Grunts (24 page)

The elven warrior-mage broke off, choking. Men and dwarves rattled their swords against their shields in applause. Will murmured, “Remind me, sometime, to introduce you to my mother.”

“What saith thou, good nun?” Amarynth queried.

“I said, the Light is a mother to us all, and no mother will let her children come to lasting harm.” Will bared his teeth. It passed for a smile.

Wiping tears from his dark cheeks, the elf snapped his fingers. An aide ran into the command tent and emerged seconds later with a furled flag.

“Take this white ensign. It is an acknowledged sign of peace. It is all I can do. Yet know that you go with Amarynth Firehand’s blessing—and regrets.”

Two hands seized his shoulders. Will found himself smearily kissed, first on one shaven cheek and then on the other. He reached up and took the furled flag, bowed speechlessly,
and tottered back towards the wagon. He heard Ned behind him adding felicitous farewells; then his brother was at his side, climbing up onto the front of the cart.

“
Haai-yah!
” Ned Brandiman whispered, cracking the reins against the mules’ flanks.

“They didn’t even bother to search the cart,” Will grumbled under his breath. “You’ve been hauling that load of scrolls around for nothing. Dark damn it, if I’d known it was going to be
that
easy…”

A silver clarion call echoed around the military camp, reverberating back from the high mountain walls. His brother shoved the reins into Will’s hands, stripping off his gloves and worrying at the fastenings of the white flag. He shot a glance ahead and upwards as he worked.

Nin-Edin’s outer bailey was a mess of snow, slush, dried blood, mud, trampled bodies, broken weapons, and cast-off dented armour. None of the siege army crossed it, except behind new and hastily thrown up earthworks from which stiffening orc limbs protruded. Nin-Edin’s inner walls glowered down—blackened with sorcerous fire, lined with silent watching orcs.

“
That
was the easy part,” Ned said.

Will brushed his robes, holding the reins single-handed, and checked the positions of poisoned darts, throwing-knives, short-sword, and small cases of the secret dwarven rock-blasting powder. The bitter wind brought tears to his eyes. He grinned fiercely.

“Sister, where’s your faith?”

Ashnak of the orc marines stood in the great hall of Nin-Edin’s keep.

“When they attack, we
can
break out.”

Barashkukor, standing to attention, touched the brim of his black Stetson. “Yessir!”

“I want
all
the spare weaponry got out of stores. Each orc is to carry as many weapons as he or she can. If we’re lucky, a fail-weapons spell will affect only the weapon it’s directly cast at—have the marines carry spares and use them one after another. That should give us just enough of a surprise element to break out. We’ll then regroup and take up positions in the mountain caverns, with Dagurashibanipal’s hoard. We can set traps and ambushes, and take prisoners, and I,” Ashnak observed, “have never refused to eat elf or Man in my life. And dwarves are only stringy when the meat isn’t well bruised.”

“But, sir, the caverns can be taken by magic, just as easily as the fort.”

Ashnak growled deep in his throat. Barashkukor swallowed audibly, but continued:

“Sir, there’s nowhere to run to, sir! Not if we don’t have anti-magic capability. Maybe we could find another Dark Mage in time—”

Ashnak drew his jackhammer fist back. He was interrupted by a Badgurlz marine, AK47 held loosely over her shoulder, who stuck her spiked and crested head around the doorway. “Two non-identified non-combatants approaching main gate from the east! They appear to be halflings, sir, in a vehicle. Sir, Varimnak’s squad subjecting them to fire, sir!”

“Halflings?” Barashkukor abruptly sat down on one of the hall’s wooden chairs.

“
Halflings!
” Ashnak hit his fist into his palm. His eyes
blazed. “Major, get your orcs under control! Stop the firing, take the non-combatants prisoner, bring them to me in my office in ten minutes, alert Corporal Ugarit and Marine Razitshakra;
move it, marines!
”

Ashnak strode out through the cold and wet stone corridors of Nin-Edin. Old snow crusted the floor. Orc marines snapped to attention as he passed. The two SUS marines forming the honour guard at his door saluted carefully, with the less detachable of their limbs.

