In the Company of Ogres (29 page)
“Thanks.” Regina nodded to Miriam’s platter. “I love salmon. And what kind of wine is that?”
“Care for some dinner, Archmajor?”
They shared a smile that, if not outright friendly, was passably civil. Then they found an empty room with a table.
Miriam set aside the platter of devoured kebabs. “Did you cut those roses yourself, ma’am?”
“Yes.”
“Beautiful. So how was the salmon?”
“Delightful.” Regina took the last mouthful and pushed away the plate. “You didn’t try the potatoes.”
“I’m stuffed.” Miriam rubbed her stomach.
“At least have some of the gravy,” said Regina.
“Maybe later.”
They sat across the table, saying nothing, lost in their own thoughts, and enjoying their glasses of wine.
“What are we doing?” asked Regina.
“Ned, you mean?” Miriam hunched over the table and ran her fingers around the platter rim. “I don’t know. He doesn’t seem worth it, does he?”
“Look at us.” Regina glowered. “We’re two well-respected, intelligent women. We’re better than him.”
“He’s a bit of a loser actually.”
“You’re a siren, by all the gods of the sea and air. You can have any man you want.”
“And you’re a resplendent Amazon warrior. Any man would be grateful to share your bed.”
They clinked their glasses together.
“So what are we doing?” asked Regina again.
“I don’t know,” answered Miriam again. “Maybe I should just give up and let you have him.”
“Or maybe I should just give up and let you have him,” said Regina.
Miriam chuckled.
“What’s so funny?” asked Regina.
“Oh, nothing.” Miriam leaned back in her chair and put her feet on the table. “It’s just amusing how you still think you have a chance against me.”
“What?” Regina leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. “Are you implying I couldn’t seduce Ned away from you?”
“I’m not implying it. I’m saying it.”
“I thought I was a resplendent Amazon warrior. I thought any man here would be grateful to share my bed.”
“Oh, sure. As long as they couldn’t share mine.”
Regina’s voice took on a grave edge. “You’re a gods-damned fish.”
“And you’re a wrathful, man-hating she-wolf,” replied Miriam. Her fins raised into an aggressive posture.
“You’re lucky you’re not an Amazon. Or I’d teach you a lesson right here.”
“Don’t let that stop you, ma’am.”
They jumped to their feet. Miriam kicked the table aside, spilling food, utensils, and wine across the floor. Huffing and snarling, they stepped closer until there was less than an inch between them. Regina was taller by a good six inches, but Miriam hardly seemed intimidated.
“You don’t have a sword,” said Regina.
Miriam grinned through bared teeth. “I don’t need one.”
Bodies tense, eyes locked, they stood ramrod straight. Every breath was a snort of rage and disgust.
“What are we doing?” said Miriam. “Are we really going to kill each other over Ned?”
“I don’t know.” Regina heaved a weary sigh. “This is so confusing.”
Miriam shook her head and laughed softly. “Men. They make women do stupid things.”
Regina righted her chair and sat. “Do they always?”
“Almost always.”
They shared a giggle.
“I say screw him,” mumbled Regina.
“Yeah. Screw him!” shouted Miriam.
“Screw him!” they cheered in unison.
They righted the table and began cleaning up the mess.
“I mean, why are we fighting?” said Regina. “We’re sisters. No man should come between us.”
“That’s right.”
“And besides, it wouldn’t be right to fight you. I’m an Amazon, trained for combat. You’re just a siren.”
“Am I now?”
The humor drained from Miriam’s face, replaced by cool rage.
“Oh, yes,” said Regina. “Now if we were to settle the matter with a singing contest, perhaps a glee of some sort, I’m sure you’d have the advantage.”
“I’m sure,” agreed Miriam as she picked up a platter, raised it over her head, and crept up slowly behind Regina.
The door opened, and Ulga entered the room.
“There you are, ma’am. I guess it didn’t go so well.”
“No, not very well. Isn’t that right, Miriam?”
“No, ma’am.” Miriam set the platter on the table with an innocent smile. “Not very well at all.”
Twenty-three
THICK CLOUDS ROLLED over Copper Citadel the next morning, and dawn was dull and gray. Gabel, Frank, and Regina stood in the empty courtyard. The goblin bugler lay snoozing across some rubble.
“Where’s Ned?” asked Regina.
“He’s not coming,” replied Gabel. “He said he wouldn’t be coming to these morning assemblies anymore.”
“Why
?
”
?
”
“I don’t know. He just said he wouldn’t. He didn’t bother explaining.”
“That doesn’t seem like Ned,” said Regina.
“How would you know?” said Gabel. “How would any of us know? He’s only been here four days. Can you really claim to know someone that well that soon? People are complex. You can’t just go by your first impression.”
Frank snorted.
“I suppose you have an opinion,” said Gabel.
Frank shrugged. “Just doesn’t seem like Ned.”
Gabel smirked. “We can’t all have the amazing insight of an ogre.”
“Just because we’re big that doesn’t mean we’re dumb. I believe it was the great ogre philosopher Gary who observed that complexity is, generally speaking, an illusion of conscious desire. All things exist in as simple a form as necessity dictates. When a thing is labeled ‘complex,’ that’s just a roundabout way of saying you’re not observant enough to understand it.”
“Oh, and I infer that you understand everything then.”
“No, but I know enough to know that when I don’t it’s generally a flaw in me and not whatever I’m observing. But when it comes to Ned, there’s not a lot to observe. He’s pretty straightforward.”
“He doesn’t seem the deceptive type,” agreed Regina.
“Have you both lost your minds?” asked Gabel. “I don’t know what’s so special about him. He’s just someone in our way. Or have you forgotten that we all agreed to keep getting rid of these fools until one of us gets the promotion?”
