War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy

by D. S. Halyard

  “If you could make me a list of those places, I’d be grateful.” Faithborn said, grinning.

  “Next time I go riding I’ll take you with me.” Aelfric replied. “Both of you. I’ll show you exactly what I mean, but I think you get it already. It’s like the Whitewood, and that’s my point. We didn’t beat the Auligs in the Whitewood.”

  “We didn’t?”

  “No. The Whitewood beat them. It was the terrain and our use of it that killed them. Once we got our hedgehogs around those huge trees, they didn’t stand a chance. You aren’t going to like what I say next.”

  Busker laughed. “That’s true almost all the time, milord.”

  “I think we can beat the Cthochi on their own territory. My father said if you want to win, you have to attack. Nobody ever won a war fighting pure defense. We need to go west of the Redwater and start killing Cthochi. We make the Earthspeaker come to us. That’s how we free Northcraven.”

  “Seven bleeding hells, Aelfric.” Faithborn said, and he wasn’t a man given to swearing. “You do know we’ve only about five thousand men, don’t you?”

  “Like I said. That won’t make a difference.”

  Several hours later the camp was winding down from the day’s labor, and Aelfric was tired, having spent most of the day with Faithborn, the Bishop, O’Hiam and Tuchek, ironing out half a hundred different battle plans and instructing the captains on new drills they would have to learn, new equipment they would need and the myriad of mind-spinning details involved in moving the camp. Edwell came into the Privy Lord’s Privy just as he was about to blow out the lamp and call it a night.

  “Trouble, milord.” The man seemed more amused than upset however.

  “Trouble?”

  “Yes, milord.” Edwell had gotten out of the habit of bowing and averting his eyes after the tenth or eleventh time Aelfric had told him to knock it off. “It’s the new men from Diminios, lord. They are growing restive and complaining.”

  “Complaining about what?” Aelfric said tiredly. “Digging trenches and putting up walls?” Anbarius had insisted the men practice erecting his so-called marching camps every night before he would let them retire, in order to reduce the time it would take once they actually started moving.

  “Not that, milord. It’s the tabards. They don’t understand why they aren’t being permitted the purple. They think it is some kind of insult.”

  Aelfric blinked, then looked at Edwell a second time. “They actually want to wear the piss-purple?”

  “Yes, milord. Apparently they feel they are being singled out in some way, and they believe it is their right to wear them.” The edge of the Edwell’s mouth turned up in what Aelfric could have sworn was almost a smile. He resisted the urge to throw something at the man.

  “Assemble the drunkards.” He ordered at last, then he blew out the lamp and made his way to his tent.

  Chapter 62: Muharl Ogre Territory, Late Summer on the Western Plain

  Soulripper stared at the ogre bound to the stake and spat. “So, Grimknife, you wanted to go and join the pretender, did you? You sneaking little gophershite.” He spoke loudly, almost yelling, for he wanted the great host of ogres gathered around and looking on to hear him clearly. When Soulripper spoke, all of them went silent, for he was walking around with his skull-stick, the terrible blacksteel club with the poisonous bite that was wrought in the shape of an enormous human skull. He wore black iron chainmail, bound about his waist with a broad white fur-covered belt, made from the hide of a great white bear. His cloak was made of the pelts of several ogres he had put down to retain his position at the top of the Iron Bridge Band.

  “I never did.” Grimknife pleaded. “I only made talk of it.” They were gathered on a broad and open plain, at the far south of the Iron Bridge Band’s territory, almost into the Open Waste. It was a place that had seen many battles between the mighty Iron Bridge Band and the nomadic hordes, but tonight it was under the peace of parley.

  “Dangerous talk, gophershite. Dead ogre talk.” Soulripper said, then he turned to the host that had gathered at his summons, over two hundred hands of his grim and most dangerous warriors. Around them stood or squatted a host of others from many different places. It was a gathering the likes of which had not been seen in the ogre lands for hundreds of years, and large bodies stretched into the night as far as he could see on the open plain. “Let me show you what happens to them as thinks of joining this upstart pretend king, my boyos!” Then he dropped a torch into the piled wood at the base of the pole. The tinder caught, then the larger logs, and then Grimknife started screaming. It took the gophershite a long time to die, for the wind was blowing steady beneath a yellow death’s head moon, and the smoke blew away. Grimknife didn’t suffocate, but he burned, and he burned long and slow. Ogres aren’t made to pass out with pain, but they are made to suffer, and Grimknife surely did.

