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Packin’ Heat – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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PACKIN’ HEAT

Mike Brooks

What do I do about a problem like Nizkwik?

This had been the question going round Snaggi Littletoof’s head for days, but the answer still eluded him. He should have been grotboss by now, lauded and celebrated as the greatest gretchin to have ever lived, and leading his own Waaagh! in a glorious crusade against humies, bugeyes, and anyone that wanted to stop him from getting his claws on their stuff. Unfortunately the orks over whom he should be ruling had ignored the will of the gods, and after a particularly traumatic journey through some inter-dimensional portals he’d ended up here, on a world mainly consisting of grass and dust and mountains, and right back down the pecking order in a completely different Waaagh! The TekWaaagh!

And subservient to Nizkwik.

‘Oi, Snaggi!’ Nizkwik hollered. ‘Bring dat oil squig over ’ere!’

Snaggi grimaced, but picked the rotund little creature up and crossed the floor of the big boss’ bunker to place it in the hand of Nizkwik as he sat, eyes crossed with concentration, in front of the big boss’ third-favourite slugga.

Nizkwik was another grot. He was the grot’s grot. If you took all the grots in the galaxy, ground them down to their component atoms, and then made the single grottiest grot you could from what you had, it would look like Nizkwik. He had everything you’d expect in a grot: the dagger-like nose, the ragged batwing ears, the long clawed fingers, the pale green skin, and the tattered clothing in the colours of the orks he served: yellow and black in this case, since the TekWaaagh! was dominated by Bad Moons. On the face of it, there was nothing to distinguish Nizkwik from the veritable hordes of grots that existed throughout the galaxy.

Snaggi, however, knew better.

Nizkwik was the personal grot of Ufthak Blackhawk: the big boss in charge of this part of the TekWaaagh!, and an ork that was not only massive but utterly fearsome. Snaggi didn’t trust Ufthak, not one bit. He was too smart for an ork, too smart by half, with a nasty habit of following facts through to a logical conclusion. An ork that smart was bad news for everyone. Or at least, bad news for Snaggi, which was basically the same thing. After all, how was Snaggi supposed to have another stab at fulfilling his gods-given destiny and becoming grotboss if an ork like Ufthak was hanging around ready to stamp on him? It was zoggin’ unfair, is what it was.

Nizkwik was the key, Snaggi was sure. The other grot had somehow managed to inveigle his way into Ufthak’s surroundings, and had become if not actively welcome, at least tolerated in the sense that Ufthak yelled at him to do things rather than get lost. In Snaggi’s experience, that was as close to an expression of trust as orks got when it came to grots. Nizkwik must have some special understanding of orkish nature in order to manage this, and Snaggi needed it.

However, Nizkwik must also have his own plans, since no grot got close to an ork unless he had to. A grot’s natural instinct was to do as little as possible, nick stuff, and throttle anything smaller that annoyed him, while an ork’s natural instinct was to make grots do everything for them except fighting. That wasn’t to say they didn’t make grots fight as well, just that the orks wanted what they considered the most fun for themselves, which meant using grots as living shields for the dull stuff like getting shot at. It was surely one of the gods’ greatest jokes, Snaggi had previously reflected, that orks and grots were almost always in close proximity to each other.

Snaggi’s preferred place was well away from an ork’s eye, either doing something unimportant that no ork bothered to check up on or, preferably, plotting his own ascension to glory while a group of other grots convinced of his genius ran around for him and they all awaited the perfect moment to overthrow their masters. He had decided to make an exception here, simply because he had to find out what Nizkwik was up to. What was his plan? Why did it involve being so close to Ufthak? And how did the deceitful little git manage to never give himself away?

‘Dere we go,’ Nizkwik said with every indication of happiness, squeezing the oil squig onto the slugga. He worked the weapon’s action, ensuring the oil was evenly distributed and the moving parts flowed smoothly past each other, then placed it carefully back. Snaggi watched the whole procedure closely, but saw no sign anything was amiss. The oil was genuine squig oil rather than some corrosive substance, and no miniature explosive had been planted to make the slugga explode if Ufthak fired it. To all appearances, Nizkwik was genuinely servicing the big boss’ weapons when Ufthak wasn’t even around and telling him to do it.

The fiendish complexity of it! Snaggi considered himself a strategic mastermind, but this long game was currently beyond his comprehension. He would have to stay on his guard, because Nizkwik surely had exactly the same doubts about why Snaggi was here. They were two trampla squigs circling each other – not yet at the stage of snorting and pawing at the ground prior to charging, but definitely eyeing each other up and working out their rival’s intentions.

Snaggi was concerned that he was at a disadvantage. Nizkwik had been around the TekWaaagh! longer, so this was essentially his home turf. He knew the important orks and what would enrage them, and he knew the hidden strata of grot society; indeed, he sat somewhere near the top, based simply on his status as ‘Ufthak’s grot’. If Nizkwik decided that Snaggi was a problem or a threat, then Snaggi was likely to become squig food after he got blamed for nicking Da Boffin’s hammer-wrench, or Dok Drozfang’s favourite scalpel, even if he’d been nowhere near either ork at the time.

Perhaps, Snaggi thought, it was time to come clean, rather than wait for Nizkwik to start hostilities when he wasn’t looking. Nonetheless, this was going to take subtlety.

