The Foulnest Rackets Part 8: Bring Out Yer Dead

'Bring out yer dead,' croaked Flin Fleckus as he shunted his corpse cart through the dripping dankness. The semi-automated tracked cart buzzed ahead, bereft of cargo this early in the shift.

He was down in the half-collapsed stack of warehouses on the lowest levels of Foulnest, where the settlement's darkest deeds took place. Most of the fatalities from bitter gang fights and duels would have been scooped up by the Guild harvesting parties, but there were sometimes leftovers for a lowly drudge like Flin,who earned a meagre living collecting whatever dead flesh he could find for delivery to the Guild-sanctioned corpse-processing farms. He didn't intend to spend much time down here, lest he end up killed and carted away by some other carrion-scraper.

Not bad findings this time: a few shrivelled limbs wedged between the deck plates, even a ripe torso the corpse grinders must have overlooked. Still, best to leave these half-badzone haunts to the true professionals. There was a crude, slime-lined elevator at the end of the corridor. He rolled his cart onto it and set about working the crank. The gears rattled and, inch by inch, he ascended to the level above.

'Bring out yer dead,' croaked Flin Fleckus as he shunted his corpse cart along the rust-thick quayside. There was activity here: teams of dock-hands hooking and slinging cargo off the moored dust-runners. Some of the ash-rigs – and some of the dock-hands – were branded with sigils of the Iron and Coin Guild; others were more discreet, their loads hustled furtively onto wagons and the backs of pack-slaves. Flin averted his gaze from these latter- no good would come of paying attention where it wasn't bidden. He steered his cart carefully between the work gangs.

Just the one finding, but a good one: a fresh hanging. Delaque male, suspended over the quayside from a metal beam. The body twisted languidly in the wind that gusted in from the cavernous, sludgy vaults of Dogland. The cadaver's viz-augmetics dangled down his either side of his face, squeezed out of their sockets by the death throes. Who could tell if this was a suicide or a gang killing? The House of Snakes runs its schemes dark and complex: maybe murder, or maybe this poor soul had backstabbed his way into a corner with a terminal exit. Either way, no-one in the cargo game seemed to care – they went about their business, leaving the body where it was. Not so Flin. Here was good meat for the rending vats. He sawed through the rope and added the corpse to his cart. Onwards and upwards.

Flin steered the corpse cart up a few levels, rattling unsteadily over the rickety bridgeways linking the cold furnaces that now served as squalid habholes. Not much chance of any findings here – the desperate furnace-dregs would already have pounced upon any meat matter and made short work of it. But there were better prospects ahead.

'Bring out yer dead,' croaked Flin Fleckus as he shunted his corpse cart through the bustle of Cut End market. He made the rounds of the butchers' stalls and checked in with a few Cawdor ratcatchers of his acquaintance. Even a few scrapings of offcut fat from the former or critterlimbs gnawed off to escape the latter's traps could fetch a tenth of a cred or two. Not much else happening on the market this shift – no brawls or stand-offs escalating into murder – so on to the next stop.

'Bring out yer dead,' croaked Flin Fleckus as he shunted his corpse cart between the tumbledown hovels of Dhan's Town, one of several hab clusters that had sprung up in the dead factoria domes around Foulnest core. Flin usually got something out of the locals – some poor skuthead who'd carked it from a stimm overdose or acute spore sickness. If worst came to worst, he'd siphon off the contents of the communal dunny into his cart – it's all organic, after all.

Flin was halfway down the main drain that cut through the middle of the cluster of habs. He nodded and growled greetings to the locals he knew. Tattle was traded – since the Sin Eaters took off, the Smokestack Needles and Gunn's Guns had been throwing their weight around town, each looking to take over the protection rackets. Things were coming to a head, and this shift would see a reckoning. Flin clocked a clutch of enforcers from Precinct 13, on patrol and looking for trouble. Over the other side of the shantyways, he clocked the bright colours of the Needles and the drab colours of the Guns, stealthing into position. There would be gunplay, blood and – if Flin was lucky – fresh meat for the finding.

What the tattle had missed was the arrival of the Rustgate OMC, those notorious outlaws. Suddenly, there they were, whooping and hollering from the mechworks at the dome's edge, getting involved just for the violence. Flin's prospects were looking better by the click – as long as he didn't get caught in the crossfire.

The scrap went down pretty fast. There were bullets and lasbolts flying everywhere. Half the hive dwellers panicked and ducked for cover, scrambling between the hovels or into the mechwork perimeter. The other half, which included Flin, had seen it all before. They tried to go about their business – if Emprah wills it, there's no dodging that fatal shot.

Flin rolled his cart between the hovels, glancing down at the gutters and drainholes for carcass matter, and glancing up to check he wasn't about to be charged by a battle-mad ganger. The things he saw would give him tales to tell in the Working Hivers' Club for the next dozen shifts:

That enforcer who clambered on the dunny to lob a grenade at one of the Needles. The grenade bounced back at him and blasted him right back down to the dome floor. So much for Helmawr's long arm.

Gunn's lad Mumbles and Needle juve Jek going at each other with knives in the shadows of the mechworks. Another grenade went off right in the middle of their duel, but they scrapped on regardless, and Jek got the better of Mumbles in the end.

Old Jo Genge of the Rustgaters fumbling a point-blank shot at venator Noomena, then cracking his foot as he tried to drop to safety on the domefloor. Jonn Gunn put a hotshot lasbolt in his arse, but Genge but staggered on regardless.

Truth be told, that Rustgate resilience burned through the whole rumble. The enforcers, the venators and the Eschers rained fire on the Orlocks, but they just hung on like ash clams. The other gangs took a few casualties and, unlike the outlaws, didn't have much stomach for shooting up the locals. Before long, Gunn and veteran Needle Kes looked to have changed their minds about the takeover, ordering their crews to scarper.

