Battle for Skull Pass by Darius Hinks

Author:Darius Hinks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2009-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

SIX

Dagskar cackled with glee as he stepped off the bridge and looked around at all the dead stunties. His gambit had worked! The bridge was his. Now there was nothing between him and the hold in Skull Pass, with its open door and half-finished defences. Ha! Taking it would be like kicking a snotling.

Or would it? Dagskar paused for a moment as he remembered that he’d lost the troll. It would be a tougher job without the big dummy’s muscle backing him up. He shrugged. He’d have to make do. He had to take that hold! He had to prove to Skarsnik that he was worthy of being a big boss.

‘Hoy!’ cried Nazbad, picking his way through the corpses and pointing his warty green finger at him. ‘Y’really made a mess of that, y’toadstool.’

‘Whaddaya mean,’ snarled Dagskar. ‘We won, didn’t we? We took da bridge.’

‘We? My boys took da bridge – and paid da price. Ain’t but half o’em left. Your boys just ran behind da cows, nice and safe.’

‘I lost plenty,’ said Dagskar. ‘And I didn’t see you comin’ up with a better plan. If I’da left it up t’you, we’d still be on da other side of da bridge, pickin’ our noses.’

‘Bah!’ said Nazbad. ‘All yer plans seem to end up with my boys gettin’ skragged.’

Dagskar grinned. ‘What are y’complainin’ about? Less boys, more loot for dem what’s left, right? Now go round ’em up. We’re movin’.’

‘Well den,’ said Nazbad, holding up his glowing wart. ‘How about I kills half your boys? You’d be laughin’, right?’

Dagskar curled his lip and was about to make a retort when there was a scrabbling and shifting from the edge of the ravine. He and the shaman turned, wary.

A huge scaly hand reached over the edge and felt around for purchase. It caught at a boulder and pulled, and a massive, ugly head rose up and looked around, blinking stupidly.

The troll! Dagskar laughed out loud. The big drooler was still alive after all. Perfect! Now he could go back to his original plan. He turned to Kizaz and kicked him. ‘Hoy, runt. Get da boys to put all da dead stunties on da wagon, and make sure dey gets da boss stuntie. He goes on top.’

‘Gotcha, boss,’ said Kizaz, and ran off, shouting orders.

Dagskar smiled. ‘Dis day just keeps gettin’ better and better.’

Beside him, Nazbad growled. ‘For some.’

Skaari lay in soothing darkness. He couldn’t feel anything. He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t smell anything. There was only sweet, soft nothingness that he wished would go on forever.

Then, though he tried to keep it away, a speck of unease wormed its way into his cocoon of comfort, a niggling dust-mote of guilt that whispered that he shouldn’t be enjoying this. Terrible things were happening outside the velvet black, and he should do something about them.

The guilt became a throbbing ache, which settled in the side of his head, then spread to his arms and legs. The whisper became an annoying shrilling and cluttering, like fighting stoats.

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