Grunts

by Mary Gentle

  Ashnak loped slope-shouldered through the chill night. Inside the keep it was colder, with the damp of ancient stones. The chambers and corridors echoed to the shouts of orc marines gearing up, NCOs bawling out their grunts, officers shouting for reconnaissance and situation reports. He walked through it all, grumbling under his breath about the burdens of command, and shrugged his flak jacket tighter across his muscled, hairless chest.

  Approaching Nin-Edin’s largest tower, and his command post, a noise attracted his attention. He paused by the closed door of the guard-room, hearing the whistle of a whip.

  “Ah. Interrogating prisoners. Well done, marines.” Cheered, Ashnak opened the door and beamed. “Possibly a little in advance of ourselves…”

  Chained face to the wall, stripped of everything but leather underwear, Perdita del Verro winced and arched her back as the lash struck. Ashnak glimpsed her between the six or seven grunts surrounding her chained body—female orcs with spiked white hair, in a somewhat unorthodox Battle Dress Uniform of black leather, with studded belts and wristbands.

  The Badgurlz marines jeered their helpless victim. Sergeant Varimnak, sleeves rolled up, black cloth headband tied around her brows, wielded the heavy whip. “Take that, bitch!”

  “Mercy!”

  Ashnak beamed sentimentally to himself at the traditional sight of orcs inflicting pain.

  A petite Badgurlz marine with silver studs through her hairless ears, nostrils, and nipples elbowed Varimnak in the ribs. “She’s had ages, Sarge. What about the rest of us?”

  Perdita del Verro turned her head, chin resting on her striped, bleeding shoulder. “You stopped…” she complained.

  “Take her down,” Varimnak ordered. “Hey, Tukurash, get up there; I’m gonna make hamburger of your pretty ass! Unless our guest…?”

  Ashnak witnessed the Warrior of Fortune correspondent climb down from the stone bench, and grin painfully and widely at Varimnak. The elf’s glossy braids had come half undone, her red ribbons were sweat-stained. She took Varimnak’s black leather whip.

  “Take that, bitch!” The elf cracked the tip of it accurately across Tukurash’s back. The orc marine whimpered. Varimnak nodded admiringly.

  “You’re supposed to torture the prisoners!” Ashnak exclaimed, affronted. “Damn it, they’re not supposed to torture you!”

  Varimnak put her muscular arm around the female elf’s sweating shoulders. “You do it your way, General. We’ll do it ours.”

  Ashnak opened his mouth, and after some thought he closed it again and shut the guard-room door behind him as he left. Shaking his head, he strode back up through the tower towards the command post. He gathered himself together enough to order further preparations for the pre-dawn attack, speak with his sub-commanders, and set basic strategy and tactics before entering his inner office.

  The female halfling sat waiting for him in a torn robe.

  “Now, my prisoner…”

  Ashnak reached down and took Magda Brandiman’s hand, drawing her through into the inner chamber. He closed the door. Starlight illuminated the bare room and his camp bed.

  Her hand, tiny in his, felt hot and dry. Ashnak seated himself on the edge of the camp bed and drew her to him between his thighs. She freed her hand. The starlight profiled her sharp face, easing the lines of age, gleaming from her short hair.

  She cupped the orc’s face in her hands, drawing her fingers across his rough, horny cheeks; catching the lobes of his pointed ears between fingers and thumbs and nipping. She drew his head forward, kissing the corner of his mouth, darting her tongue between his wide, thin lips.

  Ashnak made a sound, half groan and half sigh, and fell back on the bed. It creaked. Magda Brandiman sprawled across his chest and body, small legs straddling him, muttering under her breath as she winced, bruising her hands against webbing, water bottle, and flak jacket. She stripped him impatiently until they lay in a bed full of military equipment, bruising knees and elbows.

  He put his hands around her body, so small that he could encompass her waist with ease. Her skin like finest chamois leather rippled under his fingers, and the soft hair on her feet tickled his thighs. She grunted, at first sitting up, and then easing herself down on his erection, gradually taking more than seemed possible and rocking in the starlight, silver-limned, her eyes half shut, her face smiling.

  This time he worked until she arched her back and cried out—a sound sufficiently like pain to satisfy any orc who might be listening. Ashnak groaned, his hands clamping her hips tightly down, his body jackhammering up; and when the world came back to him he sprawled on his back, grinning so that all his tusks showed.

