Feed em to da boars
By Craig Gallant
It was light . . .
It was bright light . . .
It was very bright light . . .
Grishnak surged into a sitting position in a massive convulsion of movement accompanied by
the whirring and hissing of servos in his mega armor. With the vicious backhand of a power
claw he batted the handlight-wielding doc thirty feet over the heads of the encircling orks
and into the surrounding darkness.
"He's awright" pronounced the doc from where he had landed, still laying unmoving, staring
up at the moon-filled sky.
Grishnak tried to cradle his aching head in his claws but only succeeded in striking his
forehead a mighty whack with the power claw. A low, vicious growl curdled from between
clenched sets of huge brown fangs.
"Whadappened?" he tried to squeeze his eyes shut from the burning brightness of the full
moon, but the targetter fitting over his right eye kept the lid pried open. the growl took
on a momentarily plaintive note.
"Oi, me 'ead 'urts . . . " the Ork warboss shook his big ugly head viciously, as if trying
to dislodge a troublesome squig. The movement only succeeded in making his headache worse,
and the resultant throb of agony forced an almost boar-like squeal of pain from the hulking
warboss.
Suddenly the power claw reached out with lightning speed and snagged one of the orks
crouching at what they had all supposed was a safe distance. The warboss heaved up to his
feet, fangs gritting against the pain, and his voice grumbled dangerous and low as he said
again, this time with ominous patience, "What . . . 'appened?"
The surrounded orks, having backed hastily away, now did their green-skinned best to look
suitably orky while not actually meeting their boss' eyes, and muttered a series of
half-coherent theories and conjectures under their fetid breath.
Grishnak shook the hapless Ork he was holding out over the rest of the mob. "WHADAPPENED?!?"
The airborne Ork, gamely trying to keep the ground firmly in sight, muttered something
unintelligible.
"ERRHHH?!?" Another shake rattled out a slightly louder response
"Da pansy copped ya, Boss," came out as a whimper.
The surrounding warriors, vicious and savage in their garish armor with grotesque trophies
hanging from backbanners and belts, cringed away in anticipation of the boss' reaction to
this.
Grishnak only cocked his head to one side and transfixed the hanging Ork with his bare eye.
Very slowly, the scarred, crusted lid of the single eye came down over the red orb, then
snapped up again. The angle of the warboss' head deepened.
The last thing Grishnak could remember was trying to get out of the range of the pansy boss,
whose strange energy he could feel coming closer throughout the battle. Lew and da boyz had
been screening him . . . they had made it to the grot bat'rey behind the big rock, and then
. . .
Grishnak blinked again, standing against the full moon like some vicious statue of an
ancient god of destruction. The orks crouching around him sidled a little farther away as
they stared, waiting for the hand of Gork to come sailing out of the boss' eye and crush
them all. Again, the terrible eye blinked.
He had sent Gratz and the other Snakebite nobz charging into the forest that had screened
the pansy boss, but they had come pounding out again, or at least the two survivors had,
only moments later, and Grishnak had not seen them again. . . .
Things had seemed to be going well enough, as Bruk's plan . . . Bruk's plan . . . Bruk's
Plan.
With a neck-snapping whip, the power claw cracked its captive Ork off into the darkness.
"Get da Axe."
A scurrying sound from the shadows indicated several orks hurrying away under cover of the
boss' order.
Grishnak looked around at the scuffed ground. He saw his beloved kustum shoota, Wolf Bighta,
laying in the mud at his feet. He bent over and retrieved it, cradling it to his armored
chest with his unarmored left claw as he wandered dazedly towards a fire the Snakebite boyz
had started just outside their makeshift corral. Orks and gretchin skittered out of his
lumbering way, and from within the corral came the soft snuffling of boarz and cyboarz in
the rare, quiescent mood that occasionally struck them after some battles.
