“What is that?” he quavered peevishly. “It doesn’t matter. Say the usual thing, I suppose. You enter our court with a show of force: vile creature, we are not afraid of you!”
Beside Oderic, Corinna whispered, “But you, wizard. You are afraid of something, and it is not orcs!”
The High King demanded plaintively, “This thing defiles the air of Ferenzia. Why is it allowed to remain here?”
Some of the visiting warriors were already making for the weapons-cache in the cloakroom. Men in sashed waistcoats tutted and glared, and Oderic overheard one bemedalled general mutter, “Damned green scum!”
The orc tipped his round helmet back on his bald head, scratched his ears, and caught Oderic’s eye.
“You.” The orcish voice grated the common tongue. “Wizard. The old guy’s obviously lost his marbles. Get me someone who can count beyond five without using their fingers and I’ll say what I have to say to them.”
“I—ah—I am not familiar with your idiom, sir.” Oderic kept his piercing blue eyes fixed on the squat creature. The eagle-mage’s warning echoed in his ears. He leaned heavily on his staff. “But to spare His Majesty the undue strain of addressing a—ah—an orc, perhaps it would be better if you spoke with me. I am Oderic, High Wizard of Ferenzia.”
With surprising formality, the great orc touched its helmet with the talons of its free hand. “Ashnak. Field Marshal of the Horde, and General Officer Commanding the Orc Marines.”
Oderic raised his voice. “The hall will now be cleared of all but the members of the High Council!”
The High Wizard rested his hands on the pommel of his staff, knuckles white, fearing greatly the resurgence of Evil with only one humble old man to stand between it and the Good Peoples. The crowd began to move towards the doors. All of the begowned women shuffled that way, accompanied by men with campaign medals on their dress suits, and some with the sashes of knightly orders. Clerks, merchant princes, and lesser mages began to move, reluctantly. Those who did not stir were those who wore thick robes of state, ornamented gorgets and dress swords—Ferenzi men of middle age with closed, shrewd faces.
The orc barked an unfamiliar word. The other orcs raised their metal sticks.
Dukka-dukka-dukka-FOOM!
Oderic instantly whipped his staff up, casting a Shield of Protection as the room’s chandeliers shattered into crystal splinters. Women screamed. The crowd milled about. The glowing blue fire of the ward brushed the crystal fragments harmlessly away.
The High Wizard had just time to notice that metal shrapnel passed through the magic unharmed.
“Quiet!” The orc did not speak much above a conversational tone, but the great assembly hall became silent and still. The orc flipped open one of the many pouches on his complicated belt, extracted a pipe-weed cigar, and stuck it in his tusked mouth. Looking at Oderic, he jerked a taloned thumb at the warriors and mages in their evening dress.
“They’re staying right here,” the big orc said. “Nobody leaves. We got no secrets. C’mon, wizard, get your ass in gear! And by the way—have you got a light?”
Oderic caused the orc’s cigar to bloom a small ember of flame. “Well? What can you have to say to us?”
The orc ambled forward into the room, bandy-legged, grinning as only an orc can. “As marine military ambassador, may I present to you—the Death of Empires, the Blight of Man, the Heresy of Elvenkind, the One Who Lays Waste to Worlds…the Dark Lord of the East!”
Someone screamed.
A hubbub of voices rose, sound flattened by the draped walls. Corinna’s elvishly musical tones sounded clearly:
“It can’t be! He’s dead. I was there at the Fields of Destruction when we slew Him!” The small half-breed leaned up to whisper to Oderic, “Was that the warning they brought you? It can’t be, I tell you!”
“Peace,” Oderic commanded sternly. “It will be an imposter, of course.”
He witnessed Corinna’s elf-gold eyes widen. “No…”
The High Wizard Oderic turned to face the double doors, his last hope gone.
A young female stood there, of a stature tall among Men. Shadows clung to Her yellow hair that was bobbed level with Her chin. Shadows haunted the folds of Her fine metal-ring robe. Her smooth face held a porcelain calm. She did not raise Her head.
Oderic’s bones chilled.
Eight orc marines surrounded Her, green bulging muscles gleaming in the remaining candlelight, bald heads and ears shining. They stood shoulder to shoulder, facing outwards. The large orc, Ashnak, snarled the incomprehensible phrase “muzzle sweep!” and the orc warriors immediately lifted the metal sticks to point away from him. They pointed them at the crowd of Ferenzi nobility instead.
“Odo, send them away!” Magorian protested, tugging the wizard’s sleeve. “Can’t have my royal hall full of damned spear-chuckin’ greenies from bongo-bongo land. Get rid of ’em! Don’t know what the world’s coming to; greenies starting getting above themselves. And who’s that damned fine woman? Nice filly, but she’s hardly dressed for my royal court.”
The elderly wizard snapped testily, “That is the Dark Lord, whom we thought to be dead!”
“Really?” Uninterested, Magorian clutched the arm of his squire and began limping back towards his canopied throne. “Wasn’t like this at the Battle of Moonheart. Mowed ’em down in ranks, we did. Hordes of spear-chucking greenies…”
Before Oderic could restrain her, Corinna Halfelven strode out of the crowd. She glared up—and up—at the tall shape of the female Man. “Die, vile creature of Darkness!”
All the windows along the assembly hall shattered inwards. A wind icy as the heights above mountains soared in. Oderic felt the Powers of the Air, which are vast as the world, press into the palace, masonry groaning at the pressure.
Corinna Halfelven, at the centre of the power vortex, threw out one long-gloved hand and pointed her finger at the heart of the Dark Lord. Her other hand held up the petticoats of her ballgown. Wood-ash pale hair floated about her tiny aquiline face. She cried out in the elvish tongue an incantation older than the glaciers. The Powers of the Air poised at her command.
The Dark Lord, Her voice gentle, said, “No, I don’t think so.”
A smear of grease smoked on the marble floor tiles of the Royal Assembly Hall of Ferenzia—all that remained of the halfling mage.
The Dark Lord stepped delicately over it on bare feet, light from the remaining candles sliding down Her metal-mesh robe. Glints of black light flashed. She raised Her chin, bobbed yellow hair swinging.
“A mage-assassin. The Light has grown hypocritical of late. No matter. It does not harm me. Being dead has, I think, been good for My evil magic.”
Oderic broke the shocked, impressed silence by snapping his fingers. Halfling servants in brown waistcoats, with their shirtsleeves rolled up, pushed through the crowd with mops and cloths, and cleared what remained of Corinna Halfelven from the floor.
“Be swift,” he directed, “but reverent.”
A chill walked down the knobs of Oderic’s spine. He recognised the Dark Lord’s impatience. Battle-hardened, he took his time in turning.
Four orcs clustered tightly around the Dark Lord, blocking the crowd’s sight of Her. The other four split into pairs, heavy metal sticks slung across their backs, and shoved between frock-coated Men, tearing down the few remaining drapes and lace curtains to expose the night-view of Ferenzia beyond the palace windows, and secreting abandoned champagne bottles about their persons. The Ferenzi nobility complained in precise, hysterical accents about “green barbarians.” Oderic kept the same disgust, icy and strong, from showing on his lined features.