Gutcrusher watched them from above, and when the din had quieted somewhat he called out. “I’ll be back after I kill them ogre eating fornicators.” He turned and stepped back into the Black Mountain.
Madbastard, thinking his strange and mad thoughts, ran through the bloodsoaked halls and corridors of the Black Mountain, with a long and disorganized train of his people behind him. He had a strange and sometimes useful cunning, and he knew from Gutcrusher’s talking that no matter how things bounced, if he didn’t kill the fake king then he and all of his folk would be killed. He ran with only this thought in mind, and since he feared neither death nor pain, he ran without caution, and his reckless speed was prodigious.
He could see from the tasty pieces and soupy blood that spattered the place where the fighting had been. It was not difficult to find the chamber of columns, nor to select which path led from it, for the floor was happily awash in blood and gore. He leaped through the narrow way expecting resistance, for it was the kind of place that might be held long against a host of enemies, but there was nothing on the other side but a few chunks of dead goblin and a pile of broken weapons. He ran past the entrance to the great spiral staircase without considering it, racing down a long hallway and into a cave-dark maze of ancient rusty doors set in casements of obsidian.
He opened the first door he came to, but it was pitch black, and he could neither see into the chamber beyond nor into the hall around him. Hideripper, one of his captains, careened into him while he stood there. He reacted instantly, and he turned and fixed his sharpened fangs on Hideripper’s throat, tasting the hot lifeblood as it spurted from him. Too late he tasted and smelled the paint, but Hideripper was gasping and dying already, so he paused to suck up some of the blood. Standing and waiting had been thirsty work.
Around him others of his fearful kind had heard Hideripper’s gasp and death rattle, and assuming they were under attack, they began snapping and clawing and biting wildly, and where their fangs or talons encountered flesh, they ripped and tore and killed. Fully two score of the Wasteland Nomads died in the dark battle with each other, before Madbastard thought to call a halt to the carnage. It was only then that he considered the spiral staircase.
“Upstairs to the pick-a-nick!” He exhorted, and the surviving cohort fell in behind him. They began racing up the stairs, and since they carried no weapons other than their sharpened claws and teeth, they moved very quickly.
Fifty paces above them, the ogres behind Gutcrusher’s shield wall heard them coming. This was something they had planned and prepared for, a massed charge up the stairs. They had been three days at the Black Mountain, and they had used the time wisely, exploring every passage and chamber, and gathering needed supplies from the desolation all about. They opened the shield wall to let the whelps have their kills. The whelps, fat-bellied ogrelings from ages eight to ten about the size of small men, gathered the many round stones they had been told to collect, and pushed them over the edge of the stairwell. Most of the stones were no larger than an ogre’s head, but many were large enough that it took several whelps to push them, and as they tumbled down the stairs they began to roll and bounce, gathering speed and deadly force.
Madbastard heard the rocks coming, and he flattened himself against the wall. Most of the ogres following did the same, but still many were struck, and legs and arms and ribcages were broken and skulls crushed. “I’m still coming for you false king!” He shouted. “It’s almost time for the pick-a-nick!” When the stones stopped he returned to the center of the stairs and waited for a few of his boyos to catch up.
He whispered to them. “We climb all together, boyos. When we reach the top they will be in a line, all armored up. We jump over the pigsuckers and we bite their throats!” By the time he had finished speaking, some forty nomads surrounded him, and most of them were not seriously hurt, although only a few were completely unscathed. He waited a long moment, but no more ogres joined him. He blinked in surprise. Was this all that were left? He did not know that many of his people were delayed with the sudden surfeit of fresh meat below.
But it didn’t matter. The Black God would have them all one day, and why not today? “PICK-A-NICK!” He screamed, and his small army began racing upward, occasionally tripping and stumbling on round stones that rolled and bounced beneath their eager feet. He skinned his knee painfully and laughed and came on, until he came to the top of the stairwell. He saw the shield wall and he threw himself toward it, intending to climb over it and bring it down, as he had said, but the edge of a blacksteel sword suddenly loomed large in his right eye, and when it impacted his skull was halved and emptied in a shower of blood and brains that baptized his unlucky followers as they emerged onto the killing floor from below.
