Grunts

by Mary Gentle

  A babble of curiosity rose in the Assembly Hall. The orc field marshal reached up, pulled off his helmet, and scratched at his ears. Seeming curiously unprotected, standing between the nobility of Ferenzia and the silent Dark Lord, the orc spoke again.

  “I am a plain soldier,” Ashnak said, “and I have always respected the Light as a brave opponent. Now we face a force which is vicious, unstoppable, and vile. Men of the Light, your virtues are well known. Trust me when I say they’ll slow you down and weaken you in the face of an enemy who doesn’t know what mercy or kindness means.”

  “What enemy?” a Ferenzi lord demanded.

  The hall full of Men in evening dress clutched at their hastily recovered weapons and pressed forward in shouting groups. Orc warriors lowered their fire-sticks. The big orc struck one warrior’s fire-stick up to point at the chandeliers.

  “This enemy!” The big orc felt in a large pouch attached to his jacket. He lifted something out, raised his arm, and threw it down on the floor. It cracked. People flinched away, then crowded near.

  “Recognise that?” The orc bared brass-capped tusks. “Lost any outlying settlements recently?” Mysterious disappearances? Parties of adventurers gone missing?”

  Oderic hitched up the knees of his tweed trousers before squatting to see exactly what was encased in the transparent envelope the orc had thrown down. When he recognised the chitinous fragments, he had to use his staff purely as a stick to help him rise.

  “The…the Black Claw! It is a true token,” the High Wizard admitted brokenly. “The Light’s mages have been secretly combating this menace for days. But we are not of sufficient strength to defeat it!”

  The orc grinned.

  “If you good guys can’t handle it, then let us badass orc bastards do it for you! If you elect my Dark Master as War Leader—purely for the duration of this emergency—then I can mobilise the entire forces of the orc marines, elite corps and reserves, on your side. Without a War Leader, you’ll fall into confusion, quarrel among yourselves, while these monsters ravage your homes. We must have this election, and we must have it soon!”

  A voice from the back of the wrecked hall cheered, “Yes!”

  “Preposterous!” a fat woman in satin snarled, and a silken-cloaked man beside her protested, “How can we trust them?”

  Another voice called, “It’s our only chance!”

  In the great hall the Ferenzi nobility squabbled among themselves. A number gathered around the canopied throne, harassing the half-asleep High King Magorian. And as is the way with half-breed mages, no matter how they may seem to be accepted into polite society, Corinna Halfelven’s murder was not officially protested. The High Wizard Oderic felt suddenly bent with age.

  “The plans of evil are cunning,” he whispered, watching the hall full of milling people: how they forgot and turned their backs on the strange orc warriors, how they tolerated in that smashed audience chamber the presence of Darkness Incarnate.

  “You think you got problems.” The orc field marshal dropped his pipe-weed cigar and crushed it under one heavy boot. His pit-deep eyes gleamed at Oderic.

  “I got two of them on my back. Not that he’s much, compared to Her. I can hack it. And She may be well out to lunch, but yours is out to lunch, dinner, and breakfast the following day…”

  Oderic brushed pipe-weed ash from his tweed jacket, his piercing blue gaze searching out the High King Magorian. Ashnak and the High Wizard Oderic exchanged the kind of glance that ensues between the servants of masters who are, for one reason or another, somewhat unpredictable.

  Ashnak added, “And I got you Light guys on my back and my marines getting chewed up in the boonies. Bitchin’, ain’t it?”

  The emergency backup magical spells cut in, and the Assembly Rooms’ lights whirred into action. Small magics began to mend the drapes, reglaze the windows, and replenish the buffet table. Halfling servants brought ladies their fans, gloves, and cantrips from the cloakrooms.

  Oderic took a deep breath. All certainties gone, he ventured to say, “Sir orc, you have some plan for combating this monstrous menace that we face?”

  “Oh, sure.” The orc buffed a brass-capped tusk with his gnarled knuckle. His eyes gleamed. “But, plans later. First—we’ve got an election to hold. Chahkamnit, we’re all done here, bring her in.”

  A strange whup-whup-whup sounded beyond the windows. The High Wizard Oderic walked forward to see what devilish engine was settling down outside the palace.

