by Vox Day
“Good Lord, no!” Marcus, startled, shook his head. “What do we care for their good will? We’ve saved their lives, I should think we’ve done enough for them.”
He looked at the prince, who was acknowledging the plaudits of his grateful subjects-to-be with a self-amused smile. The Savondese royal was smarter than Marcus had assumed, which meant that he might make for a dangerous enemy if he was handled improperly. And worse, he was subtle. Which, Marcus reluctantly concluded, meant that the young man would have to be won over, even if that meant coddling his insecurities.
And that was why Marcus found himself, just a few moments later, obliged to accept the prince’s invitation to join him in traveling to Lutèce, for what he was assured would be the fête of the century. Viscomte Trebonius, of course, was included in the invitation.
“Your Royal Highness, I am, of course, most curious to accompany you and your entourage, and to see the royal capital, as is my colleague, but I would request of you one additional indulgence prior to our departure.”
At the prince’s gesture, he continued. “I should like to prepare a permanent castra, one that is capable of serving as a stronghold, not only for the legion, but for your forces as well. When the orcs come again, and your Royal Highness, they will come again, they will come in greater numbers and they will not be wolfriders and, what do you call them?”
“Pillards,” Trebonius prompted.
“Yes, Pillards. They will not be pillards. They will come with their heavy infantry, their warboars and their trolls. You have won a great victory, your Royal Highness, but all it has given you is time. I wish to use that time to improve the kingdom’s defenses here.”
“You want to build a castle?”
“No, a castra. A fortification in the style of our march forts, only in a more secure fashion, with stone walls rather than wood. We require it as a base to anchor the defense of the Eastmarch against the next army to invade.”
“Ah, those sort of walled wooden villages you’ve built. Yes, I saw one on my way here. Damned impressive, they are, although I don’t suppose they can be held more than a few days given how many mouths you have to feed.”
“Exactly, your Royal Highness. It would pose no threat to you after we are gone, and it might save your army in the event of a reversal.”
“This can be done in your absence?”
“Begun, at any rate. I am not skilled in the arts of fortification. One of the other tribunes is the architectus who will oversee the construction.”
“Then again, what is to prevent you from building a castle, then breaking faith with the crown and declaring yourself sovereign?”
“What prevents me now?” Aside, Marcus belatedly thought, from your archers. “Your Royal Highness, may I not remind you that I refused the king’s gracious offer of land and title? I do not wish for a castle, nor will I break faith with those who do not break faith with me. I am honor-bound, no, I am duty-bound, to defend your lands. I ask for nothing more than your permission to permit me and my men to do so in the way we know best.”
Étienne-Henri glanced at the shorter man and grinned wryly. “It seems to me I would have to be a fool to deny you, Légat. As I hope I am not a fool, I will grant your request, with the caveat that you return here before noon tomorrow and join me in my triumphant procession to Lutèce. And seeing as my father awaits us there, I should encourage you to bring along what I hear is your astonishing collection of ears.”
The prince grinned openly at Marcus’s discomfiture. “Have no fear, Légat. My father promised me no similar bounty. You may as well collect on them.”
Lugbol
It took the exhausted gungiyar, swollen to nearly five times its original size, fifteen days to make its way through the great forest and reach the main army. Lugbol scented it well before the shadowed and leafy prison of the trees gave way to the smoke and open spaces of the grand encampment. Despite all his boasting, Zlatagh had not stood fast, in fact, he ran like a sniveling goblin before the winged demons of the night. Lugbol, on the other hand, nearly managed to lead his orcs around the right flank of the winged demons. They turned out to be nothing more than well-disciplined men who were armored like iron turtles and bore shields large enough to cook a large goblin. But somehow, Lugbol’s kors found themselves caught between the enemy flank and a small force of reinforcements, causing most of them, already unsettled by the rout of the gungiyar’ugh, to flee madly into the night.
Had they stood, his kors would have easily driven back the iron men, despite their great rectangular shields and small stabbing swords, but as it was, Lugbol lost half of the twelve kors who remained with him, including Ghurash. It took him two days to gather together the tattered remnants of his gungiyar; of the one hundred kors he’d led prior to the night attack, only sixty-five remained. Their cowardice made him furious, and he was greatly tempted to flay four or five of them as an example to the others, but to his surprise, the dour Korpaghu encouraged him to let it pass.