Those of his people who were not stabbed to death by long spears that reached out from behind to take them in the back charged the shield wall, and five of them survived long enough to climb over and pull down two shields. Of these five, two survived the storm of blades and spearpoints that greeted them long enough to actually bite at the ogres behind the shield wall. One of them bit into the throat of an unlucky ogre named Demonchild and the other bit the haft of a stone hammer, actually snapping the wood in two. Demonchild stuck his iron sword into the brisket of the nomad who had killed him, and Hammers smashed the other one down to the floor. He died chewing splinters as if they were gristle and bone.
“Well done, Hammers.” Gutcrusher said, then they pushed the corpses back onto the stairs. Gutcrusher hacked off what was left of Madbastard’s head. He double timed it back to the balcony, running up another staircase, down a long hallway, then another staircase up and a shorter straight stair down. He walked out and faced the ogres below.
“Here’s the last cannibal head for you.” He called out, and he tossed Madbastard’s head below. It landed at the feet of Ironspike, who looked at it and grimly smiled. The light was failing, and it was growing dark, but Gutcrusher thought he saw a grudging look of respect in the face of the Winter Mountain Chief.
Gutcrusher looked him straight in the eye as he spoke. “When I am king, there will be no more bloody chieftains, only captains that bent knee to me. The rest of you chieftains need to come up and face your doom. If you come alone, I will fight you alone. If you come together, we will fight you together. But by the Black God’s bones, we are all going to know the answer by morning.” He turned and walked away, returning by the long and circuitous course to where his boyos stood waiting.
Azha the Fury had seen all and listened to all from her place in a room behind the balcony. So many bloody and terrible things had happened, and all she had gotten to see was some heads bouncing down. All she had gotten to hear was some speechmaking, and it was boring. Nobody was paying her any attention, and wasn’t she the queen? There was no one at the balcony, so she walked over to it and looked down.
A few heads turned, then shouts and voices spread, and soon all of the ogres below were looking up at her, Azha the Fury. She relished the attention. She gave them her most winning smile. “Wouldn’t you love to have a queen who looked like me?” She gave them a throaty laugh when she said it, put her hands on the balcony and let the swell of her perfect breasts rise where they could see.
Below her the half-starved ogre males forgot their hunger in a surge of primeval lust. This was an ogress! Sure, they could not have her, no matter what happened today, and they knew that. Such a she was not for the likes of them. But many of them dreamed of it. To many of them came the thought that if she was the queen, they could serve her, and in some small way this might assuage their lust. If Gutcrusher was king, then that would make her the queen, and that was what she wanted. If that was what she wanted, many of them wanted it to.
Azha the Fury was very good at fomenting dissension, and these ogres were already half-way at each other’s throats. “Boyos.” She said in her sultry way, watching every eye below follow her every move unblinking. “Oh my sweet boyos. Won’t you kill your silly chieftains and
bend knee to the king for me?”
Ironspike laughed hugely, a long and roaring laugh that came forth like thunder and echoed through the canyon. He paused, as if to speak, but then he roared with laughter again. “Azha the Fury!” He finally choked, shaking his head and laughing still harder. Then he turned to Fargikiller, Whiteskin and Soulripper, grinning mightily. “Well, what are you waiting for you three? Go and take up his challenge. He said he’d fight you numbers even. I’ll come along after you fail.” He gestured at the door.
“Aren’t you coming?” Soulripper asked, to the consternation of Whiteskin, who glared his freakish pink glare at him.
“Not yet.” Ironspike replied, still chuckling. “I want to look at this fornicating hot wench for a bit longer. But if you three sodomites don’t get up there and make good on your bragging, this crowd is going to rip you to bleeding pieces.”
“We will not fail.” Fargikiller replied coolly, the blackness swirling around him weirdly. He lifted his staff and strode toward the door. Whiteskin followed eagerly, his blood-blackened spear looking fierce in his two strong hands. Soulripper followed also, but blackskull club aside, not much about him looked fierce. He looked like a man might look, marching to the gallows.