“I don’t know,” said Frank. “I didn’t have any problem knocking off the other guys, but they were all jerks. Ned seems like a genuinely decent guy.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Maybe,” agreed Frank. “That doesn’t mean I can’t like him.”
Gabel knew any appeal for reason from Regina was doomed. Rather than waste the effort, he went over and kicked the bugler. The goblin jumped to life, and after shaking himself to semi-alertness, he blew the call to assembly just as it started raining. Distantly, thunder rumbled. The rain grew harder, the wind colder. Gabel resented being exposed to this while Ned sat cozy and warm in his office.
It seemed out of character for their new commander, Gabel had to agree. He prided himself on being a good judge of men. He was at least as good as any ogre. And he had a fair idea of what Ned was like. His opinion didn’t differ much from Frank’s. Ned was decent, even likable in an unassuming way. But whereas Frank was easily fooled, Gabel was wisely wary. Ned was too unassuming, too plain. But Ned was also immortal at the very least and possibly a secret wizard as well. It didn’t add up. He was too damned unremarkable, too obviously mediocre to not be up to something. Regardless, he was still in Gabel’s way. He’d worked too hard, assassinated too many people to give up now.
Ogre Company still wasn’t used to getting up this early, but they were ready for it this morning and managed to shave five minutes off their previous assembly time. They didn’t appear happier for the effort. The hard rain didn’t do much to improve their mood, except for Miriam and Elmer who enjoyed a little extra moisture. Sally looked absolutely wretched, having taken on a pallid gray shade while rain-drops steamed on her scales. Though still dangerously warm to the touch, she shivered noticeably.
Gabel addressed the company briefly. For his own amusement he threw in an offhand remark about Ned wanting to behead every soldier just to study their twitching bodies. Then Gabel handed the company over to Frank, who started the soldiers running laps around the citadel, slipping and sloshing through the soggy earth while Gabel went to consult with the commander.
The sentries currently posted at Ned’s office weren’t nearly as devoted as the previous pair, and they allowed the officer to knock on the door. It opened, and Ned stuck his head out.
“Yes?”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Gabel, “but I was wondering if I might have a word with you.”
Squinting, Ned appraised his first officer. “Just you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Make it brief.”
Gabel stepped into Ned’s office to find it stripped to the walls. There was nothing in it except a mound of cushions. Gabel already knew this, having carried out the orders to have everything removed, but it was strange to see. The commander clutched a red staff, the same staff he’d used to transform the dragon wizard into a platypus.
Gabel hadn’t taken the time to dry off and stood in a puddle growing larger around his feet.
“Why are the men running in the rain?” asked Ned.
“Just whipping the company into proper fighting shape, sir. As per your instructions.”
Ned went to the window and glanced at the churning, gray sky. “But it’s awfully wet out there, isn’t it?”
“They don’t mind, sir.”
“They don’t?”
“There are some grumblings, sir. But you’ve got to expect that sort of thing with this lot. They haven’t had much discipline lately, but they’ll get used to it. I daresay soon they’ll wonder how they ever did without it.”
“Really?”
“Positively, sir.” Or, Gabel thought with a cheerful grin, they’ll storm your office and tear you to pieces. That should slow Ned down a bit, immortal or not.
Ned sat on the pile of cushions. It looked quite comfortable, but he was clearly uneasy. He wrung the staff. There was something different about Never Dead Ned, but Gabel couldn’t quite decipher it.
“What did you want to speak about?” asked Ned.
“Some of the others were wondering how much longer you planned on staying in here, sir.”
Ned wrung the staff tighter with whitened knuckles. His forearms tensed into knots. “I suppose it can’t be good for morale. Everyone out in that weather while I’m dry and warm in here.”
Gabel scoffed. He made a show of it because Ned didn’t seem particularly bright. “I wouldn’t worry, sir. The men know the chain of command. They understand you have important business to attend to.” He glanced about the empty room.
“I can explain this,” said Ned. “I can. Really.”
“Of course you can, sir.” The orc’s long, goblinlike ears tilted forward eagerly.
Ned hesitated. He got up and paced the opposite end of the room. “It’s complicated, but believe me, I have my reasons.”
“Of course you do, sir.” Gabel frowned briefly. He’d hoped for an explanation but hadn’t expected one. He was beginning to suspect that Ned had gone mad. If not full-blown insanity, then mildly unsound peculiarity. Gabel wouldn’t have been surprised. Secret wizard or not, a man couldn’t keep dying over and over again without being affected.
“Believe me, sir,” Gabel added, “I would never dare to question your orders. I trust your judgment implicitly. But there are a few others—I’d rather not name names, sir—who don’t believe in the strength of your command.”
He paused, waiting for Ned to ask for those names. Gabel would of course insist he couldn’t betray any confidences, and only after Ned ordered him would he relent with great reluctance. With a bit of a push it wouldn’t be difficult to get Ned to turn on Frank and Regina, thus forcing them to their senses.
But Ned didn’t ask, proving how difficult it could be to sow discord with a man who apparently lacked even the merest curiosity, much less suspicion. In all Gabel’s military career he’d never met anyone of noteworthy rank like Ned. The commander was an anomaly in Brute’s Legion, and probably in every army in the world.
Gabel didn’t trust anomalies. Anomalies didn’t happen. That was what made them anomalies. He scrutinized Ned more closely, trying to unwrap this puzzle. Everyone was up to something. There were no exceptions. Some might say this observation said as much about Gabel as anyone, but he knew better. The only difference between him and the rest of the world was that he didn’t bother to hide it from himself.
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