Grunts

by Mary Gentle

  Ashnak nodded thoughtfully. He bellowed up at the stands, “TenHUT!” and then, when the two hundred orcs snapped to attention in disciplined silence, added, “At ease! Stand easy!”

  “The prisoner will refrain from giving orders!” Oderic snapped as he mounted the judge’s bench. He looked down at the carved seat and wiped it with his robe before he sat. The white wizard glanced at the halfling detail mopping up the floor and sighed. “That violence was ill done, orc. Especially since I am to be your judge. I do not approve of the waste of good halflings. Clerk of the court! Swear the jury in.”

  A middle-aged Man began to move along the line of jurors with one of the Sacred Tomes. Ashnak turned in his chair and glared up at the orcs behind him He coughed.

  A scuffle among the armed orc marines disclosed a somewhat cramped Duchess of Graagryk. The dark-haired female halfling stood up in the middle of a row of orcs in green DPM, her black leather grown and diamond-ornamented plume holder catching the sun pouring in through the court’s great windows.

  “I appeal!” she called.

  Oderic said testly. “It is customary, madam, to leave the appeal until after the sentence.”

  Uncrushed by his sarcasm, Magdelene Amaryllis Judith Brechie van Nassau of Graagryk spoke with a penetrating clarity.

  “I appeal to the highest justice of Ferenzia on behalf of my husband.”

  “You have it.”

  “No,” she corrected. “We do not. High Wizard, on capital matters Ferenzia has an ancient and honourable tradition. The defendant may apply for, and be granted, the right to be tried by the highest justice in the land. We demand to be tried by the Royal justice. Mage, I demand as judge for my husband—the High King, Magorian himself!”

  The High Wizard’s eyes bulged. “But he’s—”

  “Yes?” the halfling duchess said sweetly. She fluttered her eyelashes. “You were about to say, he is the High King, and therefore well known to be a great and wise judge?”

  “Er…”

  “Of course you were. I really don’t need to remind you that this is within our legal rights, do I, Your Mageship?”

  The Duchess of Graagryk seated herself again, her dignity somewhat spoiled by six hulking orc marines leaning across to slap her on the back and growl, “Yo!”

  Oderic scowled, got to his feet, held a muttered conversation with the captain of the Order of White Mages, and then stomped from the court, his staff crashing down on the tiles and dying in the distance. Ashnak leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head and his bare feet on the table.

  “It’ll work, sir, won’t it?” Barashkukor said stoutly.

  Ashnak bit off a toe-claw and flicked it. It spanged off the bald head of a middle-aged dwarf, who winced and clapped a handkerchief to the bleeding wound.

  “Steady on, sir. That’s counsel for the prosecution.”

  “The hell you say.” Contented, Ashnak slid back in his chair and closed his eyes, listening to the orcs in the courtroom chanting, “Yo the marines!” The halfling ushers attempted verbally to restrain them from the floor of the court, unwilling to venture up the steps. The mages of the White Order watched with a dispassionate contempt.

  A faint knocking sound impinged on Ashnak’s consciousness. He opened his eyes, turning his head to look out of the courtroom’s open window.

  A stark frame of wood rose towards the morning sky.

  A gallows.

  The gibbet was already complete, and the hammering came from an elderly Man fitting the trapdoor below the noose. Ashnak noted a number of orc marines in off-duty fatigues lounging around the gallows.

  “Are you sure you’re getting a long enough drop?” a squat orc marine lieutenant asked, her voice coming up thinly to Ashnak from the square below.

  “Tear ’is ’ead off if it’s wrong,” an orc grunt added. “Won’t it, ma’am?”

  The elderly Man spat out another nail and hammered it in. “I’m sure you’re right, mum. Don’t ’ee worry none! Begging yur pardon, I’ll have ’un set up a treat by the time the orc hanging’s due. He’s a big ’un, so I’ll be sure and drop a few sandbags through first and check, mum, now’s you’ve been so kind as to mention it.”

  A fanfare of trumpets drowned out the noise of hammering. Ashnak lumbered to his feet as the High King Kelyos Magorian entered, holding the arm of a squire, and was escorted by his helmed and mailed guards to the judge’s bench. Ashnak saluted. Barashkukor threw out his chest and sprang to attention, the steel fingers of his right hand touching the peak of his flat cap.

