Scar Crossed Page 2

  Ulet didn’t bite. She might later. She glowered, her hard eyes boring into Runt like ice drills.

  ‘Hurry up!’ she snapped, and started to pace.

  She was old for a ganger, but rangy and tough. A few grey hairs poked through the red dye, and six scars marked her right cheek, another six the left. Her carapace armour looked thick and was military-grade. Some said she had fallen in love with a Guardsman, part of the Necromundan tithe owed to the Imperial war machine, but that he’d betrayed her. She’d exacted her revenge right enough and taken his gear as recompense. True or not, she cut an imposing figure.

  ‘Do it!’ she screamed. ‘Or I will cut you open from crotch to–’

  The device chugged into activation, a relieved Runt scurrying back, head bowed in contrition. He shuffled away to make room for the hololithic image he had captured. It was grainy, flickering and indistinct. Grue leaned even further forwards, his knuckles whitening around the stock of his cannon as the feed played out.

  Ulet stood back, seething in silent anger.

  When it was done, Grue made a proclamation.

  ‘I will frekking kill her for this.’

  ‘You won’t touch her!’ snapped Ulet, her posture promising violence. ‘Or I’ll slit his throat.’

  Grue smiled belligerently. ‘You know I can’t allow that.’

  Guns were loaded. Slides racked.

  ‘Please, please…’ whimpered Runt. ‘Who will pay?’

  Ulet shot him through the head, and then trained the stub pistol on Grue.

  ‘Oh,’ said Grue, patting the autocannon he had aimed in Ulet’s direction. ‘It’s like that, is it?’

  Ulet then revealed the demo-charge strapped to her thigh. A blinking light on the incendiary block said it was armed.

  ‘It’s like that,’ she replied, smiling with grim amusement as Grue paled a little.

  ‘Let’s not be hasty,’ said Grue, deciding not to comment on the sagacity of strapping live explosives to your body. He gave a half-glance to Runt, whose shattered skull was spilling its contents all over the ground. ‘Think of the truce.’

  ‘I might be tiring of the truce,’ Ulet admitted. Hekka and Friga were inches away from drawing down on the Scar-Kings.

  Grue sneered. ‘You don’t have the guns to take us down.’

  ‘And you don’t have the balls to beat me,’ Ulet shot back. Her anger ebbed. She regarded the hololith, frozen in the final seconds of image capture, Yuli and Rom locked in a lovers’ clinch. She looked almost sad, before her resolve hardened. ‘But this cannot stand.’ Her gaze fell back upon Grue. ‘I won’t let you kill Yuli, and you won’t allow me to gut your little juve. Sounds like war to me.’

  As he nodded, Grue’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s definitely one way to go, but I think I have another solution.’

  An hour later, Ulet returned to Suicide Bridge with Hekka and Frigga. The sharp two-fingered whistle of sentries greeted them upon their arrival and a crane lift slowly lowered to take them up into the Razor-Queens’ stronghold, a sturdy plascrete tower with a half-collapsed bridge jutting from its western facing. Ulet liked to bring her enemies here sometimes. She’d offer them a ritual death, either at the end of one of her blades or the long drop from the bridge. That’s how it got the name.

  ‘Well?’ asked Hekka, as they rode the crane lift up the side of the tower.

  Ulet used the tip of her knife to dislodge a piece of gristle from her teeth. She nodded.

  ‘We let it play out. Then after Grue’s man kills the juve, we slaughter every one of them.’

  Grue reached the Ironyard, his mind awash with schemes. His enemies were constantly underestimating him, and as he rose from his synth-leather throne and began to pace beneath the cold ore smelters and the swinging gantries, a plan formed.

  ‘Find him,’ he said to Skafe, ‘and make the offer like I said.’

  ‘And then?’ asked Skafe, his voice nasally because of his thick nose ring.

  ‘We make the meet, then after the juve is dead we kill the rest of those bitches.’

  Rom pressed his back against the strut of the ore smelter, ignoring the rough metal cutting into his skin. His heart hammered like a piston-driver. Grue’s voice was still echoing around the Ironyard. He clutched the pack close to his chest. He had guns, a little water and the map. A pair of low-grade re-breather masks hung around his neck on stretched elastek. The digging tools felt heavy against his leg from where he’d tied them off to his belt. The only thing he didn’t have was time.

