Carnival

[the Grendels]

Under the monster’s claws
And in between his teeth
Was the shadow and a silhouette
Of what I thought I’d be.

Scars and Stitches, by Guster

[Righteous Lefties]

The sun was setting on the troubled village of Tirzah. The remote settlement was located in a hilly region of land that the geologists called the horse’s eye of the Sable Island continent; in the nation called the Free Collectives of Righteous Lefties. For thousands of years, the people of Tirzah had barely managed to eek out a living in the surrounding fields and hills. In olden days, years of blight came and went. People would die, but in time the conditions would improve and the population would recover. It was the natural order of things, the price for their blissful isolation in the land of their Creator.

At this same time every day, Parim made his migration to the small hilltop at the edge of town. He had been doing this act of pilgrimage all week long. A small girl held his hand. Without her guidance, the man might not return to the village. Parim was blind.

“Daddy,” asked the six-year-old girl holding his large hand in her own, “why you go up the hill?”

“To talk to God,” smiled Parim, the skin cracking on his lips, so unfamiliar with the expression.

He turned his head out of instinct towards the voice, below him and to the right, even though he could not see her. The two of them continued to pick their way up the rough path, before finally arriving at the rocky bluff. As a young man he’d climbed up the path in fifteen minutes at a brisk pace that was no longer his to enjoy. He could not see the Sun, but his intimate knowledge of the land around the village was enough for him to kneel facing it. Parim bowed his head in silent prayer, while his young daughter watched him. He spoke the words in his mind, slowly and deliberately. They were the same every day.

“Oh merciful Creator, please hear my plea. The people of Tirzah have long laboured in thy name. We have lived faithfully by thy word and taken no more from this life than was our need. But our need is now more than we have it within us to give. The blight hath killed our crops and no longer will anything grow in the ground. When we prayed for salvation then, help did come, but they demand more than we can give. What they take we cannot replenish, but my family must be clothed and they must eat. I have given all that I have so that they will survive, but I am now little more than a husk myself. When they took part of my liver, I did not shed a tear, for the need of my family was great. And so it was when I gave up to the strangers one of my kidneys. They took strips of my skin and I bore the pain. But oh Creator, after they took from me my eyes, I knew I would no longer bear witness to your miracles. I would no longer be able to see the ones I have loved all my life. Now that I have given all that is left of me in this life to provide for my family, like others in the village I weep for my family, for I know that their time will come and that the strangers will take all that they have too. Oh merciful Creator, not for myself do I ask for your aid, but for my family and for the others in the village. Please deliver us from our suffering.”

His eyes may have been gone but he had been left with his tear ducts.

[the Grendels]

It wasn’t the worst dust bowl that Jaakaroo had worked in, but it wasn’t far from being the worst either. This god-forsaken land was dying all around him and he was being paid to watch it happened. If he’d worked for a more unscrupulous client in his tenure as a mercenary, he couldn’t remember. But right now the job was what he needed. Jaakaroo was in a remote location, completely off the grid. It was a good place to be when you had as many enemies as he had. He’d kicked over his share of anthills in the last few years and it was time for the hunter to lay low for a while.

Tirzah was as good a place to hide out in as any. He’d heard that it was once a self-sustained farming community, with virtually no contact with the outside world. They liked it that way and with good reason. There were monsters in the outside world that preyed on people like them. Wysterians Helping Wysterians was one of the monsters. The non-government organization was a fake charity, preying on the same developing world its brochures said it was helping. Here in the Righteous Lefties, they’d taken their predations one step further. After blight killed the soil in the land around the village, the NGO had been there first, to provide the villagers with emergency aid. But they soon made it clear to locals that they would have to bring something to the table if they wanted to continue eating. The village was destitute. They had nothing, well almost nothing. The man behind Wysterians Helping Wysterians also just happened to be active in the private medical industry. He had a string of clinics that served the needs of the wealthy, people who needed organs and didn’t like waiting in line. Transplant tourists didn’t ask the hard questions. Even if they suspected that places like this existed, they just wanted to get back to their urban lives of mass consumption. The people of Tirzah had very marketable organs, owing to a lack of chemical substance abuse. In Tirzah, the farmers had become the crops.

Jaakaroo provided an under strength, security platoon for his employer. He wasn’t expecting a lot of action on this assignment, but they still went armed. This far off the grid, it wasn’t like he could call in any support. They were mostly here because someone wanted to leave nothing to chance. His security detachment was in place just to keep the villagers here and outsiders from nosing around. It was an easy gig. The villagers didn’t want to leave and outsiders almost never came to Tirzah. It was a completely unremarkable place, with no natural wonders or resources to draw outsiders. There was an observation post manned on both of the two hilltops, overlooking the village and surrounding countryside. A small foot patrol wandered around the village, looking for signs of rebellion amongst the pacifist population. A guard was posted on the medical tents and the refrigeration trailer of the NGO. A small rapid response team was maintained, ready to deploy from their tent barracks. It probably was unnecessary, but Jaakaroo didn’t like leaving anything to chance either. They’d cleared an improvised airstrip on the now dead fields and occasionally a small cargo plane would come to take away the harvest of organs. Jaakaroo ran drills and training, to keep his troops from stagnating in the village. It was easy for a mercenary to become like the dust around him in a place like this. If it wasn’t for the two crates of entertainment supplies that he’d insisted to his client were necessary logistics cargo, he was damned sure that by now the mercenaries would be using the villagers as entertainment supplies.

Jaakaroo strolled through the bleak village, watching and ignoring the natives at the same time. They clearly feared him. It wasn’t just the ever-present assault rifle, hanging from the patrolling harness. It wasn’t even the fact that he was a gnoll. It was almost as if the villagers smelled the violence in him, sensed his predatory tendencies. The gnoll made his way up the dusty trail, up the dusty hill. The two mercenaries manning the observation post would have seen him coming from a long ways away. It wasn’t like there was a lot of vegetation to conceal his approach. The two mercenaries at the OP greeted their boss, when he got closer.

