Madness, revolt and
blood-thirst were burning their way through Foulnest like a fever.
Domes and zones fell into ruin as Guild supply and maintenance
withered. Gangers were driven to random murderous rampages by voices
only they could hear. Shadows danced without lumenlight to cast them.
Twisting shapes skittered in peripheral vision. In every downhiver's
gut, like a lode of knotty slag, pulsed the constant urge: kill.
End times are fine
times for a Redemptionist, and once again, the Middenmans were
looking for converts. Salvation-Shall-Verily-Be-Paid-For-In-Blood
took up his hammer of nails and led a crew of Cawdors into the wilder
tunnels and domes, seeking lost hivers who might be won over to the
faith. They didn't have to search long: above a yawning ,haunted
chasm in the E-Sec badzones, a cluster of refugees, abject folk
who'd fled the violence in Foulnest core, had set up a temporary camp
on a network of walkways and platforms. Just the sort of desperate
lowlives who might heed the holy word.
Salvation was
accompanied by Inexorable-Is-His-Judgement, Revulsion-Is-Thine-Armour
and young Abhorrance-Begetteth-Purity, and the Middenmans spread out,
scuttling along the walkways and calling out to the hivers with words
of faith and fellowship – best to make a good first impression at a
distance, before getting close and inflicting the Cawdor stench on
the hivers' noses.
'Hear this, ye lost and
ye damned! Devils do gnash at thine ankles, and the House Imperial
offers nowt but false hope, but the Holy Redemption can save ye yet!'
Revulsion fared well,
as two of the hivers rushed to his side, gabbling thanks. But, as
always in the Underhive, there was a complication: screams rang out
across the chasm, along with the snap of fine-tuned gunfire.
The Middenmans looked
across the gap and saw figures in sleek blue armour, moving with
measured grace: the Inglorious Bastards, a Van Saar crew, accompanied
by two ammo jacks. They looked to be advancing on the hiver refugees
and liquidating them with brutal precision – was this some
calculated cull, a cogitator-born, strategically-advantageous action?
Or had the Van Saars succumbed to the madness afflicting Foulnest?
Hard to say, and, in the end, of little import. The Bastards were
slaughtering the hivers, and all the Middenmans could do was lead as
many as possible to salvation.
Inexorable and
Abhorrence had split off from their fellows and were attempting to
round up hivers on one side of the chasm.
'Come, brother! Ye
shall find sanctuary in the Middenkirk!' cried Inexorable at a nearby
dreg, but before he could say more, a burst of bolterfire from one of
the Bastard ammojacks took him out of the fight. Abhorrence panicked
and dropped off the walkway, clinging spiderlike to the support
struts below.
Back at the chasm edge,
Salvation was guiding one of the hivers to an exit tunnel, where he
was met by reinforcements from among his brethren, but the veteran
saw little value in prolonging the fight. 'Nay, brothers! Stay thine
arms and take these converts back to the kirk! Yon Van Saars fight
without mercy, and live converts are worth more than dead
Middenmans!'
As if to underscore the
point, on the far side of the chasm, Abhorrence-Begetteth-Purity had
traversed the support struts and clambered back onto the walkway to
strike at the foes from behind, but the Bastards' spex-net was tight:
one of the ammo jacks, alerted to the juve' presence, turned and shot
Abhorrence dead.
Salvation hammered out
a code-beat on the walkway before him, and it resounded across the
chasm. Pity-Not-The-Recidivist muttered a curse – he'd just set the
second ammo jack alight with an incendiary bomb – but he knew to
obey the Middenmans' retreat signal, and backed away to join his
fellows, ducking Van Saar gunfire as he fled.
The road back was
uneventful; never mind the uncanny chittering and inexplicable
whispers that echoed through the transit shafts and ventways. But
none of the Middenmans – not Salvation, not Pity, not Revulsion nor
the rest – could have anticipated the scene that awaited them at
the Middenkirk.
Unstinting-Is-His-Vengeance
lay smouldering before the kirk entrance, his ragged robes blackened.
He was face down, laughing, blood and spittle dripping between his
jagged teeth. Above him towered Torment-Eternal-For-The-Unworthy,
brandishing his scrap-built flamer like a holy relic.
'By the Throne!' gasped
Salvation, 'What's all this?'
'A vision was gifted
unto me,' growled Torment, grim-faced, 'while I squatted at the
privy. I carry this holy flame, do I not?'
There was muttered
assent from the assembled Middenmans.
'And is not the holy
flame the most blessed tool of Redemption?'
Again, mumbles of
agreement.
'Then by Holy Terra, it
falls to me to lead the Middenmans, and this I made plain to
Unstinting-Is-His-Vengeance here, speaking unto him with a tongue of
fire.'
Not a Middenman there
could fault Torment's line of thought, but they looked uneasily at
their fallen leader.
'It is true!' grinned
Unstinting, hoarsely. 'I have seen the light! He who holdeth the
flame is the one to lead us!'
This was enough for the
Middenmans, who erupted with cheers and salutations in honour of
their new scrap-boss.
This was not the only
change in leadership amonst the gangs of Foulnest that shift –
rebellion was stealing its way into the hearts of gangers across the
zone, borne on the unseen , insidious tides of the empyrean. Madness,
revolt, blood-thirst were all burning their way through Foulnest like
a fever. And when the fever broke, a new shift would ensue: pure,
desperate survival. A war in the ruins. Perfect Chaos.