Five minutes later Ashnak sat behind the vast desk in his command post, chewing an unlit cigar and sorting through piles of paperwork. With his back to the slit window he was a black silhouette of immense bulk and invisible expression. From time to time the sunlight glinted off one of his fangs as he turned his head.

A hand rapped on the door, and Ashnak buried his attention in a sheaf of papers. “Enter!”

His eyes on the difficult print, he did not bother to look up. His ears swivelled slightly, hearing two sets of footsteps; one heavy and one light. His nostrils flared to the scent of halfling. And something familiar…

“Sir, General Ashnak, sir!” Barashkukor’s heeled cowboy boot hit the flagstones. His voice throbbed with military enthusiasm. “Prisoner present, sir! Beg to report that the other prisoner refuses to leave her vehicle, to wit, one mule-drawn covered wagon, on threat of firing charges of dwarven rock-blasting powder that are aboard it. We are unable to establish this as true without—”

Ashnak swivelled his eyes up in their sockets. Major Barashkukor, still wearing his Ray·Bans inside the fort, was addressing his remarks rather to the right of Ashnak’s desk. Beside the small orc, a robed halfling stood with her head bowed. Ashnak’s nostrils flared widely and he frowned.

“Hhhrmmmnnn…surely not.”

The halfling lifted her head.

“
YOU?
”

Ashnak instantly backhanded piles of paperwork into the air. The whirling files deflected two panic-thrown daggers. Before the halfling could move again Ashnak stood, thrusting the desk bodily back three yards. He sprang, seized the Little Sister of Mortification by her metal-burred belt and yanked her into the air until they were eye to eye. His free
hand chopped palm-edge against each of the halfling’s arms in turn.

Shaken off, the pinned wimple fell to the floor, disclosing curly black hair with streaks of white in it.

“It’s a male!” Barashkukor exclaimed. “Sir, I
know
this halfling, sir!”

“
So do I
.” Ashnak tightened his claws on the halfling’s belt and stared into Will Brandiman’s wide-eyed face. Both the halfling’s arms hung paralysed or broken. The faded red wool gown pulled up, disclosing enormous booted feet. Ashnak growled, the corner of his lip lifting over one sharp fang.

“Thief,” he snarled, “how is it with you now? Are you rich from betraying us to The Named, the great captain of the Light who is not heard of now? Did
she
suffer for trusting you and your weasel brother?”

He put one calloused hand over the halfling’s mouth and nostrils as he laid the kicking, struggling body flat on the office desk. Exultant, Ashnak grated, “Did you think
I
was dead too? Asshole, it ain’t your lucky day!”

With one dextrous claw he slit Will Brandiman’s robe from neck to hem, tore it off, broke the belt and threw it aside, and picked knives, needles, and small weapons from the holding straps on the tiny body. Barashkukor, an expression of distaste on his small features, dropped them into the office wastebasket.

When Will Brandiman lay squirming and naked on his back, Ashnak raised his hand briefly and then closed it again about the halfling’s throat.

“I’ll eat your heart raw,” Ashnak promised, poising a claw over the tiny ribcage, “and you’ll live just long enough to see me doing it.”

“…
talismans
…”

Ashnak batted the halfling irritably, quarter-strength. The naked body smacked against the stone wall and slid down, bleeding a little, to the floor. Ashnak waited until Will Brandiman collected himself and got unsteadily to his hairy feet.

“You are Magda’s sons.”

“Yes.”

“You have the nullity talismans.”

“Yes.”

“A brief conversation. That pleases me. It argues some respect.”
Ashnak chuckled deep in his throat. He sat on one corner of the desk, looking down at the halfling, and slapped his camouflage-trousered thigh, remembering Guthranc. “Ha!”

Will Brandiman wiped his bloody face against his shoulder. Both arms hung useless. His lip and cheek were swelling darkly. The halfling drew himself up to his full three feet six, attempting dignity. “The bargain, Ashnak. I wish to see our mother alive and unharmed. I wish for safe conduct for myself and my brother.”