The warboss sat down at the fire with a heavy thud, his armor hissing in its attempt to
mitigate the effects of gravity. Grishnak was gently stroking the weapon clasped tightly in
his armored power claw as the rest of the warband, having heard that there might be a
confrontation between the boss and the Blood Axe Kommando Kaptin, were gathering, as quietly
as possible outside of the circle of light thrown by the Snakebite fire.
Nearby Gratz and Uk, the two surviving boar-riding nobz, stood quietly. Their power claws
had been removed soon after the battle, but each held a bolter tightly and did not allow
their claws to wander far from the hilts of their rusty, primitive swords They kept their
tiny, squinting eyes on Grishnak; knowing that they had failed their warboss, and the anger
that seemed to have fastened upon Bruk could just as easily erupt in their direction should
the bigger Ork suddenly remember who he had sent to crush the advancing pansy boss. Or more
precisely, those who had failed to carry out that now obviously crucial mission.
From the direction of a neat and orderly set of field tents a large shadow strode towards
the fire accompanied by two only slightly smaller shadows. Bruk seemed to be limping
slightly, and there were several dark green stains on his camouflage uniform. He came up to
the fire and stood over Grishnak. The two bodyguard kommandos clenched bolters in nervous
claws as they tried to keep suspicious red eyes on the whole crowd of glaring green-skins.
The tension peaked as the bodyguards and the two Snakebite nobz eyed each other warily.
"Sit." Grishnak's low grumble was an order, not an invitation, and with a quick glance at
the surrounding orks, Bruk lowered himself down on one knee opposite the warboss. He kept
his face blank as he tried to ascertain if he was about to be jumped by his boss. "Yuh?"
Grishnak stared over the flames, the light from beneath giving his face an even more evil
cast, and glinting emptily from the targetter lens. After a moment, his gaze transferred its
fierce focus to the burning wood between them. When he spoke it was with surprising, eerie
calm.
"What 'appened to da plan?"
Bruk's heavy brow ridges came together in honest confusion. "What?"
The surrounding orks grumbled low, tensing in preparation for flight, should that prove
necessary.
"You sez 'I gotta Plan,' you sez 'we ken get da pansies.'" The evil red eye rose to spear
into Bruk's dark soul. "What 'appened to da Plan?"
Bruk was silent for a moment, looking cunningly from beneath the ridged brow. When he spoke,
his tone was sly and quiet. "I tink ya got kopped by za pansy boss."
The tension rose palpably around the fire. Claws tightened on bolt pistols and sword hilts
as an ominous silence stretched on, broken only by the hissing and popping of the fire and
the muffled grunts from the corral. When a sound finally broke into the night, it started as
a quiet rumble, building slowly into a raucous, boulder-grinding repetition of noise.
"Hur, hur, hur, hur, hur." Grishnak's great shoulders shook with the heaving of his
laughter. The tension settled deeper, and did not dissipate.
"I got kopped, ya tink?" His one visible eye wrinkled in amusement as he gestured to the
rips and stains on Bruk's uniform. "Maybe I got kopped by some pansy secret wepin, but you
sure as squig snot got shredded by doz lousy pansy disk throwaz."
Bruk's shoulders hunched in anger, and he sized up the Bad Moonz warboss for a sudden
charge. They were almost of a size, but the Kaptin's wounds were still fresh, and Grishnak's
headache seemed to be almost gone. Besides that, the Ork across the fire was still wearing
his garish yellow mega armor, and Bruk had left his kustum shoota back at the kommandos'
camp. With a visible effort of will he relaxed his shoulders, and tried gamely to join in
the warboss' laughter. Revenge would be better served by waiting until Grishnak was less
likely to be expecting it. But the Bad Moon better watch his back . . . Bruk's reverie was
broken by Grishnak surging back to his feet.
The mega armored warboss ignored the paranoid glances of both the kommando bodyguards and
the Snakebite nobz. "We'z gotta have a Waaagh Council. Dis raid ain't goin accordin' to Da
Plan." He glanced down at Bruk and chuckled again. "We'll meet at my tent. I'll have Lowkee
getcha." The Bad Moonz' Gretchin standard bearer, upon hearing his name, gave forth a manic
chuckle and shouldered his way through the elbows of the boyz surrounding the fire, only
laughing harder when everyone there ignored him in the general dispersal.
