Grunts

by Mary Gentle

  The halfling leader galloped furiously back towards the entrance tunnel and reined in his pony.

  “You there!” he shouted. “Bring me my reserve mount!”

  A huge shape loomed out of the heat and dust.

  “Oh, what!” Ashnak slammed his fist down on the side of his chair, cracking the wood. “Foul! The referee must be blind! At least,” the orc general added, “he will be. Chahkamnit, make a note of that.”

  The lanky black orc, now sitting well to one side of Ashnak’s field of view, murmured, “Very lenient of you, sir. Very sportin’.”

  Ashnak leaned his elbow on the seat in front and, as Simone Vanderghast chuckled in his ear, watched the scarlet-coated halfling leader ride a huge, shaggy war-mammoth into the arena. It trumpeted and pounded towards the marine end of the field.

  “Never fear, you orcs!” Sergeant Major Guzrak dismounted from his Harley, standing at a smart parade rest. “I has an infallible method of dealin’ with such a fiendish war device, what I learned on the eastern frontier. A chargin’ mammoth will never trample a fallen orc! Lay down, and stab upwards as it passes over you!”

  The brawny orc sergeant flung himself to the turf, rolling onto his back and unsheathing his bayonet.

  Splatt!

  “So that’s why we had so much trouble on the eastern frontier,” a mounted orc corporal remarked. She stopped her Harley, leaned down, and released something tiny that appeared to be armoured in minute links of mail.

  “What’s that?” Ashnak bellowed down.

  “War-mouse, sir,” the orc corporal shouted over the terrified trumpeting of the fleeing mammoth.

  Ashnak got to his feet.

  “Right, marines! In the absence of Sergeant Major Guzrak—I’m coming down to take over the team!”

  The orc marines cheered. The halflings in the stands cheered. Simone Vanderghast scowled.

  “Husband and Consort,” a new voice said.

  Ashnak hitched up the urban camouflage trousers that he wore tucked into laced high-ankle boots. He removed the peaked cap jammed between his ears, revealing the tribal scarring of the fighting Agaku and assorted marine tattoos.

  “Magda!”

  Ashnak whooped, slipped his hand between the female halfling’s legs, and lifted her up bodily in a whirl of black leather skirts. The city’s dignitaries tutted. He took her chin in his hand and planted a wet kiss squarely on her mouth. Her tongue probed his, darting.

  “I’ve just arrived back from the arms factories.” Magdelene van Nassau, Duchess of Graagryk, seated herself, rearranged the flounces and layers of a skin-tight and full-length leather gown. Her hand dropped into the lap of Ashnak’s combat trousers, groping and squeezing. As the assembled councillors averted their gazes, her hand moved in thieves’ fingerspeech.

  Ashnak, his mind at first on other things, deciphered:

  —Urgent news! I must not speak of it in public. Even this finger-talk may be over-read!

  “With you in a moment, my love!” Ashnak vaulted over the front of the box and dropped down to the field, loping across towards the scrum of bikes, ponies, halflings, and marines.

  Magda described orcish sexual failings under her breath in fifteen languages. She snapped her fingers for her maid Safire to fan her in the summer heat; clapped formally, applauding the game; and addressed Cornelius Scroop.

  “Our sales force abroad are doing extremely well…I rode back with the treasurer. He reports many interesting tidbits—the price of saltpetre in Shazmanar; rumours from further up the coast that the Kraken is being a danger to commercial shipping; Queen Shula’s lovers…But there, I mustn’t bore you with gossip. COME ON, YOU MOTHERFUCKER ORCS!”

  Down on the field, Ashnak bestrode a Harley Davidson with a line of stickers on the engine casing, the most recent being a Dark Elf’s head with a line diagonally through it. He gunned the motor. The stuttering concussion beat at his ears. In the stands, tiers of halfling workers rose to their feet, ten thousand mouths showing like wide O’s.

  “That halfling,” Ashnak pointed at the fastest rider, a stout, curly-haired fellow almost four feet tall. “Termination with extreme prejudice!”

  “Yessir!” The orc corporal gunned her Harley, unslung a mace off her back, skidded in a circle that brought her speeding up behind the pony and rider, and swung the weapon.

  The riderless pony galloped off the field.

  The corporal tripped a second rider off his mount and wielded her mace in one hand and a warhammer in the other, pounding the remains of both into the turf.

