“They’re staying right here,” the big orc said. “Nobody leaves.
We
got no secrets. C’mon, wizard, get your ass in gear! And by the way—have you got a light?”
Oderic caused the orc’s cigar to bloom a small ember of flame. “Well? What can you have to say to us?”
The orc ambled forward into the room, bandy-legged, grinning as only an orc can. “As marine military ambassador, may I present to you—the Death of Empires, the Blight of Man, the Heresy of Elvenkind, the One Who Lays Waste to Worlds…the Dark Lord of the East!”
Someone screamed.
A hubbub of voices rose, sound flattened by the draped walls. Corinna’s elvishly musical tones sounded clearly:
“It can’t be! He’s dead. I was there at the Fields of Destruction when we slew Him!” The small half-breed leaned up to whisper to Oderic, “Was that the warning they brought you? It can’t
be
, I tell you!”
“Peace,” Oderic commanded sternly. “It will be an imposter, of course.”
He witnessed Corinna’s elf-gold eyes widen. “
No
…”
The High Wizard Oderic turned to face the double doors, his last hope gone.
A young female stood there, of a stature tall among Men. Shadows clung to Her yellow hair that was bobbed level with Her chin. Shadows haunted the folds of Her fine metal-ring robe. Her smooth face held a porcelain calm. She did not raise Her head.
Oderic’s bones chilled.
Eight orc marines surrounded Her, green bulging muscles gleaming in the remaining candlelight, bald heads and ears shining. They stood shoulder to shoulder, facing outwards. The large orc, Ashnak, snarled the incomprehensible phrase “muzzle sweep!” and the orc warriors immediately lifted the metal sticks to point away from him. They pointed them at the crowd of Ferenzi nobility instead.
“Odo, send them away!” Magorian protested, tugging the wizard’s sleeve. “Can’t have my royal hall full of damned spear-chuckin’ greenies from bongo-bongo land. Get rid of ’em! Don’t know what the world’s coming to; greenies starting getting above themselves. And who’s that damned fine woman? Nice filly, but she’s hardly dressed for my royal court.”
The elderly wizard snapped testily, “That is the Dark Lord, whom we thought to be dead!”
“Really?” Uninterested, Magorian clutched the arm of his squire and began limping back towards his canopied throne. “Wasn’t like this at the Battle of Moonheart. Mowed ’em down in ranks, we did.
Hordes
of spear-chucking greenies…”
Before Oderic could restrain her, Corinna Halfelven strode out of the crowd. She glared up—and up—at the tall shape of the female Man. “
Die, vile creature of Darkness!
”
All the windows along the assembly hall shattered inwards. A wind icy as the heights above mountains soared in.
Oderic felt the Powers of the Air, which are vast as the world, press into the palace, masonry groaning at the pressure.
Corinna Halfelven, at the centre of the power vortex, threw out one long-gloved hand and pointed her finger at the heart of the Dark Lord. Her other hand held up the petticoats of her ballgown. Wood-ash pale hair floated about her tiny aquiline face. She cried out in the elvish tongue an incantation older than the glaciers. The Powers of the Air poised at her command.
The Dark Lord, Her voice gentle, said, “No, I don’t think so.”
A smear of grease smoked on the marble floor tiles of the Royal Assembly Hall of Ferenzia—all that remained of the halfling mage.
The Dark Lord stepped delicately over it on bare feet, light from the remaining candles sliding down Her metal-mesh robe. Glints of black light flashed. She raised Her chin, bobbed yellow hair swinging.
“A mage-assassin. The Light has grown hypocritical of late. No matter. It does not harm me. Being dead has, I think, been good for My evil magic.”
Oderic broke the shocked, impressed silence by snapping his fingers. Halfling servants in brown waistcoats, with their shirtsleeves rolled up, pushed through the crowd with mops and cloths, and cleared what remained of Corinna Halfelven from the floor.
“Be swift,” he directed, “but reverent.”
A chill walked down the knobs of Oderic’s spine. He recognised the Dark Lord’s impatience. Battle-hardened, he took his time in turning.
Four orcs clustered tightly around the Dark Lord, blocking the crowd’s sight of Her. The other four split into pairs, heavy metal sticks slung across their backs, and shoved between frock-coated Men, tearing down the few remaining drapes and lace curtains to expose the night-view of Ferenzia beyond the palace windows, and secreting abandoned champagne bottles about their persons. The Ferenzi nobility complained in precise, hysterical accents about “green barbarians.” Oderic kept the same disgust, icy and strong, from showing on his lined features.
