Grunts

by Mary Gentle

  She reached up slowly and pulled off her wimple, disclosing tight brown curls and a fair amount of chin-stubble.

  “I’m a male halfling,” Ned Brandiman pointed out gruffly.

  “No one of us is perfect,” Amarynth shrugged.

  The elf’s response was drowned in the flash of bulbs and the screech of questions, and a baying howl from the crowds at the platform gate. They broke the guards’ cordon and flooded in. The Knights Flagellant moved forward and scuffles broke out. Will Brandiman stepped back in among the journalists, effectively concealing himself, and stripped off his tight black doublet. He reversed it to show the scarlet lining and struggled to get his arms back into the sleeves.

  “Amazing,” a familiar voice commented. Magda Brandiman removed her slouch hat and passed it to her son, standing revealed in an evening dress and fur stole, the picture of a socialite halfling. “Much more effective than planting a question about the reverend’s financial irregularities Amarynth might have wriggled out of that. This is his political death.”

  “Mother, it was nothing to do with us!” Will tugged the hat down over his eyes and pointed to where the dark elf and the defrocked abbess were being pushed and shoved. Ugly noises sounded from the crowd. “Let’s get Ned out before real trouble starts.”

  The halfling smiled, tiny crow’s-feet wrinkling in the corners of her dark eyes. “There’s always an old favourite,” she murmured, moving to the opposite platform’s edge, striking a sulphur-match, and dropping it into the litter between the rails.

  Will filled his lungs and bellowed. “FIRE!”

  The stench of burning rags filled the air and the crowd panicked. Will elbowed his way between the dwarf correspondent and the elf camera crew, caught Ned’s arm and pulled; the two halflings rolled and dived and dropped down between the edge of the platform and Amarynth’s election-special express. Ned tore his habit to tunic-length and wiped off his face-paint. Heads ducked down, they loped along under the train and exited on the far side, merging with the crowd disembarking from a northerly stopping train, and slipping out onto the far platform.

  The Duchess of Graagryk’s coach departed from the outside of Ferenzia’s main station, Her Grace naturally enough not wishing to be involved in the riot that, beginning on platform seven, spread out from there and before the night’s end had barricades up in fifty streets of the poorer quarter. The duchess’s coach, as well as its driver and complement of baffling bodyguards, acquired two new coachmen, who rode in the chilling air without complaint as the coach jolted over the cobbles towards the Royal Quarter.

  “I don’t know, Will.” Ned Brandiman shook his head. “I’m not saying I won’t accept him. It was just so sudden. A girl likes to have time to make up her mind.”

  Will Brandiman perched beside Ned on the tiger’s seat at the back of the coach, watching the dark streets of Ferenzia jolt by. He put his head in his hands. His voice came muffled to Ned. “What I say is, never marry an elf who refers to himself in the plural, that’s what I say.”

  “Well…” Reluctantly, Ned conceded, “There may be something in that.”

  The ducal coach left the cobbled streets of the Royal Quarter, the horses’ hooves muffled on the turf of the Royal Park, where the forces of Darkness were encamped. The Duchess Magdelene Amaryllis Judith Brechie van Nassau leaned out the window and spoke briefly to the kobold and dire-wolf guards.

  She alighted in front of the Dark Pavilion and entered.

  By the time she reappeared Will had engaged in dice-throwing with the kobold guard and was the proud possessor of two saw-tooth daggers (with spikes on pommels), a wyvern-skin ration bag (with split seam), and four copper coins of indeterminate value. The red eyes of the kobolds glowed at this total pillage of their wealth. Will tactfully palmed his other set of loaded dice and lost a double-or-nothing last throw. He joined Ned and his mother in the coach.

  “Well?”

  “I could have had a beautiful bride’s gown,” Ned mourned. “With ribbons.”

  “Brother, be quiet!” Will scratched at his itchy hair, determined to remove the dye-spell as soon as possible. “So, Mother, what’s happening?”

  Ned added, “And those little flounce things, with lace…”

  Magda Brandiman struck flint to steel, the light blossoming in the dark body of the coach. As the vehicle clopped away she lit a thin black roll of pipe-weed, placed it in her pipe-weed holder, and inhaled deeply.