  The female halfling ferreted in his combats pocket and brought out a thin roll of pipe-weed.

  Magda struck flint against Nin-Edin’s walls, lit the pipe-weed, and drew deeply. The flare of light illuminated her lined face.

  “I’ve been thinking about retiring.”

  Ashnak made a small, querulous noise of protest.

  “Going into management.” She blew out a plume of pipe-weed smoke and wriggled further up into the odorous crook of Ashnak’s armpit. Her feet brushed his hip. “You could set me up in a nice little business. Some girls, some boys—some fabulous beasts.”

  Ashnak unkinked the tips of his hairless ears and leered. “I got other things on my mind right now…”

  Magda ignored him. “I said I had been thinking about retiring. But now I can see only one way to ensure the safety of my sons.”

  “No way! They’re dogmeat!”

  The halfling leaned back in the rough marine-issue blankets, the red eye of the pipe-weed roll swelling and dying. The night sky gloomed outside the window, stars covered in cloud. She said nothing more.

  Cooling sweat slicked Ashnak’s hide. “Halfling, you expect me to—”

  Magda exhaled, utter confidence in her voice. “You’re going to win the battle tomorrow.”

  “I am? I mean: I am!”

  “But what happens after that, my orc?”

  There was a very long silence.

  “So what,” Ashnak rumbled, “are you suggesting?”

  Magda Brandiman rolled over, feline, and drew a finger down the centre of the orc’s broad, hairless chest.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “You’ll what?”

  Ashnak glared, watching her with orcish night-vision. The female halfling rummaged in the tumbled bed. One of her hands seized his wrist; not able to encompass it with her fingers, she swiftly knotted his trouser-belt about it and then tied it to the bed’s post.

  “Oi!”

  Searching among miscellaneous military equipment for another leather belt, the female halfling looked up directly into Ashnak’s eyes.

  “I don’t believe in instant gratification. Let me show you. In a while I’ll tell you about my plan.”

  Her tongue darted out to lick her lower lip. She smiled.

  “You’ll like it. Trust me, you’ll like it.”

  9

  Major Barashkukor squinted through the pre-dawn darkness.

  With some reluctance he folded his Ray·Bans and put them carefully in a pouch on his web-belt. “All right, you orcs. Check your weapons.”

  Foom!

  A red-crested orc in desert combats looked down the smoking muzzle of her Kalashnikov. “I think mine was loaded, sir.”

  “Quiet!” Barashkukor snarled.

  Chill slid down from the heights of the mountains on just-stirring breezes. Orc-vision alone could glimpse the east’s growing light. Stars still clustered in the arch of the sky; no birds sang. Barashkukor lifted his head and squinted up at Nin-Edin’s magic-blackened and battered inner walls. Hundreds of orcs lined the parapets, scaling ladders ready; orcs clustered in dozens of squads in the inner compound, receiving their last briefings.

  Barashkukor shook out and re-tied a white silk scarf around his thin neck. The small orc’s long, hairless ears whivvered in the dawn wind, and he crammed his Stetson down over th
em. Drawing his Desert Eagle pistol from its belt holster, muzzle skyward, he tucked one black-gloved thumb under his web-belt and leaned into the cover of the broken gateway.

  Nothing stirred in the enemy siegeworks, a scant thirty yards away.

  “We must be alert, orcs,” Barashkukor whispered. “We must think on our feet—Not you, Corporal.”

  Corporal Lugashaldim of the SUS looked up briefly from his marine-issue survival sewing-kit, murmured “Yezzer!”, and went back to threading a needle and more securely sewing on the toes of his left foot.

  “Any minute now—”

  “Sir!”

  “What is it?” Barashkukor took his gaze off the enemy siegeworks. Sergeant Varimnak saluted him lazily. She nodded at the nearest squad of orcs: newcomer refugees in plate-armour, carrying axes.

  “We got a problem, sir.”

  “Not now, Sergeant!”

  “Sorry ’bout that. It’s those refugees we took in. Dumb motherfuckers say they ain’t going in on no front wave, Major.” Varimnak shrugged leather-clad shoulders. She shifted her chewing gum to the other side of her heavy jaws. “Guess we haven’t had ’em in here long enough. Funny thing, Major, they don’t seem to be able to work the weapons when they first get ’em—have to drill the dumb shits into the ground, make real marines out of ’em, then the guns start firing. Guess that’s the Dragon’s Curse. But they say they’re not going in with inferior weapons.”

