Grunts (51 page)

“Without more ado,” the ex-Paladin cried, “High King Magorian, must I bring to your attention a most foul and despicable crime. My Lords, the other candidate in this heretical election—”

Amarynth’s brown nostrils flared. His high cheekbones coloured bronze, and he began to pant.

“That blasphemy! That
He
, the epitome of Evil, dare appear in a female form to mock my mother Goddess, the Lady of Light! Blasphemous mockery!”

Will Brandiman filled his chest and sang out resonantly, “
Amen!
” Several others of the assembled Knights Flagellant and a number of the Ferenzi nobles echoed him. And, as Will had calculated, the sound of a familiar voice recalled Amarynth to his script.

“My Lord High King, I bring to your knowledge a crime against peace and humanity, for which the perpetrator must be arrested and tried.”

The elf swept back his ragged flowing hair, his eyes blazing.

“When I was an elf of war, I laid siege to a wilderness fortress, Nin-Edin of the north. The story of that is familiar to all. The orcish filth of that fortress held out, by some devilry, until I and my army were recalled.”

One or two of the younger, more fashionably dressed Men
smiled. The beefy, gorget-wearing old campaigners watched impassively.

“We marched,” Amarynth continued, “instantly to the relief of Sarderis. Infantry and cavalry, we fell upon the remnants of the Evil Horde and freed the city. In doing so we had undertaken a forced march and come from Nin-Edin to Sarderis in a time never beaten. And—our baggage train followed. Followed us far more slowly, and with but one junior mage, because as you know, the baggage train is sacred under the rules of war.”

The Royal Hall came alive and electric with attention. Will caught Ned’s eye, and the Good Abbess grinned. The two halflings at the gallery rail then composed their faces into expressions of righteous indignation.

Amarynth Firehand dropped smartly to one knee. He had not yet, Will assumed, become accustomed to not wearing armour. Will saw the dark elf wince.

“Great King,” Amarynth fluted, “it is known far and wide that the baggage train of the Army of Light perished that day, butchered in the Red Gullies. It is known, and yet none know how. Was it deserters from the Horde, stray beasts and monsters, or even reinforcements for the orc-filth? Because all perished—and none of them, my lords, was above the age of fifteen—because all these
children
perished, there was no way to know.”

Amarynth paused.

“But now there is!”

Almost without moving his lips, Ned Brandiman murmured, “Every old theatrical trick, eh, Will?”

“If it works, don’t knock it.”

Amarynth filled his lungs and shrilled melodiously, “The atrocity was committed by the orcish filth of Nin-Edin themselves!”

The Royal Hall buzzed with voices, one or two raised in shouts, demanding answers, justice, and revenge in about equal measure. The High King Magorian’s head rolled to one side and he began to snore quietly.

Oderic stepped forward, sweeping his formal grey robes about himself. “But this is a most serious accusation, Lord Amarynth. What proof have you that this is true?”

“You ask
us
for proof?” The elf’s face contorted. “We, who are the Son of the Lady on earth?”

“I knew he’d go haywire somewhere…” Will Brandiman
rubbed his knuckles across his eyes. He sighed. About to slip out of the gallery and go down to Amarynth, he stopped as one of the Knights Flagellant moved forward, uncovering what had been concealed by his silken cloak.

In a subdued voice nonetheless audible in that silence, the knight said, “High Wizard Oderic, here is your proof.”

The wizard moved forward, leaning on his staff. Will heard a most satisfactory gasp from the assembled nobility of Ferenzia.

The Knight Flagellant had left off his steel arm-defences so that the body he cradled should suffer less pain. What he carried in his arms was a Man-child no more than nine or ten years of age. Her skull seemed swollen and her eyes huge, and her upper arms, under her shift, could have been encircled by finger and thumb. She leaned her head listlessly against his breastplate.

A scar crossed her face, shattering one eye-socket. It wept yellow fluid. At some point her hair had been red, but it had been shaved back so that the continuation of the scar across her skull could be stitched, and now the hair grew out in patches.

All her bones stood out sharp as a bird’s breastbone.