  The stink of his burning was like a slow cooked pig, and it made Soulripper hungry, not that he would have admitted it. Ogres didn’t eat their own kind, at least not where any others could see. Well, except for those bastards from the wastelands.

  Ironspike, looking dangerous with his spiked armor made from the hide of ogres and his heavy iron pick, nodded with approval from his position to the left of Soulripper. The Spike had come down from the Winter Mountains, leading a hundred hands of his own brutal boyos, tall, club-wielding giants clad in thick fur. It was always cold in the Winter Mountains, as cold as death.

  To his right stood Fargikiller, with his helmet in the shape of a dragon’s skull. At least, Soulripper thought he was there. Fargikiller had a chestplate with something witchy in it. He was never standing exactly where you thought he was, and he could disappear into a shadow and reappear somewhere else. Most ogres couldn’t stand being around witchy things, but Fargikiller was the exception, his dark skin scarred with many an eldritch rune. He carried a spiked staff written with dark magic, it was said, a staff that could kill an ogre without touching him. His eighty hands had come out of the Blackwood Forest, answering Soulripper’s summons so fast that Soulripper thought the chief must have known it was coming in some spook-pushing way.

  Madbastard had come to stand for the Open Waste Nomads, winning the privilege by killing all other candidates. He was naked, but painted in many strange colors. A black blotch of paint in the shape of a hand decorated his face. He carried no weapons, but he was a chief nonetheless, a fast and pitiless fighter who could make a weapon out of anything or just bite you to death. He’d never lost a fight and had the scars to prove it. His legion of lean and fast running followers with their crazy eyes and body paint did not stick together, but mingled among the ogres of the other bands, appearing suddenly with tongues lolling and filed teeth grinning challenge. Soulripper’s peace held for the moment, but it was precarious with such lunatics among them. Only the shared desire to rid themselves of the pretender held them united, for at any other time these ogres would have been at each other’s throats in minutes.

  But when it came to lunatics, not an ogre in the assembly could compare to Whiteskin. He was come from near the walls of the City of the Damned, and he was said to be half-troll. Tall and sickly luminous, Whiteskin was a pink-eyed albino, half again as tall as any other Muharl, and twenty or more ogre scalps hung from a string around his neck. He carried a spear of black ash tipped in iron from which the blood had never been washed, and it glimmered blackly in the light from Grimknife’s pyre. Among Whiteskin’s band were fifty hands of goblins, ugly little cave-dwellers with long black eyebrows and hairy pointed ears that could hide in the night and would steal anything near at hand. Their eyes were like those of goats. Whiteskin had flayed one alive for stealing the first night he and his large brood came to the Iron Bridge, but still the little bastards would steal if you didn’t watch them close. Ogres didn’t like goblins, but Whiteskin didn’t care, and nobody wanted to challenge him. He liked to peel off skin.

  But Soulripper had called the assembly, and he had the
most boyos, even if they weren’t as insane or magical or as fucked up as the rest. It was his right to speak first. “Boyos, friends of many nations, painted hands, shrikes and skaldings!” He addressed them. “We all know what’s up. There’s a pretender in the east. A puking little slag called Gutcrusher. He’s got a band of maybe fifty hands, but they’re growing all the time.”

  Whiteskin howled, maybe in anger or maybe just crazy, and all of his weird and crazy brood howled with him.

  “We are all together here because it’s time for the ogres to police themselves. We can’t allow this kind of a pervert to live!” There was a roar of approval. “We have some crazies, that is true. We have some race mixers, too.” He looked pointedly at Whiteskin. “But all of that is what it means to be a free people.” Several ogres nodded in agreement, but Whiteskin’s creepy pink eyes were fixed on him dangerously.

