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  Death’s Head – Josh Reynolds

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  A Black Library Publication

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  Death’s Head

  Josh Reynolds

  Topek Greel rolled his shoulder and drove his fist forward like a piston. Throwing a punch was as easy as breathing for him. As natural as a smile. The impact radiated through his arm and shoulder. His lips split in a wide grin as bone crunched beneath his fist, and his opponent grunted.

  The cheering of the slime-barge crew faltered. They crowded the top deck, wagering and shouting. ‘Rip his head off, Hurk,’ one of them howled. ‘I’ve got a week’s pay riding on this!’ Despite the encouragement, Hurk staggered, face going slack. He was bigger than Greel, with slabs of chem-altered muscle and a face that was mostly scar tissue. He’d probably thumped more men than Greel knew by name. But Greel was a killer, and he fought to win. Hurk must have seen that in his eyes, because he roared and swung out a hammer-like fist. The punch was wild – desperate. It barely grazed the top of Greel’s head and the flat strip of hair that ran over his otherwise bare scalp.

  Moving swiftly, he closed in, the stimms singing in his veins. The next blow wasn’t necessary. Hurk was already down, he just didn’t know it yet. His face was going purple from that last punch, and he was wheezing like a faltering pump. But Greel liked things neat. It was untidy to just let a man sag, when you could plant him clean and proper. And he had a point to prove to the audience, to show them he wasn’t some soft uphiver.

  The crew of the slime-barge had been prodding him since he’d booked passage in Two Pumps, trying to provoke him into wagering on a fight. They’d thought he was just a stimm-rat, fresh from the foundries, too green to be out alone, too stupid not to get drawn into a rigged contest. They’d thought him an easy mark. They were wrong.

  His second punch caught the towering crewman in the solar plexus, lifting him off unsteady feet, and casting him back onto the deck in a heap. The cheering died away as Greel looked around, flexing his hands. On the deck, Hurk moaned, tried to rise, failed. Greel smiled, showing his teeth. He still had all of them, for a wonder. ‘I win,’ he rumbled. ‘Credits – now.’ He held out his palm expectantly.

  Money changed hands, amid some muttering. No one met his eyes though. That was good. He’d made his point, and earned some scratch in the process. Token chips, bearing the Guilder seal of value, came to him in a pile, and he counted them idly. A bit more than he’d thought. Then, he’d given them good odds. The betting circle broke up, and the unconscious crewman was dragged away. They’d splash him with bilge-brew and wake him up, or toss him over the side, into the slime. It didn’t matter to Greel which.

  Excitement over, and the crew back at their stations, the slime-barge continued its slow trundle across the scummy waters, belching toxic smoke from its leaking stacks. Greel went to where he’d left his gear and tool-rig near the rail. He’d kept one eye on it during the fight, but even so, he automatically cracked open the cylinder of his stub gun. Fortunately, the bulky slug-thrower didn’t appear to have been tampered with. As he snapped it back into place, he fixed his flat, dark eyes on the nearing shape of his destination.

  Down Town sat at the bottom of the underhive, below even the slag heaps and thump-shafts of the Orlock. It was a tangled collection of collapsed domes and badly made shanties, riddled with crawl-holes and sump-ducts. It spilled down the side of an effluent-worn shaft, and crept out across the vast, dark sump-lake, fed by rivers of sludge that poured down from far above. Sludge-trawlers scraped the surface of the lake, their crews shouting obscenities at their rivals over static-ridden vox-casters.

  It was said that everything and anything eventually ended up in Down Town. Supposedly, you could find whatever you were looking for, no matter how rare or precious. And you could have it, if you were willing to pay the price. That was why he’d come. And he didn’t intend to leave empty-handed.

  Greel pulled the rest of his gear on with brisk efficiency, buckling snaps and unadorned furnace-plates over his thick torso and wrists. He was a big man, despite his lack of years. Then, House Goliath didn’t grow them any other way. Size and strength was what was valued, the courage to use both without regard for consequences. The bravery to take what you wanted, when you wanted it.

