WH40K: “Kal Jerico, Sinner's Bounty” (part sixteen)

In the gloomy murk of the era thirty-eight thousand years hence, there are so many damned memes. This is particularly true on the cheerfully named world of Necromunda, and extra double plus particularly true in the ruined undercity of Hive Primus. If you want proof, look no further than the slobbering pop culture car-chaser of this next chapter title.

Chapter 32: Songs of Fire and Praise​

The fire started by the mutant bombardment is inside the walls, and spreading through Perdition. Flames of Perdition, very biblical. To quote Warmaster Horus, "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?" The Cawdor and hangers-on are making efficient use of the sumpwater to fight the fire using bucket chains and repurposed fuel hoses, but that creates other problems as people have to be taken off of the defensive line to help put out the fire. Which is probably exactly why Wart started the fire in the first place.

...hang on a second, though. Isn't Perdition made of concrete-analogues and scrap metal? How flammable could a town like that even be? When communities get destroyed by fire, its either because the buildings are made of wood or there's enough burnable trees, grass, or scrub around them to produce lethal smoke levels. I don't see how either of these conditions could be met by Perdition, unless that fungus is bothreallyovergrown and not nearly as damp as you'd think.

Yeah. Not sure how this fire is supposed to work, unless its all just fuel leaks. But in that case, throwing water on it wouldn't be making a difference at all.

I guess Tzeench did it.

Running battles go from house to house, rooftop to rooftop, as they spare as many men as they can to fight the fire. The palisade is still bottlenecking the mutants' invasion, but its broken in multiple places. In the thick of it all, Gor, Kal, and Amenute are trying to decide if they should keep fighting or just try to escape. Amenute assures them that the mutants are planning to take this dome cavern and keep it, and that they aren't going to give up. Telepathy man, it tells you things. Kal isn't ready to renege on the deal just yet, though. He sends Gor to go make contact with Beatram's group, both to regroup at the central fortress and to make sure Beatram isn't doing anything stupid that he thinks is smart. Good call. Meanwhile, Kal, Amenute, and I guess probably the others who aren't saying anything because Reynolds can't keep track of them all head back to find Zoom and present him with Amenute's offer.

As they fall back, Kal and Co regroup with Clovic, who they convince to bring them back to wherever the hell Zoom is currently bleeding to death standing up. Clovic bitches about Amenute existing, but relents and brings them into the hangar, where Zoom is overseeing the men loading fuel drums into the war rig. Apparently, he's trying to turn it into a suicide fuel bomb, which is exactly the kind of desperation tactic that these circumstances demand. Anyway, they approach him with Amenute's offer; she'll call whatever ratskin tribes are reachable via pipesong and persuade them to attack the mutants. It shouldn't take much persuasion, since the mutants look like they're going to be a bigger threat for the foreseeable future. However, in exchange, Amenute asks for...something. She says she'll name her price only after the battle has been won for the Cawdor.

Clovic wants to kill Amenute the heathen ratskin witch for daring to even speak with Zoom, let alone make such an obviously abusive covenant. Scabs has to threaten him with a big machine gun to make him shut up. Zoom is reluctant, of course, but he also demonstrates a little of that self-awareness that his own chapter reveals he's been keeping suppressed. He asks Amenute if her people would really care to intervene in this situation, after what he and his people have been doing to them. Amenute just tells him that from their perspective, it'll be weakening Wart's army rather aiding Zoom's; mutants and Redemptionists are both just as bad from a ratskin perspective. Seeing that he has no realistic path to victory aside from this (and with Kal's assurances that neither his group nor Beatram's are going to stay on the sinking ship of Perdition for much longer unless something changes), Zoom grudgingly accepts.

Amenute says that she'll need to take Scabs with her for this mission, especially if they want her to get the relief quickly enough to ensure it'll make a difference. Scabs is hesitant; honestly, he seems to be more afraid of Amenute than intrigued by her at this point. But, they haven't got much choice, and Kal at least can instruct Scabs to be on the lookout for tricks.

I wonder if Amenute knows that Wart is already pursuing an alliance with some ratskin tribes? Well, it's been implied that those are different tribes, and enemies of Amenute's confederation. If I misinterpreted that, though, then this ought to be pretty hilarious.

Amenute leads Scabs up the cliff side above Perdition, and summons a dire bat for them to ride. It's the same dire bat that she hijacked when the mutant aerocavalry attacked them at the dome's entrance; once you've successfully mind controlled a creature once or twice, you apparently develop a link that lets you contact it from further away and take it over again more easily. I can't remember if my psyker could do that or not, but then most of her mind control victims tended to not outlive the session.

