Warboss by Mike Brooks

Author:Mike Brooks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2023-02-13T08:56:58+00:00

LOTZ

Captain Armenius Varrow was cursing everything.

He cursed his own body, which was weak and trembling after exertion that, although rigorous and extended, would never have troubled him before his incarceration. He cursed his lungs, which appeared to have more holes than a Masali cheese, judging by the way they seemed to let oxygen slip through their metaphorical fingers instead of forcing it into his bloodstream. He cursed the designers and builders of the Davidian undercity, who had created such a warren of tunnels and service vents, and he cursed the governor and every single official beneath her who had abandoned this part of the city and let it degrade into dirty, poorly lit squalor with thoroughly inadequate signage. Most of all, he cursed the orks that had driven him to such desperate measures, and since he was a soldier, he had quite an extensive lexicon of profanity on which to draw.

However, despite all the challenges that faced him, despite the towering odds against him, he was triumphing. His progress had not been particularly fast, and nor had it been without mistakes or backtracking, but he was getting there. He had managed to interpret the peeling, damaged, acid-scarred or lichen-obscured paint marks and metal plaques intended to give an indication of where in the system a person was, and rather than getting lost in that system, or even wandering the wrong way further out into where the tunnels and sewers terminated, he was getting closer to civilisation.

Or what passed for civilisation at this depth, anyway.

Armenius wiped a sweaty hand on his damp and stinking trousers, and took a new hold of the firearm he had procured from the gretchin. It barely even qualified for the word ‘gun’ in his mind, but ‘firearm’ probably worked: it was a word that he felt could more reasonably apply to such a primitive creation. He had no idea if the weapon would shoot, even less – if it was possible – if he could aim it with any accuracy, and none at all whether it would blow up in his hand, but it was all he had. At the very least, the thing looked imposing. It was nothing in terms of size when set against an ork gun – and Armenius had seen more of them, and at far closer range, than any human should have to, so he knew what he was talking about – but it still had a ludicrously large bore by the standards of the Imperium, and was basically a roughly made hand cannon.

He might need all the intimidation he could muster, for the inhabitants at this depth were unlikely to be welcoming to outsiders, or, for that matter, even to each other. Armenius had heard tales of the underhive, and knew it as a place of lawlessness, and likely of heresy, where mutation and deviancy ran rife. Contaminants and pollutants twisted human biology into mockeries of its true form, which was no more than those who chose to live down here deserved.

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