Grunts

by Mary Gentle

  “Yee-hah!” Barashkukor fired the Desert Eagle pistol.

  DUKKA-DUKKA-ker-FOOM!

  “Bravo to Command, repeat Bravo to Command, we are encountering minimal resistance. We did it, sir! We’ve taken them completely by surprise! Move the troops up on my position; over.”

  “Wilco, Bravo. Out.”

  Cloud cleared. The dawn sun’s light swept across the siegeworks and the enemy camp.

  Barashkukor lowered his pistol. He reholstered it.

  The sun shone on long-dead campfires from which the cooking gear had been removed, abandoned tents with a few broken weapons scattered outside, and a vast pattern of circles of dead turf where panoplied tents had once stood. The beams shone on piles of horse dung, but no horses. Cartruts, but no baggage carts. Holes where flagpoles had been sited, but no Colours or Ensigns of the Light.

  Barashkukor stared. He tipped the Stetson back on his head. One long ear drooped. Still staring, he used his radio to direct Varimnak’s armoured war-elephant to overfly the whole length of the Light’s camp.

  “Nothing, man! No warriors. No surprise ambush. No traps or pits. Nothing!”

  A stray shell from the creeping barrage ahead dropped short, fragments whistling past Barashkukor’s ears.

  Barashkukor fumbled for the RT and screamed: “Abort attack! Bravo unit to Command, abort the attack, repeat, abort the attack! We have no hostiles. I repeat, we have no hostiles. Send out recon. Sir, they’ve gone, sir!”

  The noise of suppressive and speculative fire died away.

  “Command to Bravo.” Ashnak’s voice came loud and distorted over the channel. “What do you mean, you have no hostiles! It must be a trap!”

  The rising sun shone full into the valley of the Nin-Edin pass. In its light Barashkukor looked back and saw the devastated fort, the swarms of orc marines going into cover and holding the outer bailey. He stared forward at the abandoned siegeworks and the completely deserted enemy camp.

  “It’s not a trap. Come out and look for yourself, sir,” Barashkukor whimpered. “They’ve all gone away.”

  10

  Ashnak leaned his horny elbow on the side of his jeep, camouflage sleeve rolled up, bare orc-hide resting against metal biting cold in the morning frost.

  “Someone must have yelled for help,” Ashnak switched the chewed roll of pipe-weed to the other side of his wide mouth, “and Amarynth Arselicker got orders to pull out. Elfshit! Just when we could have done with a fight to knock the new marines into shape.”

  Since this was not wholly bravado, he was pleased to see his subordinate orc salute smartly and with every appearance of regret. Major Barashkukor stood beside the jeep, thumbs hooked under his belt, small booted feet planted wide apart. His Ray·Bans reflected Ashnak’s camouflage-creamed features.

  “They must’ve moved out stealthily after midnight. Sorry, sir!”

  “You will be,” General Ashnak promised. “And so will my reconnaissance teams.”

  Ashnak sprang down from the jeep, boots crunching the trodden slush and black embers of the abandoned enemy camp. Squads of orc marines combed the slopes of Nin-Edin in disciplined order. He narrowed his eyes against the knife-wind and early sun.

  East, the foothills ran down into empty country, the farmlands of Sarderis too far away to be properly seen. White frost covered the hills, white mist blurred the sunrise. Vultures wheeled in the high sky. Ashnak drew in breath cold enough to freeze a Northlands orc.

  “Wonder how long a start they got?”

  Barashkukor looked nervous. “There are still whole armies of Light out there, sir.”

  A SUS marine scrambled up the slope towards Ashnak, halted, and snapped a bony salute. About to reprimand the orc for grinning at a superior officer, Ashnak concluded that he might be mistaken in this when it came to the Undead.

  “What is it, marine?”

  “Sir, report from Corporal Lugashaldim’s Special Services recon group. Amarynth’s main force is six hours away from us, and closing on Sarderis; armed and ready for battle with the rogue mercenary units down there. The SUS report we can’t catch them up, sir.”

  Ashnak nodded morosely. The Undead orc marine continued:

  “Sir, Corporal Lugashaldim also reports that the enemy baggage train is only two hours away, down the main Sarderis road. It’s moving very slowly. And it’s unguarded, except for one mage.”

  This time there was no mistaking the orc marine’s grin, Undead or otherwise.