“I just love our new digs, boss,” grinned the former ZaKommian Skull Trooper, better known by the code-name Heckles. “It’s just like being back in ZaKommia again.”

“Thinking about your vacation already, are you?” smiled Jaakaroo, kneeling down behind cover, to limit his silhouette on the hilltop. “Just imagine. A couple months here and the tropics will be that much sweeter, my friend.”

“The desert will taste sweet after a couple months here,” laughed Heckle. “Babysitting is tough work though. What’s for lunch, boss?”

“Perogees,” replied Jaakaroo, dropping off the ration packs to the two hungry soldiers.

The mercenary captain took over watch, while the other two prepared their meals. The soldiers used smokeless heat tablets to cook the foil bags, while snacking on the crackers that were included in the ration package.

“Plane’s late,” noted Jaakaroo, scanning the horizon for the expected arrival of the small logistics plane.

[the Grendels]

Jaakaroo stayed a little longer up on the observation post of the hill, talking with the two soldiers there, before returning back to the village. It wasn’t like he had a lot else to do and he enjoyed chatting with Heckle, who was as far as he could tell, clearly as messed up as he was. Jones, the other mercenary on the hilltop, had some miles on him too. Jones was a soldier from New Innisfree, still in his early twenties. One day, Jones figured if he was going to be constantly at war, he might as well collect a decent salary for it. For a mission like this, he was a warm body who wasn’t likely to screw things up and that was good enough for Jaakaroo. As the days passed, the mission was becoming more like a crappy summer camp experience than a militarized security tasking.

Back in the village were the same faces of misery and resignation that he had come to despise. They hadn’t once protested their plight. The closest to dissent was the crazy, blind man walking up to one of the hilltops each day and praying within spitting distance of one of the mercenary detachment’s observation posts. They never stole food or supplies, and none of them had even tried to go for help from a neighbouring village. The people here were sheep and they waited to be gutted like sheep.

Jaakaroo walked by the mobile clinic set up by Wysterians Helping Wysterians. It was more of an organ harvesting station than anything. A small line, of a dozen people, was seated on a pair of benches, waiting their turn to be processed. What sickened the gnoll most was that they submitted themselves to this horror.

The gnoll heard it long before he saw it. The small propeller plane was on its way, bringing supplies to the camp and taking away the cash crop in refrigerated containers. Jaakaroo made his way down to the runway, accompanied by a pair of gnoll mercenaries. They could have used the villagers as porters, but they weren’t trusted and besides, many were too fragile from recent medical procedures to do any heavy lifting. The plane touched down roughly on the runway, sending up huge clouds of dust, forcing Jaakaroo to squint. When you were off the grid you often didn’t have the luxury of affording the best pilots, smiled the gnoll. The pilot allowed the plane to roll to the end of the cleared strip of land and turned the plane around before he shut off the engine. The side door opened and the pilot emerged. He looked over at the gnolls and smiled.

“Back in a minute, gang. I got to take a wicked piss,” grinned the pilot, walking away from the plane to do his business.

“Let’s get it unloaded,” quietly ordered Jaakaroo, with only a quick glance after the human.

The trio of gnoll mercenaries dragged the crates out of the plane’s cabin and stacked them up nearby. The pilot came back in a couple minutes, feeling quite satisfied with himself, as he stretched his arms and yawned. A few minutes later, a small, all terrain, wheeled logistics vehicle drove out of the village to meet them. One of the NGO doctors was at the wheel of the roofless truck to supervise the loading of the precious cargo. The gnolls lifted the metal cases carefully into the plane, leaving the pilot to secure the load into place with cargo straps. The mercenaries then loaded up the vehicle with the newly arrived stack of supplies and one of them jumped in the passenger seat for the ride back to the village. Jaakaroo and the other gnoll began walking back to the village, less than a kilometer away.

The pilot started up the engine. He was under orders to move his cargo without delay. The small truck was halfway back to the village when the gunshot echoed through the valley. The gnoll, in the passenger seat of the truck, slumped forward. Blood from a head wound smeared across the dashboard.

[the Grendels]

“Contact!” yelled Jackaroo, already running for cover in a zigzag pattern to make it harder for the enemy to draw a bead on him. Unfortunately for the two gnolls at the runway, there wasn’t a lot of cover. It was why this location was picked as a runway in the first place. Jaakaroo and his companion popped off a couple rounds in the general direction of the enemy and ran to the only cover afforded them: the airplane that was starting to take off down the runway. The next round kicked up the dust at their feet and the next one hit the plane. The pilot was now smiling a whole lot less and waved at them frantically to get the hell away from his plane. Jaakaroo and the other gnoll mercenary ran as fast as they could, using the fuselage of the plane for cover, even as it picked up speed moving down the runway.

Bullets from an unseen rifle were hitting the plane and the ground around the feet of the two gnolls. The other gnoll yelled something to Jaakaroo, but he couldn’t hear him over the noise of the plane’s engine. In a few seconds the plane would be too far away on its takeoff to be used as cover, provided a stray bullet didn’t disable its systems. Unable to keep up with the plane anymore, Jaakaroo made a dash for some cover, zigzagging across the stony field. He didn’t know the other gnoll had already been shot down.

Rifle fire erupted from the hilltops on either side of town, as the mercenary observation posts located and returned fire on the enemy sniper. The rapid reaction force came out from their tent and raced across the village. Most villagers screamed in horror or flung themselves to the ground, hoping to avoid being killed. Some just stood, dumbfounded, and watched. Jaakaroo used the pause provided by his soldier’s fire suppression to make it to cover as fast as he could. He lay behind a boulder and peeked out to watch the splash of his troops rifle fire as it struck the enemy’s position.