“Too soon,” the veteran warrior growled. “And they held up a damn sight better than any of Zlatagh’s water-boweled leg-pissers. Give them that, by Gor-Gor’s left bollock!”
“They still ran in the end!”
“So did we, in the end.”
So we did, Lugbol had to admit. When Ghurash fell before the iron men, pierced through the eye, both he and Korpaghu took to their heels, running from the terrible swords that licked out suddenly from behind the giant metal shields like deadly dragon’s teeth. Perhaps they had stood longer than the others, perhaps they had been a little more brave, but in the end, they had run. That was why they were still alive.
And so Lugbol not only let it pass, but instead praised his kors for showing the wit to remain in the relative vicinity rather than continuing to flee in all directions throughout the Elvenwood. Afterwards, his first thought was to lead them back through the woods to the main army, until he realized that they simply didn’t have the supplies to make it there. Or at least for all of them to make it there. Korpaghu estimated that they would need to eat two of their number each day, which would mean returning with less than half the kors in the gungiyar.
“We could draw sticks, if you didn’t want to let them fight it out.”
“It might work once; after that, anyone that thought they might be next to draw the short one would run off. What was the point of gathering them up if we’re just going to scare them away?”
“We could kill all of them that we need first.”
“There are lots of dead orcs less than a half-day’s march away. We don’t need to make more.”
“You’re thinking we should go back?” Korpaghu looked as him as if he’d gone berserk. “To where the iron men are?”
“To where they were. They’ll have moved on, I’m sure. We’ll send a pair of scouts first.”
“Send five. Send ten. If you’re wrong, we’ll have that many fewer mouths to feed.”
However, in the day that it took for the scouts to return, twenty-five more kors from six different gungiyar’ugh entered their makeshift camp. And the scouts came back with nineteen more, as well as the welcome news that the bodies they would require to sustain themselves were freely accessible, with no sign of the iron men except for the violent evidence of their passing. By they time they’d retraced their steps and returned to the scene of the night slaughter, Lugbol found himself the unexpected warleader of more than two hundred kors. And by the time they’d finished butchering the dead, cooking the meat, and stripping the camp of everything of value, they were more than four hundred fifty strong.
They gathered another sixty-eight along the way, although five died of their wounds and four more died in squabbles that turned lethal. Actually, only three of them died as a result of fighting, the fourth one had his skull split by Korpaghu when the galvebel found him standing over the body of his victim.
The fact that they were no longer fleeing from a terrifying foe, but returning in good order lifted their spirits, an
d they marched back proudly to rejoin the main army, defeated but not beaten, their voices lifted in a song that Lugbol’s kors taught the others.
We are the eyes of the infantry
We walk first and we walk free
Don’t mess with us
Don’t cry or cuss
We’re the best in the damn army!
We’ll beat you hard
Defeat you hard
We’re Black Fist Infantry
We’ll break your head
Then squag you dead
We’re the best in the damn army!
Lugbol couldn’t help feeling a surge of fierce pride as the voices of the kors echoed off the trunks of the trees. They might not be the terrible Red Claw Slayers, and they might march on their bare feet rather than sit astride the wide backs of the mighty warboars, but of all the gungiyars that had marched out under Zlatagh’s piss-yellow banner, his Black Fists were very likely the only warband returning in good order. More than good order, as it happened, but considerably stronger than before.
The strangely soft mossy carpet of the forest floor gradually gave way to hard-packed dirt, and the tall trees on either side to war machines, huge piles of felled trees, haphazard stacks of the branches that had been stripped from them, tents, and big leather tarps under which various bands of goblins and orcs were sleeping. The familiar stench of the camp came as a relief; it was a sure sign that they were safe once more.
A few scores of younger orcs scurried over to watch them pass, and he could tell they were sqwaaks even without the tell-tale stripe of white clay over their noses. They gawked at the weary, blood-stained kors; this was probably the first they’d seen of the war into which they had been drafted. Their innocence drew snorts and sneers from the kors, but for the most part, their passage went unremarked by the camp dwellers.
