Grunts

by Mary Gentle

  “Well warned!” he chuckled throatily. “Good exercise for the Agaku, master halfling. Is there more?”

  Will shook his head dumbly.

  “Here!” Zarkingu hopped from foot to horny foot, wiping the blood from her battered features. “Ashnak! Here!”

  Will carried the glass-and-wire device carefully over to the entrance of a side-cavern, hands still shaking. “Madam Zarkingu, best be wary. Let the experts check it out first. Ned, what do you think?”

  “Mmm…could be fine…”

  “But what is it?”

  A vast tunnel stretched out before them, lit by the blue light of dying magic. The sides had been squared off, giving a flat floor and ceiling, and the walls and floor were, for as far as Will could see, lined with metal shelving.

  He stared down the ranks of metal shelves. There were stacks of clothing of an odd colour and cut, metal-and-wire devices, chunks of solid but obviously forged metal—and all this piled high out of sight.

  Beyond this first one, similar chambers stretched off into the underground distance.

  “Different magic…” Zarkingu whimpered. “But not here—not these.”

  “What’s this?” The big orc, Ashnak, pushed past her into the first chamber, seizing a big chunk of metal with what looked like a crossbow grip and trigger at one end. He pulled the trigger.

  Foom!

  “Arrrgggh!” Imhullu roared. Fire and shrapnel ricocheted off the tunnel wall behind him, pitted now with a line of two-inch-deep cavities. The squat orc grabbed at the severed tops of his long, hairless ears.

  “Yaayy-ahh!” Ashnak lifted the weapon and pulled the trigger again.

  Dakka-dakka-dakka!

  Will ducked. A furnace briefly opened beside the left side of his face. The stone floor hit him between the shoulder-blades. The wire-and-glass device went flying. An earsplitting sound cracked his skull. Stunned, he hitched himself up onto his elbows, yelling, deafened, “No! Stop!”

  Flame seared across Will’s vision, bright as the sun at midday, jabbing from the weapon’s muzzle. An explosion shook the air. Splinters of diamond flew from the adamantine corpse of the dragon, ricocheting back from the vast cave-walls, whizzing past him with dull whup! sounds.

  “Weapons!”

  “Ashnak! Ashnak!”

  “The nameless was right!”

  “Fighting Agaku! Fighting Agaku!”

  On knees and elbows, Will Brandiman worked his way rapidly back across the dry stone floor to where his brother lay under the bottom-most metal shelf nearest the entrance. The halfling’s doublet and trunk-hose were thick with dust. He lifted his head slightly as Will pushed in next to him. Orc feet ran past, forward and back, bringing out piles of the metal objects into the main cavern.

  “Are those all weapons, do you think?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised, Will. I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

  Horny feet pounded past and then plodded back. Shazgurim swore, dumping what sounded like half a ton of scrap metal in the main cavern.

  “But what kind—sorcerous weapons?”

  “Their magic-sniffer said not.”

  The permanent temperature of the caves, chill but not freezing, began to sink into Will’s bones. He rested his head on his short arms, blocking out the blue-white light. “They’re probably going to kill us as soon as they remember we’re here.”

  Ned whispered, “Can I bring three things to your attention, brother? One: as far as we could make out, Dagurashibanipal sealed up every entrance to this place, apart from that one rat-hole. Two: outside in the chests there is a small amount of the dwarven-rock-blasting powder.”

  Will lifted his head from his arms. “Enough to bring a reasonable chunk of the roof down in that tunnel…What’s the third thing?”

  “And three,” the elder halfling said quietly, “the mad one just said different magic. I don’t believe a dragon as old as Dagurashibanipal would leave this place without a curse on it. And my guess is that it’s probably one that operates better the longer one is actually kept near the hoard.”

  “Mmmm…Yes. Let’s go.”

  Sneaking out, keeping in the odd shadows that dying magic casts, Will hugged the cavern wall, edging round towards the tunnel. He passed close by Shazgurim as she lifted a thick metal stick with two stems projecting downwards, one short and straight, the other curved. She pulled the crossbow-type trigger.

  Dukka-dukka-dukka-dukka-Foom!

