The Ogre Apprentice (16 page)

“You will bring more human foods?” asked Rub hopefully. Several of the others perked up their ears at this question.

“Yes,” said Fist. After all, they would be slowed down if they had to stop and hunt too often along the way.

A few cheers broke out among the ogres and Crag nodded in approval, his frown fading. “Human food is good.”

Evidently the food that the Mage School kitchens had sent out to the ogres had been a success. Humans were good at using spices and vegetables to flavor their food. Ogre cooking was bland and often either burnt or undercooked.

“Bring more of that bread thing,” added Bash.

Fist smiled back at them. He remembered how much he had enjoyed human cooking the first time he had tried it. Tamboor’s wife Efflina had invited him to their house for some wonderful bread and thick lamb stew. The memory still made his mouth water.

He gave the ogres an encouraging nod and assured them, “We will have good human food for our journey.”

This announcement went over well. Puj grinned along with the others, forgetting that Fist had slighted her. Even Burl and his friends were happy about this news.

Fist turned to leave and as he headed back towards the gate, his smile faded. Burl had probably eaten human food during the war. Most likely in the form of plunder from some conquered village. Fist sighed. This was going to be a long trip.

Why
? Squirrel asked.
Why you not want the woman
?

Fist tried to think of the best way to explain.
Are you still a squirrel
?

I am Squirrel
.

Yes, but are you like other squirrels
? Fist asked.

Squirrel chewed a nut while he thought about it. Unlike Fist, Squirrel hadn’t stopped associating with his own kind after bonding. He was larger than other Squirrels thanks to the bond, but he often climbed the trees and chattered with them, sometimes darting around and playing with them. He even dallied with the females at certain times during the year. Those were the times that Squirrel’s bond with Fist made the ogre quite uncomfortable.

Yes
, Squirrel said finally as Fist walked through the gate.

Fist hadn’t expected that response.
Even though you think so different
?

Squirrels are not smart
, Squirrel admitted.
I am smart, but I am a squirrel.

Well I am not so sure about me
, Fist said. It wasn’t just the difference in intelligence that bothered him. He had found the entire encounter with his former people troubling and, once again, he had been reminded how little he resembled his ogre kin.
Maybe I never was an ogre
.

Fist’s steps slowed and he looked down at the ground as he walked across the manicured grass. Even before he had bonded with Justan, Fist hadn’t liked his people’s practices. Their roughness. The way they treated each other. Their flawed sense of honor. Back in his younger days, he had wanted to change the Thunder People way of life. Now he didn’t see the point in trying. Ogres were ogres.

“I take it that didn’t go well?” called a male voice and Fist turned to see that Captain Commander Riveren was jogging up behind him with Charz at his side.

The petite figure of the elf Antyni sat on the rock giant’s shoulder. She did that a lot when Charz was around. It was a habit she had picked up during the war. She was half the giant’s height and a tiny fraction of his weight and the giant put up with it. When Fist had asked her why she did it, the elf had confided to Fist that it was because she liked feeling so tall.

“It wasn’t like I hoped,” Fist replied. They must have been watching the encounter from atop the wall. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed them. “You heard?”

Riveren stopped a few feet from the ogre. “We couldn’t hear everything that was said. I need to know if there’s anything my men should watch out for.”

“No. They should behave,” Fist said. He passed an embarrassed glance up at Antyni, who was looking down on him with a frown. “The ogres agreed to the rules I gave them. They know that I will be in charge for the journey.”

“Then why do you look like they force fed you a toad?” Charz asked, his voice amused.

“They . . . gave me a woman,” said Fist in disgust.

Riveren’s eyebrows rose. “They ‘gave’ you a woman?”

Charz snorted, then busted out with a loud fit of laughter. His shoulders shook so violently that he nearly dislodged Antyni, who smacked him in the top of his head. She did not look like she found the concept amusing.

“Crag said she was a gift to my tribe,” Fist explained. At the confounded look on Antyni’s face, he added, “Ogres do that some times. They use the women like money between the tribes. Crag said that he brought her here for me.”