“Jeckle!” yelled Jaakaroo, through the headset attached to his personal comms radio.

“Boss,” came the reply, from the soldier leading the rapid response team. Before becoming a mercenary he’d been a member of the Army of God, fighting as a partisan against the Sacred Skull. “Where are they?”

“Enemy on centre hill to the north of town, reference west slope,” reported Jaakaroo. “Meet me on the far side of hill two.”

“Roger,” acknowledged Jeckle.

Now that he was in better cover and the enemy was engaged from the hilltop observation posts, Jaakaroo was on the move to link up with the rapid reaction force. The gnoll wasn’t second-guessing Jeckle’s ability to lead the team into combat. Jeckle was an experienced soldier and performed well under stress. No, it was more about Jaakaroo wanting to personally perforate the bastards responsible for trying to kill him. The gnoll mercenary linked up with the four-soldier team, behind the cover of the largest hill in the area. Above them they could hear the slow rate of fire, from the observation post manned by Heckle and Jones.

Jaakaroo kneeled down in front of the other soldiers and drew his fighting knife. He used it to quickly draw the battle plan in the dust.

“We’re going to circle around here and put in a flanking attack, while the hilltop observation posts engage the enemy. We’ll hit them with rockets and grenades. We’ll kill whoever they are and sort out the why later. Understood?”

“Your will, boss,” came the chorus of mercenaries.

Jaakaroo kicked the dust over his quick dust map, out of habit, and they were on the move. The mercenaries ran quickly, knowing that the ammunition supply of the troops manning the observation posts wouldn’t last forever.

[the Grendels]

The five mercenaries of the rapid reaction force ran along the dusty trail, with the hill between them and the enemy sniper that had fired on them. Other mercenaries, manning the observation post on the two hills, one to the south of the village and one of the east, were keeping up a slow rate of fire against the enemy to pin them down. One soldier would fire and then a few seconds later his companion at the observation post would fire. By the time the rapid reaction force were at the base of the hill occupied by the enemy, the observation posts were each taking turns firing one round of suppression, at the enemy position, every few seconds. They were running low on ammo. Each of the observation posts had already each sent their junior soldier to run down into the village for more ammunition. They might be in for a long firefight they had to resupply themselves if they wanted to remain effective.

“OP’s 1 and 2, we’ll be on the position in 2 minutes,” advised Jaakaroo, over his personal radio. “Prepare to shift fire right.”

“Roger, boss,” came the reply from the observation posts.

Jaakaroo and the other four soldiers began to move up the small hill, towards the enemy. At any moment they expected a grenade to drop amongst them or a rifle to begin blazing through their ranks. Jaakaroo felt the anticipation of the kill building and smiled, his long tongue rolling out the side of his mouth. The stock of his assault rifle was in his shoulder as he searched the ground ahead with the barrel of his gun.

The ground was rocky and open. In places the ground crumbled underfoot and slid away down the slope they had just come up. Nothing grew here. Nothing held the hill together but the weight of itself. The mercenaries were facing death in a dead land.

Jaakaroo rounded a corner on the trail and came face to face with a gnoll running towards him. The assault rifle roared to life and the gnoll fell down the slope. Another gnoll, just behind the first, went to cover behind a rock. Jaakaroo fired a burst in his direction, as he also raced behind some cover. A bullet whipped past him and struck another mercenary who was following close behind him. The mercenary crumpled and another soldier pulled him back around the corner. Jaakaroo didn’t know his comrade had fallen and didn’t look back. He was too focused on the kill, too focused on the gnoll firing his rifle at him. The mercenary pulled out a grenade from a pouch on his webbing. He fired another burst at the rock, where his enemy was hiding, before he pulled the pin and let the lever fall away. Jaakaroo let the grenade fuse cook off a couple seconds, before lobbing at his enemy. The grenade exploded in a quick flash and a cloud of dust. In the wake of the explosion, Jaakaroo was suddenly up, firing his weapon on full auto, as he charged the enemy position. The gnoll behind the rock had been badly wounded by the explosion and made a feeble effort to reach for a holstered handgun. Jaakaroo emptied the magazine into his body. The mercenary quickly changed magazines and called his men forward.

“How we all doing?” yelled Jaakaroo.

“Frank’s hit,” came the reply from Jeckle, the former Nephian partisan.

“Kerry, go get a stretcher and a doc!” ordered Jaakaroo, still looking around for more enemies to kill.

“Aye, boss,” nodded Kerry, before the mercenary bounded back down the hill.

“OP’s 1 and 2, we have 2 enemy killed and 1 friendly wounded,” reported Jaakaroo, over his comms. “Hold your position and wait to be relieved, out.”

One soldier was treating the fallen mercenary for an abdominal wound. Frank Farrow was a freedom fighter from Falconspear who escaped Hunter A Bettik, traveling overland into Augustalia with Heckle and Jeckle. The former farmer had signed on as a mercenary after fighting with his group in the streets of Falconspear. Frank had been a little squeamish about the organ harvest they were running security for, but he’d done his job. Now he was lying in the dust, gut shot. Chances were that he’d live. They had a nice medical facility and surgeons back in the village.

Other mercenaries, who had been off duty in their bunks were now in their battle gear and were ordered out to the airstrip to check over the gnoll mercenary lying on the airstrip. After getting shot in the leg, he’d played dead and it had probably saved his life. The other gnoll, who had been in the passenger seat of the truck driving back from the airstrip, had been dead within seconds of being shot.

They didn’t find any more enemies on the hill and the gnoll killed first was dragged up beside the second one that Jaakaroo had killed. When they searched the two dead gnolls, all they found was a small haversack of rations, their weapons, a few extra magazines of ammunition, and a spotter scope to support a sniper. They were clean of identification and overly personalized kit. The food wasn’t military rations, but general civilian survival food you could get anywhere. One was armed with a hunting rifle and handgun, while the other gnoll had an assault rifle. The gnoll mercenary bent down, with a notepad and pen, and began recording serial numbers off the enemy weapons and kit. There was a small chance some of it could be traced.