One enforcer by the name of Angel looked to be hanging in there, ready to make a stand against the Rustgaters as they moved down from the mechworks into the hovels, but he thought better of it and ducked out back to his precinct. Flin didn't blame him, the way the Orlocks were fighting on through their wounds. No-one was going to stop them.

So that was the shift the Rustgate OMC took over the protection rackets in Foulnest core. Some would say it was dark news, another slice of the action falling into the hands of men beyond the law, but to the likes of Flin Fleckus, it was business as usual. The gangs will run their shakedowns, be they clean or outlaw. The best an underhiver can do is try to scrape a living between the bulletstorms.

Flin Fleckus scoured the alleyways between the hovels but, for all the carnage, there'd been no kills in Dhan's Town that shift. Time to roll the cart over to the corpse farm and see how much he could haggle for his haul.

One last call, just in case.

'Bring out yer dead,' he croaked.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 7: Getting The Drop On

You just stopped in at the Foulnest Working Hivers' Club for a quiet drink, but this glassy-eyed scummer is insisting on propping up the bar next to you, and by Helmawr's balls, he will not shut up.

'… And I hear old man Gunn sprang a trap on Ray Void and his boys over at Dead Drop. Dead Drop, you know – ah, you're new in the 'Nest, aren't you? So it's a wee ways corewards, in the badzones. One of the big old rents running though E-Sec top to bottom, scars from hivequakes and so on. Top of Dead Drop is right up at the highest E-Sec levels, and that's maybe the only way across, over some old bridges and through some old stackhouses that cling to the dome roof like ash barnacles. Under that, well, nothing, a thirty metre gap running down, down to... well, best not to mind it much.

'Anyway, that ladderways at the top is where Gunn's Guns, those mean-arse venators, tried to ambush the Rustgate OMC, that Orlock crew, bad boys, outlaws. Reckon Gunn was put up to it by the Guilds – Coiners and Slavers wanting the tradeways kept open, you know.

'Gunn and his crew were either side of the gap, so I heard, circling the Rustgaters, who were holed up in a tower hanging down over the gap. The venators had some fresh blood with them – this woman Noomena, you might have seen her around, knows Gunn from way back and has signed on with his crew. And a couple of boys from the backrooms right here, murderous scummers.

'So they got that trap sprung and started shooting at the sorry Orlock lads out over the gap, but Ray Void, he wasn't having none of it, he sees Gunn over yonder at the pit's edge, tells his Rustgaters that's the way they're going, that's how they're going to break out.

'And Khalid – you must've seen Khalid round the market here at Cut End? Sharp talker, Khalid, knows the price of everything, and where to get it. Khalid's on point, gets his plasma gun up, and doesn't he just go and deadeye Jonn Gunn himself? But Gunn's a tough old sheenbird, he's down but not out. And shots are all ringing off the walkways and scorching the supports, and a few of each crew take a tumble while they're ducking for cover. I don't know how, but they all grabbed on to wires and pipes and whatnot and none of them went down down into the darkness – not yet, anyway.

'Maybe things would've kicked off different if the ventors had that creepy ratling fella on board. Whatsisname, Ratbite, that's it. Ratbite snuck off and found himself a sweet snipe spot, but it turns out this mutie scummer in Void's pay was also on the sneak, looking for somewhere for a piss. I heard he ran across Ratbite just as the little freak was aiming his first shot, and the sight of them as they kept missing each other point blank was a right laugh. So I heard. By the time the scummer had got his shift together and actually charged Ratbite and took him out, the fight was almost over...

'But I'm getting ahead of myself. So Khalid had gunned Gunn down and the Rustgaters were mustering for their breakout, but a few of Gunn's crew were coming up right up at them. And who's there in among the venators? Only Brokeface Edwydd – you must've seen him round here, yeah? Ugly guy, keeps coming back from the dead...'

The drinker's voice tails off and a haunted look steals into his booze-swollen face. Some things don't bear thinking about. But then he shakes his grin back on and continues.

'So it's Brokeface himself running at Ray Void, only the last time Ray - and most of us, for that matter – saw Brokeface, Ray was dragging him out of this here bar and burning him to death right there on the market. Can you imagine Ray's face when he sees this ugly fragger up ahead on the walkway, blazing away with his autopistols? Ha, it was quite a pict by all accounts! Anyways, Brokeface is shooting stray as usual, but not Ray. I swear, that fellow's as cold as the void he was born in. He just aims his bolter and plugs Brokface, and Brokeface is gone, fallen into the black place below, Emprah only knows how far, but I'll bet we'll be seeing him again before the cycle's up...'

That haunted look again, just for a second.

'But scrag me if that weren't when things really went sumpwards. I mean it – all that shooting and moving must've weakened the bolts and bindings on the ladderways, and wouldn't you know it but the whole structure tears loose and drops into the pit, all sparks flying and metal screaming and air rushing. A few of the fighters dropped off during the plunge, though they've all been seen since, so they must've got swept onto some of the side levels. And as for the structure itself, well, it must've got banged or pranged and shunted off, because it didn't drop eight to the bottom, wherever that is. No, it sorta slid off to the side, smashing to a stop in one of the dead manufactory domes down in lower E-Sec. I swear, you couldn't make this up, but stranger things happen downhive, right?

'So the loose ladderway's come to rest, and everyone who's still aboard is all shook, and the landing sets the old mechworks a-whirring, with clouds of rank smoke spreading out all over, and as if that weren't enough, some local muties start popping arrows at both crews, not that these puny critters were tough enough to actually wound anyone.

'Well, no-one had much stomach for the fight after that. I heard Jonn Gunn, all bloody from the plasma hits, made an offer to Ray, a bung of Guilder money or some such, to stand down, but the Voidsman said no – he was going to blast his way out of there with the rest of his Orlock boys.

'And that they did – the smoke gave them some cover, even if it had them all coughing and wheezing, and the venators what was still standing, likewise half-choked, settled for exploring the dome and charting out how it connected to the Coin Guild's money-map. Even though the ambush was a bust, this was enough to get them a decent payoff from the Coiners, and as for the Rustgate OMC – well, word is that this show of force made an impression, and that Ray and his boys are now doing bagwork for the Slavers. On the sly, of course – they're outlaws, after all.

