“Riiiight…” The orc general stepped somewhat unsteadily round the desk and sank down into his chair. He rested the heavy pistol across his lap. He looked up at the ancient, youthful sorcerer, and picked meat from behind a cracked orc-fang.
“Lucky also,” the nameless necromancer added, smoothing the tanned Man-skin robes about his slender body, “that this is nothing to me. A game, merely.”
“Game.” Ashnak sat back and put his combat boots up on the desk, re-lit his pipe-weed cigar, and tugged the urban-commo forage cap down over his Neanderthal brows. “You came all the way from Dark-knows-where to Graagryk for a game. Suuure you did.”
Deep in the nameless’s black pupils, fire glinted. The thin-lipped mouth drew back in a smile.
“No,” the nameless necromancer corrected. “I came all this way to bring you a message from my master—who wishes to see you. Now.”
Ashnak choked on pipe-weed smoke. “Your master?”
The nameless necromancer folded his arms. Feet apart, the slender curved eastern blade thrust through his sash, he might have been any young Man warrior fighting on the side of the Dark. Only the face, only the eyes, only the strong stench of carrion gave him away.
He reached for the door handle.
“Oh,” the nameless necromancer said. “Haven’t you heard? The Dark Lord’s back. And this time He’s really pissed off.”
2
At that same hour, but six thousand miles to the southeast of Graagryk, on the other side of the continent, a black orc crouched in the bush in the Forest of Thyrion.
Even with his keen elvish eyes it took Gilmuriel several minutes to discover her. When he finally spotted her, the elf strolled across the clearing and stood over her.
“I’m not at all convinced this is going to work.” Gilmuriel, elf Hunt-Lord and now marine lieutenant, frowned down at his sergeant. “When the Forest-King of the elves bought this equipment from your salespeople, I said he was mistaken. We should never have given up the elven bow.”
Gilmuriel’s previous dealings with orcs—filthy, brutish creatures scuttling in darkness—had not prepared him for an orc who tucked sprays of creepers into her mottled uniform through loops sewn on for the purpose. Brown and green paint blotched her fanged orcish features. She had tied a red strip of cloth around her brow. Only the stink of orc was totally familiar. That and the coiled orc-whip hanging off her belt.
The orc sergeant looked up from cleaning her mud-splattered M16 assault rifle, lazily surveying the twelve elves who lounged in the bushes at the edges of the clearing, wearing their camouflage fatigues unwillingly. As usual, chores and tasks (such as cleaning weapons) had been abandoned when something more interesting presented itself. Four of the smaller female elves were singing a roundelay. The nominal marine first class was writing what appeared to be poetry on the back of his area map.
“Marine Belluriel Starharp!” the black orc snarled, wiping the sweat that shimmered in her quarter-inch unnaturally white crest. “Get those elves into cover, dammit!”
“This is only a—what is your word? An exercise.” Gilmuriel smiled. “We shall do it for as long it amuses us.”
Dakashnit, he thought, was a strange sergeant even for an orc. In between drilling the Elf King’s reluctant conscripts she had a habit of smoking pipe-weed from her own private store, after which she was prone to develop a several-thousand-yard stare, and declaim, “Don’t bother me, man,” even when there was no representative of the Man race for miles.
“This exercise is under your command,” Gunnery Sergeant Dakashnit of the orc marines reminded Gilmuriel. “What are your orders, L.t.?”
“Obviously we shall wait here until the craft returns to fly us back to the City of the Trees.”
A chugging noise sounded from above the jungle canopy. Gilmuriel stepped out into the clearing. A whirling blur emerged over the edge of the trees. Rotors whipping, pistons chugging, and vapour spurting from every joint, the steam Chinook helicopter hovered above the clearing.
Gilmuriel’s arched brows curved, dipping into a frown. “I don’t care what you say, Sergeant—that thing will never replace the milk-white elven steed.”
“Not one of Ugarit’s more sucessful efforts,” the orc admitted.
The helicopter’s curved windows glittered like the faceted eyes of giant insects. Sun slid down the olive-drab bodywork and shone in through the doors-off cargo bay. Gilmuriel took off his peaked forage cap, disclosing his pointed ears, and waved at the invisible pilot. The sunlight shone on his high cheekbones and the sleek braids decorating his shaggy golden hair.
Takka-takka-takka-FOOM!
A line of craters stitched across the clearing, spraying dirt high into the air. Gilmuriel threw himself flat, his arms over his head. He heard the screams of the other elves and the crashing of bushes as they fled into the jungle, all hunt-lore forgotten in panic.
Engines roaring, the twin-rotored, steam-powered helicopter sank down into the landing zone. It touched, settled, and the motors cut to tickover. Pistons hissed. The smell of hot steam and coal drenched the evening jungle heat.
“Just orcish high spirits, sir!” Sergeant Dakashnit stepped over Gilmuriel on her way to the helicopter. She swung herself up, exchanged a few inaudible words with the pilot, and began throwing sacks out of the back of the flying machine.
“See you got the idea of taking cover,” she called. “Works better when you’re behind something, Lieutenant.”
Gilmuriel stood up and dusted himself down. His high cheekbones burned red. Swearing under his breath, he bawled into the jungle for the return of his squad. They slipped from the shadows and reassembled.
Dakashnit tossed him one of the sacks, single-handed. He caught it with a whoof of breath. It was a pack, dangling straps, and whatever was inside it was soft.
“Today,” the orc sergeant said, “you elf marines get to do your first parachute jump. Those of you who survive until tomorrow get to do a second parachute jump. In the unlikely event that there are any of the squad left by the third day, we’ll do a number of jumps into different terrain. And when we have landed, we will conceal ourselves in cover, and we will not stand in the middle of the dropzone where everyone can see us—will we, sir?”
Gilmuriel put his hand to his hip, wishing for his slender elven knife, but he encountered only his water-bottle. He unscrewed the cap and took a long drink of water. “Any special instructions for us on this drop?”
Dakashnit nodded her heavy-jawed head. “Sure are, L.t. In the unhappy event that your ’chute fails to open, always remember one thing—take up the proper marine emergency landing position. Stick your elbows out, and cross your right leg over your left leg.”
Gilmuriel frowned. A number of the elf marines on the ready line were vaguely crossing their legs and lifting their elbows in a puzzled manner.
“And why should we do that, Gunnery Sergeant?”
Dakashnit showed all her fangs and tusks in a grin. “So that we can unscrew you out of the ground after you land…”
The orc uncoiled her whip and cracked it.
“Right, you elves, into the chopper, on the double, move it! Go, go, go!”
Once seated in the cockpit of the helicopter, Lieutenant Gilmuriel eased the unaccustomed headphones down over his pointed elven ears and stared at the jungle canopy receding beneath his feet. Pistons sliding with smooth precision, the steam helicopter wheeled around and chugged into a vast orange sunset.