Grunts

by Mary Gentle

  The orc drew his pistol, assuming a combat stance, but did not fire.

  The rangy female Man slid her hands down a body clothed in silk. She sprang to her feet, bare feet stumbling as if she had anticipated the restrictions of armour. An expression of horror, revulsion, and triumph appeared on the face of The Named as she saw her brother, yet unharmed.

  The Dark Lord blinked, and, without giving The Named time for any last words or actions whatsoever, snuffed her soul out like cracking a flea.

  She opened Her eyes again—which glowed like the fires of sunset—and smiled down at the nameless necromancer. “Was I to gloat, and in so doing give her time to repossess me? Was that your plan? I know what commonly becomes of Evil at the end of tales—but I am not so stupid.”

  A fork of black lightning stabbed down from the Opticon’s dome.

  Ashnak blinked away the afterimages, holstered his pistol, strolled across the black and white tiles, and studied the smoking heap of bones that was all that remained of the orc’s ancient master. As he watched, the bones disintegrated into dust.

  “Corporal Hikz, give those tiles a going-over.” He faced about as the grunt scrubbed at the stone. “Well done, Ma’am. Speaking as head of the security presence here, I admire good, quick work.”

  The Dark and Light Parliamentary delegates settled back into their seats under the great gold and blue wall-maps, glaring at each other across the chamber.

  The Ruler of the World spoke.

  “Is that all?” She said.

  The Dark Ruler lay back between the wing-carved arms of the Throne of the World. Its feather-and-eye-decorated stone back rose high above Her: Her ash-pale hair, and Her childdelicate face, and Her bare shoulders.

  “Is that all…?”

  The Ruler of the World pointed, with one sepia-shadowed hand, at the gallery of the Opticon and the walls above it.

  “You do not know how petty all this seems to Me. What is pictured there?”

  Her hand indicated the great blue and gold wall-maps, with the green hills and farmlands of Ferenzia, Gyzrathrani, Fourgate, Graagryk, Sarderis, and the rest painted in intricate detail.

  “Half a hundred petty kingdoms, a few stretches of wild lands, some uninhabitable territories at the poles, and a flooded continent to the west. Number it, it is easily numbered. What is it all to me, who with the mere thinking could turn it all to molten rock…”

  Her bell voice chimed in the Opticon’s dome. The substance of the air shivered, as if all the Powers—Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Void—were brought unwilling into that chamber.

  “And you…”

  The gaze of the Dark Ruler swept across the tiered seats. Specks of sunfire gleamed in Her pupilless orange eyes. Bereft of speech and movement, the races of the earth stared back at Her like animals caught in torchlight.

  “No,” She said. “It is not worthy of Me to commit genocide against such inconsequential beings.”

  A tension left the air, the Powers fading.

  “Always I have fought for the mastery of this Land. Again and again I have thrown My forces of Darkness against the Light. Finally, I am victorious! But when I have the victory, what have I won? The lordship over furrowgrubbers, axe-swingers, and beast-handlers. Farmland, wilderness, and not a city worthy of the name!”

  The Mayor of Sarderis made as if to speak, caught Her gaze, and was silent.

  The Dark Ruler of the World smiled.

  “There are none left, are there, to challenge Me?”

  A red-eyed kobold in a mail-shirt spoke up from the tiers of Dark delegates. “Ma’am, we appreciate that as Dark Lord and World Ruler You expect regular challenges to Your power—but this House requests that we deal first with the budget for Lower Shazmanar, and the submitted paper on Waterworks and Canals, and the Evil Races (Suffrage) Bill.”

  The Dark Lord rested Her elbow on the arm of the Throne and Her chin in Her hand. From the pinnacle of the world She gazed down.

  “Already,” She said, “already I am bored. You do not have the greatness of soul to know how tedious I find this muddy world of which I am Ruler.”

  Ashnak chewed his cigar, checked the position of his marines, and moved forward. “Got a priority matter for You to deal with, Ma’am. Before these Bills and suchlike. “If I may…”

  “Do what you will, My orc!”

  Ashnak jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You’ve met Hive Commander Kah-Sissh.”

  Delegates leaned forward on their benches as the double doors of the Opticon were flung open.