A violent game of skullkick was drawing considerably more onlookers, as two groups of powerful orcs, mountain orcs from western Zoth Ommog by the look of them, were battling over a much-abused goblin head. When a big kick sent the skull sailing out of bounds high over the crowd, one of the players simply reached out with two powerful hands and ripped the head off the shoulders of a young goblin standing at the front of the crowd, drawing angry shrieks from the nearby goblins and hearty laughter from players on both sides.
Lugbol chuckled himself, although he noticed that as the orc punted the head far across the field to the other team, sending it arcing through the air trailed by a spray of dark green blood, the goblins were not laughing.
“Who we going to report to?” Korpaghu grunted. The taciturn galvebel didn’t appear to have even noticed the game.
“Whatever general is least likely to blame us for Zlatagh getting hisself good and squagged.”
“Best stay away from any of the Zoth Ommoghu commanders, then.”
Lugbol nodded. Zlatagh was, or by this point, more likely, had been, a son of the cousin of one of the king’s younger brothers. That was why he’d been given the command of the raiders, and his failure was bound to make the Zoth Ommoghu look bad.
“Uh oh,” he said, seeing a banner ahead that appeared to be moving rapidly in their direction. It was a black pennant, but thanks to the breeze, an outstretched clawed hand could be seen sewn in red upon it. “Don’t like that. Looks like Slayers.”
The various orcs and goblins that stood in between them and the approaching orcs seemed to vanish, and a moment later, a patrol of the much-feared mountain orcs were seen marching toward them. The Red Claw Slayers were one of the elite heavy infantry units of Zoth Ommog and they were famed throughout the septs for their gloves and boots made from the skin of trolls they’d slain, but ever since the Great Orc Azzakhar summoned the gungiyar’ugh and announced the invasion of the Man and Elf lands, they had served as Azzakhar’s personal enforcers.
There were only seven of them to Lugbol’s five hundred, but even so, he felt outnumbered. The galvebel who led the patrol was a good head taller than him, and looked as if he weighed half again as much. Even if Lugbol’s arm was mostly healed now, he knew wouldn’t last much longer against the massive orc than the average goblin sqwaak. And two of the galvebel’s kors were even bigger; marked with more white scars than tattoos, they were the survivors of inter-tribal wars far more vicious than anything Lugbol or his Black Fists had ever seen.
The big Slayer stopped and stared at him. Lugbol stopped as well, and raised his hand. The five columns of kors behind him came to a shuffling halt.
“You, Shugaba, you were with the First Raiding Expedition, weren’t you?”
“Damn straight, Galvebel!” Lugbol saluted. “Black Fist Infantry, Lugbol, kai hari Shugaba-Gungiyar. Zlatagh Maneater, Gran-kor.”
The Slayer ignored his salute. “The Great Orc wants to see you immediately. Have your second find quarters for your kors. You’ll come with me.”
Lugbol glanced at Korpaghu, who nodded. “Am I under arrest?”
“I don’t know jack, Shugaba. I got orders to bring you to the Great Orc, so do you walk or do I have my kors beat you down and carry you?”
“No, I’ll walk!”
“Good.” Without further ado, the Slayer turned around and began stalking back in the direction he’d come. The bannerkor and the other Slayers waited until both the galvebel and Lugbol walked past them, then fell in behind them. Lugbol was relieved to see they were acting more like an honor guard than captors.
They attracted stares as they walked toward the center of the camp, past large piles of well-gnawed bones and smaller piles of refuse, but it was only the dread banner of the Slayers that attracted them, Lugbol soon realized. Gradually, he relaxed, as he concluded that if the Great Orc wanted him dead, he would be dead already. No, most likely Azzakhar simply wanted to know where his twenty-five thousand orcs and goblins were.
“Is it true?” the galvebel said unexpectedly.
“Is what true?”
“Zlatagh, the raiding army. It’s said he lost a battle, a big one.”
