A story of the Sons of Bugman AEC, the second tale of the Path to Glory host of the Hidden Reserve. [image source]
Bor Goadfist was perhaps the first living creature Esme had labelled as “wholly, utterly inedible” since the haffen signed on as their Ghurish consultant.
“Toxic also.” He added after talks with the hobgrot leader concluded.
Okbryn did not disagree with the assessment, but needed the business, and business was not a matter of taste but of market forces. Bor’s faction needed amberbone; the duardin had a source of amberbone. It was that simple.
The crew had also recognised Bor’s weapon, that relic of Hysh which once belonged to the misguided aelves of the Prime Dominion. The hobgrot leader had used the weapon to inspire fear in his partners and fellows, but aboard this ship it now inspired a different emotion; the Sons of Bugman arkanauts remembered darkly that they were on opposite sides of the conflict in that Hyshian borderland, and many were now cleaning and checking weapons. Dammin, their gunner, was busy inspecting their store of heavy skyhooks after noting Bors’ ownership of a warbred danger weasel. “Reckon two good shots should do it,” he grumbled.
For his part, Okbryn approved of this revere of grudges. One should never assume safety, especially from business partners.
The lookouts cried out. “Captain! Caught the glint of something down in the swamp, matching our heading!”
The crew bristled. Okbryn felt a sudden pang of disappointment. Betrayal before profit? Perhaps he had chosen wrong.
“Action *bzzt* stations, everyone,” his tin voice carried via speaker all across the skyvessel.
The general alarm rang after, driving the duardin to their posts and marines to the gunwale with the alacrity Okbyrn’s monotone always failed to carry. The longbeards of the Harazgor Forgeguard, Dispossessed who had joined them from Nassollotyl, cast disapproving glances to mask their confusion.
But as the lookout specified the danger, they too swiftly hefted their heavy gromril shields and ancestral weapons.
“Skaven! Skaven approaching from all bearings!” The morass of vegetation beneath came alive with the roar of crude engines sputtering and combusting. Bursting from camouflage netting careened the chassis of several Kharadron gunhaulers, heavily modified with warpstone engines and large rear-mounted rotor blades — gyrocoptor blades, perhaps? — that cut into the water with a thwapa-thwapa-thwapa, propelling the crafts forward.
Dispossessed and Kharadron alike muttered talk of grudgemaking. One craft crowded with machine-clad rat ogor swerved closer as the brutes raised weapons and peppered the sky with bullets and green gas. Masks previously refused by the cantankerous longbeards were now suddenly readily accepted in a ecstasy of fumbling.
Brynlyn’s endrinriggers rolled off the side and zipped about the hull, laying down quick repairs where needed and using their flight paths to cut through the worst of the poison wind until visibility could be restored.
“Return fire!” yelled the XO to the arkanauts as soon as it did. Aethershot was liberally traded with warpstone rocket and bullet and proving the better until an shrill and annoyed scree heralded greater woe.
”Warp lightning storm! Brace!” The navigator in his endrin-nest retreated into and battened down his hatch. The whole ship lurched as if punched by a gargant, and the air filled with the stench of sulfur and ozone as lightning rained down from all angles, striking duardin and endrin. One errant streak lashed against the bomb racks, triggering another forceful explosion that caught the endrinriggers and sent the Hidden Reserve into a rapid, dangerous descent.
The skaven leader below began his celebration, cackling and dancing maniacally atop the prow of his kitbashed skimmer. “Zap-zap the beardlings! We take-take more engineers to make work-work for glorious purpose of Clan Riktyre!”
Aboard the frigate, however, the unexpected happened, and whether it was poor skaven luck or something illogically divine, none could say with certainty. What they could say is that Fimbur the Droner, eldest of the longbeards, a runesmith of Harazgor in his own right, pulled himself to his feet after suffering the indignity of having been tossed across deck, contemptuously tore from his face the Kharadron mask, and red-faced bellowed “By Thrungni, I will swear eternal grudge upon all sky-duardin and raki if my end is to be upon this thrice-damned children’s carnival boat!”
He then threw the gas mask to his feet and swung his ritual hammer with such force as to crush it. In the ringing of that blow, the storm inexplicably lifted, and the old duardin glared at Okbryn.
“You! Beardling! Set us down where we can fight proper this very instant!”
The captain was stunned enough that he did so without calling to debt the multiple insults. In fact, he cancelled them against the service of possibly saving his ship, but he’d later sacrifice to the gods too, just in case.
——————
The skaven were quickly defeated without their storm and wizard, who Dammin had skewered with just one of the two harpoons he had hoped to use on Bor’s gnashtooth. While many raki fled on their gestalt swamp-boats, Okbryn’s crew had managed to salvage two vehicles for examination. After what the skaven wizard had said about making captives of the engineers, it was prudent to check.
Okbryn was close enough to hear Esme sadly declare the inedibility of a rat ogor corpse whose broken machinery was now dissolving the body in luminescent acids. “Toxic also.”
“A close one, that,” confided Arin, Okbryn’s fellow captain and executive officer. “You think these are more business partners of that hobgrot?”
“Not ruling it out. *bzzt*” Okbryn furrowed his brow pensively. “More concerned about the gunhaulers.”
Arin, ancestor helmet off now that they were on the ground, rubbed his bald head. “Indeed, we’ll see what the crew — ah, here they come. Skyf, report!”
“Yes, sir! Seems like the captain’s suspicion was right, sir. We were able to decipher what was left of the names of the two craft, and they’re a match for—“
“The Grundstok escort wing *bzzt* of the Brynzongor.” Okbryn finished, his flint eyes narrowing, then focusing on his XO. “Rig the gunhaulers up in the nets and make the Hidden Reserve *bzzt* sky worthy. We must report this to the Bugmansburs at once.”