  “We’ve done you a considerable favour,” Will pointed out. “That routine with the prayer-wheel was good for months yet. Ned and I could have been rich. Richer. Comfortably off, even.”

  “And afforded a wedding gown with a train,” Ned Brandiman put in. “Twenty yards of the best Archipelago silk.”

  Will elbowed his brother halfling firmly in the ribs. “As a favour to our mother, we sink the Light’s election candidate—yes, I know it wasn’t us, precisely, but we were going to. I’d prepared a marvellously touching speech where I broke down and confessed to Amarynth’s forcing me to extort money from the pilgrims.”

  Slightly miffed, he added, “It was really good, for a rush job. Shame. However, the chances of Amarynth Firehand winning the election to the Throne of the World are slender now, to say the least, and we want to know, Mother—what did the Dark Lord offer you as a reward? And how much is our share of it?”

  Chiaroscuro shadows chased across Magda Brandiman’s lined, sallow face and the swell of her small breasts under her evening gown. She frowned, exhaling pipe-weed smoke. “That Bitch! I know exactly what She’s after, She doesn’t fool me for one minute. Which is more than I can say for a certain starry-eyed orc…”

  Will frowned. “Mother, I think you’d better tell us about this. What have orcs got to do with it?”

  Magda Brandiman turned her head, her delicate profile appearing against the window as the grey of false dawn streaked the sky over Ferenzia.

  “I may have misled you, son,” she confessed. “Removing Amarynth wasn’t the Dark Lord’s idea. It was mine. It occurred to me, you see, that with no rival in the election, and Her victory therefore certain, it wouldn’t be necessary for my Ashnak’s trial to go ahead.”

  “Oh, no,” Will Brandiman groaned. “Ashnak!”

  “The evidence against your stepfather has been, shall we say, mislaid. And She doesn’t need a propaganda victory with Amarynth Firehand disgraced. But,” Magda snarled, “will She cancel his trial? She will not! Ten o’clock this morning, it goes ahead.”

  “You mean we’ve just attempted to help that—orc—out of trouble?” Will Brandiman demanded. He glared at Ned for help, but the brown-haired halfling leaned back in the jolting coach seat and hummed a wedding march. “Mother! How could you?”

  “I couldn’t count on your voluntary assistance.” Magda Brandiman stubbed out the pipe-weed holder on the gilt frame of the coach window, scowling. “I begin to see it now. I’m a fool. There’s no way She’ll stop the trial or settle for any verdict less than guilty. With my Ashnak out of the way She controls the marines. And they’re the only thing now that stands between us and the Bugs.”

  The condemned orc ate a hearty breakfast.

  Morning sun shone down from the grill into the tiny cell the Order of White Mages had allotted their prisoners. Ashnak blinked as the sun moved across his eyes. Fathoms of spellcast chain rattled as he rolled off the plank bunk and onto his bare feet.

  “Urrp!” He scratched his crotch through his ragged combat trousers, chains rattling again, and relieved himself against the cell wall. The sun’s heat raised a malodorous warmth. The orc beamed and belched again.

  “General Ashnak!” A thunderous banging sounded on the door, succeeded by the rattle of keys, and the heavy oaken door swung open.

  A small orc in smart brown uniform tunic and breeches backed through the doorway, holding a silver breakfast salver in one steel- and one orc-hand. A clean white towel hung over his arm, and he jauntily wore a tall white cook’s hat.

 
; “Good morning, General, sir!” Major Barashkukor said. “How would you like your witness?”

  Ashnak chuckled. “Well done!”

  The small orc whipped off the domed cover of the salver to disclose sizzling haunch of halfling, crisped to a dark brown. Ashnak seized it and sank his teeth in it, saying through a full mouth, “That’ll do nicely…”

  “Last of the young Meadowsweet spawn, sir.” Barashkukor assumed an expression of modesty. “Cooked it myself. Glad you like it, sir. I told the Order of White Mages it was deer-haunch, sir, and they let me through. After they’d insisted on tasting it first.”

  Ashnak stripped the succulent meat to the bone, broke the bone and sucked the marrow, the chains on his wrists hardly hampering him at all.

  “What about my other order?” he rumbled.

