In the Company of Ogres

A shadow blotted out the sky as a tremendous green roc landed with a boom upon the pub roof. The roof supported the roc’s weight for a full second before collapsing.

Ace, riding the saddle atop its neck, cursed and yanked at the reins. “Damn it! What’s wrong with you?”

The roc shrieked and squawked then calmed suddenly and scanned the crowd until his eyes fell upon Never Dead Ned. Then his beak parted, but instead of a shrill warble, out came a voice.

“Ned.”

“I didn’t know they could talk,” observed Private Elmer from the crowd.

“They can’t,” said Ace.

“Never Dead Ned,” said the roc with his newfound human voice. But it wasn’t his voice. It was the voice of a dead wizard, and Ned’s blood ran cold. Belok was back.

The roc ruffled his feathers and clucked the deep, thoughtful clucks of a roc enchanted with a will other than his own.

“Kill Never Dead Ned.”

PRAISE
FOR
GIL’S
ALL FRIGHT DINER

“Something Evil (with a capital E) is stalking Gil’s All Night Diner in Martinez’s terrific debut.... Fans of Douglas Adams will happily sink their teeth into this combo platter of raunchy laughs and ectoplasmic ecstasy.”

—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“[A] laugh-out-loud comic fantasy that should appeal to fans of Terry Brooks’s Landover novels.”
—Library Journal

“Do you know a young man twelve-to seventeen-years-old who hates reading? Does he love gory subjects, especially when action-packed sex, danger, horror, and fantasy are included ? Then this is the book for him! ... A fun-fest of ghouls, zombie cattle, ghosts of various kinds, and lots of battles featuring decaying flesh and body parts.... Reads like the work of Douglas Adams.”—
Voices of Youth Advocates

“Delightfully droll, this comic romp will be a crowd-pleaser.”

—Booklist

“The story finds its footing through its personable, likable characters and the absurdly awkward fight they put up against increasingly bizarre supernatural terrors....
Gil’s All Fright Diner
really goes the extra mile to distinguish itself from the pack, creating a unique mythology and canon rather than relying on preestablished guidelines for its various creatures.... It’s an appetizing snack perfect for devouring quickly over a hot cup o’ joe.”
—Fangoria

“It’s horror both humorous and grisly, a twisted take on small-town America and buddy adventures.”—
Locus

“A supernatural concoction spicier and tastier than a bowl of Texas red ... The funniest book you ever read about the undead, the occult, and Armageddon ... Martinez infuses his comic horror story with dry Texas wit, playing skillfully with the reader’s expectations and the hoary conventions of the horror genre.”—
The Decatur Daily
(Alabama)

“The best book that I’ve read all year ... This is tale-telling at its finest. Martinez’s writing flows as smoothly as cold draught beer. I recommend this one highly.”

—Steve Vernon,
Cemetery Dance

“Can a vampire find true love with a ghost? Can a teenage witch open the gates of Hell? Anything can happen in A. Lee Martinez’s wacky debut.”—Chartaine Harris, bestselling author of
Dead to the World

“A rippingly wonderful novel, funny enough to wake the dead and gripping enough to captivate the living.”

—David Lubar

ALSO BY A. LEE MARTINEZ

Gil’s All Fright Diner

A Nameless Witch (forthcoming)

NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

IN THE COMPANY OF OGRES

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN-13: 978-0-765-35457-0 ISBN-10: 0-765-35457-8

First Edition: August 2006

First Mass Market Edition: April 2007

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A short list of acknowledgments and/or dedications:

For Mom, one of each.

For Michele. (Insert clever in-joke here.)

For the DFW Writer’s Workshop, where I learnt me to be a gooder writer.

For me, because I was stupid or stubborn enough to get here.

And for Jim Varney.

One

HIS NAME WAS Never Dead Ned, but it was only a nickname. He could die. He’d met his death forty-nine times, and forty-nine times he’d risen from the grave. Although, after his reputation spread, people stopped bothering to bury him. They’d just throw his corpse in a comer and wait for him to rise again. And he always did. But every death took a little bit away from him, put another ache in his joints, sapped a little more spring from his step. And Ned learned the hard way that there were worse things than dying.

There was dying over and over again.

Ned didn’t have much interest in living, but he did his damnedest to avoid perishing again. Not until he could do it right. Not until he knew with absolute certainty that he would stay dead. For a soldier, fearing death was usually a career ender, but Ned found a position in the bookkeeping department of Brute’s Legion. It wasn’t much. Just counting coins. It didn’t pay well, but it was relatively safe. As safe as it ever was when your supervisor had a strict policy of devouring anyone whose books were out of balance more than three times a month.

War was the Legion’s business, and business had been good until four hundred years earlier, when the various species of the world had finally managed to put aside their differences. The Legion’s accountants had predicted a swift and irreversible downward spiral in profits. And sure enough, the following three decades had been rough. But what everyone should’ve known was that paranoia doesn’t vanish with peace. Soon every kingdom, every country, every hamlet with two pieces of gold to rub together suddenly needed a military force. For protection, of course, and to deter the benevolent military forces of their neighbors from getting any ideas. Never mind that most had gotten along just fine without an army before. Never mind that most didn’t have anything worth taking. The Legion was only too happy to lease its armies to the world. War had been good for business. But peace was far more lucrative.

Gryphons never stopped growing, and Tate, well over three hundred years old, was a giant beast. His impressive black wings spanned twenty feet when spread, but he didn’t spread them often in the confines of his office, a literal nest of ledgers dating back to the very beginnings of the Legion. Back when it had been a handful of orcs, a few dozen mercenaries, and a pair of dragons with a vision. Back before it’d become the most successful freelance army on three continents.

Tate spoke. He rarely looked at who he was speaking to. This was a blessing, since his cold, black eyes focused with an unblinking, predatory stare. They always made Ned worry about becoming lunch, even when his books were perfect. He wasn’t interested in coming back from the dead after a trip through anyone’s digestive system.

Tate glanced through the ledger slowly, methodically. He turned the delicate pages with his long, black claws. He missed nothing, not the slightest detail. Especially since he was always hungry. His sharp beak bent in a frown. His great black wings flapped once.

“Very good, Ned. Impeccable as always.”

“Thank you, sir.” Ned adjusted his spectacles. He didn’t need them. In fact, they blurred his vision, but they made him look bookish, which was a look he very much wanted to cultivate.

Tate handed back the ledger. He swept the chamber with his gaze, never quite settling his eyes on Ned. “For a soldier, you make an extraordinary bookkeeper.”

“Thank you, sir.” Ned adjusted his spectacles again in an effort to look even more bookish, but his flesh wore the reminders of forty-nine grisly ends. The scars crossing his arms and face, particularly the long, nasty one across his right cheek down to a red slash around his throat, made a far greater impression than his eyeglasses. And of course, there was his missing eye, his cauliflower ear, and his bad arm. All the marks of a man who should’ve been dead long ago. For a bookkeeper, he’d made a barely adequate soldier.

The gryphon cleared his throat, and Ned took this as his dismissal. When he turned to leave, Tate spoke again.

“When you were first assigned to me, I assumed you would be my dinner within the week.” He ran a black tongue across his beak. “Instead, you’ve become one of the most trusted members of my staff.”

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