10

The guardsman hadn't made it too far judging by how they were splattered on the cobblestone. Riff thought the town might have been a beautiful place before whatever happened, well, happened. The natives seemed to have a flair for integrating classic and ornate designs into their architecture. The crude but beautiful cobblestone paths were an example of this. But now blood dried in the small cracks of the cobblestone and bits and pieces of guardsman covered the outside walls of some of the houses.

Shem still seemingly had some reservations when it came to blood as Riff noticed he deliberately looked away from the messier scenes. They observed the houses from the cover of the bushes and trees, looking for any sign of movement that might betray an attacker. It was only when Riff noticed the bulkier bodies lying among the dead that he realized the guardsman had done a better job of eliminating the enemy than their current state suggested. Riff counted the bodies of at least a dozen Orks lying among the dead guardsmen.

None of them dared to move from their cover and Riff could guess why. There was no sign of any vehicle that could have borne the Orks which could only mean they likely landed some ways away and attacked the town when they happened upon it. Which led to the fear that another band of Orks could stumble upon the town. However, and Riff doubted Arbas and Shem shared the fear, Riff was secretly frightened that one of the brutes might revive to kill them when their backs were turned. That and he didn't want to approach the bodies of the fallen Orks. There was just something about them that was absolutely repulsive.

The time came however when they needed to move. A brief spark of hope was ignited when Riff spotted what appeared to be an Earthshaker Cannon, but it was quickly smothered when upon closer inspection it was only a charred wreck. It had been hastily set up from the looks of it, which likely led to its downfall. The bodies of the guardsmen were heaped in droves around sloppily constructed cover points made from overturned carts and other miscellaneous things. More than the dozen Orks Riff spotted from cover littered the ground. Ork bodies were especially frequent in the spaces between the natives' houses that the guard had used as narrow fire lanes that the Orks had blindly charged in to get at the guardsmen.

Observing everything as they went, Riff kept an eye out for any building that looked official. Riff found that "official" buildings tended to look rigid and swelled with self-importance, sort of like the courts back at the Hive and a bit like the nobles that ran them. Nothing popped out as they kept close to the shadows, just rows upon rows of houses and more scenes of brutal warfare. The battle had ended a day, maybe more, before they had arrived. The fighting had probably begun just hours after the guard made an emergency landing, judging by the number of the dead Riff guessed they'd been caught in the middle of digging in when the fighting began, with whatever forces that were left scattering.

Riff didn't blame the Dagon Elite, they were expecting the close combat style of the Tyranids and even though the Orks seemed to favor this style they had abominable alien technology to back themselves up. Of course he didn't feel pity for the Dagon Elite. Riff's eyes lingered on a pile of guardsman who had been gutted by an Ork who lied dead a few paces away and imagined his face on all of them. The Dagon Elite would have hoarded them into the line of fire like cattle just to save themselves a few more precious seconds of life. This was the stoicism of the Imperial Guard, their undying bravery.

The natives' dead began to appear with more frequency as they stalked their way towards the center of town. All of them were men who had taken up rudimentary tools no matter how blunt and set on the Orks with about as much success as Riff expected. Shem, overcoming his nausea, gazed around eagerly looking for a tool that could replace his shock pole and found nothing. He was obviously uncomfortable with his new weapon. Riff saw how he made a show of holding it tight in his grip like he was ready to skewer anything that so much as twitched but he also observed how Shem had trouble balancing the pole and was constantly adjusting it.

Riff was surprised by how relatively unscathed the town square was. A corpse laid sprawled on the ground here and there but other than that no action had found its way to the middle of town. A small church of the Emperor was wedged in a discreet corner but the square was mostly dominated by what appeared to be the town hall. They broke from the cover of shadows and crossed the square to ascend the steps to the town hall. Despite the relative lack of damage this did nothing to calm their anxiety. Riff couldn't quite tell why he preferred wading through the carnage earlier to the empty silence of the square but he did. There was something comforting about seeing the dead bodies of the enemy. So what did it mean that there were none to be seen here?

Arbas tried to suppress the low creak the door made as he opened it but failed. To Riff's ears the creak sounded off like a siren screaming out their position. Arbas immediately scanned the room beyond the door down the sight of his lasrifle before he entered himself. Shem entered next followed by Riff. The lights had gone out, not that they were going to turn them on anyway, but the moonlight that entered through the window provided some lighting. Rows of chairs filled the interior of the hall. Pictures decorated the wall perhaps showing some famous lineage that Riff didn't particularly care about. They made their way across the room, silently sticking to the wall and ducking to avoid the windows.