  “Bit excessive, Corporal.” Ashnak, motor idling, glanced down at what was left.

  “Yeah, well…” The grunt grinned. “You know how it is at this time of the moon, sir.”

  The squad of orc bikers formed up into an extended line, Ashnak at the centre, and roared down the field. Five of the ponies reared and ran away with their riders. The baffling leader, on foot, crimson coat stained with dust and blood, waved his polo mallet furiously.

  “One is not going to be beaten by a miserable pack of greenies!”

  An anonymous voice from the stands called, “‘Oo you kiddin’, guvner?”

  The biker line hit.

  “YO THE MARINES!”

  Ashnak squelched the orc’s severed head down into the opposing team’s bucket. The halflings in the stands leaped to their feet, screaming applause. On Magda’s right, the halfling mother held her child up for a better view of the field, spittle flying from her mouth as she howled, “Are they marines?”

  The halfling tot lisped, “They are mawines, Mama!”

  Plumed hats soared up into the sunny air. Drums beat. The disposal teams wheeled their carts and shovels onto the field as the Badgurlz cheerleaders changed the scoreboards to the final 1-Nil result.

  The surviving grunts drew themselves up and saluted in unison as Ashnak ambled back to the ducal box. Magda leaned down and gave him her hand to kiss.

  “I need to speak with you!” she hissed.

  The orc licked the sweat from her palm. He reached up and pocketed Vanderghast’s purse. “Sure thing…”

  “Ahem!” A large marine trotted up to the duchess’s box, coughing discreetly for an orc. She wore green DPM camouflage fatigues, her crest was shaved down to the regulation quarter-inch, and her boots gleamed. Magda deduced garrison rather than field troops.

  “Sir, excuse me, sir! Message from the barracks. They need you back there immediately, sir.”

  Ashnak wiped sputum from the thigh of his urban combat trousers. “I’m busy! Tell Lugashaldim to handle it himself. Or I’ll rip your head off and you can carry that back to him for an answer!”

  “Sir, yes sir!” Her leathery brow shone in the Southern Kingdoms’ heat, green skin pearled with sweat. “Sorry, sir, no, sir. Need you, sir.”

  Ashnak kissed Magda’s hand. “You’ll have to excuse me, my little one. Present the Orcball League cup and make the relevant posthumous awards.”

  “Hurry back, honey-cake!” Magda blew him a kiss. Her waving fingers moved in the signs for:

  —Damn it, marine, I need to talk to you now!

  Outside Graagryk Stadium, Ashnak glowered at his marine corporal. The orc saluted several times in succession and looked ready to continue it indefinitely. Ashnak picked the large orc up by her webbing and threw her headfirst against the stadium wall. The masonry held.

  “Pull yourself together!” he snarled.

  The corporal staggered upright, weaving. She made as if to salute again and thought better of it. “Confidential message for the general from Lieutenant Lugashaldim, sir. Please to report, the general has a visitor waiting for him back at the barracks.”

  At that same hour, four thousand miles to the southwest of Graagryk and the Inland Sea, on the far side of all the Southern Kingdoms’ vast civilisation, and beyond the Deserts of Endless Sand, an orc marine mounted a podium in the main square of Gyzrathrani.

  Two marines flanked him: hulking granite-skinned orcs stripped
down to brown and ochre desert camouflage fatigue trousers, belt-magazines of .50-calibre ammunition draped across their brawny chests. The equatorial sun of Gyzrathrani beat down on their kevlar helmets and M16s.

  Between them, standing some three feet six inches tall, the orc with spindly ears crammed down under a black Stetson tugged on his black leather gloves, flicked the last grain of desert sand from his dress-issue black combats, and adjusted a pair of mirrorshade Ray·Bans more firmly on his small snout.

  He stepped up onto an ammunition crate placed on top of the podium.

  “Gentlemen: good morning!”

  He tapped the stand-microphone mounted on the podium with one neatly trimmed talon. The microphone squealed. The sound echoed around the palm trees, honey-glazed bricks, and beehive-buildings of Gyzrathrani. Several of the assembled warlords—Mannish warriors with plumed headdresses and long robes—drew back, their tasseled spears raised, until one called, “It’s only magic!” and another added, “And not strong magic, neither!”

