Free Grunts by Mary Gentle Page A

Zithan-dri…”
    Captain Zarkingu (Magic-Disposal, Administration, and Band Duties) marched past at the head of the band and the second column, skipping from side to side and tossing her skull-standard up in the air, macelike, in time to the music.
    “See you at the Tower, L.t.!” Zarkingu yelled.
    Barashkukor saluted. He sat down in the jeep’s back seat, tilting the GI pot back on his head and letting his long, hairless ears spring out from under it.
    “Lieutenant Barashkukor!”
    Barashkukor jumped up and came smartly to attention, snapping a crisp salute. “Sir, Major Ashnak, sir! We removed stores of weapons from the mountains, sir. Everything is being transported with the company, sir, including ammunition. The orcs are moving out as requested,
sah
!”
    “Thank you, Barashkukor.” Ashnak gave a casual salute. “Your unit’s got flying experience with Hueys, Lieutenant.”
    “Sir, yes sir!” Barashkukor leapt out of the jeep. “That is…sir, no sir! Incapacitated by illness, sir. The Bell HU-1 Iroquois was disabled according to your orders, sir!”
    Major Ashnak took the unlit roll of pipe-weed out of his tusked mouth and threw it down, grinding it under one polished combat boot. He tilted the urban camo forage cap back on his misshapen skull.
    “There were at least two Hueys in Dagurashibanipal’s hoard, Lieutenant. Break out another one. Find a pilot and a marine with co-piloting experience and report back to me.”
    Ashnak removed his forage cap and buckled on his GI-issue helmet, grinning toothily.
    “I have my orders from Dark HQ, Lieutenant. I’ve got no choice.”
    “I have no choice!”
    The Named swings up into the saddle of the white warhorse, bright armour clashing. Her destrier lays its ears flat back against its skull. She effortlessly controls it.
    “It is my fate to go to the Tower of Guthranc at the appointed time and use its power to summon the Army of Light to the Fields of Destruction. The time is
now
. The signal is mine alone to give!”
    The sun colours her ugly grey-white face with the gold of dawn. Her breath curls in the summer’s-ending chill. Somewhere in Sarderis there is the scent of the sea.
    “Follow my orders!” She wipes trailing saliva from the corner of her loose mouth. “This was prophecied for me when I was in my cradle, and I cannot avoid my destiny. I go now to Guthranc to sound the first war-summons to the Northern Kingdoms—I ride at dawn!”
    A gold Harvest moon rose over the distant mountains. The wind felt cold on Ashnak’s face. He rested his back up against a trampled earth-bank smelling of cow-dung and machine-oil.
    A scout orc slipped into the cover beside him. “Sir, nothing, sir.”
    The orc’s commando knife dripped. Ashnak peered between the hedge’s thorn bushes towards the village by the river. It showed even to his eyes as blackness against blackness. No lights, no cock-crows, no hammers in the smithy. He smelled the scent of Man-blood on the air.
    “Nothing left but the oldest and youngest of Men, and those were in hiding. All the smithies are empty, all the horseflesh gone.” She saluted. “No resistance, sir. We can take the columns through the river valley.”
    Ashnak’s hide twitched in the night’s chill.
    “This is a land waiting to be at war…Their warriors will be riding away to the great musters of the Light.” The wet earth soaked through his combats at knee and elbow. “Move ’em out, soldier.”
    Ashnak rose and walked back from the advance post, radioingfor Shazgurim and Zarkingu to move their companies out, and the night became a morass of small noises—muffled boots, the clink of weapons, a snarl, the buzz of a radio transmission. It went on interminably as he walked back, squad after squad of orcs trampling the earth as they passed him. The big Agaku bared his fangs with exhilaration.
    The full moon loomed, silver now, patterns of the Dark visibly smirching its face.
    Shapes shambled across the fields and