Not your pet! Squirrel shouted mentally, his thoughts full of anger.
Fist grimaced as he sucked on his wounded finger. That’s not what I meant, he said, but Squirrel wouldn’t listen. The little animal climbed Charz’s shoulder and stayed with the giant for the remainder of the day.
It was a quiet night. They didn’t stop until dark and the ogres bedded down right away. Squirrel closed his end of the bond and refused to talk to Fist no matter how many times he tried to apologize. Puj didn’t even try to flirt with him. She put her bedding next to his, but lay down on her side facing away from him.
With a sigh, Fist closed his eyes and reached out to Justan. The distance caused the bond to be extremely narrow, but Fist had a lot of experience dealing with that problem. He muscled his thoughts through until he could brush Justan’s presence. The bonding wizard had a lot to talk about.
Justan had been through an exciting day. He told Fist about his encounter with the nightbeast and subsequent visit to the Jharro Grove for the first time. Fist told him about his own struggles that day and how he had yelled and offended Squirrel. Justan was sympathetic and assured him that Squirrel would forgive him.
They talked deep into the night and by the time they had finished, Fist was quite tired. When he withdrew his thoughts back through the bond, he felt a furry ball of warmth on his chest and knew that Squirrel had returned.
I am sorry, Squirrel, he said.
Squirrel stirred. Sleeping, he mumbled before drifting off again.
Smiling, Fist joined him.
“Toompa!” cried a thunderous voice and Squirrel’s warmth was replaced by a crushing weight.
The ground gave way beneath Fist’s back and suddenly he was falling. Fist windmilled his arms in panic and opened his eyes to find that he was high in the sky. He plummeted past wispy clouds and the air that whipped past his body was freezing cold. As the ground rushed towards him, Fist saw that the earth wasn’t flat, but composed of a series of white jagged spikes. He was about to die.
But the ogre’s demise didn’t come quickly and his panic subsided. The fall lasted for what seemed like several minutes and as he watched the spikes below him grow larger, Fist realized that they weren’t spikes at all, but snow-capped mountains. He was headed for a black dot between the peaks. The black dot increased in size until it became a great lake. Then the smell of death hit him. It wasn’t water below.
Fist struck the black lake with a deafening splat. The landing didn’t hurt, but his panic returned as the frigid air that had surrounded him was replaced by an intense heat. He was completely submerged in the center of a mass of squirming maggots.
“Don’t let them in,” warned Locksher’s distant voice.
Fist kept his eyes and mouth clenched closed and pinched off his nose with one hand. He struggled to swim through them towards the surface using one arm, but it was impossible to tell if he was making progress. A tingle swept across his skin and knew that the larvae were starting to nibble at him. Pressure started to build within his mind; a raging dark thing that threatened to overwhelm him.
He fought back, sending vibrating threads of air and earth away from his body in a powerful electric pulse. Thousands of maggots were vaporized all around him and Fist felt a momentary sense of triumph as his head burst free of the black lake and he was able to take a deep breath. He wasn’t far from the shoreline. Justan was there, reaching out for him. He would survive this.
“It’s too late,” said Locksher’s voice.
The pressure in Fist’s mind continued to grow. But why? He felt a sudden tickling sensation in his ear canals and understood. The larvae had gotten inside him after all.
The vile rage built within him until it burst free. Against his will, he pointed towards Justan. A command erupted from his mind and a thick cloud of flies rose from the surface of the lake. They swarmed over Justan, obscuring him from view. Justan started to scream.
Fist awoke with a shout, sitting up so fast that Squirrel was launched from his chest. The little creature struck the edge of the ogre’s bedroll and tumbled into the grass, too deep in his own sleep to react in time. Squirrel flailed about in disorientation for a moment before he stood, trembling. Bad dreams. Bad dreams.
“Good. Fist, you’re up!” said Locksher cheerfully, glancing over at the ogre. “I was about to wake you.”
The wizard was standing by the embers of the fire, drinking something hot from a tin cup. Charz stood next to him, his rocky face hanging in a scowl.
