Alex Lee Martinez - In the Company of Ogres

He didn’t feel great. He felt helpless. He might contain the most powerful force in the universe, but it didn’t change the fact that he himself was practically useless.

Miriam tapped Ned on the shoulder. “Everything all right, Ned?”

“I guess.”

She held out the speaking staff. “Some of the soldiers found this. Thought you might need it.”

He didn’t. The staff had no magic, and even if it did, he didn’t know how to use it. He took it just the same. It was comforting to have something solid to hold.

“It’ll be okay, Ned,” said Miriam.

“I know.”

He didn’t, but he was commander. He couldn’t afford to show fear or weakness or uncertainty. That was part of the job, damn it. He could fake it if he had to.

Miriam put her hand on his shoulder. Unlike Frank’s meaty mitt, hers seemed a small reassurance. “Don’t worry. We’re professionals. Fighting is what we get paid to do.”

Ned realized he wasn’t as good at faking confidence as he’d hoped. Yet another basic leadership skill he lacked.

“We should really get you under cover,” said Frank suddenly from beside Ned.

Ned sighed. The battle of the universe was about to commence, and he’d be stuck in some dank hole. It made perfect sense. His life was what this was all about. It’d be plain stupid to have him join in the melee. He was sure to be killed within minutes (if not seconds). He knew all this, but it didn’t change his distaste for it. If he was to die today, he wanted to meet oblivion face-to-face, not cowering in some basement waiting for death to come to him. Especially since it always found him in the end.

“Private Lewis and Corporal Martin have agreed to serve as your personal bodyguard,” said Frank.

The massive ogre twins saluted.

“It’s an honor, sir,” said Lewis.

“And a privilege, sir,” added Martin.

“Right.” Ned looked up at the towering brothers. They only made him feel all the more insignificant. Ironic, considering how the fate of the universe was so indivisible from his own.

An orc watchman in a balcony blew the alarm on his hom. It was blasted dark now, but ores had excellent night vision.

“They’re coming.” Frank wrapped his hands around the tree trunk and took a few practice swings. “Get him out of here.”

“Right this way, Commander,” said Lewis as he ushered Ned toward the pub basement.

“Good luck, Frank,” said Ned.

The ogre lieutenant didn’t hear him; he was too busy scanning the darkened sky for the first signs of the enemy. On the way to his hiding place, Ned passed Ulga as she began conjuring burning balls of light and launching them into the air in rapid succession. They bathed the citadel in a soft glow. They lit the night like small, very near stars. The light of an artificial dawn cast through the pub. Ned paused, staring out the window. He held tighter to the speaking staff.

Some unseen monster shrieked in the distance. Then another. And another. Ten million demon voices filled the air with their shrill, fearsome war cry.

“How many are there?” Ned wondered.

“Too many,” replied the staff.

Somewhere, someone in Ogre Company had found a bone horn and blew the battle ballad of Grother’s Death Brigade, a company of ores famous for killing a dragon tyrant by cramming themselves down the tyrant’s gullet until she choked to death. The soldiers raised their weapons and roared in one voice. The ogres, with their deep, bellowing voices, dominated the song. The demon’s war cry and the company’s song mixed together into an off-key miasma of glorious determination.

It hurt Ned’s ears. It also simmered his blood. For the first time ever, Ned grasped in some vague sense the strange nobility of charging down a dragon’s throat with a sword in your hand and a smile on your lips. For the first time ever, he wanted to step out onto the battlefield and do his part.

The twins opened a trapdoor behind the bar. “We should get you below, sir,” said Martin.

“Right this way,” said Lewis.

Ned sighed. Unfortunately, hiding was his part of this battle. He walked down the cellar stairway with some strange, foreign reluctance. The twins closed the door, dulling the horrible, enticing dirge of war.

Owens sat on a barrel. He turned his head as they entered. “Hello, sir.”

“What are you—”

“Blind, sir,” the oracle replied. “Hearing the future isn’t much good in a fight.”

Ned stood in the middle of a cellar surrounded by kegs of mead dimly lit by a single candle. Only it wasn’t a candle.

“Is your staff glowing, sir?” asked Martin.

The staff cast a soft light. It also felt slightly, almost imperceptibly warm.

“Why are you glowing?” asked Ned.

“I’m glowing?” replied the staff.

Before Ned could ask it another question, he noticed the howls of the demons and bellows of the company had faded away. In their place was a deathly, all-consuming silence, so complete that even the cellar was seized in its grasp.

Demons settled on the walls of Copper Citadel, yet none entered its grounds. They perched like leering vultures, whispering and chuckling among themselves. And Ogre Company waited for the signal to attack. Both sides remained still as if fate itself dared not play out this final battle.

The first to step into the citadel was a terrible beast of slime and fangs, with the body of a cat, the wings of a buzzard, and the head of a cyclopean gnome. Its rider was a muscular warrior of a demon in black, spiky armor with a long blood-red cloak. The rider carried a wicked barbed lash. The demon spread iron wings and cackled. She pulled back her hood to reveal a face that, while not soft or delicate, was vaguely feminine.

“Who’s in command here?” she asked with a delicate, gossamer voice.

Frank stepped forward. He adopted a proper smashing stance. “I guess that would be me.”

Spear in hand, Regina stood beside him. “That would be us.”

The demoness narrowed her glittering silver eyes. “My master, the Glorious and Dreaded Rucka, First Emperor of the Ten Thousand Hells, has sent me to negotiate. Listen well. Surrender Ned to us, or perish horribly beneath our unforgiving wrath.”

Frank tightened his grip on his tree trunk. “And if we do?”

The demoness snarled and smiled at the same time. “Then perish slightly less horribly beneath our reasonably more forgiving wrath.”

The demons cackled until the demoness quieted them with a thunderous crack of her whip.

“Tonight you will die, and I’ll not insult your intelligence by lying. But to gain even the slightest degree of mercy from Rucka’s minions is a charity anyone should be grateful for.”

The demons cackled again.

Frank chuckled. Regina joined him. Then Miriam. Soon every soldier in Ogre Company was shaking with laughter. The stymied demons fell silent and glared. They were unaccustomed to such behavior from their victims.

“What foolishness is this?” shouted the demoness.

Frank wiped his watering eyes. “Sorry, but I thought this was supposed to be a battle, not a debate.”

“You dare mock the legions of Rucka?”

“Oh, no. You’re a very fine legion,” explained Regina. “It’s just that ogres don’t really go in for that prefight posturing.”

“It’s true,” said Frank. “We’re less talky, more smashy.” He thudded the earth with his club. “And we haven’t had a decent fight in a very long time. So you’ll have to excuse us if we’re a bit impatient.”

The demoness nodded. “Very well. If that’s your wish, then let your blood soak my lash!”

Her weapon shot out toward Frank’s throat. He blocked it with his arm, and the whip wrapped around the limb. They stood there a moment locked in a brief tug-of-war. The spikes pierced his thick flesh, and blood dripped from the wounds. The lash drank the blood, turning darker as the demoness laughed.