Evil Sun Rising

by Guy Haley

  They went on like this for a good time. The orange light took on the colour of burned sugar as evening set in. The battle’s noise dwindled to a comforting background din, quiet enough now that they could hear the smallest sound, near and far: the hisses of squabbling gretchin looters, orderlies planting flags by not-quite-dead boys and calling their dok masters over, the moans of the wounded, the screams of captured humans, orks laughing and shooting off their guns in celebration.

  It was soon quiet enough that they caught the muffled banging coming from the fallen humie Stompa.

  Bozgat looked up from his little heap of gubbins. ‘Can you hear something, boss?’

  ‘Hmmm?’ said Uggrim distractedly. He was drawing power couplings that might join the Knight’s chainsword to Fat Mork.

  Snikgob took his smoke out of his mouth and cocked his head.

  ‘I think…’ said Bozgat.

  Snikgob frowned, finger to his lips. Bozgat shut up.

  The banging came again.

  Snikgob laughed: a low, throaty and wholly unpleasant chuckle. ‘Oh I can hear it, I can! Back in a jiffy.’ He ran into the Stompa, puffing smoke as he went.

  ‘There! There it was again.’ Bozgat clambered up the fallen vehicle and stood on its face-plate. He stamped hard, and listened for a reply.

  Some kilometres away the fighting continued. Uggrim idly thought that far too many of the humies had made it over the bridges, but he didn’t care. It just meant the fun would last longer. There was nothing nicer than a good long war.

  Bozgat bent over, his hands on his knees. ‘Hmm. Stopped now.’ He stamped again on the buckled face-plate.

  The banging started up. Muffled words came in between.

  ‘There! There is something in there!’ said Bozgat, pointing.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Uggrim, not much interested. ‘That’ll be a humie.’ He kicked a buckled armour plate on the humie Stompa’s leg and nodded at the sound it made.

  Snikgob came jogging back, his burna tanks sloshing on his back, his welding mask open on his head. He bounded up the fallen metal giant and shoved Bozgat out of the way, pushing a crowbar into his hands as he did. ‘This is going to be fun!’ he cackled. He lit his burna flame from his smoke, flipped his mask down and set the flame to blue and hot. He carefully cut into the shell of the walker. When he’d made a full, square cut, he beckoned and Bozgat came in to pry the front open. Snikgob got his fingers under it and with a loud grunt hurled the plate back.

  An angry, soot-stained human stared back at them, his gubbins and worky bits smashed all to zog around him. He shouted something at them in his squeaky humie voice.

  Snikgob flipped up his mask. He and Bozgat shared a merry look. ‘Hello, humie!’ Snikgob said, very loudly and very slowly. ‘We is going to get you out – you savvy?’

  The human pulled a stupid expression on its flat, pink face and started squeaking again. Snikgob got on his hands and knees. With one hand he reached in, smacking the human across the head when it tried to shoot him with a tiny pistol. Grabbing the man’s clothes, Snikgob hauled him halfway out, yanking repeatedly when the human got tangled in his straps and the wires coming out of his skull. This made the human scream. Bozgat laughed and pulled harder.

  The human was soon screaming a whole lot more. Snikgob took his time with him, not stopping until he got hungry and decided it was dinner time.

  ‘Frikk. Frikk! You want some? There’s still a bit left!’ shouted Snikgob, waving one of the human’s thigh bones at the gretchin.

  ‘That was a cracking cook up,’ said Bozgat happily. The pair of them were sitting in chairs they’d knocked together from junk, enjoying the embers of their cooking fire glowing in half an oil barrel, the shiny sunset, the stink of war and – best of all – the sweet, sweet taste of pinky flesh.

  Frikk wasn’t hungry. He sat with his back against Fat Mork’s foot. He shivered even though it was warm. He was frightened out of his wits, but not so frightened that he did not recognise the glyphs he’d seen scratched into the wall by the broken wires.

  Urdgrub.

  CHAPTER 7

  FRIKK IN TROUBLE

  Night fell.

  Battle retreated further from the Wrath of Gork. Artillery fire rumbled no louder than distant summer thunder. The howling of the boyz was the pounding of a faraway sea upon the shore. Sinister warbles and crackles split the gathering dark, the discharge of ork energy weapons made close by tricks of the atmosphere. The gretchin and Deathskulls combing the battlefield looked up at the flashes in the sky when this happened, before going back to their looting. Injured orks who still had not been seen by the doks shouted angrily. The doks took their time. Floodlights marked where they worked. When done, they dished out their version of post-operative care, haggling over the price. Their lisping negotiations were usually brief, giving way to the crunch of pliers ripping out teeth. Screams of discovered humans still came and went, although only rarely. Most had already been tormented and eaten.

