Tested by the Night (27 page)

A lump formed in his throat, and even the act of breathing became a chore. He gagged on the bile as it rose, and he swallowed hard to keep it down. His palms began to sweat, and pesky moisture formed in the corners of his eyes.

Yes, Mia’s quest to someday rule over the barbarian people appeared to be over, and there was nothing he could think of to fix it this time. So why did he feel as if his own life were ending? Why did he feel as if he’d failed her? Why should he even care?

Pain so intense it almost brought him to his knees ripped through his heart. VoT help him, but he knew exactly why he cared. He loved her, the one and only woman in all of Albrath forbidden to him, and because of that, he was going to do something stupid. Really stupid. Again.

God Draka, Zander, and King Adan forgive him.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Talon took two deep breaths and bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Is there not even one lily-livered, overgrown, piss-poor excuse for an ogre amongst you brave enough to face a couple of helpless females, a gnome, a small dragon, a prissy escort, and myself? Or do you mean to hide behind your great big gate all day long like the cowards you obviously are? Come on out, boys. You’ll have to sooner or later, because we aren’t leaving ’til you do.”

****

Mia stared, shook her head, and made a promise to herself. If they got out of this mess alive, if they got past this second quest with their hides still intact, she was going to kill herself one big, crazy buffoon of a barbarian named Talon Starkweather. For if the lunatic was so eager to die he was threatening a city full of huge ogres, who were well known for their war-like tendencies, and thereby jeopardizing any chance she had of succeeding in this quest, she’d find a quicker way to put him out of his misery.

“What the VoT are you thinking?” she hissed. “We don’t go around intimidating people and threatening to beat them up if we don’t get our way. Especially if we desperately need them to cooperate with us.”

Talon chuckled. “I do if it means they come and opens these gates before we all die of old age.”

She placed her hands on her hips. “And then what, Talon? Do you plan on threatening to pummel everyone in Oreeghan who doesn’t do what we want as quickly as we want them to?”

Talon nodded. “If that’s what it takes to get your quest done, Princess.”

She stomped her foot. “No, no, no, no, no. Can’t you see? You’ll only make matters worse. It takes years of diplomacy classes to learn the proper nuances of negotiation. It takes patience, a lot of patience, and a delicate approach.” She sighed and shook her head. “Now, with your threat, I’ll be lucky if I get anyone to sit down and talk to me today, let alone one of the ogre leaders.”

She sighed again, her head beginning to pound, and her legs aching from the long trip. “We might as well make ourselves as comfortable as we can for the remainder of the day. Hopefully, they won’t take the bait, and I’ll be glad of it if they don’t. There’s always tomorrow. Perhaps by then, they’ll see we aren’t going anywhere and be ready to talk. I’ll try calling out to them in their own language in the morning. Perhaps then, they’ll answer my summons.”

But Talon didn’t look the least bit sorry for what he’d done. He even had the audacity to wink at her as he pointed over his shoulder and toward the gate.

Mia’s mouth gaped open as she looked up and watched an entire contingent of very large, very scary-looking ogres head their way.

Talon even had the nerve to laugh at her, and she wanted desperately to punch him in the nose or stomp on his foot or pull his hair or anything that would wipe the self-satisfied smirk off his face.

“You can say anything you want about warriors, Princess.” Talon snorted. “But ogre warriors, especially, only know one language, and that’s brute strength.”

He laughed right in her face. “And if I know anything, I know the mind of a warrior. If you trust me in nothing else, trust me when I tell you this. Negotiating with ogres will have little or nothing to do with diplomacy, patience, or a gentle touch and a lot more to do with how hard you can hit and how well you can take a punch.”

Mia saw red. “Brute strength? I’ll show you brute strength, you blockheaded excuse for a barbarian. Look what you’ve done. They’re pissed, and I don’t blame them. You’ve probably ruined any chance I ever had of making them listen to reason.”

She balled up her fist and let it fly, and the look on Talon Starkweather’s face when her hand met his rock-solid abs was almost comical. Though he was obviously surprised she had the balls to hit him in the first place, he was also trying desperately not to laugh at her pathetic attempt to do him bodily harm—and her failure.

She wanted to hit him again, harder. But the ogres at the gate stopped her.

