Grunts (66 page)

“MAGDA! MAGDA!
We want Magda!
WE WANT MAGDA!”

Will swept the velvet cap from his greying curls, leading the cheers that rang out until they shook the dust from the Opticon’s bookshelves. Magda went into the crowd, shaking hands and smiling professionally.

“Shee-it!” Ashnak reached up and wrenched his jacket collar open. Buttons spanged off and lost themselves on the marble tiles.

The High Wizard Oderic hitched up his long white robes
and sat down on a corner of the dais beside Ashnak. Dispiritedly he conjured a pipe, pipe-weed, and a match.

“That does it! I’m—
hkk! hakkk! hk!
—I’m retiring.” The High Wizard glared up at the orc. “I’ve had enough. Going to write my book. Always said I would; now I will.”

Ashnak fingered one hairy nostril. “What book’s that, then?”

“The history of an Age,” Oderic said, puffing smoke-rings that lurched, lopsided, into the air. “I’m going to tell the
real
story about halflings, orcs, the Dark Lord, and the final victory. The halflings are going to be cheery and moral and know their place; the orcs will be cowardly, and they’ll lose; there won’t be
any
mention of arms trading, and at the end of it the Dark Lord will be male, and very, very dead!”

The great orc suddenly snorted. “Nahhh.”

The white wizard coughed, and finally smiled. “But you see, master orc, Good
is
triumphant. In a somewhat unorthodox manner, I grant you, but nonetheless—Order is restored.”

“Bah!” Ashnak stomped away across the Opticon.

“…But it’s disgraceful,” Political Commissar Razitshakra protested, pointing at the orcs who, with assault rifles slung across their shoulders, were happily mingling with the parliamentary delegates. “The grunts don’t seem to mind peace at all!”

“Hey, m’man.” Lieutenant-Colonel Dakashnit’s rich tones echoed under the domed roof. “Soldiering’s much more fun when no one’s shooting at you.”

“Supreme Commander, sir!” Lugashaldim saluted skeletally. “Sir, Madam President Magdelene has asked if myself and Commissar Razitshakra can be seconded to her, sir, on temporary duties. She wants us to head her secret police.”

“Police?” Ashnak exclaimed.

“Uniformed officers of visible integrity who keep the government in power,” Razitshakra explained. “She’s not having any of them, sir. Just secret police. That’s the same as regular police, but without the uniforms and the integrity.”

The great orc sighed gloomily.

“Got some news, man.” Dakashnit saluted lazily. “Seems as how not all of the Bugs have left with the starship. But
no need to worry, S.C. It’s Hive Commander Kah-Sissh and his squad who’ve stayed. They want training.”

“They want our training?” Ashnak asked.

“Yes sir! Well—that and the tea. Permission to turn ’em into Bug marines, S.C.?”

Ashnak growled, “Hell, why not? What does it matter now?”

He tugged at the crotch of his combats. Then he reached across, removed Major-General Barashkukor’s braid-encrusted peaked cap, and tapped his cigar ashes into it.

“Didn’t want to be World Ruler
any
way,” Ashnak grunted. “It’s a Staff job.”

“Ah. Stepfather…”

Will Brandiman, standing just out of orc’s reach, cricked his neck to look the great orc in the face.

“You little rat!” Ashnak hissed.

The halfling beamed up at the orc who towered over him. “Think of this as being our revenge on you, Ned and I, for the dungeons of Nin-Edin.”

“Damn you!”

“Quite probably,” Will agreed. “But the moral is—don’t fuck us over. Ever. Halflings have long memories, master orc. But you’ll have enough time to think about that. Since you’re not going to be occupied with world government.”

The great orc stood under the circular hole in the Opticon’s roof, bathed in sunlight. A slight odourous steam rose from him. He wiped his nose, and his eyes glinted as they fixed on the colonel-duchess.

“Hellfire! She didn’t take much persuading to do this,” Ashnak said bitterly.

The halfling raised a small eyebrow. “She didn’t take much persuading to save your ass. She didn’t take much persuading to do the only thing that would stop you being lynched. Oh, and you would have been lynched—Ned and I would have made sure of that. But…”

Will Brandiman waved his hand at the Opticon floor below the Throne of the World. Five hundred Dark and Light Parliamentary delegates elbowed each other in the rush to speak to Magda.

