Grunts

by Mary Gentle

  Simone Vanderghast agreed. “The High King would have an army in Graagryk in days!”

  Corporal Ugarit chuckled—a thin, high sound. “Let ’em send an army! We’re not afraid of magic now, not even southern magic, no we’re not. Let ’em come, I’ll have ’em, I’ll take ’em all—”

  Ashnak lifted his fist and brought it down on the top of Ugarit’s head. The kevlar helmet cracked. Ugarit beamed daffily, fell off his chair, rolled over on the floorboards, and began to snore.

  “There is some truth in what my corporal says,” Ashnak confirmed. “However, my strategy at the moment doesn’t involve fighting the High King and all his many, many allies. As I said, it involves peaceful trade.”

  “But how?”

  Ashnak eyed the two halflings. They did not seem anything like as convinced as he had imagined they would be at this point. He scowled.

  “As to how,” Magda Brandiman said, “firstly, I am an accredited Southern Kingdoms duchess. Magda Brandiman can vanish, and Magdelene van Nassau return with no stain on her reputation. She could make the orcs and their general welcome in Graagryk…”

  Ashnak beamed and nodded.

  “…but, of course, that would still give the High King and Council great excuse for suspicion. So that won’t work.”

  Ashnak’s heavy jaw dropped.

  “But that was our plan!” he spluttered.

  “That won’t work alone,” Magda emphasised. “However, I have the perfect answer. It will turn the orc marines into Graagryk’s trusted allies; and by that move, make them the Light and the High King’s allies too.”

  “What it is, Your Grace?” Cornelius Scroop queried.

  Simone Vanderghast said, “Your Grace, the city would welcome your return. How we would welcome it! Only I don’t understand what you can do about this political problem of orcs’ being unacceptable in the Southern Kingdoms…”

  “I can make the orc marines respectable,” Magda Brandiman said.

  She rested her diminutive chin on her interlinked fingers and met Ashnak’s bemused gaze. She smiled.

  “I can make the general of the orc marines respectable,” the Duchess Magdelene said. “Ashnak, will you marry me?”

  “No! Listen up: I’m telling you for the last time! I won’t do it!”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “It isn’t what we planned! It’s nothing like it!”

  “I know.”

  “Dark damn it, halfling, I am not going to marry you!”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Fuck off and die!”

  “If that’s what you want. But let me hear you tell me twice.”

  “I’m not getting married! No way!”

  “No industry. No arms trade.”

  “I don’t care!”

  “No Magda Brandiman.”

  “So what!”

  “You’ll do it. When you get to my age, you know these things.”

  “And how old are you, exactly?”

  “Let’s just say I don’t look as though I have two sons in their late forties, do I?”

  “I won’t do it! I’m a marine, and I’m an orc; and when an orc marine says something, he means it, and I’m saying it now: we are not getting married!”

  11

  Four hundred miles to the south of the Demonfest Mountains, the Duchy of Graagryk lies on the flat lands bordering the southern coast of the Inland Sea. Snow perches pristine white on roofs and leafless trees, as it properly should, and does not clog the boots of the Graagryk halflings as they hurry towards the city’s great cathedral.

  Chimneys belch smoke at the edges of the frozen salt flats—smoke that by magery is made to vanish even as the factories produce it. The warm winter sun shines down on a clean land. Even the poorest halfling housewife has the use of cleansing magery, and the very cobbles in the streets gleam, cleaned of slush.

  Baroque horns ring out. Graagryk’s thronging citizens fall silent entering the great halfling cathedral—which by orc standards is a largish church. The pews being too small to take his bulk, Ashnak, general of the orc marines, remains standing.

  “—but I must talk to you immediately after the ceremony!” Chancellor-Mage Cornelius Scroop protested. “The political situation is becoming urgent!”

  Ashnak peered down at the flowing red tresses of the Chancellor-Mage of Graagryk, at last making out a pair of mournful halfling eyes regarding him from amongst swathes of haberdashery.

  “See me later, stumpy,” the orc snarled, tugging the lapels of his brown formal marine uniform straight. For some reason the tunic collar seemed more than usually tight around his bull neck.