“Wake me?” It was early. The sky was a dark blue, the sun still far behind the mountains. Most of the camp was still snoring. Crag was the only other person up. Fist could see him rousting two of the other ogres.
Fist rubbed at his ears. They still itched as if those maggots were inside. That dream had been as vivid as any of the dreams he’d had over the last few months. Only this time there had been something different. He had never landed in that black lake before.
Bad dreams, Squirrel agreed. He skittered over his pouch and disappeared inside.
Fist blinked. “Did you dream the same thing, Squirrel?”
Bad, Squirrel said and Fist caught a flash of images from his bonded’s mind. In Squirrel’s dream Fist had been covered in maggots and blood. His eyes were black, his mouth open in a silent roar. Puj was dead at his feet.
Fist shoved the disturbing thoughts away and swallowed. Those were bad dreams indeed. “It’s okay, Squirrel. You’re awake now. It was just a dream.”
I know. Squirrel emerged from the pouch wearing an orange vest. It was his favorite one. Darlan had told him that orange was a lucky color. Never sleeping again.
“Come on, Fist. Get your boots on,” Locksher urged. “It’s time to meet the academy party.”
“We’re meeting them already?” Fist swung his legs out of his bedroll and began tugging his boots on. He had thought they wouldn’t be meeting up with the academy party until that afternoon.
“They rode hard to get close to us last night.” Charz grumbled. “Then the blasted jerks insisted on meeting us this early. Alfred says they got someplace to be after we’re done.”
“We is coming too!” announced Crag’s gruff voice. The ogre chieftain came around the fire pit to join them. Burl and Rub were walking not far behind him, both ogres bleary-eyed.
Fist stood and faced his father. “You do not need to come, Crag. I will speak with them.”
“I will go too,” Crag said. “Burl telled me about these academy’s you go to see. They is human warriors. You go to tell them about the evil.”
Fist shot a glare at his half brother, but Burl didn’t meet his eyes. If Crag was at the meeting it could complicate things. The ogres had some difficulty understanding the way humans talked and if Crag decided to be aggressive, Fist could find himself having to stop a fight.
“Okay, Crag. You can come. But you don’t need Burl or Rub.” Rub was stupid and timid and wouldn’t do anything unless Crag told him to, but Burl was an unknown. Fist wasn’t sure how much of an enmity the ogre had developed against humans during the war.
“If the Big and Little People are sending three, the Thunder People will send three,” Crag insisted.
Fist tried to decide if it was worth arguing with him. So far, Crag had honored their agreement and deferred to Fist’s commands, but the chieftain was proud. Fist was sure that if he overruled his father too many times it would cause Crag to cancel their agreement. Fist looked to Locksher for help, but the wizard just shrugged back at him.
Fist sighed. “I will allow it, Crag. But there will be no fighting. The academy warriors are friends. Some of them are part of my tribe.”
“They might attack us,” Burl disagreed. “They hated ogres in the war.”
“That was only because you attacked them first,” Fist growled. He pointed his finger at the ogre. “There will be no fighting today.”
Crag put a hand on Burl’s shoulder and gave Fist a brief nod. “We will only fight if they fight.”
“Good then,” Fist said. He strapped on his breastplate and slid the handle of his mace into the sheath on his back. “Let’s go.”
Charz led the six of them northwest into the plains. The sky slowly brightened and it wasn’t long before they saw the smoke from the academy’s camp on the horizon. As they approached, Fist saw that the party the academy had sent was much larger than expected. Darlan had made it sound like a small group would come, but there were many tents and he counted more than a score of horses. Were they planning on adding that many troops to the mission?
Burl noticed the same thing. He elbowed his father. “There is too many of them, Crag!”
“Don’t worry,” Fist assured them. He grabbed Charz’s arm and said in a low voice. “Why didn’t you tell us there would be so many?”
The giant shrugged. “I didn’t know. Alfred didn’t say how many were coming.”
“There are lots,” Rub said, wide-eyed. He gripped the knotted club he carried tightly.
“Charz, tell Alfred they’re scaring the ogres,” Locksher said.
“We is not scared!” Crag barked. “We can fight them. We is strong and we have Fist.”