  The blacksmith-foundry noise ripped at Will’s ears and stomach. He ducked down into shadow. Hot metal sprayed the opposite walls, splinters of stone filled the cavern, and the orcs cheered. Shazgurim threw the weapon down and seized another, which seemed to require the loading of a metal canister into the muzzle.

  Will, sneaking past the first abandoned weapon, noted the sigils 7.62 AVTOMAT KALASHNIKOV OBRAZETS 1947G imprinted in the metal.

  4

  Barashkukor dozed in the warm sun, and woke when his helmet fell over his eyes.

  He grunted and snarled. “Marukka, go away!”

  Another rock bounced off the parapet wall. This one hit his poleaxe, which he had propped against the crenellations. The weapon slid down with a crash. Barashkukor picked it up, scratching between his long, hairless ears.

  “Barashkukor!” The black orc Kusaritku bawled from further down the wall. “What’s all the bleedin’ noise about?”

  Barashkukor leaned over the parapet.

  Thirty feet below, on the foot-trampled earth outside Nin-Edin’s main gate, two halflings stood looking up at him. Each wore doublet and trunk-hose, very ripped and travel-stained. The halfling with curly black hair wore black and grey garments and a blackened mail-shirt, and he had a short-sword buckled to his side. The brown-haired halfling had a heavy crossbow slung across his back, a mailcoat, and stood with a foot up on one of a pair of heavy, brass-bound chests.

  Barashkukor stared down at their foreshortened figures, his jaw gaping.

  The curly-haired halfling shouted, “Open! Open in the name of the nameless!”

  Forty-three miles away, as sunrise touches the towers of Sarderis, The Named suddenly wakes from sleep with an expression that makes her pale features shocking in their ugliness.

  Barashkukor stared down the pass again, between the massive raw-ochre slopes of the mountains. A small plume of dust rose from the road.

  “That’s not our escort…” He slitted his eyes against the sunlight blasting back from the dry earth. “Marukka! You’re not going to believe this, Marukka…”

  The female orc leaned her hairy elbows in the gap in the crenellations. “What am I not going to…Hey! Those aren’t the warriors we sent out as the halflings’ escort. Dark Lord’s arse! More travellers? I don’t believe it. Turn out the guard!”

  Barashkukor tumbled down the steps into the guard-room, knocking an ongoing card game aside, grabbed up a helmet (a size too large) and a spiked mace, and bolted out to the main gate. He peered through the portcullis.

  The plume of dust was closer.

  Just distinguishable, on a Man-skull-ornamented standard, the banner of the nameless fluttered. Barashkukor strained sharp eyes, making out the standard-bearer and what looked like an immense loaded traverse made by lashing together pine-trunks.

  “You! Here!”

  He scurried to lend his weight to the winch that lifted the portcullis. Groaning and sweating, ten orcs at last got it up. Barashkukor sat down with a thud in the dust.

  “They’re coming,” the largest black orc Azarluhi said, “whoever they are.”

  Barashkukor heaved himself to his feet, settling the too-large helmet well back on his skull. It crushed his long, hairless ears uncomfortably. He unbuckled his brigandine, sweating in the noon heat and smelling like wet dog, and strolled to the gateway. The party was near enough now to make out detail.

  “What…?”

  Marukka, beside him, echoed, “What the—?”

  Nin-Edin’s war-band leader, a hulking orc named Belitser
i, elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. Orcs lined the parapet and massed in the bailey compound, yelling and screaming questions. Belitseri rested an elbow on Barashkukor’s helmet.

  “What’s that?” he demanded.

  “I dunno!” Barashkukor stared. The wooden traverse trailed dust back down the pass. What could be seen of its load glittered metallically in the sun. Two orcs, a one-eyed male and a hulking female, pulled it by brute force.

  Both were wearing odd round helmets, visorless, with painted designs. He saw they also wore long breeches with the same green-and-brown patterns, but—never before seen—worn tucked into Man-boots.

  The standard-bearer wore the same loose belted green-and-brown breeches, but with a similar jerkin from which the sleeves had been ripped off. One of the patterned sleeves had been used to tie up her purple hair in a horse-tail. The other sleeve hung from the nameless standard. Bulky metal ornaments hung at her belt and on bandoleers across her breasts. At thirty yards he could see the brightness of her eyes and the flecks of foam around her fangs.

