There are countless
dark corners in the Primus Underhive, where death lurks around every
blind turn and in every lumen-starved badzone dome. But there are few
places whose mention will prompt even a seasoned downhiver to
reflexively sign an aquila and mutter a prayer lest misfortune brings
their sorry hide there. Heretic's Hole, refuge of the most villainous
recidivists, is one; the accursed, witch-haunted Charred Cross sector
is another.
And then there's
Foulnest.
Festering in the
furthest depths of E-Sec, where the crumbling badzones meet toxic
sump, long has Foulnest had a reputation for the worst kind of
criminality. First came Archprint bootleggers, who made use of the
disused maufactories to churn out counterfeit weapons, ammunition and
other wares. Then there were the smugglers, traversing the hazardous
sumpways to ferry contraband from the Ash Wastes and Forbidden
Cities. As time passed, the lifeblood of Foulnest turned darker
still: cold traders added their offworld goods to the smugglers'
lines, and the forge-bosses' output showed increasing signs of
heretekal modifications. Inevitably, the taint of Chaos seeped into
the place.
Such infection demands
purgation. Certain Imperial records, sealed by order of the Adeptus
Arbites and Inquisition, detail the martial zeal that was directed at
the settlement and its surroundings in a massacre that scoured the
zone clean. After the exorcists and techorcists of the Ministorum and
Mechanicus had concluded their explusionary rites, Foulnest fell
silent. It was just another stretch of badzone, haunted by mutant
dregs, shunned by Ratskins, and remembered in dark legends that
passed by word of mouth from Hacked Knee to Old Bedlam Town and
beyond.
But that was many long
cycles ago, and the Underhive is an ever-changing place.
Driven out of Sector H8
after their heretical tendencies were exposed during the Hacked Knee
Guild War, the notorious Hellhounds took refuge in Foulnest and,
aided by their helot cultist allies, relit the forges and reconnected
the air vents. Their worship of the Wrong Gods would find strong
empyrical purchase in those accursed domes. But sure as Laudate
follows Vigil on the death clock, so justice follows recidivism from
spire to sump. House gangs and venators of Sector H8 and elsewhere
braved the wilds of E-Sec to hunt the Hellhounds down and claim the
bounty on the sinners' heads, and all paths led to Foulnest.
So came the shift that
Gunn's Guns arrived there. Not one of them left the place unchanged.
Some never left at all.
The crew had passed
through the outer manufactories to a dome at the heart of the
complex. The lumen rigs flickered above an expansive space dominated
by a tall tower and a handful of lower structures, all connected by a
network of rusting walkways. On the far side of the dome, a rough
barricade had been formed from untidy stacks of armoured containers;
beyond the barricade, a guttural chant was in progress. The sound
induced a physical reaction in the mercenaries: teeth aching down to
the root, itches in the backs of eyeballs, static ripples over greasy
hair. There was witchwork here.
Jonn Gunn barked gruff
orders: 'Ratbite, Drifter, Snags – with me. We'll hit that walkways
up above and see if we can't scope some smart shots. The rest of you,
run the dome floor, work forward. We need to get past that
barricade.'
Jak 8-10, Crusher and
Mumbles marched off towards the high tower with the Blister Sisters
and Brokeface Edwydd limping behind. The latter three were still
recovering from injuries suffered in the fight against the Faithful
Sons, but all hands were required for this venture – needs must as
the daemon drives.
Gunn was climbing a
ladder to the walkways when he spotted movement ahead, in front of
the container wall. There was a grey-clad figure lurking in the
shadows of the high tower's middle deck, back turned on Gunn and his
men, aiming a long rifle towards the barricade. As Gunn reached the
walkway, he glanced around and saw there were several more grey
fighters advancing toward the container wall.
'Well damn it
sumpwise,' snarled Gunn. It was the Voidsmen, no doubt with their
enforcer ally Detective Muller.
They'd met this crew a
few cycles back on the other side of E-Sec. The encounter hadn't
gone well, but the grudge could wait given the mutual foe they were
up against. Gunn overheard the nearest Voidsman voxxing through news
of the Guns' arrival, and the crackle of a response – probably
Muller himself. The Voidsman nodded to Gunn and gave a sharp
thumbs-up – it seemed like the rival crew likewise thought an
alliance was in order.
A handful of cultists
came scuttling like midden-beetles through a gap in the container
barricade. The hunters on the walkways had a decent enough view, but
once again Gunn muttered a curse.
