Free Ascendance by John Birmingham

just need to figure out where this asshole is, and then not be there when we go back up. Let him be the fucking hero and we’ll . . . hell yeah, I got it, we’ll force him to be the hero, and while he’s all tied up doing that, we clobber him with the plan. Just like we planned? You cool with that?’
    Guyuk shifted on his sitting rock. His armour and chain mail rasped and clinked on the granite.
    ‘I might indeed be cool, had I any idea of what you speak. Please explain yourself, Superiorae. And assume that unlike you I am no empath, just a battle-scarred and increasingly impatient Lord Commander of Her Majesty’s Most Terrible Legions Grymm. Imagine I have a very large sword that might cleave you asunder were my impatience to get the better of me. Should it help focus your explanation I could show you this sword.’
    ‘No need, bro. I can tell you ’zactly what we need to do. But I’m gonna need to get one of my Threshrendum back down here. Just to give me a sense of where this asshole’s hanging now.’

    *
    The Threshrend who attended them was a veteran of the majorae ranks, an elder of its clan, long pledged in fealty to the Grymm. It hunkered in the chamber, eyestalks down, deferring to Compt’n ur Threshrend as was only proper, he being the lord commander’s pro-consul. Guyuk did not need to be an empath, however, to understand that the much larger and more battle-scarred creature was not much impressed with its little master.
    M’randm ur Threshrend had first served the Grymm Legions with distinction at the Battle of Nahin Chasm, in the thirteenth war under the capstone, the fourth campaign against the Morphum, at least in the modern era. That made him nearly as old as Guyuk. M’randm ur Threshrend had battle scars older than the human city from which he’d just returned. The scars hidden beneath those wounds were older than any human city.
    ‘My Lord Guyuk,’ he said, before adding just slowly enough for the pause to be noticeable, ‘Superiorae. I serve at your will.’
    ‘Fuckin’ A you do, Mandy,’ said Compt’n ur Threshrend. ‘So what’s with the ’tude? Am I your overlord or what?’
    ‘Superiorae,’ warned Guyuk. ‘You are not long come to your high station and having taken such an unusual path there you might yet be unaware of the great and valuable services rendered to Her Majesty’s Regiments Grymm by the majorae these eons past.’
    Guyuk bore down on the words ‘eons’.
    ‘Yeah, yeah. Threshy digs it. Mandy is a valuable member of the team. Employee of the month or the millennium or whatevs. I’m sensing some ’tude, that’s all.’
    ‘What is this ’tude of which you speak?’ asked Guyuk.
    ‘I bring no ’tude,’ M’randm ur Threshrend assured them, ‘only those reports from the Above which you have requested of me.’
    ‘Perhaps we might hear them,’ Guyuk said, with another warning glance at the Superiorae.
    ‘Fine,’ said Compt’n ur Threshrend, throwing up its tiny fore-claws. ‘Don’t bother with me, I’m just pro-consul to the –’
    ‘Excellent. Threshrend Majorae, bother yourself no longer with the pro-consul and report. How stands the human city and its champions?’
    ‘I could suck his brains out and tell you myself,’ Compt’n ur Threshrend muttered.
    ‘And I would need another Superiorae when they dragged your carcass out of here and down to the rendering vats in the kitchens,’ said Guyuk. ‘Majorae?’
    The veteran empath bowed deeply.
    ‘My Lord, the calfling island of Manhatt’n stands besieged as my Superiorae directed it be, from within, by the least of our Horde. Unnamed Hunn with soulless blades run amok with no tactical discipline. They are watched by my clan and by the Diwan’s scouts, but no attempt do we make to control them. They sow great fear and much uncertainty among the foe.’
    ‘And the Dave. Where he be at?’ Compt’n ur Threshrend demanded to know, seeming slightly mollified by the success of his