The pirates' taunts and yells turned to screams of pain and panicked shouts for water. In a few moments the wind that drove the black sailed vessel onward died, leading Levin to conclude that their spook pusher was probably among those who lay dead and burning on her decks. Flames consumed the rigging and sails, until all that was left was a smoking wooden skeleton hanging above the still burning deck. The pirate vessel listed to port and slowed, until finally she sat dead and burning in the water while the Sally's High Touch continued to make speed in the growing afternoon wind. A few moments later the following wind brought the stench of burnt rope and flesh to the men who stood, aghast, on the stern of the Sally's High Touch.
"Lio preserve us." Levin prayed, even as the captain stepped down from his machine and the first mate began slowly winching it back down into the upper hold. He was not the only one to echo the sentiment. Several men made the thumb to forefinger circle of protection against their chests.
Chapter 24: Northern Wilderness, West and East of the Falls Branch of the Bone River
Gutcrusher stood, his legs spread wide, with the great mace in his right hand. Light cold rain dripped into his eyes. Behind him Balls stood impassively, leaning slightly on the long spear with the deadly barbed tip. His cookpot was slung optimistically across his back, making an impressive hump. At Gutcrusher's feet Greedo lay sprawled on his ass and elbows, trying to crawl away to avoid another blow from his chief's big fist. Gutcrusher stepped forward and gave him another brutal kick for good measure. "Anyone else too pisslivered to cross the Bone?"
The eleven others stood sullenly behind Greedo, their eyes hooded. They said nothing. Even Fleshripper was afraid to challenge Gutcrusher when this mood was on him, although he eyed the long spear in Balls' hand jealously. He was the second best fighter in the band, and he'd wanted Spearshaker's weapon, but Gutcrusher knew loyalty when he saw it. He was damned if he was going to hand his nearest thing to a rival a weapon like that.
It had taken a day to track the pigsuckers back to this point, a shallow ford where the skulking Aulig hunters had made free to cross the Bone River and hunt in his territory. After the slaughter of that group and the fight with Spearshaker, Gutcrusher had resolved to cross the river and teach the fishstinking Auligs a lesson. "Come on, then." He ordered. "Let's give the dogrobbers a reason to remember that this side of the river is ours."
His boyos were reluctant, he knew. The Bone River formed a firm and ancient border between the lands traditionally held by the ogre bands and the open territory hunted by the Auligs. It went against long tradition to cross the river, but be damned if he was going to let the dogrobbers come across without an answer. Gutcrusher'd been across the Bone twice before, if only far north of here, and he'd come back just fine.
Greedo, licking at the blood that flowed from his split upper lip, stood up sullenly, but he made no further protest. Gutcrusher would have killed the bastard, but he needed him and he didn't like reducing his numbers. With himself included, he had one shy of three hands of boyos, which made him one of the bigger chiefs in the sparsely populated eastern Muharl Ogre Territory.
Skullbuster's nine dared not touch him now, and he planned on taking those boyos into his group, too.
Boner and Shaddo, each clutching two-fisted stone hammers, moved across the river first. They were good scouts, and they had the scent of the Auligs. The rest of the band moved warily into the predawn forest behind them.
After about an hour of wary stalking, the smell of wood smoke halted the ogres. There was a fire ahead, and the faint smell of cooking meat. The dogrobbers were having breakfast. The faint lines of their pointed hide tents could be seen dimly through the trees. Balls licked his lips and gave his cookpot a reassuring pat. Soon enough there'd be something in it.
Shaddo and Boner came creeping out of the dark woods. "They don't even have lookouts posted." Shaddo said, his voice a guttural attempt at a whisper. Boner grinned beside him and nodded, his sharp teeth a wide slash of brilliance in the misty shadows.
"There's less than a hand of fighters, either old bonies like Balls or young snotnoses like Velch." Balls eyed the idiot scout dangerously, and Velch crouched more tightly at the insult. Velch, Boner and Shaddo had all been Spearshaker's boyos, or they would have known better to go tossing insults around in the Crusher's camp.
Balls looked over at Gutcrusher and saw the same frown on his face. Gutcrusher didn’t like anyone talking clever, and he didn't like joking around on a raid. Soon the band would be laughing out loud if they didn't get moving.
