by Mary Gentle
He flicked through the pages and laboriously spelled out, “‘War is only the continu—continuation of politics, by other means…’”
“Nahhh. War’s fun, sir, that’s what war is.” Captain Barashkukor brandished another book he had removed from the crate. “This one’s called ‘Pliny,’ sir.” He thumbed through it, eyes widening. “Sir! It mentions ores, sir! It says the orc is a marine monster.”
Ashnak raised a bushy eyebrow. “Wonder how he knew?”
“‘Jane’s Medieval Small-Arms and Siege Weapons,’ sir?”
“Obsolete, soldier.” Ashnak broke off, hearing a heavy multiple tread on the stairs. “Come!”
“Hut-two, hut-two, hut-two, halt! The marines you requested, sir!”
Company Sergeant Marukka saluted smartly. A tall, skinny male orc marched into the office beside another orc female, this one scruffy and wearing spectacles.
“—and because they’re all out to get me! Oh. Lord General!” Ugarit saluted with the wrong hand. His uniform pockets shifted, clinking with the weight of spanners in them.
Marukka howled, “Ugarit, you candyass marine, keep your mouth shut in front of the general! That’s fifty strokes of the lash for you.”
The tall, skinny orc began to tremble visibly. The scruffy female orc with him saluted rigidly.
“Dismissed, Sergeant,” Ashnak rumbled. “I shan’t be needing you either, Captain.”
Captain Barashkukor saluted and followed Marukka out. Ashnak stood for several minutes, looking the two marines up and down. He smiled nastily.
“You’re pathetic!” he barked. “Call yourselves marines? I wouldn’t wipe my arse with you! I’m going to straighten this company out now, and I’m starting by eviscerating you two! We’ve been occupying Nin-Edin for six hours and you still haven’t come up with a plan to defeat the enemy.”
“P-plan, sir…?” Marine Razitshakra’s combats had quill-pens protruding from every pocket. Her large pointed ears projected laterally from the sides of her head. Fog condensed and dripped from the tips of each. She blinked golden eyes. “Wh-what plan?”
“I’ve got a plan! Alternative firepower! General, it’s the only answer!” Ugarit, spluttering, unfolded scribbled-on sheets of paper, diagrams, a folding tape measure, and small mechanical models. “Arrows with ceramic heads! Kevlar armour! Carbon-fibre swordblades! I have all the designs, all the measurements—calculations—stress loads—they’ll never get me if I have all this!”
Razitshakra muttered something under her breath, of which Ashnak could distinguish only the phrase “several cogwheels short of a clock.”
“Very inventive.” Ashnak drew a breath and bellowed. “The first blast of mage-fire will still shatter them to ashes! Are you telling me the whole Research and Development Unit can’t come up with anything better than that?”
Ugarit shook his head, water drops flying. “I had everyone working on it, General, sir.”
“And just how many personnel do you have in R&D?”
The skinny orc counted on his fingers for some minutes before announcing, “One, General, sir. Me.”
Ashnak walked across to the vast carved wooden chair liberated from some merchant’s wagon inadvisedly attempting the Nin-Edin pass, and sat down heavily at his desk. He wiped his hand across his face. He resisted, with difficulty, the impulse to crack Ugarit’s skull against the masonry and see if anything oozed out.
“Sir…” Razitshakra scribbled on a small piece of paper she extracted from her pocket, ticking off items on a list with her index talon. “I think I’ve got it, sir!”
“Please,” Ashnak purred, “do tell.”
“Magic, sir. That’s the answer. I don’t do it—I’m an orc, and we hate magic!—but I know about it. The other grunts avoid me because of that…” She met his gaze, narrowing her tilted eyes. “If you could find the nameless necromancer, or another Dark Mage—there must be some who didn’t die at the Fields of Destruction—we could survive. But then that person would automatically end up in command of us, sir. Wizards always commanded the Horde because they can use magic and we can’t.”
“True,” Ashnak rumbled.
“Only magic can defend against magic. You need someone who can deal with it—but does it have to be a Man? Or any other race? If we had orcs who could deal with magic, General, we’d be our own bosses.”