The moment her fist connected with Talon’s midsection, a loud gasp was heard coming from the contingent of ogres. And then the sound of well-oiled hinges moving in unison as the entryway to Oreeghan itself swung wide open.

“Welcome to our city,” said a scarred-faced ogre standing at least eight foot tall. His finger wagged back and forth between Mia, Talon, and Alistair, and he grinned so wide his prominent, yellowed canines caressed his double-chin. “This lily-livered, overgrown, piss-poor excuse of an ogre was sent to ask you a simple question.” He took a deep breath while eyeing each one of them. “Talmuk, our warlord, wishes to know, which of you filthy barbarians, would like to be the first to honor him with your presence in the firepit for a
friendly
bout of hand-to-hand combat?”

Mia gasped and stepped back, Alistair turned positively green, but Talon merely smiled and raised his hand. “That would be me I do believe.”

The ogre nodded, and his jowls shook as he gestured for them to follow then turned and walked back through the gates. A moment later, the sound of the great entryway slamming shut behind her and locking them all inside a volcano, even if it was a dormant one, had Mia breaking out in a sweat.

“Why are you doing this, Talon?” she whispered. “This is a horrible mistake. You could be hurt, or God Draka forbid, killed. I won’t have it. There must be another way.”

He shrugged and whispered back, “You heard him. It’s just a friendly bout of hand-to-hand combat. Nothing to worry about. And it’s getting us into Oreeghan. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Not like this,” she wailed.

Talon wrapped an arm about her waist, pulled her in close, and leaned down. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a warrior, remember? This is what I excel at. And putting muscle where your mouth is, well, that’s the only thing an ogre respects.”

She was about to argue with him again when Ohfeelya spoke up. “He’s right you know? Hand-to-hand combat in an arena of any kind to an ogre is basically the same thing as sharing a friendly drink would be to a barbarian or devouring a bowl of chili while wearing nothing but your undies would be to a gnome. It’s tradition. It’s custom. Even the back and forth insults being thrown around aren’t really meant to be taken seriously. They’re considered good clean fun and expected. Relax, Mia. Talon’s right. Everyone has their strengths and things they’re good at. This is his. This is what he excels at.”

The pounding in Mia’s head that had started long before they’d even reached the gates of Oreeghan doubled in intensity, and fear for Talon’s safety only added to her distress. Still, she forced herself to take a deep breath, gaze into his eyes, and smile. “If you’re determined to fight this Talmuk person, and I can’t talk you out of it, then at least hit him once for me. Just for making us wait outside those blasted gates for so long.”

Talon chuckled. “Even if I only get one hit off before he knocks me out cold, Princess, it’ll be for you.”

If it were possible, her head hurt even worse and her stomach began doing barrel rolls.

Mia glanced at her surroundings. Anything to take her mind off what was about to happen in the big sand-filled pit before her, and especially so she wouldn’t be caught gaping at Talon Starkweather as he stripped down to nothing but his breeks. But even with averting her eyes, the memory of rock-hard, chiseled abs and rippling muscles had her palms—and other parts—sweating and her mouth watering.

Quickly, she focused on the hundreds of cave openings. Stacked one on top of another and obviously made from digging deep into the sides of the dormant volcano, the caves were dwellings and businesses. And it wasn’t just a bunch of connecting caves that made up Oreeghan, either. There was a large town square, with what looked like a park to one side, and of course, the big sand-filled pit directly in the center of the square where Talon would soon fight.

She was mildly surprised. Oreeghan really was impressive. For being situated deep inside a huge dormant volcano, the city glowed with light. Even the ground below her feet seemed to glimmer with patches and strips of red luminescence. They were so pretty. She wondered how the ogre people had accomplished such magic. A radiance spell perhaps? Or a mystical imbuing of brilliance?

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask Ohfeelya when the half-ogre, half-gnome female gasped. Mia followed the direction of her friend’s gaze and immediately understood Ohfeelya’s reaction. The biggest, meanest-looking, scariest ogre in the entire world was stomping straight toward them.