  “But this here Gutcrusher, he wants to take all that away! He wants to take our freedom from us and make us into his slave boys! He wants to take our shes and all of our lawful plunder!” Shouts of ‘no!’ and ‘screw him!’ accompanied this remark, as well as many roars of disapproval. “But we know where he lives. We know where this pretender and all of his crazy-ass followers is holed up. We’re going to hunt him down and give him to Whiteskin and his boyos to make a rug out of him.” He glanced at Whiteskin to see if the crazy bastard approved, and Whiteskin was smiling, his upper fangs blood-colored in the light of the pyre. Soulripper stepped aside and let Ironspike talk.

  “We come from the Winter Mountains because we heard of this fornicator.” Ironspike began simply. “We are going to smash in his skull, and that’s it. If Whiteskin wants what’s left over, he can have it.” Short and to the point, but that was Ironspike.

  Fargikiller stepped up to the speaking place, but nobody could abide his witchy face or his shifting shadowy form. The assembled ogres looked up or down or anywhere else as he spoke. His voice was a weirdly echoing call, as if it came from several places at once. “He cannot hide from me, this pretender. I will find him, no matter where he goes. You can take his body and do as you will. I will see his soul carried to the lowest place in the seven hells. On this you have the word of the Fargikiller.” No one applauded, not even his own people. Fargikiller was too blasted strange and witchy to listen to.

  Madbastard just jumped up and laughed, and all of his crazy kin took to laughing with him. He threw his hands in the air and shouted. “It’s a wonderful pick-a-nick! Wonderful and splendid!” The crazies from the nomad wastes all shouted ‘pick-a-nick!’ or ‘splendid!’ at the rest of them, leaping up wherever they were and carrying on. It would have shortly caused a riot at the least had not Whiteskin begun speaking. His voice was barely above a whisper, but when he spoke, all grew quiet. Everyone feared Whiteskin.

  “My brothers, mighty children of the Black God. Let us be done talking. Let us be done roasting fools. Let us begin the hunt.”

  In every band of ogres, in every portion of the vast territory that was the Muharl Ogre Country, a land larger and more fertile than the entire Northcraven Plain, there was discontent. The chieftains rightly saw their power and their freedom threatened by the would-be king. The shes saw uncertainty and strife and the likelihood that their mates and protectors would be slain, leading to fights and rivalries and danger. The whelps felt the uncertainty, and the young males stared with fearful eyes while the adults made ready for war. The young females schemed how to turn events so as to murder the other young females, but of course, they had always done so.

  The young bucks were different. From the typical age of eleven summers to about the age of fourteen, when they reached physical maturity, the life of a young buck was perilous indeed. Kicked from their bands as soon as they began sniffing at the shes, the young bucks were thrust into the wild, there to grow strong and fit or more likely die at the hands of other adult males and bucks. They did not yet know how to hunt, or at least not well, and many starved. They did not know how to properly lair for the winter, and many perished of exposure. But the majority simply could not compete, and they died. This was as it had been for thousands upon thousands of years, and all deemed it good.

  But now it was different. Now there was a king, and he did not care if you were grown full height, nor did he care if you knew how to hunt. His band was open to all, and the bucks of many bands drew near, and all were accepted, and all made welcome.

  Many mature ogres belonged to bands that were ruled with an iron fist or a blacksteel sword. These bands had many grown males and very few shes, for that was the nature of their kind. These ogres watched as the more aggressive or the more ruthless or the more cunning of their ilk took the shes and took the plunder and left them to sleep on the cold stone with nothing but a thin pelt and a stone club for comfort. It brought little joy to the least follower of a large band that his chief’s name was feared, for he would never share in the spoils. When rumors reached such ogres of the treasures in weapons, armor and gold that flowed from the hands of Gutcrusher, and flowed to any who bent knee to him, they snuck away from the edges of their hunts or crept out of their cave lairs at night and walked in many long marches to the distant east, where it was said his kingdom lay.

  Gutcrusher opened all of the caverns of his summer camp, and he took in all comers, so long as they bent knee to him and did a fair share of the hunting.

  Screams-at-Nothing had been a homeless buck for two summers before he bent knee to the king, and he had won a golden bracelet for his hunting, bringing home a large caribou buck over one shoulder to a grateful king. “Here is a hunter!” Gutcrusher had said, and Screams at Nothing had stood proud when the king gave him his reward. He wanted more, for he was ambitious, and with his long spear he journeyed far to the west, into the territory of the Hounds, seeking more game.

