Kauderer rinsed his hands in the basin he’d installed in the dead-end corridor just outside the torture room. He glanced at the unconscious man strapped to the chair in the middle of the room. The chamber’s only light glared at the man from just above him, illuminating his still form. Thick, red blood dripped from his legs and back onto the floor, where it sluiced through the grating strategically placed beneath the chair.
The man’s eyes had swollen shut and one of his earlobes hung against the side of his head, held on by just a wisp of dead skin. Dark streaks of red criss-crossed his face and chest, some from the whip hanging on the wall just inside the door, but most from the razor-sharp knife Hermod was currently cleaning in the basin.
‘Well, I’m sorry to say that I believe you, Mr Blanco,’ said Hermod. He re-entered the room, closing the door behind him, and crossed to the unconscious Spire merchant. ‘You truly don’t know anything about the assassins or the missing package.’
Mr Blanco didn’t respond, but then Hermod didn’t expect him to. The man had endured a great deal of pain and loss of blood in the last hour. If he had known anything, he certainly would have shared that information by now. It was a pity really. Hermod quite liked Mr Blanco. He’d helped Kauderer acquire most of the tools and accoutrements in this room.
‘This is why I detest torture,’ said Hermod. ‘It’s so unreliable.’ He walked around the edge of the room towards a set of gears set in the far wall. ‘Your name was given to my agents abroad,’ he continued. ‘Under torture, the off-world supplier of said package named you as his co-conspirator. I couldn’t believe it, but I had to find out the truth. So, here we are. I was right. Although I’m sure that’s of little value to you now.’
Hermod pulled one lever, which opened a large hole in the grating just in front of the chair. He pulled a second lever, which released the shackles holding Mr Blanco to the chair. A third lever tipped the chair forward slightly. Mr Blanco moaned slightly as he slid off the chair and fell into the hole.
Hermod waited a few minutes for the small flash of fire that just reached the top of the hole, signifying the body had made it to the furnace. A wisp of smoke rose through the grate as Kauderer flipped the lever back to close off the hole.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Truly a pity.’
Kauderer left the rest of the mess for later. He just couldn’t face cleaning Blanco’s blood from the chair and floor right now. Besides, he needed a new plan. He’d just incinerated their best lead. The problem was that the information he needed was most certainly located somewhere within the Spire, and he was far too recognizable to get it through subterfuge.
Plus, most of his agents were off-world tracking down that leak. Those still stationed within the Spire had been on duty so long they had already been detected by the agents of the other houses. The spy business really was a small community. As Hermod walked the dark corridors back towards his office, he realized that what he needed was a rogue agent. Someone completely off the Spire radar. Perhaps an Underhive asset.
As he palmed open another secret door and stepped into the back corner of his office, it hit him. He knew the perfect spy for this job. Small, unassuming, blends into the background in every crowd, and fairly trustworthy for an Underhive spy. Now, the only matter was how to invite Markel Bobo to the Spire without rousing the suspicion of all the other houses’ spy masters.
He snapped his fingers. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘The wedding.’
3: TARGET PRACTICE
Markel Bobo hadn’t had any rest in weeks, and precious little time for food either. So the soggy, reconstituted noodles and the slab of mystery meat on his plate actually tasted good. He sat in an overstuffed chair, sinking his slight, one-and-a-half metre frame into the soft cushions.
The chairs were one of the reasons he made Madam Noritake’s his home away from home. The other was heading up the stairs across the parlour. Her name was Jenn Strings. She had short-cropped, not-quite-blonde hair that bounced every so slightly when she walked. Even though Jenn was one of Madam Noritake’s girls, she somehow managed to retain an air of innocence about her that pleased him. Plus she was one of the few girls in the Underhive shorter than Bobo.
Jenn smiled back at Bobo as she led her latest client upstairs. She held up her hand with the fingers splayed wide and mouthed the words ‘Five minutes.’