“Dark Master.” The big orc knelt formally. “The Royal Assembly of Ferenzia hears you.”
The four orcs with Her knelt, covering the crowd.
Formless Darkness coalesced in Her eyes. The tall, straight young woman raised Her head. A dryness, as of ancient dust, caught in the throats of Men, and those nearest Her grew age-lines in their faces that they never, from that day forwards, lost.
She rested Her hands, lightly, on the shoulders of two armed, kneeling orcs. The assembled nobility of the Light shaded their eyes from Her darkness. Her voice spoke into the silence.
“You thought you had defeated Me at the Fields of Destruction. Poor warriors! Poor mages! Instead you have made Me more strong. For I have died and lived, and what is more strong than that which can overcome death? You think that you have the world in your hands, after that battle. You think the Ages of the World have turned.”
Now laughter, so quiet that Oderic shuddered. To win so great a victory against such hopeless odds, with such sacrifice, and now to see it all to do again…In the crowd, Men wept.
“If I wish, I am strong enough to take the world from you. If I wish, there will be a battle that is truly the last, for after it no Man, no beast, no blade of grass will stir on this unbreathing world. If I wish, I can still the heart in your breast and the breath in your body, merely by My wishing it. If I wish.”
Oderic swayed. Of the heroes of the Light assembled together in the halls of Ferenzia, only he remained on his feet. Sweat rolled down his old Man’s face.
“It was not
meant
that you should come here and throw this filth in our faces,” the wizard snapped. His bony hand fluttered at his throat and his lips turned blue.
“Was it not?” The Dark Lord seemed unmoved. “But I do not wish to destroy the world in gaining it. It will be more entertaining for Me if it is whole. And therefore…I will step down into the world and compete with you all, upon your terms, in equal contest for election to the Throne of the World.”
Oderic, in the silence that followed, could
feel
the puzzlement of four hundred and fifty Men.
“‘Election’?” The High Wizard got his breath. “That heresy! I might have expected
that
from the Lord of Darkness!
Who can You say is qualified to elect a candidate to the Throne of the World?”
The Dark Lord, an ancient smile on Her lips, merely inclined Her head slightly. Her big orc got to his feet. Fists on hips, he grinned at Oderic.
“Who qualifies? The same ‘who’ that would have fought at the next Last Battle, that’s who! That means
everybody
, sucker. Everybody from Men to elves; from hill-giants to halflings!”
The wizard stared testily at the orc.
“Some of my best friends are halflings,” Oderic said, appalled beyond belief, “but really:
no
. If you once allow halflings—good people though they may be—a say in the councils of the wise, then the next thing you know, we’ll be asked to consult trolls, witches, werewolves…Lady save us, even orcs and necromancers! It just won’t do, I say.”
The halfling servants paused in mopping the tiles, looked at each other, and murmured, “‘E’s right, you know, that there wizard. We know our place, see if we don’t.”
Oderic finished, “We can never agree to it! You’re mad!”
“I ain’t mad.” The orc switched the pipe-weed cigar to the other corner of his tusked mouth and blew a lopsided smoke-ring. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m mad.
Okay, you guys, listen up!
You heard the Dark Lord. That’s the way it’s going to be!”
Oderic lifted his head, white hair flowing back over his tweed collar. He caught the eye of others in the crowd—the Lords of Goistan, Lalgrenda, and Istan; Shugbar, Vendivil, Kaanistad, and Hurost. Old companions, who had been carefree soldiers of fortune or wandering mages and who now ruled the estates they had been rewarded with in Ferenzia. Their waists were thickening, they might be more intent on politics now than on drinking or questing, but he saw agreement in their eyes.
“I suppose it was already too late for us,” Oderic said, “when You survived Samhain. I am an old and foolish man, and I should have guessed. I failed. But this remains to me—I will die before I obey one order of the Dark Lord! I speak for every Man here. We can yet go into the afterlife with honour. Do Your worst!”
Cheers rang in the shattered room. Those few Men who had got to the weapons in the cloakroom clashed spear against shield and loosened their tight evening collars.
The Dark Lord’s long-lashed eyelids lifted. Her eyes glowed orange. The hall quieted. Wrapped in a pride as cold as the tiles upon which Corinna Halfelven had died, the Dark Lord of the East regarded Her ancient foes. Oderic saw that She would no longer condescend to explain, much less beg.
