party.

‘’Ere we go! WAAAAAGH!’

As soon as Aldalon entered the outpost, the ork calls echoed around him, reverberating off the walls as the xenos rushed down the stairs from the rampart above. Aldalon had barely stepped over the threshold when he met a dozen or so orks in combat.

He swung his power fist in a wide arc, smashing green faces aside, not so much with the intent of killing them all but of clearing space as the rest of the Catachans moved in through the jagged hole and over the rubble, the blades of their knives flashing as sprays of blood began coating the walls like a messy paint job.

The Catachans moved in behind him as Aldalon pushed forward towards the stairs. Each side of the formation swung back out to form a smaller version of the arrowhead as they ploughed in, like a wedge driving into a gap, or an axehead slamming into a split in a log. As the troopers beside him fought in the tight confines of the outpost, Aldalon pressed straight for his target. He would hold the bottom of the stairs as the two sides of the arrowhead split into two teams to clear the bottom level of the outpost, room by room, greenskin by greenskin, to ensure none came down from the upper level.

The fighting either side of Aldalon was ferocious as the Catachan Jungle Fighters tangled with the orks with little space to move. This was the worst-case scenario when fighting orks in hand-to-hand combat, even for the Catachans. They needed to move, to circle around, to have another trooper provide support from the side or rear. If an ork pinned a human in place with no backup and nowhere to move, it didn’t matter if you were a soft-worlder or a baby ogryn – the ork’s superior strength and insanity in battle meant you were in trouble.

‘Hold here!’

‘Push up!’

‘Take left!’

‘Watch your right!’

The Catachans directed each other as they fought. Sappa and Dram barked formation orders but all of them were vocal. A well-trained regiment like this fought and moved as one, each trooper aware of each other just as much as they were of themselves.

Aldalon had the advantage of his crackling power fist and augmented arm, and his initial whirlwind entrance had injured several orks, who were quickly dealt with by the Catachans so that the numbers on the lower level seemed more or less even now. The orks fought with the brutality they always did in close combat, but the Catachans held their rigid structure and that was proving the difference.

The orks, on the other hand, fought maniacally with no consideration for helping the other xenos around them. It almost annoyed Aldalon, all that raw strength and desire to fight; the slightest amount of tactical thinking would make them damn near unstoppable. He wondered if the ork with the different-coloured eyes felt the same way.

‘Himrod, on your left!’

Sappa’s shout drew Aldalon’s attention as well. He turned in time to see Himrod spin to his left. He’d left himself open engaging an ork with Devi and a second of the greenskins had breached the Catachan formation. It roared and plunged its long, rusty sword into Himrod’s side with enough force to shatter bone and cave in the side of his ribcage. In true Catachan fashion, Himrod did not scream – though it was unlikely he would have been able to as his lungs had surely collapsed. Instead, even as the ork ripped the rusted blade from his side, he used the last of his strength to shove his own Catachan blade into the ork’s throat.

The ten remaining Catachan soldiers drew in closer either side of Aldalon as they overcame the last of the orks in front of them, seemingly the last of the orks on the lower level of the outpost. But, as he had said, they were going to do this right. Aldalon looked at the troopers around him.

‘Clear the level, room by room. I’ll hold the stairs.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Lieutenant Sappa replied.

The Catachans moved off, sheathing their blades and raising their lascarbines in front of them. Sergeant Dram took the lead to the left and Lieutenant Sappa to the right. Aldalon held his position at the base of the stairs. He sensed the movement rather than heard it, and even before he turned Aldalon knew what he would see.

There, crouching halfway up the stairs, was an ork dressed in camouflage. Its face was painted with four diagonal slashes of black paint and of course it had one red eye and one green eye. The ork that had killed Brant.

Aldalon’s power fist flared to life and with it he felt the flare of rage and anger within him. The same rage and anger that had flooded his better judgement before, that had sent him barrelling into orks without concern for the consequences. The ork on the stairs smiled as if enjoying the sight of Aldalon’s power fist roaring to life, as if happy that it’d drawn that reaction.

The ork rose and pointed at Aldalon, and then at itself with obvious meaning. It seemed this ork wanted the same thing – to go toe-to-toe with Aldalon. He gestured for Aldalon to follow and then the greenskin turned and walked calmly up the stairs.

Aldalon felt his power fist arm almost vibrating with the growing energy, a vibration that began spreading to all the muscles of his body. He could feel the rage building inside, could almost see the red haze descending over his vision as he thought about chasing that ork up the stairs and smashing its skull to tiny green fragments. He wanted nothing more than to charge after it, but he realised the ork wanted that too. Did it want to fight Aldalon or did it just want to draw him out of position? What was left of his troops were clearing the rooms on the lower level and if Aldalon left the base of the stairs he would be opening them up to attack from behind.

He would not do that.

He would not let his rage and hatred for greenskins consume his better senses again.

He was Catachan. He would fight smart, he would fight in formation as he had watched his troops do, he would fight to keep other Catachans alive. He looked back up the stairs where the greenskin had disappeared. His blood still boiled but he let his power fist power down. It would not be long. The ork with the different-coloured eyes would keep a few minutes more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

NOGROK

Nogrok was excited.

It wasn’t just normal ork excitement about a scrap, either. The Catachan boss with the power fist was here, and that was a fight worth having.

He knew that sooner or later they were going to meet. After so long as a kommando, krumpin’ idiots without an idea in their heads, and finally making it to be a nob, this humie was the humie he wanted to fight. This was the humie he would use to prove himself.

He hadn’t wanted to fight the boss humie inside the outpost because he’d already known the humies would be better at that. Plus, the stupid Deathskulls gitz had made it worse by rushin’ down the stairs to fight ’em as soon as they’d come through the wall even though Nogrok had told ’em not to. Nogrok had roared at them to stay on the top level and make the humies come up the stairs, but they hadn’t listened.

But Nogrok had waited at the top of the stairs. He’d tried one last trick. He knew the Catachan boss wanted to fight him; he’d seen the look in the humie’s eyes, like a proper orky look of wanting to fight. He was kinda like Warboss Ripspitta used to be – trying to be scary by keeping his face real still and starin’ at everything with squinty eyes.

Nogrok had seen the boss humie go a little Gork crazy before, seen him give into that blood-pumping battle rage, so Nogrok had tried to be proper sneaky and lure him into a fight. While the other humies had gone off to search the other rooms of the outpost, Nogrok had snuck down and got the boss humie’s attention. Then some of the boyz could go down and attack the humies while they were searching around – getting them from behind and crushing them between two groups.

It was a good plan and maybe it would have worked on normal humies, but the boss Catachan didn’t take the bait, even though he looked pretty mad about it. Nogrok sighed. It looked like they would just have to crash into the humies as they made their way up the stairs, and force them back down.

It would happen soon because even though the humies were searching for other orks down there they wouldn’t find any. All that was left of Warboss Gutstompa’s warband was up on the roof level with him. Just Flik, Nukka, Ruktug and a bunch of Deathskulls who’d actually demonstrated the capacity to listen.

Nogrok was excited, but he couldn’t help but have a bit of a feeling that only an ork really in touch with Mork could get – a bad feeling. Still, he wasn’t going to worry about that now because something else had occurred to him. If the orks up here were all that was left of Warboss Gutstompa’s warband then the rest had all been krumped, including Warboss Gutstompa – and that meant this wasn’t Warboss Gustompa’s warband any more. No, now it was the warband of Warboss Nogrok Sneakyguts. Nogrok looked around at the orks on the roof with him. There weren’t loads but they were his now. He was warboss.

‘Weapons up, cover your angles. Move, move, move!’

The Catachan boss had given up on being sneaky now, just like Nogrok had. There was no point any more. The humies knew where they were, and Nogrok and his boyz knew where the humies would be coming from. Nogrok watched the Deathskulls move towards the stairs.

‘Oi!’ Nogrok said. ‘Get back a bit, ya gitz!’

The few kommandos left were already well back from the top of the stairs because they were smart, not like the stupid Deathskulls. Some of them took steps back from the top of the stairs but others didn’t. Nogrok wondered if other warbosses had to deal with boyz not doing as they was told. Then he had, just for a fleeting moment, a little sympathy for Warboss Gutstompa because, he realised, he’d been the ork that never did as he was told.

Ah well. Nogrok was still alive, and Gutstompa wasn’t.

‘Dis your last chance to get back from the stairs, ya Deffskulls gitz!’ Nogrok called, but his heart wasn’t really in it.

They probably thought they were being taktikal standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at where the humies would come up. But it just meant the humies moving up the stairs could start shooting them before they had to fully expose themselves.

Bright lasers blasted out from the stairs like a light show. Most went right into the faces of the Deathskulls who’d been waiting at the top. They didn’t have a chance. They all dropped, their faces black and burned, the backs of their skulls melted like pitch.

But the humies couldn’t shoot the orks standing back where Nogrok had told them to wait; they couldn’t see them until they came right out into the open at the top of the stairs, and when the first humie’s head popped up Nogrok gave the order to attack.

‘Get ’em now!’ Nogrok roared. Orks around him began to open fire with completely inaccurate shots, but it was enough to make it hard for the humies to clamber up the stairs. Nogrok raised his Catachan blade and ran at the humies. ‘WAAAAGH!’

The orks had managed to pin the humies at the top of the stairs and Nogrok knew they had to get at them quick. If he could get in close to the humies fast, their guns would be no good and they’d have to change to their knives. Hopefully they could catch a few before they was ready to really fight.

But as Nogrok was charging he saw one of the Catachans spot him as a target and raise their laser shoota. Running towards the end of the barrel, it just looked like a bright flash of orange accompanied by a cracking noise. Nogrok tried to turn to dodge the shot, but he felt an impact on his left shoulder and was twisted to the side. He felt the spreading warmth and tingling sensation in his shoulder that meant he’d been hurt, and then everything down his left arm to his fingers went numb. Pain wasn’t that bad. He didn’t know why the humies always complained so much when they got shot. He looked at his shoulder and saw the fist-sized hole that had been burned into it, his green flesh gone and a black, gently smoking crater left in its place.

He tried to lift his left arm, but it seemed a little harder than usual and the limb didn’t go more than about halfway up. Staring at the hole in his shoulder he could see thin strands of green muscle and sinew trying to pull, but the bone at the top of his arm was sliding all over the place and he was pretty sure that was supposed to go up into his shoulder bit. He didn’t know much about the insides of a body, but it looked like some of the bone was missing.

He was going to need a painboy to throw a few teef at, but all the painboyz were dead now. Useless gitz. If he made it through all this, he’d have to stumble through healing it, or replace it with something much killier.

When he looked back towards the fighting, Nogrok saw the boss Catachan coming towards him, his power fist sparkling as bright as loads of squig herders’ zappin’ sticks. The big humie walked slowly towards him and Nogrok felt a return of excitement about this moment – shame he only had one working arm now.

