Grunts Page 3

  There were gasps, exclamations. When her voice spoke again, it was steely.

  “I am not nameless. I am called The Named.”

  Ashnak rose up onto hands and knees. It was a handy position from which to assess the arms present—his own weapons having been removed, he would need replacements. Then he looked up at the female Man.

  “You are not the nameless?”

  The Named said, “He is my twin.”

  Ashnak studied The Named. He nodded and got to his feet. “You have his face entirely. There must have been something sorcerous in your birth, to bring you male and female so identical from the same womb.”

  The woman’s short hair was the colour of buttercups, or clear fat when it is boiled from living bones. Her pale, tilt-eyed face had an almost orcish beauty. He guessed this might make her shunned among her own kind. He showed his back fangs in a grin.

  She raised her hand and struck him across the face.

  Not braced for it, Ashnak fell to one knee and then toppled over onto the stone floor. The magic of her augmented strength buzzed in his head. He felt his mouth, cutting the hide of his hand on a broken tusk.

  “Lady!” Ashnak cowered.

  “Yes!” she said. “I am his twin in power, also, but my power is given to the Light.”

  On cue, sunlight slanted down from the church windows, shining back unbearably from the woman’s mirror-finish plate-armour. The gold Sun embroidered on her surcoat, insignia of the Order of White Mages, left afterimages dazzling across his vision. He raised a hand quite genuinely to block the sight.

  “You must understand,” Ashnak said painfully, slurring his words a little, “to a warrior, none of this means much. Wars are wars. Power is power.”

  “That is the Dark’s heresy!”

  “I am a warrior. I am of the fighting Agaku! That is all I know, and all I need to know!”

  “And all you need to know of me is…poor creature: I am merciful.” She turned on her heel. The rest of them followed her out—elven filth in their wood green, carrying bows taller than their tall selves; engineer-dwarves with food-stained beards; Man-heroes with the smell of horses about them.

  Not looking back as she left, The Named said, “Confine him here for judgement, Master Mayor, until the Final Battle has been fought and won. That will be before this harvest-time, I promise you. Now we must ride. I must be in the city of Sarderis before noon.”

  Ashnak suffered the village blacksmith to load him with chains, while he listened with the keen ears of an Agaku for The Named’s party to saddle up and go. The noise of that came as dawn properly lit the sky. Ashnak sighed and breathed out, snapping the chains. He was as tall as a Man, and something on the order of four times as heavyset. A little greenish blood trickled down from his muscular arms.

  He reached out and took the blacksmith’s hammer, smashing the Man’s skull with it; and used that weapon to walk through the village to the armoury and collect himself what staff-weapons and projectiles might prove useful. He met no one capable of stopping him, and no one capable of outrunning him to get a message to the absent forces of Light.

  The sky above turned blue and pink, clouds shredding away from the rising sun. Gold light fell welcome and warm on his hide. Ashnak trod through the dewy grass of the village green, avoiding the fallen bodies, relaxing in the day’s beauty.

  He tightened the carrying-straps on his new war-axe, sniffed the air for direction, and began to jog, picking up speed, due south towards his warriors and their cargo.

  Will Brandiman carefully stretched the seams of his shirt over the candleflame. Fleas sizzled and popped. He glanced over at Ned, who was scratching furiously at his crotch.

  “I told you she had crabs,” he observed. Ned snarled.

  The wind in the high mountains did not penetrate as far down through the cave-system as this cavern. Will could still hear it battering at the living rock. He shuddered. His whip-welts stung, despite copious applications of a salve they possessed far too little of. The grime of sweaty running clung to his skin; his bowels were emptying themselves with dismal irregularity; and suggesting cooked food to the orc warriors seemed the shortest way to an unsung death.

  He gave up and shrugged the shirt back over his small, stocky shoulders, then fastened his trunk-hose. Next an arming-doublet, mail pointed to it; then an over-jerkin; and then a furred cloak. The cold of the rock still made him shiver. He cupped his hands over the candle-end.

  “Where are the other two?” He nodded at Zarkingu’s back. Orcs do not perform acts of magic; they hate and fear it, and for that reason they are uncommonly good at sniffing it out. The small orc was cuddled into a heap around the shaft of her warhammer, staring listlessly up the passage.

