In the Company of Ogres (18 page)
The sweaty bugler gasped. “How was that?”
“Too much
zoop,”
said Frank.
zoop,”
said Frank.
“Not enough
zing,”
added Gabel.
zing,”
added Gabel.
“No bop at all,” said Regina.
The goblin snatched back his bugle. “Everybody’s a critic.”
Ned surveyed his company. Half wore snarls on their haggard faces. The other half grimaced. The worst soldier here could kill him, and he knew it. Any ogre could crush his skull in one hand. Any orc or human could run cold steel through his heart. Even the lowliest, most clumsy, drunken goblin armed with a frozen sturgeon and enough incentive could pose a serious danger. He’d already died once beneath the spoiled flounder of a pissed-off gnome, and to go like that again would just be embarrassing. But he’d grown accustomed to embarrassment, particularly in death, so he ignored the sea of murderous eyes.
He wasn’t a good speaker, and opening his mouth would only get him in trouble. He was only too happy to delegate the morning address to someone else and just stand aside, doing his damnedest to appear commanding. Mostly he stared at his boots and avoided the seething gazes of his lethal band.
Gabel stepped forward. He passed his eyes over the company with undisguised contempt for a full minute. Then he started shouting.
“For far too long, Ogre Company has suffered from lax discipline! No more! Brute’s Legion is the greatest freelance army in three continents, and you, each of you, are a member of that army! It is time for us, for all of us, to take that responsibility seriously! Your wages come with certain expectations! Starting today, you will meet those expectations! No, you shall exceed them! You will wake up at sunrise! You will train! You will sweat and you will scream and you will push yourselves to your physical and mental limits until you have nothing left to give! You’ll have blisters on your eyeballs and scars under your fingernails when Ned’s through with you!” His voice dropped to a softer roar. “You’ll beg for his mercy, but he’ll give you nothing but the heel of his boot!”
Ned began to wish he’d asked to check Gabel’s speech beforehand. It was too late to interrupt now, but he tried clearing his throat to let Gabel know he should tone it down. Gabel was too absorbed in his own shouting to notice.
“You are all worthless! Worthless, fat, and lazy! Stupid and worthless and fat and lazy and pathetic! Commander Ned will have no more of that! He will see you molded into the finest fighting unit in this army! Many of you won’t make it! In fact, I daresay some of you will perish in the process! And the survivors will envy those lucky dead bastards!”
Ned inwardly winced. He was beginning to envy the dead himself. More so than usual. He cleared his throat again, but Gabel paid no mind.
“And in the end you will hate Commander Ned! You will despise him as no other man! Because he despises you! He is revolted by your weakness, your ineptitude, your pathetic natures! You sicken him! Every man here fills him with gut-churning disgust! It’s all he can do to not vomit at the merest sight of you!”
Gabel followed this up with a long string of varied and colorful insights. He made sure to include traditional slurs of every race present. He belittled the ogres’ love of their mothers and the ores’ ability to urinate at a distance. He assaulted the humans’ lack of efficient government, the goblins’ talent for dying pointlessly. He even threw in a few offhand remarks about shrunken genitalia, which greatly annoyed the few elves in the company. After about two minutes, Ned ran over and finally cut Gabel’s speech short. “Thank you. That’s quite enough.”
“Yes, sir.” Gabel saluted. “Just trying to instill a little respect in these disgraceful cretins, these utterly useless slobs!”
A single audible growl rose from the entire company. It echoed through the courtyard, boring its way into Ned’s thumping chest. The Red Woman was going to be very busy the next few days. He retreated to Frank’s side. The huge ogre was where he felt safest, although even Frank couldn’t hold off the entire enraged company.
At the front of the mob, gravedigger Ralph raised his hand. Gabel stalked forward, and the short orc shouted into Ralph’s navel, as close as he could get to the ogre’s face.
