Mary Gentle - Grunts

“Mmph?” The High King looked up from doodling with a griffin’s-feather pen on his notepad. “Is that all the case for the prosecution?”

Prosecuting counsel Zhazba-darabat marched across the courtroom floor to the bench, stepping over a number of cables marked “OFFICIAL DO NOT REMOVE.” The dwarf stared up at the edge of the bench, with no line of sight to the judge. “Your Honour—”

“What?” Magorian blinked rheumy eyes, gazing around. “Has the little fella finished? You, orc, whatever your name is. Do your bit.”

Barashkukor bounded to his feet again. “Objection!”

“What is it this time?”

“I’m not ready yet.”

Magorian glowered. “State your case, greenie. And make it quick. I want my dinner.”

Ashnak shifted in his chair, the metal bulk of the Colt .45 pressing against his spine. Through slitted eyes he watched the mages of the Light.

“M’lud.” Barashkukor straightened up from behind the defence’s desk. He exchanged his peaked cap for a horsehair wig whose long side-flaps dangled down to his web-belt. “M’lud, the defence’s case is as follows. General Ashnak didn’t do it, it wasn’t him, and besides he was somewhere else at the time! I would now like to call a character witness.”

Magorian’s sandy eyebrows raised. “Oh…very well.”

Barashkukor marched out into the floor of the court. “Call Lugbash!”

A halfling usher opened the doors and bawled down the corridor. “ Call Lugbash !”

A distant voice echoed: “CALL LUGBASH…”

Ashnak leaned one muscular arm over the back of his chair and spoke to marine Commissar Razitshakra in the gallery’s front row. “Who the fuck is Lugbash?”

Before the commissar could answer, a hunched orc in a ragged dress and shawl hobbled into the court. Barashkukor gallantly offered her his steel arm as she climbed up into the witness stand.

“I remember Ashnak,” she crooned without provocation. “’E were a lovely little orc, ’e were. I was his nanny, you know, the dear sweet thing.”

Barashkukor clasped his hands behind his back. “And in your opinion, Nanny Lugbash, is your charge capable of committing the acts of which he is accused?”

“What, my dear little Nakkie?” The orc’s shawl slipped and she grabbed at it, but not before Ashnak had caught sight of a lantern jaw and corporal’s chevrons. “Of course ’e couldn’t, dearie. Never did anyone any harm, and such a good little orc. Always ate his meals. Ate the plate, come to that. And the dog…”

“No further questions,” Barashkukor said hastily. “I would now like to call as a further character witness Biotech-Captain Ugarit—”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Ashnak growled.

“—No, I wouldn’t. Erm.” The orc major turned on his heel. The ends of his wig flew out, swatting a halfling usher. He strode back to the desk. “I will now claim precedent!”

“’Nakkie,” indeed!” Ashnak rested his hand across his eyes as Barashkukor busied himself digging out a heap of tomes. The faint knocking of the gallows-maker’s hammer became more pronounced.

“Don’t think it’ll work,” a dubious orc voice remarked in the square outside. “That crosspiece is far too high. And look at that strut. Shoddy workmanship, I calls it.”

“Rubbish!” another orc proclaimed. “Superb piece of execution engineering.”

“Sez ’oo?”

Ashnak glanced out of the window as the work-Man stood to one side, avoiding the orcs swinging punches at each other.

“Kind of you to say so, gentlesirs. Most kind,” the Man said, tucking another hammer away on a loop on his carpenter’s apron. Ashnak heard the Man add under his breath, “When it comes to gallows, everyone’s a h’expert…”

Ashnak turned back to the courtroom as Zhazba-darabat threw his long velvet robes about him and began unearthing books from the prosecution desk. In a voice too low for the judge to catch, the dwarf growled, “I have witnessed centuries of precedent, orc. How skilled in law are you?”

“Erm…” Barashkukor shot a haunted look at Ashnak, swallowed, and hauled a book out from the bottom of his pile. “I cite the unanswerable case of Hashbanipal Shadowtree vs. The Blue Elves .”

The dwarf slammed a heavier tome down. “I contradict you with Meliadis the Savage vs. Brukgug Halforc .”

“But I quote Bishop Filgrindibad vs. The Secret Masters of the Halls! ”

“And I return: Mistress Shulikan vs. Dolf, Dexis, and Durundibar! ”

Barashkukor flicked back the ends of his wig, stunning another halfling, and appealed to the jury. “I therefore cite the unanswerable precedent of Berendis vs . All the Elves of Thyrion! ”

Several of the jurors applauded. Those who had been glancing from Barashkukor to Zhazba-darabat rubbed their necks.

“ Alaric Bonegrinder vs. The Red Paladin Hugon! ” Zhazba-darabat cried triumphantly. “And what do you say to that ?”

The small orc scrambled up onto the pile of books already cited, steel leg glinting, and thumbed another tome, rocking precariously. “I will answer that with—erm—with…”

“ Order! ” Magorian’s gavel crashed down. The orc sergeant in the third row glowered at the front-row grunt. Only a pair of orc ears remained visible, and they did not so much as twitch.

There was silence, apart from the growing noise of the brawl outside in the square, which seemed to have attracted a number of non-orc combatants.

“I rule those precedents out of court,” Magorian quavered. “If you think I’m going to sit here and listen to all that rubbish, you’re much mistaken. Counsel for the defence, do you have anything else to say?”

“I can’t wait,” Ashnak rumbled under his breath, his bloodshot gaze fixed on the small orc major. Behind him, Razitshakra chuckled. Ashnak looked over his muscular shoulder.

The orc marine commissar rested her elbows on the front row of the gallery. “Don’t worry, sir,” she murmured. “I’ve rigged the jury.”

Ashnak glared red-eyed at the jury box. Seven well-fed Men, an elf, two halflings, a dwarf, and a half-elf. “Those aren’t our people.”

“No, no, sir; I’ve rigged the jury.” Concealing her movements from the White Mages, Razitshakra briefly drew open her greatcoat. Ashnak saw that the commissar’s free hand held an M57 firing device.

“Claymore mines under the chairs, sir.”

One of the floor-cables ran across from the gallery to the jury box. Studying them, Ashnak noted beads of sweat on the foreheads of the Man and halfling jurors. Even the elf looked a little uncomfortable.

“Nice work, Commissar,” he approved.

Several shots sounded from the square, over the noise of brawling. The captain of the White Mages scowled and ordered half her force outside. She fixed Ashnak with a challenging glare. Ashnak flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his ripped combat trousers.

“My client,” Barashkukor proclaimed shrilly, “was somewhere else entirely at the time when the said atrocities were committed. M’lud, I am my own witness here—at the time in question, the general was observing my handling of a T54 Main Battle Tank in the River Faex.”

Magorian looked doubtful. “I don’t think you can be your own witness, counsel.”

“Oh.” The small orc’s face fell. Then he brightened. “Very well. I never did trust paperwork. I’m an orc of action, I am. Call the T54 Main Battle Tank!”

The same halfling usher flung open the door to the corridor. “ Call the T54 Main Battle Tank! ”

“CALL THE T54 MAIN BATTLE… WHAT ?”