  ‘Shit…’ he whispered, and as soon as Grue and the others had gone, he fled.

  Bharde examined the empty state of his dirty glass, reclining in a threadbare chair, feet propped up on a grubby stool. He tapped the rim of the glass twice, and looked up at his would-be employer.

  ‘Thirsty work, negotiation,’ he said.

  The buyer nodded, and a tough-looking wench poured another slug of brown liquor.

  ‘Now, now, don’t be frugal,’ said Bharde, and waited until his glass was brimming over. He took a long pull, gulping the liquor down. ‘That’s better.’ He wiped his mouth and beard with the back of his hand.

  The bar was dingy and Bharde hugged the shadows, wrapping them around him like a murky blanket. He had good boots, thick with a decent tread, no holes. The metal toecaps shone in the light of rasping sodium lamps. An off-white shirt maintained the illusion of civility, as did the fine breeches, but his eyes had the look of a killer and betrayed the nature of his profession. So did the pair of heavy-gauge bolt pistols holstered on his gun belt. He’d left his duster coat open just enough to show them off.

  ‘It’s intriguing,’ he said, and stroked a beard that ended in a neatly trimmed fork. ‘Two jobs, one day…’ He whistled. ‘Praise the Throne indeed. Tell me again,’ he added, sitting up and leaning forwards to close the distance between him and the buyer, ‘how much and how many?’

  It had taken several hours to reach the wastes. Situated right at the edge of the district, but not much lower than the sump pit where Landra’s corpse was no doubt krogor chum by now, the wastes began where part of the outer hive wall had suffered a serious collapse and exposed the region to the raging ash storms outside. Several layers of this grey crud had accreted on the ground, which made digging up anything buried beneath a long and arduous task.

  Rom toiled in the shadow of a metal overhang, a rag-edged reminder of the level above. Sweat glistened on his bare skin and his re-breather goggles had fogged up almost completely.

  Yuli looked on, standing at the edge of the crater Rom had already dug, her own mask drawn down. She fidgeted nervously, casting a glance in the direction of the deeper hive every few minutes.

  ‘Have you found it?’ she asked, her voice crackling through a rudimentary vox-bead.

  Rom stopped, and stabbed his shovel into the grey, flaky ground. He stomped back over to Yuli, grateful for the cover offered by the side of a large cargo crate that was half submerged and slowly surrendering to the relentless ash.

  ‘It’s deeper than I thought,’ he admitted, wiping the lens of his goggles and pulling out the wastelands map for another look. The area was large, and there were few landmarks. Some had disappeared in the weeks since Rom had buried his trove, swallowed up by the elements. ‘Storm isn’t helping, either.’

  ‘You sure it’s still here?’

  Rom looked at her through smeared lenses. He nodded.

  ‘It has to be.’

  ‘What if you can’t find it?’

  ‘I’ll find it.’ He looked up. Even above the storm he could hear the telltale crank-grind of the Infernal Corona starting to activate. It flared every few hours. The timing was precise. It meant they had been here for longer than he’d intended.

  ‘I’ll find it,’ he repeated, tucking the map back into his belt, and retrieving the shovel. He carried on diggi
ng.

  Bharde scowled. He was looking through magnoculars at a muscular young ganger digging for his life out in the wastes. He hated storms. He hated the outside in general, even if this was inside/outside. Getting rad-ash out of your hair wasn’t easy. It would also abrade his clothes. Ruin them in truth.

  ‘No one said anything about ash wastes,’ he chuntered to himself.

  He crouched east of the lovers, low and invisible behind a barricade of industrial debris. It was a decent vantage, high up, the old highway sloping down to the lower level. A mile out, no chance they would see him, not in all that filth. There were several ways in to the wastes, though even amongst the wretched inhabitants of the underhive few ever used them. Everything of value here had been stripped and repurposed long ago.

  Bharde nodded, and his lip curled in an expression of respect. He had to admit, it was a good hiding place. He panned the magnoculars to the west and north. South led out into the wastes proper. No one was coming from that way.