  “Yessir!” The small major unbuttoned his uniform jacket and removed a spare set of dogtags. He held the nullity talismans in his hand for a bewildered moment, then scrambled up onto the bunk and passed the chains over Ashnak’s heavy head, dropping the tags down under the fettered orc’s ragged marine sweatshirt. “There you are, sir.”

  Staves clashed down the passage and a dozen of the white-surcoated Ferenzi Order of Mages appeared. The female Man who was their leader scowled at Ashnak, who wiped the last halfling-grease from his chin and drew himself up to his full stature.

  “You!” she said harshly. “To court, now, and no tricks. My mages will burn you where you stand if you try anything. I would welcome the chance to wipe you from the face of the earth.”

  Ashnak regarded their tall ironwood mage-staffs and bared his brass-capped fangs in a smile. “Kiss my ass!”

  “Excuse me, madam.” Barashkukor belatedly climbed down from the plank bed, removing and folding his towel and chef’s hat. Under the chef’s hat he wore a flat peaked cap with major’s insignia. “I am Major Barashkukor of Five Company. According to marine regulations, appointed the Prisoner’s Friend.” He beamed at Ashnak. “I am even now preparing your defence, sir.”

  The white mage looked down at the orc, her serenely beautiful features wrinkling in disgust. With no more words the mages fell in around Ashnak as he left the cell, Barashkukor at his heels, and strode down the echoing tunnels of the prison.

  A covered bridge took them from the prison to the court. The noise of a crowd could be heard through the bridge’s ventilation slits. Ashnak’s deep eyes glinted in the gloom. He quickened his step, forcing the mages to run to keep up. His chains dragged three or four yards behind him, sweeping away the dust of ages.

  “Here…” Panting, the head of the mage escort handed Ashnak over to the court ushers at the entrance to the courtroom. Most of the ushers were halflings. The two who approached Ashnak were orcs with “DEPUTY USHER” stencilled across their fatigues.

  “As you suggested, sir, I mentioned to the lads that they might like to come along.” Barashkukor beamed up at the gallery on the left of the door, his cyborg-eye whirring. Upwards of two hundred orcs packed the tiered seats, their elbows, shoulders, and knees crushing the dwarves, elves, halflings, and Men sitting in with them. The orc marines threw nuts and offal and chorused barrack-room songs. Their whistles and orc-calls echoed through the court’s high vault. The grunts chanted, “Ash-nak! Ash-nak!”

  “How very touching.” Ashnak let his eyes sweep the courtroom—the witness stand in front of the judge’s bench, the desks for prosecuting and defence counsels, and the twelve good Ferenzi and true sitting in the jury box. Members of Ferenzia’s general public filed in towards the last gallery seats.

  “Oh, it’s such a shame…” A female dwarf wept copiously as two orc grunts helped her towards a seat. “He didn’t do it, he’s a nice boy…He’s my only support in my old age!”

  “Your support?” one hulking, granite-skinned orc queried.

  “Aw, she wants Court Four,” the other grunt said, his ugly features clearing. “Thoin Bardsbane, the dwarf axe murderer.”

  “My little boy!” the old dwarf female wept, tears trickling into her beard. “He didn’t do it!”

  “Haven’t they hanged Thoin Bardsbane already?” the first grunt remarked.

  “Naw.” The second orc paused. “Hung, drawn, and quartered.”

  The female dwarf broke into a howl and buried her sobbing face in a kerchief. The two orcs in green fatigues escorted her back out of the courtroom. Their voices came faintly to Ashnak:

  “When did that happen, then? I never seen a quartered dwarf.”

  “You missed it. Sunrise, that was. Pretty good, too…”

  A staff tapped on the tiles behind Ashnak and he turned to see a grizzled orc sergeant-major intercept a white-haired old Man in grey robes. “’Ere, you! No weapons in the Hall of Justice!”

  The old Man seemed to become even more hunched and bent. Leaning on the gnarled oak, he quavered, “Would you deny a feeble old man his staff?”

  The orc sergeant-major guffawed.

  “No, you don’t, granddad, I’ve been had like that before!” The orc plucked the staff away, snapped it over his knee, and tossed the pieces back out of the door.

  “But, but—”

  “If you can’t walk, crawl!”

  Ashnak watched the old Man crawl on all fours up the gallery steps. Then he turned his head and nodded. The orc ushers slammed the outer doors of the courtroom on the White Mages and shoved bars into place.

