Chapter War (Soul Drinkers Book 4) by Ben Counter

Author:Ben Counter [Counter, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

‘Who can we call our allies in the endless battle against corruption?’

‘None but ourselves, our own souls and discipline, our own bodies and the weapons in our hands.’

– Daenyathos, Catechisms Martial

The heights over the Serpentspine Valley seethed with activity. The clans had gathered and orkish chanting drowned out the sounds of the jungle – each clan had its own proud traditions, its own war cries and chants, and its own brutal battle-rites from ritual scarring to sacrifices. Here, thousands of greenskins chanted as one around an ancient, wizened shaman who read the future from the entrails of a dead slave. There, a clearing had become a gladiatorial pit, and two orks were settling some overblown feud by trying to tear each other’s throats out with bare claws and teeth.

The symbols of dozens of clans were raised over the heights. A clenched fist, a sword through a skull, a stylised gun, daubed in paint and blood on banners hung from the trees. In their natural state those clans would have been at war, intent on slaughtering each other, because that was what orks were born to do. But on Nevermourn, they fought as one. Their old hatred broke out into scuffles and isolated murders, but the instincts for full-scale war were crushed. The orks’ hatred was directed outwards, towards the humans who infested this world.

The warlord knew that without him, the orks who made up the horde would break up into dozens of feuding factions and the humans would win. Humans were a bad enemy to fight – which also made them a good enemy, for orks made little distinction between the two concepts. No matter how many humans were killed, there were always more to take their place, shiploads of them brimming with vengeance. Humans were like a weed, like a disease, almost impossible to cleanse from a world. For a greenskin that made them something more than an enemy, for a fight against a favoured enemy was a joyous thing. Orks loved going to war with humans, because defeating the humans meant something.

The warlord would cleanse them from this planet. He would do to Vanqualis what the humans had done to countless ork worlds. It didn’t matter what happened after the planet belonged to the orks – what mattered was the victory. The warlord would hurt them. They would remember him. That was the immortality promised by the orkish gods to the greatest of their warriors – the warlord would live on in the fear he planted in human hearts.

The warlord strode through the makeshift camp that had sprung up on the heights. Almost his whole horde was there, thousands upon thousands of orks. By the morning they would be itching for battle. The strange, insanely inspired ork engineers were fixing war machines or making new ones by cutting down trees and cannibalising parts. Ork medics, similarly crazed, were administering crude repairs to wounded orks, replacing limbs and removing damaged organs – the bellowing of their patients was drowned out by the clanking of war machines and the chanting of the greenskins.

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