Alex Lee Martinez - In the Company of Ogres

Ned’s bad arm swung out hard and fast and collided with Ralph’s thick jaw. A terrible crack filled the air. Whether it was Ned’s hand breaking or the ogre’s teeth slamming together, Ned couldn’t tell. But he knocked Ralph out of his chair and onto the floor. Ned spun around on the follow-through and, if not for a steadying arm from Ace, would’ve ended up beside the ogre.

The pub cheered. Every one of these soldiers appreciated a good, solid punch as an art form. Ned would regret it in the morning. His knuckles were swollen and red, but he didn’t feel the pain. The stout kept him nice and warm.

Ralph stood. He rubbed his jaw. A trickle of blood showed on his lip. Not much, but more damage than any human had ever done. Actually he’d never been punched by a human. The peculiarity of the situation took away his anger, leaving him with only profound confusion.

“Here’s a new order.” Ned jammed his finger into Ward’s chest. “Don’t ever bury me again.”

He turned and tripped his way back to the bar. When he’d settled back into place, the pub filled with noise again. The bonehorn player launched into a rousing rendition of “Broken Bone Blues,” a tune consisting of the same notes in the same order as “Skullcrusher Boogie,” but a little slower.

“You’ve got guts, sir.” Ace slapped Ned across the back.

Ned’s bad arm seized the goblin by his ear and tossed him into the bonehorn player. He hadn’t meant to do it, but his arm always got extra nasty when he drank. The patrons chuckled with much amusement. Ace dusted himself off and found a seat at the gravediggers’ table.

Ned swallowed another drink and wiped the sweat from his brow. The higher the fever, the better the stout. He ordered a steak, bloody rare. Nothing else agreed with a tall mug of doom stout.

A woman slid beside Ned. “So you’re our new commander.”

He glanced at her. She was pretty, not beautiful, with short, simple blond hair. She was vaguely familiar. Something about her stirred his animal lusts, and it was unusual for anything to stir his lusts so soon after rising from the dead. And a hearty stout never helped.

“Have we met before?” he asked.

“No, sir.” She smiled. A dimple appeared on her left cheek. He knew her. He just couldn’t place where.

“Name’s Miriam, sir.” She ran her fingers up and down his bad arm. The limb warmed at her touch. “Can a lady buy you a drink?”

Across the room, Ralph dabbed at the blood on his chin. “Told’ja he was an asshole.”

“Yeah.” Ace puffed on his pipe with a grin. “I like him.”

The red woman had amassed a great many responsibilities over her years. Whereas men existed six or seven paltry decades, she just kept on living, gathering tasks like a shambling sludgebeast gathered flies until the poor creature must eventually smother under the weight of a billion insects. But the Red Woman didn’t smother easily, and when Never Dead Ned spoke of the peace of the grave, she understood more than she ever let on.

One of her tasks was the tending of a godling. This particular godling manifested as a phantom mountain. It wasn’t much of a mountain, nor much of a god. But it was young, and gods aged at their own pace, some coming into being and passing away within an hour, others taking millennia to find form. The mountain was little more than a faithful puppy. It followed her everywhere, existing in some shadowy realm between the heavens and earth. Few could sense it. Even fewer could find it. But to the Red Woman, it was as real as anything else and never far away in the metaphysical illusion of distance. So she’d made it her home.

She stopped to catch her breath. She was very, very old and felt every bit her age on days like this.

Her raven flew ahead and called to her. “Come on now. Just a little farther.”

She nodded as if she needed the encouragement, as if she hadn’t taken this climb countless times before.

“I don’t know why you don’t just move to one of the lower caves,” said the bird.

“I’m comfortable in my cave.”

“Maybe so, but one of these days you aren’t going to make the climb.”

She silently agreed. Though nearly ageless, she was still flesh and blood. And flesh, even enchanted flesh, withered beside the antiquity of stone. She hoped with a decade or two the mountain might understand enough to provide her with stairs. It’d already given her something of a path to work with. Not much of a path, and there were portions she had to scramble over stubbornly. But it was a sign that this burgeoning godling understood something of her comfort.

The Red Woman reached her cave with some effort. The mouth was deceptively small, and a bend in the tunnel gave the impression of shallowness. But the cavern was exceptionally large, and she needed all the space for her various duties. It would’ve been too much for her to handle if she hadn’t taken to drafting the dead. Dozens of zombies milled about their appointed tasks. Some were nearly indistinguishable from the living, but most were obviously deceased. One lurched to her side and took her cloak. Another handed her a glass of brandy. A drowned maggot floated in the beverage, but she’d grown accustomed to the sight. One couldn’t work with walking corpses day in and day out without a strong stomach, and she’d developed a taste for maggots and worms and flies out of convenience. She sipped down the brandy and tucked the white speck under her tongue with a pleased smile.

She went to her cauldron and checked the corpse stirring the brew. Then she reviewed the jeweler’s progress in sorting precious stones. Then she inspected the shroud weaver’s latest work before checking the smithy’s newest batch of swords, not one of which was worthy of the slightest enchantment. So many things to do, she mused. But she limped her way over to a stool and had a seat, resting her staff against her shoulder. Her raven was right about the climb, but none of the other caverns had the correct atmosphere.

A zombie maiden stopped sweeping. In life, the maid had been pleasant-looking, if not exceptionally beautiful. Now her skin hung from her bones, unliving proof that while perhaps one could never be too rich, one could certainly be too thin. “Did you do it?”

The sorceress nodded.

“He dies a lot, doesn’t he?”

The sorceress nodded again.

“He must be very clumsy,” said the maiden.

The raven cackled. “He’s a buffoon.”

“Death doesn’t favor idiots,” said the Red Woman. “She simply favors Ned. Oblivion doesn’t surrender her prizes easily, and she never forgets those held, however briefly, in her loving embrace.”

“She doesn’t seem to care about reclaiming me,” said the maiden, her sallow skin and yellowish eyes drooping.

“That’s because you’re only half alive. Death is far too busy to be concerned with the trivialities of whether your corpse continues to walk about.”

“Let’s hope he can go a while longer before expiring again,” said the raven.

She smiled. Though her caretaking of Ned was her greatest duty, these journeys still consumed much of her valuable time, and she hoped Ned would stave off his next demise by at least a month or two.

The zombie maiden sniffed the air. Had her nose not fallen off long ago, her nostrils would have flared. “Do you smell that? Is that me?”

“I think it’s me,” said a gooey corpse mixing potions.

A dead knight raised his helmet visor. “Well, it’s not me.” He was a fresh addition to her staff. He was still in denial, though a spear clearly pierced his chest.

The legless torso of a deceased jeweler paused in his task of sorting gems. “It’s not me. That’s for sure. My flesh is almost all gone.”