“From how friendly she was acting, it looks like you got a great deal,” Charz said with a guffaw.

Fist grimaced. So they had seen that part. How had he not noticed that the giant was watching? Had Charz been on his knees, peering over the edge of the parapet? “I don’t think it’s funny.”

A smile had spread across Riveren’s face. “Well, if there’s nothing for me to worry about, I should get back with my men. Good luck with that, uh, woman trouble you’ve got.”

“Thanks,” Fist said with sarcasm as the captain turned and left. The ogre returned his frustrated gaze to Charz. The giant’s shoulders were still shaking. “This is serious. How am I supposed to handle this? I can’t just take her into my tribe.”

“You tell them. ‘No thank you’,” Antyni replied. The elf’s hands were on her hips and her lips were twisted in a cute scowl.

“It isn’t that easy, Antyni,” he said. “If I refuse her, I insult her and Crag. I need them to follow me.”

“Then let her in to your ‘tribe’,” Charz said. “You let lots of people in. You tell me and your other friends that we are part of your tribe and we’re not even bonded to you.”

“It isn’t that easy,” Fist protested. He didn’t like the flippant way the giant had put that. To Fist, the decision to accept someone as part of the Big and Little People was a serious one. He consulted with Justan over each one before they were invited. “She is an ogress.”

Charz shrugged. “So? You’re an ogre.”

“I’m not like them!” he protested. “She would be wild and . . . disruptive.”

His anxiety grew the more he thought about it. If he let Puj into the tribe, it would be a permanent thing. He couldn’t just trade her away or kick her out once she was part of their family. She would stick close to him too, and she wouldn’t understand the way he was living his life.

Puj would also expect certain things from him. He was the only ogre male in the tribe after all. Fist found the notion both alluring and cringe inducing. He had been around enough ogre females to know that she would be forceful about it too.

Good
, said Squirrel.

“No,” he said with a shudder. “That would be bad.”

“Take it up with Sir Edge and Sherl then,” said Charz with a shrug. He chuckled again. “I gotta tell you, when I saw that ogress give you a grope I just about fell off the wall!”

Antyni pounded the giant’s head with her fist. “You be nice. He didn’t ask for that.” She turned her scowl on the ogre. “Did you?”

“I want nothing to do with her,” Fist said and sighed, knowing that the ire in her face was but a shadow of what he was going to receive when he took the situation to Darlan. She might even go visit the ogres herself and try to shout some sense into them. “Maybe Justan will be able to think up a way for me to say no.”

He doubted the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. Dealing with women trouble wasn’t exactly one of Justan’s strengths. Fist’s shoulders slumped.

Antyni’s expression softened as she recognized the depths of his misery. “How long do you have before they must know your decision?”

“We leave in the morning. Crag will expect my answer by then,” Fist said. “And he will expect me to say yes.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t tell him your decision right away,” Antyni suggested. “You could tell your father that you have to wait until after your journey is over.”

Fist nodded slowly. She had a good point. He could make up a custom in his tribe. Maybe he could tell Crag that he could not take the woman into his tribe until he had a cave for her to live in and he couldn’t arrange anything like that until after the evil was dealt with. Then when it was all over, he could refuse to take her in and it wouldn’t matter anymore whether or not Crag was offended.

Fist smiled. “I am going to miss having you around, Antyni.”

Antyni gathered herself and leapt from the giant’s shoulder. She collided with Fist and wrapped her arms around his neck. The impact of her strike knocked him back a step and Squirrel was forced to leap down to avoid being crushed. Squirrel chattered indignantly in protest.

Antyni ignored the little creature and squeezed Fist tight. “I wish I could come with you. It would be a fun adventure.”

“I wish you could too, Antyni,” Fist said in surprise, returning her embrace. She was so small in his arms.

Their friendship was a strange thing. He hadn’t spent much time with her during the war. She had stayed close to her people during that time, but once their homeland had been reclaimed she had returned to the Mage School to take Qyxal’s place. Evidently she had shared her twin brother’s gift with elemental magic and she had retained much of the knowledge he had gained in his years as a student. The wizards at the school were impressed with how quickly she learned and expected her to rise to the rank of Mage swiftly.

