In their plated gauntlets and thick, rubberised combat gloves, they fired boltguns. They favoured knives as heavy as short swords; rusted chopping blades that parted flesh crudely. Every stroke of the knife or squeeze of the trigger killed men. Onwards they came, and Barsabbas moved to meet them.
BARSABBAS VAULTED OFF the quad‐motor as las‐shots raked across its fender. The flimsy vehicle was not fit for a bond‐brother. He kicked the roll cage away and began to pick careful shots with his boltgun. His leash chain looped around Barsabbas’s wrist, Sindul began to shriek in panic. Hooded and bound, the dark eldar could only squirm in terror as the battle raged blindly around him.
A platoon of Septic infantry appeared out of the rising dust. Thirty or forty soldiers in baggy, hooded masks, advancing in a loose spread. He heard their shouts of alarm as they spotted him.
Barsabbas reacted as he was drilled, pressuring them with a wide spread of automatic fire. The sudden volley of crackling bolt shells cut out in a semicircle. Rounds so heavy that even their passing shockwave haemorrhaged the brains and organs of any target in a one-metre radius. Enemy infantry sprawled, fell and dived under the burst of fire. It was what Barsabbas needed to close the distance.
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As the enemy went to ground to escape the initial onslaught, Barsabbas charged and fell amongst them. Now he was in his element and superior enemy numbers did not faze him.
At the edge of his visor, he saw a Septic thrust a bayonet towards him. Using his great armspan, Barsabbas lashed his mace over the Septic’s rifle and caved in his hooded mask.
He fell sideways, lurching into another Septic. Barsabbas killed that one too, breaking his neck with a quick backstroke. So absorbed was he in the practice of death‐dealing that Barsabbas had to remind himself that this was not his fight. It was a diversion for him to slip north, past the bulk of the Nurgle armies. He had to keep himself alive. Finding Sargaul was the objective. He had to remind himself of that just to keep his battle rage in check. The nostril‐flaring lust to kill almost overwhelmed his logic and conditioning.
‘Attack the gaps in his armour!’ shouted a Septic officer.
But Barsabbas would not stand still long enough to allow it. Three Septics harried him, surrounding him and trying to slip a bayonet into the gaps of his knee joint. Barsabbas moved faster than they thought he could. Over three hundred kilos of an explosively-moving steel‐shod body crushed the nearest Septic. Sindul was dragged along with him, the chain snapping taut and almost decapitating another Septic. Barsabbas felt bayonets snap against his unyielding plate.
Glancing sideways, Barsabbas saw the charge of the mounted braves stalling. They were engaged in a grinding close‐quarter melee. Gun shots ruptured the air. Above that could be heard the distinctly hollow chopping of hatchet through bone. Garbled screams rose from both sides and the warm‐blooded croak of dying birds floated above the clamour.
It was a messy, discordant battle and Barsabbas allowed himself to indulge slightly, exulting in the violence that he had created.
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LUREN MENZO LIVED as comfortably as a supply slave could. His quarters in the warrens of the undercellars were exceptionally large, almost three times the cotspace of any other. He had the luxury of curtains that separated his living space from the squalor of the others.
Battered cushions, thin blankets, old pict frames and even books littered his den. His possessions were valued amongst slaves, but not stowed securely, for no one would dare to touch them.
Menzo had come through all of this thanks to hard work: hard work in blackmail, extortion and a highly lucrative black market. As a supply overseer, Menzo took charge of a load‐bearing team in the ship’s cavernous docking hangars. He had a mob of servitors, haulers, riggers and packers who processed and stored the plunder and stock of the Blood Gorgons’ raids. Through that, he had built a business of sorts. A cadre of close thugs to do his heavy work, a network of informants and many, many in need of his wares. They called him Mister Menzo and he offered them a service no one else could.
Of course there was no money, but amongst slaves, there was always barter: extra rations for pilfered liquor, a debt to Menzo for a loan, perhaps some information in exchange for a satch of obscura. It was surprising what slaves would do