Grunts (65 page)

The Emperor of the Jassik moved on metal-chitin limbs.
He lowered his acid-dripping jaws towards the discarded body of the female Man that lay between His feet.

“I have a
universe
to conquer!” He hissed.

The Jassik Swarm Master picked up The Named’s limp body in one foreclaw, bit her head off, and, escorted by Jassik warriors, paced regally out of the Opticon, chewing.

Will Brandiman glanced up at the sign over the door—
“Wrestling Emporium”
and, in smaller letters, “
A DIVISION OF MAGDA BRANDIMAN ENTERPRISES
”—and trotted past the bouncers into the club. A welcome fug of pipe-weed smoke and small beer hit his nostrils. He paused for a moment, eyes becoming accustomed to the dim light. There were no uncurtained windows to let the morning in.

“Ned?”

“Over here, Will.”

Halfling-sized and Man-sized tables filled most of the floor. The club’s arc-lights shone on the roped arena, on a dais, in which two mud-spattered dwarves wrestled in three inches of black slime.

“Foul!” Ned Brandiman bawled, thumping his fist on the table. His red wimple was pushed back, showing his curly brown hair and his stubbled cheeks. He grinned up at Will.

“Good, isn’t it?” he said happily.

The ex-Son of the Lady, Amarynth Firehand, also looked up from where he sat, his arm around Ned Brandiman’s redhabited shoulders. “Ah. Brother-in-law William. Do you approve?”

With a roar, the smaller of the wrestling dwarves flipped the other over, kneeling on her shoulders and rubbing the black mud into her beard. Will waited until the ringing cheers had died down before he said, “Dwarf mud wrestling, Holy One?”

“No, no. I am no longer Holy.” The elf lowered his eyes. “The Lady of Light has told me how unfit I am. Now I must wallow in sin and depravity, tasting every vice, until my knowledge of evil is perfect. Only then dare I call myself Most Holy again.”

Will reached over and poured another measure of arrack into the elf’s cup. “I feel it could take you some while, Ho—Lord Amarynth.”

“Nor am I to be called Lord, or Knight, or Paladin. I am simply Amarynth, owner of the
Azure Roc
. But,” Amarynth
said, cheering up, “at least I am able to share my new life of shame with someone for whom I care deeply.”

Ned Brandiman blushed.

“I’d like to borrow Ned for a while,” Will said, “if I may.”

“Certainly.” Amarynth lifted his dark cheek for the brown-haired halfling’s kiss, flicked through his programme, and turned back to the wrestling ring and the dwarves. He frowned. “It says here that the next act to audition involves ‘water sports.’ I still don’t see how they’re going to get a shower into the ring…”

Ashnak stood for a moment grinning an inane, stunned grin.

“Aw
riiight!
” he roared, over the tumult of the Light and Dark delegates. “You heard the Lady—from now on, I’m the boss here!”

An orcish voice shouted above the confusion, “Hail, Regent Ashnak!”

“Never!”
Oderic, High Wizard of Ferenzia, stomped forward from beside the Throne of the World. “The Light cannot accept this! We—we will crown Magorian King again!”

Sunlight blazed down into the Opticon, glaring back from the wall-maps, the bookshelves, and the rich robes of the halflings, Men, elves, and dwarves who stood up and shouted from the Light benches:

“No orcs! No orcs!”

The armed orc marines lining the walls grinned, readying their weapons.

“NO ORCS!” The same sun gleamed from the black mail, dagger-hilts, sallet helms, and dark velvet gowns of the Dark delegates: kobolds, witches, and Undead all scrambling to their feet.

Ashnak raised his beetling brows. “Whaddya
mean
, ‘no orcs’?”

The red-eyed kobold waved her dagger. “Orcs are just big and nasty. What sort of treatment will you give the rest of the Horde? You’ll just enslave us!”

“Oh, ho!” The High Wizard Oderic bellowed in triumph. “Even your own Evil side won’t accept you,
orc
!”

A gang of Trolls on the back benches began to chant, “Orcs out!” A somewhat desperate elven chorus on the opposition benches sang in counterpoint, “Bring back the Dark Lord!”

A knife shattered against the Throne of the World, beside Oderic’s hand, drawing blood and severing a tendon. Ten, twenty, fifty metallic hisses: swords drawn from their sheaths. Men in mail-shirts under their velvet robes leaped up, overturning chairs. Dark dwarf delegates upturned benches with a crash. An elvish blade flashed: a minotaur screamed: a White Mage bellowed a word of Power. An ebony spatter of blood fell on the tiles.