  “TenHUT!” the small orc bawled. The orc marines in the court joined the standing citizens of Ferenzia in what Magda Brandiman had demanded as a politic show of respect.

  There was, Ashnak noted, no sign of Oderic.

  “…mmm, and I hadn’t finished breakfast either,” Magorian grumbled. He irritatedly swatted at his elf squire, who continued to button him into a long black judge’s gown. “Damme, what I am here for, Kalmyrinth?”

  The elf straightened the long curled horsehair wig on his sovereign’s head and stepped down from the bench. “You are presiding over the trial of orc general Ashnak for war crimes, sire.”

  “Oh, good!” Magorian brightened. “If he’s sent down, then all of those damned greenies will leave. That means property prices in the Royal Quarter will stop falling. Guilty!”

  The bald dwarf prosecutor stood up at his desk. “No, sire, we have to hold the trial first. Then we can hang him.”

  The High King subsided into his robes, blue-veined hands shaking, and gestured at no one in particular. “Let the case begin!”

  “Your justicular Majesty,” the dwarf began, walking out onto the floor of the courtroom. He turned to the jury box. “Distinguished citizens of Ferenzia.” He turned towards the gallery seats. “Lovers of justice. I am Zhazba-darabat of the Deep Mountain, and I appear for the prosecution. Today you will hear the details of a most heinous crime. The orc before you—”

  Zhazba-darabat’s gnarled finger stabbed up at Ashnak, lounging in his chair at the defense’s desk.

  “—this orc, most trusted general of Her Dark Majesty, an orc long experienced in the hardships of war, stands accused of the greatest offense a soldier can commit. Citizens, this orc has committed a massacre of helpless civilian baggage-handlers, against all the civilised rules of warfare. He has butchered witnesses to his crime. And he has interfered with the running of the great Election to the Throne of the World, to wit, by causing explosive atrocities among the voting population.”

  “Objection!” Barashkukor bounded to his feet.

  Magorian looked down at the small orc. “Ah. Um. On what grounds does the counsel for the defence object?”

  Major Barashkukor frowned. “He shouldn’t say that sort of thing about my general!”

  Magorian’s sandy eyebrows raised. “Well, I admit, it does seem a little harsh…What?” The High King held a hand cupped to his ear as the Man clerk of the court whispered. “Ah. It appears that counsel for the prosecution is obliged to do this. Well, well.” He beamed encouragingly. “I shall make sure you have your turn later on, Major, have no fear of that.”

  The dwarf prosecutor sighed and wiped his face with a large handkerchief. Ashnak gave him a wide, unnerving grin. At his imperceptible hand-signal the orc marines in the gallery began to crash the butts of their rifles against the floor.

  “WE WANT ASHNAK! LET THE GENERAL SPEAK!”

  The Order of White Mages moved across the floor of the courtroom in a businesslike manner, and the High King Magorian picked up his judge’s gavel and banged it down with a fine disregard for aim “Order! Order!”

  “Mine’s a pint!” a very small orc grunt in the front row yelped.

  “Oh, good grief.” An enormous orc sergeant leaned down from behind and brought his fist down smartly on the grunt’s skull. The grunt’s long ears jolted bolt upright, then wavered and crossed as the small orc subsided to the floor.

  Marine Commissar
Razitshakra, who had been sitting next to the grunt, looked at the bench beside her. “This seat needs cleaning—pass me a halfling.”

  After a small scuffle, one of the halfling ushers was seized and passed hand-to-hand, protesting, over the orc marines’ heads, down to Razitshakra. She wiped the leather cushion first with its curly hair and then with its hairy feet. “Anyone want this seat?”

  Lieutenant Chahkamnit looked down from three rows above. “Er. No. Not right now.”

  The marine commissar scowled. “Anyone want this halfling, then?”

  “Nah,” a corporal said. “It’s been used.”

  “I’ve got a roll to put him in,” a hopeful voice remarked from the back row.

  “Silence!” The captain of the White Mages let go a bolt of fire that singed the ceiling and had the Ferenzi citizens cowering in their seats. The unimpressed orc marines looked at Ashnak and, at his signal, subsided.

  “Your Majestic Honour,” the White Mage protested, her blonde hair swinging as she spun to face the bench, “you simply cannot allow that rabble to behave like this!”

  “Mmph?” The High King looked up from doodling with a griffin’s-feather pen on his notepad. “Is that all the case for the prosecution?”

