by K. M. Shea
“I don’t need an escort; Puss and I can manage fine,” Gabrielle said.
“I thought you would see my ulterior motive, but you cannot blame me for trying. You are capable, but I don’t relish the thought of you traveling alone,” Steffen sighed, leaning forward on his elbows. He smiled at Gabrielle—not a charming, dashing, or fake smile, but a small smile that reflected in his eyes, wistful. “Attacking the ogre was a stupid thing to do, but I’m relieved you made it out,” he said. He extended one hand and brushed her cheek with his fingers. “I don’t know what I would have done if…”
Gabrielle was as still as a stone, her heart squeezing in her chest for a different reason than Puss’s injuries.
Steffen paused, cleared his throat, took his hand away, and stood. “So, yes. We’ll be pleased to host you in Brandis. Come as soon as you are able.” Quick strides carried him across the common room. He turned and added a quick bow. “I’ll see you this evening,” he added before rushing out the door.
Gabrielle stared at the abandoned seat across from her for several minutes, trying to sort through Steffen’s words and expressions. When the stray cat meowed, she dropped her gaze to look at the little creature.
“I’m worse than a village girl,” she sighed, rubbing the cat under her chin. “Sighing and dreaming when my closest friend is wounded.”
Steffen’s words had done her good. She wasn’t confident Puss would pull through, but the odds were in his favor. “Puss is a magic cat. He won’t give up life easily. As for the ogre…I’ll see him soon.”
Chapter 12
Outwitting an Ogre
Gabrielle checked the strap of her leather pack—she’d received it (reluctantly) as an upgrade from her burlap sack from a thankful villager. It was secured to her stolen horse’s tack, and the beast didn’t seem to mind the extra weight as she led it, on foot, through the trees. As she had ridden the ribby animal rather hard the day before, Gabrielle didn’t want to push him. She decided to wait until she reached Carabas farmland to ride him.
She peered through the trees, unease nipping at her heels. She could almost feel the weight of someone or something’s gaze on her, but whenever she stopped, she could neither see nor hear anything out of place.
Leaves rustled and branches swayed, but the goblin-infested woods were still.
Hoping to expel her apprehension, Gabrielle forced herself to think over her previous encounter with the ogre of Carabas.
He had red eyes, and he only seemed mildly bothered by Puss’s blinding charm. Is he like the candy cottage witch? He said he could smell us, and he seemed to follow me pretty well. All of his thundering and grunting covered up any noise I made, so he can’t depend on his hearing, like a goblin.
She felt eyes on her and glanced over her shoulder. No one was there.
Puss said the ogre had more magic than wits. He was intelligent enough to speak, but not so intelligent that he thought to shift into something smaller to get through the window to snatch me. How can I use that to my advantage?
A bush rustled. It stilled the instant Gabrielle looked at it.
Swallowing unevenly, Gabrielle walked faster, dragging the horse behind her. When she reached the edge of the forest, she maneuvered her mount, intending to clamber on its back and leave whatever was following her in the forest. She fixed her foot in the stirrup, and a cat meowed.
She looked back to see the little, orange stray cat that had taken such a liking to Puss trying to hop the knee-high grass. “Cat,” Gabrielle said, leaning against her horse when her limbs turned to jelly with relief. “You rotten little mouser! You just about stopped my heart with fear.”
The cat meowed and nosed its way through stalks of wild vegetation, stopping when it could sit at her feet.
Gabrielle’s relief turned into sharp anger—and dismay. “No. I’m not bringing another cat with me into a dangerous situation.” The cat rubbed against her boots and purred. “Absolutely not. I’m not repeating that.”
She hurriedly swung up into the saddle and nudged her horse forward.
The stray followed her, emitting a wailing yowl.
“Shh!”
The cat wailed even louder.
Gabrielle halted her horse and watched the pumpkin-colored cat scramble after her. If I leave it here, a goblin might find it and eat it. “Fine! You win. But if you get in my way, I’ll toss you in a cupboard in the castle before I face the ogre again,” Gabrielle said. She slid off her horse and placed the cat in a saddlebag.