Ashnak, remembering a nest-sister of his own, magic-sniffer and dead now, shook his head. “Orcs and magic don’t mix.”
The female orc stabbed a taloned finger at her list. “Normally they don’t have to. In battle we’re protected by our side’s wizards. But we don’t have that here, sir! I’m not suggesting we use magic. Orcs don’t do that. We should just make certain no one can use it against us.”
Razitshakra crumpled her list and shoved it deep in her combats pocket, staring intently up at Ashnak.
“We don’t have to look for a new master, sir. Not if we can get some magical talismans or amulets. Protective magical talismans that we can carry into battle with us. So that the Light can throw fail-weapons magic at us and it won’t work.”
“As one of my nest-sisters, Shazgurim, used to say, I know Man-tales.” Ashnak’s heavy brows lifted. “Is it possible for orcs to have a Quest?”
“We orcs,” Marine Razitshakra said, “we orc marines don’t need a master, General. We can do all this ourselves!”
Ashnak considered this revolutionary idea.
“Tell me, orc who is knowledgable about magic,” he said softly, “where do you come by those golden eyes?”
Razitshakra’s wide mouth dropped open. Her fangs and tusks seemed smaller than usual for an orc of her size.
“Well, marine?”
Razitshakra removed her spectacles. Her skin turned a deep grass-green over her cheeks, ears, throat, and breasts. She stared down at the toes of her muddy combat boots.
“It’s not true that I’m a half-elf,” she mumbled. “Quarter-elven, sir. At most. Grandmother made a mistake on a dark night in the Enchanted Wood. So did her…ah…involuntary partner, sir—one he didn’t survive. I’m only a quarter-elvish, sir. I may know about magic, but I’m a real orc. Honest, sir!”
“Yes, yes.”
Ashnak was not familiar with the emotion of embarrassment, but he felt a strong urge to change the subject.
He stood and went to the window. Nin-Edin’s inner and outer walls loomed in the fog, covered with skull-standards and machineguns emplacements. Ancient masonry, solid as the mountains, but masonry has been brought down before now, by neither siege machines nor storming the walls, but by the Light’s filthy magic. Ashnak became aware that he was listening, and had been for some time.
Listening.
Waiting.
“These talismans, Marine Razitshakra. If such things exist—where would we get them?”
The golden-eyed orc brightened. “Ah. Yes, sir. Now that’s the interesting part.”
Wine had been spilt in the corridor of the House of Joy, and the halfling put his bare, hairy foot in it before he noticed. Making a face, he wiped his leathery sole on the bare boards. A few remaining coins clunked in his trunk-hose pockets.
The door at the end of the hall was ajar, and he pushed it open. Lanterns illuminated a Man-room—or so he first thought, looking at the bed—but the dressing table and washstand were halfling-sized furniture.
A whip snapped the air beside his left ear. “Onto the bed, slave!”
“Yes, mistress!” He fell to his knees, grovelling in front of a pair of very small, high, stiletto-heeled boots. The lantern light gleamed on black leather calves and slender thighs, and a studded belt from which hung shackles.
The whip cracked, stinging him smartly across the buttocks. He abased himself again, and then crawled over to the bed. It was impractical to crawl up onto it, it being Manfurniture. He stood and climbed up onto the rubber sheets.
“You will address me as Mistress, scum—Safire, I’m going to need the small shackles; hurry, gir
l!—and you will kiss my boots and be thankful for the privilege. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mistress!” He writhed happily. The maid, whom he assumed to be Safire, locked shackles on his wrists and ankles in somewhat too much of a professional manner, but he could forgive that. He was not by any means the first of the Army of Light home from the wars.
“Now, what have we here…a helpless victim, is it? Or is it a bad boy who needs punishing? Is it a bad boy who needs a whipping?”
He whimpered happily. “Yes. I’ve been bad.”
The shackles tightened, pulled back and fastened at the four corners of the bedstead. He sprawled face-down on the bed, his small limbs stretched outwards. A leather-gloved hand slid up between his short legs and unbuttoned his trunk-hose.
