Orcs: Inferno

by Stan Nicholls

  orbitbooks.net

  orbitshortfiction.com

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  A Preview of Theft of Swords

  Copyright Page

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  For Jacob Harry Fifer, who will hopefully

  read this one day, and probably wonder

  what the old boy was up to.

  INTO THE FIRE

  Discontented with life in pastoral Ceragan, orcs warband the Wolverines were intrigued to receive a message from Tentarr Arngrim, the wizard known as Serapheim, who had previously aided them. Arngrim described a world where orcs were brutally dominated by human invaders. Worse, their oppressors included Serapheim’s depraved daughter, the sorceress Jennesta, once the warband’s ruler, whom they believed dead. Although suspicious of Arngrim’s motives, Stryke, the Wolverines’ captain, persuaded his band to embark on a mission to help their fellow orcs, and possibly exact revenge on Jennesta.

  The Wolverines held five peculiar artefacts called instrumentalities, created by Serapheim, which they referred to as stars. The means by which the band was deposited on Ceragan, the stars could carry their possessors between worlds, though Stryke was untutored in operating them. But he also had an amulet, taken from the body of Arngrim’s murdered messenger, and its markings provided a key.

  At full strength the warband consisted of five officers and thirty privates. Stryke commanded. Beneath him were two sergeants. Haskeer was one; the other, Jup, the band’s solitary dwarf, had stayed behind in Maras-Dantia, the Wolverines’ anarchic birthplace. There should have been a pair of corporals too. Coilla, the only female member and its Mistress of Strategy, was present. But her counterpart, Alfray, had fallen in battle. Death had also taken six of the privates.

  To get the numbers back up, Stryke recruited a clutch of Ceragan novices, and replaced Alfray with an ageing orc called Dallog. This was less than popular with some of the Wolverines. They were even more disgruntled when local clan chief Quoll forced his popinjay of a son, Wheam, onto the band.

  Bidding farewell to his mate Thirzarr, and their hatchlings Corb and Janch, Stryke first took the band to Maras-Dantia to search for Jup, in hope of him resuming his role of sergeant. They succeeded, and Jup, along with his partner Spurral, rejoined. But one of the new recruits, and Liffin, a veteran member, were killed by marauders. Haskeer in particular blamed Wheam and the other tyros for this, and openly expressed contempt for them.

  Before they left Maras-Dantia the band encountered two humans, Micalor Standeven and Jode Pepperdyne, who posed as merchants. In reality, Pepperdyne was Standeven’s slave, and they were running from tyrannical ruler Kantor Hammrik, to whom Standeven was indebted. Standeven’s plan was to steal the orcs’ instrumentalities to pay off Hammrik. Stryke would have abandoned the duo, or worse, had they not warned him of an impending raid; and in the fight that followed, Pepperdyne saved Coilla’s life. So when the Wolverines had to quickly exit a life-threatening situation, using the stars, Pepper-dyne and Standeven went with them. Their destination was the world of the warband’s mission.

  The Wolverines were unaware that an indefinite number of instrumentalities existed, scattered across endless worlds. Nor did they know that a clandestine group, the Gateway Corps, was dedicated to tracking them down. The activation of Stryke’s stars was detected by the Corps, and its human leader, Karrell Revers, ordered his deputy, female elf Pelli Madayar, to recover them at any cost. Accompanied by a multi-species snatch team, and armed with potent magical weaponry, Pelli set off in pursuit of the Wolverines.

  Arriving in Acurial, a world as luxuriant as Maras-Dantia was corrupted, the Wolverines were horrified to discover the orc populace had had their martial spirit bred out of them. Playing on this docility, and the ploy that Acurial possessed non-existent weapons of magical destruction, Peczan, a human empire, had invaded.

  Tangling with the occupiers, who had a command of magic—rare among humans—the Wolverines found that not all orcs in Acurial were placid when they were rescued by a resistance group whose members’ fighting instincts had reawakened. It was headed by Brelan and his twin sister Chillder. Its leader in hiding was their mother, Sylandya, Acurial’s deposed ruler. The Wolverines joined the insurgency. They trained the rebels, and Coilla formed an all-female warband dubbed the Vixens.

