Crone World - Part 2

The three explorers trekked in what was best thought to be east of their ship. There was little conversation amongst them, each were off and away in their own worlds of thought. The landscape before them was disparate from anything they had ever seen before. Barren patches of earth, with dead trees that writhed and danced with no wind, stood in stark contrast from half destroyed buildings created by an alien race long gone.   Sigils adorned one of the buildings, which caught Holm’s attention as he passed by. He stopped and walked over to the crumbling structure, curious as to its purpose and awed by its remaining architecture.

“Reymalden, is this a structure the Eldar created?” Holm asked. The priest joined him and examined the runes carefully.

“Yes, yes it was created by them,” Reymalden said in a tone of respect, his gloved hand caressing the rune and cleaning out the dust of millennia. “The rune means, ‘warrior’. It could be a barracks or an armory.” Reymalden looked past the open threshold, only to see more open plain past the blasted back walls. “But there’s nothing to find here, Captain Holm. Curiosity of the unfamiliar is necessary in the Quest for Knowledge, but wasting time sightseeing will hardly accomplish our goal. I suggest we move on.” He turned away and rejoined Tulley, who was busy scanning the surrounding area with his Lasgun ready.   Holm followed him after giving one last look.

“How far do you think we’ve come, corporal?” Holm asked.

“About a league, sir.”

“Do you think we should press on in this direction, or double back?”

Tulley pursed his lips while he thought and looked around. “I’d say give this direction a little more, sir. I’ve seen indications of traffic through here and it tends to head that way.” Tulley motioned with his weapon to the east.

Holm turned to Reymalden. “What about this place? Do you think we should explore it?” The priest turned the captain and scoffed.

“What would be the point, Captain Holm? Anything of value that wasn’t destroyed in the cataclysm was probably scavenged a long time ago. I believe we should go east, as Corporal Tulley suggests.” Holm nodded.

“Fair enough, then. Tulley, take point.”

After a few minutes, it became clear that the decision to move east was the right one. On the dead, slowly churning air came a smell of cooking. Tulley signaled for them to halt and he rejoined the group.

“Do you smell that?” Tulley asked. Holm inhaled deeply. There was no mistake, someone was cooking shellfish.

“Smells delicious, whatever it is, and it means only one thing.”

“An encampment,” Tully said, a smile coming to his face. 

Holm looked about his surroundings. Around them, were more destroyed buildings. Picking one at random that seemed closest to the direction where the smell was coming from, he quietly crept and entered it. The smell was much stronger now and he peeped his head from a nearby window. 

From his position, to the northeast, was a crashed hulk.  A medium sized campfire was based near it. Around it, sat two large, hulking humanoids.   Their green skin was taut over large muscles and their distended, toothy jaws were busy ripping into their meals. Above the campfire, sitting on the hulk itself, was a larger specimen of the other two. He, too, was eating and conversing intermittently with them. What Holm caught as odd was that the humanoid’s feet were missing and in their place were a pair of metal ones cobbled together out of odds and ends.

“Well, ladz, wot do da workers say? Iz we gonna git offer dis rock?” the humanoid with the metal feet asked loudly.

“Da humies wez caught to work fer us sez dat wez should be offer dis rock inz a week,” one of the others replied, taking another bite out of what appeared to be an oversized pincer.

Holm heard noise behind him and turned quickly. He saw with relief that Reymalden and Tulley had joined him. Reymalden took a position near another window and glanced out of it, while Tulley joined his captain. 

“Dear God of Humanity, what are those?” Tulley whispered. Holm tapped his subordinate on the shoulder and pointed to the wall near Reymalden. The priest had finished looking at the group and wrote one word in the dust on the wall. 

ORKS.

Holm motioned for the priest to join them. They hunkered down began to formulate a plan.

“Those Orks have humans as slaves and I believe we need to rectify that situation,” Holm said.

“What do you have in mind, captain?” Tulley asked, eagerness in his voice.

“A diversion. There’s enough cover between here and that fire that should grant us some protection from any weaponry they may have. The Tech-Hospitalier will circle around the back and try to locate those slaves and free them, while you and I will keep those brutes occupied.” Holm pulled out his pistol and glanced again out the window. “When I give the signal, we open fire. When that happens, Reymalden, be as inconspicuous as possible. Understand?” The priest nodded silently. Holm nodded in return and crept out of the building, Tulley carefully trailing behind him.

Mektoez’d the Ork ate more of his meal and wiped his mouth, glancing at the landscape disinterestedly. They’d been on the rock for Gork knew how long since their mighty hulk crashed because of the ropes. The ropes were gone now, because of the shiny gubbins placed inside their ship. The humies they caught had some mek boyz among them, smarter than the ones Mektoez’d had in his group. The humies were terrified of him and his ladz, especially since they thought that they were going to be eaten. He chuckled. Of course they were going to be eaten, but that wasn’t going to happen until they got off the planet. Ork’s gotta eat, he thought.

Suddenly, the Ork Nob’s eyes caught a glint of something not too far from the camp. Squinting, he shoved all thoughts about eating humies to the back of his mind while he concentrated on the strange glint. At first, he thought that it was just some wreckage reflecting the light of their campfire. But that didn’t explain why he hadn’t seen it earlier.

Then, the glint moved slowly to the right. Mektoez’d brow furrowed angrily.

“WEZ GOTS SKULKERS, LADZ! DERE!! DA GLIMMER!” the Nob bellowed, his voice echoing off into the distance.

Holm froze at the Ork’s loud proclamation. He shut his eyes and muttered, “Emperor damn that bodger.”