  Greel did not think of himself as especially brave. Bravery required the acknowledgement of fear. Greel had never felt fear, that he was aware of. It was a foreign concept, as strange to him as the practices of the Great Houses, high uphive. As strange as the thought of an existence outside the foundries where he’d grown to manhood – or as close as he was likely to get. Life expectancy wasn’t high for a valve-jack like him.

  One slip, and you were in the Spew. If the super-heated waters of the foundry coolant-flow didn’t cook you, the things that lived in them would happily eat you raw, unless you could dissuade them. Instinctively, his hand fell to the spud-jacker hanging from his tool-rig. Like the stub pistol, it was never far from his side. The big wrench was heavy enough to crush a smaller man’s skull with one thump. It could also bust the fangs out of a sump-stalker’s mouth, if you were lucky, and kept your head.

  Greel always kept his head. You had to, working the Spew. You had to see all the variables, before they crept up on you. He leaned over the deck and spat. Variables was a good word. One of his favourites. He kept a list, and added to it when he could. When no one was looking. Valve-jacks weren’t supposed to waste time learning things that didn’t relate to pressure gauges and the tensile strength of a ring-seal.

  He’d been taught his letters by a red-robe – one of the sort who was more apt to talk you to death than set you on fire. The Redemptionist had taught him to scribe and to read some, thinking it might make Greel more amenable to his preaching. Once Greel had learned all that the crazy ratbag could teach him, into the Spew he’d gone, him and his scumming pamphlets. It had been Greel’s first killing. There’d been others since, but few as satisfying.

  He’d never thumped anyone who didn’t have it coming – old Kurland, who’d stolen his best spud-jacker; that lunatic, Orem, who’d tried to thieve his stimms; and the sump-fisher, Jaqo. He grimaced, thinking of that last one. Not of the killing itself, but the sloppiness of it. The stimms had been rushing something fierce, eating away at his control. Not a clean kill, that. Too much blood and thunder.

  Greel liked things neat. Precise. Valves had to be tightened or loosened exactly, or you got drips and cracks. Either could spell disaster. You had to count the twists, listen to the pulse of the pipes, gauge the temperature. You had to be precise. Or else you were dead.

  That went double, when it came to a man like Irontooth Korg. Greel leaned on the rail, watching the docks draw close, and thinking of the promises Korg had made. He didn’t know what he’d done to draw Irontooth’s eye, but the gang-leader had offered him a life beyond the Spew and the foundry, and a chance to be something more than a disposable cog. An opportunity for a new life in the Steelgate Kings.

  The Kings ruled Steelgate. They charged a hefty toll on the constant flow of ore from the slag-pits to the zone manufactories, and all but controlled the loads of processed metals heading in the opposite direction. They beggared local merchants and even took a cut from the Guilders – the price of the Kings’ protection. There was always a price.

  Greel fingered the auto-rig about his neck. The collar regulated the chems and stimms that kept his body functioning. Once, the foundry overseers had held that leash. Now Korg had it. So far, there wasn’t much difference. One master was much the same as another, in Greel’s limited experience. But he’d started to wonder if it
might be better to have no master at all. Or, failing that, one he chose for himself.

  Either way, just as it had been down among the valves, here he was again, doing the dirty work, and not expected to survive what Irontooth had laughingly called his initiation. Either he brought back the man he’d been sent to fetch, or he didn’t come back at all. Given who it was he was looking for, the latter seemed more likely. Korg didn’t seem to care either way. Maybe it was all a joke to him.

  Jaqo had liked jokes too, and ended up in the Spew for his trouble. Greel flexed his hands. He could still feel the way Jaqo’s neck-bone had popped. He smiled a thin smile, enjoying the way his scars stretched taut. Every scar was a story – something he’d read in one of the red-robe’s books. His books, now. He’d kept them, after their owner had taken the plunge, and stashed them away, where he could plunder their secrets at his leisure.

  Not that you got much leisure, working the valves. Not a lot of downtime, when there were quotas to meet. Maybe he’d have more time to read, if he survived his rite of passage. If he found the man they called the Widowmaker.

