Grunts (62 page)

“Hard a-starboard!” Supreme Commander Ashnak bellowed. “Hard a-port! Lower the jib! Man the tops’l! Pull, ye lubbers,
pull
!”

The quinquireme S.S.
Gibbet and Spigot
out of Graagryk heeled into the wind. Massed ranks of orc rowers in DPM battledress trousers and steel helmets heaved on the oars, sweating under the cloudless, windless blue sky.

Ashnak paced up and down the central walkway of the ship, cracking his oiled leather whip. “You’re meant to be
marines
, aren’t you? Pull!”

He strode aft, past the glistening muscled backs of orcs stripped down to combat trousers and boots. The galley’s drummer kept a rhythmic oar-stroke, to which Ashnak had been attempting to encourage the marines to sing sea-shanties. As a result, the portside grunts were giving a spirited rendition of “
How Much Is That Shoggoth in the Window?
”, loudly challenged by the starboard-side rowers chorusing “
Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Balrog
.” The quinquireme wavered on a somewhat indirect course across the limpid waters of the Inland Sea.

The waves glowed pearl-blue under a blazing sky. Ashnak lifted his binoculars, spotting the wheeling pegasi of the valkyrie marines some klicks to the north and the vast shadow of the stealth dragon on the waves to the east. Twelve more galleys and sixteen sailing ships kept a parallel course to the
Gibbet and Spigot
. There was no sign of land.

Ashnak loped up onto the poop deck. “Steady as she goes, pilot!”

Lieutenant-Colonel Dakashnit (a battlefield promotion) leaned on the vast spoked wheel of the galley, swinging it with one muscular black arm. She grinned and touched her GI pot. “You got it, m’man!”

Major-General Barashkukor also saluted his commanding
orc. “Sir, flagship of the Graagryk Navy proceeding as you ordered, sir. We are entering deep waters now, sir…”

The small orc’s features paled. He fixed Ashnak with bulging eyes, abruptly about-faced, and leaned over the back of the poop deck. Ashnak regarded his heaving shoulders. Ignoring the retching sounds, he slapped Barashkukor on the back. “Well done, son!”

The patter of small but heavy feet warned him. Ashnak turned in time to catch a half-orc halfling as it hurled itself at his leg. He scooped the child up, threw it up into the air, and (after a split second’s hesitation) caught it again. With its tiny taloned hand in his, Supreme Commander Ashnak crossed the poop deck.

“Pepin, sweetheart, don’t annoy your father while he’s working.” Honorary Colonel-in-Chief Magdelene of Graagryk absently patted the curly-footed tot’s head, avoiding its milk-fangs with practised ease. “Go and play with your brothers and sisters.”

Magda Brandiman reclined at her ease in a long, cushion-padded chair resting on the deck. An orc stood behind her with a parasol, shading the honorary colonel from the sun, and Magda leaned back, the wind whipping her hair, and sipped from a tall glass full of alcohol and fruit. Her infants sat at her feet, playing “Hang-orc.” Her mirrored Ray·Bans reflected Ashnak as she turned her head.

Ashnak gallantly kissed her free hand. “We’ve been at sea for five hours, my love…”

“Trust me.” Magda hitched down her mirrorshades and gazed at her orc over the rims. “Would I lie to you? Just keep on this course.”

The quinquireme wheeled again. Dozens of orc marines swarmed up the rigging, letting out the meagre sails to assist the rowers. Ashnak watched them swinging one-handed from ropes, rifles still slung across their backs. It became apparent that the port-side orc sailors were setting up an assault course through the lines and sheets.

“Splice the mainbrace!” Ashnak bellowed happily. “Ship ahoy! Yo ho ho!”

The spate of orders had little or no effect on the ship’s crew. The colour of the water under the
Gibbet and Spigot
changed to royal blue, and white foam flecked the waves. A line of orc marine rowers, their oars abandoned, leaned over
the ship’s side, vomiting. Ashnak noted those who threw up over the windward side for possible demotion.

“Sssupreme Commander…”

Ashnak turned at the hissed sibilants. The midday sun gleamed from the blue-black carapace and black metal harness of the Jassik Hive Commander. The Bug had wedged its long body and exoskeletal hind legs into the corner of the poop deck, claw-hands gripping the rails.

“When…” Kah-Sissh lowered his shining head. “When will this ssstorm abate, Commander?”

“That’s ‘Admiral of the Fleet’ to you, Kah-Sissh,” Ashnak said, cheerfully slapping the Bug on the back. He winced and blew on his palm. “Storm? What storm? This is good sailing weather, this is!”