  Prosecuting counsel Zhazba-darabat marched across the courtroom floor to the bench, stepping over a number of cables marked “OFFICIAL DO NOT REMOVE.” The dwarf stared up at the edge of the bench, with no line of sight to the judge. “Your Honour—”

  “What?” Magorian blinked rheumy eyes, gazing around. “Has the little fella finished? You, orc, whatever your name is. Do your bit.”

  Barashkukor bounded to his feet again. “Objection!”

  “What is it this time?”

  “I’m not ready yet.”

  Magorian glowered. “State your case, greenie. And make it quick. I want my dinner.”

  Ashnak shifted in his chair, the metal bulk of the Colt .45 pressing against his spine. Through slitted eyes he watched the mages of the Light.

  “M’lud.” Barashkukor straightened up from behind the defence’s desk. He exchanged his peaked cap for a horsehair wig whose long side-flaps dangled down to his web-belt. “M’lud, the defence’s case is as follows. General Ashnak didn’t do it, it wasn’t him, and besides he was somewhere else at the time! I would now like to call a character witness.”

  Magorian’s sandy eyebrows raised. “Oh…very well.”

  Barashkukor marched out into the floor of the court. “Call Lugbash!”

  A halfling usher opened the doors and bawled down the corridor. “Call Lugbash!”

  A distant voice echoed: “CALL LUGBASH…”

  Ashnak leaned one muscular arm over the back of his chair and spoke to marine Commissar Razitshakra in the gallery’s front row. “Who the fuck is Lugbash?”

  Before the commissar could answer, a hunched orc in a ragged dress and shawl hobbled into the court. Barashkukor gallantly offered her his steel arm as she climbed up into the witness stand.

  “I remember Ashnak,” she crooned without provocation. “’E were a lovely little orc, ’e were. I was his nanny, you know, the dear sweet thing.”

  Barashkukor clasped his hands behind his back. “And in your opinion, Nanny Lugbash, is your charge capable of committing the acts of which he is accused?”

  “What, my dear little Nakkie?” The orc’s shawl slipped and she grabbed at it, but not before Ashnak had caught sight of a lantern jaw and corporal’s chevrons. “Of course ’e couldn’t, dearie. Never did anyone any harm, and such a good little orc. Always ate his meals. Ate the plate, come to that. And the dog…”

  “No further questions,” Barashkukor said hastily. “I would now like to call as a further character witness Biotech-Captain Ugarit—”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Ashnak growled.

  “—No, I wouldn’t. Erm.” The orc major turned on his heel. The ends of his wig flew out, swatting a halfling usher. He strode back to the desk. “I will now claim precedent!”

  “’Nakkie,” indeed!” Ashnak rested his hand across his eyes as Barashkukor busied himself digging out a heap of tomes. The faint knocking of the gallows-maker’s hammer became more pronounced.

  “Don’t think it’ll work,” a dubious orc voice remarked in the square outside. “That crosspiece is far too high. And look at that strut. Shoddy workmanship, I calls it.”

  “Rubbish!” another orc proclaimed. “Superb piece of execution engineering.”

  “Sez ’oo?”

  Ashnak glanced out of the window as the work-Man stood to one side, avoiding the orcs swinging punches at each other.

  “Kind of you to say so, gentlesirs. Most kind,” the Man said, tucking another hammer away on a loop on his carpenter’s apron. Ashnak heard the Man add under his breath, “When it comes to gallows, everyone’s a h’expert…”

  Ashnak turned back to the courtroom as Zhazba-darabat threw his long velvet robes about him and began unearthing books from the prosecution desk. In a voice too low for the judge to catch, the dwarf growled, “I have witnessed centuries of precedent, orc. How skilled in law are you?”

  “Erm…” Barashkukor shot a haunted look at Ashnak, swallowed, and hauled a book out from the bottom of his pile. “I cite the unanswerable case of Hashbanipal Shadowtree vs. The Blue Elves.”

  The dwarf slammed a heavier tome down. “I contradict you with Meliadis the Savage vs. Brukgug Halforc.”

  “But I quote Bishop Filgrindibad vs. The Secret Masters of the Halls!”

  “And I return: Mistress Shulikan vs. Dolf, Dexis, and Durundibar!”

