'What the hell do you think you're doing?' the commander thundered.
'Just taking the air,' Stryke replied, feigning innocence.
' Just… taking… the… air,' the human repeated, his tone pure mockery. 'And the curfew be damned, is that it?'
'Didn't know there was one.'
The commander's face reddened. 'Are you trying to — ' He checked himself and stared past Stryke at Jup and Spurral. 'What are they?'
'Not again,' Jup sighed under his breath.
Shoving forward for a better look, the commander caught sight of Pepperdyne and Standeven at the back of the crowd. His confusion doubled. 'Are you these creatures' prisoners?'
'No,' Pepperdyne told him, 'we're together.'
' Together? You're fraternising with the natives?'
'What'd you mean, natives?' Haskeer objected.
'We've got a troupe of jesters here,' the commander declared, loud enough for his men to hear. 'A company of fools. But we'll see who has the last laugh.'
'Doubt it'll be you,' Coilla said.
He turned to her. 'What did you say?'
'Won't be you laughing.'
'Is that so?'
'Sure. You need a heartbeat for that.'
'Which I have.'
'Not for long.'
'Are you threatening me?' He seemed to find the notion amusing.
'Call it… a prediction.'
'Well, here's a prediction of mine. You freaks are about to pay the price for disrespecting your betters.'
Coilla smiled. 'Bring it on.'
He clutched a pair of studded leather gloves. Seething with fury, he cracked her savagely across the face with them.
The band tensed.
Coilla lifted a hand to her cheek. Blood was trickling from the corner of her mouth. She spat it out, narrowly missing the commander's shiny boots. Staring into his eyes, she announced evenly, 'He's mine.'
The commander laughed. 'Oh, really. And since when did your kind have the guts to stand up to a superior?'
'How about since now?' she informed him pleasantly.
Quick as thought she delivered a mighty kick to his crotch. He let out an agonised yelp and doubled. She sprang forward and grabbed him by the ears. Pulling his head down, she pounded his face against her upraised knee a couple of times. There was a satisfying crunch of cartilage.
As she let him drop, Stryke and Haskeer whipped out their blades. Haskeer rammed his sword deep into the chest of one lieutenant. Stryke buried twin daggers into the flanks of the other.
It all happened so fast that the rest of the humans were too stupefied to act. Many wore expressions of shocked disbelief.
Then someone yelled, ' Terrorists! ' and mayhem broke out.
Weapons drawn, the mob of Wolverines and the line of humans rushed at each other. In the middle of the square they melded, then spiralled into a score of fights.
Though outnumbered, the more so as Standeven and Wheam effectively counted as non-combatants, the orcs made up the deficiency by battling with their habitual ferocity. And at first, they had another edge: the humans seemed stunned that orcs would fight at all.
There was a terrible harmony in the way the warband worked together. They hacked, cleaved, slashed and battered their way through obstructing flesh. If there was finesse, Pepperdyne was its only practitioner.
In this, his fighting style was nearer the humans. Where orcs pummelled, he engaged. Though whether employing savagery or swordsmanship the upshot was the same. Soon the cobblestones ran red and slippery. Of the human company's original number, only a third were still on their feet. The Wolverines had taken minor wounds, but no fatalities.
'We've got 'em licked!' Haskeer bragged.
'Don't crow too soon,' Stryke told him. 'Look.'
More uniformed men were running into the square from the streets on its far side. There were at least twice as many as in the unit the orcs were fighting.
Haskeer was contemptuous. 'Since when did we worry about odds?'
'They could be the van of a lot more.'
'So what do we do?'
'Kill 'em,' Stryke hissed.
'Why didn't you just say that in the first place?' He turned and swiped at an encroaching human, cleaving his ribs.
Fighting alongside Jup and Spurral, Coilla spotted the newcomers too. 'They've got back-up!' she yelled.
Jup shattered a skull with his staff. 'I see 'em. Never a dull moment with this band.' He spun to break a foe's arm, before toppling him into Spurral's path, who deftly finished the job with twin knife thrusts.
Coilla admired their teamwork.
'Maybe we shouldn't have taken on this lot,' Spurral said.
'And missed a scrap?' Coilla replied. 'We don't think like that.'
But she could see that the humans were taking heart from the reinforcements and fighting harder.
And then a fresh element was added.
As though obeying an unheard signal, the humans fighting the orcs began to disengage and pull back. They left their dead and dying where they fell.
Jup punched air. 'They're retreating!'
'I wouldn't count on it,' Coilla said.
As the humans hastily withdrew they moved aside, giving a clear view of the new contingent. At their head stood three figures dressed differently to all the others. They wore what appeared to be robes, and they were hooded.
Where there had been the cacophony of battle, there was now a deathly silence. The Wolverines held their ground, looking on.
'Are they priests or what?' Haskeer wondered.
Stryke shrugged.
'Whatever the fuck they are, what are we waiting for?'
'Steady. Something's going on.'
The three hooded figures pulled objects from their robes. It was difficult to tell what they were from a distance, but they resembled small metal tridents the size of long daggers.
'What the hell they doing?' Haskeer said.
'Don't know. But I don't like it.'
The trio raised the tridents and pointed them in the orcs' direction.
Stryke bellowed, ' Everybody down! '
There was a blinding flash of light. The tridents spewed intense shafts of red, green and yellow iridescence.
The band hit the ground a split second before the crackling beams of energy streaked above their heads. Two struck buildings behind the prone warband, demolishing a heavy door and punching a hole in a wall. Bricks and mortar rained down. The third bolt impacted the corner of the gallows, instantly igniting it.
A second volley had Wolverines rolling in the dirt to avoid the searing beams. The shafts raked the ground like small lightning strikes, dislodging cobblestones and throwing up sparks.
Stryke lifted his head and looked around. He saw Hystykk and Jad stretched out nearby. Both had bows.
