As he watched, a long column of grey-brown shapes emerged below him, large shapes of ogres. All of them were armed, and the two in front carried, respectively, a huge double-edged iron battle axe and a steel-tipped spear. These weapons marked them as chiefs, for they were the kind of rare armament that would see their owners advance high among the sparsely armed Muharl, and if they had not been the original owners, they had taken them from the bodies of chiefs or chief-aspirants. The chiefs halted at the center of the crossroads, and One-eye lowered himself a little so that he could spy on them.
“This is the place.” Bloodrunner said. One-eye knew Bloodrunner as the chief of the Hounds, both because he wore Hounds leathers and because he had seen him once before, long ago. He was talking to the big Muharl with the battle-axe, chief of the Iron River Skaldings by his white fleece tunic and his ridiculous topknot. “They said they would meet us here at high sun.”
“It’s high sun already.” The ogre with the battle-axe said. “Where in the abyss are they?”
An ugly voice came from the woods on the other side of the crossroads. “Waiting for you slow bastards, Rock.” The owner of the voice was Goosekiller, chief of the Mad River Band. Beside him walked Hideflayer and Crippler, the chiefs of the Bleak Valley and Dead Hills bands, respectively. One-eye knew all three, which was one of the reasons he’d been sent on this mission.
Balls knew more about the history of the bands than any living ogre One-eye had met, but One-eye’s knowledge of the current state of things was the best. Plus he was the sneakiest and the fastest of Gutcrusher’s captains, which was why he was here as the spy. He listened closely.
“Word is the pretender is skulking about by the Bloodhand’s summer camping ground.” Goosekiller said. “Word is he’s got no more than seven hands of boyos, but some of them are sporting pretty good weapons.”
“Where did you get this word from, Goosekiller?” Rock demanded. “I don’t trust you or your little band worth a stinking crap.”
Hideflayer and Crippler both growled while Goosekiller, a tall ogre with a spiked wooden club that looked like the better part of an oak trunk puffed out his chest and replied angrily. “You take on airs, Rock! You are the one asked for this stinking parley. Joining up and putting down the pretender was your idea. You don’t want to listen to good spying news, you can take your filthy skaldings back down to Iron River and leave the job to us.”
“Bah, like you goatdiddlers could do the job without us!” Rock replied, lifting his axe menacingly. “You can’t wait to go bend knee to one of your own, can you?”
“Shut up you two sods.” Bloodrunner said. “We Hounds have did our own spying, and what Goosekiller says is mostly true. The pretender killed the Blackhand and took over his camp. One of their whelps told us, same as he probably told you lot.” Bloodrunner gestured generally in the direction of the hill on which One-eye lay concealed. “I brought seven hands of boyos, and we’re ready to run the pretender and his crew down.”
“I brought seven hands, too.” Rock said defensively. “Which is as many as Gutcrusher likely has altogether.”
“Seven hands?” Hideflayer laughed. “Is that all? Crippler and I have more than ten hands each.”
Poor One-eye tried to figure out how many hands of ogres the chiefs below him were talking about, but once the figure got beyond twenty hands, he was incapable of processing it. It was a lot of boyos, he knew that much.
Hideflayer brandished the rusted remains of a very large iron scimitar. “We will have the skin off all of them!” He roared angrily, giving a loud shout. One-eye knew what the ogre was doing, yelling and exhorting his men to get their blood up for battle.
“Down with the pigsucking pretender!” Crippler shouted, swinging a long length of chain with a spiked ball attached. The other ogres yielded him a wide radius within which to swing it, all the while joining in the shouting.
“We’ll crack his bones!” Yelled Rock.
“We’ll flay him alive!” Roared Crippler.
“We’ll run him into the dirt!” Shouted Bloodrunner.
Nearly two hundred ogres, hidden in the forest or lined up along the path, joined in the shouting until it became a roar. One-eye nodded to himself. It was time to be getting back. He stood and a flat rock slid beneath his feet, landing on another with a dull crack. Half a dozen pairs of eyes turned in his direction, pinning him to the spot.
