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Burned – Extract

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Burned

Darius Hinks

I’m still alive. I still have it. Bring Khorg to Druna Gath. We’ll kill the beast. We’ll take his share.

Khorg was the strongest. Dumb as an ox. Ugly as a sump rat. Powerful enough to rip a man in half. I’d hoped never to see him again but I’d hoped for a lot of things.

I stared at the data-slate, still unable to believe what I was seeing. I wiped the muck from the screen. The pict-feed was grainy and jagged with static, but there was no mistaking the truth: it was Thornax. He stared at me through the cracked glass.

Thornax. I’d watched him go into that blast furnace. I’d heard him scream. It was my boot, planted hard in his back, that sent him out of the game. And here he was, talking to me like we were friends. Talking to me as though he had every right to still be drawing breath.

I’m still alive. I still have it. Bring Khorg to Druna Gath. We’ll kill the beast. We’ll take his share.

I took a deep slug of Wildsnake and stuffed the slate back under my flak jacket. Now that I thought about it, there was no reason Thornax should know I was the one who booted him in there. The Iron Bloods had been all over us. I could see how he might not realise I was his killer. Anyone could have knocked him in. But why wasn’t he dead? The tough bastard must have crawled through the furnace. Was that possible? We were Goliaths. We were the Chainfists. Of course we were tough. But I saw fire ripping the skin from his back. The heat was immense. The whole complex had been coming down by then, so I hadn’t waited for the final act, but he was dead – I was sure of it.

I’m still alive.

I shook my head and carried on down the roadpipe, kicking rats and rubble, chewing on soot, muttering under my breath. Flames filled my head. I was back there, with him. Feeling the heat. Hearing his screams.

‘He should be dead,’ I said, my voice humming through the grille of my chem-mask.

Rak hurried after me, struggling through the knee-deep ash. Nobody had used this route for months and I suppose it was hard going for him. He was big for a scavvie, but he only came up to my chest. I could see him sweating as he tried to keep up.

I gave him a look, waving my stubber for encouragement.

‘Who should be dead?’ he said. He talked a lot.

‘You,’ I grunted, ‘for slowing me down.’

He laughed nervously, scratching fleas from his verminous little head.

‘Duslag Sump,’ he said, chattering away to me like I was his mother. ‘It’s only a few more kloms, right? Daghman Falls, the Drek Gate. Then we’re there.’

He eyed my bottle. ‘Thirsty work,’ he said, wiping his mouth on his filthy sleeve and grinning hopefully. He looked like a fawning plague zombie.

I glared at him, wondering if there was still time to go back to the trade post and hire someone less annoying.

He paled and finally shut up, so I carried on.

Daghman Falls was the site of an old cave-in. No one could remember the cause, but it had left a pretty impressive mess – broken gantries and charred power cables everywhere. The hole had also been sugar-coated by waste pipes feeding down from Duslag Sump. Slag and ash had poured down from the manufactories until the falls looked like a rotting orifice. Choking, smouldering chem-fires licked across the waste spills, adding to the decorative feel of the place.

I squinted into the smog and raised my stubber. There were animals in there. Mutants. Some kind of massive insects, clinging to the junkyard walls.

‘Salvage crews,’ said Rak, clicking on his lumen and sending a white finger up into the soot clouds.

As the light flickered across the humps I saw that he was right. They were just lean-tos, welded to the walls. Skavvies, living off the crap, even this deep. This far beneath Hive Primus the underhive took on a particularly impressive aura of tragedy.

‘What do they…?’ I began, looking at the lean-tos. Then I shook my head, realising I didn’t care.

I climbed out over the drop. There were footholds worked into the rusted girders. Perhaps the route was used more than I thought. I looked across to the opposite side, irritated at the thought we might have to fight. The Drek Gate had never been guarded before. I had no desire to shoot my way in. I wanted to reach Khorg unannounced. I knew he would give me a special welcome but I didn’t know if it would be a smile or a bullet.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-926-3

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