  “The Light’s ‘rules of war,’ sir. Since the baggage train’s sacred, they’ve bothered to put only a couple of crossbowmen with it, at the van and the rear. We could intercept it in the Red Gullies, sir. What are your orders?”

  “Tell Lugashaldim we’re on our way!” Ashnak slammed his fist into his palm. “Major Barashkukor, get your platoons together and move out to the Gullies. I’ll follow with mine!”

  “Sir, yes sir!”

  Galvanised into action, two platoons of orc marines loaded themselves into four-tracks and jeeps. Ashnak, beaming, swung himself up into a jeep, jammed shoulder to shoulder with Varimnak’s Badgurlz, their M16s and grenade-launchers jutting into the air. Sergeant Varimnak stood her booted feet down on the pedals, and the jeep roared away down the hill-slope, rocking and juddering.

  “Go, marines!” the peroxide-haired orc bellowed, overtaking the assembling column of vehicles. Ashnak saw her hit a control on the dashboard. Loud music blared out into the snowy silent dawn.

  “Marine, give me an assault weapon,” he demanded.

  A hulking orc in woodland camouflage combats proudly handed over an XM18 grenade-launcher. “Eighteen rounds in five seconds, sir, four hundred metres range. Loaded with alternate smoke, flares, gas, frag, and anti-personnel shells.”

  Ashnak checked the drum magazine. The weapon smelled beautifully of grease and metal and wax. “Okay, you marines, listen up! No need for a stealth approach. This is a baggage train, it moves at the speed of the slowest horse-and-cart, it isn’t going anywhere. Those pointy-eared mothers cut us up in Nin-Edin—now it’s our turn!”

  “YAYYY ASHNAK!”

  A short time later the jeep crested the hill above the Red Gullies. The road, almost past the foothills and into the lowlands, here split into a dozen narrow tracks between outcrops of red sandstone.

  Wagons blocked all the narrow tracks.

  Ashnak took it in at a glance: seventy or eighty heavy wagons weighed down with tents, chests, cooking gear, spare armour, cord, anvils, hammers, saws, bottles, benches, chairs and beds, candles, flagpoles, haybales—everything that heroic warriors need but cannot carry on their backs.

  Elves barely of an age to walk sat on the wagons and sang. Scurrying around the draught horses’ heads, young Men and dwarves fought with the recalcitrant beasts. Ashnak spotted the crossbow guards. He raised the XM18.

  Crack!

  Two mailed bodies tore apart, splattering the sandstone walls of the Gullies.

  “Chaaarge!” Ashnak bawled over the RT’s open channel, pounding Varimnak’s back. The jeep dipped, rolled, and drove down on the rear of the column, music blaring, horn sounding. And over all else, the Badgurlz ripped off rounds of suppressive fire:

  Taka-taka-taka-taka-FOOM!

  The young elves, dwarves, and Men ran in panic. Ashnak stood, steady, bracing the grenade-launcher and firing. An antitank grenade coughed, soared, and impacted on a tent-carrying wagon. Fingernail-sized scraps of canvas and cord spattered the Gullies.

  The lone mage—a dwarf young enough that his beard had barely grown past his belt—raised hands flaming with the Powers of Earth. “Fail weapons!”

  Ashnak grinned, holding his breath.

  A bolt of Earth power enveloped the jeep. A shrill cheer rose from the Light youngsters. Ashnak, one taloned hand gripping the side of the vehicle and the other his XM18, shook his head. The talismans around his neck stung.

  The green dazzles in his vision faded, harmlessly.

  The jeep’s engine raced an
d roared, intact.

  “Eat this!” Ashnak lifted the XM18 and fired, looking directly into the dwarf’s terror-stricken eyes.

  FOOOM!

  The mage and the Earth power aura vanished together, tough flesh not so much blown apart as vapourised.

  “Close weapons!” Ashnak made himself heard over the RT. “No projectiles. Hand-to-hand!”

  The orc marines bayed.

  The sun rose higher, slanting into the slush-ridden Red Gullies. Something over a hundred and fifty elves and Men—none of them more than children or adolescents, and kept safe with the baggage train for that very reason—ran about, their screams piercing the morning. Ashnak abandoned the vehicle. He swept a green-robed young female elf off her feet and tucked her, scrabbling and weeping, under one muscular arm. With the other hand he wielded a commando knife, rejoicing (as all orcs do) in close-quarters combat. The knife, dripping, rose and fell as he loped up the line of jammed wagons.

