by Mary Gentle
“This is a land waiting to be at war…Their warriors will be riding away to the great musters of the Light.” The wet earth soaked through his combats at knee and elbow. “Move ’em out, soldier.”
Ashnak rose and walked back from the advance post, radioing for Shazgurim and Zarkingu to move their companies out, and the night became a morass of small noises—muffled boots, the clink of weapons, a snarl, the buzz of a radio transmission. It went on interminably as he walked back, squad after squad of orcs trampling the earth as they passed him. The big Agaku bared his fangs with exhilaration.
The full moon loomed, silver now, patterns of the Dark visibly smirching its face.
Shapes shambled across the fields and resolved themselves into three of the fighting Agaku. The second company of marines began to pass Ashnak, and he saluted the ranking officer at its head. The moonlight cast his shadow heavy and sloping on the wet earth.
Others shadows joined it: squat Imhullu, hulking Shazgurim, and Zarkingu’s shadow skipping from foot to foot.
“The artillery are in position!” Zarkingu unfurled a scroll of paper, spreading it out. Her eyes and fangs gleamed in the moonlight. Ashnak and his sub-commanders squatted to study the map.
“This is the Tower of Guthranc. That’s cultivated land. This is the edge of the forest, here, and this is the main road from Sarderis.” Ashnak pointed.
Imhullu untied the camouflage-neckerchief from his brow, wiped his weeping empty eye-socket, and replaced the cloth. The squat orc punched Ashnak’s bandoleer-covered chest. “Nine platoons—we’re taking three whole companies in. Practically a small battalion. Against what, less than a hundred of the Man-filth? Armed with swords and bows…?”
“Seven to one,” Ashnak said. “Reasonable odds.”
“They’ll have a few spells. Some damned magic-user or other.” Shazgurim squatted, forearms resting on horny knees, her helmet off—watching the third column begin to pass them. “But, bullets baffle bullshit. We’ve got these hard bastards at our backs—no horse-buggering Man is going to kick our asses!”
“Brief your squad leaders. It’s essential we target the mages, if there are any. Take them out.” Ashnak took the map and rolled it up. “We can’t stop them starting to spellcast—but sorcery will be no defence against these weapons. We’ll take a few casualties while we’re wasting the mages, but at acceptable casualty levels.”
Zarkingu rubbed her horny hands together. “No protection! No magic! They’ll be cut to pieces…”
She paused.
“Are we too good? Will the orc marines worry him?”
Above Ashnak the stars are drowned by moonlight. On the horizon, mountains glimmer with early snow.
“The nameless?” Ashnak hawked and spat a gob of phlegm. He felt a laugh building deep in his chest. “He’s like any of the lesser Lords of Evil—jockeying for position among the rest. Hoping that the Dark Lord’s going to notice him. He’ll do anything for that, rot him. As for too good—I tell you exactly what our reward will be for this. We’ll get to stand on the right of the line at the Fields of Destruction, and take the brunt of the battle.”
“Fighting Agaku!” Imhullu shook his crop-eared head. “That’s the war for which we were bred.”
“Poor bastards,” Shazgurim snorted. “I can even be sorry for the Man-filth in the Tower. They don’t know what’s going to hit them.”
Zarkingu giggled hysterically.
Ashnak tightened his web-belt, re-laced one boot, and straightened his shambling bulk. The RT whispered in his helmet. He bared fangs to the cold moonlight.
“Those Men in the Tower?” Ashnak said. “They’re soldiers, the same as we are—except that they’re not marines. Honour them, Agaku. They’re close kin to us, although they deny it. And we’re going to kill them. All warriors are brothers in arms, whether they fight for the Light or the Dark. We are fated always to make war on our own kind.”
7
The Named rides for Guthranc.
With her ride an ill-assorted company. There are Men in it, who seem uneasy in the brigandines and burgonets they wear. Some are slender enough to be of the elven-kind. They carry weapons as if they are not used to them. Some of the smaller breeds are there, too, bouncing along in the saddles behind the taller riders.
The Dark-touched moon sinks over fields left unharvested, among villages deserted, in a countryside breathing out the relief that comes with the promise of a final accounting with evil.
Under a blue sky, the countryside of the Northern Kingdom shone red and gold. Heavy-headed golden grain swayed and fell forward, flattened under the metal tracks of a speeding M113 armoured personnel carrier. Spreading poppies among the overripe, unharvested corn blotched the fields with the colour of Man-blood.
