Blood Gorgons - By Henry Zou Page 0,44
the older, semi-fossilised piece.
Despite the shooting, the walking dead did not seem to notice the Blood Gorgons in their midst. Some looked up almost lazily, like bored grazers, but none reacted. Some were caught in the backwash of Bael‐Shura’s flamer, but they did not stop work, even as they burned. Their fat boiled and their skin peeled but they continued to drag on the ropes of the replacement pipe. These were obedient workers.
Hooded figures charged down the stope towards Sica. They were shouting orders, shooting down any corpse who did not move out of their way. Sica made sure to recognise them, blinking his eyes to capture file‐picts of the enemy. It would provide valuable reconnaissance should the Blood Gorgons have to deploy in greater force. He zoomed in on their armaments, blunt‐muzzled autoguns with trailing belt‐fed ammunition; not of Imperial issue, but a distinctly human design nonetheless. They fought in loose platoon formations, but their arsenic‐grey armour was too thick for light infantry: a rubberised synthetic moulding that would be simple to manufacture but inferior in quality. It offered no protection against Sica’s bolter.
Bael‐Shura moved next to him, the tunnel wide enough to allow the Traitor Marines to fight shoulder to shoulder. They laughed as they worked, a dry wicked laughter that was frightening in its intensity. From behind the circular saws of an industrial rock cutter, a hooded man lobbed a rock at Sica. He heard a whistling sound and he turned the slab of his shoulder pad towards the missile. There was a flash of light. Even with his eyes closed, Sica’s vision strobed red and bright yellow. It had been a grenade. The explosion pushed Sica slightly and made him grunt with annoyance at his own carelessness. He shot the man off the industrial saw, quickly, as if ashamed.
What seemed like two or three full platoons of the hooded men flooded the tunnel.
Perhaps seventy or eighty men, by Sica’s estimation. He reported the situation over the squad vox‐link in‐between shots. It was confirmed without concern. The hulking, rubberised soldiers swarmed over them, firing their underslung autoguns, brass casings 63
flickering rapidly into the air. Sica’s armour registered some minor damage in the extremities, particularly the forearms and shoulder regions as bullets chipped the external ceramite and hypodermal mesh.
Laughing, Sica backhanded one of the hooded men with the ridged knuckles of his gauntlet, snapping his neck and throwing two hundred kilos of brutish soldier back into his comrades. Bael‐Shura expelled the last of his promethium and did not bother to reload; he crashed into the enemy with his weight, slashing with his studded fists. Bones broke and rubberised armour split like melon rind. There was no stopping them. Panic finally setting in, the hooded men turned and fled.
THE VOX‐LINKS WERE dead. Partitioned by solid bedrock, Barsabbas and Sargaul knew nothing of their brethren’s conflict. The pair skirted east at Sica’s command, following what seemed to be a recent delving. The rock was freshly cut, as if expansion of the ancient mines had began anew.
Barsabbas and Sargaul descended on a chain‐belt platform down hundreds of metres.
Despite the oxidised state of the iron elevator, the chain belt was of newly galvanised steel and still smelt sweetly of greasing oil. Something had been reconstructing the mine.
Perhaps the same things responsible for eviscerating the plainsmen braves above ground.
The elevator came to a clattering halt, fifteen metres above the shaft bottom. They hung there, suspended like a bird cage. Below them, the vault at the pit of the mine was not what they had expected.
There were hundreds of walking dead down there, packed like meat in a storage facility, a dense grid of scalps and jostling shoulders. The cooler temperatures ensured they did not rot or bloat from the surface heat. They did not move and they did not respond. The frigid air rendered them stiff and sluggish. Some moaned and rocked gently on frozen limbs.
‘An army of the dead,’ Sargaul whistled appreciatively.
‘A workforce,’ Barsabbas observed.
‘But they would make poor slaves. I would not eat food prepared by these creatures.’
‘No. I do not think they can do anything except menial labour. No dexterity or cognitive capacity,’ Barsabbas suggested.
As if on cue, several of the closest corpses looked up and began to babble nonsense.
Their vocal cords had stiffened and gases exhaled from their lungs in a strained, raspy cry.
‘But they will work,’ said Sargaul.
The walking dead needed no food, no water. They did not suffer under the intolerably harsh climate, and they did not