Mary Gentle - Grunts

Zarkingu giggled hysterically.

Ashnak tightened his web-belt, re-laced one boot, and straightened his shambling bulk. The RT whispered in his helmet. He bared fangs to the cold moonlight.

“Those Men in the Tower?” Ashnak said. “They’re soldiers, the same as we are—except that they’re not marines. Honour them, Agaku. They’re close kin to us, although they deny it. And we’re going to kill them. All warriors are brothers in arms, whether they fight for the Light or the Dark. We are fated always to make war on our own kind.”

The Named rides for Guthranc.

With her ride an ill-assorted company. There are Men in it, who seem uneasy in the brigandines and burgonets they wear. Some are slender enough to be of the elven-kind. They carry weapons as if they are not used to them. Some of the smaller breeds are there, too, bouncing along in the saddles behind the taller riders.

The Dark-touched moon sinks over fields left unharvested, among villages deserted, in a countryside breathing out the relief that comes with the promise of a final accounting with evil.

Under a blue sky, the countryside of the Northern Kingdom shone red and gold. Heavy-headed golden grain swayed and fell forward, flattened under the metal tracks of a speeding M113 armoured personnel carrier. Spreading poppies among the overripe, unharvested corn blotched the fields with the colour of Man-blood.

Ashnak leaned hairy elbows on the edge of the APC’s hatch, holding binos to his eyes. He smelled dusty earth, orc-sweat, and Man-fear. The machine bucked and dipped under him as it roared along the length of the first orc marine column. Three columns crossed the fields in echelon. He tasted dust in his tusked mouth.

Somewhere the Army of Light will be mustering for the Final Battle. But that is not here, and Samhain is weeks off yet.

The radio buzzed in Ashnak’s hairless ear. He thumbed the stud under the rim of his helmet. “Ashnak receiving, over.”

“This is Recon 1. Territory is clear, repeat territory is clear. Over.”

“Recon 1, I copy. Out.”

“Major Ashnak, this is Recon 2. No enemy seen or suspected. Over.”

“I copy, Recon 2. Out.”

“Recon 3, this is Recon 3. Targets have entered the Tower, sir. Estimate their garrison strength at seventy, repeat, seven-zero. They have closed the gates and are guarding the walls. Over.”

“Message received, Recon 3. Take no action, repeat, take no action. Out.”

On impulse he had his driver stop the APC at the head of the column. He climbed out of the hatch, careful to avoid catching grenades and bandoleers on the hatch-rim. His boots hit the furrowed earth. He unslung the M60 general-purpose machinegun, carrying it muzzle-skyward, and fell in beside the marching squads of orcs.

“Yo!” Imhullu loped up to join him. Shazgurim shambled up in the one-eyed orc’s wake.

“Like old times, huh, Colonel?” She grinned.

“I smell white magic, Light magic, magic far yonder!” Zarkingu, skulls rattling at her belt and the marine flag rippling from the pole-standard she carried, skipped up to the head of the column. “We’re coming up on them, Colonel Ashnak. Battle before sunset!”

Ashnak heard the word spreading down the columns of marching orcs behind him, and the growls and cheers and yells in its wake.

“Do we kick ass?” he bawled.

“SIR, WE KICK ASS, SIR!”

Ashnak faced front, marching in the long orc-lope that eats up miles and days. It felt for a moment strange to have Man-boots on his feet and not to pound the bare earth. Strange to carry the weight of guns, not poleaxe, sword, and warhammer. He breathed in the stink of oil and metal and cordite, his chest expanding.

The afternoon air had the first and faintest tinge of autumn in it.

He looked across at Major Shazgurim. The big female orc wore her helmet right down, the rim level with her beetle-brows. Her eyes were shining. She loped heavily along, a hand-held rocket-launcher strapped across her shoulders and an M16 in either hand.

“Nest-sisters,” he acknowledged his three commanders. “Nest-brother.”

Imhullu growled. “Nest-brother, this is well.”

Ashnak looked at Zarkingu. “Little sister?”

Major Zarkingu’s tilted eyes gleamed. Bullet-bandoleers clattered as she walked. The sun lit up the dust on her combat trousers and the mud on her boots—she, the only one to march on foot with the companies all the way from Nin-Edin.

“We’ve come far together. I remember other towers, brother, and other campaigns. I remember other masters. Aren’t the Agaku always masters of the battle?” Zarkingu smiled. “What though one of us falls? There are always the Agaku!”

Imhullu stroked the small orc’s horse-tail plume of purple hair. “Little sister feels her death upon her.”

“We are the fighting Agaku.”

Around the horizon, snow-covered mountains rise up to a blue and purple sky. Ashnak tastes the loneliness of those cold heights on his tongue, here in the deserted lowlands. He looks back at the destroyed countryside, the ravaged fields, and the company marching behind him. Dust and the first fallen leaves rise up, concealing their strength from watching eyes. There are always watching eyes in Guthranc.

But what can any spy do, seeing what approaches now?

Trained, prepared, battle-hardened—there is nonetheless a point where one deliberately abandons fear, abandons the knowledge of victory, abandons the wish to survive. He abandons that professionally and without regret. Ashnak, when he fights, fights as one who knows he is already dead. It makes him deadly: it has given him his life.

“Give me your hands,” he says, “sisters and brother.”

On the many-towered ramparts of Guthranc a sentry halloos a warning. Inept with their weapons, the newly arrived company nevertheless stands to arms.

The Named emerges in full plate harness that sears the afternoon sun into watching eyes. Her surcoat blazes gold. She raises her sword to cry an order.

An explosion knocks her from her feet. She sprawls on the parapet, armour scratched and dented. Rocks and shrapnel whistle across the still air. The west tower and half its supporting wall collapse into rubble.

“FIRE!”

The artillery barrage boomed, way behind him. The flattened trajectory of the shells took them over Ashnak’s head, whipping the air. He stood up in the hatch of the APC, helmet pushed back, chewing an unlit roll of pipe-weed.

“FIRE!”

Smoke rolled up black and orange from Guthranc’s walls. Pennants, bright against the blue sky, crisped in flame. Masonry cracked and tumbled, falling slowly outwards, and the whole gate section of the walls slid away, down, and raised gouts of water from the moat. Warriors ran along the parapet like termites. The gate tower collapsed.

“First platoon, go, go, go! Now! GO!”

The deep cough of the guns drowned his voice in his own ears, but the headsets obviously carried it. Moving with complete precision the first orc marine platoon began to advance by fire and movement: one squad going into whatever cover the churned-up cornfields and road offered and blazing away at the Tower, while the next squad moved up past them and went down, ready to offer covering fire and then repeat.

On Guthranc’s walls a Man threw up his arms and fell. The body wheeled through the sunlit air, mouth open. Ashnak watched until it hit the earth, bones fracturing. The squads had advanced to the foot of the slope. He spoke into his headset:

“Artillery, cease fire; say again: cease fire .”