  “They’re scouting. Doesn’t it make you feel so bloody secure,” Ned said bitterly, “knowing they’re guarding us? When they said the contract included an armed escort, this isn’t what I had in mind!”

  “I can smell magic,” Zarkingu crooned. “I can smell magic…”

  “I can smell shit, sweat, and orc,” Ned said with asperity, “but do I complain about it?”

  Will pulled his woollen cap down firmly on his black curls. He shuffled over to sit beside Ned. The same greasy pack of playing-cards (three of the major arcana missing) gave them a hand each—and an excuse for sitting together. Completely silently, and therefore not suspiciously.

  Will moved his left hand rapidly and unobtrusively in the Thieves’ Guild finger-talk.

  —Is the fourth one dead? That leaves them without a leader. That makes them dangerous.

  Ned frowned at the cards he held, scratching through three layers of cloth at his lice-infested pubic hair. He used the movement to finger:

  —They probably plan to kill us anyway when we complete the contract.

  —Is she right about magic?

  —I think so.

  —So we stick to the original plan?

  —Whether the other one comes back or not. I don’t trust him. I don’t trust any of the Agaku, they’re too cunning. Ordinary orcs would be a pushover. We counted on it being Men, remember?

  Will musingly agreed: “Mmmm…Your deal.” He added in fingerspeech:

  —We don’t have long. Four or five days, maximum. And thanks to these knuckleheads, we’re severely underequipped.

  —Courage, brother. We won’t need long. But let’s not tell them that.

  “I wonder if it’s dark or daylight?” Will played a deuce he had not been dealt. “It feels like afternoon. We’ll have to do some scouting of our own soon.”

  A scuffle in the passage attracted his attention. Zarkingu lurched upright. The candle sent her spiked shadow dancing in a sudden draught.

  “Who goes there?”

  “I, Ashnak.” The big orc shambled into the cavern. Four fresh heads dripped from his belt, hung by the hair. He threw down the other male orc, unconscious, laughing deep in his chest. “I found Imhullu unsuspecting—wake up, fool!”

  Will huddled unobtrusively into his cloak. The big orc unsnapped the whip from his belt and welted Imhullu across the back and legs until the other orc stirred, muttered something thickly, and then prostrated himself in front of Ashnak, banging his head on the cave-floor.

  “Captain!”

  “I’ll captain you, you miserable gut-rotted offspring of an elf!” Ashnak threw the severed Man-heads to Zarkingu, who cradled them. He strode over the prostrate Imhullu, towards the halflings. Will got to his feet, dusting himself down, and met the orc’s glare with a civil smile.

  “Captain Ashnak. We were afraid you wouldn’t be rejoining us. No trouble, I hope?”

  At the passage mouth, Zarkingu whispered, “I smell magic, much-magic, stinking magic, magic of Light…”

  Ashnak coughed gutturally. He reached down and picked Will up by the front of his doublet, nails digging in through heavy wool and mail-shirt to cringing flesh. “Now we are in these unchancy mountains, halfling, you tell me—what are you here for?”

>   The mail-shirt, riding up under his arms, pinched Will’s skin painfully. He wriggled. Ned Brandiman stood up and tapped the orc’s arm, as high as the halfling could reach.

  “We’re here for the usual,” Ned said. “To steal a hoard from a dragon.

  3

  The air had morning’s clarity in the mountains. Barashkukor looked up at the immensity of the rock—the great range of bare crags that ended, to east and west above him, in rockwalls almost vertical. Mountain stone gleamed grey, silver, ochre, and gold in the dawn light. He bared small fangs and snarled at the grandeur.

  He shuffled down the parapet above the gate-house, sorting out the straps of his helmet and plated brigandine as he went.

  In this sole gap in the mountain range, the isolated crag of Nin-Edin rose up cliff-sided, and the small road through the pass ran around the foot of it, under the walls of its ancient fort.

  Barashkukor averted his gaze. He scratched at his balls, missing the sleeping warmth of the fifty bodies in his own orc-nest. He spared a glance back across the ruined motte and bailey of Nin-Edin—the bloody wreckage of the previous day’s Orcball tournament; several dozen orcs around the thinly smoking night’s firepits, sorting out the hunt and rutting in the open air.