"Listen, you lazy skinshedders." Gutcrusher said to Shaddo and Boner in particular. "No idle skulking talk. We circle around and go in on my signal, get it?" The two scouts nodded agreement.
"GO!"
They came out of the morning darkness like great gray shadows, hurtling over the edges of the low, treeless dell wherein lay the Aulig camp. Their thick legs crashed through brush and smaller trees, recklessly snapping branches as they howled with hatred. The Auligs, for the most part women and children whose men were away answering a distant summons to war, came running out of their tents or stood up from their cookfires to face a maelstrom of whirling stone hammers, hurled spears and, at the forefront, Gutcrusher's blacksteel mace.
Whether they sought to flee or to fight made little difference to the ogres, who waded in among them like reapers in a field of barley. There was not one blooded warrior in the camp who'd seen less than sixty summers, and not a single blow aimed at an ogre went home.
Gutcrusher smashed an old man holding an iron sword to the ground, carelessly stepping over his body as he searched the camp for someone else to kill. Fleshripper grinned as he slung a screaming dogrobber wench over his shoulder with one arm while knocking her children into the dirt with the stone hammer held in the other. "Easy pickings!" He shouted through a mist of spraying blood. The Crusher grinned back, even as he brutally stamped the life out of an old, brown-skinned woman.
"Where in the abyss are their warriors?" One-eye's voice was a harsh growl. One-eye had been one of Spearshaker's boyos, and he'd lost his right eye to an Aulig arrow last year. The empty socket stood raw-red and angry against his gray skin. He'd come to kill warriors, not to slaughter oldlings and children, not that he held back any. The ogres' hatred for the pigsuckers was as old as the world, after all.
"Who gives a dungpile?" Wolf's reply was hot and eager. He had a semi-conscious wench by the hair and was dragging her away from the camp. Like the rest of the band, he was splattered with blood like a common butcher. "We got what we wanted."
"Aye." Gutcrusher answered. "The pigsuckers will think twice before hunting west of the Bone again!" He reached out and caught an Aulig girl by the top of her head, pulling her close. She was stark naked, but too young to be any fun. He glared into her face and shouted. "Do you understand me, you little bitch?" She screamed and shook, but nodded through a screen of tears. "Then listen. I'm leaving you behind, see. I want you to tell the rest of your pigsucking tribe to stay the dung east of the Bone River, get it?"
She nodded again, and he threw her halfway into the fire. She scrambled out, weeping, on hands and knees.
Gutcrusher turned to the rest of his boyos, who were gathered around the central firepit. Balls had already slung his cookpot down off of his shoulders.
"Forget it Balls. We'll take 'em back across the Bone for our fun. Everyone grab your wench if you got one, boys! We're going home!"
They left to the accompaniment of screams of terror. The single young girl, her skin marked by the fire, sat weeping, mindless of her nudity and pain.
After a few minutes even the screams had died away as the ogres' huge legs took them in wide strides deep into the forest and away from the encampment. Other than the shuddering girl, there was no sound or movement. The Aulig's breakfast lay scattered in the dirt and ashes of the fires.
Gutcrusher tallied his winnings while his boyos ran for the Bone. Not a single ogre was injured other than Blackrat, one of
his boyos from way back, who'd accidentally stepped into the fire. Blackrat was limping slightly, but he had a young wench under his arm and was grinning despite the pain. All in all the band had taken seven wenches and killed at least a score of the dogrobbers. They had food and fun for at least five days, and the raid had cost him nothing. He laughed mightily. Although the ogres kept to no particular order, they made swift time back toward the ford.
About half a league from the crossing of the Bone, Shaddo came back to the band from his scouting position. The ogre had a confused look on his face, and Gutcrusher eased the rest of his boyos to a slow walk.
"What is it?" He demanded. He was eager to get back onto his home ground, and he didn't want anything slowing him down. "Did you find the skulking warriors?" The bundle slung over Fleshripper's back squirmed and kicked at his words, but a swift punch in the eye shut her up.
"They bloody left a baby up there, chief."
"A baby? What the assbutt are you talking about, Shaddo?"
"Come see. You won't bloody believe it."