  Barashkukor, gaping, fixed his eyes on the largest orc: surely the leader. This one wore black-and-white patterned breeches tucked into heavy black boots that laced halfway up his muscular calves. The breeches had at least a dozen exterior pockets. Metal objects like fruits dangled from his belt and the straps that crossed his chest. Something very bulky and metallic hung across his back. One of his fangs was broken off short, he wore a strip of scarlet cloth tied around his forehead, and he was chewing a thick black roll of halfling pipe-weed, unlit.

  “Erm…” Barashkukor stared. “Those are Agaku.”

  None of the four Agaku slowed their pace at the gateway. Barashkukor, caught in the crowd of spectating garrison orcs, elbowed back out of the way of the traverse. Leader, standard-bearer, and burden-carriers walked through the gate with a peculiar, rhythmic stride.

  By that time the whole garrison crowded the compound and the walls surrounding it, staring and jabbering, calling questions, laughing, throwing small rocks. Barashkukor gripped his mace fervently and used it to make himself a place in the front rank of the crowd.

  The largest Agaku held up a horny hand. “Halt!”

  Instantly the other three Agaku stopped, slamming their booted feet down onto the earth. Something in Barashkukor began to fizz excitedly. He stood up on his toes to watch.

  The big Agaku strolled over to stand beside the standard-bearer. His gaze swept the garrison, the orcs clinging to parapet and ruined buildings. He spat the unlit pipe-weed out onto the ground.

  “Now listen up!”

  Barashkukor’s ears rang. He shook his head and just managed to grab his helmet as it fell off. The big Agaku surveyed the assembly with an expression of utter disdain.

  “Do you know what you are?” His words bounced back from the heat-stricken walls. The orcs—by now several hundred strong—fell silent out of curiosity.

  “I’ll tell you what you are. You’re scum! Call yourselves soldiers? You’re the lowest form of life there is—scum who think they’re soldiers. I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong.”

  Orcs to either side to Barashkukor began to rumble, tempers rising. Marukka’s eyes flashed yellow.

  “Who the hell are you?” a voice bawled from the back of the crowd.

  The big Agaku grinned, showing more than one broken fang. “Who am I? Perhaps you’d like us to introduce ourselves?”

  “Yeah!” Marukka challenged. “Who are you?”

  The big Agaku strolled over until he was looming head-and-shoulders over the orange-haired orc. His voice carrying in the sudden silence, he said, “That, with the standard, is Marine First Class Zarkingu. You, soldier, are not fit to wipe her arse, lowly though she is. Over there is Corporal Shazgurim, and beside her Corporal Imhullu. You are not fit to even think about wiping their arses. And I, soldier, am Gunnery Sergeant Ashnak and you are not fit to even breathe in my presence, do you understand me?”

  “Wh’…” The strange words bemused Marukka.

  Barashkukor looked up at Ashnak, eyes shining.

  Beside him, Marukka shook herself and narrowed her eyes. “Why you shit-faced—”

  Ashnak’s fist went up, came down on Marukka’s head, and the orc fell to her knees, poleaxed. A gasp went through the crowd. Growls and snarls sounded in the noon heat. A few dozen of the garrison orcs began to edge forward with drawn knives.

  The big Agaku turned his back and strolled across to the makeshift traverse, at which point he barked: “‘TenHUT!”

  The two Corporals and the Marine First Class slammed their heels together, bulging arms hanging at their sides, beetle-browed eyes facing ahead, narrowed against the light. Ashnak lifted his head and looked round the garrison again.

  “I’m here to make you balls of shit into soldiers,” he announced. “You sure as fuck won’t ever make the rank of Corporal. I doubt I’ll see any MFCs. You’re not the Agaku, but by the time I’m finished, I’ll make you dumb grunts into Orc Marines!”

  Jeers and yells echoes off the sides of the mountain pass. The garrison orcs leaped up and down, chanting, foaming at the mouth. Barashkukor fought to keep his balance.

  Gunnery Sergeant Ashnak swung the heavy piece of metal off his shoulder, did something to it with his horny hands that made it click and slam, and lifted it to his shoulder. Barashkukor glimpsed something that looked like a crossbow trigger-grip and flung himself face-down on the earth.