'So that's how it all went down at Dead Drop. Quite a story, eh, friend? Worth the price of a few shots of wildsnake, wouldn't you say?'

The Foulnest Rackets Part 6: Die Again, Brokeface

'Brokeface' Edwydd knew what pain was. He'd learned that lesson many cycles ago, when he'd taken a tumble into a sumpspider nest. The soft webbing broke his fall, and then came the thousand needlepoint jabs of the countless hatchlings sinking their sharp young fangs into his flesh. After his crewmates had hauled him out of the nest, he boiled inside and out as the spider venom scoured every inch of his body. His skin shrivelled and his muscles wasted, leaving him a sorry echo of the proud venator he'd once been. Those grim shifts as the toxins worked through his system were lost to Brokeface now, but he sure did remember the pain. Small wonder he'd turned to boozing afterwards.

And boozing was what he was doing at the Foulnest Working Hivers' Club when Ray Void came at him, chainsword buzzing and murder in his offworld eyes. Brokeface could hardly blame him for the animus – after all, Ray had already killed him once.

Ray had a bellyful of liquor, evident from the careless swing of his chainsword. Brokeface, not exactly sober himself, managed to duck aside and the whirring teeth bit into the metal plating of the bar. Sparks fountained and metal screeched. The drinkers who'd been listening to Brokeface's raconteur act scattered – downhive, there's plenty of ways to get maimed without sticking your beak into other folks' bad business.

Ray was trying to dislodge his chainsword from the bar – it had snagged after tearing a gash halfway to the floor. Brokeface backed away.

'Hey, hey, now, spacer brother,' he said , raising his palms, 'I know maybe there's some bad blood here, but - '

'You should be dead!' snapped Ray, Second Best soaking his words. 'And she won't shut up!'

The mat of scar tissue that passed for Brokeface's brow furrowed. No use talking to a crazy man. Brokeface turned and ran for the door.

His mind skipped back to the most recent time he'd died. Down at the old sludge quays, Gunn's Guns had faced off against the Dreadhook Whalers. Brokeface had wanted to see just how far this resurrection jag would stretch, so he'd charged right at the rival gang, like an idiot. One of the Dreadhook Whalers had peppered his chest with autofire, and that was that. Next thing he knew, he was waking up on the cold warehouse deck, left for dead – not wrongly – by his crew. Alone, with a fresh set of bulletholes in his body to remember the occasion. He'd crept back up to Foulnest Core and the Hivers' Club to get sauced and maybe fool himself that he belonged among the living.

So much for that plan.

A shot caught him square in the back and propelled him forward – he slammed the door of the Club open and tumbled out into the main hall of Cut End. Even drunk, Ray could shoot straight. Brokeface noticed that his chest was still intact and figured Ray must've used his backup stubber rather than his bolter. Small mercies.

Not long until lights out: the lumens were flickering, the market traders were packing up their stalls, and the night folk were lighting up the barrelfires. Brokeface rolled onto his back and stared around. The traders and dispersing patrons did their best to act like nothing was happening out front of the Hivers' Club. They had more sense than to get involved. A couple of Precinct 13 enforcers were swaggering away down the market, but Brokeface knew better than to expect help from them. No grift to be gained from breaking up your average bar scrap, even if murder was on the cards. There were a few pale-masked figures in the shadows on the upper levels. Sin Eaters – the Delaque gang was currently running protection in Foulnest core, but fat chance they were going to sully themselves for a scummer like Brokeface.

And then Ray was on him again, storming out of the Club with a stagger in his step.

'You're dead, you faceache scrag,' snarled Ray, aiming his stubber with a shaky hand.

Brokeface was ready. He'd slipped one of his autopistols out of its holster and brought it to bear on the voidsman.

'Not this time, brother,' he grinned, and pulled the trigger.

The autopistol jammed. It wasn't Brokeface's shift. It rarely was, he mused, as Ray grabbed him and hauled him to his feet, gripping him in a tight headlock.

Brokeface's thoughts ran to the second time he'd died, just a cycle ago, when Gunn's Guns had gone up against the Cawdor Carrion. Having only come back from the dead once at that point, Brokeface had been all foolhardy bravery, scaling a tower to get some shots in at the Carrion's leader, Corvus. He'd missed, of course, and found himself on the receiving end of a hefty swing from Corvus's chainglaive. The blow had ripped his chest open – again – and sent him tumbling to the domefloor below. He still remembered the snap as his spine had shattered on impact, right before things went black. Two shifts later, the Guns sure had been surprised to see him stumbling into their hab block.

No venator crewmates to back him up now.

Ray was manhandling him across the market hall, spitting fury. 'I'm gonna kill you proper this time, man! No worming your way out of it!'

Brokeface realised he was being dragged towards one of the freshly-lit barrel fires.

'Ah, come on, Void,' choked Brokeface through the headlock, 'you gotta - '

But Ray had released him and promptly followed up with a smart right hook that sent Brokeface sprawling to the deck again. The offworlder wasted no time, stooping to wrap his arms around the burning barrel. His insulated suit was enough to serve as protection, but Brokeface was clad in flimsy flak and rags.

Ray Void hoisted the barrel off the deck and tipped its contents – filthy scrap-fuel, all ablaze – over Brokeface Edwydd.

The flames caught on the scummer's garments. He tried to gasp out a curse, but the air in his lungs was cooking away, snatching the breath from him.

'Die, you scummer bastard!' snarled Ray. 'Die again!'

Brokeface flailed, scrambling to his knees before dropping again and rolling along the deck. The fire was all about him now, clawing into his already-dry flesh. His mind skipped back to the first time he'd died – also the first time Ray Void had killed him. They'd faced off before an unholy altar, each intent on putting an end to the wych who'd been at the centre of all that wrong-goddery. Brokeface realised that it was then, as Ray's chainsword had carved his torso open during the Battle of Foulnest, that he'd last felt pain. Ever since, when he'd died a second, third, and now a fourth time, he'd seen it, heard it, smelled it, but he'd not felt it. There was no pain. And if there's one thing Brokeface Edwydd knew, it was pain.