Around the top of the stairs, the boyz were fightin’ the humies. Attacking quickly as the humies came out of the stairs had worked. The boyz managed to catch a couple of the humies off-guard, but it didn’t look good. There weren’t enough orks left. Even a boss as thick as Gutstompa would have been able to look at this and see they were going to lose to the humies.

Nogrok watched the humie boss comin’ towards him and started thinkin’ that maybe he better do one last sneaky thing and escape. He was a warboss now – he didn’t have many boyz, but he was still a warboss. If he could get out of here, then he could rebuild a warband. He would be Warboss Nogrok Sneakyguts and build a warband that only had kommandos in it. He’d go all round the galaxy and take only orks who understood the importance of taktiks. If he could get a whole Waaagh! of proper sneaky kommandos, he could show not just every ork, but every other thing in the galaxy – humies and pointy-ears and the rest – what orks could really do if they didn’t listen to stupid gitz all the time.

First, he had to get himself out of this mess.

Then Nogrok noticed something. Over the boss humie’s shoulder he saw something in the treeline of the far jungle. Movement. Not just a little bit of movement but loads and loads. At first, Nogrok thought the humies had called for more humies to come, but when the movement turned into figures pouring out of the trees Nogrok saw that they were orks.

They weren’t Blood Axes and they weren’t even Deathskulls or any other klan he’d ever seen. They were dressed in animal furs and skins, and none had any armour.

Ferals. That was almost as bad as humies pouring out of the jungle, but he’d needed somethin’ to help him escape and it seemed like Gork and Mork had smiled down on him at just the right time. He wondered if Gutstompa had known there were ferals on this planet. Maybe that’s what he’d been waiting for. Ferals weren’t good for much, but maybe he’d thought he could add them to his warband. Well, Nogrok was boss now so maybe he could use the ferals. Right now though, the ferals were good for a distraction.

‘You!’ the humies’ boss said as he stopped right in front of Nogrok. He lifted his power fist and clenched its fingers. ‘You’re mine!’

CHAPTER THIRTY

ALDALON

‘You!’ Aldalon said as he finally came face to face with the ork with different-coloured eyes.

He felt the rage in him, the rage he’d shelved earlier, begin to grow again. This time, there would be no shelving it. He squeezed his power fist and let the energy field build along with his fury. All around him, what remained of Squad Sappa and Squad Dram – far less than he was happy with – were winning the battle for the outpost. What was left of the ork forces were crumbling as the Catachans looked assured of victory.

A commander was never truly freed from the responsibility of command, it was always overhead ready to pour down disaster at any moment like a dark storm, but in this moment Aldalon was as free as possible from thoughts of a greater strategic nature. He thought only of the greenskin in front of him.

‘You’re mine!’

The greenskin held up its blade ready to fight and Aldalon saw that it was a Catachan blade. Not just any Catachan blade, but Brant’s – a hooked end with half a blade of serrations and a long fuller groove.

Aldalon growled and charged the ork, swinging his power fist. The ork was fast, faster than Aldalon had been prepared for, and he dashed backwards out of the way. He slashed out with the Fang and caught Aldalon with the slightest graze along the cheek. He felt a small trickle of warmth. First blood. If this had been a Catachan duel it would be called for the ork. Lucky it was not a Catachan duel, or at least that it was the type of Catachan duel where the loser would not be getting up.

‘Sharp cutta, ain’t it?’ the ork said.

Aldalon ground his teeth together. ‘That blade isn’t yours.’

The ork smiled. ‘I took it fair and square off a dead humie, didn’t I? One of you Catachan humies.’

Aldalon growled again. He was ready to kill this ork, but he had to admit he was surprised; this creature knew where they were from. ‘Be silent, ork,’ Aldalon said, ‘and fight.’

Aldalon charged again. This time the ork spun aside as it dodged. It was faster than Aldalon could swing his power fist; he would have to bide his time, get the ork to commit, maybe even take a strike from the greenskin before levelling it. The strength of the power fist always came with this disadvantage of being slow. Often orks overcommitted with their bloodlust in battle, but not this one.

‘I’m not just an ork,’ the greenskin said after it’d dodged the power fist. ‘I am Warboss Nogrok Sneakyguts.’

Aldalon looked at the creature. He was bigger than the average ork but not by much – not really the size of a normal nob and certainly not warboss sized. Aldalon couldn’t help himself. ‘You’re a warboss?’

Nogrok Sneakyguts’ brow furrowed. ‘Newly promoted since you krumped Gutstompa.’

‘Ah,’ Aldalon said. If he could get the ork talking, he might be able to surprise him with an attack. ‘The one with the big legs?’

‘Dat’s da one,’ Nogrok replied. He kept his eyes fixed on Aldalon as they moved around each other. In the tight confines of the rampart, the ork was slowly but surely increasing the distance between them. ‘What’s your name, humie?’

Aldalon’s eyes thinned. ‘Colonel Aldalon, Fifty-Seventh Catachan Jungle Fighters,’ he found himself replying, moving to close the gap that the ork kept trying to open.

‘Nice to meet you, Aldalon Catachan boss. I been waitin’ for this. Us gettin’ to fight each other.’

Despite himself Aldalon grinned, though it was humourless. ‘Oh, me too, Nogrok. Me too.’

‘Problem for me is I ain’t gonna win fightin’ fair.’

‘Glad you understand that, greenskin.’

‘I’m hurt. You killed my boyz. I’m in a taktikally bad spot. If I learned anythin’ from you Catachan humies it’s dat you gotta use taktiks when they workin’ for ya and get outta da way when dey ain’t. Lucky we ain’t got long ’fore the others get ’ere.’

‘WAAAAAGH! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!’

The shouts came from the jungle behind him. The unmistakable sound of ork war cries, the war cries of many, many orks. The continuous sound was accompanied by the booming rhythm of drums, thumping, thumping, thumping. The pounding beat was increasing in speed. The sound of ork shots blasting pointlessly up into the air followed.

Aldalon did not turn immediately, keeping his eye on Nogrok, who had continued to back away. He desperately wanted to close the distance to his most hated ork enemy and strike him down, but he felt the stormy heavens of command opening to pour down that heavy dose of disaster.

‘Sir!’ Lieutenant Sappa called. ‘Incoming orks. Loads of them!’

‘Loads is right,’ Nogrok said as he continued backing off.

When Nogrok was far enough back that Aldalon did not fear a surprise attack he turned quickly to look behind him. The sight that greeted him was the always terrible green tide. This was the orks at their most dangerous – when they came flooding across the battlefield in numbers both breathtaking and horrifying.

Aldalon’s first instinct was that these were reinforcements Nogrok had been stalling for, but these orks were dressed in rudimentary outfits of animal skin, scales and fur. Their weapons were clubs and long pieces of spiked wood rather than edged weapons. Their guns were even more basic than those used by normal orks. Some even carried slingshots into which they had loaded large rocks.

Aldalon had encountered greenskins like these a handful of times before. Feral orks. A civilisation of greenskins that had sprung up on planets previously victim to an ork infestation but appearing seemingly at random many months or even years after the xenos were thought to be cleansed from the world. They were the most basic of creatures, orks that made most greenskins look like scholars of the Administratum or enginseers of the Adeptus Mechanicus. But though they wielded simple weapons and had little understanding of how to wage war they still bore the brute strength of the greenskins, and the numbers that continued to charge from the jungle treeline were astounding.

The feral orks came in such numbers that it seemed impossible that this was some recently sprung-up tribe. There were hundreds streaming from the jungle now, and that meant there were probably thousands of them still infesting Gondwa VI – and despite the commonly cited difficulties with surveillance on this planet, Aldalon could not believe an infestation of feral orks that large could have gone unnoticed.

He turned back to Nogrok and was shocked to see the ork lunging at him. Aldalon caught sight of the Catachan blade in his hand just before it pierced his side, the look of glee in Nogrok’s different-coloured eyes. Aldalon felt the hot-poker roar of the serrated Catachan Fang as it buried into the flesh just above his hip. He roared, lashing out with his power fist in self-defence.

Aldalon backhanded Nogrok and sent him flying. The pain in his side screamed again and he saw that Nogrok had refused to let go of the knife. It had torn free as the ork was slammed away, leaving a dangerously open wound in Aldalon’s side.

Nogrok crashed into the battlement wall and then rolled back and over, dropping from the outpost. Aldalon growled and moved to the edge hoping to see the ork’s broken body, but instead he saw Nogrok looking up at him.

‘Kommandos,’ Nogrok yelled, ‘we is taktikally runnin’!’

Aldalon grabbed for the plasma pistol at his waist to take a shot at the warboss, but Nogrok had dropped something as he fell – a smoke grenade. His view was instantly obscured. ‘Emperor damn it!’ he roared. That bastard ork was going to get away. He had given himself permission to take his revenge on the creature that had killed his son, and now it had been taken away. The sounds of the charging ferals drew him back – he was a Catachan commander and the situation had changed. His troops needed his leadership.

He turned and shouted to the Catachans still hacking at Nogrok’s camouflaged orks, who had heard their warboss’ shout and were falling back. ‘Let them go. Get to the wall! We have to hold back the ferals!’

Orks may not always listen to the orders given to them, but Catachan Jungle Fighters did. They immediately withdrew from the xenos, finishing those they could before allowing the rest to retreat over the outpost wall and into the thick smoke.

The Catachans hit the wall having already switched from their melee blades to their lascarbines. They set themselves in ready position and peered over the wall. Their faces were steely. Anyone else would barely notice a shift but Aldalon saw the tensing in their shoulders, the pulsing of their jaw muscles, the way they reset their firing positions. It wasn’t nerves so much, but a clear understanding that the eight remaining Catachan Jungle Fighters could not face down the hundreds, maybe close to a thousand orks crashing like a wave out from the jungle onto the clearing. Even armed with brains barely evolved beyond common mushrooms they would still wash into the outpost like a tsunami.

Those feral orks who actually had guns started shooting up at the wall. Aldalon knew that the greenskins who’d taken this outpost before, those of this Warboss Gutstompa and now Nogrok, had some rudimentary strategy. As the outpost was the main early warning location for an attack on Karoo City, it made sense to take this location and simultaneously use it as a staging post and deny the city warning of an attack. They might not have been as strategically intelligent as Imperial forces, but Aldalon had no doubt that was the orks’ intention.

The feral orks, on the other hand, had no strategic thought. The fighting must have brought them here in this unstoppable bestial horde.

‘Hold,’ Aldalon said as a staccato of shots hit the outpost wall and the battlement. The small-calibre rounds did little but cause rockcrete dust to burst out in small puffs and their accuracy posed little threat.