  A squad of twelve Bug insectoids approached across the floor of the Opticon, bearing on their chitinous shoulders the body of a Jassik warrior twice their size. Upright, the exoskeletal body would have touched the domed ceiling. Now the black chitin was mat and dull, the faceted eyes dim, the great claws motionless. A vast array of black living-metal clustered on the dead Jassik’s body, no lights flickering on it, all dead and still.

  Hive Commander Kah-Sissh trod delicately across the floor before the Throne, and folded his legs into obeisance. “Great One, Ruler of This World.”

  The Dark Lord glanced down at the Bug, and then at Supreme Commander Ashnak. “What is this?”

  “It’s a dead Bug, Ma’am.”

  “I can see that!”

  “A mostly dead Bug,” Ashnak corrected himself. “Isn’t that right, Kah-Sissh?”

  The Hive Commander unfolded, in response to a nudge from the orc’s combat boot, and said hastily, “All but dead, Great One. This is our Swarm Master, who was damaged as we came to this world. You would call him our Emperor. His mind is damaged, dead, and cannot be healed. His body yet has a kind of life in it, but it is fading fast.”

  The Ruler of the World rose from Her throne, pacing down to the floor of the Opticon. Her orange eyes glowed. The great body of the Bug towered over Her. She surveyed its chitinous carapace.

  “Ashnak, be so good as to tell Me why you are bringing dead Bugs into My court?”

  The dwarf Zhazba-darabat coughed. “Parliament.”

  Orange eyes turned to the Light benches. “What?”

  “‘Parliament,’ World Ruler, Ma’am. Not ‘court.’”

  The Dark and Light delegates looked at each other, nodding their heads in complete agreement.

  “Into My Parliament,” the Dark Lord hissed, Her fists clenching at Her sides. Her silk robe slid across Her long legs as She paced the length of the dead Jassik, and then back to the Throne’s dais. She turned Her head, gazing at her Supreme Commander.

  “Well?”

  Hive Commander Kah-Sissh, nudged again by Ashnak’s boot, spoke. “This is the Emperor of all Jassik. Emperor of those who are here, and of those who rule, in his name, the myriad worlds of the stars. He leads us from world to world, plundering and pillaging, subjecting all to Jassik control. He leads the holy war, across stars uncounted, forging an empire of worlds too many to be numbered!”

  “Wait!” The Dark Lord stared at Kah-Sissh’s back and at the Jassik’s multibarreled disruptor. “What discourtesy is this, orc Ashnak? I was under the impression that our foes had agreed to throw down their arms.”

  Ashnak shrugged. “Bit difficult with cyber-grown weaponry, Ma’am. We’re doing the best we can.”

  Hive Commander Kah-Sissh drew himself up, towering over the assembly. “I am bound by a warrior’s bonour to keep the terms agreed at the peace negotiations!”

  The Jassik rubbed his claw across his chitinous skull between his faceted eyes, as if he found the Opticon’s light uncomfortable.

  “For some reason, I do not entirely remember all the conditions,” he added, “but nonetheless, I hold to them!”

  The Dark Lord seated Herself again on the Throne of the World. She shot a sharp glance at Ashnak. “I ask again: why have you brought this body here? I am not in the healing vein today.”

  “Our ship-egg is on the point of hatching.” The alien Hive Commander stood on his exoskeletal hind limbs. Sun gleamed on his articulated th
orax, domed head, and acid-dripping jaws. His faceted eyes held a thousand reflections of the Lord of Darkness. “Within hours we must leave this petty world. The Jassik Empire must continue on its conquering way.”

  “‘Petty’ world?” the Dark Lord mused. “That is not something it is tactful to say to Me.”

  “No, Ma’am.” Ashnak glared at the Hive Commander. “What Kah-Sissh means to say, Ma’am, is that the Jassik need a Swarm Master to lead them. This one is destroyed in mind, but only damaged in body. Dread Lord, the Jassik offer You the body of the Swarm Master to possess—if You will become their Emperor and lead them from world to world, conquering as You go.”

  A silence fell on the Parliament. Ashnak’s gaze swept Oderic’s scowling features, Magorian and the White Mages; the Ferenzi nobles and people; the creatures of the Horde…

  The Ruler of the World’s gaze returned from the same survey.

  “What do I rule, here?” She asked. “Some half a million creatures. Yes, little Kah-Sissh, I have been speaking with your Jassik companions of the worlds that lie beyond the stars. The many, many worlds.”

  An orcish voice spoke up from the rear of the Opticon.