“I don’t think they’re GEF qualified snipers,” stated Jaakaroo, while examining a bullet he’d taken from the sniper’s rifle magazine.

“Why?” asked Jeckle, looking down at the two bodies.

“Because a Grendel sniper would have used a better rifle and higher grade ammunition. Because they wouldn’t have stuck around so long after the first shot and because we’re still both alive, having this conversation,” grinned Jaakaroo, flicking the bullet on top of the gnoll who had tried to kill him.

[the Grendels]

Heckle walked into the medical command post of the NGO’s operations. The generators brought into the village of Tirzah, ran the medical equipment brought in to assist the surgeons in their medical procedures. It was their light and their heat. The generators might not have provided any of the day-to-day needs of the impoverished villagers, but it was nice to know that it powered the espresso machine in the command tent. The doctors of Wysterians Helping Wysterians did look after the medical needs of the villagers, but more as veterinarians attending cattle, before they was herded to the slaughterhouse.

“I demand to know what’s the meaning of this!” yelled an angry doctor, pointing at another armed mercenary who was in the tent.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” yelled back Heckle. “I’m in charge of security and you’re in charge of butchering. Don’t forget that Doc.”

“Where’s your boss?”

“I’m boss now,” snapped Heckle, the former ZaKommian skull trooper, looking like he might explode any second. “Boss got killed by some gunmen and we killed the gunmen.”

The doctor suddenly became a bit less aggressive, noting the less than friendly demeanor of the mercenary with the gun. He’d just had his leader killed and was now forced to assert his authority to control the other mercenaries. The other mercenary, who was posted inside the tent, represented part of a dangerous sociological equation. Perhaps now wasn’t the best time to challenge the new leader’s authority.

“Dead? I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Save your sanctimonious crap. Now what did you call me in here for?”

“Sorry, but I need to know why this soldier has been posted here?”

“Do you?” smiled Heckle, still annoyed. “He’s here because there’s a good chance someone in your group was in contact with the gunmen who attacked the village. Until we find out otherwise, all use of the radio is restricted. If you want to use the radio, you call me. If Mister Swartz wants his sat phone back, well that’s too bad too.”

“You stole our satellite phone?”

“It’s been confiscated for camp security,” snarled Heckle. “Be lucky we haven’t interrogated your nice colleague. Not all my men are in as good a mood as I’m in right now. Probably a good idea he not go wandering around the village, till things calm down.”

“Are you threatening my staff?”

“I’m telling you how it is, Doc. Unless you want Swartz to go home in several refrigerated boxes, you keep him inside your medical tents. That and Frank better come out of his operation with all his organs. Any of my wounded return with missing parts and you’ll make up the difference,” stated Heckle, his angry gaze burning a hole through the surgeon. “That’s my advice, as the man in charge of your well being.”

[the Grendels]

It was nightfall and things had quieted down in the troubled village of Tirzah. The villagers were quiet and talked in hushed voices about what had happened. The NGO medical staff was also quiet and talked in hushed voices. The mercenary leader had been killed and everyone was on edge. Would the new leader keep order or would the mercenaries go on a killing spree?

A couple kilometers to the north of the village, some of the mercenaries held a funeral service. All of the mercenaries attended, save those manning their posts. There was a gnoll body stretched out in a shallow trench. They had drenched him with fuel and stood around the body, passing around several bottles of hard liquor, while they talked. Eventually one of them tossed a match and lit the fuel. Some held their desert scarves up over their mouths, against the foul smoke. Then they fired a quick burst of gunfire into the air and it was over.

“That was a right nice funeral service, boss,” commented Heckle, the former ZaKommian skull trooper.

“You don’t think it was over the top do you?” asked Jaakaroo, laughing.

“To be honest I thought firing the guns into the air was a bit melodramatic,” replied Heckle.

“I’ll have you know it’s a respected custom where I’m from,” chastised Jeckle, the former Nephian partisan. “Boss should feel honoured we went through the trouble. I mean now I have to clean my rifle again.”

“I really liked the bottle of scotch,” added Jones, the former New Innisfree soldier. “Is there any more of that left?”

“As far as you’re all concerned I’m very much dead,” demanded the gnoll mercenary. “If anyone thinks otherwise that means more nasty individuals with guns will shoot the place up and if you survive that I’ll be coming looking for the idiot who couldn’t keep his mouth shut, understood?”

“Your will, boss,” came the chorus of replies.

“Right, Heckle and Jeckle stay here for a while. The rest of you goram mourners are dismissed,” ordered Jaakaroo.

The mercenaries trudged back to the village across the dusty fields. They were still passing the bottles of booze around. Morale was good, probably a bit too good.

“And try not to look so tyen-sah happy about it!” yelled Jaakaroo, grinning as his men disappeared into the shadows. “Show some respect for the goram dead!”

[the Grendels]

Jaakaroo had been camping out of sight from the village all that day, while the rest of the mercenaries were busy with their daily routines. They’d made sure the mercenary leader had everything he needed for a few nights in the barren wilderness. Heckle had taken charge of the mercenaries and the word was given that for all intents and purposes, the boss was dead. The sniper attack hadn’t been capable of much more than killing a few of them. From the intelligence gathered, the mercenaries didn’t think it was a particularly well-planned attack either. Following the sham funeral, Heckle and Jeckle were now talking with Jackaroo, to decide what their next move was. There would be a real funeral in the early morning for the only mercenary killed in the attack.

“The recce patrols we sent out found the parachutes the two gnolls stashed, along with a pair of backpacks, filled with additional supplies,” reported Heckle, the former ZaKommian skull trooper. “Looks like they were planning on making their getaway overland.”