Somehow, he found the strength and breath to croak out, 'See you around, Voidsman.'

And then he died as the flames burned themselves out. By now, only the barrelfires and a few dancing lumens lit the great gloom of Cut End. The night scummers had had their entertainment: from the shadows there was a smattering of ragged applause and a few hoarse cheers, as well as the muttered demands and concessions of wagers being claimed. 

Raymond Void stood over the smouldering corpse. Was that low, guttural chuckle coming from the scummers or from the bag at his hip – the hag's head, taunting him? He needed another drink, badly, and so turned to return to the Working Hivers' Club, certain that he'd seen the last of Brokeface Edwydd.

He was wrong, of course.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 5: Hell and High Water

'Crusher, put some smoke out there,' barked Jonn Gunn. 'We'll wait for them to come forward, then rush them, guns up.'

'Sure, boss,' said Crusher Retzo, and flung a smoke grenade into the centre of the wide chamber. The grenade rattled to a halt and disgorged a thick cloud of fumes.

Gunn's Guns were on another op. This time, they were down in the lower depths of Foulnest, in a row of rust-rimed, slime-smeared warehouses that, before the great drain-off, would have been the sump quayside. The job was to take on incomer crew known as the Dreadhook Whalers, who were allied with the Water Guild. This was the hook Gunn had used to get Van Scultis interested, playing up Guild rivalries, and it was certainly a version of the truth; in fact, the Whalers and the Guns, both dissatisfied with their current alliances, had been making overtures to the Corpse Guild. A decisive showdown between the two gangs would determine who would take priority.

Gunn and Van Scultis had split their forces and advanced into two adjoining warehouses. Gunn was accompanied by Crusher, as well as Brokeface and Mumbles. There was scant cover in the abandoned storage hall, and their foes were moving in from a set of smaller chambers and corridors on the far side, so Gunn had ordered the smoke drop.

While Crusher and Mumbles hung back, Gunn and Brokeface moved forward to a wall that ran from the edge of the smoke cloud. Gunn's armour clattered, and Brokeface cackled at the prospect of violence. They paused and heard shunting doors and low voices from around the corner. The Dreadhooks were in the warehouse.

'Right, Brokeface,' hissed Gunn. 'I want you to - '

But Brokeface wasn't listening. Since he'd reconnected with the crew via the life-coin exchange, he'd been even more unhinged ever. He twisted his head round with a jerk, a mad grin on his ravaged face.

'I'm going for it, boss! Watch this!'

Brandishing his autopistols, he launched himself off the wall and disappeared around the corner, into the smoke.

'Dammit,' muttered Gunn as Crusher moved up to join him.

'What's he playing at?' asked Crusher, wrinkling his snub of a nose.

'Fragged if I know,' said Gunn. 'The damn fool's a liability. We'll have to wait and -'

He was cut short by the chatter of autofire, coming from beyond the smoke. Twin burst, presumbly Brokeface's pistols. A wild, wordless holler from Brokeface. A short, controlled burst – autogun rather than pistol, to Gunn's experienced ears, likely one of the Dreadhooks. A surprised yelp from Brokeface. Then silence.

Mumbles had crept forward to join Gunn and Crusher. 'Hrrg hrrg hrrrh.'

'Yeah,' said Crusher. 'Don't think Brokeface is gonna be much more use.'

Gunn scowled.'Right, boys, we're in a tight pipe here, but we might just be able to work our way out. Stick to the plan, guns up, rush them through the smoke, take them by surprise.'

'Hrrrg hrrrrrrrr.'

Gunn had to admit Mumbles was right – it wasn't much of a plan. But it was all they had. 'If we're lucky, it won't matter how many of them there are, we'll catch them on the hop.'

Crusher prepped a grenade and, on Gunn's cue, the trio ran forwards into the smoke.

Things went down fast. There were five Dreadhooks, grizzled fighters clad in haz-shield suits, on the other side of the smoke: two in the main warehouse chamber, three lurking off in side-rooms. Mumbles found himself tangled in combat with the closest, while Gunn pinned one with a lasbolt and Crusher chucked a grenade into one of the doorways, hoping to take out the plasma gunner there. The Dreadhooks returned fire, pinning Gunn and Crusher as Mumbles grappled with his foe.

The smoke was clearing, and Gunn realised he'd underestimated how much solid weaponry the Dreadhooks were hefting. Big mistake. 

Bolt shells and plasma shots filled the air. One of the former caught Gunn's shoulder armour and blasted it open, searing the flesh beneath. He dropped, gritting his teeth. Wincing through the pain, he looked up and clocked a distinctive plasma muzzle pointing straight at him. He tried to roll, but the gun spoke and the shot hit his leg, superheating his armour and setting the skin beneath boiling. 

He screamed and passed out.

+++++++++++

When Jonn Gunn regained consciousness, he was lying on his back. He was also in immense discomfort. He tried to blink his eye open, but there was something stuck into his tear duct. There was something stuck into everywhere, countless needlepoints snaking under his armour, driving into his veins and pores. He writhed, groaning, but a slender hand pressed down on his chest with surprising force.

With wilful effort, he blinked his eye open. Stooped over him was the unmistakeable figure of a Master Nautican, all wide-brimmed helm and beady, chem-spiked eyes. And, of course, all moisture-cap tubes, a tangle of lines extending from the storage units on the Nautican's back and from under his – or her – robes. The lines terminated in the multitude of extractor needles that were lancing Gunn's body. Behind the Guilder, he could just about make out the hulking form of the attendant Subnautican, blank-masked, impassive.

This must be the Dreadhooks' ally, Gunn realised. They must have driven off Crusher, Mumbles and Van Scultis's crew after I took the plasma hit. They must have captured me. And this must be how I die, after all these long cycles. Drained dry by the Water Guild.