The Bug’s faceted eyes dulled. Kah-Sissh’s head slumped onto the rail, dribbling a thin trail of slime from extensible jaws.

“Our guest isn’t well,” the big orc observed. “Probably time for another meal. Barashkukor! Send down to the cook for some fat pork and poached eggs—and the remains of the jellyfish, if there’s any left.”

“You’re a cruel orc, my love,” Magda Brandiman observed.

“Nothing of the sort.” Ashnak held Major-General Barashkukor over the side by one leg to avoid having the vomiting orc spray him, and grinned toothily. “Can I help it if I’m a good sailor? I’m a marine!”

Ashnak dropped Barashkukor back on the deck and drew a deep, satisfying breath. Under the smell of orc sweat and vomit, his hairy nostrils caught the scent of sun-hot wood and rope, of spices from the
Gibbet and Spigot
’s last commercial voyage, and the alien tang of the Jassik’s bodily fluids. A whiff of pipe-weed made him look round.

“Man, you better come up with something soon, sir.” Pilot Dakashnit, now smoking a cigar, lazily spun the wheel. “Them Bugs don’t do at
all
well on water, but we still got six divisions of them sitting out there in the neutral zone, and patience is something they ain’t got, sir.”

Ashnak donned his cocked hat, planted his bowed legs widely apart, and put his hands behind his back, gazing forward. “Trust me, soldier, I’m an orc.”

“
Stealth dragon to flagship, stealth dragon to flagship, over
.”

Admiral Ashnak stuck one hand into his naval topcoat. He removed it, holding a radio handset. “Flagship receiving.”

“
I say, sir, wonderful view of you from up here! Life on the ocean wave, eh, what?
”

Ashnak stared up at the empty sky. “Are you sure you’re happy in your work, marine?”

“
Oh, yes, sir. Tophole! Well, you know what they say, sir. Life’s a bitch, and then you fly
…”

Ashnak growled.

“
We may have just what you need
,” Wing Commander Chahkamnit’s voice crackled hurriedly. “
Bearing zero nine three relative, sir. Distance five miles
.”

“Course change to zero nine three degrees!” Ashnak whooped.

The three grunts manning the tiller put their heads together, muttering. The largest counted on his fingers, pointed decisively, and declared, “That way!”

The quinquireme wallowed, orc marines scurrying, no more than half a dozen falling overboard. The galley’s bow bit deep into the waves. The oars rose and dipped furiously. A marine with flags semaphored wildly to the rest of the fleet, and the other ships began to wheel about and follow the S.S.
Gibbet and Spigot
’s wake.

“Man the guns!” Ashnak bellowed. Crews scurried towards the galley’s ballistas, rail-mounted crossbows, and six-inch naval artillery.

Magda Brandiman put down her empty glass. The halfling rose from her chair, smoothing her white sun-dress, and walked elegantly across the deck to stand beside Ashnak, her head level with his belt-buckle. She put one hand to her sun-hat in the stiff breeze.

“I’m going forward,” she announced.

Ashnak strode down the central walkway behind the female halfling. A number of the orc marine rowers whistled and cheered, which the Colonel-Duchess of Graagryk acknowledged with a wave, never missing her footing. Ashnak loped up behind her into the bow.

“
THAR SHE BLOWS!
”

Ashnak fingered his ringing ear. He then wiped his talon down his naval jacket and glared at Tech-Colonel Ugarit. The skinny green orc hung over the rail, bow-wave intermittently soaking his white lab coat, pointing and yelling.

“
Thar she
—”

Ashnak seized one of the skinny orc’s legs and lifted. Ugarit vanished over the ship’s side.

“—
heeaaarg gh!
”

“I heard you the first time,” Ashnak growled.

The big orc leaned on the rail. Some yards below, Tech-Colonel Ugarit (having landed on the upper tier of oars) was clambering back up towards the ship’s side. Ahead, there was nothing but the open sea. White waves flecked the deeps.

“Not seen, sir!” the elven lieutenant Gilmuriel reported to Ashnak. His golden eyes appeared to be slightly crossed. Ashnak looked at the elf marines, their dogtags removed, who clustered round the enormous retrofitted harpoon launcher that occupied all of the galley’s bow-space. Most of the elf marines were leaning over the side of the ship.

“Sorry, sir,” Gilmuriel added, wiping at a stain on his woodland camouflage. “You really need the Sea Elves for this, sir—
blehh!
”

Ashnak sidestepped smartly.

“Do I have to do
everything
myself?” The great orc leaned precariously over the rail, staring ahead through rubber-armoured binoculars. A sibilant hiss and Magda Brandiman’s gracious greeting told him they had been joined by Hive Commander Kah-Sissh.