“One way or another, the pilot was in on it,” growled Jaakaroo, passing around a bottle of whiskey to take the edge off the stress of the day. “I’m guessing his call of nature was a signal to the snipers that I was there.”

“I don’t think they counted on there being three gnolls there to oversee the cargo transfer,” nodded Jeckle, the ex-Nephite partisan.

“I put in the call for a flight to medevac one of our wounded,” said Heckle, accepting the bottle of liquor and taking another sip, before passing it on. “It’s going to be here around at five in the morning.”

“When the pilot returns, we’ll have a chance to chat,” smiled Jeckle, taking a long sip from the bottle of scotch.

“And if it’s a different pilot?” pointed out Jaakaroo. “We need another plan. Either way I have to leave. As long as I’m here someone else will come to finish the job.”

“So you go back with the pilot,” offered Heckle. “It’s a remote airstrip. Be easy for us to take.”

“What’s this goram us, you’re talking about?” said Jaakaroo, gesturing with the half empty bottle. “They’re trying to kill me, not you. We’ve got a contract to fulfill here.”

“I didn’t like this job when they weren’t trying to kill us, boss,” commented Jeckle. “I like it a lot less now.”

“They killed my men too, boss,” stated Heckle.

“I’m going right off the goram grid. Having a ZaKommian traveling with a Grendel is the kind of thing that people notice,” said the gnoll mercenary.

“I could be from Isla Vista,” pleaded Heckle. “I speak the language.”

“Shiny, you’ll need a few weeks in a tanning bed first,” laughed Jaakaroo. “Your pasty white skin is a dead giveaway. Besides, you’re the new sheriff in town. You have to stay here or the contract will go sour.”

“I think it already went sour, boss,” noted Jeckle, before taking another long drink from the bottle that was still being passed around like a liquid filled talking stick.

“As long as you stick with the job, they’re not going to bother you. The kind of firepower needed to wipe you out is hard to hide and bad for business,” replied the gnoll.

“If we’re staying we’re going to need more firepower,” stated Heckle. “Right now, we’re set up in a light security role.”

“Set up a comms link with the office and have them ship in some boom boom with the next supply run. If you mine the approaches to the village, it should cut down on visitors.”

“You really shouldn’t go alone, boss,” pressed Jeckle. “At least let me go with you. You never know when you’re going to need a demolitions expert.”

“Better I go alone,” replied the gnoll. “This is my hunt.”

“Anything else you want, boss?” asked Heckle, still unsatisfied with being left behind.

“See if the parachutes can be salvaged. If they’re good, have Terry repack them. He’s ex-Para,” ordered Jaakaroo. “If I get into an argument with the pilot up in the goram sky, I want options.”

“There were two parachutes, boss,” noted Jeckle.

“I only need one. Get me a couple grenades, a small can of fuel, and one of the packs from the enemy,” after pausing for a moment to calculate scenarios in his mind.

“We’ll get it too you in the morning,” nodded Heckle.

“Now if you don’t mind, I’m turning in for the night,” said Jaakaroo, the nearly empty bottle in his paw. “I’ve got a lot of people to kill tomorrow.”

The two human mercenaries walked back to the village and were quickly swallowed up by the darkness. Jaakaroo wandered back to where he would spend the night. The nights were getting colder, but with his fur, he didn’t need more than a light blanket and his pack for a pillow. Rain was rare in this bleak land and the weather signs foretold more of the same dry cold weather.

Tomorrow, the gnoll mercenary would begin his hunt. He would find the ones responsible for the attack on his people and he would kill them. As long as his enemies breathed the air he wasn’t safe. It was only fair that they stopped feeling safe too. The mercenary’s mind reflected on an ancient hunter’s prayer, used by warriors long ago.

It is my wish that my quarry lives life to the fullest, right to the end. So that the meat of my kill is sweeter when I feed.

[the Grendels]

The pink red sunrise greeted the residents of Tirzah, as the sun’s rays refracted off the dust particles in the atmosphere. The air was dry and cold this morning, as the mercenaries got the supplies ready for the plane. The Doctors of the NGO were distressed at the change in routine. One of them always accompanied the supply run to the plane. But today the mercenaries were calling the shots. No organs would be sent back today and there was no way to get in touch with their superiors to complain about it. The mercenaries had confiscated their only satellite phone and had a guard posted on the camp radio.

With the lack of industry and mechanization in the village, they heard the plane long before they saw it. Three mercenaries were seated in the all terrain vehicle, along with their cargo. The plane came in for a landing and bounced a couple times before settling into its roll down the field. The engine was just being turned off, when the mercenary’s vehicle pulled up nearby. The mercenaries were already disappointed to see through the windows that it wasn’t the same pilot flying the plane. It was never that easy. A man in a suit exited the side door of the small plane and stepped out onto the dusty field.

“Are you in charge of the mercenaries?” asked the stranger.

“I am now,” stated Heckle, the former ZaKommian skull trooper taking an instant dislike to the visitor.

“I understand your boss was killed. Wysterians Helping Wysterians wants you to know that they take care of their own,” began the man, feigning sympathy. “We want to fly him back to Cabaal for a proper funeral among his own people.”

“That’s very decent of you,” grimaced Heckle. “What about the other mercenary we lost? Are you going to bury him in Cabaal too?”

“Of course,” replied the man in the suit. “Now if you’ll just take me to your boss, we’ll get him prepared for transportation back to Cabaal and notify his family.”

“What about our wounded man?” asked Heckle.

“Yes, of course, we’ll take him back too,” smiled the man in the suit. “We’ll bring them all back to Cabaal. Your man will get the best medical attention we have to offer.”

Heckle stepped past the man in the suit and climbed up into the plane. He reached around where the pilot was seated and ripped the radio transmitter from its perch, and tore it loose from the panel. In his other hand, a knife was pressed to the pilot’s throat.