Bobo looked at the client, a fat Van Saar merchant, and laughed. That was information he might just be able to use someday. For Bobo was in the information business. His main employer, House Helmawr, kept him busy enough to afford the extended stay plan at Madam Noritake’s – something he hoped to enjoy with Jenn during this week off.
He sometimes freelanced for the various Hive City families, so he made a mental note of Jenn’s client for later use. He was about to go through his own client list to see which of his regulars might be interested in a little Van Saar dirt, when the door to Noritake’s exploded inward.
The bottom of the door blew off the frame and flew across the room. Before Bobo could even move, Wotan bound into the parlour, coming to a skidding halt near Madam Noritake’s desk. The little, yellow woman screamed a stream of epithets that would have made dockworkers pause.
Coming out from behind the desk, she brandished a metal baton she kept close at hand for unruly clients. Wotan stood there, apparently not worried about the tiny lady with the big bat. He seemed to be sniffing the air, which seemed odd to Bobo, since it wasn’t a real dog, just a metal machine of some sort.
He’d asked Kal about Wotan a couple of times, but the bounty hunter refused to talk about it. He said something about ‘payment for some family obligations’, but Bobo never did get the whole story.
Madam Noritake hadn’t stopped screaming and, somehow, hadn’t run out of new curses to throw at the metal mastiff. Bobo assumed she must have heard a lot of swearing in her life, but he was still impressed. She finally gave up on yelling and waving the baton around in the air, which was usually enough even for the drunkest clients, and swung the club at Wotan.
That turned out to be a big mistake. The mastiff, which had seemed to be completely unaware of the danger, turned his head at the last moment and caught the baton in its mouth. Madam Noritake screamed in terror as Wotan bit down. The metal club snapped into three pieces. One section fell on the floor while Madam Noritake raised the other back into the air. Just a few centimetres were left above her hand.
Wotan spat out the third piece and then ran up the stairs. Bobo waited for what he knew was about to happen next. Sure enough, he heard screams of terror and yells of rage from above. Those second yells quickly turned to fear as Bobo heard Wotan’s sharp, metallic bark.
A moment later, many of the girls in Madam Noritake’s employ came streaking down the stairs followed by several men, all of whom were struggling to pull on their trousers without falling down the steps. The last man down the steps was the Van Saar merchant. Bobo felt an odd sense of glee when he saw a trickle of blood running down the man’s leg from a gash in his backside. He’d obviously not moved quickly enough when Wotan came at him.
‘I’m going to kill that Jerico,’ screamed Madam Noritake. Her small, but oddly wide, yellow face had turned almost red. She pulled at her straight, black hair, balling large bits of it in her fists. When she let go, the sides looked like a tangled mass of conduit running down the dome wall. ‘Can’t somebody get that stupid metal mutt out of my house?’
All eyes turned to the only man left in the room. Bobo shook his head. ‘Uh uh.’ he said. ‘Only Kal Jerico can handle Wotan, and then just barely. Besides, I’m on vacation. Go find Jerico if you want that dog gone.’
He turned away from the group of half-dressed women, deciding to get back to his meal, but found instead a thin man in a silk suit sitting in the chair next to him.
‘That’s exactly why I am here,’ said the stranger. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses back up his face with his
forefinger. ‘To take you to see Mr Jerico.’
‘What the…’ said Bobo. ‘How’d you get there?’
Markel Bobo prided himself on two things. First was his ability to blend into every situation without being noticed. Unlike Madam Noritake, he kept his looks and his dress so nondescript that there was never anything for anyone to remember about him after they saw him. The second point of pride was that nobody ever snuck up on him. If Bobo didn’t know you were there, then you just weren’t there.
He closed his eyes and tried to disbelieve the bespectacled little man. It didn’t work.
‘I walked in during all the commotion,’ said the stranger. ‘I have an invitation for you.’ He tried to hand Bobo an envelope.
Bobo looked back at the girls, wondering if one of them – probably Jenn – was pulling a joke on him. But they were all whispering and pointing up the stairs. From above, Bobo could still hear Wotan romping about from room to room. Occasionally something would fall and break, prompting a new set of curses to escape from Madam Noritake’s mouth.
