The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) (11 page)

Not a food
! Squirrel protested.

Fist ignored the question. “These ogres are not evil yet.”

The ogre blinked. “Yes they is. If we letted them go, they would bite us and we would turn evil.”

“He is right,” said Flick, standing by Fist. “They is not ogres anymore,”

“They can be ogres again!” Maryanne announced and the ogres, who had been overcome by the spectacle of Fist and Rufus turned to look at this strange tall, but skinny female wearing skin tight leather armor. The ogres stepped out of her way as she moved to stand next to Fist. Fist glanced around but didn’t see Lyramoor anywhere. “Fist is an ogre mage! He can help them!”

The assembled ogres looked at her with confused expressions and she elbowed Fist. “Fix ‘em.”

“I can fix them!” Fist announced, raising his shield high over his head. He reached out with his magic and sent vibrating strands of air and earth across the iron bands, sending blue arcs of electricity up and down the shield. The ogres gasped.

Now he was committed. He looked down at the four contorting ogres and hoped that he could follow through on his promise. A jolt of electricity had killed the larvae inside Rufus, but that had been a controlled burst sent through the bond. Doing the same thing without the bond to guide him would not be as precise. The jolt could just as easily kill them as the larvae.

Fist took a deep breath and knelt down next to the closest infested warrior. Fist vaguely recognized him. He was from the Rock People tribe. They had faced each other in battle several years ago.

Fist reached out and hovered his right hand over the ogre’s chest. He closed his eyes and sent magical energies into the ogre’s body, hoping to get a good idea where to strike. It was difficult to see with the patient thrashing around so much, but Fist found them. There were only five adult larvae, but they had traveled to his blood stream and laid eggs that had scattered throughout his body. The ogre’s temperature had risen and his system was inflamed as it tried to fight off the invaders.

Fist licked his lips. So the larvae laid eggs. He thought that only flies did that, but this explained how the larvae could pass themselves along through bites. The tiny eggs could collect easily in a creature’s saliva. He would have to tell Locksher about that later.

His next question was how much electricity was enough and how much was too much. He had no choice but to simply guess the right amount of voltage to apply.

Grimacing, Fist sent jolts of electricity through the ogre’s body. The infested warrior stopped screaming and started thrashing.

Fist kept it up for a few seconds, then stopped. The ogre lay still. Fist sent magic into him again. The ogre’s heart was still beating, a good sign. The larva were dead, their bodies burst. The larvae’s eggs were tiny and hard to see without the detail given by the bond, but the ones he saw had burst.

The ogre groaned, his eyes blinking open. “I not feel . . . my face.”

Fist smiled. A success! He moved to the other ogres, repeating the process. Each time he was able to kill the infestation without killing the patient though, on the last one, the ogre’s heart stopped and he had to use magic to get it beating again.

When Fist stood, the four previously doomed ogres were awake enough to complain about various aches and pains and demand that their bindings be removed.

“See!” proclaimed Maryanne loudly. “He fixed them.”

An excited rumble passed through the ogres and Fist realized that the crowd gathered around them now numbered in the hundreds.

“Who is you?” asked the executioner, his mouth drooping open in awe.

Fist rose to his full height and raised his shield again. Electricity crackled as he shouted. “I am Fist, ogre mage and chief of the Big and Little People! I am here to destroy the evil!”

While Fist approached the main camp, the numbers of people surrounding him continued to grow. Curious ogres gathered around and gossip was exchanged. Stories were passed along about the return of Fist and the gwatch he rode and the four ogres he had cleansed from evil.

When the central camp of the Thunder People came into view, Fist paused for a moment to take it in. Everything looked far different than it had the night he had fled from his tribe. The Thunder People had always been a cave living tribe. They had picked this territory in large part because of the network of naturally formed caves in the area. But now many more caves had been carved into the mountainside. Carving caves was a Rock People tradition. In addition, the wide rock shelf that was the the center of the camp was covered in tents made from skins like the Fire People used and mud huts like the Water People used. Fist even saw a few wooden shacks, something he didn’t think ogres even knew how to build.

“What is it, Fist?” asked Maryanne, who had come up beside him and was gripping his arm. Her jaw was tight with anger, tired of ogres asking her why she was so skinny.

“This is . . . different than I expected.” Fist had known the tribe would be larger. Crag and the others had told him it would be. But this wasn’t even close to what he had envisioned. It looked like the ogre version of a city. “Flick, what happened to the tribe while Crag was gone?”

The flat nosed ogre, who had inserted himself into the procession as Fist’s official guide, stuck out his chest proudly. “The evil killed many tribes. But Thunder People is the strongest. We is the biggest. We is the only ones that can fight the evil. So other tribes comed to us. Their chiefs asked Chief Old Falog to let them stay with us.”

