The Ogre Apprentice (3 page)

Then something happened. There was a stirring of the air in the cave, almost like an exhalation. He felt the hot breath of this living place move over his body and the king’s anxiety faded. This breath was the comforting caress of the Great Mother.

With a soft sucking sound, his foot was released from the ceiling and he fell into the slime pool below. Immersed in the Mother’s fluid, trace chemicals fed him information and the king began to understand. These differences in his body weren’t disfigurements. They were improvements. They were the mother’s gifts.

There was a jolt around him as if the cave were moving. He stood thigh deep in the slime pool and watched as a hole opened up in the far end of the cave. A shaft of light pierced the darkness and illuminated him. The king hissed in pain, and he raises his arms in front of his face, wincing. He closed his heat sensing eye, peering through his fingers with his right eye that saw in the spectrum of light.

The hole widened, letting in more light, and a breeze blew through. This new air was still warm, but in comparison to the Mother’s womb it felt cool against his glistening skin. At the Mother’s urging, the king took hesitant steps forward, rising out of the pool until he stood at the lip of the opening.

The light showed him that the interior of the mother was a soft pink. But outside there was a brilliance of color. It was swampland. The waters around were a brackish swirl of brown and deep green, while the grassy mounds all around were vibrant green with occasional blue flowers. Tall leafy trees rose from the water and grassy mounds alike. The sky was the brightening blue of early morning.

The cave mouth had opened in front of one such grass mound. It was a large one and long. Covering the mound and the others around it were dozens of slimy greenish beings, all of them bowing and prostrating themselves before him. The king stepped out of the womb and onto the grass, feeling its soft blades crush beneath his feet.

He turned and saw the cave shrink behind him. The opening puckered until it was but a greenish sphincter. Then it sank into the waters until only a vague slimy mound remained where it had been.

The smell of the living creatures around the king hit his nose and he felt the hunger deep within him rise. He had the urge to attack those creatures that bowed before him. He wanted to kill them all and devour them, but he pushed the urge down. A hiss escaped his lips. He was a king, not some mere monster.

One of the creatures stood and faced him. He recognized immediately that this one was a troll. At second glance, he changed his assessment. This one was a troll in every aspect but two. It had the eyes and mouth of a human.

It blinked and spoke to him in a raspy voice, “My king . . . You have finally arrived.”

The king didn’t understand how he knew what it said to him, but he did. He opened his mouth and, though the words felt unfamiliar rolling off his tongue, he was able to speak. “Who . . . are . . . you?”

The troll thing bowed again. Saliva ran down its chin as it replied, “I am known as the First, my king. I have been serving the Mother and preparing the way for your arrival.” Tears ran down its slimy cheeks. “We have waited so long.”

He nodded and looked at the forms of the other creatures kneeling all around him. Like the bodies in the cave, these things were of different shapes and sizes. All of them had deformities, some part human, others a mish-mash of various animals. They only had one other thing in common. They were all part troll.

He looked down at his body once again and saw that the skin covering his taut musculature was tinted green and glistened in the dim sunlight. He was like them. Clenching his hands he raised his voice and addressed his subjects. His words were hesitant at first, but the more he spoke, the more his confidence grew.

“Your . . . prayers have . . . been answered. I am born to . . . protect you. I am born to . . . rule you-.” He bit his tongue with the sharp teeth on the left side of his mouth and the taste of his own blood ignited the hunger within him again. He seized the hunger and used it to fuel his intensity as he roared.

“I am . . . the Troll King!”

Fist’s dreams were disturbing and violent. This wasn’t unusual for the ogre. He had lived a life often filled with violence. It was part of him, something at odds with his gentle nature. What made these dreams stand out tonight was how vivid they were.

They began with a recurring dream. It was one that Fist had dreamt dozens of times since leaving the Thunder People tribe. It was always similar with only minor variations, and had become so commonplace to Fist that it didn’t cause him anxiety anymore.

He was wearing his apprentice robes and reclining, floating peacefully on a bed made of cloud, unafraid of being high in the sky above the earth below. Life was perfect. After all, he was learning so many things and he had friends now and Justan had survived his meeting with Jhonate’s father. Fist relaxed in the fluffy softness, content just feeling the hot sun on his body.

His peace was interrupted by a thudding noise. He sat up and turned his head to see his father Crag running at him, his large feet obliterating the clouds beneath him with every step. Fist didn’t know how his father had gotten up there, but following closely behind Crag was an army of winged beasts, dark and terrible.

Crag yelled at him to stand up and fight, but Fist didn’t want to. He laid back on the cloud and closed his eyes, focusing on the warmth of the sun. The part of him that knew this was a dream willed the darkness to go away. But it didn’t work.

The sounds of his father’s footsteps and the approaching army grew louder until Fist opened his eyes. Crag stood over him, blood running down his body from several open wounds. His face was pummeled and swollen like it had been the last time Fist had seen him; beaten nearly to death by Fist’s own hands.

“Go away father,” Fist said sadly. “You’re dead.”