As Grishnak strode strongly away from the fire, the effects of the dirty Eldar trick fading
by the moment, a strange looking Gretchin came running up to him. "Excuse me, Grish . . . "
The Gretchin stopped short as he caught the strange glance the warboss gave him. "Uh, I mean
. . ." his voice cracked, then came back much higher. "Hey boss, what hap . . . 'appened in
the . . . da battle?" The fierce-looking warboss stood there for a moment, staring at the
gretchin, then reached forward with the massive power claw.
Grishnak did not stay around to watch the cyboars, now much more awake, as they tore the
strange Gretchin to shreds between them.
It was dark and stifling in the great warboss' tent as the nobz and oddboyz of the warband
gathered for Grishnak's Waaagh Council. There was Bruk, minus his bodyguard but clutching
his giant, missile armed kustum shoota. Gratz, the head of the Snakebite contingent, sat in
the darkness behind the center tent pole with his runtherd, Legbita, stroking a little squig
that sat docilely in his lap. Lew, Grishnak's lieutenant, sat a little way apart from the
rest of the orks, bandages all over his head where the nasty crystal pansy weapon had struck
him repeatedly before he fell. The two Bad Moon oddboyz, Grok the mekaniak and Hindy the
runtherd, sat closest to the open door flaps of the tent, looking nervous in such august
company. Grishnak dominated the space, still in his mega armor, as Lowkee cackled softly
behind him.
"OK, boyz" Grishnak began. "We came to dis sector 'cause we thought there'd by easy
pickin's, but we've 'ad two scrapes already, and we've lost 'em BOTH!" The nobz and oddboyz
shrank back from his voice. Seemingly unaware Grishnak continued. "Now, what we gotta decide
is, what can we do ta start kicken' some humie and pansy butt."
Grishnak looked at each of the tent's occupants in turn as they did their best to meet his
baleful gaze. "What I want ta do is, each of youz is gonna say what yer boyz've done in
these two scrapes." He tried to ignore the constant low chuckles from Lowkee, and pointed at
Gratz with a huge power claw finger. "You start."
Gratz shuffled a bit, trying to find a comfortable position for a moment before giving it up
and starting in on his report. "We wuz spozed ta take out da 'ard marines when we scraped
wit da Puppies," he was forced to pause for a moment as every ork in the tent muttered a
choice epithet or two to the honor of the Space Wolves. "An' we did dat. Me an Uk and
Borbreth did for da termies, cept da one dat got et by da squigs," he nodded acknowledgment
to Legbita, who tried to smile around the tail of the squig squirming between his fleshy
lips.
"My utter boyz were spozed ta go 'round to da right and mop up da 'eavy 'umies, but dey wuz
all ded, and when my boyz tried ta get past dem, da Puppy boss just sorta . . . appeeahed,
an' started koppin' em, so dey turned 'round and . . . " he stopped for a moment, noticing
Grishnak's suspicious glare. "Um, dey turned 'round to find anodder way, but we had ta run
before dey could." He lapsed into silence.
After only a moment the warboss prompted Gratz to continue. "An' in da scrape against da
pansies?"
Gratz looked around the circle of green faces. His thick tongue slithered out to moisten his
big lips. "Um, we wuz spozed ta pr'tect you from da pansy boss, an my utter boyz was spozed
ta take down da pansies' bitty dreads."
"An'?"
"An' dere boss kopped Borbreth by magic, and almost kopped me, an' . . . " his tale wound
down into a low mutter.
"An'?"
Lowkee's laugh turned low and sinister.
"An' we runz ta . . . ta . . . ta gets 'em from da utter side! Yeah," he suddenly looked
much happier. "Dat wuz it, we was gonna gets 'em from da utter side!"
Grishnak's one eye was a well of cynicism as he regarded the fiercely nodding Snakebite nob.
"What utter side?"