  Opposing the resistance were General Kapple Hacher, Governor of what Peczan regarded as a province; and Brother Grentor, High Cleric of the Order of the Helix, wardens of the magic. As heads of two of the empire’s main pillars in the prefecture, the military and the spiritual, Hacher and Grentor were often at odds. But the arrival of Jennesta, Peczan’s pitiless emissary and both men’s superior, overshadowed their differences.

  Pelli Madayar’s Gateway Corps unit also arrived, covertly observed events and plotted to seize the Wolverines’ stars.

  The resistance discovered that a comet named Grilan-Zeat, which had appeared at crucial points in Acurial’s history, was soon to return. Their hope was that it would be seen as an omen, and along with a call to arms from Sylandya would inspire the submissive populace to revolt. A prophecy was attached to Grilan-Zeat. It said that a party of liberators would accompany the comet. Some in the resistance believed the Wolverines might be these longed-for champions, and portrayed them that way to further encourage the citizenry.

  With comet and prophecy as carrots, the rebels applied a stick. They increased harassment of the occupiers with the intention of bringing down their wrath, which in turn would spur the masses to react. The Wolverines were involved in a succession of attacks on the invaders. Until one particularly ambitious raid went badly wrong; an attempt to assassinate Jennesta was foiled, ending with her snatching four of the five stars. Stryke wondered if there could be a spy in the resistance, or even among the Wolverines themselves. Then the fifth instrumentality, in Coilla’s care, was stolen from a rebel hideout. There was little doubt that this was also Jennesta’s doing. As the comet became visible it looked as though the Wolverines would never see Ceragan again. They had no choice but to fight on alongside the resistance. And in the weeks that followed, the bellicose nature of the orcs of Acurial began to resurface, to their human oppressors’ cost.

  The Wolverines didn’t know that Jennesta had used esoteric sorcery to duplicate their instrumentalities. But the Gateway Corps was aware through their own magical means that another set of instrumentalities had been brought into play, making their mission of containment all the more urgent.

  Despite the animosity between their races, Coilla and Pepperdyne grew close as the insurrection built, and the normally reticent human related some of his history. He was a Trougathian, a member of an island race on Maras-Dantia whose misfortune was to occupy a strategic location between rival nations. Trougath was afflicted by war for generations, until finally betrayed by a supposed ally, and broken. Its population scattered, and some were enslaved, with the upshot that Pepperdyne became little more than Standeven’s chattel. The largely nomadic Trougathians were maligned and reviled, not unlike orcs.

  Events in Acurial took a dramatic turn when, in a resistance safe house, Standeven was found with the dead body of an orc intruder, though he denied any wrongdoing. The mystery deepened when the dead orc turned out to have Coilla’s stolen instrumentality. Wolverines and resistance alike were suspicious of what Standeven might
have been up to, but nothing could be proved.

  Their spirits lifted by regaining the star, the band set out to get the others back from Jennesta. Staging an ambush, they achieved this; although some in the band thought it went a bit too easily.

  Sick of Hacher’s running of the province, Jennesta transformed him into one of her zombie bodyguards. She had Brother Grentor murdered. And when Sylandya came out of hiding to rally the populace, Jennesta assassinated her. That proved a miscalculation. Far from stifling revolution, it stoked the flames.

  With the resistance close to victory, Jennesta and a group of loyal human followers fled for the coast, the Wolverines in pursuit. But as the band prepared to attack her, the Gateway Corps appeared and Pelli Madayar demanded the Wolverines’ instrumentalities. Stryke’s refusal unleashed an onslaught of powerful magic from the Corps. Sandwiched between them and Jennesta’s advancing force, Stryke activated the instrumentalities, though he had no time to set their coordinates.

  The band travelled through a succession of hostile realities, staying in each only long enough to randomly reset the stars and escape. Finally arriving in a barren but unthreatening world, Stryke calibrated the instrumentalities properly. His plan was to return Pepperdyne and Standeven to Maras-Dantia, then take the band back to Ceragan.

