Stan Nicholls - Orcs:Bad blood

Stryke barked an order. Two grunts rushed forward, their bows nocked. Coilla dropped and hugged the ground.

Arrows smacked into the guards. They went down.

As Coilla scrambled to her feet the guardhouse door flew open. Alerted by the commotion, men poured out. Many were minus their tunics or otherwise had their dress in disarray, having been off duty. But they had swords. Coilla drew her own and, bellowing, ran in their direction.

Her war cry was taken up by the Wolverines. Spilling from their hiding place, they charged.

Coilla reached the foremost of the troopers. He made the mistake of trying to bring her down with a tackle. She relied on her sword. As he dived at her, she lashed out, raking his torso. When he doubled, she drove her blade into his back.

A second man immediately moved in. Mindful of the fate of the first, he advanced warily. Coilla powered into him and their blades clashed. An exchange of blows ensued, the pealing of steel on steel echoing through the silent night. His swordplay had a certain finesse. Coilla had the edge in savagery. Knocking aside his incoming sword, she exploited the breach and punctured his lung.

With a roar, the rest of the orcs swept in. The two sides met and a bloody melee erupted. Then it quickly fragmented into a string of discrete fights.

Haskeer laid about him with a two-handed axe. The first human he engaged soon felt its sting. Screaming, he reeled away with a grievous wound that had his left arm hanging by a thread. A charging soldier was the axe's next patron. Swinging fast and hard, Haskeer struck him in the neck, cleanly decapitating the man.

The head bounced several feet and landed in Jup's path. He kicked it aside and faced up to a duo of spear-wielding guardsmen. They were dismayed by their first sight of a dwarf, and startled to see a basically humanoid creature battling alongside orcs. Exploiting their hesitancy, Jup piled into them.

He had the edge as a fighter. The troopers employed their spears by jabbing energetically but with little accuracy. Jup was master of his staff, and used it with greater skill. Some adroit footwork got him past the first spearman's defences to deliver a weighty blow that shattered his skull.

The second man drew back, brandishing his spear to keep Jup at bay. Feigning an advance, then quickly changing tack, the dwarf evaded the weapon and took a swipe at his opponent's head. The human shifted smartly, narrowly avoiding the strike. But Jup rallied instantly. Sweeping his staff low, he cracked it across the man's legs, flooring him; Reafdaw, fighting alongside, spun and plunged his sword into the prone trooper's guts. Dwarf and grunt exchanged a thumbs up and carried on brawling.

Someone started ringing an alarm bell mounted next to the guardhouse door. Its shrill din cut through the night like a hatchet. Zoda lifted his bow and launched an arrow at the bell ringer. It missed, its sharpened tip chipping the guardhouse wall. Zoda groped for another shaft.

Haskeer had fought his way nearer to the building. He brought his axe back over his shoulder, far enough that the head nearly touched the base of his spine. Then he swung it up and over, grunting with the effort of lobbing it. Spinning end over end, the axe flew above the struggling combatants, gathering impetus. It struck the chest of the man at the bell with enough force to pin him to the guardhouse door.

The door opened outwards, with the body still attached, and a couple of stragglers exited. It slammed behind them, the hanging corpse jiggling with the impact.

Stryke was embroiled in grinding combat with a heftily built sergeant. The man's weapon, through choice or hasty necessity, was a long-handled iron mallet, which he managed as nimbly as Stryke plied his sword. Seemingly tireless, the human kept the hammer in constant flight. Several times his swinging passes came dangerously close to Stryke's head, and his greater reach barred retaliation.

Tiring of the cat and mouse, Stryke switched from targeting the man to concentrating on the weapon. As he dodged another swing, he twisted and brought his blade down on the mallet's haft. The steel bit into the wood near the head, but didn't entirely sever it. A brief tussle disengaged the weapons.

Retreating a step, the sergeant grinned and brought up the mallet for another blow. He did it with such force that the weakened head snapped off and flew over his shoulder. It landed on one of his comrades, braining him. Oblivious, the sergeant swept the weapon downward towards Stryke. It has halfway through its arc before he realised the head was missing. While he gaped at the splintered pole he was holding, Stryke ran him through.

The Wolverines had got the better of the guardsmen. Most lay dead or wounded, and the orcs were making short work of the few still standing. Stryke barked an order and the band rushed for the guards' station.

Coilla got there first. Wrenching open the door, with its dead trooper affixed, she stormed inside.

The interior was little more than a long dormitory. Cots lined one wall, lockers and stacked chests were heaped against the other. At the far end was a door ajar, leading to a privy. Coilla judged the place empty of troopers.

She was wrong.

As she walked past the row of cots, a figure leapt up. He had been hiding between two of the beds, pressed to the floor in sly ambush or trembling cowardice, and he hefted a sword.

He came at her fast, yelling something, the sword in motion. Coilla swerved, rapped the blade aside and booted his stomach. He landed on a cot, struggled to right himself, half rose. Then he fell back with a groan, her blade in his innards. She finished him with a thrust to the heart.

He was young, as far as Coilla could tell with humans. She wondered why he didn't try surrendering, though she wasn't sure what she would have done if he had.

The door opened. Jup, Haskeer and Stryke came in, along with several of the others.

"All clear?" Stryke asked.

"Is now," Coilla replied.

They checked the place, to be sure.

"Look at this," Jup said, kneeling by an open chest.

The others gathered round. Somebody snatched a lantern and held it above the chest. It was neatly packed with military sabres, oiled and wrapped in muslin.

"New issue," Stryke said, "and nice pieces by the look of them. We'll take what we can carry."

They lifted four boxes and hauled them outside. The door and attendant corpse slammed shut behind them.

"Do we torch the place?" Coilla asked.

Stryke looked to the sky. It was lightening. "No. The sun will be up soon. We should be moving." He turned to Jup. "Feeling better?"

The dwarf smiled. "A bit of bloodletting always blows away the cobwebs. It makes for a good — "

There was a commotion from the tethered horses. They shied and pawed the ground. A figure scrambled into the saddle of one and pulled away. As he galloped off, Coilla pitched a throwing knife at him. It fell short, clattering on the cobbled street. A couple of the grunts began chasing the rider.

" Let him be! " Stryke ordered, waving them back.

"He looked wounded to me," Jup said.

Haskeer nodded. "Reckon he was playing dead 'til he got his chance."

"Doesn't matter now," Stryke told them. "We did what we set out to do. Let's get out of here."

The rider wore no tunic, and his white combat blouse was stained with blood. Leaning forward in the saddle, in obvious discomfort, he rode hard to get away from the guardhouse.

The streets were still deserted. But dawn was breaking, and soon the curfew would lift.

Without knowing it, the wounded trooper careered past something incongruous. At the side of the road there was a small portion of space at odds with reality. A sachet of non-actuality that denied light.

Pelli Madayar was concealed in the anomaly's embrace. She had something like a crystal in her hand. It was the size of an egg, with markings that made it look like the abstract representation of an open eye, flecked with a mingling of colours resembling oil on water. She held it at arm's length and slowly panned across the scene several blocks distant, where the Wolverines were stealing into the dying night with their crates of plunder.