“There will be no fighting!” Fist said.
“I just told him, Locksher,” Charz said, his rocky eyebrows raised in amusement. “Alfred says we should wait here. There’s no need for us to meet with the whole group.”
Not long after the giant finished speaking, Fist saw several figures mount horses and break off from the rest of the camp. The riders approached at a quick trot. In the dim light, Fist couldn’t make them all out right away, but he recognized Darlan’s scarlet robe.
Burl counted them. “They still has more than us. There is seven of them and they ride horse pets. We only have six.”
Seven! Squirrel corrected.
“There are seven of us,” Fist said, correcting his half brother. “We have Squirrel.”
“Your food does not count,” Burl said.
“He’s not food!” Fist said through gritted teeth.
Crag slapped Burl upside the head so hard that the ogre stumbled to the side. “Stop crying! The Thunder People is not scared of little peoples!”
“That’s right. There is no reason to be afraid,” Fist said. “These are not our enemies and we are not outnumbered! I told you before. Some of them are part of my tribe.”
The party that rode up was led by Faldon the Fierce and Darlan. Alfred and Maryanne rode right behind them and Fist was surprised to see Mistress Sarine riding with the two gnomes. Why had she come? Bringing up the rear were Sabre Vlad’s son Qenzic and the elven swordsman Lyramoor. The two warriors were watching the ogres with wary eyes.
The ogres weren’t expecting the academy’s party to be such a disparate group. Rub squinted at Mistress Sarine and scratched his head while Crag frowned and said, “Your tribe is strange, Fist.”
Fist and Locksher approached them and Fist had to resist the urge to wrap Darlan up in a big embrace. That would really have confused the ogres. Instead, he turned to Justan’s father and stuck out his hand. “Justan’s father, I am glad to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too, Fist,” the large warrior replied with a smile, giving Fist a firm handshake. He lowered his voice. “We have a lot to discuss, but we need to keep this meeting short. We have somewhere to be.”
“So where are you going?” Locksher asked. The wizard gestured towards the academy camp on the horizon. “And why did you bring so many others with you?”
“Why we’re headed to Wobble, of course,” said Darlan. “Or have you forgotten about the wedding?”
Fist palmed his forehead. “Oh! Lenny’s wedding!” With everything that had gone on, he had forgotten all about it. The wedding was supposed to have taken place weeks ago, but Bettie had delayed the journey from Coal’s Keep. “I feel so bad. I was supposed to go since Justan couldn’t.”
“Don’t worry,” Darlan said. “I will explain everything. You know Lenui will understand.”
“I know he will,” said Fist. “It’s Bettie I am worried about.”
Uh oh, said Squirrel.
Darlan laughed. “Well, you’ll be far enough away that she won’t be able to reach you. I’m sure that by the time you get back, she will have forgiven you.”
Fist grimaced. “I hope so.”
“Please give them my regards as well,” Locksher added.
“Of course,” she said.
Crag cleared his throat loudly. The ogre was standing at his full height with his arms folded. His back was arched and his chest puffed out. In ogre culture, this was the proper posture used when negotiating peacefully. By keeping their arms folded, they showed that not only were they not about to attack, they weren’t afraid of being attacked either.
Faldon lifted an eyebrow and Fist said in an official tone, “Uh, Faldon the Fierce, this is Crag, chieftain of the Thunder People tribe.”
“I am chief,” Crag confirmed. “The Thunder People is the biggest ogre tribe. We have many warriors and many womens!”
Fist blinked, knowing the ogre procedure with this kind of thing but unsure how it applied to the humans. “Crag, this is Faldon the Fierce, chief of the Dremaldrian Battle Academy . . . tribe.”
Faldon, no stranger to dealing with different cultures, folded his arms and mimicked Crag’s posture. He whispered, “What do I say, Fist?”
“Do like Crag did,” Fist replied.
Faldon nodded. “I am chief. We are a training school and have thousands of warriors, both men and women. We, uh, protect the people of this country.”