Bobo looked back at the stranger. ‘You open it,’ he said. ‘I don’t trust strange envelopes from stranger men.’
The stranger slipped his finger under the flap and Bobo noticed it had been resealed at some point. It seemed odd, but he just filed the information away. The man pulled out a thick card and handed it to Bobo. On it he read: House Helmawr cordially invites you to attend the wedding ceremony of its favourite son, and future ruler of Hive Primus and, by extension, all Necromunda: Kal Jerico.
‘If you would come with me, Mr Bobo,’ said the man. ‘I can expedite your travel through the wall into the Spire.’
Bobo stared at the card and then at the silk-suited stranger. ‘This is a joke, right?’ he said. ‘No way that Kal Jerico is going to be ruler of the hive.’
‘Our future lord is already in the Spire,’ said the man. ‘Why do you think his metal friend is running loose and terrorizing Hive City?’
Bobo shook his head. ‘Well, thank you very much for the invitation, but I’ll find my own way into the Spire, if you don’t mind. I don’t go on trips with strangers. It’s, um, bad for my health.’
The man rose from the chair and bowed. ‘As you wish, Mr Bobo. Simply present your invitation at the wall and you shall be allowed entrance. I now bid you adieu. It would be best if I left before Mr Jerico’s mastiff returns to this floor.’
Bobo glanced back up the stairs and nodded. ‘Me too,’ he said but when he turned back around, the man in the silk suit had vanished.
Vandal Feg rotated the ring of weapon barrels mounted on his metal arm one turn clockwise. ‘Another power pack depleted,’ he grumbled. ‘Time to bring out the big gun.’ He truly appreciated the upgrades he’d bought for his mechanical arm. His previous losses to that pain-in-the-rear, Kal Jerico, all stemmed from letting the bounty hunter fight on his terms.
Vandal should have been able to crush puny Jerico’s head with his claws, but Jerico had a knack for getting out of tight spots. Next time, he’d shoot the scavving son of a ratskin and everything around him before he could get away. Then maybe, he’d have some fun with his chainsword.
Mutant bodies piled up around Feg and his band of mercenaries, but there didn’t seem to be any end in sight. A sea of muties surrounded them, ebbing and flowing out past the tops of the dunes on all sides. The transport was lost in the dust behind them. They had moved off, hoping it was the transport the mutants were after.
‘They smell the meat on our bones,’ said Kyrian. He fired methodically back and forth in a sixty-degree arc, dropping an enemy with nearly every shot. It didn’t seem to matter as two more moved in for every one that fell.
‘How can they smell anything?’ asked Feg. ‘They barely have faces, let alone noses.’ He looked at a corpse lying nearby as he locked the largest barrel in his arsenal into place on his arm.
What skin was left on the face of the mutant was a mass of scar tissue and pockmarks. Most of the fleshy parts – ears, nose, cheeks – looked like they’d been ground down, exposing cartilage and bone underneath. Vandal had been told the constant wind-whipped ash blowing across the wastes could rip the flesh off a man. Now he believed the tales.
‘There,’ he said, getting the two-inch barrel securely locked into place. ‘This ought to thin things out a little.’ Flexing one of his long claws triggered the weapon, which discharged a frag grenade with a loud ‘thwoomp’. Before the first grenade hit, he turned and fired a second one over Kyrian’s head.
‘Down,’ called the scummer leader. As one, the mercenaries, who were arrayed in a rough circle around Feg, knelt.
The kneeling scummers continued firing as Feg unleashed explosive rain on the encroaching mutants. The frag grenade rounds detonated one after another in a circle around them. Pockets of muties simply dropped to the ground as searing hot bits of metal ripped through their ranks, flaying what little skin they had left from their bodies.
