by Billy Wong
"You've got to take this more serious-"
Rose knew Julie did take every battle seriously—maybe more than she might have liked, even, considering the girl had come close to breaking down during the last fight—and decided to change the subject before an argument broke out. "How many were the ogres that attacked you, Brandon?"
"At least fifty, I think. I couldn't really be sure. I know there were more than my men, and with them so worn down after the first fight..."
"How many soldiers do you have?"
Grimly, Brandon replied, "After what just happened, and the ones I lost over the past few months? I'd be lucky if I can spare enough to match up favorably against the ogres, and still have enough stationed where they're needed." He grinned. "That's why I got you and Graham here to help out."
She'd almost forgotten the druid, and spared a glance at him. The man looked completely calm as he had before. Rose wondered if he'd brought any of his friends along, which could be helpful. "So you fight?" she asked again.
And again, Graham was cut off by the count. "Does he fight? He fights great—not as good as me, but pretty damn good with that meat cleaver of his. Not as good as you either, of course, but still—between the five of us, we should be more than enough."
"Between the five of us?!" Rose saw everyone else shared her shock—except Brandon, of course.
The count shook his head and began to guffaw. "I got you! Got you all, too! No, I'm not that crazy! I'll gather up as many men as the towns and fort can spare, though admittedly they're undermanned as is. Not enough soldiers on active duty in peacetime and all. But I should be able to get at least eighty, and with Graham's twenty—we'll comfortably outnumber the ogres, if they're no more than I estimate. By the way, where is your huge husband, still not back?"
"He's still away. I'm beginning to wonder if Kayland should keep more soldiers on reserve during peacetime... we never have enough when something happens! I'm going to have a talk with Crown Prince Lawrence when we get back to Gustrone. In the meantime, I suppose we'll simply have to take care of this ogre problem. Remind me to examine one of their bodies if I forget. When will we be ready to go?"
"My men are gathering the soldiers as we speak. Let's just relax until they're all here." She agreed with that, and explored his manor while they waited. Finding to her surprise that he had an extensive library, she began to browse the shelves before something that was not a book caught her eye.
Mounted on the wall was a gargantuan sword longer than most she'd seen, more than her height of six feet and nearly as wide as her own huge blade. Unable to help herself, she took it off the rack and tested it. It wasn't quite as heavy as her old sword, but close, and perfectly balanced though longer than she liked for one-handed use. Still, she began to swing it around and grinned at her own clumsiness with the mammoth blade. She hear Brandon's laugh, and turned to regard him at the door.
"That's a two-handed sword," he informed her.
"Oh, I know. I'm just having fun seeing if I can use it with one, but it's too long. It's not as heavy as my old one, though." He stared awestruck as she gave the sword a difficult twirl, and she smiled at his expression. "What?"
"Most men can't even wield that two-handed."
Rose shrugged her great shoulders. "You know me, I beat you arm-wrestling, remember?" At six and a half feet tall and built like a bull, the count was extremely strong even for his size. "I'm a freak."
"A beautiful freak."
Ignoring the compliment considering she was ugly enough to scare children, she asked, "You use this sword? It's in magnificent condition."
He shook his head. "No! I use the hunk of battered metal I keep in my bedroom. Same size, same shape, but more beat up. I made that in the image of this one, which my ancestor used to drive the invaders from Masel out of Resnick before either was part of Kayland. It was even more battered than my current one until I restored it. It's my masterpiece now, three hundred years old and the embodiment of Resnick pride."
"That's nice," Rose said admiringly. Her magical sword Thorn meant something special to her too, as a symbol of her love with Finn, but she'd never shy from using it in battle. The great broadsword was not only devastating on offense, but also nearly indestructible and incapable of growing dull, traits she imagined their love shared. "It's good to carry something to remind you of family, of home."
"Can I see yours?"
Rose drew the sword and handed it to him. "Careful, it's new."
"Unusual metal coloration. What's this creature carved on the pommel?"
With a little frown, she looked carefully at it. "I think it's some kind of winged lizard. No, it's a dragon!"