These weren't the
Hellhounds.
Helot rags in different
colours, though they bore the telltale totems and daubed symbols of
wrong-goddery. Gunn had come looking for justice for the Hacked Knee
folks who'd fallen victim to the Hellhounds, but this too would have
to wait.
Whatever ritual these
sinners were enacting needed to be shut down, click-smart.
The Voidsmen, having
garnered more intel on their E-Sec quest, were ranged across the dome
ahead of Gunn's Guns, and were set to open fire on the emerging
cultists when a shrill ullulation sounded across the zone, drowning
out even the cult incantation. Suddenly, the air was thick with crude
pipework arrows flying in from all sides.
The trespassers, both
cult and hunter, had drawn the attention of a mutie tribe who made
their crude home in Foulnest. Too puny to engage in direct combat,
the muties were trying to drive the intruders off from afar, but for
the most part their arrows were poorly aimed or too weak to pierce
armour. A few clicks later, the muties withdrew and the cult
incantation echoed loud once again. Such are the badzones.
While Ratbite crept off
to the left, looking for a prime sniping line, Gunn, Snags and
Drifter moved to support the Voidsmen in the tall tower. The gunners
exchanged shots with the cultists on the dome floor – autofire,
longrifle rounds and the searing beam of a mining laser – but this
did little more than send fighters ducking for cover.
The atmosphere in the
dome was already enough to set a hardened gang on edge, but as the
chanting reached a crescendo, the feeling intensified. Lances of
queasy sensation rattled through the hunters' skulls and down their
spines, churning their stomachs and bowels. Every Throne-fearing body
in the dome fought back a wave of powerful nausea. Drifter Zensen
bent double and vomited copiously; one of the Voidsmen opened the
vents on his vac-helm to do likewise.
On the far side of the
barricade, the air next to the obscene effigy roiled and twisted, and
the cult witch grinned malignantly. The air somehow tore and
coalesced simultaneously, forming into an impossible shape: a pink
mass of tentacles, grasping hands, jagged teeth and mindlessly
intelligent eyes. A fresh horror had come to the Underhive.
The horror surged
forward on wrong-jointed, fluid legs. It slithered though the gap in
the barricade with a mad cackle. The Voidsmen trained their guns and
peppered it with heavy lasbolts and bullets which ripped the target
apart.
But the gummy shreds
reassembled into two new forms, pink turning to blue. The cackling
monstrosity was reborn as two grumbling fiends who continued to dart
forwards. The cultists exulted to have such blessed children in their
midst.
Beneath the tall tower,
Brokeface Edwydd had witnessed all this.
'Holy fraggin heck, may
the Emprah, Sangwingus, Guileman and all the fraggin saints preserve
me!' he gasped, ducking out of sight and pressing his back against a
support strut. Reaching to his belt, he unclapsed his flask of second
best and took a long swig. The burning rotgut overpowered the nausea,
and he winced away the itch in his optic nerves. He reclipped the
flask and readied his autopistols - with a bellyful of booze, an
Underhiver can take on anything. Or at least, he thinks he can.
'Come on, then!'
Brokeface slurred as he launched himself off the strut and back round
the corner.
Immediately ahead, Jak
and the Blister Sisters were moving to support the Voidsmen. The
Eschers and Goliath were brave enough, or just plain crazy enough,
not to be daunted.
'Let's make mayhem!'
came the shrieking rasp through Zondra Zee's respirator unit as she
started forward.
Beyond the hunters,
there was a narrow strip of open domefloor and then the gap in the
container wall. There, the cultists, buoyed by the summoned horrors,
were lighting and hurling crude incendiary bombs.
The bombs impacted,
washing the area with flames. The lead Voidsman, bossman Ray, was
floored and set alight. Another Voidsman and the Blister Sisters were
pinned but the flames didn't catch.
But this was slim
respite for the hunters – one of the blue horrors, seemingly
unimpressed by its mortal groupies' efforts, grumbled forward and
levelled its fingertips at Zondra Zee as she lay on the deck.
Multihued flames burst from the horrors hand and engulfed the Escher
exile, who screamed and writhed as the unholy fire clung to her.
Jak 8-10 was hobbled,
but his murderous instincts were as quick as ever, and the horror had
strayed too close. Never one for deep insight, Jak's brain couldn't
process the full obscene implications of the thing's presence, and he
made to deal with it as he would regular hive vermin, limping
forwards at speed and timing the swings of his axe and spud-jacker to
make heavy contact as soon as he got near enough.