  A loud explosion split the air, and a whoosh of heat scalded the compound. Barashkukor lifted his head as a loud whumph! sounded. Metal fragments sprayed the crowd of orcs, scything down bodies and slicing limbs from torsos.

  The chain of the portcullis flailed, cut cleanly in two. Three masonry blocks fell out of the gate-house wall. The portcullis itself, falling free, buried its spikes eighteen inches deep in the earth under the gateway, impaling three small orcs.

  Silence.

  Barashkukor slowly dared to breathe.

  “I’m here to make you into marines!” Ashnak bawled, “and you’re going to stay here until you are marines! Now get in ranks.”

  A minute’s furious shoving put Barashkukor in the front of the war-band as it straggled into an approximation of rank and file. Excitement burned in his breast. He put on his over-large helmet and pushed it down level with his eyes, sloped his mace across his shoulder, and drew himself up as straight as he could. The gunnery sergeant strolled up to one end of the ranks, and then back down, and heaved a deep sigh.

  “Standatt—ease!” he barked. The three Agaku relaxed their erect posture slightly. Some of the garrison orcs copied them. Ashnak spun round. “Not you! You’ll stand at attention until I tell you different. Attennn-shun!”

  Barashkukor thumped his bare heels down into the dirt. The big Agaku caught his eye for a moment, and Barashkukor straightened still further. Ashnak nodded slightly.

  “Now listen up!” Ashnak strolled back to the centre of the compound. “You scum can consider yourselves in training for a mission for the nameless. And since it’s an emergency mission, that means emergency training, and that means it carries on, day and night, night and day, until you get it right. Right, marines?”

  “Erm…”

  “…well…”

  Ashnak shouldered his metal weapon threateningly. “Now listen to me, you…you…halflings! You’re talking to an officer! From now on, the first word and the last word out of your mouths is gonna be sir, you got that?”

  Barashkukor led the ragged reply:

  “Sir, yes sir!”

  Ashnak scowled and bellowed, “Can’t hear you!”

  Four hundred orc voices bellowed: “SIR YES SIR!”

  “That’s better. That’s better, you halflings, I can almost hear you.” Ashnak fished in his pockets for another roll of pipe-weed and jammed it into the corner of his broken-tusked mouth. “Now let me hear you say what you are. You’re not garrison orcs. You’re not whatever poxy tribe littered you. You’re marines. That
flag on the standard is your flag, if you’re ever worthy of it. Marines are the best. Marines are killing machines. What are you?”

  Barashkukor straightened his slouching spine until he thought it would crack. The strange words the big Agaku used were becoming instantly familiar, almost part of his own tongue. No magic-sniffer, he nonetheless felt by orc-instinct that presence of sorcery, geas, or curse. But if the Marine First Class (Magic-Disposal) wasn’t complaining…He fixed his gaze directly ahead and sang out: “We are marines!”

  His voice was almost lost in the full-throated chorus.

  Ashnak, grinning, snarled, “Can’t hear you! What are you?”

  “SIR, MARINES, SIR!”

  Will put his feet up on the brass-bound chests, rocking to the movement of the ox-cart. He drank deeply from the ale bottle and passed it up to his brother, returning to the chickens, half side of pork, flitch of bacon, and four dozen small loaves that the cart had also been carrying.

  The quiet farmland slid past them. The ox lowed from time to time, missing its former mistress, but Ned Brandiman flicked it with a carter’s whip from time to time, ensuring cooperation.

  “I tell you one thing I want,” Ned said through a mouthful of bread and bacon. “I want an easier way to carry our equipment!”

  Will scratched under the arms of his ripped doublet, by practise avoiding both the mail-shirt and his store of poisoned needles. “I’ll be happy to stick to city thefts.”

  “Brother, you’re a fool. Name me a city that isn’t going to be sieged and sacked when the war comes.”

  “Ha! Name me one that won’t grow up like a weed, twice as hardy, afterwards. Merchants never fail to fatten on wars. Even on the Last Battle.”

  Evening’s golden light shone on the growing fields. No poppies yet to bloody the green corn. Smoke began to curl up from the chimneys of distant towns. Will shifted round, tugging at the crotch of his tattered trunk-hose, and staring whimsically back at the mountains.