Oddly enough, no one spoke up.
“Fine. Now maybe it doesn't bother the rest of you that we nearly ended up flat as a dwarf at a troll orgy, but I happen to enjoy being six feet tall, and I damn well expect to stay that way.” His mouth twisted as though he'd bitten into something distasteful. “I figure we've got us a few more minutes before the yeti—or yetis—show up to see how their little trick worked. And I'd really just as soon not get into a fight with someone who juggles small mountains. So what're our other options?”
“We could hide,” Gimmol piped in, and then yelped as Katim lifted him off his feet from behind.
“Look around!” she snapped, her breath curling the hairs on the back of his head. “Where…do you think we could…possibly hide?”
The gremlin had to admit she had a point—and not just because she might eat his head if he didn't. Unless they all squeezed into cracks in the boulder, their options were snow and…Well, snow.
“Right again,” Cræosh continued as the troll forcefully returned Gimmol to earth. “Which, as I see it, leaves only one choice.”
“Withdrawal?” Fezeill asked sarcastically, slowly rising to his feet and gently probing his shattered nose.
“Nah,” Cræosh told him as the first yeti howl sounded in the distance. “I was thinking more of running away.”
Which, though he refrained from waving his arms and screaming, was exactly what they did.
Only once the motley band had vanished from sight did Nurien Ebonwind allow his concentration to lapse. A snowman melting in reverse, he materialized some several yards from the ruins of his house. His gray robe swirling about his ankles and his familiar perched on his shoulder, the dakórren examined the broken, splintered wood.
“Atiree eroo?” the little creature chirped at him.
“Yes,” Ebonwind told it, “I’m afraid it was quite necessary. Yetis aren't known for their subtlety. Anything less than complete destruction might have raised questions.” The elf sighed. “Ah, well. I can create another just as easily. Maybe somewhere warmer, next time…”
“Edabrelat! Ecci dibu.”
“I know that, too. I want my call to attract real yetis. It should give the goblins something other than me to think about. I don't want them pondering certain questions just yet.” Then, since the Demon Squad was probably still near enough to hear it, he let loose one more yeti wail for good measure.
“That's done then,” he told his winged companion. “Let's be off, shall we? We've plenty left to do.”
A word from the sorcerer, and they vanished once more, leaving only swirling, snow-flecked winds behind.
The name of the village—if “village” was an appropriate term for the chaotic aggregate of buildings that had been thrown together in a small, unnamed hollow in the mountains—was Itho. From a distance, it was just another of the primitive communities that blemished the plains, the grasslands, and the forests that were the skin of Kirol Syrreth. Nothing, other than its peculiar location in the frigid wastes of the Northern Steppes, distinguished it from any of these others.
From a distance.
As one drew near, however, one might notice that the rudimentary wooden gates stood close to three dozen feet in height. Skulls, jammed atop many of the thick stakes and spikes that formed the defensive abatis, showed signs of violent, brutal death. A yeti skull topped the archway over the gate itself, glowering accusingly at the empty tundra as though blaming the snows for what had befallen it.
It wasn't the tundra's fault, of course. No, it was the yeti's own, for in his bestial, mindless hunger, he'd forgotten an important lesson to surviving the Steppes: Stay away from Itho.
Stay away from the ogres.
On this particular morning, the center of Itho bustled with activity that, while not so loud as the markets of Timas Khoreth, was more than sufficient to render an elephant completely sterile. Of course, in Timas Khoreth, the volume was due to hundreds upon hundreds of voices shouting at once. Here in Itho, where the entire population numbered less than eighty, it was due primarily to the fact that ogres are bloody loud.
Not to mention stubborn, prone to bickering, and stupid enough to give a bugbear fits. Which meant that governing ogres called for the absolute best that their race had to offer, and even then, most candidates didn't last very long. Itho's current “governor” had been in charge, nominally, for six months now. Not a historical record, but longer than average, which meant that average was something the ogre in question most certainly was not.
Her name was Belrotha, and as she emerged from the confines of her hut, she was actually feeling chipper. She took a moment to stretch her eleven-foot frame, admiring how her mottled, bruise-purple skin gleamed in the pink glow of morning. Then, scratching under her yeti-pelt tunic with a cracked yellow nail, she turned and tromped down the rise that separated her dwelling from the town proper. The sun glinted brightly, as she walked, off the large hilt that protruded from the furs on her back.
Several times she heard various greetings shouted her way, most of which she returned with a rotted, gap-toothed grin or a vicious snarl, depending on her current opinion of the individual in question. Some, as per usual, were citizens of Itho come to seek her advice, for in addition to being their nominal leader, Belrotha was hailed throughout the village and even beyond as the town's smartest ogre. (Not that the competition for the title was exactly what you'd call fierce.) Others, again as per normal, were unattached young males, determined to catch the fancy of such a beauty. That glistening, oily black hair; those wonderful, jagged teeth, two of which still resembled their original yellow hue; and those muscles! A true prodigy, Belrotha was a blessing on the town of Itho: smart, beautiful, and strong as a dragon's sphincter. (That last was an expression they'd picked up from an orc some years back. They'd liked it then, and they liked it even better once someone got around to explaining to them what “sphincter” meant.) Truly a divine creature, this one; a marvel among ogres, and a role model for all ogrelings to look up to.
