Griznak stuck his head up over the lip of the gully. A bolter shell whined past his cheek. He ignored it and studied the scene. Yes, the bridge over that acid river was still there. Yes, the humies in red armour were still there too.

Another shell ricocheted off the ground in front of him and whizzed over his helmet. Griznak dropped back down into the gully and surveyed his weary ladz contemptuously. There were more than a dozen towering Goff warriors in the gully. A couple of dozen Gretchin accompanied them. Griznak wasn't sure exactly how many - he couldn't count that high.

"Call yourself Orks?" he asked in his most sarcastic tone.

"Nar, Boss, we call ourselves Gretchin," replied Buggi the Gretchin. Griznak cuffed the little greenskin on his large pointed ear. The Gretchin yelped and scuttled down the gully, trying to get out of reach. Griznak applied a touch of his hob-nailed boot to Buggi's backside to help him on his way.

"I wozn't talkin to yer," he growled. "I woz talkin' to da ladz."

The rest of the Gretchin clutched their autoguns tighter and shuffled their feet in relief. A few of them giggled nervously. They had long ago learned that having a Goff Boss annoyed at them was a very unpleasant experience. Griznak turned his angry red-eyed gaze back on his fellow Goffs. If it was possible for a mob of huge, burly green-skinned warriors armed with axes and bolt pistols to look sheepish then these Orks looked sheepish. They inspected their steel toe caps as if they might fund a succulent squig just under their boots.

The row of horned helmets that pointed at him reminded Griznak of a circle of moonbison he had once seen when hunting back on Jagga. They always turned in a circle and presented their horns to any threat. That was when they were at their most dangerous. Hopefully the same would be true of his ladz. Maybe that idea was a sign from Gork and Mork Griznak thought. Maybe the favour of the two god brothers was about to be restored to the Waaagh-Ghazghkull. It certainly had been conspicuous by its absence recently. Maybe their fortunes were about to change. The gods knew they needed it.

"Call yerselves Goffs?" Griznak enquired angrily. "I've seen quigz wiv more backbone."

"Dat ain't fair, Boss," ventured Grund. "Da humies at da bridge woz tuff. Dey woz da big wunz. Da wunz in red armour."

"Dat's why dey woz so fast, Boss," added Mazdak. "Everybody knowz dat a lik of red paint makes things go fasta."

"We only came back for a bit of a rest!" added Grund.

"Yer, we woz tired!" Mazdak yawned conspicuously.

"Sharrit!" bellowed Griznak. "I don't wanna 'ear any hexcuses! Ya didn't take da bridge. Dat's all I know. Ya couldn't even take a bridge from a bunch of stinkin' humies! Maybe yer gettin soft!"

He shook his head sadly. "And ya call yerselves Goffs. I dunno. More like a bunch a bleedin' Gretchin if ya ask me."

"Dat ain't fair, Boss. We izn't no Gretchin. We woz just surprised, dat's all," said Grund.

"Yer, surprised," agreed Mazdak. "Surprised dat dey started shootin' at uz."

Grund glared at his fellow Goff. It had all been going well till Mazdak opened his mouth. Griznak clenched his fist impatiently. In the distance he could hear a warbuggy moving towards the front line. The 'ere-we-go, 'ere-we-go chant of its passengers rang out over the sands, audible even at this distance. A few of the Orks fired their gbolters into the air enthusiastically. Just for a moment Griznak wished he were with them.

This was not what he had expected when the power of the Waaagh filled him, and he had joined with his fellows under the war banner of Ghazghkull Thraka, the Great Warlord. He had expected lots of loot and good fighting. He had expected to give the humies a good seeing-to. He had not expected the stubborn resistance of the defenders or the enormous casualties suffered by both sides.

