ORCS: Army of Shadows by Stan Nicholls Page A

in a semitransparent aura that looked like air rippling on a hot day. It was shot through with a brilliant
     violet hue that shifted, melted and reformed itself. Stryke knew a mere sword was no match for such sorcery.
    “Did you think to find me unprotected?” she said.
    “It was worth a try,” Stryke grated. He was fighting against his inbred deference for her, and his wariness of her powers.
    She laughed. It was a disturbing sound. “Your race may be unparalleled fighters, but you hardly excel when it comes to thinking.”
    “If brainwork means something like you,” he replied defiantly, “I’ll stay dumb.”
    “Insolent cur!” She made a movement with her hand, as though lobbing an invisible ball.
    Stryke was hit by a jolt as powerful as the shock he’d just recovered from. He bit his lip to stop himself crying out.
    “So you came here to kill me?” she added. Her tone made it sound conversational.
    He said nothing.
    “Or perhaps you hoped for a different prize,” Jennesta went on. For a fraction of a second, and apparently involuntarily,
     her eyes flicked to a bulky silk pouch on the seat beside her.
    Stryke hadn’t noticed it before, and now he willed himself not to look at it. “Your death’s the best prize I can think of.”
    “Then you really do lack imagination, dullard.” She made the hand gesture again.
    He took another punch of psychic force. The hurt inundated every cell in his body. He felt it in his bones, his teeth. And
     he knew he couldn’t take much more; assuming she didn’t simply kill him outright.
    “Your view of the universe is so depressingly limited,” she said. “You grasp no more than a sliver of the truth. If only you
     had the intellect to see how much
more
there is to reality.”
    Stryke thought that was an odd thing for her to say. But then, most of what she said had always struck him as bizarre. He
     held his silence.
    “Why am I bothering?” Jennesta asked. “You and your kind have the acumen of worms. And to think I once believed that you,
     Captain Stryke, had the wit to rise above your animal state.”
    “You never showed it.”
    “You never earned my trust.”
    It was Stryke’s turn to laugh, even if he risked a further jolt. “You talk as though your trust’s a gem, and not a sham of
     paste and glass.”
    “What a poetic turn of phrase. For an animal. You could have been great, Stryke.”
    “I’m flattered.”
    “Low sarcasm. I shouldn’t expect more. But what you’re too dim to understand is that by your treachery you’ve traded my patronage
     for a life of struggle and hardship.”
    “We call it freedom.”
    “It’s overrated,” she sneered.
    The carriage door was still open. Outside, the sound of fighting continued, but it was strangely faint, as if heard from a
     distance.
    Stryke said the first thing that came into his head, purely to keep her engaged. “You might have the upper hand now, but —”
    “Oh
really
. Foolishly, I expected more of you than empty threats and petty chatter. Let’s not beat about the bush. Neither of us is
     mentioning the enormous basilisk in the room. The
instrumentalities
, dolt.” She fleetingly glanced at the pouch again. He took that as confirming his hunch and tensed himself.
    “What about them?”
    She rolled her eyes. “ ‘
What about them,’
he asks. So you’re happy that you no longer possess them, is that it? No answer? Perhaps a little encouragement’s in order.”
     She raised her hand.
    Stryke sprang forward, snatched the pouch and dived out of the carriage. Thinking he’d be struck down at any instant, he ran
     towards Haskeer.
    His sergeant had decapitated the zombie and was staring down at it. Even headless, the creature still showed signs of life,
     writhing and twitching in the dirt.
    “
Move it!
” Stryke yelled.
“Run!”
    Haskeer fell in behind him.
    Stryke looked back. He expected to see Jennesta coming out of the coach, but there was no sign of her. Up ahead Coilla,