“Oy, that’s One-eye!” Shouted Crippler. “He’s sworn to the pretender!”
“Get him!” Rock roared in command, and the ogres began swarming up the slope toward One-eye. For a moment he stood there, and urine ran down his leg, then he turned and ran up the hill, as fast as his considerable legs could move him. The Hounds began to bay as they turned in pursuit.
Most of his armor was lying on the floor next to his sleeping furs, and One-eye was glad of it, for the extra weight would have shortly been the death of him. As it was, he had a lead of scarcely more than a hundred paces, a tiny margin of safety between him and his pursuers. Although the ones with spears could cast them easily that far, they could not do so accurately, not with their target sprinting at his top speed and dodging among boulders and trees. He crested the top of the hill and began sprinting down the other side, hearing the Hounds calling out to each other as they tried to keep pace.
His feet flew down the path, following what was the flattest and straightest course away from the rendezvous point of the five chiefs, a meeting that one of the Bloodhand whelps had learned of just two days earlier. The whelps made good spies, for most mature ogres ignored their hanging around. The idea to spy on the meeting had been One-eye’s idea alone, and he had volunteered for this mission. He knew this area well, having traipsed across it many times as a whelp and as a young buck, and he knew the fastest way to travel.
His knowledge served him well, for even though some of his pursuers were perhaps faster runners, they had to take the extra time to pick out their course, while he knew exactly where he was going. He ran hard for a quarter of an hour, until the sounds of their pursuit faded behind him. He stopped briefly, resting against a tree to catch his breath, then he looked back until the first of his pursuers, a small Hound buck, emerged some hundred and fifty paces back. He cursed loudly, then took to the path again, sprinting for all he was worth.
The forest grew thicker around him, and the path narrower. From time to time he had to leap among large boulders and fallen tree trunks, but he knew them all, and once again his pursuers fell behind. He reduced his speed to a fast jog and looked around him.
He was come to the place they called the Web of Bones, a maze of steep-sided hills with narrow paths between them, and carefully he chose his path. He was running more slowly, and he could hear the Hounds calling out behind him, as well as the cries of the other ogres who were beginning to catch up. A thrown spear stuck into a pile of rock not more than a hand’s breadth from his head, and he began sprinting again. Ogres yelled behind him triumphantly.
“We’re on your ass, One-eye!” Rock shouted. “We’ll run you down!”
One-eye ran as fast as he could, pursued closely by the hoots and jeers of the ogres behind him. He came to a place where the path divided, and he ran to the left, temporarily imposing a high wall of stone between himself and their spears. When he looked ahead, he saw a pale steep cliff to the left, a similar cliff to the right, and a narrow and winding trail directly ahead. The trail climbed upward. It was choked with fallen limbs and boulders, and would take him several minutes to climb. A single glance behind showed his pursuers to be less than a hundred paces back.
He sprinted to the base of the steep trail and began scrambling up it, his hands struggling to find purchase on the fallen trees and his feet scrabbling over boulders and stones that rolled beneath them. In seconds his knees were skinned and bleeding and his hands scraped raw.
The Hounds gathered at the base of the trail and hollered for their companions to hurry. Bloodrunner was given the place of precedence a
s leader of the Hounds, and he began bounding behind One-eye, rapidly closing the distance between them. The ogres of the other bands gathered at the base of the trail, shouting encouragement while they came on. “Spear him!” Someone shouted, and Bloodrunner threw his spear. Fortunately One-eye turned aside at the last second, and the spear struck harmlessly into a tree trunk by his hand, but Bloodrunner was fast gaining on him.
There was no place to make a stand, and even if he had done so, One-eye would have been standing against at least a hand of Hounds, for they were bunched behind their leader, barely fifty paces behind him. The trail ended before it reached the top of the long and narrow canyon it was cut into, and One-eye found himself in a steep-sided bowl of stone, the top of which was at least ten paces above his head. He stopped, then, drew his sword from its scabbard, and turned to face Bloodrunner and the Hounds.