He was at least ten feet tall if he were an inch and wider than a trio of normal sized barbarians. Deep scars crisscrossed and marred both sides of his broad face, and his very prominent, sharp-looking, snow-white canines hung down well past his bottom lip and kissed the tip of his chin. His eyes were a buggy, bloodshot hue of pale blue, and his lips were so full and poufy they appeared to be cotton-filled. His pale-skinned jowls had jowls, and his overlapping belly rolls had rolls of their own.

But it was his fists that Mia couldn’t look away from. They were each easily the size of the full grown Alarian melons that grew in her garden back home. The very same melons she could barely fit her arms all the way around.

She gulped.

This couldn’t be Talmuk, the warlord of the ogres? Not the ogre Talon was supposed to meet in the pit for a
friendly
bout of hand-to-hand combat?

Bile rose up her throat and her stomach churned. The man she loved was going to die.

She looked away from the approaching ogre and toward Talon. All the arrogant barbarian did was shrug his shoulders and smile at her.

Mia shook her head. He obviously had a death wish.

Not one sound could be heard from the crowd as Talmuk continued toward the pit. Ogre after ogre bowed as he passed, and Ohfeelya gasped again. Mia turned toward her friend, meaning to offer comfort when she realized it wasn’t fear in the half-ogre, half-gnome female’s eyes, but awe.

“Isn’t he the most dashing man you’ve ever seen?” she cooed.

Mia shuddered. By the time Talmuk and Talon stood toe to toe in the middle of the pit Mia’s heart was pounding so hard she was pretty sure it was about to explode right out of her chest.

Then the great big ogre roared. “So this slimy, little, pencil dick of a barbarian bitch dares to challenge the great warlord Talmuk?”

The crowd cheered, and severe nausea was added to Mia’s current symptoms.

But Talon just continued to smile. “Well, if it isn’t the biggest lily-livered, overgrown, piss-poor excuse for an ogre I’ve ever seen. Bring it, Talmuk Twinkletoes. I doubt you can.”

The huge ogre stomped his foot once, and the entire mountain shook. Clouds of hot steam and sparks of ash and fire shot straight up out of the ground.

Mia gasped as she finally understood why it had been called a firepit. She glanced once more at the lit streets and saw the glowing red lights for what they really were. Lava. Red-hot, molten lava. So much for the volcano being dormant.

Her heart stopped, she couldn’t breathe, and her mind blurred. Even if this mountain didn’t erupt and kill them all before this was over, Talon was going to die right before her eyes and there wasn’t a VoT thing she could do to stop it.

She tried clenching her eyes tightly closed to prevent seeing what was about to happen, then chided herself for being the coward she was. This was her quest. Because of her, Talon was in the middle of an unstable pit of fire and sand with a crazed behemoth. She would watch every second, even if it was only to see the man she loved take his last breath. She owed him that loyalty. In truth, she owed him that and much more. Without Talon, she would’ve never gotten this far.

The two men circled each other twice, and then Talmuk smacked Talon lightly on the shoulder and the crowd laughed. And Talon jumped up and smacked him on the very top of his head. The crowd roared.

Both men grinned at each other, and Mia relaxed a little. Perhaps a friendly bout of hand-to-hand combat meant just that—friendly.

Then Talmuk threw the first real punch. Talon’s head snapped back, and he stumbled. But he recovered quickly and countered with a blow of his own to the big ogre’s belly rolls, followed quickly with another jab to the jaw.

Talmuk roared, and Talon growled.

Mia gaped.

She wanted to look away but couldn’t. It was like watching a hurricane in slow motion or a wizard’s spell that had gone horribly wrong. It was hard to tell where Talon ended and Talmuk began, they were so closely locked together in battle. Fists flew and blood spurted into the air. Mia wasn’t sure from which opponent it came.

She couldn’t stand this, and she couldn’t stand still simply watching while the man she loved more than her own life died because of her stupid need to be the next ruling queen of the barbarians.

She was on the very verge of leaping into the firepit, throwing herself between the two men, and begging the ogre for mercy when Pierced and Alistair grabbed her up, turned her so she could no longer see what was happening and held her tight.

She struggled to no avail while screaming at the top of her lungs. “Let me go. I must help Talon. Let me go, I order you.”

They didn’t listen.

Chapter Nineteen

Even his eyelids hurt.

How long had the
friendly
little scuffle gone on?