  He’d heard the stories. Every valve-jack and furnace-tender had. Lothar Hex was a legend this side of the Wall. And for good reason. A killer unlike any other. Death on two legs. Some said that even Lord Helmawr himself had deigned to pay the assassin’s exorbitant prices, once or twice. No two stories about Hex described him the same way. Greel was half convinced that there was no Hex – just an assortment of unsolved murders, ascribed to a legend. But Irontooth Korg said different, and Korg was in charge.

  At least for now.

  Somewhere overhead, a vox-caster bawled, alerting the dock-crews that they were inbound, and interrupting Greel’s ruminations. The slime-barge shuddered slightly as its keel scraped sludge-bottom. Smaller vessels gave way grudgingly as the barge bulled past them, nearly swamping their decks. The barge-crew slung heavy anchor chains over mooring posts as the vessel drifted into its berth. Ragged dock workers hurried out of the shanties and sheds that lined the shore, ready to begin unloading cargo.

  Greel ignored the swirl of confusion as he thumped down the gangplank. The crews gave him a wide berth. None of them could match him for size, and he waded easily through the swirling crowd of bodies. He knew where he was going. Irontooth hadn’t given him much to help him in his search, but he did have a name – a swill-joint called the White Mare. It was past the docks, but still on the shore somewhere. Most of Down Town was these days, after years of hive quakes and natural subsidence. Whole sections of the place slid out over the lake like a scum of wood and metal. New streets had been built to accommodate the erosion of the shoreline. Hundreds of rusted gantries stretched between the tumbledown buildings balancing on sludge-stilts.

  Small skiffs navigated the forest of support beams and waste-ducts, fishing the shallows, or cultivating corpse-starch deposits. The air was acrid, lacking the harsh heat of the foundry or the cloying vapour of the Spew. It was cold as well, and damp. Condensation clung to every window, and thick patches of yellowish fungus climbed the sides of every building. The skins of strange things that had crawled up from the deep places hung from walls and over doorways – scabrous and scaly hides that stank of secret places.

  Greel made his way through the tangle of streets, pushing through the crowds of merchants hawking cheap wares, and downhivers looking for deals. The gantries creaked beneath the weight of so many bodies, and occasionally swayed in a perturbing fashion. Greel, used to watching his balance on wet metal, moved quickly, pushing his way through the crowds, letting his bulk clear him a path. He peered about, seeking anything that looked like a bar, but found nothing save merchant stalls and cheapjack stills that were little more than a single plank and a keg of something noxious.

  He was getting frustrated when he caught sight of the scummer trailing him. He skirted a spoil heap that had spilled across the gantry, and took the opportunity to glance back. A thin man with a chem-addiction twitch, wearing battered leathers and a heavy rebreather. He wore no colours, no sign of any affiliation, but his intent was clear. Greel knew a hunter when he saw one. But where there was one, there were usually more. Greel flexed his hands, and felt the stimms boil in him.

  Mutant rats, feeding on the waste, scattered with raucous shrieks as the second scummer lunged out of a narrow gap between two shacks, fighting knife held low. The scummers, like the rats, were scavengers. Outlaws or just unlucky, they had only what they could take from someone else.

  Greel caught the knifeman’s wrist and jerked him forward. Their skulls connected with a satisfying thump, and the scummer staggered, eyes unfocused. Greel snatched up his spud-jacker and finished the job his head had started. One blow, and the scummer folded up and collapsed with barely a sound. The first had caught up with him by then, and came in high and fast, knife in hand. Greel spun to meet him. The scummer’s wrist snapped as the spud-jacker came down, and the knife clattered away.

  Greel caught his attacker by the shirt and propelled him backwards, until the scummer’s spine struck the gantry rail. The man groaned, the rebreather giving his voice a mechanical rasp. ‘The White Mare,’ Greel growled. ‘Where is it?’

  The scummer cursed and scrabbled at the grip on his filthy shirt. His eyes had been stained yellow by downmarket chems. Greel lifted him easily, the stimms raging in his blood. He had to be careful. If he let them get hold of him, he’d burn out and collapse. Precision was the key – not too much, just enough. ‘Show me, or go for a swim in the sludge.’