"Uhhhh . . . "
Grishnak shook his head briefly in scorn and annoyance. "An' yer utter boyz?"
"Uh, oh . . . dey ran."
There was the sound of an indignant yelp from out in the darkness surrounding the tent, and
then a rising shushing sound, as of a loud, rushing river. Lowkee giggled.
"Uh," he gave a quick glance behind him out the tentflap, "dey wuz gonna go 'round da rubble
in front of us, and try ta go 'round da side too."
Grishnak, his gaze coming back from the darkness outside the tent, looked at the Snakebite
nob for a moment, then tossed a clawful of dirt at him. "Gha, what should I 'spect, from a
dumb savij." Gratz growled, but soon subsided as the warboss' single exposed brow rose in
challenge. After Gratz had settled back down, Grishnak turned his gaze on Legbita, who was
now done with his squig snack. "An' you?"
Legbita gulped, looked plaintively at Gratz for a moment then, seeing no help there, began
his report. "Da screen gitz has been doin' good."
"Did dey kill anyting?"
"No, but dey stopped da boarboyz from gettin kilt, an dey surrounded da Puppy Boss befo' we
had ta bolt." He gulped again. "An da squig Katapults has gotten betta. 'Gainst da Puppies
dey kilt a termie, den da grot krewz got kopped by da humie chippy assassin. 'Gainst da
pansies dey got onea dem tinboy tings wit da nowhere gunz, an' a flyin' pansy. Maybe mo' but
I don' know." He said the last in a hurried rush of breath that left him panting and silent.
Grishnak waited to see if anything else was forthcoming, and when it obviously wasn't he
turned to Lew. "How're are boyz doin', Lew?"
The Bad Moonz nob looked sheepish beneath his stained bandages. "Deyz all ded, boss."
This managed to even bring a pause in Lowkee's constant, manic chortling.
"WHAT?" Grishnak exploded.
Lew tried desperately to swallow, failed, then tried to continue. "All da boyz we started
wit iz ded, boss. All da reg'lar boyz got kopped by da assassin, cuz she was pretendin ta be
Bek, haven' kilt him befo' da scrape. An all da nobz was kilt by da pansies tricksy wepins.
Stub kopped onea da pansy bitty dreads, but den he got kopped hiself by a glow-in-da-dark
pansy who den disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Yeah, right afta you fell over an' right before I got whacked by da chippy wit da big mace
wit da crystal skulls an' stuff." He lapsed into silence, looking steadfastly down at the
dirt.
Grishnak snuffed in anger and turned to his own mekaniak. "Did you figure what went wrong
wit' da bikah boyz?"
Grok tugged briefly at his collar before hesitantly responding, "um, dey was taken ovah by
da need fo' speed."
Grishnak stared at him blankly. "What?"
"Dey was doin great against da Puppies, dey had kapped all da 'eavy pups, and I was tellin'
'em to go whack da chippy assassin, when all of a sudden dey took off aftah da puppy
mekaniak, 'cept he just reached out and plucked each onea dem outa hiz seat wit dat big claw
of 'is."
Lowkee seemed to think this was hilarious, as his shrill giggle split the night.
The warboss took a deep breath, and gestured for the mek to continue.
"We got all new bikes, and dey were doin' swell 'gainst da pansies. Dey took out two a doze
big pansies, one wiv bones all ovah 'im and one wiv wings. Den dey went all nuts agin, and
sped off aftah da last pansy bitty dread, and all got kopped but Jok, who nailed anothah
onea dem tinboyz and got da head of da drivah of da crashed pansy bitty dread befoh da
pansies disappeared. He wants ta give you da head."
Grishnak nodded his thanks, but would not be distracted. "So now we need new bikes agin?"
Grok tugged at his hat rim and nodded. "Yup. We ken fix two a dem, but we'll need at least
two moh."
"Geez!" Grishnak smacked his forehead, careful to use the unarmored claw this time. "Dis
warband's gonna make me toofless!"
