Mary Gentle - Grunts

“Yessir!” Sergeant Marukka nodded sagely.

A strained expression made its appearance on the small orc’s features. Captain Barashkukor protested, “Sir, we don’t leave our own, sir!”

General Ashnak considered this new concept. After a few moments he nodded.

“You’re right, Captain. Of course you’re right. See to it. They’re not history—they’re field rations.”

The halfling Magda sat in her room in Herethlion.

The distant rumble of magic that had sounded all day from the east became sporadic, and finally died down completely around twilight. Mopping up after yesterday’s battle. Magda waited. It did not resume.

She got to her feet, continuing to brush her long auburn hair. A stamp of her tiny foot on the floor brought her halfling maid, Safire, running.

“Yes, miss?”

“Help me dress.”

Magda tossed the hairbrush onto her cluttered dressing table. After a moment’s thought she recovered it and threw it up onto the Man-sized bed. She tugged the gauze scarf from her full-length mirror.

A halfling, three feet three inches high, with auburn hair falling to her waist…Magda surveyed herself for a moment. She irritatedly pulled off the auburn hairpiece and began to fit a blonde wig over her own cropped brown hair.

“Your clothes, miss. Shall I help you with the laces?”

Magda hopped up to sit on the Man-bed and pull on the tight black leather trousers and laced leather bodice. While Safire adjusted the trouser lacings up the outside of her legs, Magda clipped spiked and studded leather bands around her wrists and neck and put on her chain-belt. She slid off the bed, wriggling her feet into stiletto-heeled black thighboots, and strode across to the mirror.

Slender curves tightly encased, Magda posed for her own satisfaction. She ran her hands over her black-leather-clad breasts and hips. “I have a girl’s figure still, Safire. A girl’s figure.”

“Yes, miss.”

Magda peered closely into the mirror, touching the lines around her eyes. “I shall be wearing the mask. You must give me warning if one of the customers wants me bare-face. I’ll need cosmetics.”

She reached up and took the whip from the dressing table, cracking it experimentally. There was a clatter of iron from the bedstead, where Safire checked the shackles. Female and male voices echoed excitedly down the House of Joy’s upper corridor, and in Herethlion’s streets hoofbeats sounded.

“Go on then, girl! Tell them that Mistress Whip is ready for business.”

“Yes, miss.”

The leather-clad halfling wobbled a couple of steps on her high heels, caught her balance, and picked up and put on the leather head-mask that had only eye- and mouth-holes to break its severity.

“Heroes coming back from the wars.” Magda heaved a happy sign that strained the laces over her diminutive breasts. “I’ll wager the Light is victorious…Either way, there’s custom enough out there for all of us for a week. No, a month! We’re going to be rich, Safire. Rich! ”

Eight days orc-march away from the Fields of Destruction, the raw November fog rolled across General Ashnak as he stood in the compound of the Nin-Edin Marine Base.

“Our ass is grass ,” he announced, slapping the barrel of his M60. “And these are the reason why.”

“‘Tisn’t fair on the grunts, sir,” Company Sergeant Marukku protested. “All the other defeated Dark war-bands are going to form themselves into Free Companies and ravage the countryside.”

“‘Snot fair at all, sir.” Captain Barashkukor wiped his nose. “All we wanted to be was brigands.”

“We’re marines,” Ashnak growled.

“Okay, sir— disciplined brigands. Aaaaaaashu! ” The small orc wiped his nose on his sleeve, trailing mucus over his camouflage combat jacket. He sniffed. “I bet they’re all doing it. Taking towns, refusing to be shifted by threats or bribes, being declared heir when the present ruler dies of completely natural causes…I was really looking forward to being a duke, sir. Aasshu! ”

Ashnak glared up through the fog at the walls, and the travel-worn orc marine company hastily repossessing and rebuilding the Nin-Edin fort. “No. We’re prime targets. The marines were the best unit on the Fields of Destruction. The Light will put it down to these weapons. They’ll want us.”

Watery daytime torchlight illuminated his ugly features and brass-capped tusks. He scratched at his flea-infested combat fatigues.

“I want this place bristling with weapons! The Light can use magic to find us here. Even after the Last Battle, I’m willing to bet they’ll have mages to send against us.”

“Aascchhhu! ”

CSM Marukku wiped disgustedly at the bowed leg of her combats and glared at Barashkukor with more than a sergeant’s distaste for junior officers. “Beg to report, General, I checked out our stores of Dagurashibanipal’s hoard in the bunkers here—we’re up to capacity on ammunition. I found some crates that ain’t matériel. One’s been taken up to your office for your inspection. I also took a tech squad up to the storage-depot caverns. The old wyrm must have had half the mountains hollowed out—there’s enough weapons, transport, and ammunition in there to equip an orc tribe for a decade!”

Barashkukor wiped his dripping nose. “And none of it any use to us without mage-protection! They can wipe us out with the simplest fail-weapons spell.”

Ashnak slapped his orc captain between the shoulder-blades. Barashkukor rolled head over heels several times, finishing up on his back with his combat boots up against the inner gate-tower’s iron portcullis.

“Cheer up! Damn it, Captain, we’re marines. We don’t take defeat lying down!”

“Sir, no sir—aaaa schuu! ”

Marukka said, “The general’s got a plan. Haven’t you, General? He’s never let us down yet. We’re marines. We look after our own.”

Ashnak thought of the wounded and picked his teeth.

The female orc, suspicion fighting with military discipline in her tone, said, “You have got a plan, General?”

Ashnak thought, How long can Nin-Edin remain untouched by the Dark’s catastrophic defeat? The nameless necromancer—may he burn!—where is he?

With no mage-support, there’s a limit to how long Ashnak can play for time. “Don’t ask questions, Sergeant. Obey your orders! I want that standard-bearer, Ugarit, and Marine Rast—Razzis—”

Captain Barashkukor’s mucus-rimmed eyes suddenly lit up. “Razitshakra, sir. Marine Razitshakra.”

“Why does the general want them?” Marukka growled, puzzled. “They’re hardly fit to be called marines , either one of them.”

“I want them in my office,” Ashnak ordered. “ Now .”

The rider of the refugee war-beast dug a makeshift thorn quirt behind its saillike ear. The great animal lifted a long proboscis, curling like a python, and swung ponderously to the left, padding up a steep hill slope.

A fresh wind blew from the ship-deserted sea.

The rider shifted blanket and leather strap, endeavouring to make the seat on the animal’s back more comfortable. Rough brown hide, thick with bristles, made uneasy riding. Rags of gold and red caparisons clung to its metal-armoured tusks. The animal’s tiny black eye swivelled in its socket, gazing up and back.

“Go, thou bastard offspring of a goat and the World Serpent! Go! ”

The thorn quirt lashed down. The war-elephant turned away and inland, scaling the Downs, and trampling hedges, crops, and streamlets in the country beyond.