They came upon a row of doors and began hesitantly opening them one by one. Riff gently pushed his door open and found nothing but the tools of some janitor and the lingering smell of mold. Riff wasn't sure what Arbas had found in his door but when he turned around Shem was gesturing wildly towards his door. Shem had pulled a single box from the room, completely devoid of any noteworthy traits other than having some strange symbol printed across it. Shem tore the lid off and held up a familiar white brick. Riff breathed a sigh of relief at seeing the dozens of ration bars that the box contained, not to mention the countless other boxes stacked in the room. The subject of food had never been brought up and only now did Riff realize how desperately they were going to be needing this stockpile. His relief lasted perhaps a few precious seconds before it was ripped away.

Arbas threw the cabinet from the room with surprising strength, it crashed against the wall opposite of him. He didn't care to quiet his voice as he walked out of the room and kicked out at the cabinet.

"Unfrakkin' believable! Backwater jungle hicks can't even bother to translate!" Arbas nearly screamed as he layed into the cabinet with furious kicks.

"Shut up will you?!" Riff silently yelled at Arbas. "What's wrong?!"

"The natives apparently don't go far in their effort of translatin'! Everything is written in their common language! Look here!" Arbas ripped open the cabinet drawers and began throwing out its contents. "Papers! Packages! Boxes! Everything is written in this damned scribble!" Riff picked up a pile of papers and saw that the entire page was covered in unreadable scrawl. It could be a lunch menu or the directions to a hidden army of dreadnoughts and it still wouldn't make a difference.

Riff couldn't help but rub his hands vigorously up and down his forehead as he looked at the natives' scrawl mocking him on the paper.

"We need to stay calm. We could still use a map if we can find one." Riff said.

"And do what with it? Play the guessing game of which way is which and what place is what until we stumble on a port?" Arbas retorted.

Riff had already taken into consideration the idea that the symbols on the map would certainly be different. However deciphering the locations of major cities and other locations of that sort couldn't be too hard if they set about it the right way.

Riff noticed the small crack of light that had appeared too late. The door to the town hall slammed shut and took the ray of moonlight with it. They were already on their feet and rushing towards the door the moment it closed. They burst through the door and out into the square which echoed with hurried footsteps. Riff glimpsed a figure disappear down an alleyway and tore off in its direction, bringing his lasrifle to bear as he rushed down the alley. The stranger apparently had nowhere to go as he stood dumbfounded out in the open before Riff cracked his lasrifle across the stranger's legs. The stranger crumpled to the ground as their feet was swept out from under them and lied there. Riff aimed down his lasrifle and kept his finger hovering over the trigger. The stranger was obviously a native. Their clothes was unlike any Riff had seen. They seemed ornate, just like the houses, and yet almost tribal.

Riff tensed as the stranger sat up and looked at him. He stifled a surprised yelp when the woman locked eyes with his. Her eyes were a soft brown while being stern and challenging at the same time. She was completely bald, which Riff guessed was perhaps a native custom. Her body was slim and muscular but Riff found himself drawn to her face. It was not like the fragile faces of the joygirls he had spent much time with at the Hive, the woman's face was much stronger. Riff was reminded of the muscular corpse of the woman in the fields but quickly brought his mind back to the present.

"Stand up. Slowly" Riff commanded. The woman complied and before Riff could do anything else Arbas marched forward and began patting the woman down. Riff stopped a protest from escaping his lips when he saw the reason in Arbas's actions. Riff didn't fancy getting stabbed in the back just because he wanted to be courteous. Both the woman and Arbas drew no pleasure from it as he felt her up and down for any concealed weapon.

Finally deciding she was no threat, Arbas withdrew while still keeping her in his sights. Riff tensed as he realized he had no idea what to do at that point. He realized his stupidity at chasing down someone of who he had no inkling of understanding.

"You got a name?" Arbas asked. The woman puzzled over this for a second before she answered.

"Kadeth." The woman said with an unidentifiable accent.

"You understand us." It was a statement, not a question.

"Y-yes." Kadeth stuttered out in familiar low gothic.

"Is there anybody else here?" Arbas asked.

"Yes." Kadeth responded much more confidently.

"Lead us to them." Arbas said. "And don't try and put one over on us. We're just here looking for help." He added. Kadeth looked at them nervously for a moment and Riff feared she would make a run for it.

"Okay." Kadeth said. She began walking away at a moderate pace while Arbas followed close behind with his gun still trained on the back of her head. Riff didn't think they came off as looking for help. They probably looked like a bunch of thugs with the tattoos on their foreheads and the fact that they were prepared to shoot her if she so much as flinched wrong.