‘What the hell is this?’ Sappa shouted. ‘We weren’t told about feral orks!’

‘I know,’ Aldalon said. He bristled with anger that wasn’t difficult to direct. There were too many feral orks for no one to know they were here. He didn’t think Astra Militarum command or the Departmento Munitorum were aware, and as useless as Major General Nillom was he wouldn’t have sent them out here without known intelligence about a massive feral ork infestation. No, he knew where the crowns stopped on this one and when he got back to Karoo City, Colonel Hell Fist Aldalon would be having words with that snivelling worm Governor Misom.

Aldalon’s mind, well trained in split-second battlefield analysis, ran through scenario after scenario. He watched the feral orks howling, whooping and growling as they stampeded towards the outpost.

‘Pick your targets,’ Aldalon said. The handful of Catachans on the wall shifted, sighting down their rifles. ‘Fire at will.’

Las-fire began cracking down at the ferals. Not the unrestrained, fully automatic fire of the ambush but single, deliberately aimed shots – each one dropping an ork. The Catachans fired and fired, but it was too much like blowing hard to stop a hurricane.

Aldalon turned to look at the troopers either side of him diligently firing down at the overwhelming green host. If the outpost had been undamaged, if there weren’t a gaping hole in the wall and the defensive systems were still online, maybe they could have held the orks at bay and sent a signal to Karoo City. But given the current situation, he could determine no suitable action.

‘Catachans,’ Aldalon said over the crack of las-fire and the boom of ork shot, ‘prepare to move. Fighting withdrawal on my mark.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

TORVIN

‘Catachans,’ Colonel Aldalon called just as Torvin was firing off a round, aiming at the orks rampaging from the jungle, ‘prepare to move. Fighting withdrawal on my mark.’

Torvin wouldn’t admit it, but he was glad to hear Aldalon order their retreat. He hadn’t quite mastered the apparent fearlessness of the Catachans, because the sight of hundreds and hundreds of crazed greenskins rushing towards them, even more than the first attack he’d weathered at the outpost with the Skadi Second, was terrifying. He didn’t need to be a rookie trooper on his first deployment to know they were as good as left out in a wind-whipped blizzard or, as one of the Catachans might say, as cooked as a grox burger.

Torvin was happy that Colonel Aldalon had apparently skipped the part in The Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer about the importance of a glorious and wonderful last stand in the face of overwhelming odds. Torvin had more or less seen one of those already and he was sure every member of the Skadi Second would agree that there didn’t seem to be a lot about it that was glorious or wonderful.

Still, despite knowing they had no choice but to fall back in a fighting retreat, Torvin couldn’t help but feel a sense of crushing failure. He hadn’t noticed when he’d become so invested. He’d trekked out to Outpost Four with the Skadi Second knowing their mission was to keep watch for orks and to hold the outpost, but back then he hadn’t cared whether they succeeded in that or not – he just wanted to stay alive. Now though, after being the sole survivor of the Skadi Second and having found a place – something of an awkward place but still a place – with the Catachans, and seeing how hard they fought and the people they’d lost to retake the outpost, giving it up just minutes after they took it back seemed so much like an ironic joke that he couldn’t abide it.

‘Sir, we can’t give up,’ Torvin said, as the Catachans pulled their lascarbines down from the battlement and prepared to move.

Aldalon turned to look at him. ‘You got eyes in that head don’t you, soft-worlder? You see the thousand feral greenskins down there, don’t you?’

Torvin swallowed. ‘Yes, sir, but we can’t let the greenskins have the outpost, not after all this.’

‘That’s the thing about war, kid, you can’t win every battle and you can’t hold every objective. Only a fool or an ork believes you can,’ Aldalon said. ‘It’s simple. If a battle cannot be won, don’t fight it, and live to win the next one. But technically you’re only seconded to us and this was your post, so you’re more than welcome to stay here and shoot as many greenskins as you can before they come pouring inside and rip you apart. I’ll be sure to tell the commissar that you certainly weren’t a coward.’

‘No, sir,’ Torvin said. ‘I know we can’t win here, I’m just saying we can’t let the orks have this outpost. I know where the armoury is. Assuming the orks didn’t take everything, there are plenty of explosives in there. We should blow this place up. If we can’t have Outpost Four then neither can the orks.’

Aldalon stared at Torvin. He could see the colonel was considering. ‘What strategic value does destroying this watch outpost have, trooper?’

Torvin shrugged. ‘We let a bunch of them get inside then we blow them up. That kills a heap of orks. And as for strategic value’ – Torvin paused – ‘I don’t know, the orks don’t get it.’

Colonel Haskell ‘Hell Fist’ Aldalon actually cracked a smile. ‘Well, Throne,’ he said. ‘That does sound like an awfully Catachan thing to do.’ Aldalon turned to the others. ‘All right, Catachans, listen up. We’re falling back but we’re going to go with the soft-worlder’s idea because, like he said, the orks don’t get Outpost Four. While not necessarily within our mission parameters we’re doing it for the Catachans we’ve lost.’ He gestured out towards the rapidly approaching orks. ‘Feral orks weren’t part of the mission either. Someone has hung us out to dry, so Emperor take them, we’re deviating from the mission, but I won’t risk more lives than necessary. Torvin, you know where the explosives are – are you willing to be the one to stay behind? You can have one Catachan to assist, everyone else will be falling back. You’ll need to find the explosives, lay them and get out before the place blows.’

Torvin nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Sir,’ Lieutenant Sappa said, ‘I’d like to volunteer to stay and assist Torvin.’ Torvin saw Aldalon on the verge of responding, but Sappa continued before he could object. ‘You put him under my command, sir. He’s one of my squad, so I’d like to ensure he makes it out.’

Aldalon nodded. ‘Very well. Lieutenant Sappa and Trooper Torvin will remain behind to set the explosives. The rest of you, down the stairs now and make for the exit. It looks clear to the north, make for the jungle and then we head for Karoo City.’ The six troopers who would move out with Aldalon nodded and headed for the stairs. Aldalon turned to Lieutenant Sappa.

‘I think I’ve come to a balance now.’

‘How’s that, sir?’ Sappa replied.

‘Between being a Catachan commanding officer and being a father.’

Sappa didn’t reply, but her mouth tightened.

‘You make it back,’ Aldalon said. ‘That’s an order from your commanding officer because the Catachan Fifty-Seventh needs its newest acting lieutenant officially promoted, and it’s also a request from your father.’

Sappa nodded. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said, snapping up a salute.

‘Astra Militarum regulations are clear that any operational battlefield is a non-saluting area, lieutenant,’ Colonel Aldalon replied.

‘I’m not saluting the commanding officer of the Catachan Fifty-Seventh, sir,’ Lieutenant Sappa said.

Colonel Aldalon huffed and then returned the salute. ‘Good luck,’ he said as he turned and made for the stairs.

‘Thank you, sir,’ Sappa replied.

Colonel Aldalon did not turn back as he descended the stairs. Lieutenant Sappa watched him until he was out of sight and then continued to stare after him for a moment longer. Torvin felt a little uncomfortable. Most people might have considered that almost entirely straight-faced exchange of salutes to be stony military decorum, but he’d been with the Catachans long enough now to recognise it as the most emotionally charged moment he’d seen outside of the raw chaos of battle.

‘Lead the way, Torvin.’

‘Yes, lieutenant.’

The pair of them left the rooftop and descended the stairs into the outpost. He hadn’t had much chance to take in their surroundings when they’d breached the structure before in their attempt to take it back from the orks. He didn’t have much time now either, but as he led Lieutenant Sappa away from the central room and down the corridor to the armoury he at least had fractionally more time to notice what the orks had done in their time here. The walls had been covered with all sorts of graffiti written in blue, red and green paint:

Orks is best

Deffskulls rulez

Kuzz woz ’ere.

Doors had been smashed in and rooms ransacked. The sight did not fill Torvin with hope that the armoury would be untouched when they reached it. Every room had a pile of equipment in the centre: vox communicators, cogitators and displays that had been dismantled. It looked as though the orks had been stripping the equipment for parts, but they seemed to have taken as much care in breaking the equipment down as one could when using a sledgehammer for tooth removal.

All down the corridors and in every room he glanced in, in the corners between the floors and walls and especially in dark places, where it seemed to be spreading out along the rockcrete or tiled floors and up the walls in treelike branches, a mosslike fungus was growing – an infestation that Torvin was sure could not have happened naturally had the outpost been left uninhabited for the few days the orks had been here, even in the humid environment of Gondwa VI.

The further they went into the outpost, the more it was the smell that became unbearable. There was a thick aroma of wet earthiness that Torvin was sure came from the fungus on the floor and walls, but other smells were growing stronger too, stenches of acrid sweetness and what might have been rotting meat but was quite unlike anything Torvin had smelled before.

When they reached the armoury Torvin felt hope rising: the door was open but still intact – maybe they hadn’t trashed this room as badly. As they entered the armoury, though, his hopes were dashed. The shelves of ammunition and racks of weapons had been emptied.

‘Looks like they’ve picked most of it clean,’ Sappa said, ‘but where were the explosives?’

He pointed to the far wall. ‘They were over there, in stacked crates. I saw them close to the emergency flares.’

Lieutenant Sappa ran to the wall and began tossing aside empty wooden crates painted in green and adorned with the aquila and labelled DEPARTMENTO MUNITORUM.

‘Here!’ she eventually called as she tossed a final crate aside, ignoring it as it smashed on the rockcrete floor, and then began pulling one of the bottom crates out by the wooden rope handle on one side. She jammed the end of her long Catachan knife under the lid and used it to lever the crate open. The nails gave and the lid popped off. Inside were several rows of demolition charges.

She laughed. ‘Stupid orks. Need to learn to read. Grab as many plastics as you can and let’s go.’

Sappa grabbed one of the demolition charges and the roll of det. cord. She planted the explosive on the wall of the armoury, close to a bunch of crates that likely had things that would love to explode, buried the end of the det. cord in the explosive and then started unspooling it as she left the armoury and moved down the corridor. Torvin picked up half a dozen of the charges and followed.

Sappa stopped part way down the corridor and turned to Torvin with her hand out. ‘Explosive.’ Torvin passed her one and she stuck it on the wall, running the det. cord into it and out the other side before continuing on. As they moved down the corridor, the sound of the orks’ wild shouts from outside was growing louder. They must be almost inside.

Lieutenant Sappa increased her pace, letting the det. cord unroll as she ran. She stopped further down, just past the door to the communication room, and held out her hand for an explosive again. Torvin passed it to her and she did the same, sticking it to the wall, connecting the det. cord and then moving on. Ahead of them was the central space of the outpost and just as they were about to reach it, Torvin saw animal skin-clad, bone-pierced orks charge in through the opening in the wall.

