Da Big Dakka by Mike Brooks

Author:Mike Brooks
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science fiction: space opera
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2023-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

When Snaggi woke up, he was already on his feet. Or more accurately, he was being dragged along while upright and his feet were acquiring friction burns from the ground.

‘Wossit? Woz goin’ on?’ he slurred, trying to force his legs into some semblance of movement.

‘Da portal, boss,’ said a voice from his left, and Snaggi looked around to see Gip there, supporting him with one shoulder under his arm.

‘It’s opened, innit?’ said a voice from his other side, which proved to be Swipe. Snaggi looked ahead of him, and blinked furiously to get his eyes to cooperate.

One of the massive, pale arches through which the spikiez had swept on their ill-fated counter-attack had activated again, and was filled with the shimmering light that Snaggi remembered so well. However, rather than disgorging slender, bloodthirsty warriors attired in razor-edged armour, the portal was currently swallowing the massive, blocky, and fume-belching shape of a Stompa. The light closed behind the enormous walker’s back, and a massive cheer went up from all around.

‘Wot da blazes are ya doin’?’ Snaggi hissed, disentangling himself from his supporters. ‘We don’t wanna go froo dere! Dat’s where all da orks are goin’! We wanna find da portal we came in froo, an’ leg it dat way!’

‘Yeah, well, don’t fink we’ve got a choice in it,’ Gip muttered. ‘Runtherds, innit.’

Snaggi chanced a look over his shoulder, and grimaced. His burgeoning mob of followers were trotting along at a fair clip, each one wearing the grim, slightly constipated expression of grots heading towards a fight not because they wanted to – since the only fight a grot wanted to take part in was one where the enemy didn’t know they were fighting, and also were facing the other way and had their backs exposed for a bit of enthusiastic stabbing – but because the possibility of what lay ahead was less alarming than the certainty of what followed behind. In this case, what followed behind was a pair of runtherds: surly orks whose calling in the great, chaotic melting pot of orkish society was to beat on grots, snotlings, and squigs until they did what they were told. Each one had a fearsome-looking grot lash in one hand, while the other held the leash of a squig-hound, a ferocious beast more than capable of tracking down runaways and biting them in half.

‘Ah, zog it,’ Snaggi muttered. ‘Wot happened to da spikie? After yoo lot left me to get clobbered by da Disorderlies,’ he added, nastily.

‘Dey carted it off, boss,’ Nib said, from behind him. ‘Next fing we know, word’s gone out dat da big boss has got da portal open an’ we’re all goin’ froo to give da spikiez a taste of boot levver. Apparently dey tried to kill da big boss wiv shadows or somefing, an’ he weren’t pleased.’

Snaggi tried to imagine that. ­Ufthak Blackhawk was… unyielding was perhaps the best term, in that the git just wouldn’t let go of something once he’d set his mind to it.

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