‘Heavies,’ called Kyrian. ‘Concentrate your fire to the east.’ Those to either side of him switched to their heavy stubbers and filled the area in front with a hail of screaming bullets, creating a curtain of fire that sliced through the scavvy ranks. The scummers arrayed in a circle behind Feg widened their firing arcs to keep the muties coming from the sides at bay. Those men were now fighting a losing battle, so Feg launched several more grenades to each side to thin out the attackers.
He glanced forward, ready to berate Kyrian for leaving their flanks so exposed, but then saw what the scummer leader had noticed. The mass of muties in front of them ended at the top of the next dune. He raised his arm and shot his remaining grenades in a cluster just beyond the leading edge of the horde.
‘Move on my command,’ yelled the scummer leader. As the first grenades blew up, he called out, ‘Forward!’
Feg flipped a switch and held his arm up while the chainsword flipped out and screamed to life. All around him, the mercenaries continued firing as they moved forward in a tight diamond formation. Feg stopped and turned, taking up position at the rear point of the diamond. He slashed out with his raging chainsword as muties rushed forward towards the retreating mercenaries.
They flailed at him with their bony hands. Some wielded hunks of metal or even rusted swords, but most simply attacked with their long fingernails. One even tried to bite him, but picked the wrong arm. Feg smacked the biter in the face with his mechanical elbow, sending him flying back into the grasping arms of his comrades.
Fingers, limbs, heads and dismembered torsos littered the ash around Feg as he walked backward with the group of mercenaries. Besides the heavies at the apex of the diamond, who were blazing the trail, all the other scummers had switched to melee weapons. Their job was to keep the crushing mob of muties at bay long enough for the formation to break through the back line.
‘How are we doing?’ called Feg above the roar of his chainsword.
‘We have another problem,’ said the scummer leader.
Vandal glanced over his shoulder. It looked like they were getting close to the edge of the horde, although some on the flanks seemed to realize their plan and were heading towards the rear. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.
‘Up above.’ He pointed skyward.
Feg looked up. ‘Oh scav,’ he said. The wail of his chainsword had drowned out the roar of the military transport coming in for a landing.
The scummer leader pulled the rocket launcher from his back, unfolded the stock and loaded their remaining rocket.
‘Hold,’ said Feg. ‘I need you to punch me a path through to the top of that dune. I have to be free of this horde before that transport lands.’
The leader looked at the transport and Feg could see him come to the same conclusion. The military markings meant the transport had an extra layer of reinforced plasteel. It would be thicker than the door to the safe. The rocket launcher would be nex
t to useless against it. He saluted, and said, ‘Yes sir.’ This time, Feg thought the scummer really meant it.
‘Prepare for launch,’ he called. ‘Covering fire!’
The leader aimed the rocket launcher and pulled the trigger. The missile tore through the ranks of mutants. Those unlucky enough to live through the impact fell to the sides, their bodies charred and burning from the rocket’s flame. The rocket exploded near the top of the dune in a huge ball of fire. Black smoke billowed up just behind a massive cloud of white ash from the dune.
The scummers concentrated their fire on the edges of the opening made from the rocket’s path as bodies tossed into the air from the explosion dropped out of the smoke and ash. Clutching the satchel in his left hand, Vandal Feg scrambled up the dune, cutting down any muties foolish enough to try to get in his way. As he disappeared into the black and white cloud, Feg altered direction, coming out on the other side of the horde but running parallel to its rear echelon, away from the transport.
He felt confident his chainsword and the prospect of royal blood would keep the horde off him long enough to get away. Besides, while the muties might be fighting to survive, Feg fought for a much more important purpose: money.
‘Valtin,’ pleaded Kal, digging his thumbs into his eyes, ‘we’ve been at this for over an hour. I’m beginning to regret agreeing to this scavving marriage.’ He stood and paced from the chair to the door and back again. He didn’t know what hurt more, his brain or his backside. At the moment, it was a dead heat.
‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ said Valtin. ‘I’ve got to prepare you for courtly life. You know, take off some of the rough edges before you make your first public appearance.’
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