‘Drop the explosives and hold them off,’ Sappa called. ‘This’ll have to do.’

Torvin did as ordered, dropping the four remaining bundles of plastic explosive to the ground and lifting his lasgun. It hummed to life as he primed it. He glanced at the green indicator on the side: it blinked at three bars out of six, half a power pack of ammunition left.

He stepped forward of where Lieutenant Sappa crouched wiring the final four explosives together, raised the lasgun and began firing. His first shot struck an ork in the side of its head as it charged in, blowing it sideways and giving the greenskin beside it a hot shower of brain matter. The orks all immediately turned in the direction of the shot though and, having noticed the two humans just down the corridor, began charging with clubs and stone axes raised. Torvin’s heart was racing, his body screaming, but he breathed as deeply and as slowly as he could. He picked a target and fired. Picked another target and fired. Picked another target and, trying to ignore how much closer they were getting, fired.

Lieutenant Sappa was next to him then, lascarbine in hand, firing as well. ‘It’s ready. One-minute timer set. We’re going to have to fight our way out. That’ll give us time to clear the area.’ Sappa fired off another shot before she let her lascarbine drop and slid her blade from its sheath.

Torvin did the same, dropping his lasgun and pulling out his knife, but as he watched the orks coming he wasn’t sure they were going to make it. It didn’t seem possible that two humans could fight through a swarm of greenskins. ‘Just arm it now,’ he said.

Sappa looked at him and nodded. She hit a button on the remote detonator and the countdown timer started. She left it beside the pile of explosives. ‘Move fast,’ she said as she rose. ‘Don’t let the orks engage you.’

Torvin nodded. Sappa looked at him one last time and then charged. She ran directly at the first ork but twisted to the side, sliding past it as she slashed, before moving on. Torvin breathed and readied himself. If he stopped running he was going to die, either at the hands of the orks or in a fiery explosion. So he did the same as Sappa, charging forward, sidestepping the first ork and then dashing the other way to dodge the second. He slashed at another ork and, as he desperately tried to keep moving through the increasing number of xenos, echoed Sappa’s cry.

‘For Catachan!’

They didn’t fight, they simply tried not to be fought. They sidestepped and dodged and ran as fast as they could before the outpost filled with a wall of orks that would be impossible to get through. They slashed at orks that tried to engage them, but only if they absolutely had to.

Torvin knew the clock was ticking on their escape. He battered aside an ork’s club as they reached the centre section of the outpost. As Sappa slammed into the door on the northern side of the building, barging through it with her shoulder, Torvin glanced in the other direction.

It was not a rising tide, it was the entire damn sea pouring into the outpost. Hundreds and hundreds of feral orks squeezing their way inside, brawling with each other as they did not find a fight waiting for them. Torvin, for the second time, found himself bursting out the north door of Outpost Four on a desperate escape. This time though, he had one minute to get clear, and as Sappa and Torvin sprinted across the grass, that one minute expired.

Torvin felt the explosion rather than heard it, like he’d been kicked in the back by a planet. He flew off his feet amidst a hot, howling fury. The energetic release of the explosion slammed him so hard that he blacked out even before he hit the ground.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

NOGROK

‘Oi, Flik,’ Nogrok called up the tree. ‘You high enough to see anything yet?’

‘Yeah, boss,’ the sound of the smaller ork’s voice called down from up in the jungle canopy. ‘I can see stuff now.’

Nogrok waited a moment, but when Flik failed to explain exactly what stuff it was he was seein’, Nogrok sighed – honestly, sometimes even the best of his boyz was thick gitz. ‘Well, ya gonna tell me what it is?’

‘Right,’ Flik said. ‘Sorry, boss, it’s just usually you the one doin’ the lookin’ out, but I guess you don’t do dat now you is warboss.’

‘Kinda lucky you still warboss though, ain’t it?’ Ruktug said.

Nogrok turned to look at Ruktug and saw the wide grin on the kommando’s face.

‘Wot you sayin’?’ Nogrok asked.

‘Well, we ain’t got a base and most of da boyz are dead, and we didn’t krump the humies. Ain’t much good warbossin’.’

Nogrok lashed out with speed that even surprised himself and punched Ruktug square in the nose. The ork flew back off his feet with a burst of blood from his face and slammed into a tree, coming to a jolting stop and sliding to the ground. Huh. He hadn’t meant to hit him that hard. Seemed there’d been more changes to his size, speed and strength. Ruktug groaned from the crumbled heap at the base of the tree.

‘You wanna challenge me already, Ruktug?’

‘Nah.’ Ruktug shook his bleeding face emphatically. ‘I shouldn’ta said anything. It’s just, we ain’t never ’ad a kommando warboss before. We ain’t never ’ad a sneaky boy warboss. You ain’t…’ Ruktug looked like he was going to say something else but then maybe thought better of it.

‘I ain’t what?’

‘Nothin’, boss.’

‘I ain’t what, Ruktug?’ Nogrok said, sterner this time.

‘Well,’ Ruktug said, looking like an ork boy who was about to admit to stealing all the fungus beer, ‘you ain’t, you know, you ain’t scary like a normal warboss.’

Nogrok felt a rise of orky rage. ‘I ain’t scary,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you scary if I ’ave to.’ He took a couple of steps towards Ruktug but then stopped himself. He looked at Ruktug, blood flowing from his nose over the black paint on his face. The other orks around him were all wearing various attempts at camouflage and so, of course, was he. He stopped coz, despite being annoyed about it, Ruktug was right.

‘You right, Ruktug,’ Nogrok said.

‘I am?’

‘Yeah. I ain’t scary like a normal warboss. I ain’t a massive ball of muscle with legs I bought from a mekboy or a big suit of armour so I can charge into a fight like a rok smashin’ into a planet. I ain’t a big tough warboss in dat way, sure, but I ain’t a big stupid git either. All dem dumb warbosses think Gork is da best but I is gonna show ’em Mork is da best. You think dem humies was scared of Warboss Gutstompa?’ None of the orks answered, probably not knowin’ whether he was asking a real question or a wotsit – a retro-oracle question. He turned to Gluk. ‘Do you think tha humies was scared of Warboss Gutstompa, Gluk?’

The ork boy shrugged. ‘I was.’

‘Yeah.’ Nogrok nodded. ‘You was, but guess wot, dat humie with the big hand? ’E wasn’t scared o’ Gutstompa at all. Gutstompa just a big idiot. Strong, yeah, but dumb as squig juice. Who do ya think that humie was scared of, Gluk?’

‘Uh,’ Gluk said. ‘Those feral orks wot come–’

‘Me, ya git!’ Nogrok yelled at him. ‘Dat Catachan humie was scared o’ me and he was scared o’ me for the reasons you sayin’ I ain’t scary, Ruktug. Da humies scared o’ me coz I ain’t a big, dumb warboss. I gonna be a kunnin’ warboss what fights like they ain’t never seen. I’m scary coz I’m different.’

Nogrok leant in close to the orks around him. ‘I gonna be a different warboss. I gonna raise a whole warband of kommandos. We gonna be kunnin’. Kunnin’ but brutal.’

‘Boss!’ Flik called down from up the tree. ‘I see somethin’ you probably want to know about.’

Nogrok waited for another moment. ‘Well, tell me then, ya git!’

‘Da humies is runnin’ away from the outpost and all them feral orks are chargin’ inside.’

‘I thought you said the humies weren’t scared of the feral orks, boss,’ Gluk said.

‘Shut your squig hole, git,’ Nogrok said. ‘They runnin’ coz they can’t win. You saw ’ow many of them feral gitz there were, ’eaps of ’em. Them feral orks are the stupidest of the stupid. They don’t know nothin’ about fightin’.’

Nogrok stopped. Somewhere inside the deepest parts of his mycelium mind there was a bright spark of electricity. It ran along the twisting channels until it reached the mushroom equivalent of his prefrontal cortex, where it merged with a series of other electrical signals and suddenly erupted into an idea. He smiled. Most orks never had an idea, at least not a new idea – most ork knowledge was simply preprogrammed into their genetic code – but every once in a while, in the brain of a particular ork, some factors collided that led to them having the very rare feeling of an epiphany. He’d already thought about making the feral orks part of his warband, but maybe he could do more than that; maybe he could show ’em the way of bein’ proper orks. Ferals didn’t know anything so maybe he could make all of them into kommandos, convince them that was the proper way of being an ork.

Nogrok’s moment of inspiration was interrupted by a booming explosion, and then another, then another, and finally a truly massive boom that rattled his internal organs and caused an uncontrollable reaction of orkish glee.

‘Cor!’ Flik called from up the tree. ‘Da humie base just blew up with loads of the feral orks inside.’

Nogrok huffed a tiny laugh. Good one. The Catachans must have gave them one last sneaky present. ‘How many of them feral orks left out there then?’ Nogrok asked Flik.

‘There was still heaps outside,’ Flik said, ‘maybe loads.’

‘Dat’s good then,’ Nogrok said.

‘It is?’ Ruktug asked with a nasal whine, as he’d plugged two fingers up his nose to try to quell the bleeding.

‘Yes, Ruktug,’ Nogrok said. ‘It is. If we gonna build a kunnin’ warband we need orks that ain’t already thinkin’ they know better.’

Nogrok smiled again. He was going to be the first warboss to ever lead a Waaagh! full of properly sneaky orks. A little time was all he needed, and he’d show the Catachans, and all the humies, and everything in the whole galaxy what a Waaagh! Sneakyguts could do.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

ALDALON

Colonel Aldalon crouched in the low undergrowth, peering out between two large, gently parted fern leaves. He felt a tightness around his shin and when he looked down, he saw one of Gondwa VI’s multi-limbed serpents coiling itself around his lower leg. Aldalon looked down at it, considering the creature. It was close to ten feet long, green with a pale belly and jagged yellow stripes on its back, with four pairs of legs set evenly along its length that it had tucked up as it wrapped around Aldalon’s calf, its muscular body pulsing as it began to squeeze.

Colonel Aldalon poked at it with his Catachan knife. The lizard lifted its snake-like head towards Aldalon and opened its mouth, hissing. From between several rows of small triangular teeth its tongue shot out and opened to reveal another wet, mucus-covered appendage extending from inside the tongue like a blood-sucking proboscis. To most humans this would have caused a panic on an instinctive, primal level. Yet Aldalon’s adrenal glands barely fluttered. He was from the death world of Catachan; this bloodsucking half-snake half-lizard was a child’s plaything. He stuck his blade point first into the mud and then, with his bare hand, grabbed the head of the creature. It writhed and hissed, its bloodsucking tongue whipping around.