  Barashkukor flicked back the ends of his wig, stunning another halfling, and appealed to the jury. “I therefore cite the unanswerable precedent of Berendis vs. All the Elves of Thyrion!”

  Several of the jurors applauded. Those who had been glancing from Barashkukor to Zhazba-darabat rubbed their necks.

  “Alaric Bonegrinder vs. The Red Paladin Hugon!” Zhazba-darabat cried triumphantly. “And what do you say to that?”

  The small orc scrambled up onto the pile of books already cited, steel leg glinting, and thumbed another tome, rocking precariously. “I will answer that with—erm—with…”

  “Order!” Magorian’s gavel crashed down. The orc sergeant in the third row glowered at the front-row grunt. Only a pair of orc ears remained visible, and they did not so much as twitch.

  There was silence, apart from the growing noise of the brawl outside in the square, which seemed to have attracted a number of non-orc combatants.

  “I rule those precedents out of court,” Magorian quavered. “If you think I’m going to sit here and listen to all that rubbish, you’re much mistaken. Counsel for the defence, do you have anything else to say?”

  “I can’t wait,” Ashnak rumbled under his breath, his bloodshot gaze fixed on the small orc major. Behind him, Razitshakra chuckled. Ashnak looked over his muscular shoulder.

  The orc marine commissar rested her elbows on the front row of the gallery. “Don’t worry, sir,” she murmured. “I’ve rigged the jury.”

  Ashnak glared red-eyed at the jury box. Seven well-fed Men, an elf, two halflings, a dwarf, and a half-elf. “Those aren’t our people.”

  “No, no, sir; I’ve rigged the jury.” Concealing her movements from the White Mages, Razitshakra briefly drew open her greatcoat. Ashnak saw that the commissar’s free hand held an M57 firing device.

  “Claymore mines under the chairs, sir.”

  One of the floor-cables ran across from the gallery to the jury box. Studying them, Ashnak noted beads of sweat on the foreheads of the Man and halfling jurors. Even the elf looked a little uncomfortable.

  “Nice work, Commissar,” he approved.

  Several shots sounded from the square, over the noise of brawling. The captain of the White Mages scowled and ordered half her force outside. She fixed Ashnak with a challenging glare. Ashnak flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his ripped combat trousers.

  “My client,” Bara
shkukor proclaimed shrilly, “was somewhere else entirely at the time when the said atrocities were committed. M’lud, I am my own witness here—at the time in question, the general was observing my handling of a T54 Main Battle Tank in the River Faex.”

  Magorian looked doubtful. “I don’t think you can be your own witness, counsel.”

  “Oh.” The small orc’s face fell. Then he brightened. “Very well. I never did trust paperwork. I’m an orc of action, I am. Call the T54 Main Battle Tank!”

  The same halfling usher flung open the door to the corridor. “Call the T54 Main Battle Tank!”

  “CALL THE T54 MAIN BATTLE…WHAT?”

  “I don’t think you can do that.” Magorian looked from the clerk of the court to the Captain of the White Mages. “Can he do that?”

  Whatever answer he received was drowned out by the grinding roar of the tank. The orc marines in the gallery cheered, banging their weapons on the floor. A grunt carrying a red flag on a stick walked in through the courtroom door.

  Ashnak stood as first the gun-barrel, then the tracks, and finally the chassis of a T54 tank ground into the courtroom. Since it was not more than a few inches wider than the door, it did no more than knock large chunks out of the doorframe. The tracks ripped the tiled flooring to shreds.

  The T54’s motor chugged, coughed, and idled. A broad-shouldered orc grunt in a steel helmet flipped open the lid and leaned his elbows on the hatch, one arm close to the mounted machinegun.

  “Officer on deck!” Razitshakra bawled from the gallery. The orc caught sight of Ashnak and saluted rigidly. Ashnak returned the salute.

  “I demand you rule this tank out of court!” Zhazba-darabat screamed.

  The High King Magorian regarded the battered doorway. “You rule it out of court!”

  The dwarf prosecutor threw all his papers up into the air in disgust. “Your Honour, I object!”

  “Why?” Barashkukor asked smugly. Zhazba-darabat marched up to the small orc and glared at him, nose to nose.

  “Because it isn’t even the same tank, that’s why! Your T54 Main Battle Tank is at the bottom of the River Faex, isn’t that right, Major?”

  Flustered, the orc major muttered, “It’s a representative T54 Main Battle Tank.”