Griznak didn't mind the death. He was an Ork. The senseless waste of life didn't appall him. He applauded it. He lived to fight. Fighting was what life was all about. Death was part of the fighting, everybody knew that, from the youngest Wildboy to the oldest Nob. Every Ork accepted death the way he accepted the possibility of a buggy accident. It was what happened to someone else. And if it did happen to you, so what? Your soul went back to Gork and Mork to be belched into another body so you could fight again.

No it wasn't that he feared death. It was that he was starting to get lonely. All his old drinking buddies were gone now. Zog Nosebiter had taken a bolter shell through the brain at the battle of Helsreach in the bitter hand-to-hand fighting round the dockyard cranes. That had surprised Griznak, he had always thought Zog's skull was thick enough to stop any shot. Gork knew there was little enough brain in there to hit.

Slugoff had been run over by one of those big humie tanks as he tried to climb up its tracks and drop a grenade into its turret. The sight of his body, crushed flat, with tread marks across its chest had been more than a little disturbing to look at, even for an Ork as battle-dhardened as Griznak.

Rogviler had gone down in hand-to-hand combat with some of those Rough Riders. An explosive-tipped lance had torn him apart. Who would have thought that those humies would have ridden their horses across the blazing sands? Who would have thought the horses could survive in these deserts of ash and slag? The terrible heat should have killed them yet it had not. Perhaps they had somehow been altered to survive here. Griznak wondered what they would taste like. He had long been of the opinion that horses were good for only one thing - eating.

Manurk had been killed at Hades in combat with old evil eye Yarrick himself. Griznak shuddered. It was said that Yarrick could kill an Ork just by looking at him. If it were true, Griznak would not be surprised. In this war many strange things happened. This was a terrible world.

Storms swallowed entire mobs of warriors. Rivers of corrosive chemicals ate Orks down to the bone. That was why the bridge was so important. It had to be taken so that the Orks could use it to scarper if things went wrong.

Griznak did not like the idea of scarpering, it implied that hings were going badly, that there was some need to retreat and re-group in order to fight another day. Such things should not happen during a Waaagh, memory that was rooted right down in his cells told him. Waaaghs were triumphs, where hordes of Orks and Gretchin overwhelmed their foes and enslaved worlds. Waaagh-Ghazghkull in particular should not fail, for Ghazghkull Thraka was the greatest Ork Warlord who had ever lived.

Yet something told Griznak that this was exactly what was happening. Somehow this vast desert world was defeating them. No longer did the towering hive cities fall easily to the onrushing horde. No longer did human armies crack and run before the relentless green tide. Reinforcements had started to arrive from off-world. The accursed Space Marines had dropped from orbit and turned the tide against the Waaagh. The factories of the hive cities had started to churn out tanks and guns and provisions for the human armies while the Orks starved and ran out of ammunition. The once shattered and demoralised human armies had reformed and re-grouped and were starting to carry the war to the Orks.

Griznak was low in the hierarchy of the Waaagh but somehow he knew all this, it haunted his dreams as it haunted the dreams of all the other Orks. He had a dim presentiment that his people were losing, and that was not an idea that he liked.

"Right, lissen!" he bellowed. All eyes turned on him. "We gotta take dat bridge. Once we got it we can nip over da river and give da humies a taste of bootleather. An' dis time we're gonna do it. No excuses! No maybes! No we can't do it, Boss. Dis time we is gonna grab it and 'old it an' I'll tell ya why? Cos I'm gonna lead yer and anybody who turns and runs is gonna taste my axe. Get the idea?"

"Yes, Boss," chorused Ork and Gretchin alike.

"Good! Coz you iz part of the Waaagh-Ghazghkull and you is gonna act like it. Now, get yer weapons ready and get ready ta leg it for da bridge. Gretchins give us coverin' fire, you ladz make sure yer axes iz sharp!"

Griznak surveyed his troops. They looked as ready as they ever would be. "Go!" he shouted.

The ladz threw themselves forward out of the gully. Almost immediately bolter shells started to whine around them. Griznak did not even flinch. He leaped forward, bolt pistol blasting, knowing that this time the bridge would be theirs.