Page 65 of Orc'd & Loaded
He ties the top in a triple knot and holds it at arm's length.
"Forty-six," he says.
"You counted?"
"Orcish military training. You count hostiles."
I peer at the writhing sack. Then at the destroyed kitchen around us. Cracked marble. Shredded ingredients. Ash on every surface.
Eleven hours.
"Boris, we've lost the squash. We've lost the grain flour. The fire spice is contaminated."
He sets the sack of sprites by the door and turns to face me. Rolls his massive shoulders back.
"So we start over."
"Start over," I repeat. The words taste like ash. Like the ash currently coating every horizontal surface in this kitchen.
Boris is already moving. He grabs two cast iron skillets from the wall rack, one in each hand, twelve inches across and black as sin. He spins them once, testing the weight, and his grip shifts to choke up near the pan heads.
A sprite launches itself from the exhaust hood.
Boris swings.
The left skillet connects with a dull clang. The sprite rockets sideways, trailing sparks, and smacks into the far wall where it slides down the tile in a smear of soot. It wobbles upright, dazed, and stumbles toward the canvas sack by the door like a drunk finding its way home.
"Five more up here." He points a skillet at the hood vent. Through the grease-blackened grating, ten tiny orange eyes blink down at us. "They have nested in the filtration system."
"Of course they have."
He climbs onto the prep counter. His boots leave massive prints on the stainless steel. He unscrews the vent grating with his bare fingers, the sheet metal groaning as it bends, and a fresh wave of sprites pours out like water from a broken pipe.
They scatter across the ceiling. Tiny claws find purchase on the acoustic tiles, and they skitter in all directions, trailing thin lines of soot behind them like a child's drawing of fireworks.
Boris swings.
Right pan. Left pan. Right.
Each connection sends a sprite spinning. They bounce off the ceiling tiles, off the wall-mounted fire extinguisher, off the stainless steel backsplash behind the stove. One spirals into the open flour sack by the door and doesn't come back out. The canvas glows a little brighter.
He moves with a grace that has no business belonging to an extra large orc. His feet find the gaps between burners. His shoulders roll with each swing. The twin skillets cut dark arcs through the sunlit air, and every time iron meets sprite, that hollow bell-tone rings out.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
It sounds like a blacksmith's shop in here.
I lift the industrial sink hose. The nozzle is heavy chrome, the kind with a trigger grip that can strip paint if you crank the pressure high enough. I twist the valve to maximum. Water hammers through the line and the hose kicks in my hands like something alive.
I pull the trigger.
A jet of water hits the nearest counter at full blast. Soot explodes off the stainless steel in a gray wave, washing across the surface and sluicing over the edge onto the floor. Underneath the grime, the metal gleams.
I sweep left. The stream catches two sprites mid-scurry across the prep station. They tumble end over end, squealing,their orange glow sputtering as the water drenches them. Wet sprites, it turns out, move about as well as wet cats. They slide, clawing uselessly at the slick surface, and drop off the far side into a bus tub with a satisfying splash.
"Keep them wet!" Boris shouts from the counter. He brings both pans down simultaneously on a sprite that's been trying to gnaw through the gas line. "They cannot spark if they are soaked!"
I aim at the ceiling. The pressurized stream punches through the acoustic tiles and a shower of gray water pours down, taking four sprites with it. They hit the floor with wet slaps and lie there, hissing and steaming, their tiny bodies sputtering like doused campfires.