Riff was again surprised at the lack of devastation as they were led through the town. The Ork assault had apparently been confined to and halted in the front of the town. No bodies littered the streets and no damage had been inflicted on any of the houses. Riff suspected the number of survivors would be substantial, which certainly wouldn't hurt their odds at survival, especially if they could get one of them to translate their written language to low gothic.

"How rude of me, I forgot to introduce you to my friends." Arbas said. Kadeth didn't look particularly interested, but she listened anyway as she led them. "Riff is the fellow behind me and behind him you'll find Shem." Arbas said, jabbing his thumb back to point at them. Kadeth nodded in silent confirmation. Riff caught his eyes lingering on Kadeth as she walked and quickly averted them. Had it been that long since he'd seen a woman? Or was it her foreign looks. Riff shook the thought off as Kadeth led them along.

Kadeth led them to a particularly unremarkable house. It was as ornate as all the other houses and fit in with ease, which Riff guessed was why they used it as a hiding place. Kadeth opened the door and they cautiously stepped into the house. It had all the pleasantries Riff thought any other house would have, but with the foreign touch of the natives. Kadeth looked at Arbas and gestured to a rug with many intricate designs on the floor. Arbas nodded and Kadeth tore the rug away and discarded it haphazardly. A hatch door made of splintered wood was set into the floor. Arbas turned to Kadeth and began issuing instructions.

"You're gonna go down there and tell whoever else there is to get away from the hatch. Then you're gonna come back up and tell me when everybody's well away. After that…well we'll just have to see." Arbas said. Kadeth apparently understood the instructions as she threw open the hatch and climbed down.

It took her five minutes before Kadeth reappeared at the mouth of the hatch and ushered Arbas down. Arbas began climbing down as Kadeth descended followed by Riff and finally Shem. Riff was able to maneuver his lasrifle so that it didn't bother him, but Shem struggled to find the right position to carry his shock rod with until finally he sucked it up and began his descent down the hatch, being extra careful to keep clear of the rod's activation button.

Riff clung to the handholds as he made his way down in stifling darkness. He surprised at the tunnel's length but wished the natives' could have had some forethought and carved out some extra room. Riff heard Shem's quick intakes and for a moment he feared the juvie would break into a panic attack. It didn't occur to Riff that Shem might have claustrophobia. Being a hive-worlder, Riff had no problem with confined spaces but Shem had grown up in wealth, well away from the underhive's choking tunnels. However, Shem quickly brought his breathing under control and Riff silently pondered what they would find at the bottom of the tunnel.

The air was stale in the shelter and rank with the smell of something unidentifiable. Riff stood silently by Shem who held his rod at the ready. Arbas and Kadeth were only a few feet away. One lone luminator lit up the room but Riff saw some other light further away and figured others must be lighting up the shelter. The room they were in was fairly large and it reminded Riff of the rooms that had been carved out of Hell's Reach. However, this room, and if Riff had to guess the whole shelter, was colored a sickly green. The atmosphere was stifling and everything seemed to be screaming of neglect and decay. This place hadn't seen life for some time. Not human life anyway.

"What is this place?" Riff asked.

"Bunker, place to hide." Kadeth answered.

"Hide from what?" Riff questioned Kadeth again.

"Civil war, a long time ago." Kadeth said. Something about her coldness affected Riff in a way. He couldn't tell why or in what way, but it did. Then again, it only made sense she wouldn't want to do much talking to them seeing as how they had guns pointed at her.

"What's that smell?" Arbas asked as he gazed around the room.

"The bunker was built next to our sewer, just in case we were found we could escape." Kadeth said.

Arbas muttered something that sounded like "beautiful" before he gazed down a hall that led away from the room.

"How many of you are down here?" Arbas asked.

"Thirty or forty, mostly women and their children. No men, only boys." Kadeth said solemnly.

"And just where are they exactly?" Arbas tightened his finger around the lasrifle's trigger as he asked.

"In the main living quarters. I gathered them all there, not a single person was left behind. They are no threat to you." Kadeth shot Arbas a pleading look but he turned away and walked to Riff. Riff recognized the sincere look in her face and quickly dropped his eyes to avoid her face as her eyes followed Arbas.

"Hey," Arbas whispered to Riff. "How much charge does your ammo pack have?" Riff was caught off guard by the question but quickly pulled the ammo pack out and checked it.

"I think it's below seventy-five percent." Riff said.

