Warhammer 40K

Soloman the Blood God

By typicalteenager.

Disclaimer: I do not, and never will, own 40K, the characters etc.

Important: 1) This is only my second ever fanfic, so it may not be that good.

2) Thoughts are in Italic.

3) Book entries, letters etc. are in Bold Italic.

Well, here we go!


Chapter 28: One step a-head (or two)


"You know Beef-cake," said Mortraz's head, "one would think that after everything else you've seen, this would seem pretty mundane."

"Oh shut up" grumbled Soloman, picking himself off the floor, and grateful that he'd brought up his breakfast back at the vent and thus had had nothing in his bowels to vacate upon being presented with a talking disembodied head.

Arita was staring at Mortraz's head with wonder. "Oh wow! He can still talk!" She looked down at the head she was carrying. "Can you still talk as well?"

Thankfully for Soloman's sake, the other head remained silent.

Recomposing himself, he turned to address Mortraz's head. "Mortraz, what happened to you? Who did this?"

Mortraz gave the closest thing a head could manage to shrugging his shoulders, which was communicated surprisingly well. "I honesty have no idea. One minute I'm performing my afternoon dance recital on the balcony, and then suddenly I get a call telling me of an emergency that requires my expertises, only to get struck over the head with something when I arrive, and wake up to find myself with a sack over my head, my arms and legs bound, and being carried by some Daemon with broad shoulders." Mortraz gave a slight smile as a glazed expression came over his face. "Yes, very broad shoulders... and well-toned arms too..."

Well, thought Soloman, at least he's not traumatised by the experience. "Listen Mortraz, because this is very important: the last time we spoke you said you might be able to create a counter-potion to Tzeentch's concoction. Do you still think you can do it?"

Mortraz pursed his lips as he pondered. He stayed silent for a few moments, and then replied. "...Yes. Yes I can. I'll need my body back of course, but I can do it."

Soloman was so relieved he could have whooped for joy. At last things seemed to be going their way.

Arita shared his delight. "Hooray! That puts us one step ahead of old bird-brain!" She suddenly paused, and then laughed. "One step a-head! Get it? Because Mr. Mortraz is now a head?" She fell to her knees, almost crying with laughter.

Mortraz didn't share her amusement, looking rather miffed. Soloman could only assume that, while he hadn't been traumatised by his beheading, it must have still been painful to say the least. He turned to stare at the Blood God. "I'm surprised at you, Beef-cake. I would have thought you would have taught her better etiquette than that."

"W-What!" Soloman spluttered in indignation. "Me? How on Terra is this my fault?"

Mortraz opened his mouth-

-and whatever he said was drowned out but a deep, guttural growl.

Soloman slowly turned his head to stare at the dark passageway that he had walked along to reach this room only a few minutes earlier. "What," he asked apprehensively, "was that?"

Mortraz, usually so calm, was for once looking unnerved. "I do believe," he said, a slightly higher note to his voice than usual, "that my surgeon is on his way here."

Soloman gulped. Anything that made Mortraz nervous was something that he didn't want to deal with if possible, Blood God powers or not.

"Come on, we're leaving" he decided. Picking up the glass jar containing Mortraz's head, he handed to Arita. "Arita, you hold on to this. I'll carry the body."

"Hang on" said Mortraz. "There's only one exit, and our growling friend is coming along it. How are we supposed to escape?"

"Easy" replied Soloman, as he lifted the body up in his arms, and he nodded in the direction of their escape route. "Up that small vent."

Mortraz gazed at the hole. "That thing? We'll barely fit- even you can see that."

"Yes, but I also know that it doesn't have some daemonic surgeon in it. Now come on."

Marching up to the hole, Soloman lifted the body up and pushed it up into the vent. Holding it up with one arm, he felt inside, and found a ridge. Grasping with his fingers, he pressed one foot against the wall, and half-stepped, half-jumped up into the vent.

Thankfully the vent got a little wider inside, so that he was able to press his knees against one side, and his back against the other, holding himself in place. Still holding the body up above him with one arm, he reached down with the other. "Sweetie, pass up Mortraz."

Arita did as she was told, and Soloman, grasping the edge of the jar, lifted it up onto his lap, leaving his arm free to reach down again.

The growling was growing very loud as Arita, grasping the second head between her knees, pulled herself up by her arms into the vent, seating herself on her father's lap, with both heads held in her own lap.

"Right," Soloman whispered, "everyone stay still, and keep quiet."

Sliding his left knee slightly up the pipe, he shuffled his back up the pipe a little, before sliding up his right knee, and shuffling his back again. Left knee, shuffle, right knee, shuffle, left knee, shuffle...


... right knee, shuffle, left knee, shuffle, right knee-

"Daddy?"

"What is it Arita?"

His daughter looked at him with a glum expression. "I'm bored. And I'm hungry."

Mortraz twisted his head as best he could. "I too am bored and hungry."

Soloman sighed. "Well I'm sorry, but there's not a lot I can do about it. Unless you wish to start eating parts off your body?"

Mortraz wrinkled his nose at that suggestion. "Don't be vulgar."

"Well then I'm sorry" replied Soloman, "but you're just going to have to remain bored and hungry."