Major Barashkukor gave a high-pitched giggle. “Son, you have got yourself a whole
world
of grief…”

Ashnak beamed. His tusks flashed in the winter sun. Without a word he got up, seized the halfling by one leg, and slung the small body across his shoulder. He strode out of his office and through the stone corridors of Nin-Edin. Barashkukor marched smartly at his heels.

“Sir, permission to remove the other halfling from the vehicle, sir?”

“Leave that to me!”

Down three levels, where the walls were running with damp and white with nitre, Ashnak paused outside a heavily barred door. He pulled it open, threw the halfling bodily into the unlit cell beyond it, slammed the door, and twisted the key in the lock. He stood for some seconds in the torchlight looking at the key. No rats squeaked in the cells, which was to be regretted. All eaten days ago.

Ashnak dropped the key into the filth-brimming gutter that paralleled the corridor. It glinted and vanished into the excrement. His grin widened.

“Now the other one,” he promised.

Ignoring the surprisingly loud protests from behind the locked and barred cell door, Ashnak strode up from the lower levels of the keep and out into the inner compound. He squinted against the blue sky and bright sunlight. Those platoons on guard lined the parapets, weapons pointed towards the siegeworks of the enemy. Most of the off-duty marines formed a wide circle around a mule-driven cart that stood just inside the broken portcullis.

Seeing their general, the orc marines leaped up and down, banging their weapons on the frozen earth and flagstones, their cheers reverberating from the keep’s walls:

“Ash-nak! Ash-nak!”

“Fighting Agaku!”

“Yo Ashnak!”

“Are we marines?”

“WE ARE MARINES,
SIR
!”

He elbowed his way to the front rank of marines surrounding the wagon and stood, fists on hips, chewing his unlit cigar. A swift glance found him Ugarit and Razitshakra. The orc technical specialist shivered continuously, his broad, hairy nostrils running with mucus, and his eyes flicked around every corner of the inner keep’s defences. His combats, armour, and flak jacket were smeared with oil and less identifiable substances.

Eyes narrowed to slits in the sun, Razitshakra watched him, her pencil poised eagerly over a small notepad. She scribbled occasional words when Ugarit’s terrified muttering reached clarity: “Ideological instability…Un-orcish sentiments…”

Barashkukor watched her with dewy-eyed admiration. Ashnak growled in his throat. All became silent. He stared at the wagon.

“Yo, halfling! Mistress nun!” He paused a calculated moment. “
Ned Brandiman!
”

The ragged curtain at the front of the wagon twitched aside. Ashnak looked at the dishevelled figure of a male halfling wearing the red habit of one of the Little Sisters of Mortification. The brown-haired halfling, his skirt hiked up to his knees to disclose hirsute feet, sat astride a wooden barrel. With one hand he rested a cocked heavy crossbow across his lap, finger on the trigger. In the other hand a fuse burned and sputtered, audible over the noise of the orc marines.

The halfling’s face paled. The orc saw the small lips soundlessly form the name
Ashnak
. He stepped two paces forward of the front rank.

“A bargain!” The halfling’s voice came shrilly across the compound. “My mother and brother for these talismans. Else they’re blown to pieces before your eyes, orc!”

“I remember you and dwarvish blasting powder—if you’d had your way, boy, I’d be buried under half a mountain!” He began to walk towards Ned Brandiman, combat boots loud on the flagstones.

“I wouldn’t put it past you,
boy
, to come here with nothing more in that wagon than empty boxes, and try and trick
your way out again with your mother—if that cutprice whore
is
your mother.” Ashnak registered the halfling’s snarl and grinned. “What did you expect? Dumbfuck wild orcs, that’s what you expected. What you get is orc
marines
, boy. What you get is
me
.”

The heavy crossbow shifted, the point of the bolt following Ashnak. He walked steadily forward. The halfling, in a scurry, shoved the sputtering fuse between his teeth, dug into a barrel behind him, and held up a handful of tiny metallic objects. Strung on wire, they clattered together.

Razitshakra loped across the compound, nostrils flaring. “That’s them, General, sir! Nullity talismans. I smell them true! And—I smell dwarven sorcery too.”