Stan Nicholls - Orcs: Bad Blood

Copyright 2008 by Stan Nicholls

Excerpt from Orcs:Army of Shadows copyright 2010 by Stan Nicholls

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Orbit

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

First eBook Edition: April 2009

Originally published in Great Britain by Gollancz, 2008

Orbit is an imprint of Hachette Book Group. The Orbit name and logo are trademarks of Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

ISBN: 978-0-316-05282-5

Praise for ORCS

With grand-scale world building, labyrinthine plotlines, extensive backstory, and pedal-to-the-metal action, Nicholls captures adventure fantasy at its very best.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Stan Nicholls takes his well-deserved place beside Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin as a modern star of fantasy.

The Independent

Incorporating wall-to-wall action with undercurrents of dark humor, Bodyguard of Lightning is a gritty, fast-paced novel with a neat twist. The heroes are orcs though you wouldnt want to meet any of them on a dark night!

David Gemmell

Weirdly charming, fast-moving and freaky, Bodyguard of Lightning is the most fun youre ever likely to have with a warband of orcs. Remember, buy now or beg for mercy later.

Tad Williams

A neat idea and Stan Nicholls pulls it off with great panache. Enough weird sex to keep the tabloids outraged for weeks. Youll never feel the same about Lord of the Rings.

Jon Courtenay Grimwood, SFX

A warning: if you dont wish to become addicted to the most impressive new fantasy sequence in many a moon, you should avoid Bodyguard of Lightning.

Genre Hotline/LineOne Science Fiction Zone

Stan Nicholls tries to correct the bad press authors such as Tolkien have given to orcs. Nicholls tells his tale briskly and entertainingly. If you like lots of hacking and slashing, Bodyguard of Lightning is for you!

Starburst

Bodyguard of Lightning is naturally full of fighting, blood-letting and double-crossing. Nicholls has created a fast-paced adventure.

The Mentor

In the fantasy field, Stan Nichollss Legion of Thunder demonstrates a truly coruscating imagination in its outrageous narrative.

Publishing News Books of the Year 1999

Nicholls knows how to describe a battle in gritty detail, in such a way that it grabs your interest and yet still appears as unglamorous and unromantic as it should. A strange tale of magic, fantastic creatures, and mythical elder races that warps your expectations.

The SF Site

Warriors of the Tempest is, above all, a wonderful piece of storytelling: fast-paced with plenty of hairpin twists, crammed with loads of juicy battles and properly bad baddies, racing towards a carefully set-up conclusion thats both exciting and genuinely moving. Underlying all the fun and games are a core of skillfully drawn, fully realized characters who engage your sympathy from the start and never let go. Sweet and sour orc, a feast for the most jaded fantasy-lovers palate.

Tom Holt, SFX magazine

The prose flows smoothly and the story is exciting.

Science Fiction Chronicle

Breathless and ruthless, menacing and fun. Easy to read and totally engaging.

The Alien Online

Stan Nichollss excellent Orcs sequence is a welcome counterblast to the anti-orc onslaught due with the film launch of The Lord of the Rings.

The Guardian

Nows your chance to catch up with one of the most unusual writers in the genre. And its particularly wonderful not to have to put your brain to bed while reading Nicholls unlike many of his writing peers, theres a real intelligence always at work here. Not that we dont get the requisite rip-roaring action and colorful world-building along with some cutting humor.

Tiscali SF Zone

It is an excellent adventure read. A good adventure story with plenty of action, humorous and well-crafted. Thoroughly recommended.

SF Crowsnest

BY STAN NICHOLLS

Gladiators Game Book No. 1

Tom and Jerry: The Movie

Cool Zool

Strange Invaders

Spider-man: The Hobgoblin

The Nightshade Chronicles

The Book of Shadows

Shadow of the Sorcerer

A Gathering of Shadows

Fade to Black

Dark Skies: The Awakening

Orcs Orcs: Bad Blood

The Dreamtime Trilogy

The Covenant Rising

The Righteous Blade

The Diamond Isle

Nonfiction

Wordsmiths of Wonder: Fifty Interviews with Writers of the Fantastic

Ken and Me

Gerry Anderson: The Authorized Biography

Graphic novels (as adaptor)

David Gemmells Legend

David Gemmells Wolf in Shadow

In fondest memory of David Gemmell, 19482006

Maras-Dantia abounded with a diversity of lifeforms. There were inevitable conflicts between these elder races, but mutual respect and tolerance maintained the social fabric.

Until a new race arrived.

They called themselves humans, and braved unfriendly wastelands to enter Maras-Dantia from the far south. Small in number at first, over the years they grew to a torrent. They claimed the land as their own, renamed it Centrasia, and set about exploiting its resources. Rivers were polluted, forests stripped and elder race settlements destroyed. They showed contempt for the cultures they encountered, demeaning and corrupting the native inhabitants.

But their greatest crime was to defile Maras-Dantias magic.

Their greed and disregard for the natural order of things began to drain away the lands vital energies, diminishing the magic elder races depended upon. This in turn warped the climate. Before long, an ice field was advancing from the north.

So it came to war between the elder races and the humans.

The conflict was far from clear cut. Both sides were disunited. Old divisions within the elder races resurfaced, and some even threw in their lot with the incomers. The humans themselves suffered from a religious schism. Some were Followers of the Manifold Path, commonly known as Manis, and observed pagan ways. Others adhered to the precepts of Unity. Dubbed Unis, they supported the newer sect of monotheism. There was as much animosity between Unis and Manis as between elder races and humans.

One of the only native races without magical powers, orcs made up for the deficiency with their superior martial skills and a savage lust for combat.

Stryke captained a thirty-strong orc warband called the Wolverines. His fellow officers were Sergeants Haskeer and Jup, the latter the bands only dwarf member, and Corporals Alfray and Coilla, the groups sole female. The balance of the command consisted of twenty-five common grunts. The Wolverines were part of a greater horde serving despotic Queen Jennesta, a powerful sorceress who supported the Mani cause. The offspring of human and nyadd parents, Jennestas taste for sadism and sexual depravity were legendary.

Jennesta sent the band on a perilous mission to seize an ancient artefact from a Uni stronghold. The Wolverines gained the artefact, which proved to be a sealed message cylinder, along with a cache of an hallucinogenic drug called pellucid. But Stryke made the mistake of letting his band celebrate by sampling the drug. The following dawn, returning late to Jennesta and fearing her wrath, they were ambushed by kobold bandits who stole the artefact. Knowing they would pay a terrible price for their negligence, Stryke decided to pursue the raiders.