  Ashnak twisted his hands in the spellcast chains, pulled, and snapped the steel links. He stripped the fetters away, muscles bulging, and took a pistol from Barashkukor, which he shoved under the waistband of his combat trousers.

  “You!” Ashnak strode forward, pointing at a halfling usher. “Call this court to order. I will not suffer this unruly behaviour.”

  “But—but—but—”

  “That’s contempt.”

  FOOM!

  “I will not stand for contempt in this courtroom!”

  To orcish yowls of applause, Ashnak blew smoke from the Colt .45’s muzzle. He loped up onto the judge’s bench and seated himself in the carved, high-backed chair. Ashnak donned a pair of half-spectacles abandoned on the bench and gazed righteously down into the court, bald head and peaked ears gleaming.

  “Clear up that mess!” At the snap of his fingers, six more halflings rushed forward with buckets. Ashnak turned his heavy-jawed head towards prosecuting counsel’s desk.

  “You! Counsel for the Prosecution.” Ashnak’s bushy brows lowered. His deep-set eyes gleamed over the half-spectacles. “Why have you not yet made your speech?”

  A small curly-footed halfling in brown breeches, the only being as yet sitting by the prosecution’s desk, first looked over his shoulder, then all around, and then back at Ashnak.

  “Me?”

  “State your case!” Ashnak roared.

  “But—” The halfling stood, nervously smoothing down his waistcoat. “But, Your Honour, I’m a witness, not the counsel for the prosecution.”

  “That’s contempt!”

  FOOOOMM!

  Ashnak looked over his half-spectacles at marine Major Barashkukor, standing smartly to attention behind the defence’s table. “Let that witness take the oath.”

  Barashkukor poked around on the floor and finally held up the halfling’s severed hand.

  “Does he swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing like the truth?”

  Barashkukor looked enquiringly down at the mess. “He does, sir.”

  “Good. And what does he have to say?”

  The cyborg-orc rapped out: “The general didn’t do it, Your Honour!”

  “Is that right?” Ashnak asked the witness.

  Barashkukor picked up the severed head and nodded it vigorously. “That’s right!”

  Ashnak seized up the heavy gavel that lay on the bench and bashed it down. “Not guilty—case dismissed!”

  Deep-throated orcish cheers rung out, and the orc marines threw their forage caps and steel helmets up in the air, sometimes even catchi
ng them again. The Ferenzi who sat in the gallery huddled down into their seats in blank-eyed bewilderment and terror.

  “You can’t do this!” an outraged juror protested from the jury box. The Man’s plum-coloured doublet matched his complexion. “Shedding blood in the house of justice—it’s intolerable!”

  His neighbour juror, a blue-eyed elf, pulled the Man’s sleeve. “Sit down! Mother of Trees, it was only a pair of halflings!”

  “Cease!”

  Simultaneously with the mage-enhanced voice that rang out in the courtroom, the barred doors burst inwards. Orcs tumbled backwards. The slam! of the doors produced instant silence.

  “This circus is ended,” the same voice said bitterly.

  Oderic, High Wizard of Ferenzia, paced into the courtroom, leaning on his mage-staff. Twenty of the wizards of the Order of the White Mage followed at his heels. The gimlet-eyed old man glared at the rising tiers of seats. The twenty mages in white surcoats faced the rows of hunched orcs festooned with bandoleers, saw-tooth daggers, stick grenades, magazine pouches, pistols, M16s, Kalashnikov rifles, and at least one General Purpose Machinegun. The orc marines stamped, catcalled, whistled, and yowled.

  “There will be a trial,” Oderic insisted. His fingers flashed with mage-fire. “Orc, step down from the bench. It shall not be forgotten that you are intimidating the Light’s witness.”

  Ashnak bared odourous fangs at the wizard. “There isn’t enough of him left to intimidate!”

  He moved the Colt .45 automatic pistol to the small of his back and shuffled down from the judge’s bench, making certain at all times that he faced Oderic, and joined Barashkukor at the defence’s desk.

  “Didn’t think we’d get away with that one, Major.”

  “Worth a try, sir.” Barashkukor’s long ears straightened. “Don’t want it to come to outright war if we can help it, sir. We’re going to need these lads in the near future.”