‘So,’ he said conspiratorially, sitting down on the floor next to Nizkwik. ‘Wot’s da plan?’

Nizkwik looked at him, his brow wrinkling in confusion. ‘Da plan?’

‘Yeah,’ Snaggi prompted. ‘Ya know. For da boss.’ He waggled his eyebrows knowingly.

‘For da… Oh. Ohhh.’ Realisation dawned on Nizkwik’s features, closely followed by suspicion. ‘How’d yoo know about da plan?’

Snaggi suppressed a thrill of excitement that his genius insight had, once again, been accurate. ‘Well, sort of obvious yoo’re gonna have a plan, innit?’ he said, then realised how that sounded and hastily back-tracked. ‘I mean, not obvious to everyone, of course not to everyone, but to anuvver grot wot’s hangin’ around and has da same sort of brain…’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Yoo can trust me. Promise.’

Nizkwik’s eyes narrowed. ‘Promise?’

‘Promise,’ Snaggi said, making his own face as open and honest as possible. He didn’t mention anything about how trusting him only extended so far as him not instantly revealing that plan to Ufthak, and should in no way be interpreted as trusting him not to, for example, quite literally stab Nizkwik in the back once he’d gleaned every useful scrap of information he could from the other grot.

‘Well, alright den!’ Nizkwik said with satisfaction. ‘Wiv two of us, we can get dis done! Come wiv me!’ He got to his feet and trotted out of the bunker without a backward glance. Snaggi hurried up and followed him, grinning as he went, eager not to let this new-found trust expire through tardiness.

Finally, a breakthrough!

Nizkwik led the way with the casual aplomb of someone who had long ago learned which squig pens were too ramshackle to venture near in case the occupants got excited at the sight of a grot and burst loose to try to eat you, which areas of open ground you only ventured into if you wanted to get mashed flat by the speed freeks as they engaged in their near-incessant races, and which piles of junk were prone to explode without warning as a mekboy tested his latest invention. Snaggi kept up, storing all this information away for future use and wondering what exactly they were after. Were they stealing a particularly powerful weapon from a mekboy’s workshop to vaporise Ufthak when he returned, in order to then take command of the Waaagh! through force of arms? Were they going to nick experimental gubbinz from a painboy which they would clamp to Ufthak’s skull when he was asleep, and somehow control his brain and therefore his behaviour? Were they going to stab someone?

Apparently not. They passed through the riotous core of the camp, through the bustling markets where teef were traded for guns and ammo, fungus beer and fried squig legs, new boots, and armour with only one previous owner who sold it cos he got somefing better, definitely not because he died – ignore da hole in da back of it, dat’s just for flexibility so yer arms don’t get stuck when yoo’re swingin’ yer choppa, right?

Then they snuck through where the bulk of the orks camped down, which was in many respects a lot more dangerous. Orks in the markets were busy making or selling wares, or buying and testing those wares. A grot might find himself suddenly used as target practice to test the accuracy of a slugga, but other than getting kicked for being in the way, being victimised by an ork in those surroundings was a relatively rare occurrence: orks only tended to turn on grots when they literally had nothing better to do.

Out where the orks camped, they didn’t have anything better to do. Any ork who hadn’t found an actual enemy to get stuck into was mooching around, waiting either for the nob to decide zog this, they were going out to try to find something to fight; or for the distant sound of dakka to be carried in on the breeze, at which point they would take up their weapons and pile off in that direction as fast as possible. A pair of grots would make a suitable, if short-lived diversion for any number of the brutes currently kicking their heels.

‘Wot are we doin’ here?’ Snaggi hissed as they weaved their way through the maze of ramshackle huts, crude tents, and rough shelters thrown together from bits of wreckage.

‘Gotta get to da uvver side,’ Nizkwik said. ‘C’mon, dis way!’ He picked up his pace, little legs flashing back and forth, and Snaggi had to break into a run to keep up with him.

He thought they’d been discovered when a nearby rumble of ork voices rose into a roar, and he had a sudden mental image of being chased and shot at until the sheer volume of fire overcame even the orks’ natural lack of accuracy, but then they crept past the back half of a trukk and he saw a big crowd of orks standing in a circle, far too close for comfort, but all fixated on something in the middle of them.

‘Dis is da best way,’ Nizkwik whispered, with some satisfaction. ‘Sneak past ’em while dey’re busy!’

Snaggi paused for a moment in morbid fascination, as the snarling, snorting shape of a smasha squig ran straight at an ork. Instead of scrambling out of the way, the ork charged it with his own head lowered: there was a sickening crunch on impact and then, to Snaggi’s shock, the squig toppled sideways with its eyes rolled back and tongue lolling out, while the ork staggered around in a triumphant circle; obviously woozy, but still on his feet.

‘Dat’s just Mogrot,’ Nizkwik said dismissively. ‘He won a headbuttin’ contest wiv a wall, once.’

Snaggi started to become suspicious when they made it past the last few shelters, and were hurrying across scrubby grass and dusty soil towards the low hills that lay just beyond. However, Nizkwik wasn’t reaching for his blasta, and Snaggi couldn’t think that the other grot had set up some sort of ambush with any third party. Strange though it might seem, he had to assume there was a genuine purpose to them coming all the way out here. The best thing to do was to be patient and wait for it to become clear.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

This eBook edition published in 2022 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Leo Lesfargue.

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