Gutcrusher's eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. Why in the name of the abyss would the pigsuckers leave a baby out in the woods? Together with Balls and the leading half of the band, they walked forward. On the ground ahead there was a small bundle, like a baby's swaddling, and from the bundle came a small, high pitched cry.
"Dung. It's a pigsucker baby, all right." Gutcrusher, who in the heat of the raid had neglected to pick up a wench of his own, thought for a moment. "The thing's mama gotta be around here somewhere." He reasoned thickly. "Shaddo, give it couple kicks to make it holler. That ought to bring the wench running. When you're done you can take it for the pot."
Shaddo walked up to the baby, and Gutcrusher walked up behind him. As they walked, more of the infant's face came into view. Just before Shaddo kicked it, a bit of swaddling fell away and the face came into clear view.
The baby gave a horrible, knowing grin, and opened white, blind-man eyes in which no pupil was visible. In those all-too-seeing eyes Gutcrusher felt the weight of ten-thousand years. "You are east of the Bone River, darkspawn." The voice was as deep and clear as a grown man's, but it was the infant speaking. "That is forbidden."
Gutcrusher's eyes went wide with shock and fear.
"Zeekbaby! Zeekbaby!" Shaddo screamed, and in seconds the rest of the boyos bolted for the river, flinging aside the women and food they had taken from the Aulig camp to lighten the load. Gutcrusher felt his insides turn to water even as he turned to run. He saw Shaddo hesitate, still about to kick the baby on the ground. "Brainless fool!" He shouted, "Don't bleeding touch it!" But it was too late. As soon as Shaddo's foot struck the bundle, it changed form into what Gutcrusher knew it had been all along, a bundle of fangvine in the shape of a body topped with a rotfruit melon. Shaddo's foot went into that bundle and a grimace of terrible pain crossed his stupid, soon-to-be-dead face.
Gutcrusher didn't wait to see the vines climb up Shaddo's legs and shred the flesh from his bones. He ran, and he prayed he would make it to the river. Several of his boyos, having heard Shaddo's death-shrieks, had thrown aside their weapons as they ran, hoping to lighten the load even further.
"Assbutt! Dung dung dung dung!" Gutcrusher howled as he ran toward the Bone. He well knew that he had absolutely no chance of making it alive.
To his left and right great shadows raced toward the riverbank, ogres making no attempt at stealth crashing through bramble and briar in their heedless dash for safety. Even over the great racket they raised, though, Gutcrusher could hear the high-pitched whine of zeek arrows. Several cries of pain reached him. Behind him he could hear other ogres racing, and he pushed himself as hard as he possibly could, ignoring the painful ache of wind-burnt lungs and overtaxed thighs.
Suddenly he broke into a small clearing. There in front of him stood a zeek, shorter than a man, slim, beautiful in an unearthly way and as deadly as a knife blade. A cold light gleamed in its dead-fish eyes. The short sword with the leaf-shaped blade burned with a light that was pain even to look at.
"Aaaah!" Gutcrusher screamed in frustration and rage, even as he stumbled to a weary halt. He raised his spiked mace, knowing it would do absolutely no good against the whipcord reflexes of the zeek.
Something slammed into him from behind, knocking him flat on his face, even as the zeek's blade hissed menacingly through the space where his head had been. For a moment, all he could sense was the taste of dirt and blood in his teeth.
"Dung on me!" The words were more prayer than curse, and came from somewhere above him. Gutcrusher rose to his hands to see Balls, standing a pace or two ahead of him, staring at the crumpled form of the zeek on the ground. The zeek was down, his sword thrown wide, with a dark stain beginning to grow on his shoulder. Balls was holding Spearshaker's barbed spear and looking at the wounded zeek with something like confused awe. "I bleeding hit a zeek! I din't even see the bastard!"
"Shut up and run, blast you!" Gutcrusher fitted his actions to his words, jumping from the ground and resuming his mad dash to the river. Even as he watched, the zeek seemed to fade from view, turning invisible against the forest behind. After half a second, he heard Balls crashing through the brush behind him. Amazingly, no more zeek arrows came whistling out of the forest, as if the zeeks, too, were stunned by the unexpected wounding of one of their number. In all of the time Gutcrusher had lived, he'd never heard of an ogre getting a blade into a zeek. It had never occurred to him that it was possible.