  Barashkukor fumed, tapping the toe of one tooled cowboy boot on the cold earth. “Don’t worry, Sergeant, I’ll handle this.”

  The small orc marched smartly up to the band of orc warriors who, in the growing half-light, leaned disconsolately on a selection of obsolete polearms.

  “New recruits, Ten-HUT! We gave you refuge in here—so you can damn well fight for us.”

  The orc warriors muttered recalcitrantly.

  Barashkukor glared at them. “You’re marines now and that means you obey orders!”

  “‘Oo’s orders?” A bow-legged, grey-skinned orc grinned, showing a jaw full of broken fangs. He towered over Barashkukor by a metre or more. “Your orders, you little runt?”

  The grey-skinned orc snarled menacingly, hefting a poleaxe.

  Barashkukor gripped his massive Desert Eagle pistol two-handed, drew himself up to his full three feet six inches, and faced the leader of the refugee orcs.

  “One wrong move,” Barashkukor announced, “and you’re history!”

  The looming orc paused, scratching his head. “What’s hist’ry?”

  Foom!

  “Anyone else want an academic education?” Barashkukor demanded.

  Thirty different squad leaders hissed, “Ssssshhh!”

  “You, marine!” Barashkukor whispered, blowing the smoke from the muzzle of the pistol. “Clear up that mess. As for the rest of you new guys, get down to the gate. You’re going in with the forward units!”

  With some satisfaction, he watched the refugee orcs run. He thumbed the RT. “Forward unit Bravo to command, forward unit to command.”

  General Ashnak’s voice crackled: “Command post to forward unit Bravo. Artillery barrage going in. Standby; over.”

  “Forward unit, message received, standing by.”

  Without warning the pre-dawn split apart and lit up like noon.

  Dukka-dukka-dukka-FOOM!

  Missile emplacements on the walls and towers opened up simultaneously with the precision-guided trebuchets and heat-seeker crossbows. Tracer fire seared the lightening sky. Great gouts of earth shot up from the siegeworks. Flashes of fire strobed the outer compound’s wreckage. Barashkukor shaded his eyes with his gloved hand, small fangs gleaming in the glare.

  “Major!”

  He barely heard Ugarit’s yell. Turning, he saw the tall, skinny orc straighten up from tightening a leather strap harness around the body of one of the smaller orcs.

  “My latest military development, Major!”

  The tiny orc, bandy legs bowing even further, puffed under the weight of a heavy metal casing now attached to her back. She took the goggles Ugarit handed to her, putting them over her wide-set, tilted eyes, and staggered off into the gloom.

  Barashkukor said, “What?”

  “It’s quite simple, Major.”

  The squads in the compound moved back in orderly formation, letting something through. Barashkukor gazed up at a great black bulk.

  The war-elephant clanked to a halt.

  Kevlar and steel armour covered its limbs and body, and a fine metal mesh shielded its trunk and eyes. Spikes jutted from the armour, and flags with marine unit insignia, and the Raven with stars-and-bars.

  A steel howdah sprouting wires, spindles, nozzles, dishes, and heavy-duty power packs had been attached to the beast’s back. The inside of the howdah was lined with orc marines.

  “Yo, Major!” Varimnak climbed up to sit with her muscular legs either side of the elephant’s ears. She pulled on a sheepskin-lined black leather jacket with the marine flag painted on the back.

  Barashkukor coughed, blushing as he noted Perdita del Verro slipping out of the gloom with elvish quietness to stand gaping up at the war-elephant. “I think you’d better explain what it is you’re doing here, Corporal Ugarit.”

  Ugarit chuckled and rubbed his knobbly knuckles. He beamed at the elf correspondent. “A simple scratch-built anti-gravity device, sir and ma’am. This is its maiden flight! I’ll demonstrate. Sergeant Varimnak, ma’am! Prepare for takeoff.”

  The peroxide-haired orc removed her chewing gum and stuck it under the elephant’s right ear. She pulled goggles down over her eyes, zipped up her jacket, and held a metal quirt up in the air. Radar dishes on Nin-Edin’s walls swivelled. The quirt radiated infraspectral colours, bright against the pre-dawn indigo sky. She turned her head to address the orcs seated in rows down each side of the howdah. “Flight check one! Sound off, marines.”