The more she learned at the school, the more of Qyxal’s memories came back to her. One day she had approached the ogre in the library and told him that she wished to be his friend. Evidently, the memories that had resurfaced had included the time that her brother had spent with Fist. 

“You are strong,” she said softly into his ear. “You will make the right decision about this ogre woman. Maybe you need someone like her.”

“I don’t think so,” he replied. Antyni’s scent filled his nose. It was a comforting smell, like the woods right after a rainstorm.

As he lowered her to the ground, he realized what had frustrated him the most about his experience with Puj earlier. At one time, an ogress like her would have been exactly what he wanted, but the things he could receive from a relationship with her weren’t enough for him anymore. Ogre women had nothing close to the intelligence and capacity for love that the women of the smaller races had. Fist much preferred the company of someone like Antyni. It was too bad that they could never be more than friends.

He let go of her, his frustration turning to sadness. Perhaps friendships were the only kinds of relationships he was destined to have.

The Troll King lounged on an island of grass at the water’s edge and brooded. He laid back and looked up into the sky, watching as the stars faded into early morning. He felt a sadness as each star lost its brilliance. He knew that this should have been a good thing, heralding the dawn of a new day, but for some reason found the disappearance of the stars troubling.

The king wanted to resist this melancholy. After all, he was the ruler of a new race. His heart should be light. But he was plagued by many frustrating questions. Questions that he feared to ask the Mother. Questions that seemed impudent to ask. Why was he burdened with so much knowledge? Why could he not be oblivious to truths like so many of his people.

The doubts that caused these questions to arise within him filled him with guilt. Oh why did the Mother choose him to be king? What did he have to give his people? If he was honest with himself, he ruled over a patch of swampland. His people were diverse and varied and full of promise, but they had nothing to aspire to. The only thing they had of value was the job of protecting the goddess who had made them.

A tall form suddenly loomed over him, silhouetted against the brightening sky. The king wasn’t startled. Its human-like eyes glowed slightly to the king’s trollish eye and he could tell by its scent that it was the First.

“She births,” said the First in his raspy voice.

“Good,” said the Troll King, his head perking up. The Great Mother gave birth but once a day, usually at the break of dawn. This was the best part of the king’s day. This was the time when he received new subjects. “Do you think this will be a good day?”

The First shrugged. “It will be as the Mother wills it.”

“I suppose,” replied the king, though he knew that wasn’t necessarily the case.

He rose from his position sitting on the thick clump of grass and stood upright. The others of his people saw him rise and stood along with him, eagerly awaiting the daily spectacle. They watched as a slimy mound rose from the brackish water in front of them. The mound was a splotchy green and glistened with the slime that coated its surface.

“Ready yourselves!” the king commanded. He waved his clawed left arm and three of his largest subjects strode forward.

These were his cullers. He had chosen them for their strength and vicious claws and for their restraint. These three could resist the hunger better than most. The biggest of them was a male with a strong human-like jaw and bulky arms. The other two were females, one a misshapen mix of troll and dwarf, the other part orc.

The Mother’s womb increased in size until it towered over them. An opening appeared in its side as the womb opened, stretching wider until it was the size of a large cave entrance. The quiet of the morning was broken by a chorus of screeches.

The first to emerge was a yowling mass of slime and fur. It darted from the entrance, trying to run past them and escape, but like most of the Mother’s newborns, it was awkward, unused to the movements and capabilities of its body. It stumbled and the largest of the king’s cullers grasped it by the neck. He lifted it into the air and wrapped his other arm around its waist. He stood behind it, keeping the bulk of his body away from its flailing limbs.

The king approached this newest creation of the Mother and sized it up. The creature was a mix of troll and swamp cat. Bristling fur covered its upper half, while its lower half was smooth and hairless. Its head was that of a cat, except for trollish beady eyes and mouth full of needlelike teeth. From the acrid smell of the slime that dripped from it, the Troll King could tell that this one was flammable.