  For the Hounds were a broken band, their warriors killed in fruitless battles with the better equipped and more cunning ogres of the King’s Band, and Gutcrusher had fulfilled his promise to hang them all from trees should he catch them. Their large territory lay open, and they dared not hinder the hunters of the King’s Band, lest they become the hunted themselves. Screams-at-Nothing passed their occasional hanging corpses without much noticing, for they dared not even take their brethren down from the trees where Gutcrusher had nailed them.

  He was sniffing down the trail of a boar, his long spear in hand, when the painted warriors of the Waste surrounded him. He looked about, but they were on all sides of him, their filed down teeth glittering sharply in the sun. It was the latter part of summer, about the middle of the month that Mortentians called Kastanus, although of course Screams-at-Nothing did not know this. The sun was warm, but it did not linger too long in the sky, and the nights were growing colder. He was alone in a sparsely wooded land of brooks and thin grass.

  “Pick-a-Nick!” One of the nomads, a lean and battle-scarred veteran of many summers called out loud, and his fellows echoed the cry. He was painted in blue and green stripes.

  “Pick-a-Nick!” They shouted, and Screams-at-Nothing began to run. They flocked about him, their body paint making them appear like many colored birds.

  He was a good runner, but these were the Wasteland Nomads, and they could outrun even the Hounds. A clawed hand reached out and scratched his shoulder, and the earth groaned with the thunder of their running.

  Oddly, the single thought foremost in his mind was that he must go and tell the king. He never got the chance, for they tackled him from behind, and they ripped the life out of him with their bloody pointed teeth.

  “It’s a Pick-a-Nick!” They screamed, and then, because there were no other ogres about to censure them, they chewed him down to bones. Then they painted their savage breasts with his blood, striping their cheeks and foreheads as well.

  Hungry Wolf saw the death of Screams-at-Nothing. He was barely done being a whelp, and he hoped one day to have a different name. When Screams-at-Nothing came back to the summer camp carrying the buck and earned
the reward of the king, Hungry Wolf had watched in envy and admiration. He was too young to hunt well, and he thought to learn by watching Screams-at-Nothing, but he did not want to be cuffed or abused, so he had stayed well back, hiding like whelps do, and he had witnessed in silent horror and morbid ogre curiosity when the nomads took Screams down. When they began to devour him, Hungry Wolf turned and fled.

  It was two days of hard running before he pelted into the summer camp, dripping sweat like a cold apple on a hot day. Splitnose met him at the perimeter, wearing half plate and carrying a steel sword. “Slow down, boy. What’s your stinking hurry?”

  It took Hungry Wolf a second to catch his breath. “Ogres.” He cried. “Ogres with sharp teeth and painted skin. They kilt Screams-at Nothing.”

  “Did they now? The bastards.” Splitnose said. “The king will want to hear of this. You did good boy.”

  Hungry Wolf was both pleased and frightened.

  “So they’re coming at last.” Gutcrusher smiled. “About fornicating time.”

  “There’s going to be a lot of them.” Balls warned.

  “Aye, there is.” Gutcrusher replied. “Hopefully all of the dogrobbers. We have a promise to keep.”

  “A promise?” Wolf asked. “What kind of a promise?”

  “To the crone.” Gutcrusher growled. “The old hag told me to come back when I had all the bands behind me. I figure they’re all behind me now.”

  “You think she meant chasing you?” One-eye inquired.

  “I don’t give an Aulig slag’s curse what she meant. I ‘member what she said.”

  Soulripper found the summer camp of the Bloodhands, but it was deserted, and all of the plunder and food missing. A clear trail led to the east and south, and he gathered the other great chiefs around him. Their number had grown, for all along their long march from the Open Waste, lesser chieftains had come, bringing an army that was vast and fearful. Ogres knew nothing of supply chains or logistics, they ate what they found on the way, but the fauna had largely fled at the rumor of their coming, and the land lay still and empty. They had lost a few hands of ogres along the way, for the fractious alliance contained many an old score still unsettled, and there had been murder done. But the inflows of ogres outweighed the outflows, and it was a larger group now than it had been at the beginning.