by J. Kirsch
"Because, Najika, Queen Agtha-Selene is several heads taller than you. The boulder you're shading yourself under now? She could lift it with her pinky."
I knew an exaggeration when I heard one. A wicked idea dawned in my head, and I couldn't help smiling anyway. "You let me worry about that. There's only one thing I need from you. Well, make that two."
I whispered to Kahg-Hahg, and both faces went rigid. "The first we can do, my Lady. The second will be…harder."
"But you can do it?"
Kahg-Hahg rubbed his hands together. "You are talking to an ogre spy. Trust me, puny human, I can sneak you in anywhere." He looked down at his leggings, then made an apologetic shrug. "Well, maybe not anywhere."
Chapter 19
Everything had worked out as well as I could expect, but that didn't mean this was a good idea. Kahg-Hahg had managed to convince the Queen's bodyguards to grant me a private audience. After the destruction of the Dreamgiver the ogres were all a little jumpy, and the murmurs rattling the great hall as I took responsibility for it gave me a wicked satisfaction.
Finally, when the niceties were all said and done, I stood facing the most powerful non-human leader in Arkor. She rose from her throne and walked towards me. I first focused on the left head, Agtha. There was a ruthless way her eyes seemed to size up the world around her. That set her apart from the ogre head named Selene, who looked to be by no means a pushover, but seemed to favor shrewdness over ruthlessness.
Both heads were blond, and both faces were beautiful. It felt strange to think it, but this ogre Queen really was a gorgeous woman—just not in the way humans would believe. The whole nine-feet-tall, two heads, and red eyes package didn't exactly conform to human stereotypes of beauty.
"So you are the upstart princess from the White Kingdom who torments us with these petty demands for fancy pieces of paper which mean nothing!" Agtha snarled, a veiled insult at the notion of any treaty.
Selene gave her fellow head a dismissive sideways glance. "She is a Queen now, or hadn't you heard, Agtha?" She spoke to her other self with a disgusted tone, as if she knew Agtha's words were just theatrics. Deep down I still felt like only a princess, but I wasn't going to tell her that.
Only Kahg-Hahg remained in the cavernous great hall with the Queens. It was a huge three-story structure with vaulted ceilings. A mouse could pass wind somewhere in here and still create an echo.
"Queen Agtha-Selene, I challenge you to a duel to the death."
The Queen's sets of eyes narrowed, one in rage and one in curiosity.
"I can explain, Your Highnesses," Kahg-Hahg interrupted, rushing forward and placing a piece of scented parchment underneath Agtha's nose. She looked down to read it, but no sooner had she looked, the substance coating the paper imparted its noxious fume. Agtha's nostrils widened as she coughed and then passed out. Score one for fun chemicals secretly known to ogre spies.
Kahg-Hahg quickly withdrew the parchment before Selene could get a whiff.
"Explain yourself!" Selene hissed.
"Forgive me, my Queen. Queen Najika of the Black Kingdom has a proposal for your ears only," Kahg-Hahg replied. "It is my judgment that she can be trusted."
I opened my mouth and prepared to speak as if my life depended on it.
It took a while. Too long, actually. It was cool in the great hall, but suddenly a sweltering heat seemed to have progressed from my face down to my waist. My sweaty palms showed the panic in my nerves, and by the time I completed my offer I could tell that I'd left Selene a lot to chew on.
Selene glanced furtively at the lolling head beside her, but Agtha didn't stir.
"This has never happened. Heads may disagree, but an ogre never contemplates killing his or her other self. It would seem too wrong. The others would never follow me if I committed such a crime."
"Then don't. Let me do it." I told her what I needed her to do, and to my relief she considered the radical thought…then considered what she had to gain. When she came to the conclusion I'd hoped for I nearly pumped my fist in the air and shouted.
"So, little Najika. Prepare yourself. We will meet in the arena." Selene turned to Kahg-Hahg. "Will you fetch us some water? Explain to Agtha when she wakes that your Queen was terribly dehydrated. It is a good thing you wetted our faces and revived us, isn't it?" Selene continued, her voice as suggestive as they came.