Fist gave his father an uneasy glance, not sure how the grizzled ogre would take the warrior’s nonstandard reply. He wasn’t even sure if Crag could comprehend the concept of thousands of warriors. To his relief, Crag merely nodded.
“Good, so let’s start the meeting,” Faldon said, his posture relaxing slightly. “First of all, I should tell you what we have heard from our patrols in the mountains.”
“Have they seen the evil that the ogres have told us about?” Locksher asked.
“Not exactly. Our patrols haven’t gone as far as the ogre territories,” Faldon replied. “But it’s more complicated than that.”
The academy’s information network had been dismantled during the war and it had still not recovered. Much of their information came from the villagers and academy retirees that lived in the frontier and the majority of the refugees from the high mountain villages had not yet returned to their homes, preferring to wait until spring and avoid trying to rebuild during winter. Those that had returned hadn’t been heard from.
This winter had been a particularly harsh one for the outskirts of the human territory. The mountain passes most commonly used for travel were blocked by snow. There had only been one piece of information Faldon had been able to find that substantiated the ogre’s claims and that was a report from a small village near Jack’s Rest.
“Qenzic the Heir and Lyramoor Elfswords led that particular patrol,” Faldon said. “That’s one of the reasons I decided to send them with you.”
“The heir?” Fist asked, looking at Qenzic. The man was of average height for a human and had shoulder-length brown hair. Fist could see the short-sleeved chainmail shirt most common to the Swordwielder’s Guild peeking out from the collar his long deerskin jacket.
Qenzic gave a glum shrug and gestured to the curved hilt of the sabre that protruded from the sheath on his belt. “I carry my father’s sword now. The men started calling me that after the war.”
“A worthy name,” Fist said. Sabre Vlad had been a legend and his sword, The Commander, was even more famous as it had also been wielded by his great grandfather during the War of the Dark Prophet.
Fist didn’t bother asking Lyramoor about his new name. That one was obvious. The fantastic dual-swordsman had risen through the ranks of the academy while passing himself off as a half-elf for years until his true identity had been discovered on the night of Sabre Vlad’s
death. Lyramoor was actually a full-blooded elf that had been stolen from his people as a child. He had been kept as a blood slave, passed around by dwarf smugglers for decades until Vlad had saved him from that life during an academy raid.
The heavily-scarred elf had been fiercely loyal to the man ever since, joining the academy just to remain near him. Now that Sabre Vlad was gone, Lyramoor had passed that loyalty to Vlad’s son. The elf hovered at Qenzic’s side like a zealous bodyguard, something that had to be a burden to the young warrior.
“Go ahead, Qenzic,” said Faldon. “Tell them what you heard.”
The graduate nodded. “It was about a month and a half ago. We were far to the northwest attempting to escort a group of refugees back to the Village of Pike. We tried to get through Rohran’s gap, but a blockade of snow and ice blocked our path.”
“That place is too tight,” Crag said and Fist was surprised that his father knew what the man was talking about.
Qenzic was unsure how to reply to the ogre. “I know what you mean, uh, Chief Crag. Rohran’s gap is a bit of a squeeze in places, but it is often passable during the winter when other routes are not. At any rate, it wasn’t open this time. We were about to turn around, when we heard someone shouting from high up on the blockade. So Lyramoor-.”
“They don’t need to hear the whole story,” Lyramoor interrupted.
“But it’s a good one.” Qenzic said, ignoring the elf’s scowl. “So Lyramoor climbs the blockade. It must have been a good forty feet tall. The rest of us had to back away because chunks of ice were falling everywhere. I was sure he was going to fall but somehow he reaches the top and finds this dwarf half frozen, stuck up to the waist in ice.”
“It was mostly snow,” Lyramoor corrected. His voice was low and rough. Not the usual voice of an elf.
“You had to chisel him out,” Qenzic replied and the elf rolled his eyes.
“And he was still alive?” Fist asked.
“He was a dwarf.” Charz said with a snort. “Anyone you two knew?”
“No. Probably a hermit,” Lyramoor said. “There’s lots of people living solitary lives in the mountains. Some of ‘em aren’t heard from for years at a time.
The Ogre Apprentice Page 25