Gallantly, the large orc reached down and took her hand between two of his fingers, lifted it to his lips, and kissed it.
“Husband.” Magda drew herself up to her full three feet two inches. Gloveleather flounces frothed around her. She arranged her sleek petticoats more decorously. “Safire, you and the others may wait for me back at the carriage.”
Reaching up high, she took Ashnak’s muscular arm. Amid the panic of a garrison that has realised it just incurred a snap inspection, she led him to stroll in the dappled shade of the compound’s lime trees.
The big orc lowered his heavy head, gazing down at her. A shadow of Darkness still lingered in his eyes. “You brought the children to the barracks?”
“It’s time they saw where their father works. I don’t wish them to remain in ignorance. I myself,” Magda said, “am often uninformed.”
One corner of his lip lifted over a tusk in unwilling amusement.
“Things you did not tell me, for example,” Magda continued levelly, “include just how many offspring orcs spawn at one time. And how quickly they mature. There are six of my little half-orcs running around back there—and one of them is already talking. I can only assume she heard that kind of language from her father!”
Ashnak sidestepped the broken brick hurled by an approaching ducal offspring.
“Really, my sweetheart, the old ways are the best. Ah, the good old days in the Pit,” Ashnak remarked with nostalgia. “The shit-slinging contests…gangbangs…Eat-the-Runt…Finest days of your life, the Pits. Really make an orc out of you.”
Magda glared up at him. “Half-orc though they may be, I am not bringing our children up in any Pit! Although I have to admit, what they’re doing to the other halfling children in nursery school doesn’t bear thinking about.”
She scooped the running toddler up onto her hip. Already the size of a two-year-old, the half-orc halfling infant beamed, showing its first tiny tusks. Magda stroked the thatch of brown hair that fell over its prominent browridge.
“My heart, what have you done with your tutor this time?”
“Burp!”
“You see?” Magda complained. “I’m beginning to have difficulty getting nursing staff. I hear you’re making deals with the Dark Lord.”
“Y—” Ashnak halted, put his huge fists on his hips, and glared down at her. “Where the fuck did you hear that?”
“Be serious. I know you.”
Magda wiped their child’s wide mouth with the silk hem of her farthingale and set it down. It scuttled off to join its brothers and sisters in tormenting the off-duty marines. Rather than damage their general’s offspring—or, rather than explain such damage to him afterwards—the helpless grunts found themselves constrained into allowing the halfling half-breeds to climb over military equipment and personnel irrespective. Magda noted one orc surreptitiously wiping scarlet and green feathers from the corner of his mouth.
“I’ve not seen Wilhelm or Edvard of late,” she remarked inconsequentially. “I think my older sons have fled Graagryk.”
“Good!” the big orc grunted.
“That is no way to speak of your stepchildren, Ashnak! I want us all to be one big happy family.”
The orc seated himself on the turf, tucking one BDU combat-trousered leg under the other. He reached out and drew Magda into a powerful embrace. The pungent musk of orc filled her nostrils. The duchess squeaked. Eventually, seated in his lap as he leaned against a lime tree trunk, she heard him say:
“That was your news at the Orcball game? The Dark Lord’s return?”
“I wished to prepare you for any possible meeting. Little passes in Graagryk that isn’t my business—my contacts brought me word of His return. Why has He come to my city?”
“Why?” Ashnak’s voice vibrated through their flesh where she leaned against him. “Because He’s gone absolutely bugfuck, that’s why! He’s out of his fucking tree!”
The orc marine rested his elbows on the scuffed knees of his urban camouflage combat trousers and leaned his heavy jaw against her neck. Watching Lugashaldim do his best to discipline the Graagryk HQ, the orc said, “Have you ever heard of a thing called an election?”
The Duchess Magda, whose experience spanned several continents and a number of species, frowned. The crow’s-feet deepened around her eyes. “No. What manner of beast is it?”
Ashnak coughed. If he had not been the General of the Orc Marines, she might have thought him embarrassed.
“The Sable Eminence explained it to me. Apparently it’s a method of ruling a kingdom. You give everyone what they call a vote. Then, when you have commands, the people cast these votes to decide whether they’ll obey. The Lord of Night and Terror says they also get to cast these votes to decide who’ll be the kingdom’s ruler. And that’s called an election.”
Magdelene Amaryllis Judith Brechie van Nassau thought about it. “‘Casting’ votes. A vote will be a kind of stone, then? Certainly a missile of some sort…”
She abruptly stood up, removing herself from Ashnak’s embrace, and began to brush down her dress. Cheeks heated, she snapped, “The whole thing’s ridiculous! Think about it, you dumb orc. Give everyone one of these votes, and where are you? With every dirty peasant thinking she has as great a right as me to decide what is best for Graagryk! It’s…it’s immoral! Why—why, a duchess might even lose an election!”
She paced up and down rapidly, heels indenting the leaf-scattered turf. Over the noise and bustle of the orc HQ making itself minimally tidy, she said, “His Sable Eminence’s mind must have snapped completely! Samhain was such a blow, it’s driven Him into sanity! This is no way to bring about the Dark Domination!”
“The information is classified,” Ashnak said gloomily. “I’m not telling the marines about votes. It will only give them ideas.”
The halfling and the orc stared at each other for some minutes. A sergeant major bawled orders across the compound and squads of marines doubled in all directions, parking the APCs in straight lines and removing the bodies from the assault course. Sunset coloured the sky above the Inland Sea salmon-pink and violet. Evening lizards called.
Magda narrowed her eyes against the levelling light.
“Orcs,” she said. Ashnak raised his head, teeth and eyes gleaming.
Magda continued, “Orcs are tolerated in the Southern Kingdoms only on sufferance. My dear, yours is a very small company, and its presence here is totally dependent on your ability to run an arms industry. Come to think of it, His Nightmare Excellence may be a very good person to have on our side.”
The orc marine got to his feet, belts of ammunition shifting with his muscles. He removed the pipe-weed cigar from his mouth, looked at it, and threw it away. He removed his cap and scratched at his bald, leathery skull.
“He’s going to the capital of the south to talk to the Light Council—about elections.” The orc bared brass-capped fangs incredulously. “Why He thinks they won’t call down every battery of Light magic they’ve got on His head beats me.”
For the first time, Ashnak’s bass-baritone voice altered.
“I don’t consider disobeying the Dark Lord an acceptable level of risk. He could wipe out every orc in the marines just by snapping His fingers…His orders are, I’m to bring a platoon and escort Him to the capital, Ferenzia. We leave tomorrow.”