It let out a yowling screech and twisted in the culler’s grip, trying to break free. The long retractable claws on its rear legs tore long grooves in the culler’s legs. He grunted, but did not let go. He was a fast healer and the wounds would close quickly.

The king reached out with his right arm and placed his human-like hand against the creature’s chest. He pushed through the coating of slime on its skin until his palm touched its skin. A signal passed between them and it calmed as it recognized him on an instinctual level. Yes, this one knew him as its king. But he looked into its eyes and saw very little intelligence there.

Their shared touch communicated more information to him. The king now knew that the creature had the ability to heal quickly, but it would not regenerate lost limbs and it would not self duplicate. It wasn’t a threat to the rest of his people, but the king wasn’t sure how useful it would be to his people.

“Set it down,” he commanded. The culler did so, bending and letting the creature’s feet touch the ground. The animal started but did not try to get away. “Let go of it.”

This was the deciding moment for this creature. Would it join the rest of the king’s subjects? The culler released the beast and stepped back. The creature looked up at the king, then growled and ran away, slinking into the grasses. The culler started to chase after it, but the king called out, stopping him. Though the cat-thing was not willing to obey him, it was still one of the Mother’s children. He would let it find its own way.

The king moved on to the next of the cullers. This one was the part-dwarf female. She was one of his shorter subjects at just under six feet tall and had a wispy beard on her slime coated face. She had latched onto another newborn. This one was fat and short with a pig-like head and had long streams of saliva pouring from its open mouth. It was squealing and trying to bite the culler.

It had already bitten her once. A large chunk of flesh had been torn from her muscular shoulder. Blood spurted out but the wound was quickly closing. She was one of those that could regenerate.

“It is a bad one, k-king,” she said to him.

Her voice was slurred and hard to understand because of the many rows of sharp teeth that filled her mouth. The king had spent some time with this one and knew how much she hated the sound of her own voice.

“I shall see if it is bad.” The king leaned forward and looked into the creature’s face. Human eyes looked back at him, but they were mad eyes, filled with the hunger. It seemed the culler was right, but the king tried anyway.

He stuck out his right hand. The creature flailed at him, but the culler held it tight and the claws on its stubby legs could not reach him. His palm touched the creature and he sent it a commanding message. It refused to calm down, continuing to squeal and flail.

He absorbed more information about the beast. Its slime was not flammable, a useful trait, but this creature had only a scrap of human soul and its mind was not strong enough to process its higher instincts. This one would see its kindred people as food. In addition, it had the ability to regenerate and duplicate. If it was cut in two, it would live on, becoming two identical creatures. That made it a true danger to his people.

“You were right. This one must be culled,” he announced.

“Shall I break-k its neck-ck?” she asked, then added hopefully, “C-can we eat it?”

The king thought about it and the hunger rose within him. Eating it could work. The acids in their stomachs would dissolve the creature faster than it could regenerate. But they would have to eat it all. If they left even one bone behind it could have enough regenerative energy to grow another creature.

He pushed the hunger away. “No. We must give it back to the Mother.”

“I . . . Yes, k-king,” she said, her voice disappointed.

“I shall call forth her mouth.” The king knelt at the edge of the grassy island and plunged his long clawed arm into the slime-tainted waters of the swamp. The waters were warm, the result of the Mother’s body being so close to the surface. The tip of one of his claws pierced her skin and he submitted a short prayer.

The water bulged and the king stepped back. An enormous mouth surged out of the water, and opened up, revealing a gaping maw full of rows of wicked teeth. A long tentacle-like tongue with a clawed tip rose from inside. It waved in the air menacingly.

“Feed it to her,” he told the culler.

The part-dwarf stepped forward and heaved the pig thing towards the Mother’s reaching mouth. Unfortunately, the creature was heavier than she expected. It fell short, clutching at the grass as it squealed in panic. It gathered its legs under it and tried to run, but it was useless. There was no running from a god.