Orcs in camouflage fatigues with assault rifles stood in clusters, at ease, drinking from their water bottles. Each grunt carried with ease the weight of weapons, spare magazines, and grenades.

“If you’re so pissed off,” Will said softly, “waste her. You’re armed. You could still stage a violent coup. But you’ll have to take Mother out first. So go ahead—do it.”

The orc did not move.

“You’re a marine.” Will’s tongue flayed. “That’s what marines do, isn’t it. Go ahead!
Take
power.”

The strings of the halfling’s ruff already trailed loose. He scratched irritably at the embroidery-stiffened collar of his doublet. Will looked towards the Order of the White Mages’ wizards shuffling about in the background, hastily repossessing the onyx and diamond crown. A priest of the Sun gabbled his way through the coronation oath.

“I can’t.” Ashnak shoved his hand deep in his combat jacket pocket, brought out another cigar, and bit off the end. He spat on the Opticon’s tiled floor. “Damn it, halfling,
I can’t
.”

“That’s what I thought,” Will said smugly. “Villains always fall short of the mark at the end.”

“Fuck off and
die
.”

Ashnak straightened his shoulders, chewed his unlit cigar, and watched as, to the cheers of both sides of the House, in the Opticon of Ferenzia, upon a Throne older than cities, Magdelene Amaryllis Judith Brechie van Nassau of Graagryk, Duchess and Colonel, took her place as President of the United Northern and Southern Kingdoms and effective Ruler of the World.

The autumn sun burned the dew off the stone walls inside Ferenzia’s colossal stadium, the largest in the Southern Kingdoms. The cheering grew louder as the
whup-whup-whup
of a Bell Iroquois HU1 helicopter thrummed above the velvet-draped stone tiers. The roar of the marine march-past and All Forces victory tournament echoed to the skies. A single-prop Ferenzi airship puttered in, wavering as the Huey passed it, sporting a contingent of elf musketeers.

“My hero!” a northern dwarf breathed, her hands clasped to the breast of her shining mailcoat, over her rippling beard.

Major-General Barashkukor, in formal black combats and Stetson, strode forward from among a crowd of dwarf and halfling females, flowers in their beards and hair, respectively. They scattered rose petals over the small orc and blew kisses.

He waved the mob away as he approached Madam President Magdelene’s box, and saluted his Honorary Colonel. “Magnificent show, ma’am.”

The World President sat on the straight-backed chair overlooking the arena, her many advisors one row behind. The female halfing wore a peach-coloured executive suit and gloves and a small hat with a spotted veil.

“Make the most of it, Major-General. It’s probably the last one.” Magda Brandiman regarded the sunny ranks of citizens with a jaundiced eye. “The House had the nerve to pass the Marine Reserve Force (Disbandment) Bill today. Not a thing I could do. The defence budget is slashed by 50 percent because the marines are ‘uneconomic’ without a war.”

“We could always start one, ma’am,” Barashkukor suggested thoughtfully.

“With what?” She leaned her chin on her hand. “You’re running low on equipment from Dagurashibanipal’s hoard,
and arms factory production is being cancelled from the beginning of next month.”

“Oh.”

“My sons have left the city,” Magda sighed. “Last heard remarking that they’d robbed the Blasted Redoubt, outwitted the Dark Lord, and out-thought the marines, so what is there left to do? There are no worthy adventures left for them.”

She cast a sardonic eye up at the orc.

“I know how they feel, Major-General.
I
miss adventuring. I haven’t done anything seriously illegal for months. Only politics, and every politician is crooked, so that hardly counts. You see, it’s become my business to support the status quo. More and more responsibility piled on…That means it’s me who has to worry about whether Ashnak—”

She broke off in mid-sentence.

The small orc smoothed down the bare breast of his tunic.

“Would have liked a medal,” he said. “Sure General Ashnak would have awarded me one, if circumstances hadn’t intervened.”

His lower lip began to quiver.

Magda waved her advisors away and leaned forward. “Tell Magda all about it?” she invited.