"That should be okay, but if things go bad pick your targets." Arbas said. Riff gulped and felt himself begin to sweat.

"You can't be serious, they're just women and kids." Riff whispered urgently.

"We don't know that." Arbas said sternly. Riff admitted to himself that Arbas did have a point, there could be an armed mob waiting for them down the hall. Arbas turned to Shem who had overheard the conversation and was about as enthusiastic as Riff.

"Turn that rod on and keep it close." Arbas whispered to Shem who nodded in grim confirmation. Kadeth watched them with nervous interest.

"Alright," Arbas turned to Kadeth. "Lead the way."

Kadeth led them down the hall which looked about as sickly and old as the room before it. There were no doors of any kind, only the flickering of the ancient luminators. Occasionally, Riff thought he heard whispers echoing down the hall but he shook them off. The hall twisted and turned until finally they came upon a bolted door. Arbas took aim as Kadeth slid the latch back and opened the door. Riff couldn't see past Arbas who slowly walked forward as Kadeth hurried inside. Riff waited until Arbas had entered the room before he advanced.

There were no men as Kadeth had said, only women and children. Riff felt like he had startled an animal when the group of natives saw them. They were frightened, Riff didn't blame them. Some of the women were bald, others weren't. They wore the same style of clothing Kadeth did but they were all covered in grime and, now that Riff looked more closely, so was Kadeth. The children were the same, their little clothes were stained and smeared in places with a black substance. Riff fought down a pang of pity as he saw how they clung to their mothers. Their fathers were probably face down in their own blood just above them. The women were grim faced but still had the strong and foreign beauty that Kadeth had.

Arbas lowered his gun as Shem took his position at Riff's flank.

"My name is Arbas, and these are my friends Riff and Shem, we're lookin' for help." Arbas said as he looked at the group of women.

"Looking for help?" One woman spoke from the group. "Why should we help you?" The woman asked venomously.

"I don't wanna force you, but I will if it comes to that. We just need someone who's willin' to translate your writin' for us and we'll be on our way." Arbas said calmly. Riff wondered if the diplomatic angle would really work.

"You don't look like soldiers," another woman spoke up from the group. "We saw them fighting up above before we came down here. So what are you and where did you come from?" The woman asked.

"You're right, we're not soldiers. We just got ourselves caught up in this business." Arbas said with a little honesty.

"Liars." One woman hissed from the group. "I think you're one of them."

"Wait," Shem spoke up behind Riff. "You mean-you actually think we're with the Orks?" He asked in disbelief.

"What were they doing up there Kadeth?" The accusing woman asked Kadeth who had migrated over to the group.

"I heard them in the hall, they were making a mess of it Leum." Kadeth said to the woman named Leum.

"Looting it for your friends?" Leum shot at them.

In an instant Arbas had the lasrifle raised above his head. The seconds seemed to go by in hours as Riff saw the unthinkable about to happen before his eyes. Arbas was going to strike the woman down. But instead the lasrifle clattered to the floor at Arbas's feet.

"We're not lookin' to kill you dammit!" Arbas said loudly. "We just wanna get out of here with a map and that's it. You can stay down here as long as you want but we just wanna get our map and get goin', got it?" The group shuffled uncomfortably and the children looked up at their mothers for some kind of comfort. Kadeth turned her attention to Leum.

"We could go in the morning, find them a map and send them on their way." Kadeth said Leum. Riff knew what she was suggesting and prayed Leum agreed.

"So they would stay here for the night?" Leum asked. Kadeth nodded. "Armed strangers sleeping just walking distance away from our children?" Kadeth nodded less confidently than she had before. Leum looked skeptically at them for a moment.

"Give us your guns." Leum said.

"We're not goin' to hurt you!" Arbas roared. Some of the children pressed their faces into their mothers' legs. Riff put down his lasrifle and kicked it over to the women. Arbas hesitated a moment before kicking his discarded lasrifle over too. Shem followed suite and discarded his rod. Leum carefully picked up a lasrifle while the other two weapons were picked up by other women.

"You stay in here, and if you make to move anywhere else we'll kill you." Leum said as she glared at them. Riff knew better to object as he'd seen that glare far too many time before.

The women filed out through another hall that Riff guessed probably led to actual rooms with real beds. They had to settle against the cold wall and will themselves to sleep as the luminators flickered off. It was surprisingly easy as Riff didn't realize how tired he'd been. They were safe, that was something. If he could find an excuse to stay longer in this place he would. But for now he settled against the wall as the world faded and he drifted off to the only truly safe place anymore.