  The holly decorations of Yule Solstice made the interior of the white cathedral bright with red and green. Candles burned in sconces. Outside the high, pointed windows the sky glowed a fierce winter blue.

  “Ash-nak! Ash-nak! ASH-NAK!”

  Orc marines, unmagicked snow crusting their boots, crowded the pews behind Ashnak. Uniformed, armed grunts sat up in the window embrasures, hung off candlestands, stood on the bases of pillars and the backs of pews, and sat hip to bony hip along the edge of the lectern. They chanted:

  “I don’ know, but I been told

  Orcs is vicious, mean, and bold!”

  There were probably a lot fewer marines present than there were halfling citizens of Graagryk. It was just, Ashnak reflected, that orc marines seem to take up more room.

  Halflings in aprons, carrying mundane brushes and buckets, scurried from nave to aisle and back, hopelessly scrubbing and wiping in the orcs’ wake. Ashnak resignedly lifted his combat boots, one at a time, as a Graagryk cleaner mopped under them. The nullity talisman around his leathery bull neck tingled. Breath fluttered under his breastbone.

  “Urgency?” he queried.

  The halfling chancellor waved his lace-cuffed hands. “The news is that companions-in-arms from the disbanded Dark and Light armies are ravaging the kingdoms from the south to the sea! They take towns and fortresses, are driven out again, take others; take good men for ransom and are paid, or kill their prisoners out of hand; it’s terrible!”

  Ashnak raised beetling brows in surprise. “It is?”

  Cornelius’s round face sharpened. “We have orders for arms flooding in from every kingdom for leagues around—contracts to be signed, they stipulate, only after this ceremony.”

  “Civilians!” Ashnak showed his carious fangs. “Don’t worry. Your percentage is safe…”

  Major Barashkukor trotted smartly down the aisle from the cathedral entrance. The small orc wore parade dress: black uniform brushed and belt buckle shining. His thin crest had been combed and watered flat to his misshapen skull, and he wore a new black Stetson.

  “Yo, sir!” He saluted, taking off his mirrorshades. “She’s coming, sir!”

  Ashnak glanced down at his own polished black boots, worried by their unorcishly pristine splendour. “The ring?”

  “Sir, got it, sir! Here, sir!” Barashkukor patted the top pocket of his black tunic. His spindly, clawed fingers groped at the cloth. Suddenly panic-stricken, he dug his hand into the pocket and brought it out with a sigh of relief, clasped around a small gold ring, plain except for some script engraved around the inside.

  “One size fits all, they said. Nice piece of goods, sir.”

  “Should be. I had enough trouble to get hold of it.”

  “Ash-nak! Ash-nak!”

  The orc marines cheered, their voices echoing up into the low cathedral roof, and then abruptly fell silent. The organ sonorously blasted out a few bars of something Ashnak charitably recognised as the orc marine march. A Badgurlz marine added her saxophone to the cacophony. Ashnak turned his head, looking back down the aisle.

  Magda stood in the doorway, silhouetted against bright snow and blue sky and the crowds in Graagryk’s main square. Her satin and white lace dress trailed in the trodden slush from the orc marines’ boots. A maid in a pink satin farthingale, her brown hair braided up on her head, picked up the t
rain and walked down the aisle behind Magda.

  “Erm.” Barashkukor spoke sotto voce. “Isn’t that Ned Brandiman carrying her train? Sir, I mean Edvard van Nassau, sir.”

  Asknak nodded his great tusked head ponderously. “Yes, Major. That’s him.”

  “Is that what he does, sir?”

  Ashnak sighed. “I don’t think it’s all he does. Scroop mentioned something about him building a fireworks display for the celebrations afterwards…”

  Magda walked sedately forward between lines of orc marines and the burghers of Graagryk, all of them cheering so loudly that the music of the organ was drowned out. A veil of white lace and diamonds covered her delicate face, flowing back over her hair that today was long and blonde and curly. Plain white silk cupped her small breasts, hugged her narrow hips, and foamed in lace and frills around her tiny white-booted feet. Ashnak recognised Archipelago mulberry silk, the purchase of a single bolt of which can beggar a ducal household.

