Ashnak scrambled to his feet.
“Bug out, marine!” He slapped Razitshakra’s shoulder. “Go, go, go! Corporal! Move it!”
The siren blared. Lugashaldim pounded past him, away from the walls. Ashnak sprinted, combat boots ringing on the cobbles, into the safety of the dark alleys. He loped quietly, and almost as fast, for ten minutes. The commando unit slowed and regrouped.
“Magical…defences…very strong…” Razitshakra bent double, squat orc body heaving. Her ears drooped from vertical to horizontal. “I’ve never run into anything like it, General! I never anticipated they’d have something like that.”
Ashnak turned to Lugashaldim. “Your orcs all right, Corporal?”
“Yessssah!” Lugashaldim brushed lumps of charred flesh from his rotting chest, legs, and face. His decomposing fingers smoked. Part of the back of his skull had been smashed in by the fall. The two other marines were in a similar state.
“Undead marines do make the best commandos,” Ashnak observed. “Good command decision, though I say so myself. Marine Razitshakra, what chance is there of getting through those defences with explosives?”
The female orc brushed wretchedly at her spectacles. Shattered glass fell from one frame, where the magical impact had knocked her flying. “Almost none. Those are Repeating Ring defences. Knock one down and there’ll just be another. I didn’t think a research establishment…We’re fucked, General.”
The moon rose higher. Fourgate’s houses gleamed with lamplight, and Ashnak could hear the talk and laughter from salons five streets away. Orcs on the streets of Fourgate were not exactly inconspicuous.
“We’re in a city. I’ve been in cities before. I know what we need…”
The Undead marines and Razitshakra stared at their commanding officer. Ashnak widened his grin, fangs glinting in the starlight.
“General, look out!”
His peaked ears swivelled, catching the noise of footsteps coming down the road. Quite a number of them: casual, non-urgent.
Using silent hand signals, Ashnak directed the orc marine commandos towards the far end of the alley.
Perdita del Verro flicked her glossy brown hair into neatness with the same minor magery that reddened her cold cheeks and lips. The tips of her pointed ears stung with the frost. Her eyes shone, her breath huffed visibly on the air. She about-faced.
Her spellcast pigeon perched on the battlements of Nin-Edin, blank silver eyes fixed. Perdita gave it her sexiest smile.
“This is Perdita del Verro reporting to you, the loyal readers of Warrior of Fortune. Well, I’ve fallen on my feet here, quite unexpectedly. I’m in the Nin-Edin fort, in the orc encampment, engaged in a siege that has already lasted a whole week. There’s certainly plenty of action—the Light Mage in the besieging camp favours heavy spells from the St. Baphomet Cartulary Grimoire, his elves-at-arms have made a dozen attempts to storm the walls, there may also be sappers at work—but still this garrison is holding out!”
Perdita gave her trademark lopsided grin into the silver eyes of the pigeon’s magical sound-and-vision memory.
“Readers, this dishonourable encampment is holding up the great Lord Amarynth himself as he destroys the last remnants of the Horde. I came here expecting to report his swift, glorious victory. These orc warriors—or orc marines, as this strange tribe prefer to be called—don’t have a Dark Mage with them, which normally would make this a very short engagement. Of course, you may wonder why Warrior of Fortune is bothering with such orcish scum…”
The elf put her fists on her leather-clad hips.
“Firstly there is their unorcish courage. I shall be bringing you some orcish-interest stories later on. But, more importantly, these orcs have acquired from somewhere a variety of strange, magical weapons. A detailed report of these follows—right now.”
She snapped her fingers. The pigeon’s eyes returned to black-and-gold. It shivered. She picked the bird up, her hands warming its frostbitten feathers, and threw it high. It scuttered into flight, winging its way unharmed above the snow-covered tents of the Light.
Major Barashkukor abandoned his desk—completely covered in guard rosters, stores allocations, transfers of weapons, itineraries, stock lists, and personnel forms in quadruplicate—and studied his reflection in the fortress office’s polished stone mirror. He carefully settled a pair of dark sunglasses on his snout. He adjusted the holster at his belt so that the .44 Magnum pistol hung more comfortably and tugged on a pair of tight black leather gloves over his clawed fingers.
His aide hammered on the door. “Major! She’s there!”
Barashkukor picked up a low-crowned black hat, its wide brim rolled up at either side. The hatband was decorated with a small tuft of feathers. After some thought he reluctantly removed the decoration’s centrepiece—a dried elf’s ear—and tugged the brim down over his forehead. His Stetsoned reflection looked back at him through Ray·Bans.
“Yo the marines!” he beamed, and left the tower.
The female elf waited with his junior officers on the inner wall parapet, overlooking the central compound. Barashkukor strolled briskly up to join her, a dazzled smile widening his lipless mouth. He signalled to the assembled marines by the Research and Development sheds. “Begin the weapons tests, corporal!”
“Yessir!” Corporal Ugarit, too-large boots crunching through the snow, saluted his superior officer. A new light glinted in his porcine eyes.
“One!” Ugarit announced. “The precision-guided, fully automatic trebuchet, with smart warhead. Fire!”
BOOM!
The large orc by the war-catapult heaved a heavy wooden lever down. The catapult arm rose, hurtling a vast chunk of stone and metal into the air; fell back, rose again, and another missile whammed into the air. Another; and another…
Barashkukor stood on the parapet beside the Warrior of Fortune correspondent, small fists on hips, watching the missiles fall. Snow sifted down from a grey sky, and a wet cold wind seared his exposed flesh. The small orc grinned, unmoved, as the first missile described a lazy parabola that would take it well past the enemy camp.
In mid-air it zigged, zagged, and proceeded to crash through the roof of a concealed sapper’s diggings. Distant cries came up through the snowy air. Perdita blinked in amazement. Barashkukor reached up to pat the female elf’s arm, his spindly, hairless ears straightening.
“Spectacular, isn’t it? We have a superb Research Unit, ma’am. We can match anything Amarynth can throw at us.”
“Two,” Ugarit shouted, “the repeating crossbow. Radar-guided bolts, fires bursts at three bolts per second. Fire!”
One orc held up a bulky crossbow, pointing it over the parapet at the enemy tents. A gunner walked up to it, twisted her forage cap back to front on her forehead, squinted through the sights, and pulled the trigger.
TAKKA-TAKKA-TAKKA-DUKKA-FOOM!
Heavy steel-headed crossbow bolts shrapnelled the hundred yards between the fort and the first tents, shredding canvas, collapsing stores, ricocheting through the smith’s and barber’s tents. Armed Men and elves dived for cover while the useless shimmer of a protective spell shot up into the chill air.
“Yo!” Ugarit’s tilted eyes flashed with an unearthly shine. The tall corporal wore a steel helmet well down on his head, and a heavy-duty flak jacket strapped around his skinny body. Barashkukor glanced down from the parapet at the orc, who stood something over a metre taller than he did, and made a command decision to let the weapons tests go ahead unhindered.