  The oddboyz were out in force. Runtherds marshalled huge mobs of industrious grots. Surgery tents sprang up around the Wrath of Gork, and to the southern end of the ship the mekboyz had begun work on their own settlement, a massive pile of salvage rising rapidly next to it. Loud arguments, some punctuated by gunfire, drifted on the wind from the direction of Gork’s Fist. Already the superstructure was covered in blazing arc lamps. The blue tongues of welding torches stabbed at the gargant in multiple places. Whether the meks were repairing it or cutting it up was hard to tell from that distance, but knowing orks, the likelihood was that different mekmobs were doing both simultaneously.

  Snikgob was still out and about, scavenging from human and ork alike. Uggrim and Bozgat were arguing over the best way to dismember the humie walker and get all the good gubbins out. Now it was dark, the Red Sunz’ grot fixers patrolled a wide cordon around this valuable piece of plunder, beating the slaves of rival mekmobs when they got too close.

  ‘I tells you, going in from underneath, underneath!’ said Bozgat, gesticulating wildly. ‘Got to get that shield generator out in one piece. Armour’s too thick at the front, boss – we’ll get bored, go at it too hard and mash up all the good stuff by accident. Armour’s weak at the back, boss, and all crumped up anyhows. We can get at it if we dig a trench right there.’ Bozgat stomped across the fallen Knight, steel-shod boots booming on the metal. He pointed at the ground between the walker’s legs.

  Uggrim was equally annoyed that Bozgat was right and that he had the nerve to disagree with him. He harrumphed and crossed his apish arms. He realised he was just being stubborn for the sake of it, but giving in irked him. ‘All right! All right! You win. When Snikgob comes back we’ll get him to cut from the back.’

  ‘Boss, listen. It’s the only way to do it,’ began Bozgat. He stopped, puzzled. ‘Did you just agree with me?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I did. Don’t let it go to your head.’ Uggrim approached Bozgat. ‘Now let’s start getting that choppy arm off. We can do that without Sniks, no worries. I got plans for that.’ Uggrim looked up at Fat Mork’s gigashoota thoughtfully. With a sneaky shove to the chest, he sent Bozgat off the walker and sprawling on the ground below. He laughed. ‘Watch yourself there, Bozgat! Frikk. Frikk!’ he bawled.

  Frikk had been hiding under Fat Mork all this time, obsessing over his Urdgrub dilemma. His hands were raw with his wringing them. ‘Yes, boss. Sorry, boss. Coming, boss!’ He trotted over to the humie walker, and stared up at his master.

  ‘Go get me some fungus beer, you waste of space,’ shouted Uggrim. ‘Why I don’t just eat you is beyond me. I’m getting soft – sentimental!’

  ‘Yes, boss, sor– Ow!’ A large, rusty nut caught Frikk squarely on the shoulder. Uggrim put his hands on his hips and stared down. He was a dark silhouette against the dirty brown of Alaric’s late evening sky.

  ‘And be quick about it!’

  Frikk looked up at Uggrim fearfully. The mek’s tusks glinted in the light of undoused fires. He was a good b
oss to Frikk, better than most. But Frikk was still just a grot, and Uggrim as unpredictable as any ork.

  ‘Right away, boss,’ he said, trying to sound chirpy. ‘Right away!’

  He ran the twenty metres back to Fat Mork, just to show willing, around the back, up through the side access door, onto the bottom deck and straight into Gulgul, Urdgrub’s most vicious henchman.

  ‘Hello,’ said Gulgul. He grabbed Frikk by the scruff of the neck and tossed him into the engine room. A villainous looking bunch of gretchin stood around him, all bigger than Frikk. ‘Jakar, get that door locked. I want to talk to this runt in private.’ He leaned in over Frikk. ‘I’ve come to collect.’

  ‘For who?’ said Frikk, innocently.

  A tittering, flatheaded gretchin, whose eyes pointed in different directions, slammed Frikk hard against the reactor house. Gulgul’s lackeys giggled maliciously as Frikk’s flesh hissed on the hot metal.

  ‘How does it work? How does this little sun work? Urdgrub’s got people who need to know!’ said Gulgul. He jerked his head. Flathead failed to take the hint, so Gulgul punched him in the face. Frikk fell to the floor.

