Elves barely of an age to walk sat on the wagons and sang. Scurrying around the draught horses’ heads, young Men and dwarves fought with the recalcitrant beasts. Ashnak spotted the crossbow guards. He raised the XM18.
Crack!
Two mailed bodies tore apart, splattering the sandstone walls of the Gullies.
“Chaaarge!” Ashnak bawled over the RT’s open channel, pounding Varimnak’s back. The jeep dipped, rolled, and drove down on the rear of the column, music blaring, horn sounding. And over all else, the Badgurlz ripped off rounds of suppressive fire:
Taka-taka-taka-taka-FOOM!
The young elves, dwarves, and Men ran in panic. Ashnak stood, steady, bracing the grenade-launcher and firing. An antitank grenade coughed, soared, and impacted on a tent-carrying wagon. Fingernail-sized scraps of canvas and cord spattered the Gullies.
The lone mage—a dwarf young enough that his beard had barely grown past his belt—raised hands flaming with the Powers of Earth. “Fail weapons!”
Ashnak grinned, holding his breath.
A bolt of Earth power enveloped the jeep. A shrill cheer rose from the Light youngsters. Ashnak, one taloned hand gripping the side of the vehicle and the other his XM18, shook his head. The talismans around his neck stung.
The green dazzles in his vision faded, harmlessly.
The jeep’s engine raced and roared, intact.
“Eat this!” Ashnak lifted the XM18 and fired, looking directly into the dwarf’s terror-stricken eyes.
FOOOM!
The mage and the Earth power aura vanished together, tough flesh not so much blown apart as vapourised.
“Close weapons!” Ashnak made himself heard over the RT. “No projectiles. Hand-to-hand!”
The orc marines bayed.
The sun rose higher, slanting into the slush-ridden Red Gullies. Something over a hundred and fifty elves and Men—none of them more than children or adolescents, and kept safe with the baggage train for that very reason—ran about, their screams piercing the morning. Ashnak abandoned the vehicle. He swept a green-robed young female elf off her feet and tucked her, scrabbling and weeping, under one muscular arm. With the other hand he wielded a commando knife, rejoicing (as all orcs do) in close-quarters combat. The knife, dripping, rose and fell as he loped up the line of jammed wagons.
An older elf sprang down from a sandstone outcrop, swinging a mace, screaming. Ashnak batted her aside. She hit the earth and slumped, sacklike. Fifteen or so adolescent Men and dwarves—spawn-herds, Ashnak assumed—recovered enough to attack as a group.
He stunned the elf-child and dropped her between his feet, wielding the knife and his free, taloned hand. Varimnak, using the bayonet and butt of her assault rifle to strike, came up and stood back to back with him.
Most of the jeeps were empty now, disgruntled marine drivers gunning the motors. The squads of grunts rampaged over the wagons, tearing bundles free, ripping chests open, scattering the tools and gear and keepsakes of the Army of Light all through the Gullies’ trodden red slush.
The first killing done, the sound of elf-shrieks rose into the air: prisoners kept alive to provide amusement.
Ashnak rolled the semi-conscious female elf onto her back, unbuckled his webbing and trouser-belt and knelt down.
Varimnak licked red blood from the butt of her assault rifle with a rasping tongue. “Hey, man, we got ’em! The whole fucking baggage train! No survivors!”
A grunt on top of one of the red sandstone outcrops stared down into the deep crevass on the far side of it.
“Sarge,” she called down to Varimnak, “you want to know something about elves?”
“What’s that, Shakmash?”
“They don’t bounce.” The orc marine shrugged. “’Ere, Sarge, can I have a doggy-bag?”
Varimnak grinned.
Ashnak saw a Badgurlz marine run past, dragging a semi-conscious elf by the ankle. The elf’s skull cracked and jolted against rocks on the path. Another marine humped a dwarf with a slit throat.
From the Gullies Ashnak heard shrieks and the butcher’s-shop sound of blows.
“Hhnff!” Ashnak braced his elbows and toes, his blood-rimmed palms in the icy slush. Head hanging down, body pumping; his spittle draped the elf-girl’s face. “Good. My grunts need R&R. Post scouts. Just—in—hhnf!—case…”
He smelled Varimnak lighting up another of the thin, black, oddly scented rolls of pipe-weed that she affected. Her voice above him agreed, “You got it, man.”
Ashnak stopped moving.
“And pass me another elf, Sergeant. This one’s split.”
The noon sun penetrated the depths of Nin-Edin’s dungeons at several removes and faintly, but clear enough for Will to see Perdita del Verro.
“Of course I’m a minor healer-mage,” the elf confirmed. “It’s a necessity in my line of work.”
“What is your line of work? Mistress,” Will beamed politely.
“War correspondent.”
Ned Brandiman groaned and made some attempt to cover his filth-caked, naked body with bruised hands; his hemorrhage-tight stomach tender. “No kidding. An investigative mage-reporter.”
Magda Brandiman’s face appeared outside the bars as the elf lifted her like a child. The halfling was, Will noted, wearing what appeared to be an over-large combat jacket.
“Boys, I think we can do business with Mistress del Verro.”
“What kind of business, Mother?” Will asked.
Magda smiled.
“Firstly,” she said, “there’s the matter of Perdita’s pigeons.”
A fist hammered on his door. “General Ashnak, sir!”
Ashnak snapped the wrist-bonds tying him to the bedposts and sat up. He kissed Magda Brandiman passionately, scrambled into his combat trousers, and flung open the door.
“What do you want, Major?”
Major Barashkukor’s ears flattened tightly down on his skull. He hastily took off his Ray·Bans and put them in his combats pocket, cringed, and squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “Sir, it’s time, sir!”
Ashnak backhanded the small orc, who impacted against the oak door frame and bounced back off, shaking his ringing head.
“It’s bad timing, marine. And I do mean ‘marine.’” Ashnak shut the door behind him, clipping his web-belt and pistol holster around his muscular body. “Because if you interrupt any more of my interrogations, major, you’re busted down to marine, and on permanent latrine duty!”
“Sir, yes sir!” Barashkukor swallowed audibly. “But it’s one of the new halflings, sir. Cornelius Scroop—the Chancellor of Graagryk. He wants some cushions.”
“Whaddya mean, cushions?” Ashnak demanded. “This is an armed camp, for fuck’s sake; where does he expect me to find cushions!”
Major Barashkukor ceased punching the dents out of his formal marine flat hat, “Sir, both the halflings say they can’t see over the conference table. They’re right, sir. They can’t.”
Ashnak groaned. Dangerously quietly, he said, “Find some blankets. Fold them. Use those as cushions. Dismiss.”
“Sir, yes sir!”
Barashkukor precipitously fled.
“I’m surrounded by idiots!” Ashnak strode off down the tower stairs. Tech-Corporal Ugarit joined him on the way to the main hall.
“Magic!” the skinny orc muttered disgustedly.
“Instantaneous trans-location spells, Corporal,” Ashnak said expansively. “High-level, very expensive Southern Kingdoms magic. Has everyone that I want here for the conference arrived?”