Chapter 20
Less than an hour later I realized one simple thing. Ogres had anger management problems. The arena was essentially a bare dirt field surrounded by roughly carved seats of stone. Ogres munched or chewed on giant haunches of meat, some cooked, some not. What made it harder to stomach was that their faces looked so human, each and every pair of them. I tried to ignore the tightness in my stomach, probably its way of screaming Why are you about to get us both killed!?.
Across from me stood a woman who could probably break mountains, or at least make a good dent in one.
Agtha-Selene wore plated steel armor, an ogre specialty. There were no easy gaps which my sword could exploit with a killing thrust. Only the ogre Queen's two heads were bare, as dictated by tradition. Even that wasn't much of a target though. Agtha-Selene hefted a shield made out of a gigantic reptile's skull. It was taller than me and wider than me, and it certainly looked a lot scarier than me.
"Why do I get the feeling that your Queen could flick me across the battleground with her index finger?" I grumbled. Kahg-Hahg knelt in the shadows just within earshot.
"Probably because she can."
As I walked out onto the field ogres jeered at me from all directions. It made sense for them to favor their own, and I didn't bear them any malice. They had no idea what I was really doing here anyway. I tried to focus, phasing out anything except the rictus of bloodlust on Agtha's face. She carried a mammoth's idea of a battle-axe. Just the axe's head weighed more than me and my horse would have combined.
I was on foot equipped with only a sword, my belt of throwing knives, and the war axe strapped to my back. Not exactly children's toys, but I had the reach of a child compared to the foe who now approached me like Goliath with me as the female version of David.
"Surrender now and I will make sure your death is swift!" Agtha called to me.
"Surrender now and I promise not to embarrass you in front of all your people!" I called back. I figured the angrier I could make her, the more likely she might make a mistake. Selene and I had to make this look convincing. If we didn't, if the ogres suspected what was really going on, then we were both dead.
A ring of ogre spears encircled the battleground, each thrust into the earth jagged point down. Traditionally the combatants would first walk in a circle and hurl them at each another while yelling creative insults. It was sort of the appetizer before the main course. The bad news for me, though, was that these spears were of ogre make, which meant they weren't designed to be lifted by humans. They weighed several times what I could even budge.
To say that 'battle was joined' was a generous way of putting it. Agtha-Selene put down her axe and hefted the first spear. I dodged as the long projectile tore a deep furrow in the earth where I'd just stood. The deadly barrage began. Agtha-Selene threw one murderous spear after the next. I ran, zigzagged, and fled for my life as the spears rained down on me. I was wearing my lighter leather breastplate, no chainmail. Agility was the one advantage I had over my lumbering opponent, and I planned to use it.
Another spear sailed my way, creating a buffet of wind that skimmed my face as I barely dodged what would have severed my head or at least left my face unrecognizable. Soon a thirteenth spear gouged the battlefield as I slid right, skidding at the last moment to reverse course, narrowly avoiding spear number fourteen just as spear number fifteen embedded in the ground in the same direction I had just turned to run.
I ran right into it, and the shaft of the spear made me see stars. I blinked, watching my vision swim as I dragged my feet forward, anything to keep moving. I heard a roar of laughter from the stands
as the ogres enjoyed the sport. I heard rather than saw the latest hiss of air parting for the latest long pointy object of death. It missed my head by the width of a sparrow's wing. I felt its wind push me downward as I fell flat to the earth. Headfirst of course.
The ogre Queen had used only half of the spears encircling our battleground. At this rate I wouldn't even survive to the main event. It was time for a change in strategy.
The next spear seeking to puncture me went deep. Far too deep. That was because I was no longer dodging. I was advancing on the enemy. My throwing knives sang through the air, tiny whispers of death that bit into the soft flesh of Agtha-Selene's two faces. I made it look convincing, but a keen observer would have noticed that the knives thrown at Agtha's head seemed deadly aimed while the knives near Selene's face went wide.
Agtha shouted in fury as one of my throwing knives implanted in her neck. A trickle of blood started flowing down and underneath her plated armor, and I smiled just to see if it would infuriate her more. It did.