  But the stars inexplicably deposited them in a world of islands, on an isle inhabited by dwarfs. The orcs’ seemingly miraculous arrival saved them from massacre by the dwarfs, who took them for gods. Shortly after, the island was raided by human slavers, the Gatherers, who carried off a number of dwarfs, including Spurral. Securing two boats and a crude map, the Wolverines set out to rescue her. The Gateway Corps, who had followed the warband to this world, were on their trail.

  Spurral found herself at the mercy of the Gatherers’ ruthless leader, Captain Salloss Vant. She immediately began fermenting mutiny among her fellow captives, one of whom, a lame female called Dweega, was thrown overboard by the slavers. Picked up by the Wolverines, Dweega was able to tell them the Gatherers’ course. But the band had to fend off a seaborne attack by the Gateway Corps before continuing their hunt. And Standeven was growing morbidly obsessed with the warband’s stars.

  On board the Gatherers’ ship the dwarfs rebelled, and Spurral faced up to Vant and killed him. Taking control of the vessel, the dwarfs began sailing it back to their home. En route they were attacked by a fearsome creature called the Krake—one of “the Lords of the Deep”—and the ship was sunk.

  One of their boats having been damaged by the Corps, the Wolverines landed on a nearby island for repairs. It turned out to be occupied by a group of goblins who held captive a number of kelpies who, despite being sentient, were traded as meat. The orcs made common cause with them and killed the goblins. Learning that the Gatherers sailed a predetermined route, and the kelpies’ island was their next port of call, to gather slaves, the Wolverines took a goblin ship and headed there. They didn’t know that Spurral and a handful of other dwarf captives, having survived the shipwreck, had washed up on the kelpies’ island, and been nurtured by them.

  Jup and Spurral were finally reunited. Feeling honour-bound, Stryke agreed to return the liberated dwarfs to their island home. On the way, Coilla and Pepperdyne’s friendship, frowned on by many in the band, escalated and they secretly became lovers.

  Shortly after the orcs reached the dwarfs’ island, the Gateway Corps appeared, and Pelli Madayar again demanded Stryke’s instrumentalities. His refusal sparked a battle, with the Wolverines facing the Corps’ sorcery. The band narrowly avoided being overwhelmed when Jennesta arrived with her force, and magical combat broke out between her and the Corps.

  At the height of the chaos, Jennesta confronted Stryke. And to his astonishment she was with his mate, Thirzarr, who was in an hypnotic trance, one step from the full zombie state, and under Jennesta’s control. With horror, Stryke realised that Jennesta must have travelled to Ceragan to capture Thirzarr, and could have inflicted untold destruction on his adoptive world.

  Jennesta offered Stryke a deal: surrender the Wolverines to her, for conversion to undead servitude, and Thirzarr would be freed from her bondage. Refuse and Thirzarr would become a zombie, never to recover. Stryke struggled with the proposition, and turned it down. At which point Jennesta declared that the outcome would depend on one-to-one combat between Stryke and Thirzarr. At Jennesta’s command, Thirzarr launched a murderous attack on Stryke. He desperately fought to suppress the killing instinct that could have had him slaying his mate. Only chance, and the intervention of Coilla and Wheam, prevented it.

  Rescued from Jennesta’s malign presence, Stryke yielded to despair. The Wolverines, retreating in disarray, saw no prospect but failure.

  FIVE YEARS EARLIER

  Events were finally coming to a head in Maras-Dantia.

  Jennesta had led an army to the snowbound north, into the shadow of the advancing glacier. Once there, they laid siege to Ilex’s great ice palace.

  She didn’t care about the fate of her Manifold Path army. An alliance of humans, orcs and mercenary dwarfs united in common cause against the God-fearing forces of Unity, the Manis were no more than a convenience to her. The only thing that interested Jennesta was inside the palace.

  The situation had been compounded by treachery. Mani dragon mistress Glozellan had sided with Jennesta’s enemies and brought her charges into play. A squad of leathery behemoths, saw-like wings beating furiously, spewed gouts of flame over the army. And Jennesta’s father, Serapheim, used his sorcery to paint the grim sky with images that grossly lied, to sway her militia and break its spirit. Though she expected no better from that quarter.