  He smiled as he found both ‘Mount’ Grue and ‘Carve’ Ulet, one approaching from the west, the other the north, both picking through the dense industrial terrain with their bodyguards in tow.

  ‘Scar-Kings and Razor-Queens with common accord,’ he said, finding the notion amusing, ‘who’d have thought…’

  He sighed, put the magnoculars away and set off at a brisk run.

  Grue allowed himself a grin. The old truce had kept his ambitions stymied for years. It had broken down of course, hostility was the way of things in the underhive, but neither the Scar-Kings nor the Razor-Queens had ever managed to wipe out the other and assume dominance. Both wanted war, neither liked the cost.

  He had decided to betray Ulet the moment he saw the pict-feed of Rom with that girl. Honour demanded something be done, and for both gang leaders to be present to witness it. Despite the murders, the betrayals, all the blood, a fragile code remained. It stayed Grue’s hand for now, and his rival’s more importantly.

  ‘Soon as the juves are dead,’ he told his men, ‘all bets are off.’

  ‘Ulet will see this coming,’ said Skafe.

  ‘Maybe, but she won’t see our reinforcements coming from behind her. And she won’t know I paid that scummer extra to lend his guns to ours.’

  Skafe grinned back at his leader. ‘Oh yeah, she’s a dead woman.’

  ‘He’ll betray us,’ said Hekka, vaulting over a broken waste pipe.

  ‘Yes, he will,’ Ulet replied. ‘He wants this war as badly as us.’

  The truce had lasted overlong, and she was tired of sharing. It wasn’t in her nature. The Infernal Corona was Razor-Queen territory, lock, stock and barrel.

  ‘And his contact, the bounty hunter?’

  Ulet gave a viper’s smile.

  ‘There’ll be eyes on him too.’ She looked ahead, to where the wastes were blowing in and the old watchtower where she’d sent Friga on ahead to take up position. ‘I know someone who’s been dying to try out a new rifle-scope.’

  ‘I heard Bharde was pretty good,’ said Hekka.

  ‘He is. But don’t worry,’ Ulet replied. ‘Grue is a cheap bastard. Even with whatever extra he’s bumped the scummer’s way, we’ll outbid him if it comes to that. Turn the tables. And if that doesn’t work…’ she said, tapping the demo-charges strapped to her thighs, ‘I’ll blow them all to hell.’

  Rom’s shovel struck the side of something heavy and unyielding. The cache was deeper than he remembered, but this was definitely it. He could see the edge of a metal crate and managed to lever it out. The lid yielded to a blow from the shovel, then he yanked it aside. The archeotech hoard was still there. It was priceless, and Rom felt a surge of triumph. Ash was coming in hard, making it tougher and tougher to see, so when he turned to Yuli to give the thumbs up, he almost missed the hazy figure looming behind her.

  She must have seen something in Rom’s posture, because she turned as Rom started to go for his pistol.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ shouted the figure, his voice amplified through the upgraded re-breather swallowing his mouth and nose.

  For a moment the ash swathes lessened in intensity, and Rom saw a tall man wearing a long duster coat. He had good boots on, and his clothes looked decent too, but it was the pair of military-grade bolt pistols he had trained on Rom and Yuli that captured the juve’s attention.

  Rom pulled down his re-breather. He wanted this bastard to see the anger in his face. Yuli did the same, though her expression was pleading.

  ‘I am sorry, you two,’ said the tall man. ‘I am a fool for love, it’s true, but I like money more.’ He levelled the guns, both aimed for the centre mass. ‘I would say this won’t hurt, but that would be a lie.’

  Then the Infernal Corona flared as blinding as magnesium, swallowing the two muzzle flashes that followed.

  Grue heard the shots, the throaty bark of heavy-gauge rounds. He was still blinking back the migraine-inducing afterglow of the corona when he thought he saw the two juves in the wastes go down. Then the ash blew in and really spoiled his view.

  ‘They dead? That’s it?’ shouted Skafe, fighting against the storm and rubbing his eyes hard.

  Grue nodded, vigorously enough so that Skafe could see.