The cat meowed and struggled to poke its head free of the leather pack. When it had done this, it looked to her, as if wondering what they were waiting for.
She shook her head and swung into the saddle. “Forward,” she declared. “To death and doom—hopefully not ours.”
They walked through the empty halls of the castle, her boots echoing in the smothering silence. The little cat at her side, Gabrielle had her pack swung over one shoulder, and she carried a shovel.
Where is everyone? Through the farmland and the town—even when she swiped the shovel from a long-abandoned gardening shack—she hadn’t seen a soul. “He can’t have killed them all. There’s no sign of spilled blood in the wreckage.” She warily looked up and down the empty hallway before digging through her pack.
She had chosen a spot by a lovely—but dusty—glass window, which gave a view of the dirt courtyard between the outer and inner buildings. Gabrielle waited in the outer ring, working up her courage and nerve to go to the inner buildings—where the ogre’s roars shattered the eerie stillness of the castle.
“Found it,” Gabrielle said to the cat, unearthing a glass bottle wrapped in layers and layers of cloth and cotton. She uncapped it and drew back in revulsion. “It smells just as bad as I remember.” She brushed a little liquid on her neck, ran it through her hair, smeared it across her clothes, and even on her chin.
“Stay,” Gabrielle ordered the cat. She placed her bag by a door but picked up the shovel and propped it up on her shoulder. The cat scurried into the courtyard with her, winding around her feet. “No,” Gabrielle hissed. She put the cat back in the hallway, shut the door, and walked on.
The pumpkin-colored cat meowed and jumped through an open window.
Gabrielle clenched her eyes shut as the cat trotted up to her. “I better douse you too, just in case,” she muttered, retreating to the hallway. “But that doesn’t mean you can come with me. This is only in case you wander too close or…something goes wrong.” She poured more of the foul-smelling Essence de Fox on her hands.
The cat yowled, squirming in her grasp as she ran her hands up and down its body.
Soon Gabrielle and the cat reeked with the sour odor of fox. “I need to bag that ogre—before I turn green and wretch,” she grimaced. She reclaimed the shovel and marched into the courtyard, and the cat followed her like it was an honored procession.
She couldn’t keep fighting the cat. Her only ally at the moment was her focus, and it was failing her. If the cat didn’t have the sense to hide like every other living thing in the vicinity, that wasn’t her fault. “You follow at your own risk, cat.”
The words didn’t make her feel much better.
She stepped carefully toward the inner building, looking for an entrance. There. An open window.
“Are you mad?” a woman hissed from behind a barrel. “The ogre is in there!”
Gabrielle jumped, startled at the sudden intrusion. She took a moment to collect herself and smiled wryly. “That’s kind of the point.”
The woman darted out and tried to drag her back a few feet. “Come. You should be hiding—with everyone else!”
Ah, so they are still around. “I’m not going to hide. I’m here for the ogre.” Gabrielle plucked her arm from the woman’s grasp.
“You think yourself a hero? You think you’re skilled enough to free us, after all these years? You’ve got a cracked knob.” A raspy, scornful laugh shook the woman.
“I can’t claim to be hero,
but I won’t run. I’m going in there.”
The woman shook her head, turned on her heels, and ran like a terrified woodland creature toward the outer wall.
When the last of the servant’s footfalls faded, Gabrielle adjusted her grip on her shovel and turned to the cat. “You really should stay out here. Hopefully the next time you see me, I’ll have bagged myself an ogre.”
She slipped into the inner castle building. From there, all she had to do was listen to the angry rumblings of the ogre. She turned her body in that direction and walked forward. Stay calm, she told herself, pushing all of her fear and terror down. The thought that had pricked her moments after her conversation with Steffen the previous day stuck to her like a burr and kept her fright at bay. This isn’t about fate, or justice, or even revenge. It’s about Puss, and how he is never going to let this ogre go. If he tries to face it again, I don’t know if he’ll make it. I don’t care if there is a hero fated to take the ogre out. I’m going to kill this ugly sucker if it’s the last thing I do.