“Gentlemen…” The orc, Ashnak, stepped a few paces closer to the crowd. He put his short metal stick in a holster on his belt, and stretched out his open hands.
The sight of an orc willingly disarming itself, rather than bloodily flinging itself into the defenceless crowd, axe-blade swinging, got the attention of the assembled dignitaries, ambassadors, and ministers.
“Gentlemen. Ladies. I know I am an orc,” he said gruffly, “but I appeal to you to hear me. Most of you may already know—we have another enemy on our borders. A terrible enemy. We must unite to fight! We’re facing a geopolitical conflict that makes nonsense of distinctions between Light and Dark. I assure you, gentlemen, we’re all on the same side now.”
A babble of curiosity rose in the Assembly Hall. The orc field marshal reached up, pulled off his helmet, and scratched at his ears. Seeming curiously unprotected, standing between the nobility of Ferenzia and the silent Dark Lord, the orc spoke again.
“I am a plain soldier,” Ashnak said, “and I have always respected the Light as a brave opponent. Now we face a force which is vicious, unstoppable, and vile. Men of the Light, your virtues are well known. Trust me when I say they’ll slow you down and weaken you in the face of an enemy who doesn’t know what mercy or kindness means.”
“What enemy?” a Ferenzi lord demanded.
The hall full of Men in evening dress clutched at their hastily recovered weapons and pressed forward in shouting groups. Orc warriors lowered their fire-sticks. The big orc struck one warrior’s fire-stick up to point at the chandeliers.
“
This
enemy!” The big orc felt in a large pouch attached to his jacket. He lifted something out, raised his arm, and threw it down on the floor. It cracked. People flinched away, then crowded near.
“Recognise that?” The orc bared brass-capped tusks. “Lost any outlying settlements recently?” Mysterious disappearances? Parties of adventurers gone missing?”
Oderic hitched up the knees of his tweed trousers before squatting to see exactly what was encased in the transparent envelope the orc had thrown down. When he recognised the chitinous fragments, he had to use his staff purely as a stick to help him rise.
“The…the Black Claw! It is a true token,” the High Wizard admitted brokenly. “The Light’s mages have been secretly combating this menace for
days
. But we are not of sufficient strength to defeat it!”
The orc grinned.
“If you good guys can’t handle it, then let us badass orc bastards do it for you! If you elect my Dark Master as War Leader—purely for the duration of this emergency—then I can mobilise the entire forces of the orc marines, elite corps and reserves, on your side. Without a War Leader, you’ll fall into confusion, quarrel among yourselves, while these monsters ravage your homes. We must have this election, and we must have it soon!”
A voice from the back of the wrecked hall cheered, “Yes!”
“Preposterous!” a fat woman in satin snarled, and a silken-cloaked man beside her protested, “How can we trust them?”
Another voice called, “It’s our only chance!”
In the great hall the Ferenzi nobility squabbled among themselves. A number gathered around the canopied throne, harassing the half-asleep High King Magorian. And as is the way with half-breed mages, no matter how they may seem to be accepted into polite society, Corinna Halfelven’s murder was not officially protested. The High Wizard Oderic felt suddenly bent with age.
“The plans of evil are cunning,” he whispered, watching the hall full of milling people: how they forgot and turned their backs on the strange orc warriors, how they tolerated in that smashed audience chamber the presence of Darkness Incarnate.
“You think
you
got problems.” The orc field marshal dropped his pipe-weed cigar and crushed it under one heavy boot. His pit-deep eyes gleamed at Oderic.
“
I
got two of them on my back. Not that
he’s
much, compared to Her. I can hack it. And She may be well out to lunch, but yours is out to lunch, dinner, and breakfast the following day…”
Oderic brushed pipe-weed ash from his tweed jacket, his piercing blue gaze searching out the High King Magorian. Ashnak and the High Wizard Oderic exchanged the kind of glance that ensues between the servants of masters who are, for one reason or another, somewhat unpredictable.
Ashnak added, “
And
I got you Light guys on my back and my marines getting chewed up in the boonies. Bitchin’, ain’t it?”
The emergency backup magical spells cut in, and the Assembly Rooms’ lights whirred into action. Small magics began to mend the drapes, reglaze the windows, and replenish the buffet table. Halfling servants brought ladies their fans, gloves, and cantrips from the cloakrooms.