“Now—” the voice of the whore, mock-triumphant, as she pulled down his breeches and exposed his bare buttocks. “Bad boy! I’ll give you a whipping you’ll never forget! Bad boy!”
A welt of fire lashed his buttocks. He was too startled to enjoy it.
“Wait—”
“You’re a bad boy!”
Unmistakable.
He did the best he could to roll on one side, and look up over his shoulder. The female halfling stood on the bed, legs astride him, coiling her whip. He stared up at the black leather head-mask, seeing only an impersonal pair of eyes.
Bad boy.
The voice was unmistakable.
He said, “Mother—is that you?”
The watery autumnal sunlight broke three days of continuous fog as Barashkukor marched smartly across the inner compound of the Nin-Edin fort.
Reaching the door of the stone outhouse designated “Research Laboratory No. 1037,” he took off his GI helmet and, after some thought, tucked it under his left arm. His long, hairless ears sprang upright.
“Asssschu!”
A voice from behind the closed door called, “What is it, Captain Barashkukor?”
His small brows indented. He lifted a fist to knock smartly on the wood. Somewhere inside the stone shed a loud explosion sounded. Smoke drifted out of the glassless windows. An orcish scream split the air. Barashkukor ignored it and knocked again. The door creaked open.
“We’re busy; what—” Marine Razitshakra stopped. “What?”
Barashkukor, his back ramrod straight, came to attention. The small orc’s combat boots gleamed, his green DPM camouflage trousers had been laundered and pressed, and a display of grenades and .50-calibre ammunition hung on bandoliers across his thin chest.
“Marine Razitshakra.” He thrust out his left hand. His helmet, forgotten, dropped and bounced painfully off his foot. “For you.”
Razitshakra inspected the posy of autumn wildflowers the small orc captain held out. “Um…That’s…um…sir…”
“They’re for you.”
Barashkukor stuffed the flowers into the orc marine’s hand, the tips of his ears drooping; then snapped a salute, about-faced, and marched off back across the compound.
The female orc took off her rimless spectacles and put them in her top pocket. She blinked. In the distance, Captain Barashkukor about-faced again, marched back, and bent to pick up the camouflage-covered GI pot.
“Forgot my helmet,” he explained.
Razitshakra lowered her broad nostrils into the posy and sniffed it. She took a bite. Tentatively at first, she began to chew the dog roses, holly, and nightshade.
Barashkukor’s shoulders slumped. He turned his back on her and walked away, feet dragging, his eyes on the beaten earth of the compound.
On the walls above, the marine alarm horns rang out, and an urgent drum began to beat.
Barashkukor shrugged skinny shoulders and carried on walking.
Orc squads pounded past him at the double, corporals and NCOs shouted alarmed orders, and somewhere Marukka’s bellow split the chill air. Weapons clashed. Up on the parapet, skull-pole standards were hastily raised. The inner iron portcullis clashed down, three yards from Barashkukor’s left elbow, burying its spikes several feet deep in the dirt.
“Captain!”
Moodily, Barashkukor glanced up. The rising bulk of Nin-Edin at his back, he gazed through the iron grating at the great mountain ranges rising to either side of the pass. Grey cloud still clung to the impassable peaks. Before him, beyond the outer bailey and outer defensive walls, a desolate valley ran down to the lowlands…
The distant road that wound up to this mountain pass glittered.
“Oh, shit,” Barashkukor said.
Lowland sunshine reflected back from the helms, shields, armour, and weapons of the approaching, besieging Army of Light.
3
“You’ve changed, son. I hardly know you.”
The halfling Magda emerged from behind the room’s silk screen wearing a crimson-furred velvet gown. She tied its belt firmly around her hourglass-waist.
“And I hardly expected to find you wearing that uniform.”
She walked across the room and picked up a thin roll of black pipe-weed, fitting it into a long ivory holder. Reaching up to a candleflame, she lit the pipe-weed and drew deeply. She passed her hand through her short dark hair.
“Mother, everyone knew which was going to be the winning side.”
Magda inhaled another lungful of pipe-weed. She studied her son as he sat in the chair by the window, watching for first light. His curly black hair was thickly streaked with white.
“Besides, I thought that the Army of Light had a better chance of collecting its pay arrears.”
