In the Company of Ogres

Ten

Just before dusk, a demon entered the citadel. No one bothered to stop him. There were few sentries, and only a tiny percentage of these were alert enough to have observed the demon if he hadn’t been wearing his cloak of seclusion. And of these, even a tinier portion would’ve cared. But the demon was not one to take chances. He wore his magical cloak, though the garment was worn and stained. Only the seamstresses of the damned might repair the cloak’s frayed edges, and only the River of Blood could wash out the blotches. It’d been centuries since the demon had been to the underworld, and if he had his way, it would be many centuries more. Even demons hated Hell. Ice demons in particular found the sweltering temperatures disagreeable. So he tolerated the loose threads, the huge blot of a wine stain smudged down its front. It seemed foolish to worry about a stain on an invisible enchanted cloak.

He strode across the cobblestones. He stopped by the well and removed a pendulum from his sleeve. He held it by its silver chain, and the pendulum pulled very slightly in one direction. Beneath his shadowy hood, the demon smiled. It wasn’t much of a reaction, but it was stronger than there’d ever been before. He was very close.

“Hey, what’s this?” asked a passing goblin.

“Looks like footprints,” replied an ogre.

“Looks like they’re made of ice.”

The cloak’s magic, like its stitching, was ragged and worn. Should an observer notice a trace of his passing and care enough to follow up on the clue, they might become aware of him.

“Hey, what’s all this then?” asked the goblin suddenly. “Who’re you?”

“No one.” The demon turned to face them. “I am no one.” His long, bony fingers tensed like a spider preparing to jump. Black icicle daggers, sharp enough to slice through tempered steel, materialized in his hands.

The goblin glanced at the ogre, who took a pull of wine.

“All right then,” said the drunken ogre, “see you around.”

They sauntered away. The demon was as coldly calculating as one might expect, and he weighed the appearance of two corpses against the chances these two would report his appearance to anyone who might care. He tossed his daggers into the well and continued on his way.

Elmer the treefolk stared into Ace’s beady goblin eyes. No quarter would be given. No mercy would be offered in this clash of wills.

“Got any threes?” asked Elmer.

“Sorry, bud.” Ace grinned. “Go fish.”

Grumbling, Elmer drew a card and rearranged his hand, careful to avoid brushing against Sally the salamander’s hot scales. The oracle Owens rounded out the quartet.

“I don’t see why we have to play this stupid game,” complained Elmer.

“We can always play War,” suggested Owens. “That’s a good game.”

“Forget it,” said Ace. “I lost half a month’s wages last time we played that.”

“I was thinking a more sophisticated game,” said Elmer, puffing on his cigarette.

“Old Maid?” asked Ace.

“Crazy Eights?” proposed Sally.

“How about Super War?” said Owens.

“What’s—” asked Elmer.

“It’s like War,” interrupted Owens, “but you slam the cards on the table a lot harder.”

Elmer scowled, but the blind man was unaware. “Your turn, Sally.”

The salamander, an unrevealing shade of white, sorted clumsily through her hand. It wasn’t easy. Her fingers were thick and awkward, and the fireproof mittens necessary for her to avoid singeing the cards didn’t help. While she considered her next move, she idly said, “I heard the commander is dead again.”

Elmer puffed on his cigarette. “Guy’s an idiot, just like the rest of the imbeciles the head office sends down.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Ace. “He didn’t seem like such a bad guy.”

Sally fruitlessly asked for sixes and wound up drawing a card. “Regardless, we’re not exactly rid of him. He is immortal.”

“How do you think he does that?” asked Ace. As a goblin, he couldn’t help but be curious. His race didn’t fear death, but they would’ve preferred to avoid it, even if they rarely possessed the common sense to do so. But the benefit of immortality was getting to cheat death without having to worry about all that commonsense rubbish.

“Who cares?” Elmer grunted. “It’s just a gods damned parlor trick, is what it is. Doesn’t amount to much.”

“I don’t know about that,” disagreed Owens. “Imagine an army of such men and what they might accomplish.”

Elmer laughed. His leaves shook noisily. “Are you serious? He’s been here less than a week, and he’s died twice already. As a rule, humans are worthless, and immortal or not, that’s not going to change. Sooner we’re rid of him, the better.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” said Sally. “The fates seem to agree with you.”

They all chuckled. Everyone in the citadel had their suspicions about the “accidental” deaths plaguing their commanders. No one really cared, but there was etiquette about saying anything outright.

“Though the fates seem a trifle impatient,” added Sally. “It’s not like them to be so sloppy.”