  “An election,” the wizard mused. “Elections can be won, sir orc. But they can also be lost. What chance can the Lord of Evil possibly stand of winning the hearts and minds of the free peoples of the south?”

  5

  The Inland Sea and the Western Ocean are kept from joining, at their most adjacent point, by a ribbon of land and the mountain chain known as The Spine. The road through The Spine’s magnificent peaks runs from Herethlion to the south, with only one settlement of any consequence at which to break a journey or hold a battle.

  Towards the end of an afternoon, a sizable crowd in woollen tunics and fur leggings surrounded a covered wagon parked in the main square of Spine Gap. Those inhabitants of the town who did not hear the thumping drums and tinkling bells were swiftly informed by their neighbours and arrived hurriedly, panting, in case they should miss it. A large number of the town’s motley population, composed mostly of poor labourers and elderly females, herded themselves into the space between the town hall and the tavern.

  “Keep an eye on the town hall,” the halfling Will Brandiman whispered from inside the wagon. “We don’t want the councillors over here.”

  “They’re richer,” Ned Brandiman pointed out.

  “They’re smarter. That’s how they got to be rich in the first place. What I always say,” Will remarked, “is that robbing the poor is easier.”

  “It’s the Holy One’s mission!” a female dwarf cried, wiping the remains of her tea from her beard.

  “My brethren!” Will Brandiman let down the backboard at the rear of the wagon and emerged onto the platform it made. Above him a banner read Mission of Light—Souls Saved—A Refusal of Credit Often Offends.

  The assembled dwarves, frost giants, half-elves, and Men of the town of Spine Gap gazed up at him. A frost giant rumbled, “Amen!”

  “My sisters!” The Reverend William Brandiman threw out his arms in a benevolent, all-embracing gesture, smiling with gleaming white teeth. He wore a tightly buttoned black doublet and breeches and a small white collar devoid of lace; his dyed black hair was slicked back from his brow. His eyes blazed down upon the crowd. “You poor sinners! I truly believe you do not know how you suffer. My heart goes out to you!”

  Another halfling stomped out from behind the curtain that closed off the covered part of the wagon. She hitched up the skirts of her red robe. The nun’s habit, whip, and spiked belt marked her as one of the Little Sisters of Mortification. A red wimple covered her hair, disclosing only a round face to which lip-paint, eye-paint, and rouge had been added with a hand more enthusiastic than skillful.

  “Brother, brother,” Ned Brandiman rebuked in a rich contralto, adjusting his wimple. “You have not yet told these good people who we are.”

  Will swept his oiled hair back from his brow with his fingers, and then brought his hands palms together in front of him. “True, Mother Edwina, true. Know then, you good people of Spine Gap—for I know, despite everything, that you must be good people—who it is that speaks to you. I am the Reverend William Aloysius Brandiman, of the Mission of the Holy One. This, my sister, is the good Abbess Edwina. We have come to bring you the Light!”

  “Don’t need no light,” a somewhat obtuse hill troll remarked from the front row of the crowd. “Sun’s still up.”

  A number of heads turned to the west to confirm that the sun was, indeed, still visible. The peaks and high flanks of the Spine Mountains themselves blocked the view to north and south.

  “I mean the Light of Virtue.” T
he Reverend William Brandiman bared his teeth in a dazzling smile. “I mean that Light without which we are all lost!”

  Several mail-shirted dwarves in the crowd cried, “Amen, brother!”

  “Oh, I feel the sin!” the good Abbess Edwina cried. She took a tambourine from behind her back and struck it to emphasise her words. “I feel the sin!”

  Ting!

  “I feel the misery of those sunk in depravity, striving to escape, yet not knowing which way to turn!”

  Clash!

  Two or three female Men in woollen gowns clapped their hands to the tambourine.

  “I hear the voices of souls crying out, save me! save me! Crying save me before it is too late!”

  Ting! Clang!

  A raffish-looking male Man wiped his beard on his sleeve. “If it’s too late already, I’m going back in the tavern before Old Joss closes up for the night.”

  A half-elf shushed him.