“There, sir.” Major-General Barashkukor tugged his commanding orc’s sleeve. “Sir, there, sir!”

“Where?”

“There!”

“I said—oh, fuck it!” Ashnak picked the orc major-general up by the back of his collar. “Point, dammit!”

Ashnak followed the direction of the small orc’s quivering finger. He narrowed his beetle-browed eyes.

At first the orc saw nothing. The Graagryk Navy appeared to be passing through a shallower part of the Inland Sea, brownish weed floating some distance under the surface. Ashnak narrowed his eyes against the sun flashing off the waves. Salt crusted his nostrils as they flared to scent the air.

“Nothing!” he swore. “Magda, woman, you told me the Kraken had been sighted here in the Inland Sea—well, where
is
it?”

Major-General Barashkukor continued to point, his skinny fingers shaking. The small orc made a mewling sound, dangling from Ashnak’s fist, and a thin trickle of liquid spattered
down onto the deck. Ashnak dropped him and leaped up to stand on the
Gibbet and Spigot
’s prow.

“
There
,” Magda Brandiman said.

From high on the prow, Ashnak looked across the waves to the fleet’s smaller galleys and sailing ships. A pearl mist dulled the sun. The mass of shallow-water weed stretched out around the fleet to the horizon.

The brown weed’s tendrils waved, thick as redwood trunks.

The brown weed opened one lazy golden eye and stared up at Ashnak.

Ashnak stared down at the vast, sea-encompassing coils of the Great Kraken.

“
Yo!
” The orc beamed and sprang down onto the deck. Ashnak strode over to Hive Commander Kah-Sissh, who stood on the quinquireme’s deck, towering over the diminutive female halfling. He grinned up at the exoskeletal Bug.

“Your egg needs its host living.” Ashnak jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “New marine-issue harpoon system. Visible College magic, sleep-inducing weapons, guaranteed to put out
anything
.”

Tech-Colonel Ugarit, having regained the deck, dripped and muttered something about “
field-tests
” and “
prototype models
.”

Ashnak slapped Lieutenant Gilmuriel on the back, seized the elf marine’s collar to prevent him from ricocheting overboard, and bellowed, “Load up and fire! Barashkukor! Signal all ships to fire at will! Go, go, go!”

Two hundred orc rowers dug their heels into the boards, backing oars. Rashes of signal flags broke out on the lines. The orc marine crew of the S.S.
Gibbet and Spigot
hurtled to their stations, unearthing from the cargo hold league upon league of fine, magic-wove netting.

Ashnak, holding his cocked hat on with one taloned hand, sauntered back across the deck to stand with Magda Brandiman. Nets whisked into the air, opening and falling; a rain of harpoons darted out from every ship of the Graagryk fleet. Ashnak craned his squat neck to look up at the Bug.

“Son, if you got any complaints, now’s the time to tell me. Once we’ve caught it, we sure as hell ain’t going to throw it back.”

Hive Commander Kah-Sissh hissed with pleasure, dripping acid slime on the quinquireme’s deck. “It will suffice.”

Madga Brandiman leaned on the rail and watched a vast golden eye close. “I think we can probably consider the peace treaty ratified now, Hive Commander. Don’t you?”

Orc marines cheered. Water flashed, dropping in diamonds from the raised orcs of the quinquireme. Vast scaly tentacles broke above the waves, and subsided. The less speedy ships of the Graagryk Navy closed in, adding their own magic-assisted stun harpoons to the melee.

Major-General Barashkukor looked thoughtfully up at his Supreme Commander.

“Sir, what do you think, sir? Could we have a campaign medal struck for the Great Kraken Hunt, sir? Could we, sir? Please, sir?—
OW!
”

Half an hour later, Admiral of the Fleet Ashnak, upon returning to his cabin, found the door ajar. Desert Eagle pistol in hand, he kicked the cabin door open.

A male halfling, black hair showing a plentiful crop of grey, sat cross-legged on the admiral’s chair behind the desk. His black doublet and breeches and yellow ruff showed some travel stains. A rapier and dagger were visible at his waist, and there was an additional bulge under one armpit.

“Stepfather,” Will Brandiman greeted Ashnak.

The big orc slammed the cabin door shut. With a nasty gleam in his eye, he advanced on the halfling.

“Ned knows I’m here,” Will said. “I don’t know where Ned is, exactly. Something to do with Archipelago silk, I believe. Anyway, he’ll be only too pleased to tell Mother that I didn’t accidentally fall off a galley, if I don’t show up after today.”