Mary Gentle - Grunts

Freezing fog hung in the general’s office in Nin-Edin’s inner keep. Mists pearled on the tower’s yard-thick masonry walls. Ashnak ambled across to a large crate, fully accustomed to the strength and influence of the geas that radiated from any item of the dragon’s hoard.

“Is there anything useful in here, Barashkukor?”

“Don’t— asshu! ” Barashkukor wiped his snot on his sleeve. “Don’t know, sir.”

“ Then open it, you snivelling little rat! ”

Ashnak put his hands behind his back, watching Barashkukor lever at the wood with fangs and talons. The planks splintered. Barashkukor peered down into the crate, his spindly ears shifting from lateral to vertical.

“ Books , sir?”

“Books?” Ashnak took a tome out of the smaller orc’s hand. With one taloned finger he traced the printed letters on the cover. His wide lips moved as he read, literacy not being a prime requirement for a Horde captain. “‘Von…Clauswitz. On…War… ”

He flicked through the pages and laboriously spelled out, “‘War is only the continu—continuation of politics, by other means…’”

“Nahhh. War’s fun , sir, that’s what war is.” Captain Barashkukor brandished another book he had removed from the crate. “This one’s called ‘Pliny,’ sir.” He thumbed through it, eyes widening. “ Sir! It mentions ores , sir! It says the orc is a marine monster.”

Ashnak raised a bushy eyebrow. “Wonder how he knew?”

“‘ Jane’s Medieval Small-Arms and Siege Weapons ,’ sir?”

“Obsolete, soldier.” Ashnak broke off, hearing a heavy multiple tread on the stairs. “Come!”

“Hut-two, hut-two, hut-two, halt ! The marines you requested, sir!”

Company Sergeant Marukka saluted smartly. A tall, skinny male orc marched into the office beside another orc female, this one scruffy and wearing spectacles.

“—and because they’re all out to get me! Oh. Lord General!” Ugarit saluted with the wrong hand. His uniform pockets shifted, clinking with the weight of spanners in them.

Marukka howled, “Ugarit, you candyass marine, keep your mouth shut in front of the general! That’s fifty strokes of the lash for you.”

The tall, skinny orc began to tremble visibly. The scruffy female orc with him saluted rigidly.

“Dismissed, Sergeant,” Ashnak rumbled. “I shan’t be needing you either, Captain.”

Captain Barashkukor saluted and followed Marukka out. Ashnak stood for several minutes, looking the two marines up and down. He smiled nastily.

“You’re pathetic!” he barked. “Call yourselves marines? I wouldn’t wipe my arse with you! I’m going to straighten this company out now , and I’m starting by eviscerating you two! We’ve been occupying Nin-Edin for six hours and you still haven’t come up with a plan to defeat the enemy.”

“P-plan, sir…?” Marine Razitshakra’s combats had quill-pens protruding from every pocket. Her large pointed ears projected laterally from the sides of her head. Fog condensed and dripped from the tips of each. She blinked golden eyes. “Wh-what plan?”

“ I’ve got a plan! Alternative firepower! General, it’s the only answer!” Ugarit, spluttering, unfolded scribbled-on sheets of paper, diagrams, a folding tape measure, and small mechanical models. “Arrows with ceramic heads! Kevlar armour! Carbon-fibre swordblades! I have all the designs, all the measurements—calculations—stress loads—they’ll never get me if I have all this!”

Razitshakra muttered something under her breath, of which Ashnak could distinguish only the phrase “several cogwheels short of a clock.”

“Very inventive.” Ashnak drew a breath and bellowed. “The first blast of mage-fire will still shatter them to ashes! Are you telling me the whole Research and Development Unit can’t come up with anything better than that?”

Ugarit shook his head, water drops flying. “I had everyone working on it, General, sir.”

“And just how many personnel do you have in R&D?”

The skinny orc counted on his fingers for some minutes before announcing, “One, General, sir. Me.”

Ashnak walked across to the vast carved wooden chair liberated from some merchant’s wagon inadvisedly attempting the Nin-Edin pass, and sat down heavily at his desk. He wiped his hand across his face. He resisted, with difficulty, the impulse to crack Ugarit’s skull against the masonry and see if anything oozed out.

“Sir…” Razitshakra scribbled on a small piece of paper she extracted from her pocket, ticking off items on a list with her index talon. “I think I’ve got it, sir!”

“Please,” Ashnak purred, “do tell.”

“ Magic , sir. That’s the answer. I don’t do it—I’m an orc, and we hate magic!—but I know about it. The other grunts avoid me because of that…” She met his gaze, narrowing her tilted eyes. “If you could find the nameless necromancer, or another Dark Mage—there must be some who didn’t die at the Fields of Destruction—we could survive. But then that person would automatically end up in command of us, sir. Wizards always commanded the Horde because they can use magic and we can’t.”

“True,” Ashnak rumbled.

“Only magic can defend against magic. You need someone who can deal with it—but does it have to be a Man? Or any other race? If we had orcs who could deal with magic, General, we’d be our own bosses.”

Ashnak, remembering a nest-sister of his own, magic-sniffer and dead now, shook his head. “Orcs and magic don’t mix.”

The female orc stabbed a taloned finger at her list. “Normally they don’t have to. In battle we’re protected by our side’s wizards. But we don’t have that here, sir! I’m not suggesting we use magic. Orcs don’t do that. We should just make certain no one can use it against us.”

Razitshakra crumpled her list and shoved it deep in her combats pocket, staring intently up at Ashnak.

“We don’t have to look for a new master, sir. Not if we can get some magical talismans or amulets. Protective magical talismans that we can carry into battle with us. So that the Light can throw fail-weapons magic at us and it won’t work.”

“As one of my nest-sisters, Shazgurim, used to say, I know Man-tales.” Ashnak’s heavy brows lifted. “Is it possible for orcs to have a Quest?”

“We orcs,” Marine Razitshakra said, “we orc marines don’t need a master, General. We can do all this ourselves!”

Ashnak considered this revolutionary idea.

“Tell me, orc who is knowledgable about magic,” he said softly, “where do you come by those golden eyes?”

Razitshakra’s wide mouth dropped open. Her fangs and tusks seemed smaller than usual for an orc of her size.

“Well, marine?”

Razitshakra removed her spectacles. Her skin turned a deep grass-green over her cheeks, ears, throat, and breasts. She stared down at the toes of her muddy combat boots.

“It’s not true that I’m a half-elf,” she mumbled. “Quarter-elven, sir. At most. Grandmother made a mistake on a dark night in the Enchanted Wood. So did her…ah…involuntary partner, sir—one he didn’t survive. I’m only a quarter-elvish, sir. I may know about magic, but I’m a real orc. Honest, sir!”

“Yes, yes.”

Ashnak was not familiar with the emotion of embarrassment, but he felt a strong urge to change the subject.

He stood and went to the window. Nin-Edin’s inner and outer walls loomed in the fog, covered with skull-standards and machineguns emplacements. Ancient masonry, solid as the mountains, but masonry has been brought down before now, by neither siege machines nor storming the walls, but by the Light’s filthy magic. Ashnak became aware that he was listening, and had been for some time.