“I think this time it might not have to do with the fates,” said Ace. “Lewis and Martin said the lieutenant seemed surprised by Ned’s corpse. Got any fives, Elmer?”

The treefolk handed over a pair of cards. “You’re suggesting this guy died twice by accident? Genuine accident?”

“Uh-huh.” Ace grabbed a handful of unshelled peanuts in the center of the table and crabbed them in his mouth. His cheeks bulged, and as he spoke, shells spewed through the air. “If you ask me, they weren’t accidents. I think—”

“It’s an interesting theory,” interrupted Owens.

Ace continued, “I think he wants to die.”

“But why—” asked Sally.

“What sane person wants to be immortal?” replied Owens.

“Stop doing that,” said Elmer.

“Sorry,” apologized Owens.

“I think Never Dead Ned is just a clumsy oaf,” said Elmer. “That’s what I think. But if he wants to die, you’d think even an idiot could figure out how to do it. It’s your turn, Owens.”

“I know.” Owens sorted through his cards, holding them before his sightless, white eyes.

“I bet if you chopped him up into a thousand pieces he wouldn’t come back,” said Elmer.

“Maybe. But what if he did?” Ace had yet to finish off his last handful of peanuts when he shoveled another into his mouth. He said something, but it was nothing but shells and spit.

Elmer leaned back in his chair. He had a hard time getting comfortable in human chairs. They never took into account the knots on his back. “Or fire. Fire pretty much kills everything.”

Sally snorted. A small fireball burst from her left nostril. “Not everything.”

“Most everything,” corrected Elmer, as he blew out one of his smoldering leaves. “It’s your turn, Owens.”

“I know.”

“Just ask for something already,” said Elmer.

“Give me a minute, will you?” Owens pulled his cards close to his chest.

“Do you even know what you need?” Elmer snuffed out his cigarette and had Sally light another for him.

“I see the future. Of course I do.”

“You hear the future,” corrected Elmer. “Tell me what you’ve got in your hand right now.”

“No.”

“Name one card in your hand.”

“Then you’d know what I had.”

The other players chuckled. Owens held several cards in the wrong direction already, although no one bothered to point it out.

“At least one of us would know then,” said Elmer.

By now, Ace had swallowed enough peanuts to be understood. “I bet if someone turned Ned to stone, he’d stay dead. Or boiled him in acid until everything dissolved. Even his bones.”

“If I were trying to kill him,” said Owens, “I’d tie him down with some heavy rocks and throw him in a real deep lake. I figure even if he didn’t stay dead, he’d come back alive underwater and just drown again before he could free himself. Over and over and over, if need be. Not exactly killing him, but it’d be the next best thing.”

Everyone agreed it sounded like a good plan, although Elmer still insisted that burning Ned to ash would be easier.

“Do you know how hard it is to burn a human to ash?” asked Sally. “They’re not quite as flammable as treefolk. Trust me, there’s always stuff left over. The bones and heart and a couple of other choice organs.”

She raised and cocked her head. Salamanders were especially sensitive to subtle changes in temperature, and a cold spot passed through the hall outside the room. She set down her cards.

“Where are you going?” asked Elmer.

“Deal me out.” She stretched, uncoiling her long, serpentine body. “I’ve got to check something.” She slipped quietly into the hall.

“What’s gotten into her?” asked Ace.

“Who cares?” Elmer deliberately blew a smoke ring into Owens’s face. “If you don’t take your turn now, we’re going to skip you.”

Owens admitted defeat. He leaned over to Ace and asked for a suggestion.

“I’d go for sevens,” replied Ace.

“Crap.” Owens drew a card.

“You didn’t ask,” said Ace.

“Trust me,” replied the oracle, “he doesn’t have any.”

Anyone else might not have given much thought to the frost along the hallway walls, but Sally knew underworld ice when she smelled it. Salamanders and ice demons were natural enemies. In addition to the innate conflict of their nature, there was a lot of bad history between the races. Her warm skin burned hot enough to simmer the air.

She turned the corner, and her adversary stood before her. He’d surely sensed her presence as easily as she’d felt his. Neither made a move right away, instead taking measure of the other.

The demon pulled back his hood. His face was long and angular. The horns growing from his brow curved back to touch the top of his bald skull. As she grew hotter with anticipation, he grew colder. As wisps of flame danced on the scales along her back like a sail of fire, frost crystallized on his blue skin. A chill mist slipped from his tight lips as he spoke.

“I’d heard your kind were extinct.”

