Ashnak’s snarl widened into a pleased smile. Barashkukor extended his cyborg-eye up through the APC’s hatch.
“Mission entering the town hall now, sir.”
“…fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.” Ashnak pushed a button on a device hanging from his webbing.
KER-FOOOMM!!!
The halfling mother and her children screamed. Debris rattled down against the outside of the APC for some moments.
“Anti-personnel charge,” Ashnak explained.
Barashkukor, having retracted his eye just in time, crammed his GI pot down over his long ears and stuck his head outside. The long, muscular arm of his general pushed him up and out into the evening sunlight.
Smoke drifted across the street. Halflings and the odd dwarf ran in panic. Bricks, wood, and broken glass covered the cobbles and had embedded themselves in the round, painted halfling-hole doors. Healer-mages flapped and bustled around the smoking heap of bricks and mortar that was all that remained of the town hall building, their white robes splashed and dripping with red.
“Now if that doesn’t convince them to vote for Herself,” the orc general Ashnak remarked, “then I’m a half-elf.”
Barashkukor picked himself up and dusted his combats down. He nodded smartly. “Very clever, sir. If they blame Amarynth and the Light, they’ll vote for us. And if they think it was done by the Dark, they’ll vote for us to stop it happening again. Sir, well done, sir!”
“And another advantage…” The large orc’s voice trailed off.
A singed and blackened figure shambled up the road towards the APC, green hide smoking, long olive-drab greatcoat hanging in smouldering rags, and wire-rimmed spectacles dangling smashed from one pointed ear.
Orc Political Commissar Razitshakra, swaying on her bandy legs, saluted up at Ashnak filling the hatch of the APC.
“Truly orcish, sir!” she enthused. “That’s what I call politically correct! Can I do the next mission too, sir?”
“How fortuitoush,” a voice remarked.
Barashkukor, turning, was startled to see a figure cowled in a patchwork leather robe. A dozen Ferenzi troopers in striped hose, carrying halberds, accompanied the figure. It slowly reached up and put the hood back from its head.
Level sunlight through the explosion’s dust shone on grey, black, and fish-belly-white skin. Ragged black hair surrounded a face now almost pleasant, by orc standards. Barashkukor had some difficulty in recognising the nameless necromancer.
“Sir,” the small orc acknowledged, startled, but nevertheless according him the respect of a soldier for an exemployer.
“General Ashnak!” the nameless necromancer cried, slobbering round the tusks that twisted his mouth awry. “You stand accushed of crimesh against peasch and humanity!”
The great orc frowned. “Accused of what?”
“Crimes against peace and humanity,” Major Barashkukor deciphered helpfully. He watched his commanding officer blush the colour of basalt.
“Thank you,” Ashnak said gruffly.
“It’sh a charge, not a commendation!” the nameless necromancer spluttered. “You’re under arresht!”
Barashkukor fingered his pistol in its belt holster and looked inquiringly at Razitshakra, who swayed, singed and cross-eyed, and then at Ashnak. The big orc rested his hand on the machinegun mounted by the APC’s hatch.
“Can’t say I’m impressed by magical firepower these days,” the orc general drawled. “Not even the nameless necromancer’s.”
The disfigured face twisted. It was several seconds before Barashkukor worked out that this orcishly handsome member of the Man race was smiling.
“But it ish not I who arresht you,” he said. “I hold the authority of another.”
“The Light?” Ashnak’s upper lip lifted over his fangs as he snarled at the Ferenzi guards.
Barashkukor pulled his cap straight between his drooping ears. His steel leg clicked and emitted a jet of steam as he stepped forward, positioning himself between the APC and the nameless necromancer’s escort of Ferenzi troopers.
“The Lords of Light have no military jurisdiction over the orc marines,” Barashkukor proclaimed primly, unfastening his pistol holster.
“But I do not shpeak for the Light,” the Man slurred.
Behind Barashkukor, Ashnak gave a guttural cough. “So who is trying to arrest me, if not the Light?”
The nameless necromancer drew his skin robe about his hunch-shouldered body, snuffling a little with triumph.
“Why,” he said, “General Ashnak, you are placshed under arrest now by the authority of the Dark Lord Hershelf.”
The silence of evacuated territory pervaded the root tunnels below the City of the Trees. Lieutenant Gilmuriel Hunt-Lord signalled Fireteam One of Starlight Squad to halt.
“Fourteen!” he called, voice squeaking with exhaustion.
“Nine!”
The challenge being a number over ten, and the correct response a number under it, the blond elf sighed in relief and advanced down the corridor.
Carved out of the thick roots of aeons-old trees, the polished tunnel walls gleamed gold in the near-darkness. Woodgrain swirled, looped, and waved. Faint light came up from under the circular tunnel floor, across which thinner roots had been trained and grown into walkway-gratings. Gilmuriel’s boots fell on pierced wood so ancient it rang hard as metal.
“Yo, L.t.!” A lean, green-skinned orc with corporal’s chevrons on his sleeve advanced to meet Gilmuriel. Several orc marines in mechanic’s overalls followed him.
“Corporal Hikz, your patrol’s overdue.”
“Sorry, sir.” The lean orc corporal saluted. “Sir, nothing much to report. The sq— the inhabitants have all cleared out of the city. The place is practically deserted.”
“Practically?”
“We discovered a small Man-child last night, sir.” Orc Corporal Hikz gestured at the corridor’s walkway root flooring. “Under those gratings. Plucky little yellow-haired thing she was, sir. Obviously in hiding from the Bugs.”
Gilmuriel looked at the five or six orcs behind Hikz. “And what have you and your orcs done with the Man-child, Corporal?”
“We ate her, sir.”
“What!”
“And very tasty she was too, thank you, sir.”
“Well done, that orc!” Sergeant Dakashnit appeared silently in their midst from a side corridor, showing all her tusks in a grin. As Gilmuriel belatedly turned to give the challenge, Fireteam Two of Starlight Squad limped into view.
“Tried taking the radio up to treetop level,” Dakashnit jerked a gnarled thumb at marine radio operator Silkentress. “Can’t raise the rest of the platoon, or the company. All the firebases east of the river have been overrun. Saw Bugs in at least battalion strength—they’re across the city perimeter and headed this way fast.” The female orc removed her steel helmet and wiped her shaven head. “This is what we in the marines call a target-rich environment.”
Gilmuriel frowned. “Target-rich environment, Sergeant?”
Corporal Hikz said, “Overwhelming enemy forces, sir!”
Sssssssssssssssszakkk!
Gilmuriel’s pointed ears pricked at the sound of firing. He looked swiftly from side to side.
“That lateral corridor leads to the supply rooms,” he said crisply. “Down this way is the Plant Room. I’m assuming that will be one of their objectives. Corporal Hikz, I think it’s time for you to deploy your experimental weaponry here. The rest of the squad will set up an ambush from the supply rooms.”
With every impression of being amazed by his decisiveness, Gunnery Sergeant Dakashnit saluted. “Corporal Blackrose, recce the supply rooms and access tunnels.” She paused. “Corporal Hikz—that wouldn’t by any chance be Tech-Captain Ugarit’s experimental weaponry, would it?”