“Excuse me, private! Did I ask you for your opinion? Did our hard-ass, cruel commander give you the indication that he actually cared what you thought, that he gave a damn for any measly, worthless ideas running through that thick skull of yours? Because I can assure you, he does not!”
Ned stepped forward and pushed Gabel politely aside.
“Yes, private?” Ned asked. “What is it?”
“I think that training would be a waste of time, sir.”
“You would, lazy maggot!” bellowed Gabel.
Ned pulled Gabel aside and whispered. “Thank you, officer. Good work. I’ll handle the rest of it.”
Gabel saluted and took his place in line with the other ranking officers.
“Very subtle,” mumbled Frank. “Why don’t you just stuff him with candy, hang him by his ankles, and give the company ax handles?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Gabel chortled. “I’m just doing my job.”
Ned smiled as widely as possible. “Please continue, private.”
“I’m not saying the others couldn’t use some exercise. But ogres don’t really need to train. We’re already better than everyone else.”
The ogres grunted their agreement while the non-ogres muttered their disapproval.
A scarred orc at the front of the line spat. “What makes you think you’re better than me?”
Ralph chuckled. “Oh, come on. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
A goblin said, “Just because you’re bigger than us, doesn’t make you a better soldier.”
A human in the crowd shouted. “What a load of drakeshit! You ogres are so full of yourselves! It makes me sick! Your skin isn’t thick enough to repel a spear point. Especially when I thrust it up your ass!”
“Big talk from a brittle-boned runt!” shouted back an ogre.
Waves of hostility rose from the mob. While Ned appreciated that the rage was no longer directed at him, he didn’t like where this was heading.
“Everybody knows that one ogre is worth fifteen humans on the battlefield!” said an ogre.
“Twenty-five is more like it!” added another.
“And ten orcs!” said Ralph. “And fifty goblins!”
A contingent of goblins approached him. Ned recognized Seamus the shapeshifter at their head.
“Now just hold on one minute there,” said Seamus. “There’s more to being a good soldier than size.”
Ralph grabbed Seamus in one hand. “I’ve got fleas on my ass bigger than you.”
Ned called on his sternest commanding tone. “There’s no need for that kind of talk, private.”
From somewhere in the middle of the mob, Elmer the treefolk shouted, “Ogres, orcs, goblins, bah! You’re all just fleshies!”
“At least we can sit by a campfire!” shouted someone else.
Ned screamed at the top of his lungs. “Everyone, shut up!”
Much to his surprise, the company fell quiet.
A few awkward moments later, Ralph spoke up. “I’m just telling the truth.” He smirked at Seamus, still clutched in his hand. “Tough for them if they can’t take it.”
“The problem with being the biggest,” said Seamus, as he sucked in a deep breath, “is that there’s always someone bigger.”
A flash of red smoke exploded around him and Ralph. The cloud dispersed to reveal a twelve-foot-tall cyclops with bulging muscles, and fists the size of an ogre’s thighs. Seamus held Ralph in the air by one arm.
Ralph gulped. “I didn’t know you could become something that large.”
Seamus spoke with the booming resonance of his new form. “I’ll be sore as hell in fifteen minutes.” He cocked back his massive fist. “But I won’t be the only one.”
Seamus threw a powerful uppercut, and Ralph sailed into the mob. Even before Ralph hit the ground, several ogres had tackled Seamus. He staggered back into the crowd, colliding with soldiers all about him. A fat orc tumbled, accidentally butting skulls with a tall elf. The elf crumpled to the ground, but not before smacking a goblin with a flailing limb. The goblin, in undirected retribution, sank his sharp teeth into a troll’s thigh. Several other goblins, impelled by species loyalty, pounced on the yelping troll, who staggered about in a howling whirl. In his attempts to lose the snapping pests, he wound his way through the crowd, striking down anyone close. Soon a tidal wave of rage ricocheted through the mob, and within scant seconds the brawl was in full swing.
“At ease, men!” shouted Ned.