  A shaven-headed halfling priest walked out onto the steps before the altar, his purple robe sweeping the marble. “People of Graagryk! Merchants, militia, and great duchess! We are gathered together at this Yuletide Solstice to perform a solemn ceremony…”

  Out of the side of his wide mouth Ashnak muttered, “Ought I to be doing his?”

  Barashkukor patted his elbow in a fatherly manner. “Yes, sir, you should, sir. Think of how popular it’s going to make you. And the rest of us. And besides, sir, she’s…”

  Ashnak’s heavy brows lowered. “Yes, Major?”

  The small orc spread his hands widely. “The boys love her, sir. She’s—erm—been like a mother to us.”

  Ashnak had no more time to speak. Magda Brandiman arrived at his side, her trainbearer in her wake, and the great cathedral full of orcs, citizens, vagabonds, burghers, deserters, merchants, and mercenaries became hushed. He looked down, and further down, and gazed at the bright blue eyes he could see through the thin veil.

  Magda Brandiman winked.

  The priest cleared his throat. “Who giveth away this halfling?”

  Will Brandiman took his mother’s arm. Spruce, clean, scrubbed and polished, his greying black hair newly cut and his doublet and hose banished in favour of viridian silk coat and breeches, he still bore the traces of his beating. He regarded the large orc marine with a look that plainly denoted neither forgiveness nor finished business. “I do.”

  Wilhelm van Nassau looked for a moment at the manicured, muscular hand in his; glanced up at Ashnak, and somewhat unceremoniously shoved his mother’s appendage at the orc. Ashnak took the small, hot hand in his own. His granite fist enclosed it entirely.

  The priest coughed and adjusted his half-moon spectacles. “We are gathered here on this auspicious occasion to join together in matrimony this orc and this halfling. If anyone knows of any reason why this marriage should not happen, let them speak now, or forever remain silent.”

  Ashnak glanced over his broad shoulder. The church was silent enough to hear a sergeant’s stripes drop. Ranked orc marines looked back at him, quite a number grinning rather more broadly than he appreciated.

  The priest’s voice echoed sonorously:

  “Do you, Ashnak of the Horde of Darkness, General Officer Commanding the Orc Marines, betrothed of the Duchess of this great city of Graagryk, take the halfling Magdelene Amaryllis Judith Brechie van Nassau to be your lawful wedded spouse?”

  Ashnak looked huntedly from side to side. The bride’s trainbearer chuckled in an unexpected baritone. Will Brandiman folded his arms; rather more purses at his belt than could be accounted for by his changing into the dress of a Graagryk prince.

  Major Barashkukor, starry-eyed, nudged his commanding officer in the ribs. “Sir!”

  “I suppose so,” Ashnak rumbled.

  “Do you, Magdelene Amaryllis Judith Brechie van Nassau, Duchess of Graagryk, hereditary Holder of the Golden Cobble, Six Hundred and Seventh Admiral of the Inland Sea, take this—this orc marine to be your lawfully wedded consort?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Magda said. “Oh, all right then.”

  “I hereby pronounce you heir and consort, orc-husband and halfling-wife,” the priest finished, “and may the Lady have mercy on your souls!”

  With a curious delicacy Ashnak fitted the ring to the halfling’s largest finger. Scant seconds later, it seemed to him, he stood in the snow and trodden slush outside Graagryk’s cathedral. The press of the crowd prevented him from moving forward.

  “Well, my love, we—”

  Bells drowned out his words.

  Wild in the snowy air, shaking ice down from the cathedral’s gargoyles, the deep bells clanged out across the city. The citizen militia, in velvet and lace, brandished their halberds, leaning back in a cordon against the front rank of the crowd as the cathedral doors were thrown wide open.

  “What?” Magda bawled.

  “We may have lost—I SAID WE MAY HAVE LOST—”

  Magda waved him to silence in the clangour of the bells. A dozen squads of orc marines clumped out at the double into the snow, shouting, cheering, and throwing snowballs. Company Sergeant Varimnak, her black leather uniform dark against the whiteness, bellowed orders.

  The orc marines formed two smart lines leading out from the cathedral’s entrance, unslung their AK47s, and on command let off a blast of automatic fire over the heads of the crowd. Halflings, Men, and the few elves present screamed, ducking. The orcs bellowed with laughter and fired the next volley lower.

  “Marines, ten-HUT!”

