Eye of Darkness (Part Seventeen)

 

Belmok rolled forward with the fall, shrugged the creature off, and went scrabbling for his staff. Thron had barely an instant to draw his sword before the rest of the pack leaped in, clubs and crude spears in their boney talons.

They were young and scrawny, somewhat shorter than the Morgs, and badly emaciated, as if they had not eaten too well for a long time. Still, there were five of them, and their hunger drove them into a desperate frenzy of attack. Even the blows from Belmok’s iron-shod staff looked as if they were doing little damage, sliding off the hairless spongy skulls with little effect.

Thron was doing better. He sliced and chopped at thrashing bodies with the precision of a practiced butcher, and had killed two of the squealing foes before Leren suddenly stepped in. The shining coils on the Ivra’s head flashed forward, piercing the remaining Ogre-spawn through the chest. They froze, transfixed, and hung suspended, their mouths mewling slowly and baffled purple eyes darting and glowing with hate.

Belmok stepped back in wonder, breathing heavily, hands still tightly gripping his staff.

“Are … are you killing them?” he asked.

“No … I am not,” said Leren. “There is … some difficulty … but … I hold them.”

“Well, let’s just take care of that,” said Thron, and with a quick thrust he stepped forward and plunged his sword into the nearest Ogre’s chest. Then with a gristly jerk he pulled the blade downward and the steaming, quivering guts came spilling out. The Ogre’s eyes went blank, Leren pulled back his power, and the creature fell to the ground in the mess of its own pluck. Belmok recoiled in disgust.

“Is that absolutely necessary?”

“Ask your friend there.” Thron moved to the next one and paused ironically, sword poised, lips pulled back to show his fangs. “Anything he can do?”

“The Morg Thron is correct,” said the Ivra. “If these are left to survive, they will bring … worse into our path. The mission will be … much complicated.”

“See?” Thron thrust the steel in, and then there was only one Ogre left to glare at the Morgs in growing fear. Its taloned fingers groped slowly in desperation.

“I thought you didn’t care for this kind of slaughter,” said Belmok sardonically.

“That was animals,” said Thron. “These are Ogres. They know what they’re doing.”

“An argument might possibly be made that they can’t help what they do because of what they are.”

“All the more reason … “ said Thron coolly, looking at the last Ogre in appraisal, face to face. It scowled in slow menace. With a sudden vicious stab, the soldier pushed the sword point right through the eye, through the skull, and into the brain. It fell like a stone among its fellows. Thron turned to Belmok.

“Unless you wanted to keep one as a pet?” he asked sarcastically as he wiped his weapon and put it away.

Belmok shrugged.

“It does seem the only thing to do,” he said. “I suppose I just wasn’t ready for your, shall we say, promptitude.”

“Get ready for it in the future, then,” said Thron. “With these creatures, there can be no hesitation.” He looked around at the scattered carcasses. “We’ve got to get rid of these, cover ‘em up. Any buzzards or what not might draw attention to our trail.”

“Do you think anyone will come looking for them?”

“None shall care for such as these; their people do not … value them,” said Leren. “Please to wait.” The Ivra went unfocussed, its body dimming and sprawling into the night. The Morgs waited in the dimness under the thin crust of the waning moon, looking tensely at each other and at the cooling bodies at their feet. In a few minutes it drew itself back into their presence.

“There is a crevice some five hundred yards away, sufficient to receive these bodies, with stones and sand to cover them. I shall guide you there. I cannot … they are too … heavy, is your word … for me to carry. But I can guide you. And guard you.”

“Figures,” groaned Thron. He bent down and grabbed an Ogre by its gangly arms. “Still, beats digging all night. Which way, wraith?”

“This one is not …” Leren began coldly, then stopped. “I shall make you a light to follow,” it went on. “I shall be spread about you, to watch.”

“Good,” said Belmok. He looked around a bit, chosing the two smallest Ogres, then dragged them together, and heaved them, straining mightily, one on each shoulder. “Let’s go,” He said, panting heavily. “The sooner this is taken care of, the happier we’ll all be.”

“Indeed,” said Leren. Its visible body contracted into a tiny will-o’-the wisp and flickered before them, but Thron could feel his hair prickling as some kind of force passed around and above them. They started following the fire, the soldier marveling at the scholar going steadily before him, and the gruesome burden he seemed to carry easily on his back.

They found the place easily enough with Leren’s guidance, and dropped the young Ogres in the spot, a deep but narrow trench hollowed by rain in a low hillside. They made their way back and picked up the other two, and the Ivra demonstrated another uncanny skill. When the Morgs had cleared the area, there was a sudden rustle as of grass in a soft wind, and they looked back to see the purplish-black blood of the Ogres rising in a cloudy mist, glinting darkly under the waning moon and starting to follow them, creeping along behind. They shuddered, but said nothing, and moved along.

They dropped the last two Ogres with their fellows and stepped back. The blood mist gathered eerily around the hole and suddenly rained down into the chasm as Leren relinquished control. Thron and Belmok began mechanically digging in with claws and blade, collapsing the sides of the trench, until the corpses were covered in a foot or two of earth and sand.

As they made their way back through the dark to the campsite to pick up their gear, Belmok heard a strange sound in the windless night. He looked back and saw that their trail of footprints and beaten down grasses was being tousled and wiped out as they passed, as by an invisible whirlwind. He knew it was the Ivra, and he shook inside as he considered these uncomfortable new manifestations of the creature’s power, the most unsettling he had witnessed yet.

Notes:

I made that drawing of a "Less Ogre" ages ago, just fiddling around. I later dropped the idea of a forked tail and horned helmets. Most of what I developed about 'Ogre life' was created in this tale: before then they had just been the mooks of a dark power.