Gabrielle marched up to a large door. The ogre was raging just past it. He was stomping up and down the big hallway in which she had evaded him.
He’s angry. I hope that works to my benefit. With a deep breath, Gabrielle placed her palms on the door and shoved it open.
“Flesh!” the ogre shouted, making the floor rumble. “I will dine on your bones!” He charged at Gabrielle as she shut the door behind her—which she couldn’t do fast enough. The stray cat scrambled inside and darted under a dainty sideboard against the wall.
The floor shook. She had to speak fast.
“I expected much of you, master ogre.” She shouted deep from her gut, making her voice throaty and husky. “I can see now, I am sorry to say, that I overestimated you.”
The ogre slowed. “What?” He sniffed the air and recoiled. “Foxes!”
Gabrielle’s throat tightened. Would the scent work? Would he realize she was human? If this doesn’t work, the rest of my plan is ruined.
“You smell of fox, but you speak,” the ogre growled. “What are you?”
“I, good sir, am a Gabi.”
“There are two of you,” the ogre said, sniffing in the cat’s direction.
Gabrielle eyed the cat, dismayed it managed to follow her inside. “Yes, that would be a Gabi junior,” Gabrielle said, lowering her shovel. Her mouth was dry, but she forced herself to speak, trying to sound charismatic—like Puss when he charmed a local authority or a person in a position of power. “I have journeyed across Arcainia. When I was to pass by Carabas, I decided I couldn’t venture so close without meeting you—respected and feared ogre.”
The ogre rubbed his beady red eyes and peered in Gabrielle’s direction. Judging by the way his eyeballs roved from side to side, he couldn’t see her well. “Respected?” he asked, his voice suspicious.
“Why of course,” Gabrielle said, putting all of the air in her gut behind her words. “Everyone has heard how fierce and powerful you are. Although…”
“What?” the ogre demanded.
“Well…I cannot believe everything I have heard about you. Some of the feats are simply impossible,” Gabrielle said.
“You doubt me?” The ogre roared. “I WILL EAT YOU NOW!” He took several great strides forward.
Gabrielle’s legs buckled, but she forced herself to stand strong. “Or you could show me your powers, so that I can testify you are as powerful as everyone says.”
The ogre stopped and growled in his throat—like a wolf. “I care not what others think of me, but I hunger for flesh,” the ogre said. He inhaled and took an unsteady step backwards, apparently repulsed by Essence de Fox’s pungent odor now that he was near enough to get a strong whiff.
“That’s just as well,” Gabrielle said. “Then it will not anger you when you hear how the countryside whispers that your power is diminishing.”
“WHAT?”
“Yes. It is said that someone broke into your castle not two nights ago and made off with some of your prized treasures,” Gabrielle said.
The ogre roared, shattering several glass windows.
“So it’s true,” she said when she could hear again. “I thought someone of your power and capabilities would never have something so embarrassing happen, but as you cannot prove the greatest of your abilities…”
Gabrielle squeezed the wooden pole of the shovel, almost driving a splinter into her hand. Her plan was hinged on the ogre’s reaction to this set up. Please…please be that stupid. Please be that vain.
“What do you doubt about me?” The ogre asked, his fists twisting in rage.
“I have heard that you are able to change into any kind of creature you have a mind to. Like…a war elephant, or a lion,” Gabrielle said. A lion? What was I thinking?
It took all of her will not to run from the room, screaming, when the ogre dove forward, slapping his six-fingered hands onto the ground, and transformed into a lion. She’d seen a painting of a lion once. It barely resembled the snarling beast before her—with paws the size of serving trays, glowing red eyes, and a snarled, matted mane made of black and rust-red hairs.
The ogre—as a lion—swatted a paw, smashing it through a chair. He released a fearsome roar.
The stray cat scurried behind Gabrielle, hissing so much it spat. Its tail puffed up, and its back arched.
“Oh, yes. That is very formidable. Frightening, even,” Gabrielle praised, struggling to keep her voice strong.