The Guilder nodded, head cocked, as if understanding Gunn's thoughts. Then, the lines shuddered and the extraction began. Gunn writhed again as agony, worse than the plasma wound, wracked his body. He could feel his arteries shrivelling as vacuum suction acted on them, could feel his very tissue folding in on itself. Death couldn't come soon enough.

And then the extraction stopped. Gunn looked up, and saw that a third masked figure – presumably the Syphonite factotum – had approached the Nautican and was gesturing extravagantly, showing a dataslate. Gunn strained to listen through the pipes cramming into his ears, and could just about make out a rapid, urgent exchange in the ululating cant of the Water Guild.

The Nautican turned away from the Syphonite and looked down at Gunn. The beady view-lenses glistened, somehow melancholy. Abruptly, the lines began to detach from Gunn's flesh, quivering and lashing and they withdrew back into the Guilder's robes.

Gunn watched, perplexed, as the Nautican stepped away and began conferring with the Syphonite. Responding to some unheard cue, the Subnautican lumbered forwards and picked Gunn up in its huge paws. The veteran venator was manhandled across the room. A door opened and Gunn was unceremoniously thrown out.

He would've dropped to the deck if Snags Skivvens and Mumbles hadn't been there to catch him. They moved off up the pipeway, putting hasty distance between themselves and the Nautican's lair.

Slumped heavily between his gangmates, Gunn slurred a question. 'What the frag just happened?'

Snags, barely recovered from his recent injuries, replied through gritted teeth. 'You probably guessed how that scrap ended. The Dreadhooks won it, and the aquamongers got you...'

'Yeah...' gasped Gunn, bleeding from a thousand microwounds. 'But how'd I...? How'd you...? Wassit Van Scultis?'

'Hrrrrr hrrrrg,' said Mumbles.

'Nah' said Snags. 'Her crew took just as much of a bruising as you and the boys. She's mighty vexed at you, reckons you set her up.'

'Heh,' said Gunn. 'S'not exactly wrong. But...'

'Well, you'll be glad to hear that other bit of business came off spirestraight, just as planned.'

The other business. The real game. The involvement of the Water, Coin and – tangentially - Corpse Guild in the scrap with the Dreadhooks meant that eyes were off the lower sump quays for the duration of the shift. Time enough for Snags to help out some smuggler friends of his in moving a shipment of contraband in from Dogland. Risky work, but well worth it in terms of creds.

'And you used the payment... to buy me back from the Water fraggers?' gasped Gunn.

'Aye, that I did,' said Snags. 'Only some of it, though. And only just in time. I was just finishing up the deal, wouldn't even have known you'd been taken if Mumbles here hadn't come rushing to find me.'

'Hhh-hrrrrgh,' said Mumbles, triumphantly.

Gunn grinned despite the pain as they hauled him back up towards Foulnest Core. Between his busted leg and the extraction wounds, he was in bad shape – it'd take a fair few shifts for him to recover. And the defeat at the hands of the Dreadhooks surely wouldn't do the Guns' reputation any favours. But there was grim satisfaction to be had at getting one over the Guilders. And besides, as every Underhiver knows, every credit you earn, you pay for in blood.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 4: The Wages of Grit

'Congratulations on a job well done,' said Lymeris Van Scultis, Mistress of Coin, reclining on a bank of gold-trimmed cushions. Before her, on a low rectangular table, were various ornate artefacts, including an elaborate hookah. Behind her, crates brimming with creds, stacked to head height, an ostentatious display of wealth that few would dare this far downhive. 

Jonn Gunn was taken aback. He'd come here to one of the uppermost levels of Foulnest, where Van Scultis had pitched her expansive, luxurious yurt, expecting to be told in no uncertain terms that his crew's alliance with the Toll Collectors was being terminated before it had really got started. But, as ever with the Guilds, things were unpredictable.

'Um, I wouldn't call that a win, Guilder. Most of my boys are going to be laid up for half a cycle, and those Carrion scum took control of the blood pits.'

Van Scultis snorted a laugh, fluttering the rich fabric of the bandana that covered her lower face. She paused to peruse a ledger presented by a rag-clad groveller, nodding approval when she was satisfied. The groveller withdrew through the stacks of cred-filled crates that lined the back of the yurt, taking care to step carefully over the web of laswires that crisscrossed the space. Tripping but one wire would trigger the alarm – and the response would doubtless be lethal. 

'Really, Gunn,' she said, condescension in her voice. 'You think that was the purpose of the exercise? You, a venator of such experience?'

Gunn winced, confused. Had that damned ambull hit him harder than he'd realised? The aim of the op was to bloody the Carrion's bony beaks – the Cawdor mob had migrated over from Sector H8, and had been crowing about how they were going to rule the rackets of Foulnest, their twisted faith setting them above and beyond the Imperial Law. Bossman Corvus was bragging that the fighting pits were next on their list of targets, and Gunn and Van Scultis had agreed that stopping the outlaws would knock some wind out of their vents.

When they went into the scrap, Gunn had thought they were usefully mob-handed, with an even dozen fighters including Van Scultis and her Toll Collectors. But the Carrion, allied with the local narco lords, had a bunch of scummers on their side, and outnumbered Gunn's crew. The mission got complicated: there was an ambull lumbering around the dead manufactory where the two gangs met, and the tangled mechworks proved tricky to work through, with extensive cover and just a few prime sniping angles. Ratbite had made the most of this, taking out one of the Carrion's champions at long range, but Van Scultis and her entourage found themselves pinned behind a smokestack even as Gunn and his half of the crew tried to push forwards through the centre of the dome, all the while dodging the ambull.

They'd given it their best shot – aside from Ratbite's sharpshooting, Snags had taken out one of the Cawdors with his shotgun; Brokeface and Mumbles had acquitted themselves well considering they were only back in the team on a provisional basis; Jak 8-10 had held his own against three of the Carrion crew, scragging one out of the fight and sending the other two packing.