He didn't really blame them for feeling that way. He had been shuffling up this pipe for God-Emperor knows how long, and there was no end in sight. Having a bare torso meant his back was slowly being ruined, his skin feeling like it was scraping off like poorly-grated cheese, and the occasional click that sounded horribly like his spine scratching against stone. He couldn't see his knees in the darkness, but he could only imagine what state they were in. The one consolation about this was that his body had gone numb, including his arm, which was still pushing Mortraz's body up the vent before them.

However, the situation was still horrendous, given that they were in complete darkness, and the remnants of Soloman's breakfast, still spattered over his back, and the spare head Arita had found, were together filling the vent with the most awful smell.

All in all, it was a most unpleasant situation for the three of them. Arita sat on his stomach, with her knees up to her chin, while Mortraz had somehow ended up balancing on his crotch: a feat Soloman was sure he had managed to do deliberately despite his lacking a body.

Soloman sighed, and thought of his comfortable bed waiting back in the Keep. His thought then turned to Zeena and Slaanesh.

I wonder what they're up to. Well, whatever it is, it must be better than this.


As it happened, whether you would consider what the two daemonettes were doing was better was a debatable point. At that moment, for reasons known only to themselves, they were both sitting in armchairs in what passed as the Keep's living room, each with several pieces of paper, trying to out-do each other in writing the latest opera with which to torment the citizens of the Imperium.

(Typicalteenager: The exact details of such operas, beyond their magical effects, are not known, but what does exist makes it clear that the old Imperial Gothic culture's reputation for the use of opera as a torture weapon, inherited from the early societies of Terra, may be partly due to subtle daemonic influence.)

The two of them had been going at it for several hours, and several earlier attempts littered the floor. The reason they were still going at it was because both of them were trying to write the most bone-chilling operas possible, which meant, that the temperature of the room had decreased with each written attempt, to the point that now the room rivalled most ice planets in terms of bitter coldness.

Although his thick skin allowed him to endure such low temperatures, Blud an' Gutz was smart enough -by Ork standards- to know that he didn't have to stay there and endure it, and so, after an internal struggle, since his 'inner Ork' compelled him to stay there and endure the cold simply to prove that he could, had left to decide what to cook for the evening meal.

Now, being relatively smart by Ork standards, Blud an' Gutz had recently paid a visit to the daemonic equivalent of a Dok and gotten a human stomach implanted in him, on the grounds of "makin' sure da Boss-ez food waz good e-nuf for him, coz Orks an' Hummies eat dif-fur-runt-lee".

Unfortunately, while this act was very commendable, it should be noted that even a smart Ork is, compared to any other species, still pretty dense (except Gretchin: dried grass is smarter than Gretchin), and poor Blud an' Gutz hadn't taken into account that he had an Ork's sense of taste and smell, not a human's. So when preparing the starter for the evening meal, to the Ork it looked appetising and smelt enticing, and upon having a small bowl of the soup for himself as a taste test found it to be delicious.

His Ork stomach, upon receiving the soup, agreed with him.

His new human stomach, on the other hand, reacted rather violently to the concoction. It spent about a minute making a desperate attempt to digest the soup, before giving up and deciding that the stuff had got to go.

So despite feeling that the meal was an epitome of Ork cuisine, Blud an' Gutz soon found himself with a strong burning sensation in his throat and the unmistakeable need to throw up.

Now this wouldn't be an issue for Blud an' Gutz, except he was surrounded by the food he intended for the evening meal, and he was pretty sure 'da Boss' would not react well to having his cook's breakfast and lunch as part of his dinner. He couldn't through up in the sink either –as Soloman had discovered upon chucking up one of his meals some time prior to the Ork's employment*, the sink was designed to drain water and of course blood, not the contents of one's stomach.

But thankfully that was not a problem. The main waste pipe for the Keep ran down the outside of the wall, a few feet from the kitchen door. Blud an' Gutz walked over to the door, then through it, went over to the main waste pipe, opened the inspection hatch, forced his head through, and finally showed mercy to his human stomach by emptying the soup down the pipe.

After this rather tedious experience –since the food had been delicious to the Ork, and it was annoying that his 'hummie stum-ak waz so weak'- the Ork pulled his head out, closed the hatch, and headed back to the kitchen.

He was just about to open the door to enter when he heard a distant squeal, followed by muffled cries, all of which were echoing. In order to echo like that, it would have to be coming from the waste pipe.

Puzzled, Blud an' Gutz went back over to the pipe and opened the hatch again.

His reward for this was to have his ears filled with pain as the shrill cries now clearly and audibly echoed up to the hatch.

"MY BEAUTIFUL BODY! DEFILED! STAINED! RUINED! SWEET MERCIFUL BEEF-CAKE PLEASE LET THIS BE A BAD DREAM!"

Blud an' Gutz wasn't quite sure what all the fuss was about, but he got the feeling that someone was not very happy.


Typicalteenager:

Okay: even I'm aware how ridiculously long it has been since I updated this.

Therefore, I PROMISE –and you can hold me to this- that there will be another chapter uploaded before the end of the month.

You have my word.

(Instantly starts planning the next chapter in order to maximise his chances of avoiding being torn apart by angry readers).


*Back in Chapter 16: how long has it been since I wrote that? Probably too long.

(Checks and sees September 2010)

...Geez.