Grunts by Mary Gentle Page B

pulling down the peak. The charred remnants of his uniform pocket yielded, amazingly, fresh pipe-weed. He stuck a cigar in his mouth and strolled across to the wreck of the helicopter.
    A heap of masonry some yards from the Huey collapsed and disclosed the two orcs who had gone to cover. The larger, a female with her orange hair tied up in a horse-tail, shook herself. The smaller, who appeared to have been attempting to hide under his own GI helmet, sat up beside her.
    “So what
does
an orc call a halfling?” the small orc inquired.
    “Lunch.” The large female orc slapped her DPM-camouflaged thigh. “Lunch!”
    “Damn right,” Ashnak growled.
    The smaller orc sprang to his feet and saluted. “Sir, General Ashnak, sir!”
    “At ease, Lieutenant…
Captain
Barashkukor,” Ashnak corrected himself.
    Marukka saluted. “The firefight’s over.” The orange-haired orc hefted a shoulder-fired missile-launcher in onehand. “I guess we won’t be using these anymore, will we, sir? I want my poleaxe back.”
    Barashkukor folded his small arms over his flak jacket. “But I like the armour.”
    Ashnak bent down, recovering water bottles and knives from corpses, slinging them from his webbing. He left the guns. He grinned toothily and began to laugh, deep belly laughs that shook him until his tilted eyes watered.
    “It’s not important.” Ashnak put his horny arms around the two orcs’ shoulders. “Fuck, man, the weapons aren’t important!”
    In the Old Forest, now, or in the Man-countryside, there will be orc survivors heading back to Nin-Edin. They’ve been taught how to fall back and regroup. They’ll obey. They’re marines. They’re
grunts
.
    Ashnak of the fighting Agaku grinned an orc grin, and stared into the red light of the setting sun.
    “So the hostiles have magic. So what!
Think
about what happened down there, marines. We were disciplined. We fought as units. We were tactical. Orcs fought as a
team.
”
    “Yeah,” Marukka said slowly. “It wasn’t just warriors charging off into the fight on their own, or killing each other instead of the enemy. Different orc-tribes fought side by side! My squad kicked ass! If we hadn’t had to stop when we did…”
    Ashnak looked away from the sunset, black dots swimming in his vision. He rubbed the wet corners of his tilted eyes. Beside him, Barashkukor brought one small booted foot down hard, coming smartly to attention.
    “Sir, we are marines, sir!”
    “That’s right…”
    Ashnak tugged his forage cap down over his hairless skull, between his peaked ears. He shifted the unlit cigar to the corner of his tusked mouth and thumped Barashkukor between his skinny shoulder-blades. The small orc staggered and sat down hard on the turf.
    “That’s
right
.” Ashnak grinned ferociously. “There can be more of us. I promise you. There’s always the Last Battle. There’s always
after
the Last Battle…”
    “Sir, yes sir!”
    The crimson sun shines on the three of them, casting their shadows long across the carnage of the battlefieldaround Guthranc. The forces of Light, badly mauled, limp away from the scene of their victory. Below the Tower, the orc marines are already lighting fires and roasting the wounded.

BOOK 2

Fields of Destruction

1

    It is Samhain. The Autumn Solstice, the Day of Dead Souls. The fate of the free world hangs in the balance.
    The Final Battle of the Army of Light against the Horde of Darkness seethes backwards across the vast plain that chroniclers call the Fields of Destruction.
    Squadrons of black-armoured orcs and wolverine-riding trolls, battalions of fire-demons and mutant ogres, companies of evil djinni, cacodaemons and dark elves, armies of witch-queens, and the thirteen necromancers of the Horde of Darkness, raven against the outnumbered Army of Light. Jagged swords, warhammers, and poleaxes bloodily rise and fall. Battalions of mutant monsters lumber into the carnage. Leather-winged beasts swoop down over the pitifully