“Oh, good!” Magorian brightened. “If he’s sent down, then all of those damned greenies will leave. That means property prices in the Royal Quarter will stop falling. Guilty!”
The bald dwarf prosecutor stood up at his desk. “No, sire, we have to hold the trial first. Then we can hang him.”
The High King subsided into his robes, blue-veined hands shaking, and gestured at no one in particular. “Let the case begin!”
“Your justicular Majesty,” the dwarf began, walking out onto the floor of the courtroom. He turned to the jury box. “Distinguished citizens of Ferenzia.” He turned towards the gallery seats. “Lovers of justice. I am Zhazba-darabat of the Deep Mountain, and I appear for the prosecution. Today you will hear the details of a most heinous crime. The orc before you—”
Zhazba-darabat’s gnarled finger stabbed up at Ashnak, lounging in his chair at the defense’s desk.
“—this orc, most trusted general of Her Dark Majesty, an orc long experienced in the hardships of war, stands accused of the greatest offense a soldier can commit. Citizens, this orc has committed a massacre of helpless civilian baggage-handlers, against all the civilised rules of warfare. He has butchered witnesses to his crime. And he has interfered with the running of the great Election to the Throne of the World, to wit, by causing explosive atrocities among the voting population.”
“Objection!” Barashkukor bounded to his feet.
Magorian looked down at the small orc. “Ah. Um. On what grounds does the counsel for the defence object?”
Major Barashkukor frowned. “He shouldn’t say that sort of thing about my general!”
Magorian’s sandy eyebrows raised. “Well, I admit, it does seem a little harsh…What?” The High King held a hand cupped to his ear as the Man clerk of the court whispered. “Ah. It appears that counsel for the prosecution is obliged to do this. Well, well.” He beamed encouragingly. “I shall make sure you have your turn later on, Major, have no fear of that.”
The dwarf prosecutor sighed and wiped his face with a large handkerchief. Ashnak gave him a wide, unnerving grin. At his imperceptible hand-signal the orc marines in the gallery began to crash the butts of their rifles against the floor.
“WE WANT ASHNAK! LET THE GENERAL SPEAK!”
The Order of White Mages moved across the floor of the courtroom in a businesslike manner, and the High King Magorian picked up his judge’s gavel and banged it down with a fine disregard for aim “Order! Order!”
“Mine’s a pint!” a very small orc grunt in the front row yelped.
“Oh, good grief.” An enormous orc sergeant leaned down from behind and brought his fist down smartly on the grunt’s skull. The grunt’s long ears jolted bolt upright, then wavered and crossed as the small orc subsided to the floor.
Marine Commissar Razitshakra, who had been sitting next to the grunt, looked at the bench beside her. “This seat needs cleaning—pass me a halfling.”
After a small scuffle, one of the halfling ushers was seized and passed hand-to-hand, protesting, over the orc marines’ heads, down to Razitshakra. She wiped the leather cushion first with its curly hair and then with its hairy feet. “Anyone want this seat?”
Lieutenant Chahkamnit looked down from three rows above. “Er. No. Not right now.”
The marine commissar scowled. “Anyone want this halfling, then?”
“Nah,” a corporal said. “It’s been used.”
“I’ve got a roll to put him in,” a hopeful voice remarked from the back row.
“Silence!” The captain of the White Mages let go a bolt of fire that singed the ceiling and had the Ferenzi citizens cowering in their seats. The unimpressed orc marines looked at Ashnak and, at his signal, subsided.
“Your Majestic Honour,” the White Mage protested, her blonde hair swinging as she spun to face the bench, “you simply cannot allow that rabble to behave like this!”
“Mmph?” The High King looked up from doodling with a griffin’s-feather pen on his notepad. “Is that all the case for the prosecution?”
Prosecuting counsel Zhazba-darabat marched across the courtroom floor to the bench, stepping over a number of cables marked “OFFICIAL DO NOT REMOVE.” The dwarf stared up at the edge of the bench, with no line of sight to the judge. “Your Honour—”
“What?” Magorian blinked rheumy eyes, gazing around. “Has the little fella finished? You, orc, whatever your name is. Do your bit.”
Barashkukor bounded to his feet again. “Objection!”
“What is it this time?”
“I’m not ready yet.”
Magorian glowered. “State your case, greenie. And make it quick. I want my dinner.”
Ashnak shifted in his chair, the metal bulk of the Colt .45 pressing against his spine. Through slitted eyes he watched the mages of the Light.
“M’lud.” Barashkukor straightened up from behind the defence’s desk. He exchanged his peaked cap for a horsehair wig whose long side-flaps dangled down to his web-belt. “M’lud, the defence’s case is as follows. General Ashnak didn’t do it, it wasn’t him, and besides he was somewhere else at the time! I would now like to call a character witness.”
Magorian’s sandy eyebrows raised. “Oh…very well.”
Barashkukor marched out into the floor of the court. “Call Lugbash!”
A halfling usher opened the doors and bawled down the corridor. “Call Lugbash!”
A distant voice echoed: “CALL LUGBASH…”
Ashnak leaned one muscular arm over the back of his chair and spoke to marine Commissar Razitshakra in the gallery’s front row. “Who the fuck is Lugbash?”
Before the commissar could answer, a hunched orc in a ragged dress and shawl hobbled into the court. Barashkukor gallantly offered her his steel arm as she climbed up into the witness stand.
“I remember Ashnak,” she crooned without provocation. “’E were a lovely little orc, ’e were. I was his nanny, you know, the dear sweet thing.”
Barashkukor clasped his hands behind his back. “And in your opinion, Nanny Lugbash, is your charge capable of committing the acts of which he is accused?”
“What, my dear little Nakkie?” The orc’s shawl slipped and she grabbed at it, but not before Ashnak had caught sight of a lantern jaw and corporal’s chevrons. “Of course ’e couldn’t, dearie. Never did anyone any harm, and such a good little orc. Always ate his meals. Ate the plate, come to that. And the dog…”
“No further questions,” Barashkukor said hastily. “I would now like to call as a further character witness Biotech-Captain Ugarit—”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Ashnak growled.
“—No, I wouldn’t. Erm.” The orc major turned on his heel. The ends of his wig flew out, swatting a halfling usher. He strode back to the desk. “I will now claim precedent!”
“’Nakkie,” indeed!” Ashnak rested his hand across his eyes as Barashkukor busied himself digging out a heap of tomes. The faint knocking of the gallows-maker’s hammer became more pronounced.
“Don’t think it’ll work,” a dubious orc voice remarked in the square outside. “That crosspiece is far too high. And look at that strut. Shoddy workmanship, I calls it.”
“Rubbish!” another orc proclaimed. “Superb piece of execution engineering.”
“Sez ’oo?”
Ashnak glanced out of the window as the work-Man stood to one side, avoiding the orcs swinging punches at each other.
“Kind of you to say so, gentlesirs. Most kind,” the Man said, tucking another hammer away on a loop on his carpenter’s apron. Ashnak heard the Man add under his breath, “When it comes to gallows, everyone’s a h’expert…”