“Be quiet and you’ll live,” lied the mercenary.

Outside, the pilot heard a muffled gunshot and another mercenary climbed on board. Jaakaroo, who’d been hiding under a tarp, had shot the man in the suit with a silenced handgun. He’d hopped aboard and was now dragging the body of the man in the suit up with him. Some supplies were passed up to the gnoll. He carefully stowed his things, before taking over from Heckle.

“They're in your hands now,” smiled Jaakaroo, training a silenced handgun on the pilot. “I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

“Just say the word and we’ll be there, boss,” managed Heckle.

“You’re the boss till I get back,” ordered Jaakaroo. “Now get out of here. I’ve got work to do.”

“Your will, boss,” nodded Heckle, moving out through the side door.

“Start up the engine and take off,” growled Jaakaroo. “We’re heading back to base.”

“You’re just going to kill me,” stammered the pilot.

“What you need to realize is that you’re not even worth killing,” snarled the gnoll mercenary. “I’m not interested in you. I’m interested in killing someone else. Get in my way and that changes. Now take off!”

The pilot started up the engine and got ready for takeoff. A few minutes later, the plane was lifting off the field and flying northwest, away from the village.

“We should have gone with him,” stated Jeckle, watching the plane disappear from sight.

“The boss can take care of himself,” replied Heckle, kicking some dust over a conspicuous bloodstain on the field. “Where he’s going, we’d just slow him down.”

[the Grendels]

Jaakaroo was emptying a gas can around the inside of the plane, as they got nearer to the remote airstrip. The smell wasn’t that pleasant, but he was running out of time.

“What are you doing?” shrieked the pilot, his nerves already frayed from sharing the plane ride with his tormenting passenger.

“Oh, just adding a little incentive,” replied the gnoll mercenary. “We’ll start again. Where is the other pilot?”

“I’m the new guy! The regular guy was sick and I took his place.”

“What was his name?”

“Someone called him Antonio. Look that’s all I know. I gotta land!”

Jaakaroo strapped his pack low, to the front of his body, where it wouldn’t interfere with the parachute. He’d already tucked the other pack, from one of his assassins, carefully into the tail section of the plane, where he hadn’t splashed fuel. In one paw was his silenced handgun and in the other a short length of rope. The gnoll took up a stable stance, jamming both feet where he wouldn’t take a tumble in the turbulence. Standing behind the pilot, one paw grabbed the controls, while with the other he fired two rounds into the head of the pilot.

The small plane immediately lurched in the sky and the gnoll clumsily steadied its flight as best he could. He aimed it roughly towards the airstrip in the distance and struggled with the rope to tie the controls into position. He needed to move fast. His ride wasn’t going to stay in the air for long. He used the emergency release to pop off the door and watched it flip through the air behind the plane. The gnoll pulled out the emergency flare from his belt, that he’d scavanged from the plane’s emergency supplies, and cooked it off. Jaakaroo tossed the flare into the plane cabin and jumped.

He managed to clear the small plane’s tail fin and waited a couple seconds before pulling the cord of his parachute. He didn’t want to be hanging in the sky too long, but he didn’t want to be a stain on the ground either. The parachute deployed and he watched as the small plane crashed into the woods near the airstrip. It wasn’t his most subtle entrance, but his enemies had already pushed him well beyond politeness.

Jaakaroo rolled roughly on the ground and fought to get free of the parachute. The gnoll quickly unbuckled himself free of the parachute, not bothering to hide it. It’s not like it would be traced to him anyways. It had belonged to one of the assassins sent to kill him. Speed was paramount. The gnoll mercenary tossed his small pack across his shoulders and cocked the action on his assault rifle. He began to run.

The mercenary ran for the small, one story building beside the airstrip. Part office and part warehouse, he’d been there when they first flew him into Tirzah. He could see a small, uncovered truck out front of the building and a man walking over to it. The man’s gaze was transfixed on the burning plane that had crashed beyond the runway. Jaakaroo got within twenty meters of the man before he turned and saw him. Too late. The gnoll put two rounds into the shocked target and kept on running to the building. Jaakaroo paused in front of the office window, where another man had a phone in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. The gnoll fired a burst that shattered the window and cut down the man inside. Jaakaroo opened the door and charged inside, ready to shoot anything that moved. The man on the floor was still trying to use the phone, so the gnoll finished him off with another bullet. Jaakaroo quickly ensured that the rest of the small building was clear, before he started his search of the place.

The gnoll mercenary pulled the piece of paper from the dead man’s hand and found himself in possession of a phone list. He quickly ransacked the office for any more papers he could get his hands on, stuffing them all into his pack to look at later. He also took the portable satellite phone from the dead man. He searched the bodies of both men for any papers, taking their wallets and stuffing them in his pack for good measure. The gnoll mercenary took the keys for the small truck, from the dead man laying beside it. Jaakaroo didn’t plan to walk to town. It was a few hours drive. The gnoll dragged the driver’s body inside the building and dumped him beside the other corpse. Feeling particularly destructive today, he took a container of fuel from the storeroom and doused the building with it. The gnoll started up the truck and left it running, while he went back outside. Jaakaroo tossed a match at the trail of fuel he’d left that led to the building. In moments the small building was in flames.

He drove away from the airstrip in his new wheels that he’d probably ditch in town. In a few hours he’d be in Cabaal, the sovereign gnoll city state within the nation of Righteous Lefties. Jaakaroo felt confident that even if he didn’t find the answers he was looking for there, he’d at least find someone who could point him in the right direction. At the very least, Antonio, the pilot who’d ferried the assassins to Tirzah, was going to get what was coming to him when the gnoll mercenary finally caught up with him.