“Azha the Fury, look at me!” Ironspike called. She looked down at him and smiled.
“Do I know you?” She asked in a coy way. Every eye in the throng was on her face.
“No, but I heard of you, even on my mountain. They said you were the hottest bitch ever.”
“Do you believe it now?” She was both flattered and amused. This was how the day should have gone, and she should have been at the center of it from the beginning. She preened under the gaze of every lust-filled male there.
“By the Black God’s balls I do.” He replied. “And any ogre here who says different, I’ll spike him!”
Then some other ogre began to chant, “Azha, Azha, Azha.” Soon nearly all of the ogres below had joined in, and the roar filled the canyon while the last red light of the last sunset of summer faded in the western sky. She was filled to bursting with joy.
In the large rectangular chamber that Gutcrusher called the killing floor, three fearful heads emerged from the stairwell, Soulripper, Fargikiller and Whiteskin. They faced a solid shield wall in every direction.
“Where is the pretender?” Whiteskin demanded. “We would take up his challenge.”
“I’m right here.” Gutcrusher replied. “So it’s you three on my three?”
“As long as you are with them.” Fargikiller replied.
Gutcrusher laughed. “You can count on it. Too bad there’s only three of you. I’ve got a lot of captains who want in on this. You can’t get Ironspike up here?”
“He says he’ll come up after he screws your she.” Whiteskin said spitefully. But if he was looking for a reaction of jealousy, he failed. Instead Gutcrusher laughed again.
“If he wants to have a go at the Fury, he’s welcome to give it a try. If he survives that he’s a tougher bastard than you are, Pinky.” Whiteskin growled at the insult.
“Balls and Wolf.” Gutcrusher called, replacing his steel sword with his blacksteel mace and strapping on his round shield. The two ogres stepped from the shield wall and gave their places over to others. “That’s my two, Pinky. Everyone spread out and give us some room.” The ogres holding shields backed away slowly, forming a large circle.
“Now you’ve stuck your head out too far, foolish pretender.” Fargikiller said, and he disappeared in a burst of shadow. Only his staff remained visible, and it did not move.
Whiteskin did not wait to see what Fargikiller would do, but leaped forward, straight at Gutcrusher. Soulripper did likewise, and Gutcrusher had to struggle to avoid both the blackskull club, which he slapped aside with his shield, and the blood-blackened spear, which he knocked aside with his own mace.
It was all he could do just to defend himself, facing two experienced veterans of many battles, and for half of a minute he was forced backward, defending first against the club and then against the spear. Soulripper and Whiteskin were both fast and dangerous, and skilled at fighting in partnership with others. They leaped to both sides of Gutcrusher, forcing him back toward the shieldwall.
But both of these chieftains had decided that Gutcrusher must die, and each wanted to be the ogre that killed him. They ignored Wolf and Balls, and this was a bad mistake.
Wolf saw the chieftain of the Blackwood disappear, and he looked around for a moment, trying to decide where he might be, but you cannot fight what you cannot see. On the other hand, there were two opponents he could see quite clearly, and they were both focused on killing Gutcrusher. He felt a trifle insulted at being ignored.
Nobody had ever ignored the wolf for long. Growling, he sprang at Whiteskin, for he had never liked the creepy pale bastard, and he was showing Wolf his flank like Wolf was nothing. His blacksteel gladius, inherited from the Blackhand, leaped in his hand, and he brought it down swiftly, striking for Whiteskin’s unprotected right side.
But Whiteskin had been around for a long time, and he had fought and killed ogres singly and in groups. He spun back and crouched, avoiding the blacksteel stabbing sword by inches. At the same time he thrust his spear under Gutcrusher’s guard, the iron tip punching through mail and piercing the false king’s hip. Gutcrusher howled and slammed his mace down, breaking the thick wooden haft of Whiteskin’s weapon.