“Toompa!” his father yelled and swung his arm down in a mighty punch. Crag’s fist caught Fist in the chest and knocked him through the cloud. Fist watched his father’s disappointed face get smaller and smaller as he fell unprotected through the sky towards the earth below.

Normally Fist would plunge into water at this point, but this time the dream shifted and he never struck the ground. Instead, he was back in the mountains of his youth, at the edge of the Thunder People territory. His robes were gone and he was wearing only fur wraps like he had in the old days, but he was carrying the mace Lenny had made for him. It was a good thing too, because he needed it for the horde that was coming at him.

It was at this point that he forgot it was a dream. It was real and Fist was angry; angry and fearful because his tribe was under attack. His face contorted with rage as he swung his weapon back, its magic enhancing his speed. The mace was long and heavy with a spherical head. One half of the head was covered in wicked spikes, the other half with rough ridges and Fist put it to good use.

He punctured and tore through flesh with the spikes and bashed in the heads of the enemy with the ridges. He couldn’t identify the assailants right away. Their faces were blurry. But what did it matter? They fell around him as if they were made of melons, smashing and splattering to pieces, showering him with gore.

Fist exulted. The battle was easy. The enemy’s attacks were weak, leaving nothing but superficial wounds on his skin. Why had he been so fearful?

He looked around for the rest of his tribe and found himself battling alone, surrounded by the enemy. Had the others fallen to the enemy or had they abandoned him? He didn’t know the answer, but he fought on, destroying the enemy with tireless strikes.

Then something caught his eye. In the distance a lone boulder rose above the enemy ranks. The faceless horde clawed at the rock, trying to climb it. Sitting atop the boulder was Squirrel’s leather pouch and he knew by the way it contorted Squirrel was still inside!

Fist shouted and began forcing his way towards his friend, but the enemy resisted. Something about them had changed. No longer did they burst apart and yield before him. They held firm, each one of them taking several strikes to bring down. Their weapons improved too. Fist felt daggers pierce his flesh.

He ignored the wounds and fought on, bellowing for Squirrel to flee. The pouch continued to move as the enemy climbed toward it, but Squirrel did not come out. Fist arrived at the boulder and started to climb, pulling the enemy climbers down as he went, ignoring the fierce stabbings of the assailants behind him.

Finally, he reached the top of the rock and stood exhausted. Blood dripped from his body; some of it his, but most of it the enemy’s.

He looked down at the crowd surrounding the boulder and a haze lifted from his mind. The enemy was no longer faceless. To Fist’s horror, they were men and dwarves and elves and even ogres. These were people he recognized. Many of them were people he had met during the war. And he had just mown so many of them down.

Fist shouted apologies, but their familiar faces didn’t seem to recognize him. They screamed mindlessly, clawing at the rock. Shaken, he picked up Squirrel’s pouch and peered inside.

 Squirrel wasn’t there. In his place was a monster. It was a huge thing, a mix of wild beasts, and way too large to fit in that small space. Before Fist could drop the pouch it leapt out, increasing in size and bowling Fist over, sending him plummeting off of the rock into the howling masses below . . .

Fist’s legs spasmed and his eyes flew open as he awoke with a gasp. Breathing heavily, he realized that he was in his room in the Mage School dormitories. He was lying on his side in the oversized bed Darlan had procured for him and his head was pressed into his honstule flower pillow. He was sweating profusely.

With a groan, he threw back his blanket and sat up. As he did so, a pile of seeds fell out of his ear, striking his shoulder and cascading down his hairy torso in a tiny avalanche.

“Squirrel!” he grumbled, brushing the seeds off of his body. Several of them had fallen onto his bed and he swept them off of his mattress with one large hand, knowing that he would have to sweep them off of the floor later, but preferring that to returning to a bed with little seeds in it.

This was a constant game Squirrel played. He had started it the day they had first met. Whenever Fist was asleep, Squirrel would hide nuts and seeds somewhere on the ogre’s body. In the beginning he had done it because he felt safe with Fist and it was his way of claiming Fist as his new home. But along the way as Squirrel’s mind had grown larger and more complex, his reasons for the little game had changed. For awhile it had become a test of his stealth as he tried to see how many seeds he could hide on Fist’s body without being caught.

Now Squirrel’s game was more of a prank, made all the easier because of the large variety of food available at the school. People were giving Squirrel nuts and seeds all the time and as a result, Fist found them everywhere. Not just when he woke up in the morning, but everywhere he looked. Squirrel left them in the pockets of his robe, in his books, in his coin purse, and in every drawer Fist used. Squirrel thought it was hilarious.

Fist yawned and, from the stuffy sensation in his ear, he knew there were more seeds in there. He leaned over and shook his head, fumbling at his ear with one thick finger, trying to get them out but he was only able to dislodge a few. He smacked the side of his head, but to no avail.

Squirrel
! he grumbled again, this time through the bond, not wanting to wake his roommate.  Fist looked around for his bonded, knowing that the mischievous creature was close by.

A sliver of early morning light peered in the room through the one small window, illuminating a tidy place with two beds, two desks, and two wardrobes. Out of necessity it was the largest room in the dormitories and Fist shared it with his friend, Jezzer.