[Wysterian Territories]

It was morning in the southeastern shore of the Wysterian Territories, in the Elfkillers Refugee Zone. The Elfkillers settlement could be thought of as a gated community. It was in fact a gated, walled, barricaded, and moated community. The violent tendencies of resident Orcs made it necessary to forcefully segregate them from the other peoples of the Wysterian Territories. It was more of a penal colony than a refugee resettlement zone.

The Elfkillers only had themselves to blame. After vanishing nation syndrome had claimed their nation, they’d been resettled just like everyone else. Many felt that the Wysterian Relief and Resettlement Program had made a mistake, but in their hallowed halls all Wysterians were equal. They soon found that not all Wysterians were equally peaceful either. The Orcs of Elfkillers staged murderous raids against other settlements. When arrests were made and they were told to cut it out, they took WRRP officials hostage and killed them. There was a referendum held while a large portion of the WRRP’s military surrounded the last community of the Elfkiller people that remained in Wysteria. Some called for the genocide of the monsters, but in the end reason won out over revenge. The town of twenty-five thousand Orcs was walled off from the rest of the Wysterian Territories. The town also had a much larger police presence than any other settlement in the Territories. The Orcs were violent and the murder rate in the Elfkiller Refugee Zone made it one of the most dangerous places in all of Wysteria. Unable to vent their natural rage against the neighbouring refugees, the Orcs turned on each other and any WRRP representatives they could get at.

Because of the Elfkiller Dilemma and some movement of organized crime into the Wysterian Territories, the Territorial Police created the Special Operations Division. The main police station for the Elfkiller Refugee Zone was outside the gates and a mile down the road. The police wanted a staging area to move from, where they wouldn’t be constantly shot at. Bulldozers had created a huge earthen berm between the Orc settlement and the police station, to stop stray bullets. The police maintained some heavily defended positions inside the Elfkiller settlement, but they wanted a staging area that wasn’t directly threatened by the locals.

Despite the demands that weapons were a necessary expression of their culture, the WRRP had long since decided that the safety of the people forced to interact with the Orcs was more important. The Territorial Police enforced the weapons ban, as best they could, but the Orcs would make their weapons out of nearly anything. It didn’t help that they had a knack for gunsmithing. Policing the Elfkiller Refugee Zone was dangerous work and it was allocated to the tougher and more experienced police that nations sent to do their duty in the WRRP.

This morning was a lot like any other morning in the gated community of Orcs. It began with a gunshot.

[Wysterian Territories]

In the locker room of the Territorial Police Station, officers were arriving for the day shift, while tired officers were coming off the night shift. It was a chance to change out of wet clothes and get out of the snow.

The Elfkiller Refugee Zone was always more active at night, because the Orcs that populated it were largely nocturnal. The day shift was more about clean up and investigation, less about facing down criminals at the barrel of a gun, but not today.

Major Kiir of the Special Operations Division of the Wysterian Territorial Police was just coming onto the day shift. He was formerly Colonel Klaaw of Borderland Security in the Grendels, finding himself transferred to a new post and a few drops in rank. It had been necessary to have a change of scenery and identity, after helping to destroy the Grendel Mafia’s operation in Kamadhatu. He retained his stock options, seniority, and pay scale while posted to watch over the refugee peoples created by vanishing nation syndrome.

It wasn’t long before his partner, Captain Sami, came strolling in, late as usual. The gnoll swore that the Kamadhatu native would be late to his own funeral. Captain Sami was formerly known as Lieutenant Braj Mohan Sharma, a detective of the Prabha Municipal Police, in Kamadhatu. He’d teamed up with Klaaw, back in Kamadhatu, and they’d brought down the wrath of the Grendel Mafia down on their heads. After a few weeks tasked in the Elfkiller Refugee Zone, Sharma was beginning to wonder if he wasn’t safer back home. At least somehow, he’d managed to gain a rank in his exile from his homeland, something that had rubbed the gnoll the wrong way.

“You’re early,” grinned Klaaw, slipping the ceramic discs into his armour vest.

“I had business in the market,” shrugged Sharma.

The Kamadhatu native pulled out a small, velvet lined box and opened it to reveal a shiny new diamond ring.

“Well, what do you think?” asked Sharma, feeling a bit nervous.

“I’m keeping my Clan name,” answered Klaaw, in a serious voice, before returning to sort out his kit.

“It’s for Ganachakra!”

“Aren’t you fickle.”

“Seriously,” began Sharma, “I only met her parents once and we’re from two completely different cultures. She’s from Han Shan and I’m from Kamadhatu. It’s not going to be easy for us.”

“Real different all right,” smiled Klaaw. “I’ve seen different and you two aren’t it.”

Another officer from the Special Operations Division strolled into the locker room.

“Hey, you guys getting married or something,” smirked the Lieutenant, seeing the engagement ring in Sharma’s hand.

“Unless you want me to wear you for body armour for the next raid, I suggest you shut it,” growled Klaaw.

The younger officer quickly grabbed his things and excused himself.

“A little hard on him, don’t you think?” suggested Sharma.

“I don’t like young punks involving themselves in my marital disputes,” grinned Klaaw.

“You’re seriously about keeping your Clan name?” smiled Sharma.

“I take my people’s traditions very seriously,” replied Klaaw, with an air of indignation. “Besides, my mother would disown me.”

Another officer darted into the locker room.

“We got a situation in Orc City! Be at the weapons lock up in one minute!”

The officers quickly finished getting their gear on, while they walked quickly down the hall and downstairs to the weapons lockup. It was just another day in Orc City.

[Wysterian Territories]

The all terrain police van rumbled down the well-traveled road from the fortified police station to the town of twenty-five thousand Orcish refugees, known as Orc City. Inside was a tactical team from the Special Operations Division of the Wysterian Territorial Police.

“I can’t believe that they let you sign that out,” stated Braj Mohan Sharma, the expatriate Kamadhatu detective.