  “It’s quite all right if you refuse, Ma’am,” Major-General Barashkukor called, almost on cue. “They’ve said that if you don’t want the post, they’ll offer it to someone else.”

  “Will they, now…”

  The Dark Ruler of the World stood, jewelled belt blazing in the Opticon’s sunlight. She turned Her gaze upon the tiers of seats.

  “And who would accept this offer? You, Magorian? To be a hero again in a body not betrayed by age? Or you, Oderic, who thinks he is a wizard, to gain the knowledge of the stars?”

  Her gaze swept on.

  “My br— My necromancer would have taken this chance, out of courage or desperation. What of you, nobles of Ferenzi? Dwarves, will you study the engineering of the stars? Halflings, will you carry your thievery to other worlds? Elves, will you visit those stars of which you sing? Ah, you see that I see into you all. There is not one of you who can answer Me.”

  The Dark Lord’s gaze lowered to the marble dais at the foot of the Throne.

  “Not even you, little orc. Come, confess it before your fellow warriors and be shamed. You will not take the offer of a Jassik Emperor’s body. Your bowels loose at the very thought.”

  The orc Supreme Commander shrugged, shifted uncomfortably from combat boot to combat boot, and avoided his grunts’ eyes. “Ah. Well. That is…”

  The Dark Lord’s voice seared. “Shall I make you take the offer? It is in My power so to do.”

  Rapidly concealed anxiety showed in the orc’s porcine eyes. With a more genuine discomfort, he said, “No, Ma’am!”

  The Dark Lord laughed.

  “It would be a fitting reward, to dispossess you of your orcish warriors. But that I can in any case do. Let Me think…Yes. Curiously enough, little orc, there is something you can do for Me.”

  A Darkness began to fill the Opticon.

  Out of it, Her voice said, “I here proclaim Ashnak of the Agaku to be My regent, to rule this petty world in My absence!”

  Ashnak’s tusked jaw sagged.

  Her voice laughed.

  Darkness swirled, stinking of rot and bone, smelling of spices and cherries and the east wind. The unseen dome of the Opticon creaked. The shrieks and cries of the delegates fell, muted, as if into infinite void.

  Abruptly, Darkness vanished.

  Ashnak swiped at his eyes that streamed in the sudden sunlight. All the elves, Men, kobolds, witches, dwarves, and other delegates in the chamber rose to their feet, shouting—and then suddenly fell silent.

  Lights ran across the black metal body of the Swarm Master.

  Hive Commander Kah-Sissh and his Jassik escort folded and fell, making obeisance on the tiles.

  The Swarm Master rose.

  His articulated armoured body hung suspended between chitin-metal limbs, weapon-muzzles gleaming. His faceted eyes glimmered with an ancient amusement.

  He spoke, His voice ancient and familiar:

  “None of you are worthy of Me…You and this world are too poor in scope for My ambition. What, is there no more world left for Me to conquer? Are there no worthy enemies? I go now to rule an Evil Empire beyond your comprehension! Little beings, amuse yourselves in this dungheap that is also Mine, for I shall not return to it, beg Me though you may.”

  The Emperor of the Jassik moved on metal-chitin limbs. He lowered his acid-dripping jaws towards the discarded body of the female Man that lay between His feet.

  “I have a universe to conquer!” He hissed.

  The Jassik Swarm Master picked up The Named’s limp body in one foreclaw, bit her head off, and, escorted by Jassik warriors, paced regally out of the Opticon, chewing.

  Will Brandiman glanced up at the sign over the door—“Wrestling Emporium” and, in smaller letters, “A DIVISION OF MAGDA BRANDIMAN ENTERPRISES”—and trotted past the bouncers into the club. A welcome fug of pipe-weed smoke and small beer hit his nostrils. He paused for a moment, eyes becoming accustomed to the dim light. There were no uncurtained windows to let the morning in.

  “Ned?”

  “Over here, Will.”

  Halfling-sized and Man-sized tables filled most of the floor. The club’s arc-lights shone on the roped arena, on a dais, in which two mud-spattered dwarves wrestled in three inches of black slime.

  “Foul!” Ned Brandiman bawled, thumping his fist on the table. His red wimple was pushed back, showing his curly brown hair and his stubbled cheeks. He grinned up at Will.

  “Good, isn’t it?” he said happily.

  The ex-Son of the Lady, Amarynth Firehand, also looked up from where he sat, his arm around Ned Brandiman’s redhabited shoulders. “Ah. Brother-in-law William. Do you approve?”