To Fist’s relief, he hadn’t woken the man. Jezzer had already risen, making his bed before leaving. The old man had a habit of waking early and was often up and gone before the ogre. Jezzer was sixty five and the oldest cadet at the Mage School in centuries. He claimed that the older he got, the less sleep he needed. Fist envied the man that ability.

Knowing that he was alone, Fist reached up and palmed the light orb that was mounted in the sconce above his bed. Wincing at the sudden brightness, the ogre’s eyes fell on Squirrel’s pouch. It was sitting on Fist’s desk where he had left it the night before, the runes stamped into it’s deerskin surface glowing softly to Fist’s magesight. It was a gift from Beth and she had made it well. It was nice and roomy, silk-lined, and had extra pockets for storage. The large lump in it told him Squirrel was still inside. The beast was ignoring him, pretending to be asleep.

“
Squirrel
!” Fist commanded both aloud and through the bond. “
I see you in your pouch. Come here
.”

What
? Squirrel replied innocently. His little head popped out of the top and he yawned, pretending that Fist had just woke him.

“You’re not fooling me,” Fist chided him. “Now get these seeds out of my ear.”

Squirrel let out a chattering laugh and exited the pouch, leaping from the desk to the bed to Fist’s shoulder in a series of bounds. His little laugh was an odd thing, sounding more like a snicker than anything else. He had just developed it in the months after the war. He was wearing one of the small vests Darlan had made for him. This one was red with tiny gold trim.

My seeds
! Squirrel exclaimed, peering into the ogre’s ear.

“Yeah, you put them in there. Get them out,” Fist complained. His ear canal was itching now. “Why did you do it anyway?”

It is funny,
Squirrel said.

“No. Not funny,” Fist said. “And not nice.”

Though Fist couldn’t see him, he knew Squirrel was rolling his eyes as he reached one dexterous paw into the ogre’s ear. He messed around for a moment, pulling out seed after seed. It tickled horribly and Fist winced as he tried to stay still, hoping that the animal wouldn’t scratch him with his little claws. Finally Squirrel stopped.

“Did you get them all?” Fist asked, turning his head to look at him.

Squirrel stared back at the ogre, his mouth hanging open in a parody of disgust as he held out an arm caked up to the shoulder with clumps of ear wax. A small black seed was clutched in his hand. He let go of the seed, but it remained stuck to his hand. He shook the seed off and looked around for something to wipe his arm on, worried that he would stain his vest.

Fist could feel his irritation through the bond. The ogre snorted. “Don’t look at me like that, Squirrel. It’s your fault for sticking them in there.”

Still stiffly holding his arm out to the side, Squirrel began walking down Fist’s arm towards the bed.

“Don’t wipe that on the blankets,” Fist warned. Squirrel let out a little grumble and hopped down to the floor, then went under the bed to wipe his arm on one of Fist’s dirty socks.

Fist stood and stretched. It was an abbreviated form of a stretch, not the full stretch he wanted to do. When fully erect, the ogre was eight feet tall and the hair on his head brushed the ceiling. His morning stretch now consisted of arching his back and rotating his shoulders, his arms sticking straight out to the sides. His back popped in a series of cracks as he did so.

“I had such a bad dream, Squirrel,” Fist grunted and walked to the wardrobe to retrieve his clothes. “It felt so real.” Indeed, he had been able to feel the blood of the enemies sticking to his body. He’d smelled their viscera as it spilled to the ground. He felt a wave of nausea at the memory and swallowed. “Why did I have a dream like that?”

Squirrel didn’t respond directly, but Fist felt a trickle of sympathy come through the bond. This was often the way they communicated with each other. Even with the growth of Squirrel, many of the things Fist felt and experienced didn’t make complete sense to him. Yet the animal always tried his best to understand. Sometimes he even surprised Fist with his observations.

Fist tried to shake the dream from his mind as he dressed, putting on a button-up shirt and linen pants before donning his apprentice robe. The robe was voluminous and made of a light material so that it wasn’t too warm for comfort. The colors represented Fist’s magical strengths. The main color was black representing Fist’s strength in earth magic, while the blue and gold trim work on the sleeves and hem represented his secondary strengths in air and water.

Fist looked at himself in the room’s lone mirror and shook his head. He had been wearing student robes for nearly six months and still didn’t feel natural in them. While wearing the robes he didn’t look like an ogre at all. His wide hips and bulging muscular frame were still quite evident, but he walked without the usual ogre slouch. Someone who had never seen an ogre might think him just a giant of a man with a brutish face.

He waved a dismissive arm at the mirror and turned to look at the large shield and breastplate that stood next to the wardrobe. Now those were the things he felt most comfortable wearing. Despite everything he was learning at the Mage School, Fist was a warrior at heart. At that moment he wished that he was in Malaroo with Justan. There were battles going on there. He could have been making a difference.

Frowning, he sat back down on the bed to put on his socks and boots. The boots were a gift from his half-orc friend Bettie and were runed to keep the leather strong and supple despite the punishment he put them through. He liked them. They were quite comfortable. The socks, on the other hand, were something he wore at Darlan’s insistence.