Mary Gentle - Grunts

Ashnak nodded to Razitshakra. “Write a note for the halfling Magda. Landlord, I would as soon leave this note with you to give to her. Here is silver.”

“Holloa! I’ve won!”

Captain Mad Jack Montague, Earl of Ruxminster, leaving the back gaming room riding on the shoulders of a stout whore, whipped at her with his crop. His boot swung round and caught the table, knocking arrack and lukewarm coffee into the laps of Ashnak and the orc marines.

“Faith, ye’re wet! Baptised ye, ye Lightless dogs!”

Lugashaldim stood, furious, wiping himself down, bandy-legged in silk breeches. Ashnak inclined his wigged head. “No harm done, sir.”

“Faith, a piss-britches coward!” The Earl Captain swung his sword above his head, knocking one of the lamps, and galloped his whore around the room, kicking at other tables and ducking the jugs and shoes flung piecemeal at his head.

Razitshakra finished writing. Ashnak took the letter. He did not read it, it not being a common thing in a Wit to have to spell prose out letter by letter, lips moving. Besides, the marine had her orders. He folded the paper and handed it to the landlord.

“You are to give this to the female halfling’s thieves. To the thieves themselves. Will you remember that?”

“To the thieves?” Jan Tompkyns looked puzzled. “But you may speak with Magda herself now, sir, at your pleasure.”

“No.” Ashnak stood up and moved out of the partition, not bothering to conceal his bulk or his quickness. A number of the patrons glanced over, and he saw how they took in five square-built, hunch-shouldered, supposed Men in frock coats and silk gown, features hidden behind domino-masks. At his back he heard the four other orcs scuffling out from the benches. He thrust the letter into the landlord’s hand. “You will remember, sir, I promise you. The thieves must have this letter. Do it.”

“Yes, sir. But sir—”

Ashnak casually backhanded the Man across the face, breaking his jaw and rendering him unconscious. The landlord fell across chairs and hit the floor. Ashnak caught Lugashaldim’s and Razitshakra’s eyes. He nodded.

“Now.”

Wading in swatches of silk, bow-legged and broad-shouldered, Razitshakra kicked over tables and chairs and coffee-drinkers on her way across the room. Lugashaldim shook his head, peruke and domino-mask flying off. Someone gasped and swore. In no more than fifteen seconds the two orcs ploughed across the room, snatched up the female halfling, bundled her in a cloak, and bashed their way out, demolishing one of the doorposts as they went.

A dozen or so of the less-drunk patrons drew sword. Ashnak clawed the cloak off his back and unholstered his concealed Uzi automatic submachine-gun. The two remaining orc marines dropped cloaks and masks and shifted M16s into firing position. Ashnak cocked the gun, moved the fire-selector to automatic, and let off a series of three-shot bursts.

“Aaiiiiiieee!”

The M16s opened up. Noise shattered the coffee-house. Ashnak scythed down Captain Mad Jack and his whore, the flaxen-haired dwarf, the table of Spectator journalists and then emptied the magazine through the back door. Bodies jerked, staggered, caught half-rising. The halfling bar-girl, picked up by the force of the shots, splattered across the back wall as it collapsed.

The big orc hit the magazine-release catch, snicked a full magazine home, and—firing on semi-auto to conserve ammunition—slewed a burst of fire around the room and fell in behind the remaining two orc marines as they left the Dancing Orc by way of the demolished back wall. Human, dwarf, and halfling blood painted the walls, spattered the ceilings; Men clutched at guts spilling through burned and tattered frock coats and lace shirts; faces minced, limbs shattered, bone-fragments flying like shrapnel.

In less than thirty seconds, and always firing above waist-level so as to avoid hitting the unconscious body of Tomkyns, the orc marines cleared the building and disappeared into the alleyways around Abbey Park.

Jan Tompkyns, eventually conscious and in great pain, did not think to study the letter until he had had a surgeon to his jaw, fled two streets away before the Justices should investigate the room of bleeding, stinking corpses in the Dancing Orc, and wept hysterically for close onto four hours.

It was some time after midnight when Magda’s sons found him.

“Our mother—she’s not among the dead. Damn you,” the elder demanded, “what happened?”

His jaw bound up, the landlord could not speak. He proffered the stained letter. The elder son took it. The younger read over his shoulder.

It was unsigned.

Thieves:

We have taken the halfling Magda, who is our hostage for your obedience. Do as is written below and no harm will come to her. Fail to obey and she will be very slowly killed.

Steal from the Visible College those talismans that prevent the operation of magic, in as great a number as you can. Bring them in secrecy to the besieged fort of Nin-Edin. There collect your mother. If you cannot enter a besieged fort, or the Visible College, then you are not the thieves we have been told that you are.

We will be inconvenienced by this, but it is always possible to obtain more thieves. We believe it is less easy to obtain another mother.

Do this, at the very latest, before the moon passes out of its first quarter.

The war is over now.

Vultures wheel at heights from whicn the Demonfest Mountains are only rumpled white rock patching the curved earth. The birds’ centre-magnified vision sees all:

The Northern Kingdoms ravaged, fields unharvested rotting in early winter rain. Men and other races huddle in their villages against famine and death, while in Herethlion and Fourgate songs are sung of heroes’ victories. Vultures avoid the cities of Men. The dead tossed over the walls stink of plague.

The war is over.

The abandoned Dark strongholds, the magical dead of the east, are desolate now beyond even vultures’ picking.

And vultures follow the Last Battle’s soldiers in their company-sized refugee bands, waiting as they take forts and castles, hold them for a time, lose them to their lawful owners or (more often) to larger marauding bands, leaving enough behind to glut the vultures so that they can barely fly.

The war is over. This is peace.

Vultures circle at heights where, like the fields of destruction beneath, the only rules are those of hunger.

The unseasonable November snow whitened the porticos of Fourgate’s mansions and turned to peach-coloured slush in the cobbled streets. Will Brandiman tipped the carriers of his sedan chair, got out, and trod cautiously across the slippery flagstones of the courtyard outside the Visible College.

A small girl with brown pigtails hurled a snowball. It burst against Will’s tricorn hat. He growled, “Cut it out, Ned!”

The girl, slightly taller than Will, stuffed one somewhat coarse hand inside a rabbit-fur muff and picked up the hem of her gown and cloak together as she skipped across the street. Close at hand, her hair was a little too short for braiding, and her brows too thick, and her mouth had lines about it that eight-year-olds do not commonly have…

The brown-haired halfling shuffled his large, hirsute feet under the scarlet velvet of his dress. He lowered his head demurely. “Greetings, brother Will.”

“Brother Ned.”

They both looked at the Visible College.

“Let’s set fire to the building,” Ned Brandiman said. “Then when everyone comes rushing out, we can rush in …”