The weapons bit into
the horror's strange flesh, and it wailed miserably as it died –
or, more precisely, as it changed again, splitting into twin pairs of
sentient flame that danced around Jak and giggled as they singed his
ankles and backside. Enraged, the Goliath set about stomping the
flame-horrors into sooty smudges on the dome floor.
Zondra, still ablaze,
had lurched to her feet and ran screaming towards the barricade wall.
Her path was blocked by a simpering cultist who lashed out with a
club fashioned from junk metal as she drew near. There was a damp
snap as the club made contact with her burning hood. The Blister
Sister dropped hard, neck askew.
Zamandra Zee had ducked
out of the way of the flames and was back on her feet just in time to
see her sister fall. She charged forward, stiletto sword raised.
Where Zondra had screamed in agony, Zamandra screamed for vengeance:
'I'll have your eyes for this, ratfart!'
She thrust the tip of
her sword at the cultist, aiming for the slits in his hood. But the
cultist was fighting with the righteous zeal of a true believer, his
god made manifest at his side, and he dodged the snaking blade with
ease.
The crude club swung
again and caught Zamandra overstretched. She took the blow just above
the waist, and crumpled to her knees at the impact. The cultist swung
the club round and slammed it down on Zamandra's head. A snap as her
skull broke. She joined her sister on the cold deck.
The triumphant cultist
chuckled and howled a prayer of thanks, gibberish to the
non-initiated. His doggerel exultation blended into the chanting
which has resumed beyond the barricade.
Gunn saw all this from
the tower above. 'Lads, if we don't get over that barricade soon,
frag knows what that witch might conjure up next. Drifter, run left –
join those Voidsmen making a break for the top of the wall. Snags,
with me.'
'Aye, boss,' replied
the hunters. Downhive scummers though they were, they'd learnt to
respect Jonn Gunn's orders.
Snags and Gunn made it
to the edge of the high tower's mid level just as the cultists below
flung out another clutch of bombs – frag grenades, this time. The
hunters were blasted off their feet but otherwise unhurt.
Straight below, in the
gloomy domefloor level of the tall tower, Crusher was looking to give
the cultist a taste of their own fungus – he yanked a frag grenade
off his bandolier, pulled the pin and hurled it towards his foes. But
the grenade spun wide and spanged off an overhead beam, bouncing back
to stop dead not half a metre away from Crusher.
'Ah, Helmawr's balls,'
he muttered. Just enough time to fling himself to the side as the
grenade went off.
Crusher was floored but
not hurt by the detonation. He sat up, shaking his head clear and
wryly cursing his clumsiness. 'Heh heh, daemons take me for a
fool...'
He should've watched
what he wished for: suddenly a daemon was upon him, lunging out of
the gloom with its jaws snapping and tentacles flailing. It was the
other blue horror, and after the frag blast Crusher barely had the
wits to fight it off.
The horror wrapped
itself around the hunter, pressing its spongy, gelatinous flesh
against him. Crusher strained to twist his head and neck away from
the creature's slavering jaws, but new mouths were opening up along
the horror's rippling tentacles.
Then, there was a
staccato burst of autofire, and the horror was shredded, releasing
Crusher as it entered its death throes.
As he shrugged the
beast off, Crusher saw his salvation: Brokeface Edwydd was standing
nearby, twin autopistols smoking.
Brokeface belched
noisly. 'Ta-derrr! Got yer back, me kin!'
'Frag it, Brokeface,
you on the second best again? You could've killed me!'
'Yeah, but I din't, did
I? Saved yer sorry skin, din't I? I – yow!'
This last exclamation
was prompted by a nip on the ankle from one of the flame-horrors that
had spawned from the blue monster. The hunters got to work stamping
the fiends out.
A few metres away, the
other side of one of the tall tower's bulkhead walls, Jak 8-10 had
likewise extinguished his miniature tormentors and was lurching
toward the cultist who'd taken out the Blister Sisters. The Goliath
had developed something of a bond with the outcast Eschers, mistaking
their spiteful pranks for real affection.
'You clobbered the
gals!' he snarled, swinging his spud-jacker, 'now Jakky-boy's gonna
clobber you!'