  The scummer squawked, and jerked a panicked glance at the dark, slow-moving waters below. He pointed over Greel’s shoulder. Still holding the scummer up, Greel turned. He saw a heavy clapboard building, resting at the end of a nearby offshoot. A crude caricature of a white raft spider had been painted on the sign – a White Mare, one of the mountainous arachnids said to haunt the industrial jungles of Hive Bottom.

  Greel heard a hiss of metal on leather and turned back, just as the scummer snagged a second blade from inside his coat with his good hand. Greel dropped his spud-jacker and caught the scummer’s wrist. He squeezed until the knife dropped to the gantry. ‘Idiot,’ he said. With a grunt, he flung the screaming scummer out over the sludge, and turned away. He heard the thick sound of the man hitting the murky water as he made his way towards the entrance to the White Mare, and smiled.

  The bar hung off the edge of the offshoot, its rear deck balanced on a precariously constructed extension. It swayed and creaked in the breeze, its sign rattling in a metal frame. Drunks huddled near the entrance, only to scatter as Greel stepped inside. He could hear music that was mostly static emanating from a cheap-rig vox-system.

  The White Mare stank of spilled Second Best, cheap amasec and grease. Something with too many legs cooked on a spit being turned by an elderly Ratskin woman at the firepit in the corner. Maybe half a dozen tables, all occupied. Mostly dock-crew or sump-fishers. All armed, he saw. They all looked at Greel as he entered, and then away. No one would meet his eyes. Satisfaction warred with unease as he turned towards the bar.

  The barkeep was a big man, running to fat. He had a round head, and crudely inked tattoos marked one half of his face and both hands. He flashed brown teeth in what Greel thought was supposed to be an inviting grin. ‘What can I get for you?’

  ‘I’m looking for Lothar Hex,’ Greel said flatly.

  The bar went quiet, save for a few mutters. The barkeep swallowed and looked away. ‘Don’t know anyone called Hex.’

  ‘I was told you’d know where he is.’

  ‘And who told you that?’

  ‘Irontooth Korg.’

  ‘Don’t know any Irontooth.’

  ‘You don’t know much, do you?’ Greel said softly. ‘Perhaps you need to be reminded.’ He drew his stub pistol, cocked it and pressed it to the barkeep’s shiny egg of a head. ‘Tell me what I want to know, or I’ll paint the back wall red.’

/>   Silence fell. Greel glanced around, noting with some satisfaction that every eye was on him. As tactics went, it wasn’t an especially clever one. But sometimes simpler was better. Sometimes you just had to loosen the valve, and let it drip. ‘That goes for all of you,’ he added. He heard the rustle of weapons being drawn, and his smile widened.

  ‘It’s a rare sort of fellow who can smile in the face of death,’ someone called out. Heads turned towards the back deck, and chairs scraped as several patrons hurriedly got up and left. Greel lowered his weapon and made his way towards the curtains of rat-hide that separated the common room from the deck. He brushed them aside and bent under the lintel, stub pistol still in hand. It was dim, the only light from a weakly flickering lumen strip attached to the roof beam.

  There was only a single table and two chairs. A bottle of Wild Snake stood in the centre of the table with two shot glasses. One of the chairs was occupied by a lean man dressed in stained leathers and a heavy coat. He looked like no one in particular, with the sort of face that slid out of memory as soon as you looked away. But something about his eyes, and the way he smiled, told Greel all he needed to know.

  ‘You’re Hex,’ Greel said.

  The man motioned to the unoccupied chair. ‘Sit.’

  Greel hesitated, but only for a moment. Hex, if it was him, studied Greel for a moment. Then he poured two shots of Wild Snake, and pushed one towards Greel. ‘You have the advantage on me – you know my name, but I don’t know yours.’

  ‘Greel.’

  ‘To your health, Greel.’ Hex lifted his glass and knocked it back. Greel sipped his own. Wild Snake was powerful stuff, almost a stimm in its own right. It burned his throat, and he was glad he hadn’t tried to gulp it down. Hex watched him.

  ‘Not used to the good stuff, then?’ he asked, a slight smile playing across his bland features. ‘Bit stronger than the foundry-juice you’re used to, I expect.’

  ‘My palate,’ Greel faltered slightly over the word, ‘is still learning.’ Hex’s smile widened.