Ashnak leaned hairy elbows on the edge of the APC’s hatch, holding binos to his eyes. He smelled dusty earth, orc-sweat, and Man-fear. The machine bucked and dipped under him as it roared along the length of the first orc marine column. Three columns crossed the fields in echelon. He tasted dust in his tusked mouth.
Somewhere the Army of Light will be mustering for the Final Battle. But that is not here, and Samhain is weeks off yet.
The radio buzzed in Ashnak’s hairless ear. He thumbed the stud under the rim of his helmet. “Ashnak receiving, over.”
“This is Recon 1. Territory is clear, repeat territory is clear. Over.”
“Recon 1, I copy. Out.”
“Major Ashnak, this is Recon 2. No enemy seen or suspected. Over.”
“I copy, Recon 2. Out.”
“Recon 3, this is Recon 3. Targets have entered the Tower, sir. Estimate their garrison strength at seventy, repeat, seven-zero. They have closed the gates and are guarding the walls. Over.”
“Message received, Recon 3. Take no action, repeat, take no action. Out.”
On impulse he had his driver stop the APC at the head of the column. He climbed out of the hatch, careful to avoid catching grenades and bandoleers on the hatch-rim. His boots hit the furrowed earth. He unslung the M60 general-purpose machinegun, carrying it muzzle-skyward, and fell in beside the marching squads of orcs.
“Yo!” Imhullu loped up to join him. Shazgurim shambled up in the one-eyed orc’s wake.
“Like old times, huh, Colonel?” She grinned.
“I smell white magic, Light magic, magic far yonder!” Zarkingu, skulls rattling at her belt and the marine flag rippling from the pole-standard she carried, skipped up to the head of the column. “We’re coming up on them, Colonel Ashnak. Battle before sunset!”
Ashnak heard the word spreading down the columns of marching orcs behind him, and the growls and cheers and yells in its wake.
“Do we kick ass?” he bawled.
“SIR, WE KICK ASS, SIR!”
Ashnak faced front, marching in the long orc-lope that eats up miles and days. It felt for a moment strange to have Man-boots on his feet and not to pound the bare earth. Strange to carry the weight of guns, not poleaxe, sword, and warhammer. He breathed in the stink of oil and metal and cordite, his chest expanding.
The afternoon air had the first and faintest tinge of autumn in it.
He looked across at Major Shazgurim. The big female orc wore her helmet right down, the rim level with her beetle-brows. Her eyes were shining. She loped heavily along, a hand-held rocket-launcher strapped across her shoulders and an M16 in either hand.
“Nest-sisters,” he acknowledged his three commanders. “Nest-brother.”
Imhullu growled. “Nest-brother, this is well.”
Ashnak looked at Zarkingu. “Little sister?”
Major Zarkingu’s tilted eyes gleamed. Bullet-bandoleers clattered as she walked. The sun lit up the dust on her combat trousers and the mud on her boots—she, the only one to march on foot with the companies all the way from Nin-Edin.
“We’ve come far together. I remember other towers, brother, and other campaigns. I remember other masters. Aren’t the Agaku always masters of the battle?” Zark
ingu smiled. “What though one of us falls? There are always the Agaku!”
Imhullu stroked the small orc’s horse-tail plume of purple hair. “Little sister feels her death upon her.”
“We are the fighting Agaku.”
Around the horizon, snow-covered mountains rise up to a blue and purple sky. Ashnak tastes the loneliness of those cold heights on his tongue, here in the deserted lowlands. He looks back at the destroyed countryside, the ravaged fields, and the company marching behind him. Dust and the first fallen leaves rise up, concealing their strength from watching eyes. There are always watching eyes in Guthranc.
But what can any spy do, seeing what approaches now?
Trained, prepared, battle-hardened—there is nonetheless a point where one deliberately abandons fear, abandons the knowledge of victory, abandons the wish to survive. He abandons that professionally and without regret. Ashnak, when he fights, fights as one who knows he is already dead. It makes him deadly: it has given him his life.
“Give me your hands,” he says, “sisters and brother.”
On the many-towered ramparts of Guthranc a sentry halloos a warning. Inept with their weapons, the newly arrived company nevertheless stands to arms.
