In the Company of Ogres

Eight

Ned, who’d never been concerned with courage or honor, still didn’t have a taste for desertion. He had thought about it. He was only human. Even during boot camp, he wasn’t sure a soldier’s life was for him. Even so, he didn’t like the idea. He’d planned on waiting for his Legion contract to expire. Four more years and he’d walk away from his military career. He could suffer his many deaths along the way. He could keep his end of the deal.

But the deal had changed. The Berserker Program was just asking too much of Ned. When the training succeeded, a soldier transformed into a mindless killing savage. When it failed, a soldier just became mindless. Either way, a berserker was taught to embrace death, but embracing death had never been Ned’s strongest point. He was left with only one choice.

Two choices, technically. He could put all his military and accounting experience to use, and turn Ogre Company around with some luck. The only problem with that was while Ned was a damn fine accountant, he’d never been much of a soldier. Nor much of a leader. His one and only previous position of authority had been commanding a platoon in a skirmish against some troublesome brownies. The memory still haunted him.

To most everyone, brownies were tiny furballs. It was the name. It made them sound cuddly, harmless. But to anyone who’d ever faced them in combat, they were four inches of bloodthirsty terror. Their hideous battle cries still haunted him. The profane insults as they hurled their small spears. The weapons weren’t sharp enough to break the skin, but they stung like hell. Worse than the spears were their harsh claws and vicious teeth. Brownies didn’t play around. They pulled hair, bit ears, clawed at eyes, stuck their spears up any available orifice. A good codpiece was essential when fighting brownies.

They’d come without warning that night, swarming from the overgrown brush. There was chaos. Soldiers screamed. Brownies swore. All those tiny voices raining down profanities. They particularly delighted in assaulting one’s parentage. He recalled with fresh terror the fuzzy enemy clamped onto his nose. Ned had been struggling to pull the creature off his face when one of his own men, in a careless flailing fit, had stabbed Ned in the back. As Ned lay dying, the brownie screamed a particularly hurtful remark about Ned’s mother. Ned had never known his mother. Nor could he remember his childhood. But the remark seemed unnecessary and just plain wrong.

Ned had come back to life to find his platoon decimated, having killed each other in their panic. A victory for the enemy and a black mark on Ned’s record. It wasn’t easy to explain, and he hadn’t bothered to try. The brutal savagery of brownies was something to be experienced directly. He’d hoped for a discharge. It hadn’t happened, though he couldn’t say why. His only guess was that the Legion still believed an immortal soldier worth having, if only for the novelty value.

The incident had been covered up to preserve the Legion’s reputation. Teams of elementalists were called in to scorch the monsters and their woodlands to the bare earth, to wipe away all traces of the slaughter. Ned hadn’t forgotten. Most of his deaths meant little to him. He’d grown inured to perishing. But this one still bothered him. It’d been a year before he could stand the sight of small rodents. He still broke out in a cold sweat at the sight of jackrabbits, with their resemblance to brownie warbunnies, and gerbils, a dead likeness to brownies themselves if standing upright.

Ogre Company would be better off without him, and he would be better off without Ogre Company. It might’ve been cowardly, but it was the truth. It was time to run, dig deep, and hide away. He hoped his novelty value wouldn’t encourage the Legion to dispatch retrievers. But one problem at a time.

He waited until midnight and slipped away under cover of darkness. He traveled light, just the clothes on his back and a pack with a jug of Ulga’s wine and some bread. The faster he was out of here, the better. As expected, the citadel’s sparse, undisciplined night sentries were busy sleeping, drinking, or sleeping off drinking. He sneaked away, right through the front gates of Copper Citadel, without the slightest difficulty.

He passed by the graveyard on his way and stopped to read the headstones of the previous commanders, including his own beside his open grave. He didn’t feel so bad about doing this.

A crimson lightning bolt arced from the shadows and struck Ned in his chest. He died before he’d even realized it, falling upon his own grave.

The Red Woman stepped from the darkness. Her staff glowed.

“Why’d you do that?” asked her raven.

“I have my reasons,” she replied.

The Red Woman had resurrected Ned many, many times, but she’d never before killed him. She waved her staff over him, and Ned gasped. He hadn’t drawn in his first breath before she zapped him with another bolt. He died before he could open his eyes.

The raven hopped to her other shoulder. “What was the purpose of that?”

“No purpose. Just seeing how it was on the other end of things.”

“And how was it?”

“Oddly satisfying.”

She turned and walked away, leaving Ned to rot atop his grave.