"You knew it was a dragon!" He punched her shoulder.
She hit him back, making him rub his arm, and grinned. "So, you married?"
"Do you see a wife?"
"She could be out, or hiding from us scary strangers."
"I don't have one. What, you want a piece of me?"
She was shocked for a moment, then burst into laughter. "No!"
"Suit yourself, but put my ancestral sword back. I think I hear the soldiers arriving, so let's go ogre hunting." She'd heard them too, and set the sword on its rack. He threw his arm over her shoulders, and with a slight bit of discomfort she walked out with him.
#
"Sixty soldiers? What happened to at least eighty?" The druid had a point and Rose was happy he spoke up, though she'd known he could be assertive when he actually cared.
"What can I say?" Brandon replied. "There just weren't enough. The ogres attacked elsewhere in the county since my last fight. Not only did they kill ten more soldiers, the people want more of those who are left to stay and guard them, since they're afraid for their lives. We've still got eighty-five, counting us. We'll be fine."
Rose noticed that Derrick and Julie stood extremely close together, and easily read the fear on their faces. Though she knew they'd wanted to come—at first, anyway—she nonetheless felt a bit guilty for bringing them. She hadn't known it would be so dangerous, for she had expected Brandon's force to be larger. She'd have to keep a sharp eye out for the couple, but did think they could handle fifty ogres though things might've been different without her and Brandon. Rose felt curious to see Graham in action as well, after the comments Brandon had made about the druid's ability.
"The count is right," she said. "If we fight at range for as long as possible, it'll keep them from taking advantage of their great strength, and weaken them to be finished easier when they close. Let's go before too many of us get second thoughts."
"Fine, I suppose it'll be up to us few to save the rest of you," Graham finally agreed, and the small army made their way to where the ogres had last been seen. To everyone's relief, they found the monsters camping nearby unaware of their presence. Brandon ordered his men to rain down arrows, killing over a dozen in the first strike. The beasts began a disorganized rush, and after a second volley of arrows, they braced for it as best they could. But the sheer mass and power of the enemy was too great, and the soldiers could not hold their line for long.
Chaos broke out all around Rose, who abandoned her position among the troops and charged into the thick of the enemy, tearing through beasts twice her size with brutal efficiency. She fought in her usual style against many foes, sword sweeping in great arcs to wound or kill more than one at once, shield as much a weapon as tool of defense with its bone crushing rim. Brandon wreaked his own havoc with a thrill in his eyes, reminding Rose of Finn's boldness and bravado in the face of death. Sparing a glance for Derrick and Julie, she saw to her relief they still hung back from the melee, shooting at ogres that moved to join the fight. But the number of soldiers dying saddened and worried her, and she saw Graham's group too struggling badly.
Rose noted these ogres to indeed be shockingly fast and fierce, and also hairier and thicker of hide than their common brethren. She still dropped foe after foe, smiling at her husband's creation as Thorn cut through crudely made
weapons and continued on to tear the life from their wielders. But her allies weren't giving her as much help as she'd like, and though she hadn't been wounded yet, she knew a hit from those monstrous weapons would hurt. Then the unthinkable happened. As Julie and Derrick continued to shoot arrows, one of the ogres raised a spear and threw it over the battling crowd to pierce the scholar's hip. Derrick didn't scream, but looked down at the embedded shaft, back at Julie, and fell.
Giving voice to a fearsome cry of rage, Rose threw herself against the ogres with renewed vigor, plowing through their ranks with no care for her own safety. It seemed her fury only fueled the monsters' own, and she felt blows driven by superhuman strength land heavily on her body. She could feel the growing pain and the blood begin to flow down her skin, but she didn't care. All she could think about was her friend, and ending the battle so she could attend to him. But the number of ogres which came before her surprised her, and she wondered how badly Brandon had miscalculated. She was sure she'd slain over thirty, and the others couldn't have killed less than twice that. There still seemed to be so many left, and she looked anxiously to her allies. It alarmed her to see most of the Resnick soldiers had fallen, along with all of Graham's men.
