In the Company of Ogres (2 page)
“Thank you, sir.”
“Pity I have to lose you.”
Ned, taken aback, stared into those merciless eyes. Tate’s gray and black feathers ruffled, and he sneered.
“I’ve just gotten the news today. You’re being transferred.”
“Transferred, sir?”
Tate nodded very slowly. He smoothed his feathers back with a talon. “I tried to talk them out of it, but this comes straight from the top. Upper, upper, upper management.” He rummaged through his nest of paperwork and pulled out a blue scroll.
Ned swore under his breath. Blue scrolls were irreversible, unstoppable. As inevitable as death or, in Ned’s case, even more inevitable than death. Tate handed over the blue scroll, but Ned refused to unroll it and take a look at his new orders just yet.
Tate cocked his head to one side, then another. His lion’s tail swished lazily. He cleared his throat again, and again. Before Ned could leave, the gryphon spoke up.
“It’s a promotion. You’ve earned it.”
Ned snapped his teeth together softly, as he often did when irritated. “Thank you, sir.”
“Congratulations. Upper management must have a great deal of faith in you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
He held the blue scroll tightly in his right hand, while his bad left arm tried to pry it free. In one of his more unpleasant demises, the left limb had been severed. The arm had come back to life without him, and though a medic had stitched it back on, it still had a mind of its own, with obnoxious tendencies in tense situations. Given a chance, he knew the bad arm would throw the scroll at Tate. That might get Ned eaten, and he had enough worries already.
He turned to leave once more. Tate cleared his throat, and Ned stopped.
“Sir?”
“You’re dismissed. Send in Yip. Very sloppy work lately. I suspect disciplinary action is in order.” Tate clicked his beak with a grin. “And tell him to stop by the commissary and bring up some bread, cheese, a bottle of wine, and a dinner salad. Something zesty, but not too filling.”
Ned walked from the office, feeling very much like a condemned man. A blue scroll was supposed to be a good thing. It meant upper management had taken special notice of him. But it was like being noticed by the gods in the heavens. More often than not, it was a one-way ticket to a tragic fate. Up to now, he’d done a fine job of being unexceptional. Except for not staying dead, but that wasn’t his doing.
His fellow bookkeepers avoided looking at him as he walked through the halls. And everyone averted their eyes from the blue scroll clutched in his hand. Rumor had it that blue scrolls were enchanted to strike all but their intended reader blind. This was mere conjecture, since almost no one had actually ever seen a blue scroll. But no one was willing to take the chance of looking directly at it.
Ned returned to his office, a small chamber he shared with two others: Yip, a ratling, and Bog, the slime mold. Yip was counting a stack of gold coins. He’d shove one in his pocket once in a while. Ned and Bog always pretended not to notice. Neither liked the ratling, and they weren’t about to discourage anything that might get him eaten. Bog was busy weighing bars of silver. Yip glanced up from his work just long enough to grin and chuckle.
“Tough luck, Ned.”
“Have you read it yet?” asked Bog.
Ned shook his head.
“It could be good news,” offered the slime mold.
“Betcha it’s a transfer to the wyrm farm.” Yip clinked two coins together. “Up to your neck in dirt and manure all day. And those wyrms stink. Oh, boy, do they stink.”
Ned sat, laid his head on his desk, put his arms over his head. His bad arm yanked at his hair.
“Glad I’m not you,” said Yip.
“Tate wants to see you.” Ned didn’t have the energy to raise his eye to glimpse Yip’s face, but he heard the ratling swallow hard. That made Ned feel a little better.
Bog’s eyes bobbed in his transparent flesh, floating to look at Ned from slightly different angles. “You should read it before you start panicking.”
“I’m not panicking.”
“He’s moping,” said Yip.
“It’s probably not as bad as you’re imagining,” replied Bog.
“Probably worse.” Ned held the blue scroll down on his desk as if it might jump up and attack him. “I don’t have a very good imagination.”
“Give it to me.” Yip bounded from his desk and snatched the scroll. Ned held fast, and they commenced a brief tug-of-war.
“Just give me the damn thing already!” The ratling snapped at Ned’s hand, and he let go.
“You’ll be struck deaf,” said Bog.
“Blind,” corrected Ned.
Bog adjusted his eyes with his tentacles. “I suppose that makes more sense.”
With the same fearless stupidity that was soon to make him a gryphon’s dinner, Yip unfurled the ominous document. Both Ned and Bog lowered their heads (or head-like protrusion in the slime mold’s case), expecting something terrible. But there was no flash of lightning, no torrent of shrieking phantoms, no unholy blackness to fall upon the office. Not even a single cackling imp or cold snap.
“Well?” asked Bog. “Are you blind?”
Yip rolled up the scroll and set it back on the desk. “Sorry, Ned.”
Ned opened the scroll. “They’ve given me a command.”
“That’s not so bad,” said Bog with feigned enthusiasm.
“It’s Ogre Company.”
Quiet descended, a silence so consuming that even the drafty corridors ceased whistling. Bog wasn’t certain where to look, so he solved the problem by plucking out his eyes and sticking them in a drawer.
“Tough luck, Ned.” Yip strolled from the office with a frown, stopping in the door on his way to the belly of a monster. “Glad I’m not you.”
Two
GABEL THE ORC slammed his mug against the table. “I tell you, it’s racism. That’s what it is.”
Regina slammed her own mug twice as hard because Amazons made it a policy to do everything twice as well as any male. “The Legion has nothing against orcs. Hell, it’s built on them.”
Gabel remained adamant. “Sure it is. Angry, hot-blooded, grumbling orc idiots. But exhibit a little intelligence, bathe regularly, avoid dangling participles, and suddenly you’re not orc enough.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Frank the ogre slammed his mug as well because it seemed the thing to do.