But in the end, the sheer weight of numbers had proved too much despite the casualties inflicted. Snags and Ratbite were taken out by long range fire, Brokeface was knocked off a tower by Corvus himself – strange how the ugly bastard seemed no worse for wear for it, mind – and the remaining Guns found themselves doggedly holding the line, clustered around an old tractor unit. That's when the ambull had charged forward and clobbered Gunn unconscious, and Jak – poor, dumb, violent Jak – had taken a direct hit from an explosive crossbow bolt, a grievous wound which saw him bleed to death on the domefloor.

By this time, Corvus and his cronies had moved to threaten Van Scultis and her posse on the other side of the dome, and the Guilder had seen fit to withdraw in haste. If only she'd moved her crew forwards in support, things could have been different. Instead, she'd just stood and watched while Gunn led his men into the meatgrinder.

'Dammit,' said Gunn, back in the moment. 'The whole thing was a test, wasn't it? You don't give a skut about the blood pits.'

'Well, I wouldn't go that far,' said Van Scultis as she plucked the hookah pipe from its cradle. She slid the pipe under her bandana and inhaled deeply, setting the bubbles running in the glass base. Gunn seethed internally – the Guilder's languid act was quickly wearing thin.

'As our ally,' she continued in a cloud of exhaled smoke, 'anything that enhances your standing in the zone works to our advantage. But that's happened anyway, regardless of the blood pits. The grit, the dogged defiance of Jonn Gunn and his Guns, who wouldn't back down even when foul recidivists made their blood run. You're quite the talk of the town.'

Gunn figured she had a point. He'd noticed that he and the boys were being afforded more respect by the folks around Cut End market. The loss hadn't done the crew's reputation any harm. Quite the opposite, in fact.

'So maybe you're right,' he said. 'So what now?'

'We continue our arrangement as discussed, of course. Information and pathfinding for manpower and so on' said Van Scultis. A gong sounded from somewhere back in the yurt. 'Ah, time to count my acquisitions. That will be all, Gunn. For now.'

Gunn gritted his teeth and bowed with the minimum courtesy he could muster. 'Until next time, Guilder.'

He turned and prowled out of the yurt along the narrow avenue between the laswires that allowed egress to visitors. No denying that the Coin Guild's assistance was invaluable – as well as extra gunpower, the Toll Collectors cold facilitate movement around the sector like no others. If the Guns were called on to run security duty now and then, so be it.

But Jonn Gunn didn't have to like it. And if it came to it, he'd put himself and his crew first. The Guild's the Guild, but a merc always looks out for himself.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 3: More Iron

Many things are scarce in the Necromundan underhive: ghast, potable water and honest dealings, to name a few. But there's always a roaring trade in the life coin exchange, and willing murder-vendors can easily be found in half a shift. 

If you're looking for a hitman in Foulnest, the best place to go is a particular backroom at the Working Hivers' Club, where low-burning lumens and thick-walled booths allow a measure of privacy. 'Snags' Skivvens had taken to frequenting this bar. The wildsnake was cheap enough and the clientele were his kind of scum. Moreover, the shifts spent building contacts across the settlement were paying off nicely: Snags and his gangmates had found gainful employment as fixers and murdermen. As rackets go, Gunn's Guns had the life coin exchange sewn up.

Now allied to the Guild of Coin, the Guns were looking to expand their operations, and Snags swung by the backroom bar to call in a few favours and recruit some extra muscle for the scraps to come. Lho-smoke hung heavy in the air, and there were a few shadowy figures lurking in the booths, gutrot and guns laid out on the tables in front of them. Snags was expecting to find a couple of lowlifes who might prove useful in a fight.

He wasn't expecting to find a dead man walking.

'Brokeface' Edwydd was propping up the bar that ran along one end of the booth-lined room. Last time Snags had seen Brokeface, the latter had a chainblade run through his chest, courtesy of Ray Voidsman.

'Well fragdammit, if it ain't Brokeface Edywydd,' growled Snags as he approached and nodded to the barman for his usual. 'Ain't you dead?'

Brokeface lurched towards him, unsteady on his feet. 'Hah, I got better, din't I?'

Last time Snags had seen Brokeface, the latter had been hammered on second best. Seemed that hadn't changed, at least. Still, Brokeface was handy with his two autopistols, and Snags had seen stranger things than this sort of unlikely survival in his long cycles downhive. He took it all in his stride and poured himself a slug of wildsnake from the bottle the barkeep had brought.

'How'd you fancy running a job with the old gang?' asked Snags, and knocked back the slug.

'What, Jonny Gunn and the lads?' slurred Brokeface. 'You're still opping as a crew?'

'Spirestraight we are,' said Snags. 'And we got our work cut out. Trying to build something here in Foulnest. But we need some more iron onside, 'specially on account of all these big beasts crawling up from the sumpbed.'

This was true enough. On top of everything, all the activity in the zone had attracted some large – and ravenous – hivebottom horrors to the locale.

'So you need extra guns? So what?' said Brokeface, wary. He wasn't drunk enough that he'd lost all sense. 'What's in it for me?'

Someone tapped Snags on the shoulder.

'Hnnn hrrrgh hrrhrrrg hrrr?'

Snags turned, fist clenched. But it was none other than 'Mumbles' Mervik, another erstwhile member of Gunn's Guns, mouth gagged as always by a tatty length of rope.

'Holy throne, Mumbles, I wasn't expecting to see you here,' said Snags. Mumbles was last seen slinking off after the Battle of Foulnest – the horrors they saw that shift proved too much for him.

'Hhhhr hrrrg hrrrrr,' shrugged Mumbles.

'Well, look, boys,' said Snags, roughly throwing an arm around each of the scummers' shoulders, solicitous-like. 'I can't make any rockcrete-solid guarantees, but if you run this next job with us, maybe a couple more, maybe there's an all-shifts place for you back in the crew. We're going places, you know - me, Drifter, Crusher, we're gonna be something in this town.'