Now Agtha pulled her shared body with Selene towards the battle-axe, and Selene gave her control. Scooping it up in her enormous hands, the ogre Queen rushed me with a howl of fury coming from both mouths. Only one was genuine. I stood, waiting for the moment I hoped would come. Needed to come. The 600 pounds of muscular, feminine death bore down on me like a cliff face torn loose by an earthquake.
In the heartbeat before she was on me, Selene made her move. I looked down at the ogre Queen's feet and saw them stutter on purpose. She tripped forward and fell, sliding into a heap at my feet. I leapt, drawing my war axe. The sword wouldn't do. I needed something that could reliably hew through extra thick bone. I swung it in a vicious arc, and as Agtha raised her head my eyes looked into that face of bottomless hate. Then the moment was gone, and the head of my axe was cleaving through Agtha's skull. With a sickening crunch I felt it pierce…well, probably anything important.
My hands numbly gripped the axe embedded in Agtha's skull as Selene took control of her body and backhanded me. I flew several feet, but all she'd done was stun me. This too was part of the plan, though definitely not my favorite part. She sprang up with surprising athleticism for someone wearing heavily plated armor. Pounding the earth with her plated boots, she was on me too soon, looming like a shadow with the words Die, puny human! very much implied.
I'd just recovered feeling in my arms and legs when Selene grasped me by my ankles and lifted me up, dangling me like a worm. My vision swam and my face felt hotter than the sun, coated as it was in a thick layer of sweat.
"I surrender!" I croaked. The ogres roared in dismay. Some stood and shook their fists.
Until she spoke. "Sit your arses down and give me silence!" Selene roared.
The arena fell silent. You could have heard an ant climbing a pebble. I closed my eyes, hoping fervently that Selene wasn't about to double-cross me and brain me with her axe. Slowly, gently even, she lowered me to the ground. Made sure I didn't break my spine.
I sat up, panting heavily, every muscle screaming with pain about the unfairness of life. But I was alive.
"I accept your surrender, Najika. This fight is done." She turned to the other ogres, glaring at the audience until everyone found the clouds in the sky terribly intriguing.
Then she turned to me. "Don't think this makes us best of friends, Najika of the Black Kingdom. You owe me a treaty, and a fair one at that. We negotiate its major points before we agree to fight at your side, and not before."
I nodded, taking her hand as she offered it to me. But I couldn't lie to her. "You know I don't have complete authority. My husband can veto."
Selene gave me a disgusted look. "Yes, I know. You humans are so peculiar. Why do you even bother with husbands? They are only good for breeding and fighting."
I didn't respond to that, but my cheeks went hot.
Just then an ogre ran lumbering into the arena.
"Mighty Queen of All, there are humans approaching."
"Humans?" Queen Selene turned and looked at me. "Keep them waiting while Najika and I hammer out the key points of our new treaty. Also send for the amputation doctor. Tell Crorg that I need Agtha honorably removed and her head prepared for burial." She turned to me, her voice audible only to the two of us. "I have a treaty to make and dead weight to remove before we go greet these friends of yours. Come, we have a busy afternoon ahead of us."
Chapter 21
Imagine the biggest expression of shock you've ever seen. Now multiply that by a thousand faces and then some, and you have an idea of what we were about to create. My legs were burning. Every muscle was on fire. Nightfall enshrouded the world in its comforting moon-tinged blanket, and we were overlooking the valley of the Black Kingdom. The background noise of hundreds of ogres preparing their siege engines under cover of forest and darkness rolled through the trees in one constant, bustling susurration.
It had only taken an all-day march and then more plodding straight through dusk, hardly a break to be had. But now, like in any military operation, the old saying was true. It was time to 'Hurry up and wait.' All I could do was sit here as the ogre engineers made their preparations. I felt useless. Worse than useless.
"You look nervous. Queens don't have that luxury," Selene said.
"To be nervous?"
"No, to look so. I can tell you're new at this. Watch me. You might learn something."