Red-eyed, bloat-muscled
Jak in his rage must have seemed a daemon of sorts to the cultist,
who fumbled his defence and found himself on the receiving end of the
lame Goliath's brutal blows. Jak 8-10 made shot, bloody work of his
revenge.
A heavy creaking boomed
across the dome – some ancient overhead pipework had given way and
was disgorging its chem contents into the ventworks. The upper fans
spewed out a fine haar of toxic droplets which spread through the
thin air. It wasn't enough to reduce visibility, but the mist sizzled
where it came into contact with walls, walkways, armour and skin.
Every fighter in the dome was rendered vulnerable by the corrosive
vapour.
Off on the right side
of the dome, away from the rush on the barricade, Mumbles Mervik had
got into a drawn-out exchange of fire with a cultist. Each fighter
had the other pinned down across a tangle of twisted junk, both
unable to rush to their comrades' aid.
Over on the left of the
dome was Detective Muller himself, accompanied by Voidsmen. They were
attempting to outflank the cultists and break round the side of the
barricade. At first, the hunters had cut down the cultist outliers,
but the advance had got bogged down either side of a rusted out old
tractor unit. Both sides had each other pinned, exchanging shots and
waiting for the ideal click to break cover.
Up on the walkways
spanning the dome centre, Ratbite was hopping from platform to
platform on his hairy ratling feet. He glanced over to the barricade
wall. Some of the Voidsmen had scrambled to the top if it, bypassing
the defenders, but were coming under fire from the reserve cultists
lurking down the other side.
Ratbite giggled through
stitched-up lips as he watched the Voidsmen reel and tumble from the
barricade, blood spattering in wide arcs – but the abhuman sniper
knew this was really no laughing matter. The Voidsmen's ranks were
thinning rapidly. Before long, Gunn's Guns would be left to fight on
alone.
Ratbite paused at a
walkway junction and squinted at the container wall. He had to find a
shot. Any shot.
There. Through a
sliver-gap between containers, he could make out part of the
cultists' hideous totem, and there, just to the right, the witch
running the show. An arm from the elbow up, a shoulder, a slice of
chest. It was enough.
Ratbite rested the
barrel of his longrifle on the walkway rail and took careful aim. He
counted out his prayers to the Throne, just like he was taught back
in the Guard. He saw the shot, just like he was taught in the Guard.
He was the shot, just like he was taught in the Guard. He took the
shot, just like he was taught in the Guard.
Through the gap in the
containers, Ratbite saw the witch spin and drop, blood spewing from
his shoulderblade. He'd made the shot, just like he'd been taught in
the Guard.
Ratbite giggled with
sadistic satisfaction.
It wasn't enough, of
course. The witch was down but not out. Summoning the energy of a
true zealot, the heretic ignored the pain from the sniper wound and
hauled himself to his knees before the totem. The hunters were
closing in, but he had a higher purpose to serve. A holy mission,
consecrated by the breaking of black bread and imbibing of bloody
brews with the mighty Vokran and Keltor. Even as he felt his strength
begin to ebb, the witch muttered his final, most obscene incantation.
Unlike the earlier
summoning, the completion of this ritual barely stirred the stale air
in the dome. But, though few knew it at the time, this lowly witch
had just wrought dark change on the fate of Foulnest, of E-Sec, of
Hacked Knee, perhaps even of the Primus Underhive and Necromunda
itself.
This shift, though,
things were going the way of the hunters. The cultists blocking the
path to the barricade had thinned out. Down on the domefloor, the way
was clear and even Voidboss Ray had rolled the flames out, having
sustained and survived an improbable amount of cultist gunfire as
he'd staggered about.
Gunn stared down from
the walkway above and cracked a rare grin.
'Thanks for clearing
the way, comrade!' he shouted down to his counterpart. Then, to the
Guns, 'Forward, lads! Rush those sorry sons of sumpsuckers!'
Gunn, Drifter and Snags
advanced along the walkways. Down below, Crusher, Brokeface and Jak
made their move. Even Mumbles had taken out his opponent in the gun
duel and was heading for the barricade.
The badzones took
another turn, and the toxic mist faded away, the vents instead
wafting in clouds of eyeball-sized spores. Such events were not
unusual round these parts – the only uncertainty was exactly how
the spores would react if overly disturbed.