  An older elf sprang down from a sandstone outcrop, swinging a mace, screaming. Ashnak batted her aside. She hit the earth and slumped, sacklike. Fifteen or so adolescent Men and dwarves—spawn-herds, Ashnak assumed—recovered enough to attack as a group.

  He stunned the elf-child and dropped her between his feet, wielding the knife and his free, taloned hand. Varimnak, using the bayonet and butt of her assault rifle to strike, came up and stood back to back with him.

  Most of the jeeps were empty now, disgruntled marine drivers gunning the motors. The squads of grunts rampaged over the wagons, tearing bundles free, ripping chests open, scattering the tools and gear and keepsakes of the Army of Light all through the Gullies’ trodden red slush.

  The first killing done, the sound of elf-shrieks rose into the air: prisoners kept alive to provide amusement.

  Ashnak rolled the semi-conscious female elf onto her back, unbuckled his webbing and trouser-belt and knelt down.

  Varimnak licked red blood from the butt of her assault rifle with a rasping tongue. “Hey, man, we got ’em! The whole fucking baggage train! No survivors!”

  A grunt on top of one of the red sandstone outcrops stared down into the deep crevass on the far side of it.

  “Sarge,” she called down to Varimnak, “you want to know something about elves?”

  “What’s that, Shakmash?”

  “They don’t bounce.” The orc marine shrugged. “’Ere, Sarge, can I have a doggy-bag?”

  Varimnak grinned.

  Ashnak saw a Badgurlz marine run past, dragging a semi-conscious elf by the ankle. The elf’s skull cracked and jolted against rocks on the path. Another marine humped a dwarf with a slit throat.

  From the Gullies Ashnak heard shrieks and the butcher’s-shop sound of blows.

  “Hhnff!” Ashnak braced his elbows and toes, his blood-rimmed palms in the icy slush. Head hanging down, body pumping; his spittle draped the elf-girl’s face. “Good. My grunts need R&R. Post scouts. Just—in—hhnf!—case…”

  He smelled Varimnak lighting up another of the thin, black, oddly scented rolls of pipe-weed that she affected. Her voice above him agreed, “You got it, man.”

  Ashnak stopped moving.

  “And pass me another elf, Sergeant. This one’s split.”

  The noon sun penetrated the depths of Nin-Edin’s dungeons at several removes and faintly, but clear enough for Will to see Perdita del Verro.

  “Of course I’m a minor healer-mage,” the elf confirmed. “It’s a necessity in my line of work.”

  “What is your line of work? Mistress,” Will beamed politely.

  “War correspondent.”

  Ned Brandiman groaned and made some attempt to cover his filth-caked, naked body with bruised hands; his hemorrhage-tight stomach tender. “No kidding. An investigative mage-reporter.”

  Magda Brandiman’s face appeared outside the bars as the elf lifted her like a child. The halfling was, Will noted, wearing what appeared to be an over-large combat jacket.

  “Boys, I think we can do business with Mistress del Verro.”

  “What kind of business, Mother?” Will asked.

  Magda smiled.

  “Firstly,” she said, “there’s the matter of Perdita’s pigeons.”

  * * *

  A fist hammered on his door. “General Ashnak, sir!”

  Ashnak snapped the wrist-bonds tying him to the bedposts and sat up. He kissed Magda Brandiman passionately, scrambled into his combat trousers, and flung open the door.

  “What do you want, Major?”

  Major Barashkukor’s ears flattened tightly down on his skull. He hastily took off his Ray·Bans and put them in his combats pocket, cringed, and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “Sir, it’s time, sir!”

  Ashnak backhanded the small orc, who impacted against the oak door frame and bounced back off, shaking his ringing head.

  “It’s bad timing, marine. And I do mean ‘marine.’” Ashnak shut the door behind him, clipping his web-belt and pistol holster around his muscular body. “Because if you interrupt any more of my interrogations, major, you’re busted down to marine, and on permanent latrine duty!”

  “Sir, yes sir!” Barashkukor swallowed audibly. “But it’s one of the new halflings, sir. Cornelius Scroop—the Chancellor of Graagryk. He wants some cushions.”

  “Whaddya mean, cushions?” Ashnak demanded. “This is an armed camp, for fuck’s sake; where does he expect me to find cushions!”

  Major Barashkukor ceased punching the dents out of his formal marine flat hat, “Sir, both the halflings say they can’t see over the conference table. They’re right, sir. They can’t.”