“And he let them?” Fist said in surprise.

Ogre tribes were very territorial and untrusting of each other. Allowing another tribe to stay within yours was unthinkable. Especially the Rock People and Water People. They had been the Thunder People’s biggest enemies and were always trying to steal their food and women. If Old Falog had given up those old enmities and struck up a truce with a group of like-minded chieftains in order to fight this evil, then Fist was impressed. Falog was a far better chief than Fist had ever thought he would be.

“No!” Flick said with a snort. “He telled them that they must be Thunder People or leave.”

Fist nodded. That sounded more like Falog.

“Those chieftains must have been pretty desperate to dissolve their tribe and join their enemies,” Maryanne said.

“They fighted him for chief,” Flick continued.

“I see,” Fist said. Now he understood why Crag was having such a hard time getting his title back. Old Falog was crafty, but he had never been that skillful of a fighter, even when he was young. “Then who is the new chieftain?”

Flick’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “There is no new chief. Chief Old Falog killed all those chiefs and took their womens. Now there is just the Thunder People.” He raised his arm in the air. “We is the best!”

Ogres in the crowd all around them raised their arms and shouted, “Thunder People!”

Fist saw that most of them had lightning-shaped brands on their arms that were newly healed or healing. He leaned over to Maryanne and said softly, “So somehow Old Falog has conquered all the other tribes in the area and makes all the new people brand themselves to prove they are part of the tribe.”

“That’s good for us, right?” Maryanne said. “More ogres to fight the evil?”

Fist frowned. He wasn’t so sure. He looked back to Flick and raised his voice. “Where is Old Falog now?”

Flick shrugged, but one of the other ogres in the crowd shouted, “In the big cave!”

“Then that is where we’re going,” Fist said.

The big cave had once been home to a tribe of two hundred goblins and the giant rock spider that they worshipped as a god. The Thunder People had slayed both threats to take ownership of the cave and solidify their territory. The rock inside the cave was filled with crystalline specks that sparkled in the light and it was wide and open, allowing the entire tribe to fit inside and stand without hitting their heads. It had become a sacred place to the ogres.

Fist walked into the cave to find that it had changed as much as the rest of the camp. Fire People torches were mounted in various places around the cave, illuminating the area with sparkling brilliance. Strange carvings and symbols had been scratched onto the outer walls of the cave, obscuring the many goblin cave drawings that the Thunder People had left there for years.

In front of one such grouping of symbols sat ten ogre females, all of them branded with the lightning symbol and each of them wearing circlets of goblin teeth in their hair. This didn’t make sense to Fist until his eyes rested on Old Falog himself. Then he understood. Falog had claimed the cave as his throne room and he had chosen these women as his personal harem.

The old ogre was sitting on a glittering stone chair that some ex-members of the Stone People tribe had carved out of one of the cave’s large stalagmites. A crown of orc teeth rested on his brow and his wiry gray hair was wet from the constant drips of the stalactite up above him. Falog’s body was concealed by a cloak of scarlet fur made from the pelt of the rare red bear. His wrinkled face was twisted into a scowl as he watched Crag pace back and forth in front of him.

“No! I telled the Thunder People to listen to you when I was gone, but I am back!” Crag was saying. “I am still chief.”

“You promised a ogre mage to kill the evil, but you did not bring it!” Falog said. “I maked this tribe bigger when you was gone. I maked this tribe stronger!” He leaned back and his lips stretched back in a grin of satisfaction. A drip of water splattered on the top of his nose. “Old Falog is chief now.”

There was a surprising murmur of agreement from the other ogres inside the cave. All of them bore identical brands to Falog’s females and none of them were familiar to Fist. The wily ogre had surrounded himself with his supporters.

“I telled you, Fist is coming,” Crag insisted. “And you changed this tribe too much!”

“I am the chief,” Falog replied, leaning forward. “I can change it.”

“You’ve been making these same arguments nonstop for over an hour,” grumbled Charz’s loud and gravelly voice. “It’s boring the rest of us.”

The ten-foot-tall rock giant was standing not far behind Crag, his arms folded. The wicked prongs of his trident thrust into the ground before him and the crystal pendant that hung from his neck gleamed in the torchlight. Standing next to him were Burl, Rub, and Drog, three of the ogres that had accompanied Crag on his mission to retrieve Fist.

“Shut up, giant!” snapped Old Falog. “You is not a ogre. You cannot speak in this holy cave!”

“Try and stop me,” Charz growled back. “I ain’t in your tribe.”

“No! He’s in mine,” Fist announced. He approached the two would-be chieftains, Rufus and Maryanne following close behind him. The large crowd of ogres that had accompanied them through the camp streamed into the cave behind them, excited to see what would happen.

Crag spun around, his expression gleeful. “Fist! You is here!”