  Ninety booted feet slammed into the snow as the honour guard came to attention. The orc marines nearest the cathedral doors held up an arch of poleaxes, warhammers, and M60s.

  “Here we go.” The halfling squeezed his hand with a surprisingly strong grip. Ashnak looked down at her and grinned.

  “Yo!” He scooped her up, long-trained wedding dress and all, and sat her firmly on his shoulders. The female halfling, resplendent in white satin, silk, and lace, turned her unveiled face up to the bright blue sky. She kicked her legs free of the skirts, her booted feet resting on his barrel chest; snatched off his peaked cap and waved it joyously at the crowd.

  Major Barashkukor inflated his small chest and bellowed, “Three cheers for Duke Ashnak and Duchess Magda! Hip, hip—”

  “HOORAY!”

  TAKKA-TAKKA-TAKKA-FOOM!

  A volley of automatic fire ricocheted off the cathedral frontage. Stone chips spanged, and a gargoyle toppled over and fell with a dull thud into a snowdrift. Orc marines, drinking from water bottles that patently obviously did not contain water, began to sing raucously and fire at random. Major Barashkukor beamed at them tearfully.

  “I do so love a wedding,” he observed.

  Magda Brandiman wriggled, sitting on Ashnak’s shoulder, and threw her bouquet of winter blossoms into the crowd. A stocky figure in pink silk straight-armed a burgher out of the way, snatched the bouquet out of the air, and in a gruff voice bellowed, “Me next!”

  “Your stepsons,” Magda said demurely, “they really do need a father’s hand…”

  “Stepsons!” Ashnak groaned.

  Magda reached down a hand upon which the veins were beginning to stand out. She took Ashnak’s horny hand in her own. Her ring caught fire from the sun. He slitted tilted eyes against the light, and his talons spiked her expensive silk bodice, drawing her down to where he could plant a kiss squarely on her mouth.

  “You can’t keep a bad orc down.”

  The orc duke surveyed the halfling city of Graagryk and looked up at Magda van Nassau. He belched and grinned.

  “We may have lost the Last Battle—but we definitely won the war!”

  BOOK 3

  War Crimes

  PROLOGUE

  The American marine walked through the open door into the bar of the Goat and Compasses, ducking his head to enter.

  Amy, behind the bar, registered him first as a shadow against the light. She put on her professional smile. “What can
I get you?”

  “Whiskey. Please.”

  An American accent, with a slight Middle European edge. Thirty, maybe thirty-five, carrying himself with a tensile spring in his step. Amy read the brown identification tapes sewn above the breast pockets of the crisp brown-and-ochre camouflage jacket: STRYKER, one read, and the other, U.S. MARINES.

  Conscious of the stir among the pub’s regular clientele, she had time to study the sturdy American, register camouflage colours made recognisable by weeks of TV Gulf War news broadcasts, and then the darts match in the snug broke up, and one of the older men from up on the housing estate said, “What are you having, mate? Bloody good job you did out there. That’s what I say. Bleedin’ good job. C’mon, what’re you having?”

  The American marine rested his elbows on the polished bar. Under a forage cap his blond hair, shaved down almost to the scalp, gleamed under the pub lights.

  “Whiskey,” he repeated quietly.

  “Good for you, mate. Amy!”

  “I’m here.” She poured a measure, watching the marine drink while she served others. There were lines about his eyes, as if he had spent time squinting into Arabian sunlight. She recalled news videos of similar men loaded with seventy-pound packs, piling out into rocky wastes blasted by aircraft and sown with mines. You could not tell, under the camouflage jacket, if his heavy arms and shoulders were tanned, but she thought they might be. She tried to make more eye contact.

  “So what was it like out there, mate?” an old man persisted. “I saw it on the telly. Kill any wogs, did you?”

  The American drank off half the whiskey. He leaned on the bar, in a position from which he could see both the public and the saloon bar door. Amy waited, almost holding her breath.

  The brief roar of Tornado fighter jets flying back to RAF Chicksands vibrated through the building. The marine did not flinch. The regulars were turning back to their conversations, or watching the TV above the bar; the younger lads were playing the video machines, and Amy, flustered, wiped her hands on the bar-cloth. “Sorry about that. Sorry.”