The Mother’s tongue darted out and pierced the creature’s torso, spearing through its ribcage and coming out the other side. The pig thing struggled as the Mother’s tongue hoisted it into the air and pulled it back into her open mouth. The squealing thing disappeared inside and the Mother’s maw slammed shut before sinking back into the swamp.

“What does the Mother do with it?” the culler asked as the mouth disappeared.

The king cocked his head at the part dwarf female. This one was smart. Asking questions was not a common trait of his subjects. He placed his right hand on her shoulder. “The Mother will take it apart and use it to make another. Perhaps the next one will be good.”

She nodded in acceptance and he found a smile curling the human side of his face as he turned his attention back to the work. He hoped to find more good subjects like her. With enough people like this culler, he could turn the Mother’s children into a great nation.

This dream wasn’t to happen this morning, though. Eight more of the Mother’s children were birthed. Three of them were as wild as the cat thing and were released into the swamp to fend for themselves. Two more were insane from the hunger and non responsive to the king. These ones did not have the ability to regenerate, so the king allowed the cullers to kill them and set them aside to be eaten.

Only two of the children were worthy of joining his subjects. These ones were part human and able to conquer their hunger. As all the Mother’s new children were, they were confused and frightened, but they had strong souls and recognized him as their king right away. He eagerly welcomed them into his people.

The last of the births that morning was the worst one. The king could hear the pained screeches coming from within the Mother’s womb and he had to send his cullers in after it. The creature they pulled out had been born in misery. It was barely recognizable as troll or human. Two of its limbs were tiny and shriveled. Its face was a mangled mess and half of its organs had grown on the outside of its body.

The king had stood over its trembling body and looked down on it in pity. The one eye that could see was beautiful with a green iris and it looked up at him pleadingly. He reached out and held the beating heart that bulged from its chest.

This one had a human soul. It knew who he was. Tears streamed from the king’s eyes as he called again for the Mother’s mouth. He gave the creature back to her and prayed that it would be reborn again with a stronger body.

The part dwarf culler saw the tears on his face and asked, “Why does the Mother send us so few useable ones, my k-king?”

The king thought about how to answer her question. He had to be careful. The minds of his subjects were fragile. Their faith in the Mother was one of the few things that kept them sane.

“The Mother is ancient and wise, but her children are not. We are weak. We are not wise.” He sent his arm out in a sweeping gesture taking in the swampland. “This world is given to us, but we must overcome the hunger inside us if we are to serve her. Those of us that do not survive our first day are those that could not overcome their weakness.”

She looked out at the swampland with something akin to disappointment, then turned her gray eyes on him and nodded slowly. “Why does the Mother not make us perfec-ct?”

The king blinked back at her. Of all of his people, only he and the First knew the reality of their existence. The Mother was an old god, but she was new at making children in this way. Because of this newness, she was making a lot of mistakes.

Today had been one of her bad days, but usually the Mother did better. The king’s subjects had grown from a few dozen to over a hundred in the short time since his birth. He was confident that by throwing the worst of these mistakes back to the Mother, she would learn. It might take some time, but eventually, all of her children would be perfect.

The king yearned to tell this culler the truth. She was one of the closest to perfect among his people. If not for her misshapen mouth, she would even have been beautiful. He opened his mouth to tell her, but stopped as he realized that too many of the others were listening. Over a dozen of his subjects had gathered to hear their conversation.

The king revised what he was going to say. Each of the Mother’s children had been born with an innate predisposition to serve her but, just like the king had been, they were also born with the knowledge that they were deformed. Many of them still wept at their reflections in the water. He could not acknowledge to his people that the Mother made errors. Gods were not meant to be fallible.

What he said was, “We are not meant to be perfect. The Mother does not wish for perfection. She wants only to be served.”

“But how are we to best serve the Mother if we are not perfec-ct?” the culler asked.

“We serve her by . . .” The king realized that he did not know. He looked around at all of the listeners. Their number had grown as more gathered round. They were all looking at him expectantly.