  “Ah, my son, you may wish to do so.” The Reverend Brandiman oiled his way across the small platform and stood beaming down at the Man. “But your soul says, ‘That tavern is a place of sin and depravity, where Men gamble and lose the honest money they make at their labour, where the drink is served watered, the bar-maids have foul diseases, and no one dares complain for fear of violent retaliation.’”

  The Man scratched his lice-ridden hair.

  “No, it isn’t,” he contradicted.

  Will frowned. At his elbow, the Abbess Ned pointed a dramatic hand at the frontage of the town hall, where a group of worthies in fur-lined gowns stood watching the wagon from the steps.

  “There is the sink of corruption, brother!”

  Ting!

  “There is the source of misery. What chance have souls to see the Light, when the grasping councillors throw single mothers into the streets when they cannot pay their rent?”

  Clash!

  “When the taxes that should go to repairing the roads, rebuilding a hostelry after the war, and feeding the children of the poor—”

  Ting!

  “—instead go to line the pockets of the villains who sent strong yokels from Spine Gap to the Last Battle and yet remained at home themselves to batten and grow rich?”

  Clash-Ting! Clang!

  One of a number of raggedly dressed labourers waved from the back of the crowd, yelling, “No, they didn’t. They went off and fought, same as the rest of us. And what’s taxes?”

  The Reverend William Brandiman shook his head in sorrow. “Ah, the power of Darkness to deceive! We here at the Holy Mission often find this. You good people do not know how much you need us. You do not know what the Light can do for your lives.”

  Clash-Ting!

  Will shot a look at Ned, who put his somewhat large and roughened hands behind his back, stilling the tambourine.

  “You, sir, for example.” The Reverend William Brandiman pointed at a half-elf who stood, arms folded, to one side. “That wound of yours, sir, was taken from a Dark-corrupted weapon, am I right?”

  The half-elf fingered his saturnine jaw, letting the crowd see the unhealed cut that wept a pale fluid. He called harmoniously, “From an orcish blade, at the Battle of Sarderis.”

  “And you—and you—and you, mistress!” Will pointed in turn to a Man with an amputated arm, another hill troll with a patch over one eye, and a female elf on crutches. “All wounds of Darkness, if I am not mistaken? Yes! Ah, how you need our Mission of Light! Though healer-mages fail, and have given you up as lost, yet a prayer to the Lady, through our Holy Master, is never in vain!”

  A one-legged dwarf began to weep and cry, “Heal us poor sinners!”

  Ting! Clash-Ting! Ting!

  Under cover of the enthusiastic tambourine the good Abbess Edwina, in a somewhat deeper voice than she had used to address the crowd, muttered, “I thought we were never going to hit it!”

  The reverend slicked back his short, oiled locks. “Never fear, brother Ned. Look at them. The cannon-fodder of the battle, by the looks of it—I thought the Spine Gap levies were locally raised.”

  Will reached into the back of the wagon and brought out a crate.

  “These relics and devices have been blessed by our Master, the Holy One, the favoured of the Lady. Come forward, brother.” Will Brandiman beckoned the half-elf. “Let me see…prayer shawls…beads…ah, the Holy One’s sacred elixir. It is very scarce and precious, brother, but let us see if it will answer your case.”

  Taking a cloth and wetting it with the liquid from the tiny green bottle, he wiped the half-elf’s face. The weeping scar came away. It left, Will was glad to see, no trace of Ned’s face-paint. A great gasp went up from the crowd.

  The female dwarf bawled, “It’s a miracle!”

  Clash-Ting!

  Under cover of bringing out another crate, Ned growled, “Think the half-breed’ll keep his mouth shut?”

  Will put the special green bottle into the back of the covered wagon. Before straightening, he murmured, “The half-elf will be out of Spine Gap in an hour; I told him we’d run this same scam down the road. We may, but he won’t be with us. I never trust convenient rogues found in taverns. Mind that bottle, and remind me to bum that rag afterwards. It’s a contact poison.”

  “Well thought of, brother!” Ned Brandiman stepped forward, holding his hands out to the beings that crowded closely round the back of the wagon. “You good people! Oh, how it warms my heart to be able to help you!”

  Ting-Clash! Clash-Ting-CLANG!

  Ned glared back at Will, who gave the tambourine another enthusiastic shake. Continuing in a light contralto, Ned cried, “And I know that you’ll want to help us.”

