After a while it began to stink.
Later, back at the Antarctic-warfare bootcamp, the dwarf recruit Balan Orcsbane approached Commissar Razitshakra where she stood, handset to her ear, cursing her Coms officer and her communications equipment. He plucked the sleeve of her greatcoat.
“Please, Commissar, ma’am. The recruits want permission to pack for immediate embarcation.”
“Nonsense!” Razitshakra, spectacles glinting, clapped the dwarf on the back with her free hand. “I’ve just officially renamed this training base ‘Camp Zakkad.’ Zakkad, our first Hero of the Orc Marines! Corporal Barzoi, make a note: recruits’ contributions to the memorial fund will be compulsory.”
The dwarf corporal saluted. The squad orc commissar stood, her hulking shoulders broad as five dwarves.
“Corporal Barzoi, you will proceed with the bootcamp training in my absence. Find a pilot for the cold-drake; I’ll fly back.”
“Absence? You’re deserting us!” recruit Balan Orcsbane gasped. “Retreating!”
Razitshakra slammed the handset of the RT back down, making the centaur Corns officer stagger. The orc glared up at the Endless Sky. Even had there been a night, the communications satellite would not have been visible.
“Orc marines never retreat!” Commissar Razitshakra snarled. “I’m flying back in person because there seems to be a complete communications breakdown with Marine HQ, Graagryk.”
“No military conquest?”
Incredulous, the orc general Ashnak showed all his bronze-capped tusks in a grin of ferocious bonhomie.
“Dread Lord, are You aware of what’s been happening during Your…unavoidable absence?”
Outside, the sluggishness of nightmare drifted through Graagryk’s streets, dimming the shine of cleansing magic on the cobbles, and poisoning the afternoon naps of halfling children and halfling elderly. The whistling of lizard-beasts quietened, barely audible here in this ancient tower room.
Her voice whispered, “My servant the nameless necromancer has informed Me of your new weaponry. I shall not need it.”
Ashnak, orcishly bow-legged, paced down the tapestry-hung hall, about-faced, and paced back towards the mullioned window. Overhead, the strange birds and beasts carved on the beams writhed, making obeisance to the female Man who sat with Her back to the sunlight.
“The south has just spent a year putting down the flood of Horde survivors and their own deserters fleeing the Fields of Destruction. They think it’s over now. They think this is peace.” Ashnak came to attention. “Dread Lord, as You’re the de facto Commander-in-Chief of what remains of the Horde of Darkness, let me officially inform You: my troops have proved magic-resistant to the highest degree. If You were to send the orc marines against these Southern Kingdoms—man, those guys’d have themselves a whole world of shit!”
The nameless necromancer downed another cup of straw-coloured wine, his gaze pitted with crimson.
“Dread Lord, pay no attention to this creature. His battles have all been in the north. Magic,” the Man said, his voice blurring, “is proportional to civitas, and derives therefrom. The north has no proper cities; its magic is therefore rare and weak. The cities of the south are great, and they have great magics like…like dogs have fleas. You would need ten thousand warriors of his sort, and he has not a tenth of that number!”
Ashnak glared, deep-set orc eyes staring into the sea-green, crimson-flecked gaze. His granite bulk loomed over the Man by several inches. The fingers of the nameless necromancer began to move.
The Dark Lord’s voice whispered, “No.”
The necromancer rubbed his fingertips together as if to expunge something barely begun.
Ashnak turned his heavy head to face the window. “Strategically this is the perfect time to attack! We should immediately mobilise—”
The Man straightened Her shoulders. Shadows chased themselves in the ultrafine chainmail of Her garment, and its soft chiming rang like the bells of drowned cities. “I have spoken. There will be no domination of the world by Dark Armies.”
Ashnak scratched at his peaked ears and settled his urban camouflage forage cap more securely on his bald head. “If you say not.”
Strands of yellow hair lay against Her piebald, black-and-grey cheek. Yellow lashes opened, and behind Her eyelids Her eyeballs were orange glass.
“I will travel to Ferenzia, that greatest of southern cities,” the Lord of Night and Silence announced. “You, orc Ashnak, shall choose a number of your marine warriors to form my honour guard.”
She ceased to speak. It might be that She smiled, the yellowing tusks pulled Her lip into such ambiguous shapes that Ashnak could not be sure. The yellow hair swung as She shook Her head. Gently, She added, “You are thinking, quite suddenly, that if I need a guard, I must therefore be vulnerable. You wonder if My defeat at Samhain has weakened Me. You ponder in your mind that I may be a bluff, a pretence, a pale copy of what I was in the heyday of My power.”
“Thought never crossed my mind,” Ashnak said.
“I choose your warriors for the honour of it,” She said. “For I will not go to Ferenzia without the ceremony and attendance that I am properly owed. And it may be that I shall make you one of My major-generals or field marshals—some rank befitting My status. Orc Ashnak, you are thinking now that I will not try conquest by force of arms because I fear certain defeat. You think therefore that I can be tricked, used, and manipulated into a figurehead for your plans.”
Ashnak shot a sideways glance at Her out of his tilted eyes. His gnarled thumbs lodged under his web-belt, pulling the pistol holster closer to his fist. His thin lips drew back from his fangs.
“Nobody fucks over the orc marines,” he growled. “Not even the Dark Lord. If You want the marines for Your protection, there’s a price. We want Your support when we attack Ferenzia and the other Southern Kingdoms. Otherwise, no deal!”
It being a calculated bluff, Ashnak was not completely surprised to find himself, at the flick of Her finger, immobilised. Held at attention, the heels of his combat boots together, staring eyes-front, he could just see the nameless necromancer retrieve from his table a whip braided from some strangely dubious skin.
Ashnak admitted gruffly, “Dread Lord, I erred in thinking You powerless.”
“But you will continue to test Me, I fear.”
Clicks marked the passage of Her bare feet across the flagstones, as if the soles of Her feet were sometimes chitinous. Her swaying blond hair did not come higher than Ashnak’s chin. Ashnak tensed his bull-muscled shoulders. There came a smell of rotten fruit: his skin began to soften, the colours of decay chasing themselves across his leathery hide. As soon as he relaxed it faded.
“Not torture!” Ashnak roughened his bass-baritone voice. “No, Dread Lord! Please, no! I beg you! Not that!”
“I have no intention of resorting to the question.” The Dark Lord lifted Her face. Her orange eyes in the sunlight did, quite visibly, glow. “I well know the amount of physical punishment an orc can take. And I know your general resistance to pain.”
Out of the corner of his long eye Ashnak witnessed the nameless necromancer, with scowling regret, replacing the metal-fanged whip on the table.
“But you must know Me, and My power.” The Lord of Night smiled and wiped a trail of saliva from Her lip. “I can reach into your soul, orc.”