"Sorry, boss." The big nob waved the apology away and gestured for Hindy, the Bad Moon
runtherd, to speak up.
"Well, boss, we need moh Pulsa Rokkits, but dey been really good so far. Dey kept da Puppies
all messed up 'til Gratz an' 'is boyz could get dere, and dey messed da pansies all up,
includin' bustin up both da walkerz' legs."
"And da screen gitz?"
"Dey been screenin'. Dey almost got da puppy flyeah, but it was goin' to fast fo' da little
buggerz. Dey ain't too good a shotz, but dey sure do like ta shoot!"
"Awright, I guess dat leaves you, Bruk." Grishnak sneered. "Gotta anuder Plan?"
Bruk pulled himself painfully up to his full hieght, never having taken his bitter little
eyes off the warboss. "My boyz have zuccezzfully vulvilled every battlevield role zey have
been given, an' . . . "
"Stop talkin' 'umie-talk, an' jus' tell us what dey ben doin."
Bruk took a deep breath, trying his best to keep his gaze level. "Me an' my boyz deployed .
. . I mean we wuz on a building near za Puppies main base, an' when zey got hit by za Pulsa,
we let 'em have it all. We kopped a bunch of em, an' would a done fo' za rest, but zere boss
zapped in an' . . . "
Grishnak grinned. "An' . . . ?"
"An' he kopped me one, OK? but after he got me an' ona za utter boyz, he zapped out agin. We
took care ov everyzing on our zide of za field aftah zat."
Grishnak's grin grew wider. "And agin' da pansies?"
"Agin' za pansies we were on da ruins in za middle of za field, and zuccezzfully held it
agenzt two pansy azzults, one by dose Avenger boyz, and one by da winged pansy-farey-types.
We killed a bunch of zem, and one ov my boyz even got a head and onea zem ztonez zat meanz
zo much to zem."
"An' what 'appened to you, Bruk?" Grishnak was now chuckling.
"I was incapazitated early in za battle by a Avenger Pansy wid ona zem disc gunz. What about
you, boss?"
The tension in the tent rose momentarily, until Grishnak made the obviously difficult
decision to ignore the Blood Axe's jibe.
"OK," the warboss began slowly. "What we gotta do is dis." He paused again and closed his
big red eye in order to think more clearly. "I'll tellyport back up to da hulk, an' I'll
trade for da stuff we need an' recruit replacement boyz. We gotta get da bikah boyz ta stop
chargin," Grok nodded vigorously. "'An' we gotta get da boarboyz ta start chargin'," Gratz
nodded, with notably less vigor. "Da grots we just gotta keep herdin'," the two runtherds
nodded together. "An' I guess Bruk can jus' keep makin up Planz."
The Blood Axe jumped to his feet, having had enough of the warboss' scorn. For a moment it
seemed to the rest of the orks in the tent that they might be treated to a fight, but Bruk
just stood there, looking down at the still-grinning Grishnak, a claw hanging between them,
shaking in anger. Then he stomped out into the night, scattering the boyz outside who were
themselves busy trying not to look like eavesdroppers.
"Hur, hur, hur." Grishnak laughed a moment longer, then turned to Lew. "Yer gonna hafta help
me get mo' boyz an' nobz, Lew," Lew nodded gravely. "An' fo Gork's sake, keep 'em alive,
will ya?"
"Yeah, boss."
The nobz and oddboyz filed out of the tent, Lowkee bringing up the rear as usual. As
Grishnak turned to the big chest in the back of the tent to begin removing his armor, he was
stopped by the sound of a Gretchin clearing its throat in the open doorway. "Huh?" He turned
around.
In the moonlight streaming through the tentflap stood an unusually tall Gretchin holding its
Bad Moon kap awkwardly in its vicious little claws. "Um, warboss, Grishnak, I was just
wondering . . ."
Grishnak squinted at the unfamiliar gretchin. "Yah?"
"Well, I was just wondering what you thought about the battle . . . "
As Grishnak walked back to his tent, the sounds of the feeding boars fading into the