“I was the one who suggested we have some in our weapons lockup,” replied Klaaw, the gnoll patting the large rocket launcher affectionately.

“Do these people know about your history with rocket launchers?” suggested Sharma.

“One incident with a rocket launcher in a crowded shopping centre and I have a history,” shrugged Klaaw.

“Really though, the Orcs don’t have any tanks, so why the rocket launcher?” pressed Sharma.

“Have you seen some of those new, fortified gang houses they’ve been building?” retorted the gnoll. “It’s this or a main battle tank.”

“They turned down your request for a tank didn’t they?” smiled Sharma.

“It was a reasonable request,” replied Klaaw, defensively.

“It’s like watching a married couple bicker,” whispered one of the feline Bengal officers to the other.

The armoured van drove into Orc City and stopped behind the security perimeter the police had put into place a few minutes earlier. The tactical team filed out of the all terrain van and was quickly briefed on the situation. There were three or four heavily armed Orcs, who were hold up inside their fortified gang headquarters. Earlier a police detail had driven by and come under fire from the building, wounding one officer. Negotiations with the Orcs had gone as well as could be expected. They’d shot randomly and indiscriminately at the police security perimeter. Any attempts at communication or approach to the building were met with gunfire. Here in Orc City, Wysterian Territorial Police had learned the value of also having an armed security perimeter to protect the backs and flanks of the primary security perimeter. To these people, the WRRP were the enemy.

The tactical officers could see the fortified gang house clearly from their vantage point. They could also see a sign over the front door that read drog house .

“Nice of them to label the place, so we wouldn’t have to look very hard,” sighed Sharma.

“Only an Orc would spell drug wrong,” grinned Klaaw. “Well, it’s time to earn our golden bonds.”

“Oh you’re not going to…you know we could just wait for them to get hungry and bribe them to surrender with some steaks or something,” suggested Sharma.

“That could take days,” chastised Klaaw, hoisting the rocket launcher onto his right shoulder. “Do you really want to be staked out here in the worst section of Orc City for days?”

“Well, when you put it that way,” sighed Sharma.

The Grendel got into position and carefully checked to make sure the launcher’s back blast area was clear, before he fired the weapon. Flames shot out the back of the launcher and a huge bowl of dust was kicked up in the vicinity of the gnoll. Meanwhile, the rocket roared downrange and shattered one wall of the concrete gang bunker. The rest of the tactical team swarmed the building, in the wake of the explosion, tossing in multiple stun grenades before moving inside. In seconds it was over. The four Orcs, all of them concussed and seriously wounded, were taken into custody and moved to a secure location.

“I think someone owes the newest member of our team an apology,” Klaaw said to Sharma afterwards, stroking the metal tube of the rocket launcher like a pet, while grinning like a maniac.

[Lavoie et Saint Tuc]

Arnaud Teullé, like all the leading bureaucrats of the Wysterian Territories, was actually from somewhere else. In this case, Rivage Arénacé, the tony capital of Lavoie et Saint Tuc.

He had arrived in the territories only about four months earlier. At 36, he was on the international legal affairs fast-track, and had volunteered to serve a two-year stint as the Wysterian Territories' deputy attorney general. He had also been rather surprised by the workload: the territories, he'd been told, would be an easy assignment and it would look great on his resume. That was almost true. Because of the international character of the place, and the sheer number of chefs involved in making the soup, the government of the territories thrived on paperwork and red tape.

Still, the perks were unbeatable (even at his salary back in LST, he couldn't have afforded the digs he enjoyed now) and he was already getting hints of lucrative job offers back in Rivage Arénacé once he'd finished his stint. Moving to the territories had been a good idea.

After a busy day in his office, the toned and tan Teullé arrived home to find his cook preparing dinner and the maid laying out his mail by his favorite chair. Next to the magazines from back home and various bank statements, he noticed a package. He'd open it once he had showered and changed from his work clothes.

In his bedroom, the deputy AG turned on the stereo to Marceau's "Nocturnes for Adrienne in C Minor", and stripped and turned on the shower. Stepping into the marble shower stall - with water raining down from the ceiling fixture - he let the water's heat work its magic on his tight shoulders and back. Sitting in meetings all day left him feeling knotted and sore. Today had been taken up with a particularly long meeting about an investigation which had opened up only a couple weeks before. It held promise as a potential career booster, and Teullé was looking forward to really digging into it. He let out an audible sigh as the heat seeped into his muscles. Twenty minutes later, he dried off, put on his silk robe and settled into his favorite chair where he began sorting through his mail over a smooth Epona scotch.

The bank statements had nothing of any real interest to report, and the magazines were full of the same political gossip as the week before. A photo of the king of LST with a lovely young Kallywood starlet had raised a few eyebrows, but otherwise news from back home was uneventful. With another sip from his drink, he decided to tend to the much more interesting prospect of the package.

Setting down his drink, he took the package in hand and tore off the wrapping careful not to rip the return address. He would need it for the thank you note later. A cigar afficionado, the young bureaucrat was pleased to find a box of cigars - a brand of which he'd never heard. The card accompanying the package read "Félicitations sur votre nouvelle tâche. Voici à votre succès continu!"

It was signed "André". He ransacked his memory trying to put a face to the name. He'd attended law school with three Andrés, and it was not uncommon to send or receive gifts like this on any significant career move. Even if you didn't really know the other person, it was a good way to maintain professional contacts which might prove useful later. Still unsure as to which André had sent the gift, Teullé took a cigar from the box and inhaled its earthy scent.

This was a good one. Interesting, though, that he had never heard of this brand before. He took his cutters from their box on the side table and clipped the end of the cigar. Then, with the lighter he'd been given by the LST prime minister last year, he lit the cigar and inhaled its sweet, spicy, smooth flavor deep into his lungs.

Yes, this was a good cigar.