  ‘Kill ’em,’ he said into a vox-feed patched in to his two cohorts of gangers. ‘No one lives.’

  Ulet strained to see after the flare of light. The ash wasn’t helping either, but she heard the scummer take the shots. Someone fell after.

  ‘Let’s do it!’ bellowed Hekka, bringing up her lasgun. ‘Let’s paint these bastards ’til they’re red and dead!’

  A few seconds’ hesitation paralysed Ulet. Something felt off, but the moment was upon her and there was no more time to calculate. The corona was already fading, and only as bright as sunlight now.

  She made her choice and screamed into her vox-feed. ‘Do it, do it! Friga, kill that scummer. Put one in his head!’

  Gunfire erupted across the wastes, eerily muted by the storm, which was raging fiercely. An explosion tore up the grey, a smudged orange flash through the stirred up filth.

  Ulet’s eyes widened in the direction of the tower as she realised what had happened.

  ‘Friga!’

  The watchtower was down and burning, torn up by an explosive.

  Then came the shouting from behind her, and Ulet reached for one of her charges.

  Grue racked the autocannon and swung it in the direction of the Razor-Queens. In all this ash, he could barely aim, so he held down the trigger and sprayed instead. The recoil thundered against his body, but he roared with the sheer joy of it. True, he might hit some of his own men who’d circled around to take Ulet out from behind, but that was life in the underhive.

  He hung back and let Skafe lead the others in, using the autocannon’s range to its fullest advantage.

  Then he saw a figure emerging through the grey, the bounty hunter having performed his task.

  ‘Bharde…’ he said, attention only half on the approaching figure. ‘Get those guns of yours on the Razor-Queens. I want those bitches dead.’

  Except it wasn’t Bharde, and only now as Rom closed on him did Grue realise his error. He tried to swing the autocannon around. He was strong – he was the Mount for scav’s sake – but even he had his limits.

  The first shot took Grue in the shoulder. It went deep into the meat, and set a fire. The second struck his head and then all Grue saw was the grey slowly turning, turning to black…

  A hurled demo-charge landed right in the midst of the Scar-Kings’ ranks, and Ulet watched satisfied as a series of limbs and other body parts blew skywards.

  Hekka was down, her chest blown out by the scummer’s hand cannons. Ulet had written her off already. No one walks away from a wound like that, not from a bolt pistol.

  She waded into the fog, seeing movement
and gunning her chain-blade. Red flecks painted the grey. She was screaming, exhorting her Queens and getting them to fight.

  ‘To me, to me!’ she roared, fighting to maintain some coherence in all the swirling filth and the blood.

  It had turned to crap, all of it. Then, through the thinning ash storm she saw someone she recognised, someone who should be dead.

  A grainy red-dot sight flickered over Ulet’s chest then tracked down to a light on the other demo-charge strapped to her thigh. She stopped shouting, and even managed a rueful smile.

  ‘Clever girl…’ she said, as Yuli took the shot.

  The fight was blowing out of the storm, and the ash began to settle.

  A few of the gangers remained from both Kings and Queens, only now realising they had been played. The rest had run. A wise move.

  Bharde killed the last few with precise headshots. In every case the skull exploded violently, littering the ground with blood and bone.

  The firing stopped. Rom and Yuli were the last left standing, a gulf of ash and shot-to-death corpses separating them. They caught sight of each other amidst the carnage, both relieved to see their partner had survived, and were about to run into each other’s arms when Bharde interceded.

  He crossed his arms, holding a gun on each juve.

  ‘Much as I’m sure you’d like to consummate this mass murder, I believe you owe me what was promised?’

  Rom slowed, so did Yuli.

  The former Scar-King nodded.

  ‘As promised,’ he said, and gestured to the cache.

  ‘Would you mind doing the honours?’ asked Bharde. ‘My back, you see. Doc says I need to rest it.’ He wagged a pistol at the cache in a gesture for Rom to bring it over.

  He did. Grunting with not inconsiderable effort, Rom hauled the metal crate free of the ash and dragged it to where Bharde was waiting.

  ‘And the deal was all of it?’ said Bharde, smiling approvingly as he saw the trove of archeotech within.