  As more snow began to fall, stinging the troops’ flesh and blinding their vision, she grew impatient. Accompanied by her orc commander, General Mersadion, and half a dozen of her ablest Royal Guardsmen, she gained entry to the palace.

  Its murky corridors held the stench of age-old corruption, and aberrant, inhuman sounds echoed through the crumbling pile.

  Jennesta and her group were not the first to get in. Several advance parties of Manis had entered before them. Their corpses littered the place. Without exception they were terribly mutilated, and in many cases it looked as though they had been partially consumed. Despite his orcish spirit the general’s disquiet was palpable, and the guardsmen, holding aloft oil-fed lanterns, were plainly anxious. Jennesta paid no attention.

  They had hardly penetrated the labyrinth of twisting passageways and cavernous chambers when misshapen figures began moving from the shadows.

  The Sluagh, a loathsome shape-changing race reckoned by many to be demons, infested the palace. Alien in form and in deed, they were entirely merciless. As they swiftly proved when the two hindmost guards in Jennesta’s party were brought down and torn apart. Ignoring their screams she hurried on, the general and the other troopers, ashen-faced, close behind.

  They hadn’t gone far before the creatures struck again. Lurching from the gloom, fibrous hides glistening moistly in the dim light, one of them snared a guardsman with sinewy tentacles. At the ready this time, the soldier’s comrades and the general turned to hack at the Sluagh.

  “Leave him!” Jennesta snapped.

  Their fear of her outweighed any feelings of solidarity. They abandoned the shrieking trooper. Glancing back, Mersadion caught a glimpse of the man’s fate, and shuddered.

  There was a respite as Jennesta strode on, looking for a way to reach the palace’s lower levels. But it was short-lived. Turning into a narrow passage they found a pack of Sluagh ahead. Slavering and giving off a confounding babble, the beasts advanced. With her own safety at stake, Jennesta acted, fashioning a spell with an intricate movement of her hands, though with an air of blasé impatience rather than any kind of dread. A searing flash lit the darkness. The Sluagh burst open like ripe melons sliced with an invisible axe, liberating their steaming viscera as they fell.

  Jennesta continued walking, lifting the hem of her gown above the mess. The
others followed, gingerly stepping over the carcasses, hands pressed to their faces to keep out the stench.

  They came to an arched doorway opening on to a flight of steps that went down into pitch blackness. A faint rhythmic throbbing could be heard from below. Jennesta ordered two of the three remaining troopers to stay at the entrance and stand guard. From the expressions the pair wore it was obvious they didn’t know whether to be relieved or alarmed. There was no such ambiguity on the third soldier’s face when she pointed to the stairs and told him to take the lead.

  After descending for only a short time there was a commotion from the guards left above. It began with yells and ended in screams, quickly stifled. Unmoved, Jennesta told her two surviving underlings to keep going. The light from the lamp carried by the leading trooper wavered in his unsteady hand, casting grotesque shadows on the moist walls.

  The periodic throbbing grew louder the deeper they went. But now it was mixed with other, discordant sounds; the grind of stone on stone and the creaking of timbers. There was a trembling underfoot. Tiny fragments of ice started to fall, shaken loose by the vibration. The sensation was like a minor earthquake.

  The stairs came to an end, depositing them in a wide corridor that ran into darkness in both directions. Except not quite. To their right, there was a weak glimmer of light. Jennesta ordered the guardsman to extinguish his lamp. In the ensuing blackness the pulsating light could be seen clearly, outlining the shape of a sizeable door. They went towards it.

  Small chunks of debris were falling now, and seeps of dust. The rumbling grew, pounding the soles of their feet. And there was something strange about the air. It felt charged, oppressive, and far too warm given the chill atmosphere.

  There was a movement to their rear. Looking back, they could make out one of the Sluagh at the foot of the stairs, and several more behind. The guardsman lost his nerve. He dropped the snuffed lantern and ran, past the door bleeding light and along the passageway. His dash lasted less than twenty paces. A Sluagh’s feelers whipped down from the ceiling, snared him and hoisted him up. Howling, legs kicking, he disappeared into shadow.