“Look!” Amarynth Firehand seized the Man-child, grotesquely, by one leg. He raised the thin limb. An angry red-and-black scar across the back of her knee showed where her hamstrings had been cut.

“They took her maidenhood.” The elf lifted the child’s chin. “Kyrial, speak. Tell what you have told to me.”

The child’s face screwed up. Water rolled out of her eye.

“The orcs lay with her,” Amarynth said, into the appalled silence, “as they lay with all: prisoners and those whom they had killed in their first attack. Kyrial, elf-friend, speak. Say how you escaped them.”

The Man-child began visibly to shake. She wore a grey shift, under which her body was bones rolling in a thin covering of skin. Her hands and feet appeared uncommonly large. She mewed.

“Say,” Amarynth persisted.

“…hid…”

The child’s voice was ugly, dissonant. The white-haired wizard approached, his face kindly.

“Speak, my dear. Where did you hide?” Oderic frowned. “You must tell us, you know.”

The child huddled against the metal breastplate of the knight.

“Where?” Oderic queried.

The Knight Flagellant tucked Kyrial’s head against his shoulder, where his cloak cushioned his armour. Soothing, he whispered something to her, then raised his head. “Sirs, she hid herself in a pile of butchered bodies, most of them companions she had grown up with, and passed as a corpse. There was no one to rescue her. She lay three nights that way.”

Amarynth said, “One hundred and fifty youngsters rode in charge of my baggage train. All were butchered. Raped, then murdered. We had thought there were no survivors. But here is Kyrial to swear, on her oath, who is responsible for the atrocity of Red Gullies. And who it is should answer for this crime against the rules of warfare.”

Will savoured the silence in the Royal Hall of Ferenzia, appreciating vicariously the frisson of horror.

Oderic, a tear rolling down his lined face, lay his hand on the Man-child’s head for a brief moment. Will caught a movement out of the corner of his eye: Perdita del Verro circling down from the far gallery for an additional close-up with a hand-held newsreel camera.

Oderic spoke up. “Poor innocent! Lord Amarynth, how came she to you now?”

The Holy One turned to his Knight Flagellant.

Prompted, the elven knight said, “She was found wandering, many months ago, my lords, by a family of dwarves. They tended to her in the mountains. She had no speech. Not until I came across her by chance did she speak and say ‘Red Gullies.’ But since then, she has refused to eat, and starves herself to death.”

At the mention of the Red Gullies the child began to cry.

“She shall be made a Ward of Ferenzia,” the High Wizard Oderic proclaimed. “We shall care for the poor child. But, my Lord Amarynth, I think you have the right of it. The best care will be to bring to justice the evil filth that did this act!”

Will whispered, “Awriiight!”

“But you have not heard all,” the Holy One, Amarynth, said. “Beloved child, speak what else remains.”

The scarred child’s head rolled back loosely.

“The name,” Amarynth prompted. “You heard the orcs
call a name, elf-friend. Speak it now. You heard them shout their leader’s name. Speak it to us now.
Speak
.”

“
Ashnak
.” An ugly, weak, but unmistakable noise. “Ashnak.”

With grim satisfaction, Amarynth held the High Wizard’s shocked gaze. He said triumphantly, “Ashnak. The orc ‘general.’ The same filthy Ashnak who is henchman to the Dark Lord—and who now acts as His campaign manager in the election to the Throne of the World.”

Riot. Every Man in the gallery turning on his neighbour and yelling, every Man in the main body of the Royal Hall clamouring for instant justice, instant vengeance.

“Get out of
that
,” Will Brandiman exulted. “He may be our stepfather, but I haven’t forgotten the dungeons of Nin-Edin.”

“No,” Ned Brandiman agreed. “No, Will. Nor have I. Brother, he should have realised. We make bad enemies.”

The stewards and officers tried in vain to restore order to the Royal Hall of Ferenzia. The High King Magorian sat up and blinked at the court. Oderic, High Wizard, rapped his mage’s staff on the granite floor.

“My lords and kings of the south! Be not hasty!”