  Several people in the crowd called, “How?” and “Yes!”

  “You all know that our Holy Master is building a prayer-wheel,” Ned said piously. “When it is complete, it will send prayers from him to the Lady of Light every day and every night, and then we can heal all the wounds the Dark dealt out in the last war, we can save each and every one of you, we can do it, yes, we can do it!”

  The hill troll in the front row bellowed, “Hallelujah!”

  “Oh, yes!” Ned swayed hypnotically. “As you take these prayer rugs—and prayer beads—and bottles of elixir, please give your contributions generously. No amount is too small. Or too big. Give us your money so that the great prayer-wheel can be built! Give us your money for the Holy One!”

  “HALLELUJAH!”

  Some thirty minutes later the Mission wagon rolled up out of the Spine Gap pass, the draught-manticore pulling with all the strength in its scarlet lion-scorpion body. Will counted copper, silver, and even the occasional gold piece into a small wooden chest.

  “Hallelujah!’ Edvard Ragald Rupert Brechie van Nassau wrapped the wagon’s reins around his ankle, hitching up his nun’s robe and disclosing hirsute halfling feet. He dove into a hamper of food. Through a mouthful of roast bear and thrush-in-aspic, he remarked, “Let’s go and give the Holy One the good news.”

  “About ten per cent of it.” Wilhelm Hieronymous Cornelius Mikhail Brechie van Nassau pushed the lid of the wooden chest down and grinned at his brother. “Now. About that other idea we were discussing…”

  Shortly after dawn the next day, with the mountain vultures whistling and crying in the pale air, the Mission wagon creaked up the winding road and under the archway of the Mission Citadel. The air tasted thin in the halflings’ mouths, and cold chilled their fingertips and hairy toes. Will automatically tucked one hand up into his armpit, keeping the muscles warm for use, and simultaneously checking the position of one heavy throwing-dagger.

  The Holy One saw their arrival from his place on the Citadel’s parapet, where the mountain wind blew across his shaved elven head. The air was, after all, no colder than camp sentry duty or a knight’s vigil in a stone chapel. The tall elf locked the fingers of his dark-skinned hands together, banishing the military thoughts and the panic that began to attend them.

  “Send them to my cell.” He gestured his att
endant priests to obedience. They instantly scurried away. The Mission of Light kept a soldierly discipline in its priestly ranks.

  The elf wrapped his ragged white habit more firmly around his dark-skinned body. The cold of the high altitude bit into his thin fingers and the tips of his pointed ears. His long golden eyes filled with tears of mortification. When he could avoid comfort no longer, he went inside the chill stone corridors of the monastery. The black-haired halfling priest and his plain (but doubtless good-hearted) abbess sister were already waiting in the bare cell that was the Holy One’s abode.

  “Sir paladin!” The Reverend Brandiman knelt on the bare flagstones. His sister curtsied low.

  “Do not call me that! It is a title of shame!” The Holy One clasped one fine-fingered hand to his brow. His other hand twitched. He no longer carried weapons, not even a knife; but his hands sometimes searched for knightly accoutrements without his knowledge.

  Abashed, the male halfling lowered his gaze. “I beg forgiveness, Holy One. Your Holiness, there is news. Terrible news!”

  The Holy One sank down on the bare planks that served as his bed, a hand plucking at his monk’s habit where the hair shirt under it chafed at his brown skin.

  “There can be no news more terrible than that the Dark Lord yet lives.” The elf reached across to the whip rack, selected a short thong, and began absently to scourge himself. “And that, when they ride out against Him, I cannot ride with them!”

  Elvish blood spattered the masonry. The Holy One stared at the walls of the dank cell as if he could see through them to all the great kingdoms of the south.

  “One tiny fort,” he whispered. “One stronghold that I could not take. And so I am disgraced.” The elf lord’s thin, ascetic features twisted, eyes squeezed shut. Sweat inched down his brown face. The whip drooped in his hand. “When I held a sword in my hand, and could not defeat mine enemies, the southern cities laughed at me. My name was made a mockery at Nin-Edin! How can I live with such disgrace? Orcs, orcs, orcs—”