  With a roar, the smaller of the wrestling dwarves flipped the other over, kneeling on her shoulders and rubbing the black mud into her beard. Will waited until the ringing cheers had died down before he said, “Dwarf mud wrestling, Holy One?”

  “No, no. I am no longer Holy.” The elf lowered his eyes. “The Lady of Light has told me how unfit I am. Now I must wallow in sin and depravity, tasting every vice, until my knowledge of evil is perfect. Only then dare I call myself Most Holy again.”

  Will reached over and poured another measure of arrack into the elf’s cup. “I feel it could take you some while, Ho—Lord Amarynth.”

  “Nor am I to be called Lord, or Knight, or Paladin. I am simply Amarynth, owner of the Azure Roc. But,” Amarynth said, cheering up, “at least I am able to share my new life of shame with someone for whom I care deeply.”

  Ned Brandiman blushed.

  “I’d like to borrow Ned for a while,” Will said, “if I may.”

  “Certainly.” Amarynth lifted his dark cheek for the brown-haired halfling’s kiss, flicked through his programme, and turned back to the wrestling ring and the dwarves. He frowned. “It says here that the next act to audition involves ‘water sports.’ I still don’t see how they’re going to get a shower into the ring…”

  Ashnak stood for a moment grinning an inane, stunned grin.

  “Awriiight!” he roared, over the tumult of the Light and Dark delegates. “You heard the Lady—from now on, I’m the boss here!”

  An orcish voice shouted above the confusion, “Hail, Regent Ashnak!”

  “Never!” Oderic, High Wizard of Ferenzia, stomped forward from beside the Throne of the World. “The Light cannot accept this! We—we will crown Magorian King again!”

  Sunlight blazed down into the Opticon, glaring back from the wall-maps, the bookshelves, and the rich robes of the halflings, Men, elves, and dwarves who stood up and shouted from the Light benches:

  “No orcs! No orcs!”

  The armed orc marines lining the walls grinned, readying their weapons.

  “NO ORCS!” The same sun gleamed from the black mail, dagger-hilts, sallet helms, and dark velvet gowns
of the Dark delegates: kobolds, witches, and Undead all scrambling to their feet.

  Ashnak raised his beetling brows. “Whaddya mean, ‘no orcs’?”

  The red-eyed kobold waved her dagger. “Orcs are just big and nasty. What sort of treatment will you give the rest of the Horde? You’ll just enslave us!”

  “Oh, ho!” The High Wizard Oderic bellowed in triumph. “Even your own Evil side won’t accept you, orc!”

  A gang of Trolls on the back benches began to chant, “Orcs out!” A somewhat desperate elven chorus on the opposition benches sang in counterpoint, “Bring back the Dark Lord!”

  A knife shattered against the Throne of the World, beside Oderic’s hand, drawing blood and severing a tendon. Ten, twenty, fifty metallic hisses: swords drawn from their sheaths. Men in mail-shirts under their velvet robes leaped up, overturning chairs. Dark dwarf delegates upturned benches with a crash. An elvish blade flashed: a minotaur screamed: a White Mage bellowed a word of Power. An ebony spatter of blood fell on the tiles.

  Dakka-dakka-dakka! FOOM!

  Chaos froze. Halflings shaking their fists, dwarves standing on benches and shouting, Men using their superior lungpower to be heard: all froze into silence. The assembled Light and Dark delegates sank back into their seats, or stood among the wreckage, all eyes turned to the Throne of the World, and the great orc now sitting on it.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant-Colonel.” Ashnak nodded to Dakashnit. The black orc grinned and lowered her AK47. A fine layer of plaster sifted down onto the Opticon’s library shelves. The map of Lesser Gyzrathrani now had a line of dinner-plate-size holes just above the Endless Desert.

  Ashnak sat back, rumpled camouflage uniform stretching to contain his large body. He pushed his forage cap back on his head and scratched his crotch. The smell of sweating orc drifted across the Opticon. Sitting with both arms resting across his camouflage-trousered thighs, combat boots square on the Throne steps, and pistol in hand, Ashnak’s eyes swivelled down to survey the World Parliament.

  “I’m in charge here,” he stated flatly.

  Oderic spun on his heel, white hair flying, pointing to the orc marines at the door and around the walls. “We will never submit to your military dictatorship!”