  “Squad one all present, Sergeant.”

  “Squad two, present and correct!”

  Sergeant Varimnak grinned and wiped her splayed nostrils, streaming in the cold air. The RT built into her helmet crackled. Barashkukor heard her call, “This is Flight One to Control. Yo! Ready for takeoff, man!”

  Ugarit skipped up and down on the spot, clicking his heels together, slavering over the walkie-talkie he held. “You have mission clearance, Flight One—go, go, go!”

  The elephant lifted its trunk and trumpeted. Barashkukor grabbed his Stetson with both hands. Perdita del Verro scribbled furiously in her notebook. Powdery snow blasted back as the war-elephant beat its ears, rearing its front legs an inch or two above the earth. The ground shook under Barashkukor’s boots. Varimnak brandished the quirt. The whine of a high-powered para-electrical field rose beyond even orc-hearing.

  “—achieved takeoff!” the RT squawked.

  The war-elephant’s ears beat strongly and rhythmically. Clouds of dirt and snow whirled across the compound. Barashkukor slitted his eyes. The beast reared.

  Up out of the dirt and darkness, into the new light of dawn. The sparkling quirt appeared, and the great crowded howdah, and Varimnak banged her studded boots in behind the war-elephant’s ears, triggering the cybernetic flight-guidance systems. A blast of warm air shook Barashkukor. He craned his neck to look up, look up higher…

  Ears beating, cradled in the sparkling discharges of a para-gravitational field, the great war-elephant gradually lifted above the compound. Grunts cheered. Gaining height rapidly, legs trailing, the war-elephant narrowly cleared the walls of Nin-Edin and soared up into the dawn air.

  Perdita del Verro lifted her patrician chin, glossy braids gleaming, and breathed, “Now I think I’ve seen about everything…”

  Her gold eyes widened. “What a scoop! What an exclusive!”

  “I’ve done it! I’m safe at last!” Ugarit jumped up and down, shaking spanners and soldering irons out of the crevices of his flak jacket. “The unbeatable weapon! Bomber Flight One away!”

  Barashkukor ran for the
gate. He hit the portcullis some seconds after Perdita del Verro, grabbing at the stone-chilled metal and staring out into the vast air of the mountain pass. The war-elephant’s lights made a tiny speck high above, circling over the enemy positions.

  “Varimnak to base, man. About to commence first stragetic bombing run, over.”

  “Sergeant, this is Major Barashkukor. Proceed with experimental bombing run. Over.”

  “Ya got it, man! Out.”

  The war-elephant circled high above the pass of Nin-Edin, illuminated by the sunrise while the world below was yet dark. A small speck fell from the back of the elephant. Then a second, a third, a fourth…

  Barashkukor lifted armoured binoculars and focussed. “Corporal Ugarit…”

  The binos brought Barashkukor the image of one orc marine hanging on to the straps of his pack harness, face contorted against the cold wind as he fell. The great mass of the bomb strapped to his back made him plummet towards the earth. As Barashkukor watched, the orc pulled a tag. A small drogue chute opened—not large enough to arrest his fall but strong enough to slow the rate of descent.

  The orc grunt reached up, grabbed the straps, and began to pull them one way and another, guiding his plummeting descent towards the position of the besieger’s main tents and the impact.

  “There you are, sir!” Ugarit yelled triumphantly as the first explosion shattered the cold air, and a ball of black and orange smoke went up. “Terminally guided munitions!”

  Another explosion rocked the ground. Barashkukor clutched the female elf’s elbow. Her mouth hung open. There was a light in her eyes. Black ash and fragments of wood rained down across the snowbound fort.

  “Have to ask you to move to the rear now, ma’am.” Barashkukor thumbed the RT. “This is Bravo to Command. Am going in now, sir.”

  “Okay, marines, let’s rock and roll!”

  The artillery barrage cut out. Orc voices bellowed commands. The noise of ladders sounded strangely loud as the squads went over the top, down the walls, and fanned out to cross the outer compound. Grenades cracked; heavy weapons bellowed. The earth shook.

  Barashkukor sprinted behind his squad, clear across the outer compound, over the ruined walls and into the main enemy camp. Ahead of the forward squads, ahead of heavy weapons—