Barashkukor internally debated the wisdom of, in the first flush of his enthusiasm, having let the elf poke around in some of Dagurashibanipal’s miscellaneous crates.
The elf added softly, “But each time it gains you less respite. Major, you can’t go on like this forever. That’s a lot of army out there. What are you waiting for?”
5
The dawn of the siege’s eighth day coloured the eastern heavens lemon-bright above the Demonfest peaks.
A trebuchet thunked and whirred. A gelatinous sphere hurtled from its catapult-scoop on a rising trajectory and struck Nin-Edin’s walls just below the outer gate-house. The sticky substance clung and burst into sorcerous blue and gold flame, brilliant against the fresh snow.
The dwarvish engineer Kazra, hip-deep in snow, rubbed her small calloused palms together.
“Ah. I love the smell of Greek Fire in the morning…”
Another scoop of sorcerous fire sparked trails over the white landscape. Just visible on the walls, orcs scurried with gravel buckets. The sparks of hammer on steel flew from the armourers’ firepits, and their welcome clangour made music in her ears. She drew in a breath of frozen air and the scent of magic.
“My old friend and comrade.” Lord Commander Amarynth reached brown fingers down to touch the shoulder of her padded brigandine. “With magery’s help today we will winkle out these obstinate sinners—Lady of Light!”
The gilded ball on the peak of the main command tent dipped and went down as the central pole collapsed. Acres of snow-wet canvas billowed. An unearthly shriek split the morning. Men and elves ran through trampled slush, hurriedly pulling on pieces of armour, shouting. Kazra unshipped her war-axe from her back. A serpent uncoiled against the sky.
“War-elephant!” Kazra screamed. Orcs in black breast-plates and riding on wild mountain wolves reared up in front of her, out of the breached camp’s confusion, and she swung and missed, swung again and dented one breastplate.
“Ho, the dwarves!” Kazra hacked her way down to where Amarynth, blue cloak falling back from his silver armour, fought in the first blaze of dawn to touch the mountain’s lower slopes.
“Revenge!” cried the wolf-riding orcs. “Revenge for Samhain! Kill their commanding officers!”
Amarynth idly gestured a spell, inverting both wolves and riders.
Abruptly, dwarves, Men, and elves were all Kazra could see. No orcs that were not writhing masses of intestines. The war-elephant trampled out from the ruins of the command tent. High above, the rider coolly gestured, and the beast ponderously reared to crush.
Kazra cocked her arm, muttered an incantation, hurled her war-axe, and caught the elephant’s rider solidly on the helmet. The rider fell. The elephant, released, rampaged up the slope towards Nin-Edin, the Light’s warriors sprinting out of its path.
“For the Dark!”
Amarynth stepped past her at that cry, slender sword pointing towards the elephant’s rider. The rider scrambled to his feet, glaring out at the surrounding men-at-arms from under a dented horned helmet. His eyes, fiercely blue, glittered like the northern skies. Kazra forced her way into the front rank of the crowd and looked down at him.
“Bit short for a Man, aren’t you?” the dwarf enquired.
The diminutive barbarian, feet planted in the ruins of the command tent, stood with his two-handed axe braced over his head, flashing back the dawn’s light.
“Who’s asking you, you fucking midget? I’m here for the sodding Dark, to relieve Nin-Edin! Single combat, warrior against warrior! Which one of you flea-bitten, whore-mongering, arse-licking goat-fuckers thinks you can take me?”
Kazra looked up at the slender, dark-skinned elf. Amarynth looked down at her. Simultaneously, they remarked, “How barbaric.”
Simultaneously they sheathed sword and put away axe, turned to the surrounding fifty men-at-arms, and directed, “Take him.”
The northern barbarian vanished under a heap of armored bodies.
“Prepare that Dark scum for questioning,” Amarynth ordered.
Kazra turned to look back up the slope.
A few fleeting orcs, screaming in their own guttural tongue, arrived before the gates of Nin-Edin. Kazra saw how, before her own people could reach the walls, the defenders opened the gates, and the refugee orcs streamed in to join them.
The gates being open, and no orc being about to attempt to prevent it, the war-elephant also lumbered inside Nin-Edin.
The gates slammed rapidly shut.
Twelve hours later, at the far end of the Demonfest mountain range, four figures emerged from an alley in Fourgate.
The four tottered on high-heeled red shoes. Piled and powdered white wigs uneasily surmounted their heads, and they swathed themselves in the folds of black silk cloaks to hide the rips in their coats. Ashnak abandoned hope of buttoning his frock coat up to his chin and adjusted the strings of his black domino-mask.
“Marines?” he hissed.
“Yessir!” Lugashaldim shrugged his cloak over his bulging, muscular shoulders and rested the ferrule of his amber cane on the cobbles. The two SUS orc marines with him mumbled, “Yo!” and went back to arranging their lace ruffles and pulling silk gloves on over their bulging, taloned hands.
“Razitshakra!”
The fifth orc emerged from the alleyway, shaking out the immense flounces of a silk brocade gown. Razitshakra tugged the bodice of the ballgown lower, covered her granite-coloured breasts with a lace fichu, and swept the aquamarine silk cloak about her shoulders. A black velvet mask covered most of her features, leaving visible only a somewhat protruding jaw. Her white, feather-spangled wig sat slightly crooked on her head.
“It’ll have to do,” Ashnak said firmly. “Forward, marines!”
The five bewigged orcs minced out into the street. Lugashaldim flourished his cane with style. Ashnak reached across and grabbed it from him, cracking it down on the cobbles with an equal flourish, and set off down the road, cloak swinging.
“Sir!” Ashnak accosted a passerby, holding a silk kerchief to his wide mouth and relying on that and the indistinct moonlight. “We are strangers come to Fourgate for the celebrations. I pray you, sir, where might one find a little—Guild thievery and pleasure?”
The passerby lifted a minuscule velvet hat from a towering peruke and bowed. “You need the Abbey Park, brave sir. You will be well advised to take your swords, as I see you do, but there you will find all that you desire.”
Ashnak bowed and twisted his ankle, not used to high-heeled court shoes. He muttered muffled thanks and marched off in the direction indicated. The houses leaned together over the streets here, darkening them still further, with only the linkboys’ torches to light the way for Men, elves, halflings, and dwarves. Ashnak’s night-vision served him perfectly adequately.
“Here,” Razitshakra objected, “I haven’t got a sword.”
The fourth orc marine fiddled with the butterfly-hilted small-sword at his belt and growled, “Call this a sword?”
Razitshakra replaced one of the dragon hoard’s thin books within her fur muff. “I don’t see why male orcs should have the monopoly of coercive force. It’s a politically unsound principle.”
“What?”
“Why haven’t I got one?”
“Because you’re a Lady!” Ashnak snarled. “Quiet, marine. This must be it.”
A tall temple stood deserted on their right. The road opened into a piazza crowded with all races. Ashnak’s wide nostrils flared at the scent of enemies. An elf in a gold-embroidered brocade coat strolling past, talking with a ragged orange-seller…Two dwarves in frieze coats and slouch hats muttering about interest rates and then diving into the low door of a dwarf tavern…Male and female Men eating at the food-shacks and drinking outside bagnios and public baths…