Barashkukor sniffed. “I’m worried about my beloved general, ma’am! He’s up north in the Nin-Edin fort,
brooding
, he won’t give the marines orders, he just shuts himself up all the time, and now—”

“He’s either going to retire gracefully or he’s going to wreak bloody revenge,” the World President said. “I know which my money’s on. It’s me who has to worry about it. And…Barashkukor, I haven’t seen or heard from Ashnak in a month.”

The small orc wiped his nose.

“You have now, ma’am. That’s why I’m here. I’ve just had a message through from the north. It wasn’t very clear, ma’am. The general is calling a meeting, wants you there too—he says he’s going to make some kind of an announcement.”

Magda bit her lip.

“Call that Huey down,” the colonel-duchess ordered. “Whatever it is, I wouldn’t like us to get there too late.”

The Demonfest Mountains rose higher to either side as Wing Commander Chahkamnit swung the Huey up from Sarderis
and through the Nin-Edin pass. Fog clung to the peaks. Water spattered the viewscreen. Visibility decreased as they contour-flew the pass up to Nin-Edin. The wind blowing through the helicopter was icy.

“Splendidly bracing, ma’am, what?” Chahkamnit bellowed from under goggles and ear-flapped flying helmet.

“Cold enough to freeze a rock-troll’s ass,” Magda snarled. “Didn’t Ashnak’s message say
anything
else, Major-General?”

Barashkukor held on his Stetson by main force. “No, Colonel, ma’am. Only that he wants all of us here, right now.”

In the main body of the Huey, CIA Chief Lugashaldim, Master Sergeant Varimnak, and Lieutenant-Colonel Dakashnit sat morosely jammed elbow to elbow. Commissar Razitshakra read a tattered paperback. It was not clear whether she had been summoned or had merely attached herself to keep an eye open for examples of unorcish behaviour.

Crump!

“Nice landing, Wing Commander.” Magda swung herself down from the Huey’s cockpit. The machine stood, less than levelly, on the earth of Nin-Edin’s outer bailey. A gothic mist swirled around the battlements and poured down from the mountains, hiding the inner keep and the outer gate.

“Brings back memories, ma’am,” Barashkukor said, disembarking with the other officers. His eyes shone. “First time I ever handled a marine weapon, it was right here in this compound. Me and Marukka and Duranki and Azarluhi…all dead now, ma’am. Fallen on the field of battle.”

Barashkukor dusted his small snout violently on his sleeve. “Wonder if it wouldn’t have been better, ma’am, if the general could have found an honourable death in a firefight…”

Magda glared at the snivelling orc. “No, it bloody well wouldn’t!”

“Falling in battle is the Way of the Orc, ma’am,” Commissar Razitshakra observed, putting her paperback in her greatcoat pocket and wiping the fog from her dripping peaked ears and round spectacles. “The Way of the Orc doesn’t say anything about reserve lists, pensions, or retired marine officers. Or anything about sulking—”

“As far as I’m concerned, Commissar,” Dakashnit
drawled, “you can shove that up your ass and whistle Dixie!”

The halfling and the group of orcs tramped up the hill towards the inner walls and the shattered gate that still stood unrepaired, although now a section of marines guarded it. Magda heard Master Sergeant Varimnak sigh.

“Remember the siege?” The Badgurlz marine elbowed Lugashaldim in his stripped ribs. “Hell, man, that was good! That elf—she could swing a whip like she’d been
born
to it.”

The Undead orc took off his dark glasses, gazing up at the battle-stained keep now visible through the shifting fog. “
I
remember the Fourgate commando mission and how brave General Ashnak was. He wouldn’t hear any arguments—he insisted on returning to this besieged fort, no matter what the personal danger…”

Commissar Razitshakra made a note in her book, muttering something about not quite remembering it that way. Lugashaldim ignored her. He patted Magda’s arm with a gloved skeletal hand.

“Ma’am, to think he should come to this. Skulking in a garrison in the middle of nowhere; drinking, I expect, and…”

At her other side, Chahkamnit stuffed his flying goggles in his bomber jacket pocket and crouched down to put his arm around Magda’s shoulders. “I say, ma’am, I wouldn’t give any of that a thought if it was me. The old general’s ticketty-boo, take my word for it. He’d never do anything silly.”