  Ashnak groaned. Dangerously quietly, he said, “Find some blankets. Fold them. Use those as cushions. Dismiss.”

  “Sir, yes sir!”

  Barashkukor precipitously fled.

  “I’m surrounded by idiots!” Ashnak strode off down the tower stairs. Tech-Corporal Ugarit joined him on the way to the main hall.

  “Magic!” the skinny orc muttered disgustedly.

  “Instantaneous trans-location spells, Corporal,” Ashnak said expansively. “High-level, very expensive Southern Kingdoms magic. Has everyone that I want here for the conference arrived?”

  “Yes, General! Had to site the transfer point outside the fort, because of the nullity talisman influence, but they’re here. All the way from the Southern Continent.”

  Ashnak strode through the doors of the main hall. Commissar Razitshakra saluted him from behind a table. She tore off a small piece of paper.

  “Ticket for the Orc Ball, sir?”

  “I’ve already got one!” Ashnak regarded the big hall. “This your idea of a high-level conference, is it?”

  Marine flags were pinned up all around the walls of the bright, war-battered hall. One squad had sacrificed marine-issue sheets and a pot of khaki paint. The resultant banner read, NIN-EDIN ANNUAL MARINE DINNER DANCE. A bar, set up at the opposite end of the hall to the dais, was crowded with orc marines in off-duty fatigues. Above Ashnak’s head, among the spell-blackened beams and slit windows, a multifaceted glass ball began to spin. Small lights chased over the off-duty grunts.

  “Wouldn’t want a high-level conference to look conspicuous, sir,” Commissar Razitshakra remarked. “This way it blends into the general victory festivities.”

  Ashnak grinned.

  A voice spoke from approximately the height of the great orc’s belt buckle.

  “Lord General, I really must protest! You cannot expect us to sit on these greasy, smelly blankets. I demand that you find us either higher chairs or a lower table best becoming a Graagryk halfling’s dignity!”

  Ashnak looked down at Cornelius Scroop. The halfling from the southern city of Graagryk wore a full-length fur gown, upon which rested his S-linked gold chain of office, and a velvet cap on his long, barbered red curls.

  “Those are marine-issue blankets, Chancellor Cornelius, and marines get nothing but the best.”

  “They’re dirty!”

  “Oh, I woul
dn’t say that. Unwashed, perhaps. Oh, you mean the blankets.”

  “Things are not done like this in the South!”

  Ashnak, who had been hearing that refrain for some hours now, merely rested a clawed hand on Scroop’s shoulder and pointed the halfling towards a long table standing by one wall. Corporal Ugarit clanked his way back carrying a tray of beer glasses.

  Eight marines from the Badgurlz squad marched smartly up to the dais at the end of the hall, Major Barashkukor at their head. The small orc saluted Ashnak, then snapped his fingers. One marine set up a pot of greenery, hiding the wall-map. The others unpacked what Ashnak took to be musical instruments of varying descriptions.

  Barashkukor drew himself up to attention in polished and brushed brown dress uniform, surmounted by silver-surfaced spectacles and flat hat. “Sir, entertainment detail present and correct, sir!”

  “Carry on, Major.”

  The Badgurlz band launched into something with a good deal of rhythm and spark. Marines moved out into the cleared centre of the hall and began to jitterbug enthusiastically.

  A soberly clad halfling in black silk doublet, breeches, half-cloak, and sword, already sat over a plate at the long table, jingling her spurs. She nodded cheerfully to Ashnak and offered her hand to the body-armoured Ugarit.

  “Simone Vanderghast. Captain of the Graagryk city civilian militia.”

  Ugarit inspected the small, callused hand. “General, it says it’s a civilian, General.”

  “It’s an honourary marine for this evening, Corporal, and you are not to eat it, do you understand?”

  Ugarit muttered, “Yes, General!” in a dispirited manner and clanked off to find the bar steward.

  Ashnak seated himself at the head of the conference table. “Now, gentlemen.”

  Chancellor Scroop sniffed. “This blanket is dirty. This mug has not been washed. Admittedly this is an orc encampment and has just suffered siege warfare, but nevertheless one has standards!”

  Simone Vanderghast chuckled in her bluff, soldierly manner. “Come, Chancellor, these are times of war, rough times, one must make the best of it. You! One has just found a cockroach on one’s plate. Take it away!”