“Is it?” Gabel leaned forward and whispered so none of his fellow ores in the pub would overhear. “All my life I’ve had to deal with this. Do you have any idea how many promotions have passed by me? Meanwhile, every mumbling, malformed, drooling moron gets to climb the ladder.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re short,” said Regina.
“Goblin short,” agreed Frank.
Gabel glared ruefully at his mug and took another drink. “Still racism. Not my fault I was born a little short.”
“Goblin short,” reasserted Frank.
Gabel narrowed his eyes. He’d gotten used to this. Ores and goblins, despite their size differences, bore a passing resemblance. It was mostly in the shape of their skulls, their sloping foreheads, their wide mouths, and the ears that sat high on their heads. Scholars hypothesized that the two species shared a common ancestor. Both goblins and ores found the notion absurd. But Gabel, having wrestled with this handicap his whole life, had little tolerance for it.
“I’m not a goblin.”
“Are you sure?” asked Regina. “Maybe the midwives had a mix-up.”
“In the first place, orcs don’t have midwives. In the second, I’m not a damn goblin.”
Frank bent close and squinted. “It’s just that you look an awful lot like a goblin.”
“Orcs and goblins look alike. They’re related specimens.”
“Yeah, but every orc I’ve known was grayish blue. Whereas you’re more of a grayish green.”
“And your ears are very big.” Regina illustrated the size with her hands apart.
“Not to mention there’s not a hair on your body,” added Frank.
“I shave.”
“Well, that’s not very orcish either.”
Gabel jumped on the table. Even standing on it, his five-foot frame wasn’t especially impressive. Though he was in fine shape, his was a lithe muscularity. Orcs generally had great, dense bodies. And not one stood under six feet.
Gabel put his hand on his sword. “The next one who calls me a goblin gets run through.”
“Is ‘through’ a participle?” asked Regina. “Did he just dangle a participle?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Frank.
“‘Through’ is a preposition.” Huffing, Gabel hopped off the table. “Not that I’d expect anyone else in this pub to know.”
“It’s not racism,” said Regina. “It’s sexism. I should be in charge, but men are too threatened by a powerful woman.” She flexed her bulging bicep, then drew her knife and jammed it handle deep through the thick wooden table with one strike. “It doesn’t help any that I’m flawlessly beautiful. That only threatens them more.”
Frank and Gabel chuckled.
She sneered. “Do you disagree?”
“Oh, you’re beautiful,” said Gabel, “but I think it’s a little much to say you’re flawless.”
“Someone’s got a high opinion of herself,” Frank pretended to say to a passing soldier who hadn’t been privy to the conversation.
Regina’s cold, black eyes darkened. “What’s wrong with me?”
The orc and the ogre glanced at one another. “Nothing,” they said in unison.
“It’s just, well, you’re a bit ... how do I put this?” asked Frank.
“Manly,” said Gabel.
Regina threw her mug at him, but he ducked out of the way.
“Do these look manly?” She arched her back to emphasize her ample bosom. “Or this?” She undid the knot atop her head, and a golden cascade of silken hair tumbled past her shoulders. “Or this?” She pulled back her skirt to show her long, perfectly proportioned leg. Some of the nearby soldiers leered.
She grabbed the closest orc by the neck and drew him close to her snarling lips. “Am I not a vision of feminine magnificence?”
He nodded and gulped.
Her sneer deepened. “Would you not give both your eyes for a single hour alone with me?”
He hesitated, and she tightened her grip.
“Maybe one eye,” the orc answered.
“Only one?”
He winced apologetically. “I prefer brunettes.”
Regina tossed him across the pub. She shouted to the room. “Who here thinks I’m the most beautiful woman they’ve ever seen?”
The pub fell silent. Finally a soldier dared raise his hand. She stalked over, thanked him, and knocked him out with a brutal uppercut.
Frank chortled. “Not manly at all.”
“I’m an Amazon warrior, not some barmaid to be ogled.”
“First you get upset that we don’t notice how beautiful you are,” said Gabel. “Then you get upset when we do.”
“Now that’s more like a woman.” Frank snorted. He helped himself to a leg of lamb being carried past the table, and as he was very large, even for an ogre, no one protested. “You’re half right, Gabel. There’s racism at work here.” He bit off half the leg, chewing with loud crunches. Bits of mutton and bone spewed from his mouth as he spoke. “If you think orcs have it bad, try being an ogre.”
Gabel eyed the lumps of meat floating atop his ale. With a shrug, he drank it down. It wasn’t bad, although he could have done without the ogre spit.
Frank ran his thick, black tongue across his thick, gray teeth. “Do you know how many ogres have command positions in the Legion? None.”
“Surely you don’t think you deserve the promotion?” Regina struggled to put her shimmering, flaxen hair back up.
“And why not? I’m the highest ranking ogre here. And this is Ogre Company.”
“Only ogres can command ogres? Is that what you’re saying?” asked Regina.
“That sounds a little racist,” said Gabel.
“It’s not about that.” Frank belched, and something sailed from his throat to land across the room and slither away into the darkness. “It’s about demonstration of advancement opportunities.”
“Let’s just agree we’re all getting screwed.” Gabel sighed.
They banged their mugs together.
“So who’s the new guy?” asked Frank.
“Never Dead Ned.”
“I thought he was just a story.”
“Apparently not.”
Frank grumbled. “How are we supposed to kill a guy who can’t die?”
Regina gave up on her hair, letting it fall back down. One scarred soldier couldn’t help but stare at her beautiful locks. She rose, walked over, and broke his nose, then sat back down. “He can die.”
“Are you certain?” asked Frank. “I mean, it’s right there in his name. First two words: Never Dead.”
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