Balls swung his deadly blacksteel spear wildly in a circle where Fargikiller had been, but it encountered nothing. As soon as the Blackwood chieftain had vanished, he knew that of the three, the ogre-witch was the greatest danger. Balls leaped forward with the spear, quartering the space where he thought Fargikiller had gone, but again encountered nothing. Balls kept moving, leaping from place to place, using the spear to make a web of death around him. Nevertheless he felt a slash at the back of his neck, and only a quick leap forward kept the blow from hitting anything vital. Bleeding, he continued his methodical swinging of the spear, hoping to hit the Blackwood chieftain by luck.
Wolf, seeing that Whiteskin’s spear was broken, jumped forward stabbing, and Whiteskin had to leap aside to avoid the experienced fighter. Whiteskin laughed when Wolf’s blows encountered only air. “I don’t even need a weapon to kill you, Wolf!” But the truth was he did, and as he spoke he grabbed the handle of a long knife at his belt.
Gutcrusher was wounded, but he’d been wounded before, and this was nothing. His blood was up, and nothing was going to stop him now. With Whiteskin focused on Wolf and Balls chasing the ogre-witch, he had only Soulripper to deal with, and he bulled into him with his shield, forcing him back. Blacksteel mace met Blackskull club, and dark and eldritch sparks flew about the two of them. Soulripper tried an old trick of his, flinging his cloak in his enemy’s eyes, but Gutcrusher was wise to this tactic. He crouched and rolled under the cloak, shoving his spiked mace up and under, striking Soulripper beneath his mail in his unprotected genitals. He rolled across the floor while Soulripper dropped his weapon and put both hands over his wounded and poisoned manhood, screaming inarticulately. Soulripper died in agony.
Now it was Whiteskin’s turn to be cornered by two experienced opponents, and he snarled ferociously, armed with only a knife. Still, he was Whiteskin, and didn’t all ogres fear him? They feared him for good reason. He saw Soulripper’s fallen skull-mace and began working his way backward to it. If he had such a weapon in his hands, he could still kill all three of these easterlings.
Balls felt another cut along the back of his left arm. He spun with the spear, but it encountered only air. Near his feet was the fallen skull-club, and he skipped over it, lest it entangle his footing. At that moment Whiteskin sprang at Wolf with his knife. It was a feint, and Wolf fell for it, bringing up his gladius and stepping back defensively. Gutcrusher’s blacksteel mace whistled through the air above Whiteskin’s head as the freakishly fast albino dove past him, grabbed the handle of the skull-mace and began lifting it from the flo
or. He had almost brought it to guard when Wolf’s gladius, thrown from five paces, pierced the hard layer of his stomach muscles and buried itself in his vitals. It was a venomous weapon, and lines of blackened dead flesh spread from the wound hideously fast. If only he’d had such a weapon, Whiteskin thought, and it was the last thing he ever thought. He looked at Gutcrusher and his pink eyes went black. He died standing.
“They were nothing.” A voice came out of the air. It was Fargikiller’s voice, but none could see him. “You had a good idea, Gutcrusher, becoming king. I never really thought about it.” Every ogre in the room was looking about, trying to locate the source of the voice. Wolf retrieved his gladius and stood back-to-back with Balls, their weapons cutting the air fruitlessly. Gutcrusher backed against the shield wall and held shield and spiked mace before him.
“Of course, if I am king, I would have to get rid of all of these fools who have bent knee to you.” The voice said, and a young buck called Doehunter grabbed at his neck. His lifeblood was shooting between his fingers, and he looked imploringly at Gutcrusher. He was behind the shield wall, and so was Fargikiller. Fargikiller laughed, and his voice could have come from anywhere.
“Everyone spread out!” Gutcrusher commanded. “Cut the air with your weapons!” The ogres abandoned the shield wall and did as their king said, each one weaving a deadly circle with sword, knife, hammer and club. An ogre called Shiverbones dropped a hand behind his knee, where the tendons had been severed, and as soon as the hand dropped, his neck was sliced half-through. He began choking.
“There!” Gutcrusher roared, racing to the spot with his spiked mace swinging, but Fargikiller was already half way across the room, slashing the throat of a whelp. Gutcrusher didn’t remember what the little thing was called, but now he was dying. “Oh, hells to you, Fargikiller!” He yelled, furious. “I’ll kill you, witch!”
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 79