Zeeks could tell when you were going to attack them, it was said. They could read your mind before you'd even begun to swing your weapon.
Gutcrusher didn’t stop to ponder things until he splashed across the last of the water on the west side of the Bone River.
The band gathered in a copse of trees less than a furlong west of the river. The zeeks would never cross the Bone, not even to avenge a fallen leader, so for the moment Gutcrusher's boyos were safe. Safe, at least, from further attack.
Out of fourteen ogres, only nine made it back across the Bone River. Of those, four had zeek arrows in them, and Gutcrusher watched as they died. Velch cried for his mama twice before the zeek poison turned him too blue with cold to speak, then ice formed on his skin and he finally froze solid. Greedo's flesh fell away from the tiny shaft stuck in his shoulder, and by the time he'd stopped whimpering and finally died, you could see half of the bones in his left side. Gigantic red and black ants poured from the two arrow wounds in Bonesucker's back, and they kept coming out long after he was dead and reduced to twin piles of bloody mud. Boner's death was the worst, at least in Gutcrusher's estimation. His flesh seemed to simply shrink in on his bones until he was nothing but a skin bag over a bundle of thick sticks. The whole time he howled for his brothers to finish him off, but no one wanted to take a chance on touching a boyo who'd been poisoned by zeeks. He finally lay there, whimpering, when all of his muscle had been reduced to nothing, like a fleshy puddle. The band left him before he finally died.
"Fine bleeding raid." Fleshripper scowled at Gutcrusher, fingering his stone hammer meaningfully. Wolf, too, seemed to be looking at the Crusher like the whole thing had been his fault.
"You got a problem, Ripper?" Gutcrusher stopped walking and assumed an aggressive stance, ready to fight and bristling, holding his spiked mace purposefully. He knew that the raid had been a disaster, and he'd led them to it. Fleshripper would be thinking it was a good opportunity to get rid of a bad leader and perhaps step into his shoes. He had to be ready to kill at any moment to keep his position as chief, of course, for if he was removed the others would rip him to pieces.
Gutcrusher had One-eye behind him, a veteran of many a fight, but one of Spearshaker's boyos. He didn't know where One-eye stood in this. Balls was at his right side as ever, the closest thing there was to a loyal ogre, saying nothing. Wolf and Fleshripper stood together, facing the other three.
"You screwed it up, Gutcrusher." Fleshripper growled, looking to Wolf for support. Wolf sa
id nothing, his hand on his stone hammer, waiting to see which way things bounced.
"Shaddo screwed it up, trying to poach that zeekbaby." Gutcrusher's reply was a guttural snarl. "We were fine up til then."
"You led us across the Bone, Crusher."
"And led us back again." The voice was Balls, coming from behind the Crusher, and he was vastly reassured.
"Aye, and Balls got a spear into a zeek." Gutcrusher added. "That ain't ever happened before. That was my luck, see. And my luck is still running good, so you can stay on or get the dung off."
"You got a spear into a zeek?" Wolf's head came up in surprise.
Balls' mouth formed a grin that was no less feral for lacking teeth. "Aye, I poked one of the ghosts. Poked the bastard good, too. Gutcrusher is my chief."
"Who’s your chief?" Gutcrusher demanded. One Eye seemed to hesitate for a moment, then he spoke, if reluctantly.
"Gutcrusher."
Wolf nodded, his shaggy hair bristling. "Gutcrusher."
The four of them turned to face the Ripper. "Who is your chief, Fleshripper?" Gutcrusher was ready now to stick the bastard with blacksteel if he said the wrong thing.
Fleshripper's face made a scowl. Finally he nodded. "Gutcrusher."
"For today," he added in a whisper audible only to himself.
On the east side of the Bone River three figures gathered around a fourth, who lay on the ground as if in pain. "Elcarrios, are you wounded unto death?" The voice came from a female, perhaps, although it was hard to tell. The figures were alike in their slim grace and their carriage, and they were of a height, perhaps a foot shorter than the average human woman.
"I shall live." The figure grunted. Even in pain, his voice had a musical quality.
"We should hunt the darkspawn down, Elcarrios." Another one of the figures spoke. This one was plainly male, holding a short bow. The quiver on his thigh was half-empty. "I misdoubt we killed more than half of them."
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 22