The ogre turned back into his ugly body—and she was very glad to see he still possessed his belted loincloth. “All will fear me. There is nothing said about me that I cannot do!” the ogre laughed.
“Well…” Gabrielle said.
“You doubt me still?” The ogre stomped up to her until he was so close she could have poked him with her shovel. He bent over her in a leer before he inhaled and reeled backward, covering his nose. “Gabis must be made of rotting flesh,” he snarled.
Gabrielle ignored the insult and swallowed. “There is a rumor about you that I find even more unlikely.”
“What?” the ogre demanded.
“I heard once that you are able to transform yourself into the smallest of animals, like a mouse,” Gabrielle said.
“A mouse?” the ogre frowned. “Why would I want to be a mouse?”
“Oh, I see. It’s quite impossible, is it? I didn’t think you could manage such a feat,” Gabrielle said.
The ogre was silent as he scrubbed at his eyes with a hand. Finally, he rumbled, “You are puny and stupid, Gabi. I shall show you just how great I am!” The ogre crouched.
As he shrunk, Gabrielle moved towards him and—bit by bit—raised her shovel. As soon as the ogre transformed, she would smash him.
Her body tensed.
There! The ogre scurried forward as a rat-sized mouse, pale gray with beady, red eyes. Gabrielle sprinted the remaining distance, her shovel in the air—
The stray cat lunged forward, pouncing on the ogre-mouse. Squeak! Too late. Before the ogre-mouse could transform back, the cat snapped his neck.
Gabrielle stared, mouth open and shovel still in the air.
The stray cat purred and tossed the dead mouse around for a few minutes. Then, it placed its prize at Gabrielle’s feet, nudging the dead ogre-mouse forward until it touched one of her boots.
“To be outdone by a cat.” Gabrielle put the shovel down and leaned on it. She shook her head as the cat rubbed against her legs. “A normal cat. Puss is going to have a conniption.”
She walked away from the dead ogre-mouse, shivering when she heard the cat crunch on it, and seated herself in a rickety chair.
“What now?” She stared out the windows at the gray sky. She hadn’t thought beyond her plan to off the ogre. What was she supposed to do now? “How about I rest?” she muttered, sagging into the chair.
She must have sat there for an hour, mindlessly staring outside while the little cat investigated the room, pounced on cobwebs, and shattered an expe
nsive vase.
Outside, the sun began to peek through the clouds, and as Gabrielle stared, it seemed like the shadows of the place shrank. The oppressive, domineering aura slowly disappeared.
“So this is how a newly saved land rejoices—” Gabrielle ran her fingers across a carving of a cat on her chair. “With a quiet gasp of relief.”
The door to the hall exploded from its hinges—terrifying the orange cat, who immediately deserted the silk cushions it was playing with. Twenty feet into the hall, the door hit the ground and skidded an additional thirty. The open doorway filled with a cloud of steam and smoke, masking whoever made the flashy entrance.
The orange cat clawed at Gabrielle’s legs in an effort to reach her lap. She winced.
“Gabrielle, you ungracious—ugh—foul-smelling child!”
At the sound of that feline voice, Gabrielle jumped from the chair, her heart singing with joy. It wasn’t my ears playing mean tricks on me—it can’t have been! That was—
“I am gone for one day, and you replace me with that orange-haired interloper who has not a lick of sense.” The handsome black and white cat with the ridiculous half-mustache strolled out of the smoke and into the room.
“Puss!” Gabrielle shouted. Her legs almost gave out before she scrambled across the room, picking her beloved cat and companion up and snuggling him to her shoulder. “You’re alive. You’re here!”
Puss rubbed his cheek against her chin. “Of course. You doubted I would survive such trivial wounds?”
“They weren’t trivial,” Gabrielle said, some of her relief exchanged for ire. “You almost died! I didn’t know if you would make it, or if you would be the same afterwards.”
“You feared I would be dim-witted?” Puss said, twitching his whiskers.
“Well, blowing up doors in a castle occupied by an ogre is not the most intelligent thing to do.”