I wanted to roll my eyes at the Queen of the ogres, but I wasn't sure that Queen Selene would take it with the good humor in which I intended it. Sometimes keeping something to oneself was the best move.
"Will they be ready in time?"
"Asking me that question twice already hasn't changed the answer, Najika, and I haven't learned anything new in the last hour. Be patient. Use this time to plan what you will do if we win. If that doesn't work, empty your mind. Focus on the sounds of the night."
I let out a frustrated sigh. "That doesn't help. It just makes me more aware of the engineers doing their work. Do you have any suggestions that will actually help?"
I risked a glance at the Queen of the ogres to see how well she'd taken my sarcastic tone. I hadn't meant to snap at her like that, but sleep deprivation can make tatters out of even the best intentions.
The Queen looked at me, and luckily I saw humor dance in her eyes. "You look like a stone rolled over you, Najika. Get some rest. Fighting on a few hours' sleep is better than none."
But I stubbornly shook my head no, and I had good reason to. When we'd entered the valley, Selene had sent Kahg-Hahg ahead to scout the area and make contact with the Black Knight's forces. The news had been grim and hopeful at the same time. The combined armies of the other Knights were assembled at the far end of the valley. To everyone's shock, though, rather than holing up in his stronghold to force a siege and buy the ogres some time to come relieve him, Drake had decided for the bolder move.
He'd moved his hopelessly outnumbered army onto the plains in front of the castle and deployed them for battle. Drake's allies, the trolls and the ape-men, were covering his flanks and had taken command of the high ground.
It still wasn't enough, but it had taken the enemy by surprise and forced them to delay while they redeployed their forces. Still, the result would be the same, Drake and his army defeated. Dying gloriously, perhaps, but dying gloriously all the same. When I finally got my hands on my husband I was going to throttle him. It took a special kind of nerve and stupidity to throw away an entire army.
An owl abruptly hooted through the night. Except it wasn't an owl. Queen Selene cocked her head, listening intently. Some of her ogre bodyguards rushed ahead, making similar sounds disguised as bird calls. I gave her a questioning look, and at last Queen Selene let me in on the secret.
"Those signals are my scouts' way of telling me that friends are approaching. Someone from your husband's army, I would guess. Soon we will see exactly where we stand."
If I was nervous before, my entire body now hummed with frayed alertness
. I was exhausted, but my senses were heightened with anticipation. I was like a sleep-deprived dog on the hunt, and as long as the scent tormented my nose I had no choice but to move forward. I was glad that Lady Vaela and the still healing Bronwyn were safe back at the ogre settlement. If they could see me now…
My eyes made out three shapes moving in the darkness. Queen Selene and I stepped into the clearing, blinking as the moonlight washed over us and the newcomers came into view. My heart leapt and performed a victory whirl as I saw Drake in full battle armor striding through the knee-high grass. Two hulking shapes shielded him on both sides. One was more squat, the other taller and lithe.
I threw myself into Drake's arms. Or did he throw his arms around me? I didn't have the clarity to know which at this point. All I knew was that big, bulky arms were enfolding me and his nose was nuzzling my neck and cheek.
"It's good to see you," he whispered huskily. "You gave me a few scares out there." I assumed he was referring to my close brush with the Dreamgiver in the Rotted Wood and my fight to the death with Queen Agtha. He couldn't exactly toss blame about and cry foul, though. The idiot had jeopardized his entire Kingdom by using his black dragon to rescue me, and now he was risking his army when he didn't have to!
I stood back and gave him the most furious look I could muster while still being overjoyed to see him in one piece. Not an easy balance to strike.
"Why are you facing them in open battle!? You should be with your knights in the castle." I meant to whisper, but it came out more as a hiss.
"If I did that, Naji, then I would have one of two choices. I could either burn all the crops and houses outside of the castle, destroying my people's livelihoods to deprive my enemy of the resources…Or I could leave them like ripe fruit to be plucked, and the enemy would then use those supplies to outlast us as they besieged us into submission. Neither of those sounded attractive to me. If there's going to be a risk, it should be mine to take. My people shouldn't suffer while I sit back in my castle safe and sound."