The hunters didn't have
to wait long to find out. Brokeface had somehow staggered to the gap
in the barricades first and, lurching through to the other side,
caught sight of the wounded witch. With a mad cackle, he raised his
autopistols and opened fire, but the second best had rendered him
sloppy and the shots went well wide, peppering the far wall of the
dome.
One bullet didn't even
get that far, instead making contact with a drifting spore a metre or
so away from Brokeface. The spore ruptured, disgorging an expansive,
opaque cloud of dust. The hunters coming up behind Brokeface found
their line of sight to the cultists' lair completely blocked.
Gunn was about to spit
a curse at Brokeface, but a movement way over to his left, at the far
end of the barricade, caught his eye. Muller and one of the remaining
cultists had broken cover and were charging at each other. Gunn
paused to see how this would pan out.
The detective had his
plasma gun raised and took a shot at the onrushing cultist, but it
went wide, melting a nearby support strut. The cultist had better
luck, tossing a frag grenade which detonated precisely as it hit
Muller's armoured chest. He was flung back, slamming hard into the
rusted out tractor.
As the frag haze
cleared, it was evident that Muller was badly injured: the explosion
had ripped his amour apart, and charred flesh and glistening internal
organs were visible. Blood streamed from Muller's mouth as he slumped
against the tractor unit. He twitched, perhaps hoping to make one
last act of resistance against the cultist.
Gunn had a decent shot,
albeit long range. He raised his hotshot las, taking aim squarely at
the cultist's back. And then he thought back to the previous run-in
with the Voidsmen, and how Muller hadn't hesitated to turn his
plasmafire on Gunn.
By Underhive standards,
Jonn Gunn might be considered an honourable man. Still, it was no
great pain for him to break his aim and rush on after Drifter and
Snags.
The cultist advanced
with a crude metal club in his hand, and set about beating the last
breaths of out of Detective Muller. Truth be told, he wasn't
surprised it had come to this: hunting the Hellhounds had been his
last job before retirement, and such stakes are as good as a death
sentence, the way Necromundan luck tends to run.
And this wasn't the
last murder of the shift. Beyond the barricade, by the cultists'
totem, the wounded witch was writhing in agony, his dark work work
done. Brokeface Edwydd had stumbled clear of the spore cloud and was
heading towards the witch, intent on taking some point-blank killing
shots with his autopistols.
'Freeze, creep.' The
voice came from behind him. It was boss Voidsman Ray, burnt, battered
but still standing, emerging from the spore cloud.
'Hey, hey,' said
Brokeface. 'I ain't one of them, buddy. I'm one of Gunn's boys, I'm
on your side.'
'I know,' said Ray. He
pointed at the downed witch with his chainsword. 'But that sumpsucker
belongs to me.'
The second best had
Brokeface feeling bolshy. 'Over my dead body, you fragwit.'
Ray shrugged. 'Suits
me.'
The two fighters
charged at each other, Brokeface cackling and shooting wildly with
his autopistols, Ray firing up his chainsword and taking careful aim
with his stubber. Void-born discipline won out over booze-soaked
bravado: Brokeface's bullets rattled uselessly off the nearby
container units, Ray's single shot caught his enemy in the guts and
dropped him to the floor.
'Nice try, scummer,'
snarled Ray, driving his chainsword through Brokeface's chest. Then,
he strode calmly to the totem and cut the downed witch's head off.
The surviving cultists
were melting away into gloomy side tunnels, and neither party of
hunters had much more appetite for battle. Betrayals went unpunished
– the Voidsmen weren't to know that Gunn passed up a chance to save
Muller, and the ties that bound the Guns weren't strong enough to
demand vengeance for Brokeface.
By shift's end, word
had come through from the other side of Foulnest that a different
coalition of hunters – the Veiled Cartel, Savage Kittens and
Slimehouse Golems – had cornered the Hellhounds, fighting a
parallel battle. There, the hunters had likewise prevailed, but
notorious boss Hellhound Vokran had escaped with some sort of
abominable fiend summoned during the fight. Jonn Gunn's work in E-Sec
was not done yet.
Over the next couple of
cycles, news spread of how the lastest scouring of Foulnest had
restored Helmawr's light to that corner of the Underhive. Gangs,
mercs, green hivers, dregs and, of course, the Merchant Guilds all
scented opportunity and before long the E-Sec badzones were alive
with fortune seekers. Still, as they say, the brighter the light, the
darker the shadow, and it wasn't long before Foulnest began to live
up to its old reputation.
That, though, is
another downhive tale...