The Named emerges in full plate harness that sears the afternoon sun into watching eyes. Her surcoat blazes gold. She raises her sword to cry an order.
An explosion knocks her from her feet. She sprawls on the parapet, armour scratched and dented. Rocks and shrapnel whistle across the still air. The west tower and half its supporting wall collapse into rubble.
* * *
“FIRE!”
The artillery barrage boomed, way behind him. The flattened trajectory of the shells took them over Ashnak’s head, whipping the air. He stood up in the hatch of the APC, helmet pushed back, chewing an unlit roll of pipe-weed.
“FIRE!”
Smoke rolled up black and orange from Guthranc’s walls. Pennants, bright against the blue sky, crisped in flame. Masonry cracked and tumbled, falling slowly outwards, and the whole gate section of the walls slid away, down, and raised gouts of water from the moat. Warriors ran along the parapet like termites. The gate tower collapsed.
“First platoon, go, go, go! Now! GO!”
The deep cough of the guns drowned his voice in his own ears, but the headsets obviously carried it. Moving with complete precision the first orc marine platoon began to advance by fire and movement: one squad going into whatever cover the churned-up cornfields and road offered and blazing away at the Tower, while the next squad moved up past them and went down, ready to offer covering fire and then repeat.
On Guthranc’s walls a Man threw up his arms and fell. The body wheeled through the sunlit air, mouth open. Ashnak watched until it hit the earth, bones fracturing. The squads had advanced to the foot of the slope. He spoke into his headset:
“Artillery, cease fire; say again: cease fire.”
Ashnak looked down from the APC into the bowl of land that held the Tower of Guthranc, nestled in its surroundings of rolling cornfields. The unharvested white grain was mashed down with tyretracks and the marks of marching feet. To the east the Old Forest, massy and green, dreamed under the hot noon. The artillery thudded behind him and stopped firing.
Imhullu’s squads of grunts advanced towards the Tower, weapons blazing. Ashnak put the binos to his eyes and caught an intensified image of the squat black orc, Kusaritku, firing a shoulder-held rocket-launcher. Flame belched. Red and gold fire bloomed from the foot of Guthranc’s east wing.
Gatling-gun fire raked the towers where Men and other filth scrabbled across the fallen rubble. Some threw up their hands and fell. Red drenched the fallen stones, drained into gullies. Ashnak, narrowing his eyes, picked out the cover still remaining, and the tips of longbows raised…
“Major Shazgurim, do you copy? Over.”
“I copy, Colonel. Now. Over?”
“Take ’em in. Advance at will. Go, go, go! Out. Zarkingu, advance your platoon! Keep Imhullu’s platoon out of your arc of fire. Go, you motherfuckers, go!”
He slammed a horny-hided fist down on the APC. Its engine roared. He bawled instructions at the driver, shouldered his M60, and braced himself as the vehicle jolted and rocked over the ploughed earth.
Ahead, fire and smoke blazed up in tall columns. The rear walls of Guthranc fragmented and collapsed. Imhullu’s orcs scrambled up the long slope toward the foot of the fallen towers in extended line. Cordite choked the air. Smoke hung heavy and low.
And from the east, from their concealment in the Old Forest, the two reserve platoons advanced, firing.
“Agaku! Agaku!”
His helmet RT deafened him with war-cries. Ashnak yelled wildly, grinning, shoved his GI helmet down over his beetle-brows, and ordered the APC in a wide curve that took him round the western edge of the diversionary attack line and across the Vordenburn road. He raised the M60 and fired, exulting in recoil and noise, screaming over the firefight:
“Agaku! AGAKU!”
The APC’s nose dipped forward and dug into the soft earth at the moat’s edge. Ashnak scrambled up, over, and out. His boots hit the wet earth. He ran for the pontoons, craning his neck to see the demolished towers above him; raised the M60 and blazed up at the walls. Combat-clad orcs piled past him, tusked mouths grinning, their guns jabbing flame into the noon sunlight. Smoke and stink began to erase the battlefield. Ashnak hit dirt in the cover of a fallen wall and looked back.
Lines of orcs raced up the slope at the charge, screaming and throwing grenades. The crump! of heavy weapons shook the ground. Earth gouted up. It showered Ashnak’s face with the smell of cultivated fields.