...

I know I keep coming back to this, but Amenute has nearly the exact same build as muh gurl Sandra. Whenever she uses one of her abilities, I can practically hear the GM calling for a Psi skill test.

...

Anyway, the ratskins fly off on their bat, and back in Perdition Zoom leads the delaying efforts. He takes the fuel-stuffed war rig out the tower entrance, leading a motorcade of all their remaining land vehicles behind it. Kal is riding atop the war rig beside him, not seeming to realize that Zoom is almost certainly planning to blow it up and kill both of them when the mutants are thickest around them rather than whatever Kal thinks they're doing.

Well, Kal probably has figured it out and has countermeasures. But he's playing dumb.

This Zoom POV section also reveals that he has a dead man's switch implanted in his heart. If he dies, the rig's engine explodes, which will almost certainly detonate the payload stuffed into the hold. Good to know. I'm guuuueeessing he had that switched off when he took point in defending the rig from Team Jerico and the Goliaths back near Downtown. Either that, or he's even crazier and more deluded about his "selfless" desire to save Perdition than I thought.

Anyway, Zoom leads what's left of his army toward the ruined gate to push back the mutants and possibly kill all of them before Amenute can get back. Which, to be fair, Zoom doesn't believe she has any intention of doing. And which, to also be fair, is completely fucking stupid of him to think, since if she just wanted to escape she could have done that without asking permission. But, to be the fairest of the fair, Zoom's body is at least 30% combat stims and painkillers by mass at this point, so I guess clarity of thought would be a little too much to ask for. End chapter.


The tension of this cliffhanger is sort of undermined by the fact that the two characters I care about the most are currently out of danger, and that I think the best thing for the Underhive as a whole would be for Kal and the others to just fuck off and let Wart take the fortress. Still, it was one of the better written chapters, with Scabs' trepidation and Zoom's colorful insanity offsetting the increasingly deus-ex-machina-feeling Amenute stuff.

Chapter 33: Battleground​

A title that could have fit most of the last few chapters. Granted, we've already had two chapters and a prologue named after different parts of one fucking guy's name, so the bar is pretty low as far as these are concerned. What's the matter, Reynolds? Running out of chapter title ideas? Do you think you maaaaybe might have used too many of them to get to this point? Just a small chance?

New protagonist! It's Fung, that chieftain who Wart sent to the front line to either die or win her hand. His group is hanging back a little and shooting, while much crazier mutants rush ahead of them into melee to do a little more damage to Zoom's motorcade before dying. It's revealed where these fanatical, suicidal mutant soldiers are coming from now. Apparently, the "starches," so called because of the starch powder they ritually cover themselves in, are a bloodthirsty mutant cult that's pledged its allegiance to Queen Wart. Most likely a temporary allegiance, since they just seem to want a war they can fight in. Fung has heard tell that the starches get their bravery and single-mindedness from the "master of death," who they worship. Blood for the blood god and milk for his khorne flakes, and so forth. Makes sense that they could have a starch motif, to better honor his corniness.

As they fight, Fung confides in one of his trench-buddies that he really doesn't want to marry Wart. He just said that before to end that standoff in Wart's court when the coup attempt looked like it wasn't going to work. There's some low brow comedy involving Fung and Co not using words correctly and failing to pronounce "noblesse oblige." Meh. Then the motorcade bursts out the gate and starts charging them down.

Cut to Captain Guttel, still bombarding the town and sending attack boats in the wake of the crocomen's breach, sees the motorcade moving out along the coast. Guttel blathers about recent developments in his Hollywood Pirate accent. It seems like the naval side of this operation is going much better than the land and air assaults. Guttel's a competent one, and seemingly very charismatic and easy to coordinate with as axchucks go. If Wart wasn't secretly saving herself for a pie-in-the-sky uphive nobleman, she could do a lot worse than this guy for her king.

Speaking of Wart, we jump to her POV just as Zoom's motorcade bursts out the gate and she hears about it. Zoom is something of a boogeyman for the mutants, and one that they'd thought dead for at least the last several months. Now that he's confirmed alive and leading the defenses, he's a priority target. The rest of the chapter is just her and her advisors and contractors yelling at each other about what they should be doing about this situation, with the arms dealer guy in particular starting to get wary of this whole affair.


This chapter was a complete waste of space. Nothing happened in it whatsoever, it was all just the mutants learning about what happened in the previous chapter. Most boring stretch of this damned book.