‘Now, is not the time,’ he said to the lizard before twisting its head around hard, wrenching it a full one hundred and eighty degrees and feeling the spinal cord snap and sever. Then, just to be sure, he continued the twist all the way around as everything in the neck ruptured and the vertebrae ground against each other. The animal’s long body squeezed harder with muscle spasms before finally going limp. Aldalon pulled it off his leg and tossed it away into the scrub.

He turned his attention back to the direction of Outpost Four. Aldalon had led Sergeant Dram and the last of the troopers far enough away from the watch station to avoid detection should the feral orks somehow manage to follow them. This meant being back a distance from the edge of the northern treeline. The trade-off was that it was difficult to see the outpost from here, but he could just make out the shape of the rockcrete structure through the curling vines and densely growing trees that stretched for the light above the canopy. It was difficult to make out individual orks, but the general movement of the mass of greenskins was clear enough.

The first of the feral orks had reached the outpost and were charging inside through the destroyed section of wall. They were charging inside and not coming out. The other thing he could not see coming out was Learna or Trooper Torvin. He leant from side to side, trying to find the best sight line he could through the trees.

Aldalon watched the outpost, waiting for Learna to come running across the open ground to the north. He muttered under his breath for her to hurry. ‘Come on. Come on.’ He even sent his desire to the Emperor Himself, something he had not done since Brant’s death. ‘Immortal Emperor, have mercy and guide her to safety now so that she may continue to serve you with her life.’

Aldalon had barely finished speaking when the outpost erupted in a massive series of explosions. The first occurred somewhere near the central chamber. Even from this relatively short distance Aldalon saw the flash of light and the first expansion of fracturing rockcrete before the sound reached him with a booming roll like thunder and a buffeting of his eardrums.

The devastation continued as the first explosion rolled into a second and a third. The central section of the outpost had collapsed into a pile of debris, and a column of black-and-grey smoke was rising into the air, but some of the rockcrete chunks hadn’t even fallen back to earth when the subsequent detonations followed towards the west end of the outpost, smaller explosions but still enough to blow out walls along the building’s length.

Finally, like the cymbal crash right at the crescendo of a rising symphony, the final explosion rocked the jungle as the black sooty burst of demolition charges was joined by the unmistakable detonation of an armoury. It wasn’t the first time Aldalon had borne witness to the chaining explosions of an erupting ammo dump – he’d even caused it once or twice himself. Ammunition, explosives, mines, lasgun power packs and missiles all released their stored potential energy with a cacophony of pops and booms that combined to blow the rockcrete structure of the western end of the outpost into little more than rapidly expanding dust. Some of the bigger debris was thrown in high arcs all over the clearing and some even had the velocity to plunge into the edge of the jungle.

Aldalon watched the corpse of Outpost Four as the destruction slowed to smaller blasts and pops as the last holdouts of the armoury supplies gave in to their fate. Of the feral orks who’d been inside the outpost, nothing remained but their component atoms and even those nearby had been vaporised. A wide band of orks had been flattened, many speared through with flying debris, torn apart by the sheer energetic release of the shock wave, or even killed by the flying body parts of their comrades. That was something far more common than people realised. Aldalon himself had seen Imperial Guardsmen killed countless times by pieces of other Guardsmen. They tended to leave that off the recruitment posters and out of the motivational brochures; no one wanted to think about having their skull crushed as the ripped-off leg of their best friend hit them in the face.

The feral orks that hadn’t been killed or mortally wounded had stopped and were staring at the destroyed outpost like the children Aldalon had seen when the Catachan 57th had been part of the force that liberated Tyringal from drukhari slavers and the planet had celebrated with an immense display of fireworks over the capital. The children had stared with wide-eyed wonder at the explosions, just as the orks were doing now. At least, the people of Tyringal had celebrated until the planet was completely destroyed by a drukhari dark matter weapon in retribution some six months later.

Aldalon waited as the explosions finally ceased. He waited as the rain of debris ended. He waited even as the dust began to settle and the feral orks started picking over the carcass of the outpost for what might be left. He waited long enough.

‘Catachans,’ he said, turning away from the destroyed outpost, stone-faced and cold. ‘Let’s move out.’

The remaining Catachans turned to follow without speaking. Colonel Aldalon knew none of them wanted to be the first to raise any discussion of the heavy price that had been paid today. Aldalon walked into the green of the jungle. Learna had said this world reminded her a little of Catachan, but it was not Catachan, and for all the deadly horror of that world, it was their home. It was their home and Learna would never see it again. Catachan had sacrificed much for this tiny outpost, too much, and there would be more than warping hell to pay for those that had sent them out here with the understanding they were facing a small warband of ordinary orks.

Not only had Catachan paid too heavy a price, but he had also paid too heavy a price yet again. Here, and on Karst, he had paid with his blood kin. He had felt such pride, as any Catachan would, when both his children had made it into the Jungle Fighters. Now, when they had whole careers of distinguished service to the Emperor and the Imperium ahead of them, the orks and the bad intelligence of soft-world fools had got them both killed. Aldalon felt a warmth in his hand and realised he was unconsciously causing his power fist to crackle with energy. He released the tension, knowing the bloodlust and madness caused by the loss of Brant would be all the more difficult to control now that he would have to squash down the grief for his daughter as well. He had to force it down though, he had to bury it deep. Emotion was weakness and there was no room for weakness on Catachan. Although, he was going to make an exception for the emotion of rage when he got back to Karoo City.

The Catachans, even under the circumstances of defeat and loss, moved with their well-practised stealth into the thicker jungle of the valley leading to Karoo City. It was because they were moving so silently that all of them heard the series of clicks behind them. Aldalon held up his fist for the soldiers to halt and then he turned, almost hesitantly, unsure if he wanted to believe it.

There, moving gingerly and not as stealthily as he would have approved of, was Trooper Torvin with a clicker in his hand. He was limping and was supported by – or perhaps they were supporting each other – Learna. They were dirty with grey rockcrete dust and the sooty black of spent explosives. It coated their uniforms and covered their faces, thick in their eyelashes and eyebrows, turning to a wet paste around their numerous bleeding cuts and scrapes. They approached the smiling Catachans, who greeted them with claps on the shoulders and arms.

Colonel Aldalon looked at his daughter and felt a rush of relief of course, but more than that, he felt pride even greater than he had before. She was a true Catachan, a warrior and a survivor. He kept his face as impassive as he could, but he had to admit, it felt good; perhaps there was something to focusing on emotions other than rage after all.

‘I’m glad you made it, lieutenant.’

‘I told you I would, sir,’ Lieutenant Sappa said. ‘I was just following orders, and a request from my father.’

To that Aldalon smiled. ‘You two can make it to Karoo?’

Torvin and Learna nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good,’ Aldalon said. ‘All right. Catachans, let’s move. There’s a politician in Karoo I’ve got business with.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

ALDALON

The crashing tide of feral orks roaring from the jungle and slamming into Outpost Four was nothing compared to the energy with which Colonel Haskell Aldalon entered the temporary headquarters in the reliquary room of the Karoo City chapel. His look alone sent the single guard outside wilting into a puddle of nerves on the floor, and he opened the door with his power fist with all the subtlety that entailed.

The wooden door shattered as he punched his way in, sending splinters scything dangerously through the air. The usual suspects were inside, no doubt awaiting his arrival since he and the remains of the two squads he’d left with had been spotted entering the lower levels of the city. Both Planetary Governor Misom and Major General Nillom stared wide-eyed and pale and with the posture of two men who had unexpectedly answered their daily call of nature. Commissar Redvin, who was made of stronger stuff, had clambered to her feet and displayed a stance more akin to someone well versed in causing others to evacuate their bowels.

‘Colonel Aldalon!’ the commissar roared. ‘What is the meaning of this? You could have killed someone! I will have you on charges immediately.’

‘Unfortunately, it appears I did not manage to kill anyone, commissar,’ Aldalon replied.

Commissar Redvin had already flicked back her long black greatcoat and was reaching for her bolt pistol. ‘Wilful endangerment of the life of a superior officer. Astra Militarum Disciplinary Regulation 416A calls for the commissar present to judge and deliver immediate punishment up to and including death.’

Colonel Aldalon did not seem concerned. ‘I’m not the one who should be brought up on charges, Commissar Redvin.’ Colonel Aldalon pointed to Planetary Governor Misom. ‘He should be.’

‘What?’ Governor Misom objected in his pathetic squeaking voice.

‘You’ve returned with a fraction of the troopers you left with, colonel,’ Commissar Redvin said. ‘Are you trying to shift the blame?’

Aldalon felt a rise of anger. ‘You want to know why I lost so many troopers out there? The intelligence we were given was that we were facing a small warband of orks who’d overrun and occupied a watch station.’

‘Yes,’ Major General Nillom replied, ‘that was the situation.’

‘Have you ever heard the stories of the ghost orks?’ Aldalon asked.

‘Fairy tales,’ Nillom said. ‘Stories that arose from scared Guardsmen on Karst and earlier campaigns in the defence of this subsector.’

‘So, you weren’t aware that a large contingent of the orks that had taken Outpost Four were those the orks call kommandos?’

‘Well, I don’t see the relevance of that,’ Governor Misom said. ‘An ork is an ork is an ork.’

‘No,’ Aldalon said, ‘an ork is not an ork. We had already learned that lesson on Karst. The ghost orks are very much real. They are a bunch of kommandos being led by the now Warboss Nogrok, and they are far deadlier in small numbers than any orks I have ever encountered.’

‘Thank you, colonel,’ Commissar Redvin said. ‘I understand you being upset with losing troopers, but I believe we can put this down as a mistake rather than negligence. I’m sure–’

‘I’m not done, commissar,’ Colonel Aldalon said, cutting the commissar off with her mouth hanging open. ‘I’d also like to note you haven’t yet asked about the outcome of the mission, Major General Nillom. You see, if I am here, and all my troopers are here, who would be holding Outpost Four?’

‘I…’ Nillom started, ‘I, uh, I assumed we’d need to send a unit out to man it or, colonel, are you saying the mission failed?’

Aldalon smiled, but it was not a smile of warmth or humour. ‘Major general, do you think I would be this riled up if the mission had been a rousing success?’

‘So, the orks still have control of Outpost Four?’

Aldalon turned to the whiny voice of Planetary Governor Misom. ‘Governor,’ Aldalon said, ‘what do you think we encountered out there?’

‘Colonel Aldalon,’ Nillom said, ‘do the orks have control of Outpost Four or not?’

‘No, sir, the orks do not have control of Outpost Four.’

‘Ah, good,’ Governor Misom muttered.

‘Nobody does,’ Aldalon finished. ‘It has been destroyed.’

‘What?’ Misom blurted out. ‘Destroyed? How?’

‘Well, we blew it up to deny it to the enemy,’ Aldalon said matter-of-factly.

‘You… but… you cannot!’ Misom continued to bluster. ‘That outpost is of vital strategic significance.’