“Hello, Bloodrunner.” He panted in a tired voice.
“Hah!” Bloodrunner laughed. The leader of the Hounds was not panting, nor did he look tired. Hounds were famous for their ability to run very long distances. He had retrieved his spear from the tree trunk. He was advancing with it held in both hands, poised to strike and kill. Five other Hounds were spread out in a half-ring behind him, and their spear points were all facing One-eye, whose sword had nothing like the reach of their weapons. “You mean goodbye, One-eye. I told you we would run you down.”
“Right.” One-eye replied, nodding at Bloodrunner’s smiling face. “Goodbye, you pigsucker.”
All along the sides of the bowl of stone, boulders began to fall on the ogres bunched below. Gutcrusher himself threw the one that smashed Bloodrunner to the ground, and beside him Balls threw another. Wolf and two other ogres had their knees bent against an enormous boulder and they pushed until it finally turned and tumbled onto the narrow pathway below, picking up speed as it careened off of tree trunks and rolled and bounced down upon the ogres packed densely in the narrow canyon below. It pulped and crushed at least a score of them. Even the whelps took turns throwing rocks, for it was a rare opportunity for them. It wasn’t often that whelps got the chance to kill mature ogres, and they took full advantage, jeering and cursing in their high-pitched voices.
Seeing the destruction that was taking place ahead of them, many of the ogres at the back of the pack chasing One-eye turned to run, but Gutcrusher’s band lined the cliffs both ahead and behind them, and they hurled rocks all along the path.
Cries and shouts of triumph turned to screams of fear and panic as the assembled ogres in the valley were smashed in groups and clusters. The bodies of the fallen formed barriers that trapped the living and prevented them from escaping. Still the rocks continued to fall, until the floor of the valley ran red with blood like the basin beneath a wine press, and no more cries were heard.
The narrow way between the cliffs of stone was packed with stones and fallen ogres, and One-eye watched with satisfaction while his pursuers were destroyed, one and all. This had been his plan, a plan he had come up with on his own, and he knew Gutcrusher would give him his share of the credit for it. Some ogre chiefs would have stolen the glory for themselves, but the Crusher wasn’t that kind, and One-eye knew it. The King of All Ogres was good to his people.
Fat Andra the Red lay in her furs and listened with anticipation to the triumphant calls of the ogres returning to the caverns. The cavern she shared with Balls was the last one the ogres would come to when they entered the cave complex that had been the home of the Blackhand, for it was the deepest and warmest, and it was carpeted in furs. A larger bundle of furs lay at the rear of the cavern, and she was tightly wrapped in them, for she knew how much Balls liked her warmth. Most of the calls had quieted to the level of common ogre talk before Balls finally appeared at the entrance.
“Did you bring me a fur?” She asked in a humorous and contented tone. “You always used to bring me two nice, thick furs.”
Balls smiled, keeping his lips closed. He did not have many teeth left, her Balls, but he was still the king’s favorite, and she had been awarded to him as part of the plunder when Gutcrusher and his boyos had defeated the Bloodhands. “You remember that, do you?” The old ogre said.
“I remember.” She said. “One fur to pay for sneaking into my bed, and one for keeping quiet.”
Balls chuckled. “Well, the Blackhand would have killed me had he known.”
“Did you share furs with any other shes?” Her amused tone held a hint of jealousy.
“I was all the time hunting for furs.” Balls reply was cryptic. “And the Blackhand was not always around when he should have been.”
She chuckled again. “You shared furs with all of the shes. We all used to laugh about it when he wasn’t around. It is little wonder they called you Balls. You always had more courage than sense.”
“Aye.” He said. “But you were always my favorite. When Gutcrusher was rewarding us I asked for you.”
“You lie.” She replied, but she was flattered to think it was true. “That Vesthan bitch was your favorite. That’s why you went when she ran off with her spawn.”
“They weren’t Muharl.” He replied. “They wouldn’t have lasted a season without me.”
“So? Who cares what happens to a Vesthan bitch and her get?” Her voice was now laden with unmistakable jealousy.