Brokeface and Mumbles pondered this offer.

'Hrr hrrrrg,' said Mumbles.

'Aye,' said Brokeface, the ragged remains of his lips stretching back into a wider grin than usual. 'What the man said. We're in.'

The Foulnest Rackets Part 2: Making a Racket

A half shift past lights out, and 'Snags' Skivvens was ghosting through the dead manufactories of Foulnest core, pale lumen in hand. The ancient walkways creaked underfoot. Chill breezes down gloomy tunnels needled his bald head. Pipes gurgled inexplicably as he scrambled over them and redundant auspexes trilled as he crossed the thresholds they'd guarded for unknowable centuries.

Snags didn't much like Foulnest at this hour. The place was haunted.

It reminded him too much of the zone as it had been when he'd first arrived , just a few cycles ago. Then, it had been the refuge of heretics engaged in forbidden rites which Gunn's Guns and their erstwhile allies had shut down with lethal force. Snags shuddered to recall the things he'd seen that grim, bloody shift.

He scuttled past a row of long-dead furnaces, now repurposed as doss-holes for some of Foulnest's new residents. Green hivers and dregs of all stripes were sleeping uneasily on makeshift bunks and cots. They stirred and moaned, disturbed by nightmares.

During lights-up, the settlement was a different place entirely, positively buzzing as the incoming populace hustled to capitalise on the opening up of the Dogland wastes. Creds and reputation were there for the taking – if you had your wits about you.

Now, though, it was drenched in darkness. Snags was moving along a low tunnel when a thudding and scraping sounded ahead. He cursed under his breath and shrank back against the wall, cutting the power to his hand lumen. There was a narrow gap between two vertically-running pipes. Perfect. He squeezed into the nook and out of sight.

Two rag-shrouded figures shuffled past, dragging a heavy, man-sized shape. Their burden was giving them some grief, and they were bickering in low voices, although moving with urgency. Whatever it was they were carrying, it was valuable. It may have been after lights-out, but it was still time to do business. Snags considered unslinging his shotgun and attempting a shakedown, but decided it wasn't worth it for an unknown prize. He stayed still and silent until they'd passed on out of earshot, then resparked his lumen and continued down the tunnel.

Of course, the Guilders were at the forefront of the reclamation, lording it over the common hivers and laying claim to a cut of everything, just like they always do. Old Jonn Gunn had wanted to finish the business that had brought them there in the first place, but leads on Vokran and his gang had run cold, and even now Gunn was in negotiations with the coiners and corpse-grabbers, looking to sustain the gang's operations for the foreseeable. 

Snags emerged from the tunnel onto a narrow walkway which stretched off left and right. He stepped to the rail on the other side. Cut End. A long, broad hall stretching across five levels of Foulnest core, it must have been a manufactory storehouse space at some point, but since the reclamation it had become the settlement's main trading station. Snags was at the highest level, gazing down. During the lit shifts, the hall was abuzz with activity, crammed with stalls, roiling with noise and scuffles. At this hour, the place was dark, with only a few barrelfires burning , casting dancing shadows on the ladders and walkways. Far off at the other end of the hall, other lights flickered. Snags's destination. He stepped to the nearest ladder and began to climb down.

Gunn's Guns weren't the only gang looking to carve out a name in Foulnest. Snags understood that Ray Voidsman had gathered a new crew – there was unfinished business there after their brutal run-ins during the badzone hunt. Word was that the Delaque Veiled Cartel had likewise opted to remain, and there was another Delaque crew, the Sin Eaters, in the zone. Other houses were represented: an Escher mob called the Smokestack Needles, the Cawdor Carrion and Amethyst Church from Sector H8, as well as stranger outfits – Ahab's crew, who'd caused quite a stir the shift they moored their grav-cutter at the drained sump quays. There was even rumour of ash-wasters who'd journeyed in through Dogland. Of course, with gang war afoot and creds to be made, the law wasn't far behind: Old Precinct House 13 had been re-opened, with at least one enforcer task force deployed there. Whatever fortunes were to be found on this new downhive frontier, there would be a blood price.

Snags had reached the bottom level of Cut End and moved off down the hall, weaving between shut-up stalls and burning barrels. There were only a few people around, mostly stimm peddlers and vendors of other cheap illegals, lurking beneath the stairwells and support struts. The only ones moving openly were the maintenance crews of the water and promethium guilds – syphonites and subnauticans, pyromagirs and cynders - going about their duties with impunity, knowing that few would dare to raise a hand against them. Not so Snags – he stuck to the shadows.

Snags pondered his loyalites to Gunn. The veteran bounty hunter was no green juve – he recognised that Foulnest was a prime location to cash in on a blood warrant – but, unlike Snags and the rest of the crew, he was still fixated on somehow tracking down Vokran and carving out some justice for the violated dead of Hacked Knee. Why stick with him on such a fool's errand? Psycho Jak and sadistic Ratbite were in it just for the violence, but Snags and his cronies – Drifter and Crusher – had their eyes on other prizes. The rackets. Foulnest was alive with commerce, clean and dark, but a trade route or chem-farm's only worth something if you've got the muscle to protect it. Guild alliances are one thing, but there are plenty of other trades that need guns to back them up. And this was what had brought Snags to Cut End this dead shift.

He'd arrived at his destination: a looming four-storey edifice that dominated one end of the great market hall. The basic structure was a stack of weld-joined heavy container units, but it had been extensively and haphazardly added to. Lumens, candles and oil lamps flickered in the windows that dotted its bullet-holed, rust-caked facade. Snags had heard rumour that the building dated back centuries, standing solid against all odds, through hivequake, plague and purge. Now, it was the settlement's most reputed drinking hole and the best place to pick up scuttlebutt on the emergent rackets. Its name had carried over from the old times: Foulnest Working Hivers' Club.

Jonn Gunn could parley with the Guilders all he liked – Snags and the rest of the crew had other plans in mind. With a gap-toothed grin, he shoved open the door and stepped inside.