The helmet RT blared: “Charge! Chaaaarge!” Shazgurim’s voice, tinny over the small amplifier. Satisfied that the main attack was going in, Ashnak shrugged, hefted the M60, and grinned, knowing there was nothing now but to go in at the head of the reinforcing attack. Any hostiles that survived would have no option but to come out to the north—where they would run into the cut-off squad.
He opened his mouth and bawled “Chaarge!” at Imhullu’s grunts, shoulder-rolled around the fallen masonry, and came up the slope with the M60 juddering and wrenching at his grip. Its muzzle rose, stitching the walls of Guthranc from bottom left to top right in one slow curve. An elf and a dwarf broke to run, and the rounds spattered their blood and intestines across the stones.
“Chaaaarge—”
He scrambled over smoking rubble into the inner courts, firing the M60 one-handed, and a horse reared up in front of him. The smoke cleared enough to let sun blaze from gold surcoat and white harness. The Named reared above him, one bare hand raised.
Ashnak hit the magazine-catch, released one, snicked another loaded magazine flawlessly into place. “Die, motherfucker!”
All in a splintered second:
Dakka-dakka-FOOM!
The rounds track up, beginning to whip through the rainbow shimmer of her protective spell as if it does not exist.
The Named, smiling, sits the white horse’s saddle with grace; in her other armoured hand is a sword. She has no time to strike, but time to speak.
Ashnak reads her wide, loose lips as they move. The Named mouths: “Fail weapons.”
Silence.
Not until then realising how the metallic shriek and roar of the guns has vibrated through him, numbed his eardrums; how the coughing roar of explosion after explosion has deafened him; not realising until now when there suddenly falls—silence.
An invisible hand swatted Ashnak to the grass.
Mouth full of dirt, spitting, he shook his head (helmet dented, the air burning on his face) and rolled and came up with the M60 machinegun tucked into his body. The metal burned his hands with cold blue fire. It seared, cut, sawed at his skin. Ashnak, ignoring the pain, raised the muzzle until he held the armoured female Man in his sights.
“Die, bitch!”
He jerked the trigger—useless.
Witch-fire rippled out and over hi
s body, burning his skin.
Every inch of him blazing, Ashnak rolled on the earth. His combat trousers fused, the material sticking to his skin; and the bandoleers of bullets grew warm to the touch, grew hotter—
Ashnak, ripping the bandoleers off, plunged back down the slope. He hit the moat and rolled in the wet mud, quenching witch-flames. The M60 gone: the final disgrace, to lose a weapon. Pain shook him, his sloping shoulders and long arms burned raw; tough hide seared from his legs and torso. He bolted for cover and crouched shaking and filthy with mud behind a section of the gatehouse wall.
The Men and elves on the ramparts threw down their unaccustomed weapons.
“Yo, marine!” Ashnak pounded across the iron-hard earth towards one of Imhullu’s grunts, the black orc Kusaritku, who knelt and fired the rocket-launcher. Witch-fire licked down from the Tower.
The rocket split in the tube and shrapnelled the air.
Deafened by the explosion, Ashnak hit dirt. Warm, wet meat draped over his hands and arms. He reached over Kusaritku’s body to get the rocket-launcher. The small orc Kusaritku, combats soaked with blood, scooped at the white and green tubes leaking from his belly and then lay back, his eyes on the sky. The camouflage-covered helmet slipped down over his face.
“Rush them!” Ashnak made his voice heard over screams, shouts, and the remnants of firing. “Target the mages! Rush them!”
The ruined walls of the Tower loomed above him, white stone blackened with soot. Men and elves stood up on the walls now, behind shimmering guards of magic. They cast off their helmets and threw down their swords, picking up staffs.
“Charge!” He raised a discarded M16 assault rifle, squeezing the trigger. Nothing. Feverishly he changed magazines, fired again—the firing-pin fell with a dull click. Nothing. Again, and—nothing. He threw down the gun, ripped the pin from a grenade, and hurled it. The green ovoid fell into the rubble with a metallic clink. Nothing more.
Time slipped a gear.
Ashnak became aware that he was running across the inner courtyard of the Tower. He caught his foot and fell. He made to get up and his leg gave way, the bone poking through the flesh. His other leg burned, blistering and pus-filled. Ashnak picked up a dead orc’s Kalashnikov and rested it across his seared forearms and began to crawl, using his arms to pull his useless lower body along.