“I had to leave anyway.” Balls offered. “The Blackhand was getting suspicious of how I kept looking at your marvelous teats.”
Mollified, she threw back the thick covering of furs, revealing her frame, massive and naked and warm beneath them. “You were always such a wonderful liar, Balls. I missed you for a long time.”
He pulled off his armor and placed his spear by her bed. “I missed you, too.” He crawled in beside her and began to caress her. He was gentle under the furs, and had always been, which was why the shes of the Blackhand had never betrayed him.
“I would have lain with you even if you had not brought the furs.” She replied breathlessly. If he could lie, so could she.
Wolf did not take off his armor to lie with Enarla the Quiet. In keeping with her name, she did not complain or mention it. He was a careful lover, as he was careful in all things, for Wolf did not have a single reckless bone in his massive, battle-scarred body. They called him Wolf not because he was ferocious, but because he stalked. He waited and he watched and he listened, and he always knew where to land and on which side.
Sure, when his blood was up he could be as passionate or as battle-thirsty as any ogre, but even then he kept his mind. When he’d stood hammer to hammer against Fleshripper and watched his old chief die at Gutcrusher’s hand he could have fought on, but he didn’t. He had a gift for knowing which way the wind was blowing.
Now he was riding Gutcrusher’s amazing luck, and things were different.
He’d bent his knee to the king, and that had changed things irrevocably. Wolf, who had been a prized warrior in four small bands before joining with the Crusher, was always ready to change sides when the time was ripe, but he was not going to join another. Indeed, why would he? He wore armor and carried a weapon that would have made him a big chief anywhere, he had a fine and compliant she who did not talk overmuch and he was content. “It was a good plan.” He’d told One-eye after the ambush that had left the combined armies of five chieftains crushed and defeated to the last ogre.
If this had been one of the other bands he’d been in, he never would have made such an admission, and indeed he would have been looking for a way to take One-eye down a notch, for such were the rivalries among the warriors of any band but this one. Instead he had given One-eye the credit right there in Gutcrusher’s face, and Gutcrusher had agreed, calling One-eye a fine captain. Balls had been there and said something like the same thing, and One-eye had been glowing with their praise.
Wonder of it all, Wolf had not been the least jealous of the one-eyed ogre. It was strange, this brotherhood that the three captains shared under Gutcrusher. It was strange and wondrous, for he reward
ed them generously and he trusted them with deadly weapons that no chief with any sense at all would ever have given to his captains.
When One-eye had been below him in the canyon, running for his life from the stinking Hounds, Wolf had not wanted him to be caught. It made no difference to the success of the plan, for even if they had killed One-eye, once they’d raced into the box canyon and begun to bunch up into a pack below, every one of them had already been dead. Throwing down the stones had been a mere formality. Still, Wolf had wanted One-eye to live, and might even have joined him in the canyon, had it been necessary to save him.
The thinking part of Wolf’s mind rejected the idea of such heroism completely, but there was another part of his being that lurked beneath the cynical surface, and he knew, somehow, that this was how things were supposed to be. One-eye’s success was Wolf’s success, and it was a success for Balls and the king, too.
That loyalty and sacrifice and courage had been written into his bones when his kind were made never entered into Wolf’s wildest imaginings, but it was so. It had always been so.
Enarla the Quiet lay beneath her furs and watched Wolf sleeping. Her heat had not come in time with the other shes, and she knew that in a few moons she would whelp. This was the Blackhand’s get, and she feared for it. When a she changed hands it was not unusual for the new male to kill the offspring of the previous male so that they would get off of the teat and she could come into heat sooner. Would Wolf do the same? She knew so little of this brooding and silent warrior beside her. He spoke little and boasted little, at least not to her.
On the other hand, he did not abuse her. He did not punch her when they mated, he did not bite or scratch or kick. Indeed, his lovemaking was fast and perfunctory, like a task in a long series of daily tasks he must complete. Even the Blackhand had been more passionate on the rare occasions when he came to her furs instead of those of Fat Andra or Ehnudra Who Bites.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 64