“You could say that.” Lugbol grimaced. “Has anyone from any other units come back?”
“Dribs and drabs. Yours was the first gungiyar to return intact.”
Intact? Lugbol snorted. “If you can call it that.”
“How many did you lose?”
“Thirty-four. We got ourselves caught between two enemy units during a night attack.”
“Heavy?”
“Very. They was like iron turtles.”
“Not szavon’ugh, then.”
“Don’t think so.”
The bigger orc growled thoughtfully. “You could have done a damned sight worse, Lugbol-shuga. Most shugaba, especially the sort commanding the light infantry, would have lost the lot. So listen. Keep your chin up when you talk to the Great Orc. He don’t like no cowards. He don’t take no lip neither, but he hates cowards.”
Lugbol glanced at the big galvebel, who was staring resolutely forward. He hadn’t expected such helpful advice from a Red Claw Slayer. “Thanks, Galvebel.”
The Slayer grunted. Soon they passed a pair of guard-kors who had the Slayer claw branded on their knotted left biceps; both slammed their fists against their chests loudly in a manner that indicated respect. Little wonder, Lugbol thought, if this galvebel knew enough about the Great Orc to indicate his likes and dislikes.
They were approaching a giant pale green tent that was decorated with haphazardly placed sigils of some kind that were mostly blue and black. Magical protections, perhaps? But there was no pattern to them that he could initially discern until they got closer and he could see what they were. Lugbol’s eyes widened as he realized the rumors he’d discounted in the past were actually nothing more than the simple truth; the various marks were not sigils, but tattoos. It was apparent that Azzakhar’s royal tent had been constructed from the flayed skins of his fallen enemies. And looming behind it was something even more awe-inspiring.
He must have inadvertently stopped walking at the astonishing sight before him, be
cause the galvebel snorted and pulled at his arm. “Nobody gets to be Great Orc by smelling no flowers. Only reason we’re all still here sitting on our arses and eating our gobbos is because Azzakhar’s the baddest of the bad-arsed.”
It wasn’t so much the tattooed tent as the gargantuan pyramid of skulls behind it that caused Lugbol to nod slowly in mute amazement. And fear. He didn’t believe there was much danger of his skin being added to the tent, but having his skull added to the bone-yellow pyramid that reached to the sky like an evil offering appeared to be a distinct possibility. He suddenly found himself wishing he’d had the sense to stay in the relative safety of the Korokhurmagh.
A pair of even bigger orcs stood guard at the tent flap. A strangely familiar scent wafted out from it, and all of Lugbol’s senses went on alert. He stood up straighter, his fear forgotten, and sniffed eagerly at the air.
“Keep it in your pants,” the galvebel growled. “Of course he’s got kwee with him. That’s one of the privileges of being the big damn Great Orc. But if you don’t keep your head on straight and forget the pretties are about with their quiffings and whiffings, he’ll rip off your vank and feed it to his devil-witch.”
Lugbol nodded and tried very hard to ignore the effect that the scent of the kwee was having on his body. The guards must have recognized the galvebel, because they nodded at him and pulled aside the big flap. It was high enough that even the taller galvebel was able to enter without ducking, and through it they stepped into a world that seemed entirely different than the stinking, green-stripped encampment outside.
Soft furs of various animals lined the floor of the tent, wolf, bear, fox, and several others that Lugbol couldn’t identify. The trophies of the Great Orc’s many triumphs were on display, from the cracked granite crown that had once belonged to a rival orc king to the giant troll’s skull mounted on a sawed-off spear; it was an impressive collection. There were gilded Dwarf toys and other items Lugbol recognized as having been looted from the Man villages.
But it was the kwee that made the biggest impression on Lugbol, since he had been devoid of female companionship since the Great Orc demanded a one-third levy of every orc kingdom, sept, clan, and tribe in Hagahorn. There must have been a dozen kir’agh there, most of them half-naked, their smooth green skin alluringly highlighted by bright bits of captured man-cloth. Their little tusks were all capped with silver, and he saw their bored eyes brighten a little at his entrance, less from any interest in a small kor from the northern plains than at the prospect of some amusing cruelties to come.
