The square was silent for a second and a half.
Then it was as though someone had tossed a match into a powder keg.
The entire square exploded into chaos.
Some Orks dropped to their knees on the spot and started bowing toward the statue.
Others threw down their guns and pounded the ground.
Some counted on their fingers, trying to work out how many rebels they’d have to take down to earn a Dreadnought.
Blackfang stood frozen in place, his tusks spread as wide as possible and his mouth hanging open.
The word “Dreadnought” went around and around inside his head.
Each time, he rearranged the ideas again.
Armour.
Bigger.
Bigger than power armour.
Just how damn big did armour bigger than power armour have to be?
He lowered his head and looked at the First Company Captain’s power armour he’d only been wearing for a day, a suit he couldn’t stop admiring no matter how many times he looked at it.
And according to the Primarch, this thing was only ordinary?
Then a Dreadnought had to be damn— The more Blackfang thought about it, the more confused he became.
An image appeared in his mind.
An iron shell even taller than Gragoth, with six exhaust pipes instead of three, fists bigger than war vehicles, and a single punch capable of wiping out half an outpost.
He suddenly raised his head and roared, “Primarch!” Gragoth looked down at him, his eyes shifting behind the faceplate.
“What?” “How do I get myself a Dreadnought?” That roar cut through all the surrounding noise.
The Orks who had still been arguing over who was more loyal to the Emperor and who deserved a place in First Company instantly stopped and turned toward Blackfang.
“Yeah!” An Ork squeezed his way into the front row.
“I want one too!” “Me too!” Calls rose one after another from the crowd.
Several Boyz who had been glaring at each other over First Company spots immediately changed direction and rushed toward Gragoth instead.
Gragoth stood at the foot of the statue and looked over the greenskins in front of him, tusks exposed and iron armour clanging.
He asked calmly, “Don’t you lot wanna get into First Company?” “We do!” dozens of voices answered at once.
“Don’t you wanna wear power armour?” “We do!” even more Orks roared this time.
“Don’t you want Dreadnoughts?” This time, the entire square seemed to shake.
Several hundred Orks opened their mouths at once.
“WE DO!” The roar struck the ruins surrounding the square and echoed back, shaking several more bricks loose from a nearby half-collapsed building.
Gragoth waited for the echoes to fade before calmly continuing.
“Then show me how hard you can fight.” The Orks looked at one another, their breathing growing heavier between their tusks.
Twilight had completely faded.
The night sky above Saint Hecate was pitch-black, with no stars visible overhead.
Only a few distant fires burning among the ruins painted the horizon dark red.
No one remembered the old name of this ruined city anymore.
The Orks now called it Scrapheap City.
And because of today’s gathering, from this moment onward every Ork would call this place Big Fight Square.
Gragoth stepped forward from the base of the statue, the iron boot of his power armour crushing an already cracked stone tile.
He swept his gaze across the dense mass of greenskins below.
His voice came through the amplifier and echoed across the empty square.
“I told you I’d say who we’re fighting next.” He turned around.
His massive axe slowly swept from left to right.
Under the combined glow of distant fires and the white light of the statue, the axe blade reflected a moving line of brightness.
Everything the blade passed over was part of the city swallowed by darkness.
From the broken skyline stretching away from the edge of the square, from the nearest row of collapsed buildings to the farthest smokestacks on the horizon, the entirety of Scrapheap City lay within that arc.
“I ain’t going after one person.” The Orks listened in silence.
Gragoth turned back toward them, his faceplate pointed at the crowd.
“I’m going to—” The massive axe suddenly slammed into the ground.
Boom!
Stone tiles exploded, fragments spraying in every direction.
“I’m going after everyone!” Blackfang’s mouth snapped shut.
His exhaust pipes coughed out a sharp burst of black smoke.
His nostrils flared, and two heavy breaths rushed out between his tusks.
Gragoth didn’t stop.
His amplified voice continued growing louder, clear enough that even the scattered Orks squatting among the ruins at the edge of the square could hear every word.
“From today onward, everyone in Scrapheap City who won’t listen to me is a rebel!” He paused after each sentence, letting every word sink into the greenskins’ heads.
“Their Warbosses—rebels!
Their Nobz—rebels!
Their Boyz—” The young Ork below shouted the answer before Gragoth could finish.
“Beat ’em into submission and they become battle-brothers!” “Exactly!” Gragoth suddenly raised his massive axe.
The blade turned upward, its edge pointing straight into the night sky.
“I’m taking this city one street at a time, one territory at a time.
Any Boss who won’t submit—” He paused.
Everyone in the square seemed to stop breathing for half a beat.
“SMASH ‘EM!” The roar exploded from the front rows and swept backward like a wall of sound, crashing into the ruined buildings behind the square before rebounding.
“Any tribe that doesn’t acknowledge da Emperor—” “REBELS!” This time, several hundred voices answered before he could even finish.
“And after we beat ’em—” “BATTLE-BROTHERS!” Each response was louder than the last.
At first, One-Eye’s rough voice and Blackfang’s broken roar could still be distinguished from the others.
Soon, everything merged into one.
Gragoth drew a deep breath.
The statue of the Emperor behind him had grown so bright it was almost impossible to look at directly.
The white light pouring from every crack merged into a golden-white curtain, illuminating the entire square brighter than day.
The light passed around the edges of Gragoth’s power armour, casting an enormous shadow across the ground.
Gragoth stood before that light, the edges of his pauldrons and breastplate outlined in a blinding glow.
He raised his massive axe high overhead.
The tip of the blade touched the brightest part of the light.
“I declare!” His amplifier drove his voice above every cheer, gunshot, and roar in the square.
Several hundred Orks fell silent at once.
Hundreds of thick clouds of white breath rose in front of their breastplates.
“Da Eleventh Legion’s first real Waaagh—” His voice stopped for an instant.
Hundreds of red eyes stared fixedly at him.
Not a single Ork even swallowed the saliva gathering between his tusks.
The next moment, Gragoth’s roar shook the entire square.
“SMASH DA WHOLE CITY!” A brief dead silence.
There was almost no gap at all.
Even the wind seemed to stop for half a second.
Then— “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” Several hundred Orks raised their weapons at once.
Bolters fired into the sky, battle axes rose overhead, and hammers smashed the stone tiles beneath their feet.
Gunfire tore through the night, the flashes seeming to illuminate all of Scrapheap City.
Blackfang raised his battle axe and roared until his face turned red, while the smoke from all three exhaust pipes finally ran out.
One-Eye kept firing into the sky, his barrel glowing hot and smoking, yet somehow his ammunition never seemed to run out.
“Da Eleventh Legion!” “Battle-brothers!” “For da Emperor!” “For da Primarch!” Every kind of shout mixed together.
Some were yelling their own names.
Some were shouting for the Emperor.
Others were already arguing about which outpost they should attack first.
But in the end, all of it merged into the same deafening roar— “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”
It really helps the fic grow!