“Ten years or more.” Simone Vanderghast regained her seat, still gazing in a dazzled fashion at Magda. “Your Grace, what have you been doing all these years? How have you lived?”
“There will be time for such discussions later,” Magda said smoothly. “After our business talks.”
“Smile for the camera!” a voice chirruped.
Light flashed.
Perdita del Verro had exchanged her pigeons, Ashnak saw, for some of the more complex reconnaissance equipment out of Dagurashibanipal’s caverns and was busy pointing a zoom-lens at him. He preened himself, adjusting bullet-bandoleers, combat-stained trousers, and combat jacket with the sleeves rolled up over his tattooed muscles, to best advantage.
“General, may I have full technical details of your new range of weapons? Warrior of Fortune would like to buy exclusive rights to details of weight, bore, stock length, magazine capacity, fire rate—”
Ashnak eyed Ugarit. The tech-corporal shrugged in an embarrassed manner.
“She was interested, Lord General. What could I do?”
The words “elf stew” went through Ashnak’s mind every time he looked into the elf’s warm golden eyes, but it is never entirely wise to offend the press.
“You can have an exclusive on any details cleared for general release,” he said pointedly. “We shall be issuing a conference statement later on.”
The elf reluctantly left the table.
“That,” Ashnak said, “brings me to the subject of these negotiations. We’ve won a victory here at Nin-Edin. That’s why my orcs are celebrating. But I think ahead, gentlemen. I think about the next few years. As you say, orcs are not well respected.”
Cornelius Scroop, re-seating himself on the greasy blanket, snorted.
Ashnak continued. “The marines want to come to a business arrangement with Graagryk. We have a problem, gentlemen. Namely—arms manufacture.”
Vanderghast took her eyes off Magda and gaped. “What?”
“We have a limited supply of the new weapons you’ve seen. At some point soon, we’re going to need to make more. However, gentlemen, you will have noticed that we have very little in the way of an industrial base up here in the Demonfest Mountains—which is why my Corporal Ugarit has done a great deal more experimental weapons development than manufacture. We need an ally who does have a substantial economic base.”
Ashnak flexed his talons.
“The economics of the problem are simple. It’s Dark-damned expensive to manufacture arms, because they’re complex—so we’ll have to make more than we ourselves need, purely to keep the price down to something economic. We will then have a surplus to sell.”
Simone Vanderghast looked at Cornelius Scroop. Then both of them looked at Magda van Nassau. She, in the process of lighting a long and slender roll of pipe-weed, glanced up. “The general is not the sort of orc you’re used to dealing with, Chancellor. Do try to bear that in mind.”
“A recent but classified development means that the orc marines are no longer seriously challenged by forces such as Amarynth’s. We would have very little trouble in coming south and taking over a kingdom or a duchy. But I find,” Ashnak said reflectively, “that warfare tends to wreck a country’s economy. We don’t have time to rebuild it if we’re going to get a decent arms trade up and running in the next few months.”
The chancellor and the captain stared, the glazed shock on their faces giving way to something Ashnak had no trouble in identifying. Greed.
“This needs thought,” Captain Vanderghast said.
“Have some more food while you’re thinking.” Ashnak snapped his fingers, and Ugarit’s stewards replenished the plates. The halflings dug into the traditional mountain dishes of blackbirds, thrushes, and snails.
Ashnak pondered the advisability of eating raw food and decided against it. Even if it were dead raw food, it would probably not be tactful.
“I’ll leave you gentlemen to discuss matters.” He beamed at Magda. “And catch up on old times.”
Ashnak headed between the orc marines foxtrotting across the dance floor, making for the bar. His grunts greeted him with shouts and cheers. The wooden boards echoed to the stomp of combat boots. Witch-ball lights flashed. The Badgurlz ripped into keyboard, strings, and horn with vigour.
Perdita del Verro passed him, swaying to some ancient unheard ancestral music of her elvish blood. Major Barashkukor wheeled around on the podium, baton still keeping the rhythm, fixed his eyes on her, and began to sing:
Ashnak fixed Barashkukor with a baleful glare. The band clattered and screeched into silence. The milling throng on the dance floor slowed to a halt, gazing apprehensively at their general.
Barashkukor audibly swallowed. He tapped his baton on the edge of the podium.
“Ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, TAH!” he murmured, and as the music restarted, launched into:
“Better,” Ashnak grunted, reaching the bar. “Ah. There you are.”
Wearing their cut-down, borrowed DPM combat trousers and jackets over their bruises with some dignity, Will and Ned Brandiman slitted their eyes against light brilliant after Nin-Edin’s dungeons.
“You wanted another dam fur-jockstrap villain,” Ned Brandiman said, flicking back straggling brown hair that Ashnak only marginally resisted bellowing at him to get cut. “We’ve got you one.”
A northern barbarian peered up at the bar, his wolf-pelts cleaned of campaign dirt and his wide-horned helmet balanced precariously on the back of his head. He glared up at Ashnak and bawled, “Warriors of the north cannot live within walls! Our honour lives with us under the sky, not in amongst the stink of elves and halflings and orcs. Could we at least have one frigging window open?”
“See what I can do,” Ashnak promised as he steered the three of them back to the conference table.
“Lord Blond Wolf,” he introduced, as the barbarian scrambled up a pair of steps onto his seat.
“My sons,” Magda added. “Wilhelm and Edvard van Nassau, Princes of Graagryk.”
“We prefer to think of ourselves as defence analysts,” Will said sourly, sitting down on his cushions with some care.
Simone Vanderghast glanced up from her plate and said shrewdly, “General, why are you so eager to let marine weapons out of your own hands? Given how orcs are regarded, it’s foolhardly.”
“The dragon’s geas on these weapons involves certain conditions. Training, gentlemen. Training.” Ashnak gestured expansively as he resumed his seat. “These weapons just don’t work for untrained personnel. What is going to have to happen, gentlemen, is that the orc marines get used as cadre troops, sent out to whoever buys the surplus weapons, to train that country’s troops in their use. Make them into marines. And—once a marine, always a marine. Loyal to other marines.”
Grunts crowded past the conference table, queueing up for the buffet the stewards set out on the bar. One orc returned, balancing a glass and digging into a loaded paper plate. “Why do I always get the bit with the boot in it?” she complained.