  “Here, Barashkukor.”

  “Thanks, Kusaritku.” He took the wriggling rock-vole the black orc offered, knocked its brains out against his heel, and swallowed it in two gulps without chewing. “What news of the night?”

  “Silent as a throat-slit elf.” Kusaritku passed a small bottle of black spirit.

  The air had an unwelcome chill. Barashkukor drank. “Who’s the day-watch?”

  “Duranki, Tukurash, Ekurzida. I’ll rouse ’em.” The black orc grinned. “Trust me!”

  Barashkukor shambled further down the parapet, staring down the long valley of the pass while he pissed a steaming black jet off the wall.

  A voice close at hand shouted. “—and I say he will reach it!”

  “Never!” Marukka’s baritone bellow.

  “You arse-licking elf-lover, he will!”

  Barashkukor started, dribbling piss down his leg. Hastily he stuffed himself back in his ripped breeches and came to what might pass for attention. The largest of the black orcs, Azarluhi, strode past him without even a nod, deep in conversation with Marukka. The big female orc held a tiny orc by one leg.

  “Watch!” she demanded.

  She raised her arm above her head and whirled the small orc like a slingshot. Barashkukor ducked as its hands clipped his helmet. At the point of maximum velocity she let go, and the orc shot away in a low arc. A diminishing wail followed it down.

  Barashkukor leaned over the parapet.

  A puff of dust showed where the small orc first struck the steep slope, then another, then three more, like a stone skipping across water. The small body bounced and came to rest on the edge of the road, five hundred feet below.

  “Aw. It did. But only just,” Marukka grumbled. She leaned over the parapet and yelled at the just visibly stirring figure: “Get back up here, Kazadhuron, you’re on guard duty!”

  “That’s five shillings you owe me,” the black orc pointed out.

  Marukka’s eye fell on Barashkukor with a gaze speculative as to weight and aerodynamics. She grinned at Azarluhi.

  “Wanna make it best two out of three?”

  In the timeless dark under the mountains, Ashnak squatted alone in a cavern. The light from the amber cube gleamed on his tusked and prick-eared face, shone from his polished vambraces and the rivets of his black armour.

  He prodded the cube’s indentations delicately with one claw. A lightning-fork of black light sparked to the cave-wall. The rough stone turned black with ice, and a searing cold wind began to blow. The blackness became the dark of the tower. The whiteness of the Throne of Bone gleamed, and a shaft of light shot down and illuminated the seated figure.

  The nameless necromancer shaded wide-pupilled green eyes with his hand. He glanced up, painfully, and made a magic sign with long, pale fingers. The shaft of light dimmed somewhat.

  “What news for me, Ashnak, other than that you are arrived in the mountains?”

  Ashnak rumbled, clearing his throat. “I allowed myself to be taken, for a short time, by the cursed horse-riders, and during this time I met one who is called The Named.”

  A glacial amusement leaked into the cavern.

  “So you have met my sister. That is well. This concerns her also. Now attend well to what I say, Ashnak.”

  Ashnak heard the background clink of bottle and glass.

  “The dragon Dagurashibanipal is old, and her hoard collected from many strange places and times. I have reason to know that in that hoard there are strange and magical weapons. Hmm.” The voice took on a thoughtful tone. “Halfling bones…too fragile to be truly creative with…no, you need not bring me back the bodies, once you are done. You are to take the weapons to the fortress of Nin-Edin, put them into the hands of the warriors there, and lead them against Guthranc. There you are to kill or take my sister The Named, so that she shall not ride against our Master the Dark Lord on the Last Day. Am I going too fast for you, orc?”

  “We are to fight?” Ashnak sprang to his feet, a light in his eyes. Joyously he shook and brandished his warhammer. “I am to lead a war-band! Master, I thank you!”

  “Not so loud…There must be servants I might have, of more tact and delicacy than orcs—but there again, you have your uses. Hurry to do my bidding, Ashnak.”

  The image on the cave-wall altered. Ashnak saw factories belching out smoke, the siege-engines of war, the companies marching in from every land to a Lord greater even than the nameless necromancer; the Horde of Darkness gathering and its numbers hiding the very earth beneath it.