“I am,” he replied, walking up to the throne. “What did you do with the humans, Old Falog?”

For a moment there was fear in the wrinkled ogre’s eyes, but it was quickly banished. He looked Fist up and down. He must have already heard about Fist’s armor and weapons from the other ogres that had travelled with Crag, because he didn’t seem at all surprised by them.

“You, a rogue ogre, brings little peoples to my tribe?” Then he caught a glimpse of Rufus. Falog stood and stuck his right arm out from under his cloak, pointing one crooked finger. “And you bring monsters to my tribe? In this holy place?”

“I am an ogre mage and I am chief of the Big and Little People Tribe,” Fist corrected him. “Those little peoples are members of my tribe, and this is not a monster.”

“What is he?” asked Crag, his eyes wide with awe.

“Yeah. What the hell?” asked Charz, looking dumbfounded.

“This is Rufus,” said Fist. “He is a rogue horse.”

“Oh,” said Charz, relaxing. “I guess that ain’t such a surprise. Alfred’s gonna be pissed though, you getting a rogue horse before him.”

“I see!” said Crag, a wide grin splitting his proud face. He approached Rufus and patted one of his hairy arms. “This is a good road horse for my ogre mage son!”

“I has saw many horses,” replied Fist’s half-brother Burl, his look unsettled. He had been in Ewzad Vriil’s army during the war and faced off against the smaller races many times. “That is no horse.”

“It’s a gwatch,” shouted Flint, who was standing in the crowd.

“I thought gwatches has white hair,” mumbled someone else.

Old Falog’s jaw dropped. “You captured a gwatch?”

“Not gotch!” Rufus said. The ogres surrounding him gasped and backed away. They hadn’t expected this beast to talk.

 “He is not a gwatch. He’s a rogue horse,” Fist repeated.

“I will call him . . . Big Head,” Crag announced.

“N-no,” Rufus said, his large eyes upset.

“His name is Rufus,” Fist corrected.

“Roo-fuss,” the rogue horse agreed in his deep and breathy voice. He spread his lips in a wide smile that was meant to be pleasing, but was instead terribly intimidating. He had large front teeth that looked like dinner plates shoved into pink gums and tremendous fangs that jutted from his upper and lower jaw. The crowd ooed.

“Good! Scary!” said Crag, laughing. He patted Rufus’ head, giddy with the ferocious nature of Fist’s new bonded. “Roofuss Big Head. A big name for Fist’s big horse!”

Rufus’ emotions were turning to anger. Maryanne saw this and patted the rogue horse’s thick shoulders. “It’s okay. Shh. Calm down.”

Squirrel, who was still standing on Rufus’ head chattered angrily and shook his fist at the ogres, upset that none of them had mentioned him yet.

Fist decided it was best to get the conversation back on track. “Old Falog, you did not answer me. Where are the human members of my tribe?”

“They is in the Jail Cave,” the ogre said flippantly. “Until we decide whether to eat them.”

“He will not eat them,” Crag promised, seeing the rage building on Fist’s face.

“You will release them now,” Fist said.

“I am chief. I will do what I want.” Falog added. “I could put your giant in there too if I wanted.”

“Yeah right!” Charz barked out a short laugh. “I’d be there now if he thought he could make me.”

“Why did you bringed little peoples here?” Old Falog prodded, ignoring the giant’s outburst.

“I am here to destroy the evil. The humans are here to help!” Fist said. “One of them is a powerful wizard.”

Old Falog scowled again, but he was a forward thinking ogre, something his actions with the other tribes had shown. He had already seen the human wizard use magic against the dead creatures in the recent fight and did not doubt his usefulness. Besides, he thought it best not to anger Fist further.

“I will let the little peoples from your tribe go, ogre mage,” the old ogre said. He leaned back in his chair. “Take them. Then go away. Kill the evil as you go.”

Fist narrowed his eyes. Oh how he wished he could do just that. It would be so nice to go back to the Mage School and forget these people or better yet, go and join Justan. Unfortunately, the force in the black lake was too powerful for his tribe to kill alone.

“I am an ogre mage,” Fist reminded him. “By rights, I can stay as long as I want. I can even take your women!” There was a hopeful gasp from Falog’s harem. Ogre mages had long been above the laws of the tribes. They were known to travel from tribe to tribe, taking women and food as they wished. It was one of the injustices Fist had wanted to put an end to when he was young. “But I will not. I ask only for my tribe to stay until the evil is destroyed.”

“No,” said Falog. “Chief Old Falog changes many of the old ways. Now I changes this one. No ogre mage is above the chief. Take your little peoples and your monsters and go away.”

Fist moved towards the usurping chief, not sure what he was going to do, but his father stepped in front of him. “No more!” growled Crag. “You do not make more changes, old ugly one. Crag is back! Crag is chief!”