CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKK!
White plasma-fire split the dust and exploded against the cliff in front. One-handed, Major Barashkukor spun the wheel. The jeep swerved violently, successfully avoided the landslip, and jolted on towards the rear of the orc marine company.
“For you, Commander.” The RT orc passed the handset over to Ashnak.
“Lieutenant Chahkamnit here, sir. I say, what an absolutely cracking good show this is, sir!”
Ashnak chewed his cigar. “What’s your position, Lieutenant?”
“Directly over yours, sir.”
The big orc caught hold of a strut and leaned out of the jeep, gazing up at a blue afternoon sky that appeared completely empty. “Can’t see you, Chahkamnit.”
“No, sir, of course you can’t. I’m piloting the stealth dragon, sir.”
Barashkukor’s cyborg-eye whirred into the infrared. While his orc-eye watched the road, his lens swivelled to study the heat-outlined shape of a dragon large enough to cover Ferenzia itself.
“Painted it with blue radar-reflective paint,” the major approved. “Smart idea, sir.”
Ashnak spat out the remnants of his chewed cigar. “Take her down, Lieutenant Chahkamnit. Start giving me some fighter ground-attack!”
Another voice spluttered from the RT handset:
“Hai-yah, yo! Comin’ in NOW!”
The jeep swerved wildly as both Ashnak and Barashkukor attempted to watch the sky and the road simultaneously. The small orc pointed with his orc-hand, steering with the metal one.
“There, sir!”
A squadron of winged white horses wheeled over the hills in perfect formation. Stark against the blue sky were the Hellfire missiles under each wing. Their riders, mail byrnies flashing in the sun, the wind whipping the fur of their leggings and their long yellow braids, dug their heels into the flanks of the pegasi, urging them on with shrieks and cries.
“Going in!”
The Valkyrie Marines peeled off and pitched down towards the plain. A laser-guided missile fired and left a searing trail across the sky. A bolt of blue light leaped up from the plain’s dust. The Valkyrie Marines folded their wings as one, dived for speed, and came in low and hard over the target area. A female voice crackled over the RT:
“Dah dah-dah DAH dah, Dah dah-dah DAH dah…”
Barashkukor dragged the jeep’s wheel round and steered behind a granite ridge, jouncing out into sunlight at the end of it. His commanding officer’s hand smacked him smartly across the back of the head. His helmet rang.
“—and stop when I tell you!” The great orc leapt from the slowing jeep and loped across to a squad of grunts at the end of the ridge. Sun glinted through the ribs of the Special Undead Services.
“Give me a sit-rep,” Supreme Commander Ashnak demanded.
Lieutenant Lugashaldim saluted, skeletal fingers touching his rotting beret. The lenses of his sunglasses reflected unearthly shapes in their curve.
“Setting up a crack sniper squad here, sir.” The lich orc marine indicated the rest of the Undead grunts nestling into hollows in the rock, overlooking the plain below. “See, sir, the main difference between an orc who’ll make a good sniper and an orc who won’t is heartbeat. Shakes the sights, sir. Well, naturally enough, Undead orcs make the best sniper-teams.”
Ashnak nodded his tusked head. “What results are you getting?”
“Following the standard procedure, sir. Shooting to maim, not kill, so that the enemy will have to risk fire to rescue the injured soldier, with subsequent effect on their morale.” The Undead orc removed his sunglasses. Pinpricks of red shone in his mummified eye-sockets. “All very well, sir, but these Bugs don’t seem at all bothered by their mates being wounded. They just leave them writhing, sir.”
“Keep shooting to maim, in any case,” Ashnak ordered. “It’ll have a good effect on our lads’ morale.”
“Sir, yes sir!” Lugashaldim sighed. “Only wish I had more of the SUS on hand here. As it is, sir, we’re only a skeleton staff.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Just the nine, sir.”
The crack and whumph of mortar and artillery fire shook the hills. Puffs of dirt shot up on the plain below. Major Barashkukor gunned the jeep’s motor as soon as his commanding officer vaulted back into the front seat, and sped off, overtaking a column of T54s deploying to the front.
Hooves thundered behind Barashkukor. The small orc jerked his attention back to the road. A troop of black horses split to gallop past the jeep, hooves cutting the earth. The riders, black cloaks swirling to disclose shining spiked black armour, spurred their thundering steeds. Barashkukor coaxed a tad more out of the engine, keeping level.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Ashnak bawled, deep orc-voice rising above hoofbeats and whining gears.
The hood of the last rider slid down. It disclosed rat’s-tail black hair and a piebald grey-and-black face snarling in a rictus of fear. The nameless necromancer freed one patchwork-gloved hand from the reins to point wildly down at Ferenzia and the plain.
“We’ve been overrun! We’re all going to die!”
Ashnak’s upper lip pulled back from his tusks in a snarl. “You’re a necromancer, dammit. It isn’t death—it’s a learning experience!”
The troop of black riders kept pace with the jeep, hooves kicking up the heavy golden dust. Barashkukor glanced sideways. His commanding orc, squat in urban camouflage battledress, held the front bar of the jeep with one hand, and with the other unbuckled the flap of his pistol holster.
“I’ve got a forty-five-calibre Colt automatic here that says you’re going back to the front line!”
The black riders wheeled and plunged away down a trail that led back into the hills, where any might conceal themselves and hide from catastrophic defeat. The nameless necromancer, his silver-threaded leather robe flying, snarled an obscenity at Ashnak.
“Fly, fool of an orc! Or stay here and die!”
FOOOM!
“Good shot, sir!”
Barashkukor’s metal eye extended above his helmet and stared back down the road. A riderless horse fell back, reins trailing. A dark figure slumped on the dirt track in a splash of intestines.
“He’ll be back,” Ashnak said. “Yo! Here, Major. I said here. I said—”
An orc fist impacted the side of Barashkukor’s helmet.
“—STOP!”
Airbursts and groundbursts shook the world as Barashkukor slewed the jeep to a halt in an artillery emplacement. Camouflage netting blocked the sky, filling in the gulley. The battery of guns faced the plain below. The small orc slipped the jeep’s ignition keys into his pocket and followed his commanding orc over to the forward observation post.
“Estimate—” whirrr-click! “—upwards of sixteen thousand hostiles, Supreme Commander.”
The radio orc and the runners clustered around Ashnak as the great orc surveyed the plain below through field glasses. Writhing lines of marines and Bugs became visible through the dust, then vanished again. Monitoring headquarters’ radio traffic brought a constant stream of situation reports. Barashkukor picked out an elvish voice among the radio traffic.
“I don’t care if it is orders, Sergeant! Marines never retreat!”