Mary Gentle - Grunts

Major Barashkukor, Commander (Part-Time, Acting, Unpaid) of Nin-Edin, stared down from the parapet of the outer walls.

“I don’t like it, Sergeant. It’s too quiet.”

FOOM!

Barashkukor fingered his hairless peaked ear, a pained expression on his features. “Cease fire! Sergeant, what is that?”

Sergeant Varimnak chewed gum noisily. A hulking, trim, and broad-shouldered brown orc, she wore her black combat fatigues ripped, with engineer boots, and a spiked black leather belt in place of her webbing. Her cropped crest had been spiked and bleached white.

The Badgurlz sergeant narrowed her eyes, removed the gum, and stuck it under one of the crenellations. “Looks like they want to parley with us. Fuck knows why.”

Barashkukor waited, vainly. He drew a deep breath, filling his thin chest to capacity. “That’s ‘fuck knows why, sir,’ Sergeant!”

“Yes sir, Major, sir!” The stocky orc grinned.

Varimnak’s squad, composed of the smaller female orcs, seemed almost lost in their large ripped marine-issue black combat fatigues. They leaned into the cover of the crenellations, two of them carrying shoulder-fired grenade-launchers; three, M60 machineguns; and one a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile. Barashkukor surveyed the Badgurlz’s spiked crests, scars, and tattoos, and his chest swelled with pride.

He sprang up to stand in one of the icy stone gaps in the crenellations, ignoring the thirty-foot drop in front of his combat boots. “Yo, down there!”

The approaching party halted.

A knight in full plate harness bent his head and removed his helm. His destrier stamped. In his armoured right hand he carried a white standard of truce. “Orcs of the Horde! I am Amarynth, Commander of the Light, Mage and Warrior both. Listen to my words of wisdom!”

Sergeant Varimnak looked up from where she squatted, bandy legs bent, cradling an AK47.

“Exactly who is that asshole, sir?”

“Some damn hero or other.”

Barashkukor straightened the peak of his green forage cap and settled his web-belt more comfortably around his thin waist.

“You down there! Unauthorized personnel! I give you statutory warning that you are adopting a hostile posture by surrounding Marine Base Nin-Edin, home of the 483rd Airborne, and by the rules of war I am therefore justified in—”

Barashkukor stopped in bewilderment as the elvish knight dismounted from his steed and knelt in the snow outside Nin-Edin’s walls.

“Lady of Light!” the elf prayed loudly. “Hear my vow! Be with me today, as I battle in the name of Good. Grant me the power to speedily end this battle, so that they shall sing of us throughout the generations, and our glory shall be the greater…”

The dark-skinned elven warrior pushed his black hair back behind his pointed ears, frowning.

“…ah, yes. And so that fewer of the Light’s warriors perish. Grant me the strength of steel and magic both, so that I may wipe these orcs, blood and bone, from the earth! Hack their foul heads from their deformed bodies, tear out their intestines! Gouge out their eyes! Rip the fangs from their jaws and the skin from their faces!”

Panting, the elf smoothed down his blue and silver livery, which had two crescent moons woven into it. His fluted plate-armour shone cream-coloured under the snow-leaking sky.

“Carve the blood eagle on their wretched carcasses,” he concluded, standing up, “and put to the fire their still-living remains! In the name of your Mercy, Lady, amen!”

The orcs looked at each other.

“Well, sir,” Varimnak said, “I guess he was the most diplomatic one they could find to talk to us.”

“Orcs of Nin-Edin! Surrender now and we may spare your miserable lives.” The elvish knight remounted and reined in his rearing unicorn. Flakes of snow frosted his pointed ears and high cheekbones. “Throw down your weapons now! You filth will die, like your master the nameless necromancer, unless you make honest reparation for your crimes. There is much work to be done, rebuilding the world after the Dark Lord’s defeat, and it is meet that you should labour in it.”

“Go into slavery, you mean!” Barashkukor turned to speak to Varimnak and found his sergeant missing. He showed small fangs in a scowl.

“‘s pure ungratefulness, sir,” a Badgurlz MFC complained. “After we won the Fields of Destruction for them by fucking off…”

The Badgurlz marine surreptitiously sighted her shoulder-fired missile-launcher.

“No!” the major snarled. “Not yet. Bad orc!”

Ignoring the indignant Light party, Barashkukor climbed down from the crenellation and strode across the parapet. Sergeant Varimnak trotted back up the steps from the bailey.

“Dumb Light fuckers won’t attack under a parley flag,” she grunted. “But, like I guessed, there was someone hanging around to take advantage. Major, I got something you got to see.”

The Light’s increasingly impatient shouts faded as Barashkukor followed the bleach-haired orc sergeant up across the bailey and the hill, into the inner compound. A thin snow skittered and rolled in waves, powdery as sand, and stung his eyes. The rebuilt parapets and squat towers of Nin-Edin bristled with wires, spikes, and dishes.

“Remind me to have a word with Corporal Ugarit, Sergeant, about that new equipment he keeps mounting— How the fuck did that get in here?”

“This prisoner, sir? Sneaked in while you were at the main gate.” Varimnak showed orc-fangs smugly. “I’m gonna have those rear-guard squads drilling till they drop.”

A squad of orc marines stood around something, brandishing AK47s and SA80s. Barashkukor marched up, shouldered through, and came to an abrupt halt.

Seated cross-legged on the frost-hardened earth, with her bare hands resting palm-up on her knees, a female elf looked up at him and smiled.

“Another elf!” Barashkukor anguished. “Have the marines responsible shot!”

“Sure thing, Major, sir.”

Barashkukor strolled closer and snapped, “On your feet!”

He then gazed up at the six-foot-tall female elf with some misgivings.

Her glossy brown hair was braided from jaw level down, woven with strips of red cloth and tied around her brow with a red headband. It showed both her pointed elvish ears and the deep scar that crossed her cheek from outer eye to jaw. She wore a laced brown leather bodice and thonged leather trousers, and high boots, sorcerously oblivious to the cold. Dark lashes shaded her golden eyes.

There were the scabbards of daggers at her belt, boots, and back—but no weapons.

“She’s obviously a spy for the Light, Sergeant. Why haven’t you executed her?”

The slender young elf put one hand up to her bodice and pointed at a silver badge. The insignia was easily recognisable.

“Press,” she said briskly. “My name is Perdita del Verro. I’m a war correspondent—from Warrior of Fortune broadsheet. You’ve heard of Warrior of Fortune.”

“Warrior of Fortune!” Barashkukor breathed. “Wow! That is, I—well, I read it for the advertisements, of course. Military supplies. Very useful. You’re—did you say you write for them?”

“Chief news reporter.” Perdita del Verro smiled down at him. She produced a small notebook and a pencil. “Things have been slow since the Last Battle. I really couldn’t miss the chance to come along with Amarynth and interview your boys. No, don’t bother with the weapons—I have the usual magical press immunity. So, Commander…‘Barashkukor,’ is it? How do you spell that?”

“Assschuu!”

Perdita del Verro smiled dazzlingly down at the orc, warmth infusing her golden eyes.