  “Soon, soon, we ride out to the Final Battle. But,” the soft voice said, “my sister The Named must not ride against us. See to it, Ashnak. And be aware that, should you die failing to achieve this, my punishments are not limited by your being dead.”

  * * *

  Will Brandiman walked back out of the carved stone tunnel-entrance, slipping between the silver-inlaid oaken doors. Its roof was only halfling-high. He brushed black char from the front of his doublet. A few curls of hair fell, crisped, to the rock floor.

  “All right?”

  “Fine.” Ned Brandiman, following, pulled the door to behind him and sheathed a substance-tipped stiletto. “Gets ’em every time. Right. Let’s see what we’ve got…”

  Zarkingu, a new skull-ornamented standard-pole over her shoulder, sniffed the air with an ecstatic expression on her tusked face.

  “Dragon-magic dies,” she announced.

  The biggest orc rumbled something to Imhullu and Shazgurim, who hefted their jagged war-axes in the narrow cavern and flanked the group. Will held up a small hand.

  “Better let us go first, Captain Ashnak. There’ll be booby-traps, or I don’t know dragons. Even dead dragons. Ned, bring out the detection equipment.”

  The older halfling, avoiding Will’s eye, dug into the brass-bound chest and brought out a wire-spring-and-glass contraption. It might even be a trap-detector, Will thought, for all I know. He took it with nerve-twitching care between his two hands and studied it with deliberation.

  Ned rattled his fingers absently on the chest.

  —I’ll do the checking for real traps, brother. You just convince them that we’re indispensable because we can work that thing. Whatever it is.

  Will took a deep breath and turned back to the carved tunnel-entrance. Ned pushed the doors open. A breeze blew out, heavy with the spice-scents of decaying magic. In the light of Ned’s torch, and with the uncannily silent footsteps of four crouching Agaku behind him, he walked down the short tunnel and out into the great cave.

  “Dark Lord’s prick!” Ashnak swore, straightening up.

  Blue light blazed into Will’s eyes, brighter now as the great dragon died. He heard the other orcs exclaim behind him.

  Dagurashi
banipal’s spiky body lay, a glass mountain, in the centre of the cathedral-sized cavern. He stared at the crystal length of her, camouflage-coloured to the vast heap of silver and adamant upon which she sprawled. Even dead, she towered high as fortress walls. The unnatural yellow light died in the slits of her horn-lidded eyes.

  One wing twitched.

  Horn and bone slid together under torchlight. Metal sinews stretched, gears and cogs whirred, and Dagurashibanipal’s one prosthetic wing unfurled in a last mechanical reflex. It reared up into the cavern’s heights; curled, split, ribboned, shredded; then fell like a collapsing ship’s sail.

  “Golem…” Will, eyes wide, stared at flesh and blood, at wire and canvas, and neither moved again. The poisoned dragon’s diamantine corpse stilled. He began a slow circling of the cavern wall beside Ned, paying a deliberate attention to the wire-and-spring device in his hands.

  Ned muttered under his breath, “It’s only another dragon. Dammit. It’s only another dragon…”

  Ashnak of the Agaku marched across to the hoard, kicking silver crowns and diamonds contemptuously aside. “This isn’t what we came to find! Are you sure this is the right dragon?”

  Will, soberly, said, “There is—was—only one Dagurashibanipal, and that is she. Look out!”

  Ashnak threw himself flat on the stone floor.

  “Elfshit!” A claw ripped Imhullu’s face and the squat orc swore, ignored the blood streaming from his eye-socket, and swung the great jagged poleaxe in both hands. Something clashed, impacting against the stone wall. “Agaku! Agaku!”

  Wings hissed through the blue air. Chittering, their metallic claws outstretched, a flock of tiny dragonet-golem fell from where they roosted in the cavern’s ceiling.

  “Agaku!” Shazgurim yelled cheerfully, bassinet’s hound-visor down, swinging her axe in a figure-eight blur. Gear-cogs and glass eyes sprayed away from her.

  “Last magic! Last magic!” The smaller female orc waved her hands in the air, attempting to snatch one of the dragonet-golem in flight. Ashnak straight-armed her into the wall, face-forwards, spat on his horny hands, and battered the last of the flying machinelets into crumpled horn and hawser.