The Foulnest Rackets Part 1: Opportunity Aftershocks

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EXHIBIT A: EXTRACTED FROM INTRAGUILD COMMENTARY FEED

SALUTATION: Greetings, most noble Guild sibling, and may the blessings of The All-Seeing, Benificent Lord Helmawr and The Most Holy God-Emperor, Enthroned in Radiant Glory on Terra, fall readily and bountifully upon you.

CONJECTURA PRIMARIS: The recent purge action in E-Sec//45344.234 (hereafter referred to by the colloquial Foulnest) would appear to have taken place at a most fortuitous time.

OBSERVATIO PRIMARIS: 0.435 standard cycles subsequent to the purge action, a hive quake (magnitude 56.34//DELTA) occurred, epicentre the aforementioned Foulnest, with verified shock-effects registered corewards well within Dome.25M (CROSSREF//seismic logs Battersump monitoring station//9965342.M41)

OBSERVATIO SECUNDUS (i): Of more import are the shellward consequences of the aforementioned hive quake///

///COMMENCE HIATUS///

INSERT EXPLICATIO PRIMARIS: Badzone sectors shellwards of Foulnest have long been inaccessible as the region was the resting point for the discharge of the chem mega-torrent designate River Tombs AKA River Shame (CROSSREF//DATAFEEDS//5675-45345)

INSERT EXPLICATIO SECUNDUS: The flooded zone, colloquially appellated Dogsump, connected by obscure channels to outhive discharge points; though alpha-level badzone, this region was utilised by recidivists for smuggling purposes.

///TERMINATE HIATUS///

OBSERVATIO SECUNDUS (ii): As a consequence of the hive quake, significant portions of Dogsump have drained away to lower underhive levels, rendering much of the region navigable by conventional means.

OBSERVATIO TERTIUS: Initial surveys indicate that the drained zones – provisionally appellated Dogland – are rich in archaeotech and raw materials, having been largely undisturbed for centuries.

OBSERVATIO QUARTUS: Initial surveys indicate that stable new trade routes might be established from Foulnest, via Dogland, to waystations beyond the shell and thereafter to greater Palatine transit network.

PROGNOSTICO PRIMARIS: Optimal projections indicate potential Guild Mercator revenue increase in Sectors H8 and E of factor 4.5546276255. Potential for Dome.25M estimated at factor 3.789454 (CROSSREF//DATAFEEDS//56778622-22344345)

PROGNOSTICO SECUNDUS: Such rich yield will, inevitably, attract the attentions of recidivists of diverse deviancies.

PROGNOSTICO TERTIUS: Increased yield is dependent on secure running of operations in Foulnest and Dogland.

ADMONITUS PRIMARIS: The redeployment of such Palanite Enforcers as are available to E-Sec is advised, as is the dissemination of renewed bounty notices on all known or suspected recidivists in Sectors H8 and E.

ADMONITUS SECUNDUS: Sanctioned violence by House operatives in E-Sec should henceforth be increased by 384.23%

VALEDICTION: This is a moment of great opportunity!

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EXHIBIT B: EXTRACTED FROM ENCRYPTED DATAPACKAGE SENT FROM [REDACTED] TO [REDACTED]

How's life in the cold trade? Or did I hear right that you've moved into chems, stimms and suchlike?

Before I go on, I must apologise truly for what happened out at Spiderpoints, and how that job went sumpwards. With my hand on my heart, though, I can swear it was not me who sent word to the Enforcers, much though it may have looked that way at that shift. Turned out, it was that ratfink broker Abdul Goldberg. You clocked him correct from the start, we shouldn't have trusted him. Fret not, though, my kin – my crew (well, those that survived the shoot-out) took care of of the sumpsucker. We sealed him up into a grav loader and sent it on a one-way trip beyond the Ash Wall. Reckon by the time he spiked the lock, he would have been somewhere in the outer wrecks of Secundus.... so we won't be hearing from him again. If you don't believe me, I scragged his ear before we sent him on his sorry way (See attached pic cap).

Needless to say, I needed to go off-scan for a long cycle or three after that, which is why I haven't signalled on your feed for such an age. Plus, I figured you might be a bit sore still about the aforementioned. But, as they say, ill will gets blown away in the ash storms, right? What's a grudge worth when there's ready creds to be made?

Which brings me to the meat of the matter.

You've doubtless heard the trade talk about old Foulnest getting rehabbed, with all that entails. Of course, the Guilds are moving in, as well as clean hivers and House interests, but Foulnest's a big old place, plenty of room for rogue factoria, faker adepts, narco brewers and all the fine fraggers of our extended family to do their work.

But it's what's happened out in Dogsump – or Dogland as I guess I should now say – that's really got my cred-sniffer pinging. That quake's only gone and drained the sumpwaters out, and there's chatter that the old outhive smuggling routes are now a cinch to navigate. They say the tunnels are big enough to run full rigs through – easy pickings for raids if you're that way inclined, and if you're not, there's a whole maze of tunnels running ashwards, just right for smuggling ops. Better still, who knows what sort of archaeo is now sitting there for the claiming after the sump drop?

Naming no names, of course, but our mutual friends in the spire will surely look kindly on anyone who carves out a piece of the action down there. I know we've had our differences in the past, but I know you're not the type to look a gift gyrinx in the mouth. Let's do business again.

This is a moment of great opportunity!

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EXHIBIT C: TRANSLATED AND TRANSCRIBED FROM GRAFITTI FOUND ACROSS E-SEC BADZONES

The ritual is complete

We called upon our masters and the roots of this city shook

The unbelievers think they stopped us

The unbelievers are wrong

Let them play their games of deceit and death

Let them crown themselves kings of the underhive

They cannot begin to conceive their fate

The true kings wait beyond the veil

We rend the veil with every act of devotion

The veil thins

The veil will fray into tatters

All hell will come to Necromunda

This is a moment of great opportunity!

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The Joy of E-Sec Part 6: To Scour Foulnest

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...