  ‘Whaddya do that for?’ said Flathead.

  ‘I wanted you to let him go!’

  ‘Well why didn’t you say?’ said Flathead, rubbing at his cheek.

  Gulgul curled his lip at the gretchin. Flathead shrank back, ears flat against his head in submission.

  The three gretchin with Gulgul looked mean but not too bright; either way they were brawny for grots. Frikk didn’t fancy his chances, but at least Urdgrub wasn’t there. He rubbed his face. The smell of his own singed flesh overwhelmed his sensitive nose.

  ‘I don’t suppose I could just give you the teeth back?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘You could,’ said Gulgul, spitting on the floor. ‘Six, ain’t it?’

  ‘Five!’ protested Frikk.

  ‘Six. What about me?’ said Gulgul nastily. ‘I need one. Pay for me time retrievin’ them. You got ’em?’

  ‘Um, no,’ said Frikk.

  ‘Well,’ said Gulgul, and began kicking Frikk in between each word, a form of brutal greenskin punctuation. ‘You. Can’t. Give. Them. To. Me. Can. You?’ He gave Frikk a final kick in the ribs for good measure, and stood panting.

  Frikk writhed on the floor. That had hurt.

  ‘Now, how’s it work? You tell me, we’ll zog off. You don’t, well, you saw. We can fix this Stompa right easy so it don’t ever get fixed again, you understand?’

  The gretchin with Gulgul giggled. He cuffed them and swore at them until they shut up.

  Frikk’s red eyes flicked about. He licked his swollen lips. ‘Er,’ he said, ‘Er…’

  Gulgul raised his boot.

  Frikk’s hands shot up. ‘Wait!’ he called. ‘Wait!’

  Gulgul lowered his foot.

  ‘Look,’ said Frikk. ‘I don’t know how it works.’

  Gulgul’s foot swung backwards again.

  ‘But I have got an idea!’ squealed Frikk.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking. Why make your own little sun, when you could…’ he shielded his mouth with his hand, and said, sneaky quiet, ‘just nick this one.’

  There had been many times in Frikk’s life when he’d prayed to Gork and Mork that his enemies were as thick as he thought they were. This was one of those times.

  ‘Ye’re joking,’ said Gulgul uncertainly.

  ‘No, no, I’m not,’ said Frikk. ‘Catch it, in a net,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen it done. Honest.’

  ‘Urdgrub never said nothin’ about that. You is having me on, runt,’ said Gulgul. ‘It’s way too hot!’

  Gulgul’s three lackeys were looking at one another uncertainly. ‘He might be right,’ said Jakar.

  ‘Shut it, you!’ said Gulgul.

  Frikk sat up and laughed, shaking his head. ‘You don’t use a normal net, silly. Look, Bozgat fishes it out every week, regular as clockwork. Got to clean in the reactor, see, or the… Or the light, that’s it, the light clogs up all the pipes. Yeah.’ Frikk winced at this poor improvisation.

  ‘Then why don’t it burn the net?’ said Gulgul.

  ‘He uses a metal net?’ Frikk said doubtfully.

  Gulgul looked around. ‘Right. Where is it then?’

  ‘I dunno, but we could use that. Should do the job nicely. Scoop it out, nice as pie.’ He pointed at Snikgob’s welding mask. ‘Tell you what, I’ll go get it. There’s a couple of taps need turning off down there before we can open it. Don’t touch though, hot hot hot!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Gulgul.

  ‘Well,’ said Frikk, all wide-eyed innocence. ‘I’ve got to turn the heat down, or it will be too hot even for that, won’t it?’

  ‘Which taps?’ said Gulgul. Suspicion was writ so large on his face that the dumbest, blindest ork could read it.

  ‘Oh, it’ll be easier if I just do it meself…’

  ‘Which ones, runt?’ Gulgul smacked Frikk hard.

  ‘Can I show you?’

  ‘Not likely. Gizkor, you go with him.’

  ‘Boss, shouldn’t we wait? Urdgrub’ll be here in a mo – he’s only up top having a skwizz around, and this runt is right tricky…’ said Jakar.

  ‘Shut it, Jakar! Urdgrub’s not here. I’s biggest! I’s in charge! Gizkor, you go with him.’

  ‘Right,’ said Frikk, getting into the swing of it. ‘I’ll show him which to do. You open the door, and we’ll bring the mask back over, okay?’