The twenty or so remaining soldiers, Brandon, and Julie had been pushed back into sort of a circular formation around a tree, the fallen Derrick in the middle. Julie fought with a pike retrieved from a fallen soldier, her bow nowhere to be seen. It relieved Rose to know Derrick still lived as she saw him writhing with pain, though she still feared for his survival. The beleaguered group was being harried by perhaps twice as many ogres, while Rose found herself in the center of another mass of foul-smelling beasts.
She hacked her way to her allies, ignoring a heavy axe blow across her back though she felt it bite deep, and fell upon their attackers like an angry mother bear on a pack of wolves attempting to steal her cubs. Count Brandon smiled to see her emerge alive from her lonely foray into the heart of the enemy. "Damn, you're one tough Meatball!"
"Thanks! Now help me kill them all!"
He nodded, and tried to rally his men with loud shouts as he began to advance against the crowd. Rose saw Julie take a glancing hit from a spiked club and sag against the tree before slumping down next to her man, leaving a small bloodstain on the trunk.
To Rose's mixed pride and fright, the bleeding girl forced herself back up to resume the fight. "Derrick's hurt!" she yelled fearfully.
"I know. Are you okay?"
"Just a couple of scratches." A spear grazed her side, and she began to fall again. She caught herself on the trunk and pulled herself upright. "Still okay," she gasped.
Rose's pride for her student quickly gave way to worry as she watched the girl stumbling while she fought. Still the ogres kept coming. Quite a pile had built up in front of the humans, but beasts climbed over their dead to reach them. Rose kept swinging, almost every blow splashing her with monsters' blood. Finally the attack slowed, then stopped, and she realized their opponents were all slain or fled.
She turned back to check on her friends and saw Julie leaning heavily on the tree. "Julie, are you well?"
"Check Derrick," the exhausted girl got out between heavy breaths.
Rose looked over the unconscious scholar, but thankfully saw his wound didn't seem too deep. She hefted him on a sturdy shoulder. "Brandon, let's get out of here. The wounded need help."
The count was covered from head to toe in ogre blood, as she knew herself to be. "Yes, you're right. Let's go, men! Get one of the enemy bodies! Are you hurt?"
"Scratches," Rose said fiercely, hugging Julie with her free arm to support the unsteady girl who wept as they bled on each other. While Julie's actual wounds were minor, she had obviously been shaken by the battle. "Where's Graham?"
Brandon frowned. "I have no idea. I don't see his body, and I doubt he ran away. Maybe they took him."
Rose saw there were barely ten Resnick soldiers left standing, and knew most of the fallen would be dead. "What a disaster... how many ogres were there? I must have killed at least eighty, I'm sure."
"Amazing, you lovely goddess of war." Not exactly the point she'd been trying to make... "Though you must admit your magic sword did you some good. Myself? Just a little over fifty."
"Five or six," Julie said to Rose's satisfaction. Her student had been able to keep her cool in the deadly battle, after all. "I think Derrick got four or so."
"I killed six," a short soldier said to their surprise. "I was surprised myself, but they weren't too good at getting around my long spear until it broke." With a sad expression, he held up half a wooden pole.
"You're good," Rose complimented him. She turned to Brandon. "I saw Graham get a lot of them before he disappeared, too. So how many were there, exactly?"
Julie answered correctly. "Way too many."
"If Graham killed twenty—a conservative estimate—and one ogre died for every two other soldiers, that would mean we fought over two hundred ogres. I was really off," Brandon admitted with his head bowed. "I only saw about fifty before, but..."
"Next time, we need to make sure first. I suppose we still won the battle, though it was at a terrible price. Anyway, let's concentrate on saving the injured now. Then we'll have a look at that corpse."
They returned to town and found happily that the spear in Derrick's hip had not broken bone, being slowed considerably by his mail. But he was still unconscious, and would probably be out of action for some time. Julie cried out loudly as her shallow wounds were patched up, unable though she tried to emulate her tough teacher. Rose talked calmly while Brandon sewed shut the huge diagonal gash down her entire back, having only suffered superficial cuts and bruises himself.