  From slit windows in the tall beehive-shaped buildings, the eyes of Gyzrathrani’s sequestered male Men watched. Distant giggles were just audible.

  “I am your sales-orc, marine Major Barashkukor,” the short orc announced. “The demonstration you ordered will begin in just one moment.”

  Barashkukor hastily checked his squad, assembled on the cobbles below the podium. Noon’s shadows pooled under the soft-top army lorry; light and heat slammed up from the earth. The twelve orc marines in brown-and-ochre desert camouflage fatigues rapidly unloaded a vast heap of crates, boxes, and steel cases from the truck.

  “We here from Marine Sales and Services,” Major Barashkukor continued pleasantly, “are pleased to welcome the warriors of—of the fine city of—of the excellent city of—”

  “Gyzrathrani!” the orc corporal beside him hissed.

  “—Gyzrathrani,” Barashkukor finished, “to one of our private sales demonstrations. All right, you orcs, move it!”

  The two orc corporals left the podium and descended into the crowd. The tall, brightly robed warriors, bored, barely moved aside to let the marines pass.

  “My assistants,” the major continued, pulling at one ear and twisting it into corkscrews around his skinny finger, “will demonstrate the weaponry available. But first let me tell you a little about ourselves.”

  In the square, a team of four orcs held up Kalashnikovs over their heads, then held up the curved magazines, and, in unison, fitted the one to the other.

  “We are the Orc Marine Armaments Company.” Barashkukor drew himself up proudly. “Orc marines have been providing the most sophisticated infantry, tank, and air-war systems and services to discerning customers for, oh, it must be…over six months now. We counter threats to your security!”

  “Fully automatic—fire!” the orc corporal shouted. The fire team raised their Kalashnikovs to leathery, brawny shoulders and squeezed the triggers.

  Dakka-dakka-dakka-FOOM!

  Shrapnelled brick flew across the main square, causing Gyzrathrani’s warriors to throw up their hands and mutter spells of protection. Screams sounded as these failed. The warriors stared up at the craters gouged across the glazed brick walls of their beehive-shaped buildings.

  “Our reputation,” Major Barashkukor continued obliviously, “comes from our inventive product line and superb engineering. The orc marines are the recognised leaders in the field of anti-terrorism, security-protection, and general all-out firepower.”

  The orc marines bustled around the truck and came up with what appeared to be clusters of steel tubes on their shoulders. The corporal swivelled his heavy-jawed head, surveying the square, and pointed a gnarled finger at the tallest of the beehive-buildings. “Target thirty metres, ten o’clock, high, one round, fire!”

  FOOOMMM!

  “We are particularly proud—” Barashkukor absently brushed brick-dust from the sleeve of his combats. “—of our infantry-fired missile systems. We are fully aware of all of our clients’ varied needs, and our experience in serving kingdoms, duchies, war-bands, empires, and independent city-states makes us ideally suited to inform you about our multiple enforcement-systems.”

  The two veteran orc corporals below the podium exchanged glances, mouthed “What’s ’e say?”, and shrugged.

  Smoke and dust blanketed the main square, obscuring the blue sky. A heap of rubble now blocked the narrow streets on the west side, cascading down from the shattered building. The warriors of Gyzrathrani, retreating to the striped awnings and palm trees at the sides of the square, began to stamp their feet and chant a rhythmical desert magic.

  “Should you purchase our systems,” the orc major continued, “they come complete with orc marine cadre troops who will train you in their use, advise you on tactics and strategy, provide a secondary command-structure, and—”

  KER-FOOM!

  “We are also proud…” Barashkukor removed his hat and took off his Ray·Bans. He surveyed the shrapnel-fragment embedded in the Stetson’s crown, shrugged, and put his hat back on. He slitted his tilted eyes against the towering column of black smoke and orange flame that now blocked the eastern streets of Gyzrathrani. “Also proud, I may say, of our antitank weaponry. Gentlemen, our weapons-systems have the advantage of being entirely impervious to hostile acts of magery—”

  Spear raised, screaming, a warrior-wage of Gyzrathrani charged the podium. Her face contorting, she screamed powerful spells and curses. The orc corporal raised his M16, sighted, and shot her between the eyes. The body’s momentum carried it forward to thud against the portable podium, just under the banner that read Orc Marine Armaments Company—Our Business Is Killing People.

