Blackfang’s camp.
An Ork covered in blood came rushing through the camp gate.
A deep gash ran along his left arm, half the iron armour on his shoulder was shattered, and he stumbled into the middle of the camp with one hand braced against the gateframe.
“Boss!
Gragoth’s coming for us!” The Orks busy around the camp stopped what they were doing and turned to look at the messenger.
Blackfang frowned.
“What’s there to be scared of?
With the few Boyz he’s got, coming here is just asking to die.” The Ork was covered in blood and breathing heavily.
He hesitated for a second.
His mouth opened, closed again, and only then did he finally speak.
“There’s more than three hundred of ’em…” Blackfang stood frozen.
The half-eaten leg bone slipped from his fingers and hit the ground.
A violent crash suddenly thundered from outside the gate.
A massive figure in green heavy armour, nearly four metres tall, smashed straight through the entrance.
The hinges tore free from their welds, and both iron gates bent inward before crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust.
Blackfang saw the massive iron shell.
“Gragoth?” Another layer of newly welded armour plates had been added to Gragoth’s suit, making him look even bulkier than before.
He swept his gaze across Blackfang’s Boyz in the camp.
More than two hundred pairs of eyes stared back at him.
One-Eye charged through the shattered gateway behind Gragoth, with Stikk following close behind, his iron ball dragging across the ground as the chain rattled.
More greenskins poured through the broken entrance, every one of them still carrying the heat of a recent fight.
Blackfang froze when he saw the Orks flooding in.
Because among them, he recognized several faces.
The one on the left with a chunk missing from his pauldron was Shatterjaw.
The veteran on the right with a bandaged hand was from the second outpost.
And the guy leaning against the wall had been the second-in-command at the first outpost.
Blackfang stared at them, his frown deepening.
“You!” He pointed at the first outpost’s second-in-command.
“What are you doing here?” The Ork looked up at Blackfang, his expression somewhat awkward.
He rubbed his bandaged hand and didn’t answer directly.
Blackfang turned toward Shatterjaw.
“And you?” Shatterjaw scratched the back of his head.
“…Boss.” “I…
I betrayed ya!” The corner of Blackfang’s mouth twitched.
He walked toward Gragoth one step at a time.
The two stopped face-to-face, less than two metres apart.
The Orks in the camp automatically backed away to either side, opening up a larger space around them.
Blackfang looked Gragoth up and down.
His gaze moved from Gragoth’s pauldrons to his breastplate, from the axe blade to the additional armour plates around his waist.
Finally, he stared into the eyes behind Gragoth’s faceplate.
Gragoth looked down at him.
“Your Boyz are pretty good.
They can fight.” “So I kept ’em.” A low growl forced its way out of Blackfang’s throat.
He suddenly raised his head, clenched his fists, and tensed every muscle in his body.
The rivets on his pauldrons creaked under the strain.
“Gragoth!
I don’t care if you’re some Primarch or whatever!
Today I’m chopping you down!” Gragoth raised a hand.
He lifted the massive axe from beside his feet, turned the blade, and held it horizontally between them.
The metallic reflection from the axe head fell across Blackfang’s face.
Blackfang’s body stood more than three metres tall, like a moving mountain of muscle.
He seized a double-headed battle axe nearly as tall as himself and charged at Gragoth with a roar.
The axe came crashing down.
Gragoth raised his left arm and met it head-on with the armour covering his forearm.
Clang!
A deep metallic crash echoed across the entire camp.
Blackfang’s double-headed battle axe struck Gragoth’s forearm, the blade grinding against the armour in a long shower of blinding sparks.
Blackfang’s eyes widened.
That same axe had once split through the side armour of a war vehicle, yet now it couldn’t even cut through one layer of this iron shell?
Gragoth shook out his arm as though brushing off a fly.
“Heh…
hahaha!
Blackfang, is that all you’ve got?” Blackfang gritted his teeth and swung his axe horizontally for a second strike.
Gragoth moved first.
The hydraulic piston on his right arm suddenly extended with a sharp metallic shriek, and a straight punch blasted toward Blackfang’s chest.
Blackfang immediately pulled back and raised his battle axe in front of himself to block.
The fist slammed into the flat of the axe.
Blackfang felt as though he’d been hit head-on by a truck.
The steel shaft of the battle axe instantly bent into an arc, and the axe head was driven back into his breastplate.
The terrifying force travelled through the weapon and into his body, lifting both his feet off the ground and sending him flying more than ten metres backward.
He rolled twice through the air, crashed heavily onto the ground, then slid another seven or eight metres before his back finally slammed into a rack piled with scrap metal.
The rack collapsed, burying him beneath a clattering heap of parts.
Blackfang lay amid the wreckage as a mouthful of blood poured from his lips.
There was no telling how many ribs that punch had broken.
He struggled to push himself up, but both arms trembled violently.
Every attempt to move pulled at the wounds across his body, and the pain nearly made him pass out.
Gragoth strode toward him.
The ground shook with every step.
Gravel and metal scraps around his feet jumped with each impact, as though afraid of the massive figure approaching.
Blackfang finally managed to push himself upright with his hands on his knees.
He panted heavily, blood dripping from his chin.
Clutching his already deformed battle axe, he used the last of his strength to charge at Gragoth.
Gragoth stood still.
When Blackfang reached him, Gragoth’s right hand suddenly shot out and seized the axe blade.
The hydraulic piston contracted.
His five fingers tightened.
Crack!
The forged steel axe blade was crushed apart in his palm, fragments clattering across the ground.
Blackfang stood frozen, gripping a weapon that now had only half its shaft left.
Gragoth pulled back his hand and backhanded Blackfang across the face.
The slap carried the full force of the power armour.
Blackfang spun halfway around on the spot, two broken teef and a streak of blood flying from his mouth before he crashed heavily onto his side.
He lay there, barely conscious, struggling a few times before finally going limp, gasping heavily and unable to stand again.
Gragoth looked down at him.
“You lost.” The instant those words fell, a thunderous roar erupted through the camp.
“WAAAGH!” One-Eye was the first to leap up.
He raised his bolter high overhead and fired a burst into the sky.
His face flushed, veins bulging along his neck as he roared at the top of his lungs, “You see that?!
You all zoggin’ see that?!
That’s a Primarch!
That’s a real Boss!” Shatterjaw stood nearby, rubbing the bandages wrapped around the back of his head and grinning through his missing tooth.
He spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the ground and shouted, “Told ya!
Betraying him was worth it!
Following da Primarch’s where da future is!
Blackfang ain’t worth a damn!” Gragoth’s core Boyz raised their weapons one after another and erupted into deafening cheers.
“Primarch!
Primarch!
Primarch!” Several Boyz rushed over to Blackfang, kicked away the weapon lying beside him, then spat at him.
One young Ork turned around and stared up at Gragoth’s four-metre-tall armoured body with open admiration, his eyes shining.
“Blackfang, I’m giving you two choices.
Either become Captain of my First Company, or die!”
It really helps the fic grow!