The furious roar swallowed up his orders, but even if he’d been heard, he’d have been ignored. This particular battle had been brewing a long, long time. It had nothing, if anything, to do with interspecies conflict. Ogre Company hadn’t seen combat in many years, and five hundred irritated, restless soldiers were a fight waiting to happen.
At first the battle lines were drawn along race lines. Orcs battled humans. Humans battled goblins. Goblins battled ogres. Everyone knocked the elves around. Soon enough that fell apart, and everyone began pummeling anyone within reach. It was fortunate that no one was armed properly, or else the citadel grounds would’ve run red with blood. But no one fought to kill, and the only casualties were a few dozen goblins crushed underfoot, which no one gave much thought to.
After nearly having his head knocked off by a flying goblin not once, but twice, Ned gave up on order and let them have it out. He stepped a safe distance away, beside his officers.
He watched the melee with passing fascination. “That could’ve gone better.”
Regina put a hand on his shoulder. “Look at it this way, sir. At least they’re training.”
“Thanks, Archmajor. That’s something, I suppose.”
“Please, sir,” she said, “it’s Regina. I insist.”
He smiled at her, and she smiled back.
Frowning, Frank clenched his fists. A desire to snatch Ned up and rip off his arms and legs came to Frank. Rather than do that, he waded into the melee and proceeded to beat a path of destruction.
Ned gazed deep into Regina’s dark eyes, and she into his.
She was beautiful, he suddenly realized. Before he could think anything else, he was knocked flat by a hurtling goblin bugler.
“Sorry about that, sir,” apologized the bugler to his dazed commander. He put his horn to his lips, blew a charge, and dashed back into the fight.
Regina bent down on one knee to help Ned up. “Are you okay, sir?”
“I’m fine.” He gazed up into her dark eyes. As his vision cleared, her beauty struck him again. She was quite stunning. He preferred redheads, but there was no denying her appeal. Especially now that she was smiling.
“Allow me, sir.” She easily hoisted him to his feet, and he noticed too for the first time that she was three inches taller than he was.
“Please, Regina, call me Ned.”
“If you insist, sir.”
“I do.”
She still held his arm. It didn’t mean much to him, but it was the longest she’d held any man’s arm without attempting to break it. Frank, in the midst of the brawl, deliberately hurled a goblin at Ned again, but an orc jumped on Frank’s back and threw off his aim. The shrieking, green projectile arced over Ned’s head and smashed into a wall. The orc soon followed.
Owens, his left arm wrapped in a splint, approached.
“How’s the arm?” asked Ned.
“Not bad, sir. Only a sprain. Should be good as new by week’s end.”
“Sorry about that again.”
“Don’t worry about it, sir. Accidents happen.”
“Why are you so late for morning assembly?” asked Regina.
“I didn’t want to be here when the fight broke out.”
“You knew about this?” asked Ned.
“I had an inkling.” Owens pointed to his ear. “Heard it last night.”
“You could’ve warned us,” said Gabel.
“I meant to. Wasn’t sure exactly when it would happen. And I forgot.”
Ned decided the only thing worse than an oracle who couldn’t see the future was an absentminded prophet.
“Do you have any idea when it’ll end?” asked Ned.
“My foresight is rarely that exact,” explained Owens. “Sometimes I hear a few seconds into the future. Other times it can be days or months or years. Centuries on occasion. It isn’t easy to pinpoint.”
How do you handle all that information? asked Ned mentally, having adapted to Owens’s talent for answering unspoken questions.
“It’s tricky, sir,” replied Owens. “Probably why so many on the oracle project went mad. Nine out of ten ended up completely insane. The rest tended toward eccentricity. I’m fortunate enough to have avoided ...” His voice trailed away, and a dopey grin spread across his face.
Ned waved his hands in front of Owens’s milky eyes, and then realized the pointlessness of the test. He took Owens by the shoulder and shook him. Owens continued to stare dreamily. Ned turned his attention back to the melee and left Owens to sort through whatever extranormal input he was receiving.
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