  “Entirely impervious to magery—where was I? Ah, yes.” Barashkukor beamed across the square in the general direction of those warriors who had taken cover inside buildings. He turned the volume of the microphone up.

  “Our weaponry has a further advantage over magic, gentlemen, in that magic, while doubtless superior, takes decades of training; and our weaponry, while possibly inferior to planetary-level strategic magery, can be used after the standard twelve-week marine training course. I’m sure you can see the advantages when it comes to mounting a snap-decision campaign or responding to unprovoked retaliation.”

  The orc marine squad, at the double, produced a small metal trailer upon which sat a pointed steel cylinder. Seeing this, the robed and spear-carrying warriors of Gyzrathrani frantically increased their mage-chants.

  “That building there!” the corporal cried, with the expression of an orc who enjoys his work. “Take it out!”

  BOOOOOMM!

  “Way to go!”

  Barashkukor coughed brick-dust from his throat. In the silence, warriors crept out from under fallen palm trees and from behind walls, their exit cut off by the collapsed buildings to the north of the square and the orc marine podium in the south.

  “Warriors of Gyzrathrani!” Barashkukor pointed expansively at the crates still on the truck. “Now that you have seen some of our top-of-the-line equipment, let me introduce you to some of the less budget-straining secondhand equipment we can provide. Now, this job lot of M16 assault rifles with M203 grenade-launchers, we ourselves bought back from the Syannis—as you know, the Syannis tribe campaigns only one month in every twenty-five, for religious reasons, so I think I can safely say that we are offering this bargain lot in as-new condition…What am I bid?”

  Bidding was brisk.

  Later, with the truck and support vehicles on the road to the next settlement, Major Barashkukor relaxed in his staff car as they jolted south. The steel lockbox was heavy with silver ingots and copper bangles. His wide nostrils flared to the smell of hot metal and oil, and he sighed with pleasure.

  “Only two more settlements. Be good to finish this tour of duty,” he remarked. “Don’t you think so, Corporal?”

  Orc Corporal Uzkaddit, his regular driver, shrugged shoulders muscled like boulders and grinned. “It has its good points, s
ir.”

  “I suppose it does.” The small orc sighed. “But I miss the dear old barracks back home in Graagryk…”

  Outpacing the three marine guards at his heels, Ashnak ploughed through the door into the anteroom of his office.

  Suddenly the sweetness of decomposing flesh filled Ashnak’s hairy nostrils. A sickly chill shivered across his leathery hide. With a creaking squelch, a tall figure lurched up from behind the office desk.

  Its rotting uniform might once have belonged to an orc marine. The black combat trousers and woollen pullover with epaulets were white with mould and hung in tatters. Albino flesh, dried and mummified, still clung to the skeletal figure looming up over Ashnak. Two mucus-white eyeballs swivelled in their sockets. The sun glinted on its bare ribs and flesh-stripped arm as the partly decomposed orc corpse saluted.

  “Ssssir…”

  “Lieutenant Lugashaldim.” Ashnak ignored the salute and seized his Undead officer by the front of his rotting Special Forces pullover. “We get a visitor you can’t handle, so you haul me out of the goddamn Orcball finals to deal with it—your ass is grass, soldier!”

  It is always tempting to reprimand the Special Undead Services marines for insolence.

  “Sssir, the SUS can’t act against him; we need you here!”

  Ashnak dropped Lugashaldim, hitched up his webbing, which strained to encompass his huge orc’s body, and drew his sidearm. The Desert Eagle pistol all but vanished in his gnarled hand. He snapped his talons at the three M16-carrying marines. “That door, forcible entry, now.”

  The first marine rapidly crossed to the far side of the inner office door. His partner flattened herself against the wall on the near side, weapon raised. At a nod from the other two marines, the first orc kicked the door open, the third charged in, M16 aimed, and his hoarse voice bawled, “Freeze, motherfucker!”

  Ashnak, still holding the pistol, shouldered his way into the inner office. The hot Graagryk sun shone in on wall-maps, partly disassembled weapons, manuals and textbooks of strategy, map-tables, field-telephones, a heavy typewriter, and the vast stone desk transported down (with no little difficulty) over the four hundred miles of terrain called the Spine that lies between the Nin-Edin Marine Base in the Demonfest Mountains and Graagryk.