We edged forwards. I saw dark, wet spots on the rockcrete floor, leading between the piled hoppers. Unless someone had recently carried a leaky promethium drum through the place, Zelwyn had managed to wound the creature right enough. I touched one of the spots. It oozed warmth.

‘It’s here,’ I whispered.

Zelwyn already knew that. It had come out of the shadows, nightmarishly silent for something so big, and seized him by the throat. I turned slowly.

The ork had pulled the Jared commissioner in against its massive chest like a mother hugging a baby to its breast. Its left paw entirely encircled the man’s neck. Zelwyn’s eyes were wide, and his face was pale. The ork raised its right hand and gently rested the massive cleaver on Zelwyn’s scalp. Tiny trickles of blood ran down Zelwyn’s face.

The bull-ork’s yellow eyes, deep in the brow-ridged sockets, glared at me. Its heavy, flaccid lips wrinkled and twitched. Its tongue, huge and greasy, worked behind its rotting peg teeth. Each one of those teeth was the size of my palm.

The ork was not a bright beast, but it was smart enough, instinctive enough, to recognise its predicament. It was bargaining with me, a life for a life. This much I knew. Otherwise, Zelwyn would have been dead already.

I thought about taking a shot, but dared not risk hitting the commissioner. I was too spent, and it was no time to try my aim. Besides, greenskins are notoriously hard to kill. Even if I hit it, one round from a Tronsvasse would not do the trick.

All I had was my will. I couldn’t impel the ork in any way, but Zelwyn was a different matter.

Without hesitation, I reached into the commissioner’s panicking mind. He was still clutching his laspistol, dangling at his side. I squeezed his finger for him. The shot blew clean through the arch of the ork’s slabby right foot.

The greenskin convulsed in pain, but I already had a grip on Zelwyn’s motor function, and I threw him forwards. I felt his astonishment as his body acted without his permission. He flew out of the ork’s briefly weakened grip so fast and hard, he careered forwards and bounced face-first off the hopper to my right.

I was already firing, my weapon braced in a two-handed grip. I emptied the assault pistol’s clip into the greenskin’s chest, filling the air with drenching black mist and driving the monster into the stack of mineral hoppers behind it. It smashed heavily into the metal siding, but remained on its feet.