‘Colonel,’ Major General Nillom said, ‘your mission was to retake the outpost, not destroy it.’

‘Well, sir, as if not knowing about the ghost orks wasn’t bad enough, there was another even bigger threat out there. We retook Outpost Four, before being completely overrun by an immense force of feral orks,’ Aldalon said. He was speaking to Nillom but kept Governor Misom squarely in his sights as he said this. As he expected, Misom’s face instantly drained of colour, as it had when he’d first burst into the room. ‘We were forced to abandon the outpost and turned it into a baited trap for the orks. Despite the number we killed, there are still a thousand or so feral orks out there in the jungle, possibly more.’

‘Feral orks?’ Major General Nillom said, and the look on his face was enough to confirm Aldalon’s suspicions. He hadn’t known. ‘A whole force of them?’

Aldalon turned to Commissar Redvin. ‘Commissar, our relationship is a little rocky and I know you have no jurisdiction over a planetary governor, so I can’t ask you to do much here, but would you mind turning a blind eye to my actions for a moment?’

‘That depends on what you are talking about, colonel,’ the commissar responded.

‘You see,’ Aldalon said before gesturing to Governor Misom, ‘he knew about the feral orks but has kept it from the Imperium.’

‘I certainly did not,’ Misom spluttered, ‘I-I-I knew nothing about any orks.’

‘There are thousands of feral orks in the jungles surrounding your planet’s capital. Even the most incompetent, worthless cesspit of an Imperial world can detect a feral ork population of a hundred or less. They aren’t exactly subtle.’

‘No,’ Governor Misom said with all the confidence of a man with blood-covered hands, ‘it’s, ah, it’s because of the planet’s, you know, magnetic field. We have difficulty with surveillance and, it’s… we didn’t know about them.’

Aldalon looked at the commissar. ‘Would you mind?’

Commissar Redvin nodded and Aldalon was on the planetary governor in two-tenths of a heartbeat. He grabbed him around the throat with his augmetic left hand and squeezed. The governor made the noise of a terrified mouse.

‘You listen to me, you soft-world fool,’ Aldalon growled. ‘If I grabbed you like this with my power fist and squeezed, your head would pop off like a lanced pustule.’ The governor squirmed uselessly like a wet towel flopping in the colonel’s grip. ‘Why didn’t you tell us about the feral orks?’

‘I didn’t know,’ the governor managed, but Aldalon squeezed again and Misom yelped. ‘All right,’ he pleaded, ‘all right! We knew we had a feral ork problem.’

Aldalon let him go. Misom rubbed at his reddening neck. ‘Speak.’

‘We just…’ the governor said. ‘We’ve had several ork invasions over the years and they always seem to come back. Every time the orks invade and we think they are driven off they pop back up again – either more of them come from the void or we have a feral infestation. My grandfather, when he was governor, claimed to have fought off the last infestation without Imperial aid, but when the feral orks started appearing again he was terrified of what would happen if he was openly proved wrong. The Imperium seemed to be less concerned about our planet each time we called for help. Our tithe isn’t large enough to warrant endless resources being spent to make sure it keeps coming.’

‘Wealth,’ Aldalon said, shaking his head. ‘You kept quiet about an ork infestation because you were worried about money.’

‘You don’t know what it’s like trying to keep a world going. We are a jungle world, we require much from the Imperium, but if we are infested with orks again and again, eventually the Imperium will give up on us. We resolved to handle it ourselves, and then, well… the lie grew.’

Aldalon turned to Commissar Redvin. ‘Satisfied with my concerns enough that you can drop charges against me, commissar?’

Redvin turned from Aldalon to Governor Misom. ‘Yes, colonel, very well. You are correct in stating I do not have any authority over planetary governors, but I certainly feel this warrants further investigation.’

‘No,’ Governor Misom pleaded. ‘Please, don’t bring the Inquisition into this.’

‘Shut up,’ Redvin said. ‘Not reporting an ork infestation is tantamount to traitorous.’

Aldalon turned to Major General Nillom. ‘Sir, I know you believed you were well on your way to clearing the Gondwa System of orks but the actions of the Gondwa VI government have destroyed that notion. At the moment, we’ve got a three-way war for this world involving us, Warboss Nogrok and his ghost orks, and now these ferals. If we act swiftly, perhaps we can at least keep it that way. If not, I fear things could get much worse.’

‘And how could they get worse, colonel?’ Nillom asked.

‘If Nogrok pulls the ferals under his control he’ll be very dangerous.’

‘Major general!’ A lieutenant entered the room in a fluster. ‘Sir, reports of orks approaching the city through the valley!’

Major General Nillom looked blank-faced.

‘Sir?’ the lieutenant repeated.

Aldalon looked from Nillom to the lieutenant. ‘Lieutenant.’

‘Yes, sir?’ the lieutenant said, turning his attention to Aldalon.

‘You tell the city defence the Catachan Fifty-Seventh are on their way.’

- - - - - DEPARTMENTO MUNITORUM FORM 8712/AM/R03 - - - - -

ASTRA MILITARUM OPERATIONS REPORT

CORRESPONDENCE NUMBER: OR-12710735734

TO: High Command, Task Force Devotion of Pangea

CC: Departmento Munitorum – Office of Records – Correspondence Department

Office of the Supreme Commander Ultima Segmentum

Officio Tactica Logistics Division

FROM: Major General Niko Nillom, Officer Commanding Gondwa System Defence

SUBJECT: Gondwa System Defence Update

ENCLOSURES and REFERENCES:

1. Gondwa VI Casualty Report from Skadi Second Infantry and Catachan 57th Jungle Fighters

2. Request Form for Priority Two Transfer of Additional Reinforcements (Eighth Submission)

3. Request Form for Special Order Wargear – Power fist

In the name of the most Holy Emperor of Mankind I, (insert name here) MAJOR GENERAL NILLOM, submit the following report on (insert relevant operation name) THE GONDWA SYSTEM DEFENCE.

Following my last official report (see OR-12710735626) I can update that the purging of Gondwa VI is continuing with all confidence of success.

The Skadi Second Infantry Fourth Platoon had been stationed at watch station Outpost Four on the outskirts of the planet’s capital, Karoo City. The platoon encountered high ork resistance to their presence and performed admirably in a final stand in the glorious spirit of the Astra Militarum and in the name of the most Holy Immortal Emperor. All members of the platoon were killed in action. Related: please see my attached request form for additional reinforcements. This is the eighth request for additional reinforcements I have directed to the Officio Tactica. Please respond at your earliest convenience. I praise the troopers of the Skadi Second and would recommend the raising of the Skadi Third Infantry Regiment when next the planet is tithed.

Outpost Four was retaken by the valiant and ever-reliable forces of the Catachan 57th Jungle Fighters, although it is my understanding that it did sustain some damage in the assault. The commanding officer of the Catachan 57th, Colonel Haskell Aldalon, has provided sufficient evidence that there is a larger ork force on the planet than we initially believed. However, I am confident the Catachan 57th can assist the Gondwa VI militia in holding strong as I await further reinforcements to cleanse the world entirely (see again reference 2).

The capital, Karoo City, does appear to be a target of the orks on this world, but we will resist them with the blessing of the Emperor and I myself shall take to the battlefield if necessary. Please see the attached Departmento Munitorum request for special wargear. I would like the blessed privilege of wielding a power fist against the foes of mankind as Colonel Aldalon has shown the benefit of such a weapon in this environment. A small one would be acceptable.

In the Emperor’s name we continue this winning campaign.

- - - - - END COMMUNICATION - - - - -

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Justin Woolley hails from the bottom of the world in Tasmania, Australia and is an author of science fiction and fantasy. In his other life Justin has been an engineer, a teacher, and at one stage even a magician. A long-time fan of Warhammer 40,000, he has written the novella Prisoners of Waaagh! and the short stories ‘Redemption Through Sacrifice’ and ‘Night Shriekers’ for Black Library.

An extract from Steel Tread.

The Salamander was a light armoured vehicle, often employed for scouting purposes, or to ferry officers around hostile warzones. As with so many enduring Imperial technologies, its design leaned upon rugged simplicity. Salamanders were built for speed and resilience.

They were not, reflected Etsul, made for comfort.

She was crammed onto the Salamander’s open-topped fighting platform along with the tattooed Geskan, Lieutenant Aswold, three Cadian infantry officers and all their kitbags. Adding to the press were the Salamander’s commander, its gunner and a robed Munitorum adept. He had introduced himself as Umboldt while herding them aboard their transport back at Mandriga command. He had not spoken since, and clung to a grab rail with an intensity that bespoke either annoyance or fear.

Aswold had made some attempts at conversation, but Etsul fended them away. She hung on near the rear of the vehicle’s troop bay, and fell back upon a calming technique Commander Masenwe had taught his crew.

‘Widen your focus,’ he had always said. ‘Observe the world around you. Anchor yourself in its details. Tally patterns or coloured objects, it sometimes helps. It’s no bad thing to glue your eyes to your targeter, but be sure to look up at the wider battle once in a while.’

Etsul started with the sky. It looked bruised today, blue and amber swirling like milk stirred into recaff. She counted five distinct rafts of cloud coiling across the heavens. They diffused the light of Croatoas’ star and made it possible to look skyward without risking a poisonous glimpse of the Rift.

Unwilling to look long upon that void-borne wound, she hastily turned her attention to the landscape. The Salamander rumbled along a raised transitway, which must once have carried macro haulers between industrial complexes. It was held high on ferrocrete pillars. Beneath, all was mud, stream and thicket.

The transitway had not escaped unharmed. Lianas thicker than Etsul’s forearm had grown over the road’s saviour rails. Plants had sunk their roots into ferrocrete, prising it apart. She counted several blackened patches where flamer teams had burned the rapacious growth, and even the freshest bore signs of the flora of Croatoas returning with obscene vigour.

Other vehicles used the roadway. Several Taurox transports rumbled past, and Etsul saw the caduceus of the medicae blazoned on them. A squadron of quad-wheeled Geskan scout bikes overtook them and roared into the distance.

‘Those warquads are fine vehicles for traversing troublesome terrain,’ commented Aswold. ‘One assumes this stretch of the front will be just as troublesome as where we’ve come from.’

Etsul grunted in response. A roadblock appeared ahead, all sandbag redoubts and emplaced heavy stubbers. Cadian soldiers manned it, alert despite the lack of obvious threats.

Raised barriers allowed traffic through the blockade. Their Salamander joined a queue of vehicles being checked by a pair of Guardsmen with data-slates. Servo-skulls buzzed overhead, playing auspex lenses across waiting vehicles and their passengers. Speakers on fold-out legs blared prayers over the chug of their portable generatoria.

The Salamander reached the front of the queue. Umboldt exchanged words with a Cadian gate guard. He tapped his data-slate, she hers, then she waved them on.