The wizard’s white hair gleamed in a shaft of sun, slanting down from the hall’s gothic heights. He placed one arm carefully on the shoulder of the scarred child weeping in the knight’s arms. “My lords, it is hard, in the face of this, but we must beware of haste. We must beware of folly—of condemnation without proof.”

Oderic shook his head wisely.

“And so I will say this to you. We may rightly now demand of Evil that there is held, immediately—
before
the election—a tribunal. A fair and just tribunal to find out the truth of the Red Gullies atrocity and to bring the true culprit to justice. We demand the immediate arrest of the orc general Ashnak for a war crimes trial!”

The evening sun slanted level and gold across the outlying halfling suburb of Ferenzia. A large orc in urban combats, forage cap jammed between his pointed ears, regarded the round, brightly painted doorholes, the thronging hairy-footed population, and the fly-posters stuck up on all the vast oak tree boles that dotted the market square, with sour distaste. The posters all, without exception, read, “Vote for the Light!”

“Only four days to the election, sir,” Barashkukor reminded his commanding orc. “Surely She’ll let us fight the Bugs after that, sir?”

The general of the orc marines glanced down at him. Barashkukor’s chest swelled with pride in his smartly pressed green DPM combats. His polished cyborg-hand and -leg gleamed. His cyborg-eye whirred.

“It still isn’t the true Way of the Orc! All this voting and peaceful campaigning. It just isn’t
orcish
. We should be out fighting Bugs!” Marine Commissar Razitshakra took off her steel-rimmed spectacles, polished them, and put them back on her snout.

The three orcs in green DPM camouflage combats stood in the main street of the halfling district, pistols firmly holstered, assault rifles slung over hulking shoulders. The street was jammed with wagons and pony-and-traps piled high with halfling refugees from the Bug advances into the eastern kingdoms.

“Begging the general’s pardon.” Barashkukor stood even more smartly to attention. “The commissar’s right, sir. Don’t know when my marines last had a real mission, sir.”

Ashnak’s bass baritone voice grated, “Are you questioning my judgement, Lieutenant?”

The small orc paled several shades. “Sir, no sir! Wouldn’t dream of it. Just wish you’d send us out on combat missions.
Those orcs out fighting in Thyrion and Gyzrathrani and Shazmanar, they can’t hold the Bugs back forever. They need us, sir!”

“What we’re going to do,” the large orc general growled, “is win this election as fast as possible.”

“How can we do that, sir?”

Ashnak’s eyes glinted. “I may just have a dangerous mission for you
personally
, Major. Volunteers only. I
can
trust you to volunteer?”

“Erm…” Barashkukor swallowed audibly. “Yessir! You can rely on me. Erm. How dangerous
exactly
, sir?”

Razitshakra nodded her head judiciously. “Ah, the true orcish spirit. I only wish I could join you, Major Barashkukor, but my political duties keep me from the battle.”

Barashkukor looked up at his general. The large orc’s craggy face creased into an evil grin. Barashkukor snickered.

“Alternatively,” Ashnak said, laying an extremely heavy hand on Commissar Razitshakra’s shoulder, “I may just have a mission for
you
. Barashkukor, where’s that halfling?”

“Over here, sir.” The small orc walked back to the APC parked between a covered wagon and a halfling delivery cart. Ragged halflings whose belongings were scattered, abandoned, on every road from the east and south of Ferenzia, moved aside to avoid him. Tiny spurts of steam hissed from the knee-joint of his artificial leg, and a
whirr-click!
sound followed him across the road.

He heard Ashnak, behind him, remarking, “I think you’ll find that this mission accords with your political duties, Commissar. Since it’s a matter of ideology.”

“I’m your orc, sir!” Razitshakra snapped to attention, eyes gleaming behind her spectacles. “Trust me, sir, I have a firm grasp of orcish ideology. If that’s what this mission requires, I can do it! I can promote the Way of the Orc—”

“You certainly can,” Ashnak sighed.

Barashkukor clicked his way back across the dusty road, his steel hand clamped firmly on the shoulder of a fat, hairy-footed halfling. The halfling wiped sweat-plastered curls from his wet forehead.