Dakka-dakka-dakka! FOOM!

Chaos froze. Halflings shaking their fists, dwarves standing on benches and shouting, Men using their superior lungpower to be heard: all froze into silence. The assembled Light and Dark delegates sank back into their seats, or stood among the wreckage, all eyes turned to the Throne of the World, and the great orc now sitting on it.

“Thank you, Lieutenant-Colonel.” Ashnak nodded to Dakashnit. The black orc grinned and lowered her AK47. A fine layer of plaster sifted down onto the Opticon’s library shelves. The map of Lesser Gyzrathrani now had a line of dinner-plate-size holes just above the Endless Desert.

Ashnak sat back, rumpled camouflage uniform stretching to contain his large body. He pushed his forage cap back on his head and scratched his crotch. The smell of sweating orc drifted across the Opticon. Sitting with both arms resting across his camouflage-trousered thighs, combat boots square on the Throne steps, and pistol in hand, Ashnak’s eyes swivelled down to survey the World Parliament.

“
I’m
in charge here,” he stated flatly.

Oderic spun on his heel, white hair flying, pointing to the orc marines at the door and around the walls. “We will never submit to your military dictatorship!”

The Dark kobold gibbered. “Tyrant! Dictator!”

Ashnak’s powerful head swivelled, taking in the recalcitrant kobolds of the Blasted Redoubt and the stubborn trolls of the Horde, the mutineering witches of the wastelands, and the revolting wild orcs of the mountains.

“‘Tyrant’…”

He let his gaze travel from the furious white wizard to the comatose former High King; from Shazmanar’s Snake Priests to Gyzrathrani’s wary warriors, from the elves of Thyrion to the halfling bankers of the Ferenzi suburbs, and the city stockbroker-dwarves.

“Yo! I
like
the sound of that.”

Orcish voices bawled “Yo!” across the Opticon. Marines beat the butts of their rifles against the floor. Magorian woke up long enough to mutter, “Damned greenies!”

“Let me tell all of you something about orcs.” Ashnak’s smile was almost affectionate. “If you’re born an orc, every race’s hand is against you. Every Dark Leader that happens along thinks, I need an army, what about a few thousand orcs? They’re brutal, efficient, cheap, and there’s always plenty more where they came from.”

Oderic sneered, “Foolish creature, what else is there to do with you? You live in filth, you
are
filth.”

Major-General Barashkukor stepped forward, protesting. “Anyone would think orcs lived in Pits by their own choice.”

“Dammit, we do!” Ashnak thumped his fist on the stone arm of the Throne. “I’m prone to be an orc! I came out of the Pit the nastiest, toughest object you could ever wish to see—the necromancer’s army made me a junior sergeant on the spot. I fought my way up to captain in the Horde; I’ve held command of the marines; now I’ve got the Throne of the World, and I’m keeping it! You ain’t got the orcs to kick around anymore!”

Voices screamed in unison:

“Orcs out! Orcs out! ORCS OUT!”

Ashnak gazed down at five hundred rioting Dark and Light delegates with the identical desire for dead orc in their glowering eyes.

“I don’t think it’s a popular decision, sir,” Wing Commander Chahkamnit remarked.

“I’m not asking them to like me! Time for a couple of volleys into the crowd,” Ashnak purred. “How convenient that we’ve got all the ranking delegates from the Northern and Southern Kingdoms in the same room—”

“FREEZE, MOTHERFUCKER!”

Ashnak saw first the glint of the Brandiman Enterprises camera in the gallery below the wall-maps and then the sunlight flashing from the muzzle of the sniper’s rifle beside it, held by a halfling in the red habit and wimple of a Little Sister of Mortification.

Ned Brandiman kept his eye to the sights. “Make a move, orc, and I’ll blow your heart out.”

The orcs around the Throne shuffled back from Ashnak.

He glowered and opened his mouth to bellow.

Another voice called, “Not so fast, orc!”

The Opticon fell silent. Ashnak gazed towards the open doors. A small, curly-haired figure stood in the gap, the light of the sun behind him.

The figure moved forward, black silhouette becoming a halfling in the velvet doublet and gold fillet of a Graagryk prince. The sun shone down on his black curls, streaked with grey, and his hands that he held out empty before him.

“Gentlemen,” Will Brandiman said. “Let’s be sensible about this.”

The Prince of Graagryk walked with an easy swagger, thigh-length cloak swinging with the weight of coins sewn into its hem. He kept one hand on the swept hilt of his rapier as he marched down the aisle between the benches and halted before the orc Supreme Commander. He turned to face the delegates.