‘Impressive organisation,’ Aswold said. ‘Keeping track of every vehicle moving along this roadway, even in an active warzone. Maintaining a data-schedule for them all. Cadians do things properly.’

‘It isn’t just data-keeping they have a reputation for, Aswold,’ Etsul replied.

She turned away and craned out over the Salamander’s left track. The wind whipped around her, bringing the smells of swampland, salt water and smoke, and underneath them a sinister sweetness she knew well. It was the smell of death borne on the winds of war.

Resuming her exercise, Etsul looked down upon the swamplands. Below the nodding fronds of guasa trees were Cadian and Geskan soldiers, knee-deep in mud, slogging their way through a half-built line of flakboard trenches with arms full of supplies. Etsul grimaced. Her home planet, Tsegoh, was a damp agri-world with high-yield protein farms clinging to ridges of land jutting into its oceans. She knew how the wet got into everything, how the mud clung, and how disease would burn through the workforce like wildfire.

Etsul was perversely pleased to find that, even after Yarroe Canyon, she still longed for the confines of a tank over the dubious freedoms of the footslogger.

The Salamander slowed. Etsul gripped her grab rail and adjusted the heavy kitbag on her shoulder with a grimace.

‘I believe this is our exit,’ said Aswold. The Salamander plunged down an off-ramp, descending into more overgrown industrial ruins. As fronds and boughs whipped past, Etsul breathed deeply. She had been lulled by the rhythm of the journey, the temporary release from responsibility that came with being a passenger. Now the spell was broken. Giving up on her calming ritual, she ran through the names of her crew, muttering them to herself like a mantra. It didn’t do to forget such things, and repetition was the ally of memory, as they taught in basic training.

Rhus Vaslav, gunner, sergeant, Cadian.

Isaac Trieve, driver, Brethian.

Erika Moretzin, loader, Cadian.

Nix Chalenboor, sponson gunner, Dakturian.

Garret Verro, sponson gunner, Cadian.

And then there was the tank itself, Steel Tread, an Agamemnor-pattern Leman Russ Demolisher. According to her briefing slate the vehicle had seen centuries of warfare. Oathkeeper, by comparison, had been practically new, rolled off the forge lines barely three years ago. Its machine-spirit had been fierce and eager.

Etsul wondered what sort of spirit inhabited an ancient war engine like Steel Tread. She had worked with older tanks before. One had struck her as wise and protective, but others had tended towards bestial savagery, steeped in centuries of spilt blood.

Etsul would have liked to go over the vehicle’s specifications again. Many systems were unfamiliar. Crammed in as she was, though, and unsure of how soon they might stop, she didn’t dare unsling her bag to rummage for her data-slate. She sighed and rolled her shoulders as best she could. There were entire inloads of Cadian strategic procedures and battlefield jargon she’d barely had time to absorb.

Etsul resigned herself to learning on the job. At least she knew her way around the inside of a tank well enough.

The transitway reached ground level. It carried them on through thickets and between tidal estuaries, then abruptly into an industrial belt. Buildings soared skyward, hollowed by war. Their flanks slumped amidst vomited spills of brickwork. Empty windows stared down upon her. Pipes wider than the Salamander ran alongside the roadway and formed rusting arches under which they passed. Nests of thorned vines and plants with vibrant red flower spikes grew everywhere, boiling up from within ruined buildings like guts from an opened belly.

Etsul saw bullet holes and shell craters.

Clouds of biting insects thrummed through the air, thick as mist.

The smell of putrefaction grew stronger.

‘Was not always like this,’ murmured Aswold. ‘Croatoas used to be a bustling industrial world. Tens of billions of good, Emperor-fearing folk.’

Etsul knew this. Even the densest soldier of the Coronal Crusade had some knowledge of the planet for which they fought.

‘It was the darkness that changed things, after the Rift opened,’ she said. ‘Something dreadful happened to the people, the cities…’

‘Not to mention the plant life, the weather, and whatever else you care to note,’ Aswold agreed.

‘And then we came, the Coronal Crusade, here to reclaim Croatoas as the God-Emperor willed.’

‘So the Commissariat and the priests tell us,’ replied Aswold, careful to keep his voice low.

Etsul glanced a sharp question his way. Aswold shrugged.

‘Better to go to war in His name and thus find purpose, than to sit becalmed in the void wondering where the tides of the immaterium have hurled you and what has become of the Emperor’s realm, no?’

‘I don’t need anyone to tell me why I should kill heretics,’ said Etsul. ‘Hate is reason enough.’

Aswold gave her an appraising look. ‘I might say, hatred and faith, one informing the other.’

Now it was Etsul’s turn to shrug. ‘Either is better than fear.’

Their conversation was broken by thunder. She jumped and reached again for her sidearm. Those around her ducked instinctively, except Umboldt.

‘Mobile Imperial artillery engaging in speculative suppression,’ he shouted, straining to be heard over the booms rolling from all around. As they crossed a junction, Etsul spied a trio of Basilisks, their long barrels elevated, their crews hastening to load fresh shells. The muzzle of the nearest gun spat fire, rocking the vehicle back on its treads. Then the Salamander was past, and forging on towards the gap of daylight at the end of the processional.

‘Is there a battle in progress?’ Aswold asked. ‘Should we be ready for combat?’

‘There are frequent attacks. The heretics dash themselves against the Mandriga Line like wild beasts,’ sneered Umboldt. ‘Fear not. You shan’t have to fight them today.’

‘None of us is afraid of a fight, quill-pusher,’ replied Aswold. Umboldt scowled. One corner of Etsul’s mouth quirked in a half-smile.

The Salamander left the shadow of the ruins. The transitway became a rutted dirt road. The tank banged and lurched as it passed over plasteel plates laid down, Etsul presumed, to prevent the route from being churned to a mire. Islands of foliage rose to either side amidst broad streams and a network of trenches and bunkers. Imperial Guard soldiery were everywhere, packing the trenches, running messages or out on patrol. The Salamander passed communication dugouts and mortar pits veiled by screens of flakboard and cameleoline. Etsul saw towers for artillery spotters jutting proud of the marshes. Here and there squatted platforms mounting anti-aircraft cannons.

‘We’re close,’ she said to Aswold.

‘Have you thought the thoughts that needed thinking?’ he asked her. The words had the cadence of a saying.

She eyed him.

He returned his bright and guileless smile.

‘As it happens, I have, despite your chatter.’

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘If words earned the Emperor’s grace, I would be a saint by now.’

‘Some words do,’ she said.

‘Rarely my chatter, Hadeya,’ he replied, and Etsul snorted a laugh.

‘Are those turrets ahead?’ she asked, pointing. As the shapes resolved, Aswold’s smile broadened.

‘I believe those are our tanks.’

She saw he was right. There were Leman Russ battle tanks of various patterns dotted amongst the trenches, painted Cadian green. On each was displayed a stylised hammer design, haloed in flame. Etsul’s eye had been fooled by the redoubts of packed earth and flakboard around each vehicle. These weren’t gun turrets. Rather, the tanks had been dug in so that they could serve as such.

‘If they’ve emplaced our tanks, then the tides of war must move sluggishly here,’ she said.

Beyond the tanks and trenches sprawled a half-drowned no-man’s-land of rubble, greenery and the remains of drowned roadways littered with wreckage. Smoke rose in the distance, tattering into the wind. Etsul thought of the Basilisks and their ‘speculative suppressing fire’. She hoped those dark plumes marked fresh enemy dead.

The Salamander wheeled off the road and came to a halt. Its power plant cut out, leaving Etsul’s ears ringing. This tinnitus slowly gave way to the sounds of the front line: murmured conversations; shouts, and barked orders, and prayer; the rumble of engines; the crackle of cook-fires and the tinny squawk of voices through vox-sets. Artillery fire thumped in the distance. She smelled meat cooking and the funk of hundreds of unwashed bodies. Stronger than ever was the sweet tang of death. It crept from the swamps, and no amount of fortifications could hold it back.

Umboldt flourished his data-slate.

‘Officers of the Astra Militarum, please confirm your belonging to the following regiments. Cadian Eight-Hundred and Thirty-Second Heavy Infantry. Cadian Forty-Ninth Armoured. Geskan Forty-Third Light Infa–’

‘No one calls us that,’ rasped the Geskan.

‘What?’

‘We’re the Trenchrunners. They’re the Dauntless Eight Thirty-Two, and they’re the Hammers.’

‘Whatever nicknames the common soldiery bandy about is of no interest to the Departmento Munitorum,’ sniffed Umboldt, words as clipped as cogitator keystrokes. ‘You will all confirm at this time that you belong to or are being transferred to one of the regiments aforementioned.’

‘I believe we can all confirm that, yes?’ asked Aswold. There were murmurs of assent. The Geskan bristled and spat off the side of the tank.

Umboldt stared expectantly.

‘Throne’s sake. Yes,’ snarled the Geskan.

Umboldt nodded in satisfaction and tapped at his data-slate.

The device chimed.

‘Oh, data-spirit of knowledge, we offer you this day our thanks for your continued guidance and thrice-blessed autopedantry,’ he intoned solemnly, before returning his gaze to the gathered soldiers.

‘This is section one-three-one of the Mandriga Defence Line,’ Umboldt told them, the reverence of a moment before replaced by disdain. ‘You should already be fully briefed with regard to joining your assigned combat units and immediate commencement of front-line command duties. Any questions should be addressed to your platoon commanders in the first instance, or to regimental section officers in the case that such personnel are indisposed. May the Emperor bless your endeavours.’

Etsul was first to climb down from the Salamander and into the connecting trench behind it. She took a few paces, enjoying the simple feeling of comparative space. She was tempted to throw her kitbag onto the duckboard floor and stretch out the knotted muscles of her back. However, she had spotted a small group of soldiers waiting nearby, watching the officers dismount. At the sight, another of Masenwe’s lessons came back to her.

‘You can’t be merely human in front of your troops. You keep that for when it’s just you and the Emperor. Rest of the time we’re the strongest, the toughest, the ones who don’t get tired or sad or afraid. They need it from us, and it’s the only way to earn their respect.’

Etsul kept her kitbag on her shoulder.

‘This will be our reception committee,’ muttered Aswold.

‘You’re still not dressed for it,’ she noted.

‘You would prefer that I had attempted to change in the back of a moving Salamander?’

Etsul snorted.

‘They will get used to me soon enough,’ Aswold said. ‘Besides, it will do these Cadians good to remember they are not the only worthy soldiers in the Imperial Guard.’

Etsul smiled. Her expression curdled, however, as realisation dawned on her. Soldiers saluted their new officers and, one by one, offered to lead them to their stations.

All except her.