He lounged back, fully clad; black mail-shirt glinting in the candlelight below the white of his small ruff. The favour of the Army of Light—a yellow sash—he wore tied about his left arm. His doublet and trunk-hose showed signs of wear, and the wood of his short-sword scabbard had split and been badly repaired with wire.
“You wrote that you had become wealthy.”
The halfling’s dark eyes flicked in her direction. There were lines bitten into his found face that had not been there eighteen months ago.
“Wealth doesn’t last. Gamblers had most of mine.”
“Mmm…” A little suspicious still, Magda walked to the window and stood on tiptoe to peer out. “And your brother, where is he?”
For the first time in an hour, her son smiled.
“Out there in the frost, wondering if he should come in and rescue me; and whether it’s danger that delays me, or over-indulgence in pleasure. Tonight was his turn to watch my back.”
Magda chuckled. “I’ll call Safire. We shall have hot mulled wine while we wait. I wonder how long it will take him?”
She inhaled pipe-weed smoke, becoming serious.
“I’ve been thinking. Life in Herethlion won’t be Easy Street for much longer. I give it a month before the celebrations and coronations are over—then the purge will begin. Anything with so much as a scent of corruption will be called the Dark! and banned. And that’ll take this Thieves’ Quarter with it. Believe me. I’ve seen it before.”
She breathed out a long plume of smoke.
“Fortuna is a tricky Goddess. I made an offering in her church last month for help. Behold, she sends my two sons back to me.”
Magda stubbed the pipe-weed out against the window-frame. She reached down as she crossed the room to call Safire, and squeezed her son’s small, hard bicep.
“I thought I might travel north. I shall need muscle—if I’m to set up business in a new city.”
The door of Nin-Edin’s main hall closed behind the last senior officer to enter. Ashnak leaned his bulging forearms on the podium and grinned, showing all his fangs and brass-capped tusks.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called you all here…”
The whistle of an incoming fireball-spell drowned out his next words. The assembled orc officers hit the floorboards. The fireball air-burst, shrapnelling the glassless windows. Sparks of green flame flicked in the high-roofed hall and went out.
“Now—”
“Fuck, man,
you got us into some deep shit here!” A marine corporal with “FRAG THE OFFICERS!” stencilled on her helmet-cover sprang up and screamed, “What kind of dumb motherfucker gets us shut up in a death-trap like this?”
Another orc yelled up at the podium, “You ain’t got the balls to break out of this fort!”
The orc officers snarled, pounding the butts of their assault rifles on the flagstones. Ashnak’s lip curled. “And does anyone else hold that opinion?”
Waiting for the focus of trouble to manifest itself, he was at first irritated when Company Sergeant Marukka lumbered to her feet. He started to say, “Later: let me deal with this first,” and then realised that a silence had fallen on the sixty officers present. Four of the junior lieutenants also got to their feet. The senior captains eyed Ashnak with expressions between speculation and outrage.
“You?” Ashnak demanded.
“Me.” Marukka rested a ham-sized fist on her hip. She wore green tiger-stripe camouflage, a strip of which tied up her plume of orange hair, and a black tank-top with “BORN TO FIGHT!” stencilled on the front. Deliberately, she cocked her M16. “You failed in your duty, sir. You better let someone more competent take over the marines. I’ve decided. You’re not in command here anymore.”
“This is mutiny!”
Marukka grinned broadly at his bluster. “Too fuckin’ right, sah!”
Ashnak straightened his shoulders slightly. He looked down from the podium at the crowded hall and tense faces, chewing on his unlit cigar. Two marines behind Marukka got to their feet and flanked her in support, starting to unsling M16s from their shoulders.
FOOM! FOOM!
Wood splintered.
Ashnak shot through the podium that concealed the drawn and cocked .44 Magnum pistol in his hand, shredding the black sweatshirt over Marukka’s heart and putting a greenish-brown-rimmed hole between the eyes of the orc marine with “FRAG THE OFFICERS!” on her helmet. The third marine hit the floor, M16 raised, and a loyal grunt corporal put five rounds into her from behind with an AK47.