"You were awesome," the count commented as he treated her. "The only one to run out all alone into the enemy ranks, and not only do you live, but kill the most by far."
"Yeah, it's what I do. No big deal, we've all got our talents. Mine are killing things and surviving injury. You're not so bad at killing yourself."
"Used to think I was the best fighter in Kayland."
Rose smiled despite the pain his stitching caused. "So did my husband. I'm not that much better. Being near impossible to kill is a pretty big advantage."
"Who do you think is more skilled than you?"
"I suppose Prince Wilner might be. I've had to rely on my resilience a lot in fights against him, since he always gets in the first good hits."
"That might be his speed though. Your resilience is just your gift like his speed is his. You're still the best all in all." She felt his finger begin to touch her back, but before she could tell him to stop, he continued, "Wow, you have a ton of bad scars. Looks like you should've been dead a few dozen times over, though I'm glad you're not."
"Dozens, huh? That's a lot. I suppose I'm pretty disgusting to strangers."
"I don't mind your scars. You're still beautiful on the inside—and out, for that matter. A sort of indestructible beauty is what your scars convey to me. But how could you call me a stranger?"
Rose grinned. "I didn't. But I don't know you that well."
"You know what I think of you, Meatball."
Well, Meatball implied her to be fat, which she was now. Yet he always said it with admiration, and clearly knew she could take the joke. "I think you're a fun guy, too."
"Sometimes I wish I wasn't born into ruling this land. That I could just go anywhere I want, be free."
Hearing genuine sadness in his voice, Rose began, "Maybe if you found a worthy sub-"
"If only it were that simple. But if it was, I know who'd I want to be neighbors with." She felt him gently touching her back again, and looked up to see his warm smile. "We'd make a good pair. We both have black hair."
"Prince Wilner has black hair."
"He's too old for you."
"One could say you're too old for me."
"Count, are you flirting while stitching that huge hole in her?!" Julie asked incredulously, grimacing in pain.
"How can you do that?"
Brandon laughed. "We're grown-ups."
"Don't do that," Rose said as she saw Julie's hurt eyes. "He's just joking, Julie. Brandon, she's not used to your kind of mean humor. Julie, it's not such a bad wound—long, but not too deep. I'm still game for jests. How's Derrick?"
"Still out," Brandon confirmed as Julie's jaw quivered. "He'll be fine. I won't let him die here, it would upset Rose too much."
"Thank you," Julie said.
The count soon finished taking care of Rose, who quickly got up and asked to see the ogre corpse. A close examination made her stare in shock. Not only did the creature have much more hair than a normal ogre, but also needlelike teeth rather than the more humanlike ones it should have, and more startlingly, no visible genitalia.
Despite their striking visual similarity, this led her to conclude, "These are not in fact ogres." But then, what were they? None of her allies could answer that, and this uncertainty left her to imagine with growing dread what was to come.
#
Derrick opened his eyes and wondered if he was dead. But if so he doubted he'd still feel this incredibly weak, and he really hoped he wasn't because that would mean Julie, who sat next to him, was also dead. She did look quite shaken and pale, and had a heavily bandaged arm. "Are you all right?"
"It should be me asking that. I'm fine. As Rose would say, they're only scratches."
He laughed. "But Rose would still say that about a sword through her chest! She did as much at Coblan. I don't feel too bad. Am I going to make it?"
"Yes, thank heaven. You just need to rest. To think it's you who's laid out here, when you were always so worried about me. Rose said I did well in the fight, you know."
Derrick felt some pride for his love, but had hoped Rose would try to keep Julie out of future battles and sighed inwardly. Even if she'd done a good job against the ogres, he still couldn't bear to think of her throwing herself into danger again, especially without him by her side. "What happened with the ogres?"
"It was terrible... we lost four out of five men, and the wounded who live are mostly in bad shape, having been injured by big weapons. There were over two hundred monsters, and Rose said they aren't even ogres!"