Umboldt had her name on his precious data-slate, so there surely couldn’t be any mistake. Etsul looked around for the adept, willing to endure his impatient scorn in order to make absolutely sure she was in the right place. He had already hopped from the Salamander and vanished. Etsul grimaced. She’d find no aid there.

She had expected Sergeant Vaslav to meet her, had counted on a few minutes alone with him to get oriented before she met the rest of the crew. From the scant notes on her data-slate Etsul knew him to be a veteran Cadian who had fought for his world long before it was destroyed. He didn’t seem the sort to be late.

Etsul scanned around until she spotted Russ turrets jutting above the trenches. She frowned and squared her shoulders, willing away tiredness, hunger and travel-sore aches. If Vaslav was delayed Etsul wasn’t about to wait around for him. She would just have to find her tank the hard way.

‘No sign of your gunner?’ asked Aswold. Etsul started, realising that he must have noted her predicament and lingered. His own second-in-command stood to one side, wearing a guarded expression.

‘Sergeant, do you know where I can find Steel Tread?’

Aswold’s gunner cleared her throat.

‘Absolutely, sir. Follow the trench that way along the back of this section. She’s the last tank before the lookout tower. If you pass that, you’re into one-three-two and you’ve gone too far. Oh, and keep your head down, sir. Snipers, you know…’

‘Thank you, sergeant,’ Etsul said. She spared a glance for Aswold, whose eyebrows were raised, then turned and set off along the trench. She did as the sergeant suggested, staying low between the flakboard walls. She was still several hundred yards back from no-man’s-land here, but complacency was dangerous. The enemy could be out there, sights ghosting across the front lines, seeking targets worth a bullet.

I’m not getting shot before I find out what in the Emperor’s name is going on here, she thought. There was a chance she was about to walk into a crisis and be expected to aid people she had never met. And if there was no crisis, Etsul wasn’t sure if that would be better or worse.

Tank crews spent countless hours crammed into a confined space together. They relied upon one another for survival just as much as their machines. If one of the crew failed in their duties, all suffered. The thought that her new crew might be this unreliable from the off was not encouraging.

Etsul passed artillery positions, then a side trench in which several wounded Cadians lay on stretchers, then another where a slight and wiry man in a tanker’s uniform led a group of soldiers in prayer. The man looked up at her as she passed. Ice-blue eyes pierced her from under his wild, black brows.

It seemed they were not the first non-natives consolidated into this Cadian regiment. She would not be alone.

Etsul was spattered with mud by the time she found Steel Tread. She knew the vehicle even from a distance. The Demolisher’s blocky silhouette and squat cannon were unmistakable. As she got closer, the tank’s name resolved in curling Low Gothic letters stencilled along the turret’s side. Next to it, someone with passable artistic talent had painted a horned helmet being crushed under a steel-shod boot.

Someone sat atop the tank, rendered in silhouette.

Clearly the risk of snipers had been overstated, or this person had a death wish. She saw it was a woman, heavily muscled and with her tank suit undone to the waist to reveal the olive vest below. Her right arm was a bulky mechanical augmetic. Her blonde hair was shaved short and her eyes glinted violet as she glanced Etsul’s way.

Recognition passed over the woman’s face. She rapped her mechanical fist against the hull, then slid off the tank and out of sight. Etsul rounded the corner and marched up the short ramp connecting the trench to the tank’s emplacement. There was enough space between the makeshift ramparts and the tank itself to form a walled-off enclosure with Steel Tread at its heart.

Despite herself, Etsul felt a moment’s pride at the sight of the Demolisher: her Demolisher. The vehicle looked well maintained. Its exterior stowage appeared in good order.

Steel Tread was bulkier than Oathkeeper had been, with thicker armour and more firepower. Sponson-mounted heavy bolters offered anti-infantry point-defence. A tank-busting lascannon jutted from the vehicle’s prow, while a pintle-mounted storm bolter on its turret sat above the Russ’ main weapon. The fearsome Demolisher cannon’s menace was somewhat undercut by the wire of drying laundry strung between a grab handle on the hull and a nearby lumen pole.

Two of the tank’s crew were rising from fold-out stools either side of a table improvised from a munitions crate. Across it was scattered the paraphernalia of a card game.

One was male, Cadian by his eyes and with youthful features, dark skin and a close-cropped beard. The other was a woman, also young to Etsul’s eyes. Her skin was a shade lighter than her companion’s and her eyes were so dark they looked almost black. Her hair was longer than regulation, with metal beads braided into it, and her nose and ears were both pierced multiple times. Tattoos forested her knuckles and forearms. A stylised teardrop marked the skin beneath her right eye. Both tankers stood to attention, and Etsul was immediately struck by the hostility in the woman’s glare.

The crewman with the augmetic arm ambled around the tank to join them at attention. To the vehicle’s other side, Etsul saw an older man with a sergeant’s insignia pulling himself to his feet. Her errant gunner, still in the process of waking up.

Vaslav dragged one hand over his narrow face as though to scrape away a rime of exhaustion. He was pale and scarred, with a shaved head and a pencil moustache. His violet eyes had bags beneath them. He wore an expression of thinly veiled annoyance.

Etsul took her time with the last few steps of her approach, giving herself a moment to consider what she was going to do. She could play the hard disciplinarian and shock them into shape, or the confident commander, ignoring the troubling details. She knew what Masenwe would have done. For that matter, she knew what she would do.

First impressions mattered.

‘I am Hadeya Etsul, your new commander,’ she said. Dropping her kitbag to free both hands, she made the sign of the aquila. Her crew returned the salute, though she noted the glaring woman’s aquila was just sloppy enough to be disrespectful.

Etsul kept her gaze level and let the silence stretch. It had grown uncomfortable by the time Vaslav cleared his throat.

‘Welcome to Steel Tread, sir. I’m Sergeant Vaslav, your gunner.’ He gestured to each of the others as he introduced them.

‘Loader Erika Moretzin,’ he said. The big woman saluted smartly.

‘Sponson Gunner Garret Verro.’ The young man’s salute was also crisp, and accompanied by a respectful, ‘Sir, it’s a pleasure, sir.’

‘And you are Sponson Gunner Nix Chalenboor, yes?’ asked Etsul. The woman with the gang tattoos wore an insouciant grin.

‘Yeah,’ she replied, and Etsul fancied she saw a challenging glint in the gunner’s eye.

‘My briefing did not suggest we were a stationary unit, sergeant,’ said Etsul. Vaslav looked nonplussed.

‘Stationary, sir?’

‘We have a driver?’ prompted Etsul.

‘Ah,’ said Vaslav, glancing about as though only just realising there was a crewman missing. ‘Driver Trieve is leading prayers in a nearby trench, sir. Faith is our first weapon against the Archenemy, after all.’

Etsul said nothing.

‘I told Trieve to return in time for your arrival but…’ Vaslav continued, letting out a breath. ‘But, well–’

‘He’s proper pious, him,’ sneered Chalenboor.

‘Speak when spoken to, Chalenboor,’ snapped Vaslav.

‘Yes, boss.’

‘I was given to understand the discipline of Cadian regiments is second to none,’ Etsul said. ‘Instead, I find nobody waiting to meet me at my drop-off point, and now you tell me my driver is absent without my leave. I find myself under-whelmed.’

There was something sullen in Vaslav’s continued silence.

‘Yeah, so if–’

‘Commander,’ said Verro, cutting Chalenboor off, ‘would you like to inspect Steel Tread? I can see to your belongings.’

‘That would be good,’ said Etsul, replying to Verro but keeping her eyes on Chalenboor. The young woman stared back.

‘Local orientation would also help,’ she said as Verro hefted her kitbag with a wince. ‘Commissary, section command post, latrines, all that.’

‘Of course, sir,’ began Vaslav, then his gaze slid over her shoulder and set hard. Etsul turned. The man from the side trench with the sharp blue eyes was walking up the ramp.

Leading prayers. Isaac Trieve, I presume.

Trieve was, at least, better presented than his crewmates. His tank suit was crisp, his stride purposeful. Somehow, he had contrived to keep the mud off himself almost entirely. He held a prayer book in one hand and wore a machine-stamped aquila on a chain around his neck. His expression was unconcerned, bordering on smug. Etsul was struck by the sudden thought that Trieve’s absence had been deliberate, that the man had engineered some distance between himself and his crewmates.

Trieve stood to attention and offered a sharp aquila salute.

‘Commander Etsul, it is a privilege.’

‘Is it? A pity, then, that you were not present when I arrived as you should have been.’

‘Of course, sir. My apologies.’ Trieve smiled, seemingly perversely pleased with the rebuke. ‘I was detained by the divine spirit of the God-Emperor, for He moved me to a surfeit of piety that ran overlong. I’m sure you understand, sir. When He speaks to us, His will supersedes all others.’

Etsul shook her head.

‘What I understand, Driver Trieve, is that when my crew musters, I expect you to be present and punctual. If you must make your peace with the God-Emperor afterwards, then He will have to be understanding. I stand between you and Him in the chain of command.’

At this borderline blasphemy, Trieve looked as though he’d taken a mouthful of something rotten. A flush crept up his neck. Etsul heard a sound behind her that might have been Chalenboor stifling a snort. She swung around to see an expression that was half guilty, half amused on the sponson gunner’s face.

Verro still clutched her kitbag, expression pained.

Etsul looked to Vaslav. He was her second-in-command. He knew these soldiers far better than she. A good gunnery sergeant dealt with day-to-day discipline so that their commander could rise above such things as a figure of authority and respect. Vaslav just stared into the middle distance, hands clasped tightly behind his back, expression carefully unreadable.

‘Let me be perfectly clear,’ she said, raking them with her gaze. ‘This has not gone well. I am going to inspect Steel Tread then get some food, and once I have–’

A loud clearing of the throat caused Etsul to wheel about. A Cadian soldier stood at the bottom of the ramp, Ninth Army Group command insignia on her shoulder. She held a data-slate and had her helmet tucked under one arm.

‘What?’ barked Etsul.

‘Apologies, lieutenant commander. Captain Brezyk requests your presence for a strategic briefing at Mandriga command.’

Etsul felt her shoulders sag. Tiredness, hunger, frustration and a painful longing for her old crewmates threatened to crack her composure. Instead, she took a deep breath, and then the proffered data-slate. It told her little more than the messenger.

‘I have just come from Mandriga command,’ Etsul bit out. ‘I am engaged in inspecting my new tank and crew.’

‘With respect, lieutenant commander, the captain was unambiguous.’

‘Of course,’ Etsul replied with a hard smile. She had been a soldier long enough to recognise a stress-test.

‘Verro, get my belongings stowed,’ she told the sponson gunner. ‘The rest of you be ready for full inspection upon my return. And no more excursions.’ She directed this last to Trieve, before turning and following the messenger back up the trench.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2022.
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