She paled a humorless gray. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, and I don’t care. An ice demon killed my cousin, and I’ve always wanted to return the favor.”

She snorted. Her scales brightened a bloodred shade. A sword and shield of blackest ice materialized in the demon’s hands.

Sally darkened from murderous crimson to merciless ebony. She spat a fireball. The demon deflected the strike with his sword. Both the weapon and the flame dissolved in a blinding cloud of steam. The demon hurled jagged icicles without aiming. Sally twisted her serpentine body to avoid all but one. It struck her dead center but melted away almost instantly so that the worst of the damage was just a nick. She shrieked as a gout of flame poured from her jaws. It met the demon’s frozen shield, and soon the entire hall was obscured with fog and the sound of battle.

Drawn by the noise, a nearby door opened. Regina and Miriam stepped out of Ned’s quarters into the muggy, misty hallway. The siren was nearly impaled by an ice dagger that buried itself in the wall three inches from her face. Regina grinned, but her grin faded when a lick of flame shot close enough to sear the tip of her hair. They could see nothing else but shadows wrestling in the fog.

The demon struck Sally a hard blow with a frozen club that sent the salamander reeling. She tumbled from the fog to land at Regina and Miriam’s feet. Before Regina could demand an explanation, Sally hastily saluted.

“Excuse me, ma’am. This won’t take another minute.” She sprang back into the mist.

In truth, it took just eleven seconds under a minute during which Sally hissed and shrieked and even howled three times. She spat enough fire to burn down two forests, and her skin blazed hot enough to smelt bronze. It was fortunate Copper Citadel was mostly stone and mortar, or else it would’ve been ablaze. Finally, she fell quiet. The steam gradually faded enough to reveal the salamander coiled around a large block of ice.

“Oh, damn. Decoy.” She unwound from the block. Her tongue flicked out to taste the air, but the demon was gone. Like a fire burning too hot, Sally’s rage was all but consumed. She settled into a more tolerable temperature, and Regina was able to approach.

“What’s going on here?”

“Ice demon, ma’am. Caught him snooping about, but I’m afraid he got away.”

Regina gave Sally orders to lead a few soldiers in a search of the citadel, but she expected the effort to be fruitless. Sally slipped away, leaving Regina and Miriam standing in the puddle of a melting ice block.

“I wonder what it was doing here?” asked Miriam.

Regina frowned deeply. She didn’t like the idea of unauthorized visitors roaming the citadel. Murderous conspiracies aside, she was a thoroughly by-the-book officer.

The demon’s cloak of seclusion would’ve failed him against a thorough search, but Ogre Company’s lax discipline gave him plenty of time to slip away. He was out of the grounds and on his way before a proper alarm was raised.

Despite the troublesome salamander, he was most pleased. She’d not interfered before he’d gotten close enough to get a good reading off the pendulum. It’d even glowed. That could mean only one thing, and his frozen blood chilled in anticipation. Lost in his icy thoughts, he failed to notice the Red Woman until he’d practically run into her.

She saw him, of course. Even new, his cloak’s magic couldn’t hide him from her eyes. She nodded to the demon. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Fancy seeing you here.”

“And you as well.”

They shared a silent moment as they shuffled through their own private musings.

“What brings you down from your mountain?” asked the demon.

“Nothing of great importance,” she replied. “And what of yourself?”

“Just a trifling matter. Nothing you’d be interested in, I’m sure.”

They both offered forth empty, polite smiles.

“Must be off then,” said the demon.

“Oh, please, don’t let me keep you.” The Red Woman stepped aside, and the demon walked off into the night.

Her vermilion raven flew down from the treetops to perch on her shoulder. “Do you think he knows?”

The sorceress shrugged. “If he doesn’t, he soon will.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“You could destroy him, couldn’t you?”

“With a single wave of my staff.” She demonstrated the simple gesture. “But they would sense that, and there would come more. They were bound to find Ned. It was only a matter of time.”

“You could always hide him again,” suggested the raven.

“I could. But this is where Ned belongs. It is time to see what he is made of, to hope that he is ready.”

The Red Woman continued on her way to the citadel, which by now was on full alert. She had more potent magics at her disposal than old, enchanted cloaks. No one spotted her.

“Do you think Ned will be ready?” asked the raven as they walked through the front gate unmolested by guards.

A frigid wind swept across the fortress.

“No, I don’t suppose he will be.”

Phantom darkness fell over the citadel like the shadow of an unseen colossus, and a hard rain poured from a cloudless, starless sky.