Alex Lee Martinez - In the Company of Ogres

But the horde kept coming, pouring from every window and gate of the Iron Fortress. An unlimited supply of soldiers was at Rucka’s command. The fortress itself was a portal to the underworld, and whenever a demon died, its body soon dissolved as it returned there fresh and renewed and ready to rise from the bowels of the Iron Fortress to continue the relentless assault on Copper Citadel.

Rucka’s victory was inevitable. The Emperor of the Ten Thousand Hells stood in his throne room, gazing down at the endless stream of demons washing over the besieged citadel in the distance.

And he waited.

Ned hated waiting. While the battle raged noisily above, he sat there in the cellar with Martin and Lewis, Owens, and the faintly glowing speaking staff.

It seemed like he’d been waiting his whole life. Waiting to die. Waiting to not die. Waiting for his time in Brute’s Legion to end. Waiting for his fate to be decided by everyone but him. But worse than the waiting was the knowing.

He knew it was all pointless. Ogre Company was formidable. Even without proper discipline and adequate armaments, these were dangerous soldiers. It was why the Legion had been reluctant to dismiss them. And Ned could imagine them to be one of the greatest arms of the Legion. With the right leader. Too bad he wasn’t that leader. Too bad they were all about to be senselessly slaughtered. Too bad Rucka was going to wake the Mad Void. Too bad everything was going to end.

Just too bad.

Ned glanced to the trapdoor, expecting it to fly open and a tide of demons to come sweeping down and fill the cellar. They didn’t, but they would. In ten minutes. Or twenty. Or half an hour. Maybe longer. But sooner or later.

He wished he could do something.

His bad left arm tightened its grip on the speaking staff. The staff glowed brighter. Martin and Lewis said nothing, but they did take a step back. Even Owens seemed to sense something and stood a little farther away than before.

“Why are you glowing?” Ned asked.

“I’m not glowing,” replied the staff.

“Yes, you are.” Ned shook it. “Don’t you know why?”

“I’m not glowing. If there is light coming from me, then I’m not the origin of it.”

“But you’re still glowing,” said Ned. “What does that mean?”

“Must mean there’s magic running through me.”

“The Red Woman,” Ned hoped aloud. She wasn’t dead. She’d just gone off to gather her power. She was coming back with an army of gods or angels or something like that to wipe out the underworld horde.

Ned slouched. He had to stop hoping for miracles. They weren’t coming.

All that power inside him, and he was helpless.

The veins on Ned’s bad arm throbbed. The flesh reddened and cracked. The staff itself changed to match the shade and texture so that it was indistinguishable from his hand. It glowed brighter still. And somewhere inside him, the Mad Void rumbled. The sound filled the cellar.

“Sir, are you okay?” asked Lewis.

Ned nodded, but he felt it coming. Rucka’s magic must’ve awoken the Void after all. It was just slow to rise. He swallowed it down, even as an inner voice told him to let it out. It was the only way to stop the demons, the only way to save himself and the company. If he just let it out a little, if he just opened that inner cage the smallest crack. It wouldn’t take much. The Mad Void could obliterate Rucka and his minions without a second thought.

Ned would never get it back in. It would destroy the universe.

And if he didn’t, Rucka would let it out, and the universe would be destroyed anyway.

Something pounded on the trapdoor. The ogre twins positioned themselves at the bottom of the stairs.

“You’d better hide yourselves, gentlemen,” said Martin.

“We’ll handle this,” said Lewis.

Owens drew his sword and used it to feel along the floor to stand beside the twins. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather die not hiding.”

“Glad to have you by our side, sir,” said Martin.

The trapdoor splintered inward, and shining eyes gazed inside.

Either way, Ned was going to die. Either way, the universe was dying with him. Ned was tired of waiting. He was tired of hiding. He was tired of being Ned.

The door shattered. Demons rushed in. Martin, Lewis, and Owens raised their weapons to make their final stand. The twins clubbed two demons, and the blind man managed through sheer luck to stab a third in its throat. But the rest overwhelmed them and were an instant from tearing them to pieces.

Ned held out his staff. Red bolts blasted from its tip to strike every demon in the cellar. They disintegrated in a flash, not just slain but obliterated. Wiped from reality into utter, irreversible nothingness, denied the endless return from the underworld.

“What happened?” asked Owens. “What’s going on?”

The twins didn’t answer. They saw in Never Dead Ned something they had never seen before. Something no creature in a thousand other devastated universes had ever seen and lived to tell. It wasn’t an obvious transformation. Other than his bad arm going from gangrenous to blood red and the shining staff in its hand, he still looked like Ned.

But he wasn’t Ned.

Silently, the thing that had been Never Dead Ned passed Owens and the twins without acknowledging their presence. It ascended the stairs. Demons started screaming.

Demons covered the citadel, and Frank knew this was a fight Ogre Company could not win. He’d never been one for heroic last stands. When the odds were impossible and victory unachievable, there was nothing wrong with a strategic retreat. That wasn’t a choice.

The more improbable the chances of survival, the more determined Regina became. She moved like a slaughtering whirlwind, with a broken sword in one hand and a demon’s jawbone in the other. Frank could easily envision her as the last soldier of Ogre Company standing atop a mountain of demon corpses. The battle lust seized her, and she was both horrifying and dazzling at the same time. She smiled and laughed as she killed and killed and killed until only the strongest, most fearsome demons dared engage her. The rest gave her a wide berth.

The signs of imminent defeat were everywhere. Piles of demons covered the soldiers so thickly as to smother the most stubborn warrior. Roc screams filled the sky above as strange underworld beasts finally began wounding the birds enough to knock them from the sky. Four of the great birds littered the citadel, having crushed warriors beneath their stiffening corpses. There seemed now as many demons as goblins. Perhaps more.

The company hadn’t given up quite yet. Sally and Elmer fought side by side. The wet treefolk smoldered beside the salamander. Miriam, having drained all the enchantment from her voice, now relied solely on her sword and her ability to inspire. The soldiers fighting at her command felled demons with supernatural fury. Ward fought with incredible zeal, and the vulture perched on his shoulder squawked but refused to abandon its master.

There were still more shrinking pockets of resistance.

Unable to maintain anything larger, Seamus now wore the shape of an ogre, and it suited him as he swung a club with admirable talent. Ulga had apparently run out of lightning bolts and was now conjuring sticks and stones to throw at the demons. Ace’s roc was too wounded to fly now, but he spurred it to stomp its way across the battlefield.

Frank, beside Regina, had never been prouder. And if he was going to die a pointless death, he could think of no better company than Ogre Company.

Frank had done his best to protect the pub, but demons swarmed over it like everything else. The demons cackled with delight. Ned was probably dead, realized Frank, and very likely permanently so this time.