  Gulgul looked at Gizkor, considering. ‘This better not be a trick, runt.’

  ‘What?’ Frikk made an outrageous face of wounded innocence, fingers resting gently on his heart. ‘I always pay me debts! Just think how happy…’ he narrowed his eyes, time for a gamble, ‘Mogrok will be when you come back with a little sun he can call his own.’

  ‘How do you know who my boss is?’

  A lucky guess, thought Frikk. ‘Everyone knows,’ said Frikk. ‘Talk of the town, how Urdgrub is in his good books and all. And you!’ he added hastily.

  ‘Yeah, yeah!’ said Gulgul. ‘Yeah, yeah!’ He nodded at his lackeys, who giggled obediently. ‘You think you’re so smart! It ain’t Mogrok, nothing to do with Mogrok!’

  ‘Who is it then?’ said Frikk.

  ‘Not telling you that, am I? But take a look. I’ll give you a clue. Gave me this, he did.’ He held up a tooth on a chain, its gold cap stamped with a grinning moon. ‘Pays me, lets me go where I like. I got one just like Urdgrub.’

  ‘Urdgrub got two,’ said Jakar.

  ‘Shut it, you!’ snapped Gulgul. ‘You should get a new boss, Frikk – you’re wasted down here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Frikk sadly, and he half meant it. ‘Oh, but I’m not so clever as you, Gulgul,’ he said, with a massive, insincere smile.

  ‘That’s the truth, ain’t it?’ sniffed Gulgul, pocketing his tooth. ‘Urdgrub don’t think so neither. He thinks everyone but him is thick. Even me!’

  He might be right there, thought Frikk.

  ‘But he don’t know me, he don’t know me at all.’ Gulgul went on. ‘Wait here, he says, do that, he says. Wait for me and don’t go in while I has a scout about. Well, I thought, I’ll show him! I’ll show him and get him his little sun, no bother, and we can be out of ’ere in no time. Ain’t that right, runt?’

  Gulgul looked very pleased with himself. Frikk was high on relief; Gulgul was a certifiable idiot. He had a chance. ‘Now, shall we?’ Frikk got up, dusted his cap off on his knees and set it carefully on his head.

  Gulgul jerked his head back towards the reactor. This time, his lackeys obeyed.

  ‘You need to spin those wing nuts, then open the door. Yeah, that one – the one with the observation window in it.’

  There was a sizzling sound as Flathead grabbed the wing nuts. ‘Ow! It’s hot, boss.’

  ‘Tsk,’ said Frikk. ‘Course it’s hot. I haven’t turned it down yet! You got to wait.’

  ‘You thick?’ growled Gulgul.
‘Get a cloth! Then grab a spanner or somefink to open the door. Idiot.’

  ‘Right then,’ said Frikk. He was aiming for confident, although terror was closer to what he felt. ‘We need to go over here, by the mask. That’s where the taps are.’ Frikk led Gizkor over. Gizkor looked unhappy. ‘I’ll do it,’ he said, ‘save you the bother.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Gizkor genially. ‘Got a bad back,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t like to bend over.’

  Frikk bent down, putting as much of his body behind Snikgob’s welding mask as he could. One of Snikgob’s tool bags was next to it. He selected a spanner with exaggerated care and fiddled with some taps that didn’t do anything at all to the output of the sun, but did turn off part of its magnetic containment field.

  ‘All right!’ called Frikk over his shoulder. ‘You open it now. If it’s too hot then I’ll turn it down a bit, then we’ll bring the mask back!’

  ‘It’s still very bright,’ said Jakar. Curse him, thought Frikk. Urdgrub’s crew had half a brain between them, and it all seemed to be in Jakar’s skull.

  Jakar peered through the glass of the observation window. ‘And it’s acting funny.’

  ‘Turned down the heat, not the light!’ said Frikk cheerfully. ‘Taps for that are up in the head. Bad design, if you ask me – should have them both together. Orks is dumb, yeah?’

  The gretchin shared a little laugh at this, united briefly by the misery of their oppression.

  Frikk smiled. ‘It’ll settle down in a second. Right, you ready?’

  Nods all round.

  ‘Go!’

  ‘Not doing it,’ said Jakar.

  ‘Jakar!’ said Gulgul.

  ‘No, I ain’t.’

  ‘All right then. Flathead, you do it,’ said Gulgul.

  Flathead, an oily rag wrapped around his fingers to protect them, unscrewed the wing nuts.