“Commander Ashnak would do a fine job as Regent.” Above protests, Will added, “even though I have experience of him as my stepfather, I still say that. But—if he took the job, he’d have to kill most of you to do it. Because none of you will be ruled by an
orc
. Right?”

Yowls of agreement echoed from the Opticon’s dome. Ashnak snarled, brass-capped tusks flashing. He stood up, great-shouldered and powerful, the sun gleaming from his insignia of rank. “Asshole halflings!”

“I am,” Will Brandiman said, “a reasonable halfling. So are we all—elves and Men, kobolds and Undead—so are we all reasonable beings. Gentlemen, ladies, we’re a
Parliament
. It’s our job to debate, to discuss, to agree, to compromise. Am I right?”

Two or three voices dissented, the rest murmured agreement.

“We’re civilised people,” Will continued, striding to stand on the edge of the marble dais, a move that still didn’t put him on a level with Ashnak. The great orc glared and fingered his pistol.

“We’ve civilized people, and the days of warfare are over. Commerce needs to continue, trade needs to flourish, harvests need to be—er—harvested,” the Graagryk prince said. “I suggest we delegate the post of Regent to a compromise candidate who shall be acceptable to us all.”

A much-battered dwarf elbowed his way out of a crowd of
Undead. Zhazba-darabat drew himself up and with dignity remarked, “President.”

“Pardon?” Will said.

“Not ‘Regent,’ sir. President.”

“A compromise
President
,” the halfling reiterated, “whom we can all find acceptable.”

“I’m going to make you eat your own testicles!” Ashnak snarled.

“I knew you’d come round to my way of thinking.” Will Brandiman’s eyes flickered to the gallery.

Ashnak’s command officers went into a huddle behind the Throne. The phrase “not the Way of the Orc!” drifted out of the group. A fist went up, and came down on the commissar’s head.

“Behold!” Will shouted.

Another figure appeared in the Opticon’s doorway, silhouetted against the light.

Will bellowed, “I suggest for Ruler—President—of the World, one whose allegiances are to both the Dark
and
the Light. People of the South and North, give your support to the one best able to preside over a World Parliament and a Federation of All Races.”

The figure became a short-haired halfling in a smart dovecoloured executive suit and gloves, high heels tapping as she walked down between the rows of benches.

Ned Brandiman cried from the gallery, “Magdelene of Graagryk!”

Ashnak strode out to the centre of the floor, furiously chewing his cigar, and glaring down at Magda Brandiman.

“See!” the female halfling cried, before Ashnak could speak. “Ashnak the Great Peacemaker concedes to the forces of democracy!”

There was a silence. The Dark delegates looked at each other, and then at the Light delegates. The Light delegates looked at High King Magorian, and then at each other. They all looked at Ashnak.

“Long live President Magda!”
Albert van der Klump, shop steward, took off his top hat and unhooked his thumb from the armhole of his waistcoat, and waved his fat cigar enthusiastically. Cornelius Scroop, Chancellor-Mage of Graagryk, and Militia Captain Simone Vanderghast pounded the backs of the seats in front, starting a roar of applause that spread rapidly across the Parliament.

Scanning the benches, Ashnak began to count the many, many faces who had at one time or another been customers of Magda Brandiman Enterprizes, Ltd.

“Well, my love.” The female halfling held up her pipe-weed holder for him to light her thin cigar. “That was the longest twenty minutes of my life…”

His pointed ears ringing with the cheers reverberating through the Opticon, Ashnak stared through the many hats tossed into the air. The gallery was empty now.

“Just to get your attention, my love,” Magda apologised sadly. “No one will ever accept the rule of an orc. You know that. Prejudice is stronger than guns.”

“But—!”

The great orc’s shoulders fell very slightly.

He nodded to his edgy troops to stand down.

As delegates across the Opticon sat down, or recovered their chairs and benches and sat down, Magda Brandiman turned to the House.

“I don’t look on this as a position of power,” she said, her rich voice echoing. “I’m thinking of it as a business opportunity. Factories, industrial bases—
all
the kingdoms can be as rich as Graagryk! Everyone can share the economic boom!”

Magda drew on her pipe-weed and expelled a plume of smoke.

“And pleasure is my business, too. If we work at it, we can make this land the pleasure capital of the world! There are whole territories in the Black East and the Drowned Lands of the West to be opened up. We
can
build a city worthy of the name, and we can all share in its riches! And no more of this antiquated Dark and Light nonsense—it’s bad for investment.”