“Belrotha!” a voice called from behind a nearby shack. “Me need advice!”
Reluctantly, the towering creature headed over. The one who'd called to her was older than average, which basically meant that he hadn't died before reaching middle age. Some few inches shorter than she, he found himself craning his neck upward. The posture made the turkey-turd green skin on his neck pale slightly.
“What you need this time?” she asked impatiently. “This second time you bother me this week, Worondek.” In point of fact, it was the third, but since neither of them realized it, it hardly mattered.
“Me sorry,” he told her, not sounding sorry at all. “Me need advice.”
“Said that already.”
“Yes.” Worondek said. “Ladaviat ignoring her chores again.”
“Hmm,” Belrotha grunted. “What she supposed to work on this week?” Belrotha, in a flash of insight startling for one of her race, had instituted the policy of switching out tasks from week to week, ensuring that Itho's needs were met while never allowing anyone to get too trapped in a rut.
“Uhh, me not remember.”
She grunted again. “Not important.” Then she hauled back and slammed a fist into the smaller ogre's face. It was a blow that would have shattered stone or felled a small tree. Worondek merely lost his balance and a few teeth, and was quick to stagger back to his feet, ignoring the blood that streamed over his lips.
“That for always complaining to me,” Belrotha said. “Need to learn to solve own problems.”
“Okay.”
“Call Ladaviat over here.”
Worondek staggered away. Belrotha waited impatiently, arms crossed over her ponderous breasts, one sandal-wrapped foot tapping idly at the dirt road. It was only a few moments before the other ogre returned, his recalcitrant mate in tow, but she felt as though she'd waited forever.
“What you want?” Ladaviat huffed, unaware even that she ought to be worried. Then again, Ladaviat had never really
gotten down the concept of “leader.” It was her sort of ogre that kept Belrotha's presence from bumping up the race's average intelligence.
“You do chores,” Belrotha told her sternly, her chapped lips parted in a snarl, “just like rest of us. You not do chores, all Itho suffer.”
Ladaviat sniffed disdainfully. “And what you do if me say no?”
Belrotha cocked her head sideways. “Me kill you,” she said matter-of-factly.
That, at least, got the other's attention. “What?”
The leader shrugged. “Chores still not get done,” she added, displaying an uncommon amount of forethought. “But your food not get wasted either. Good trade.”
Muttering, Ladaviat turned about and headed for the outer fence, presumably to resume her daily tasks, just as soon as someone remembered what they were.
With a satisfied smirk, Belrotha nodded to Worondek. “You wait until noon,” she told him, “and then hit her on back of head with shovel. Then you tell her that for arguing with me.”
The male nodded and then scurried off to his own duties.
“Belrotha! Come quick!”
Her shoulders slumped. Two emergencies before breakfast. Grumbling, she headed toward the town square. “What?!” she shouted, half hoping that if she sounded angry enough, whoever it was might decide to wait until after she'd eaten.
No such luck. “Look!”
Belrotha looked toward the main gate, following the young ogre's pointing finger, and her jaw dropped open. This, at least, was a real emergency.
It materialized from the morning haze beyond the gates. A pearl-white carriage, luminescent in the morning sun, ornately trimmed in gold—even the wheels were plated in the precious metal. Four pristine horses, equally white, were harnessed to the vehicle, pulling it smoothly—far too smoothly—across the uneven dirt and deep snows of the Steppes.
Belrotha gasped in shock. The carriage left no tracks in the snow! No hoofprints, no furrows, nothing!
“Bar the gates!” Belrotha shouted in a voice that came this close to causing an avalanche and rendering the whole situation well and truly moot. “Get…”
She stumbled to a halt, her tongue falling limp over her lower teeth. The massive bar that secured the gates of Itho—essentially an uprooted tree with the branches broken off, requiring four ogres working in unison to lift—disengaged itself from the brackets and floated gently to one side. The gates themselves drifted open a moment later, allowing a clear path for the phantom carriage.
This, Belrotha noted sourly, fell somewhere outside her previous experience, and she found herself at a loss. Her first instinct was to throw something heavy—a fairly common first instinct for her, really—but she realized, after a moment's intense thought, that whatever she hurled would probably float aside the same way the bar had done. Instead, one hand firmly on the hilt of her sword, she broke into a jog, determined to defend her people.
The carriage drew to a halt, still without disturbing a flake of snow, precisely between Belrotha and the gate. A strange figure arose from the driver's perch, sized somewhere between an above-average human or a below-average elf. He (it?) was wrapped in a deep-brown robe that trailed over his feet, and he wore the hood pulled over his head. Even his hands were covered in some sort of silken wrappings, functioning perhaps as makeshift gloves.
Without a word, or even a glance, for the ogres of Itho, the robed figure drifted from atop the carriage and gently opened the shining door. This, then, was the being who had dared to disrupt the smooth (ha!) running of Itho, and who would be the first to pay the price. An evil grin on her face and a half dozen equally pissed ogres falling in behind her, Belrotha marched on the carriage.
A march that faltered, staggered, and stopped completely as the inhabitant of the carriage finally deigned to emerge. The ground shook prodigiously as first Belrotha and then the others all dropped to their knees.
“Queen Anne!” Belrotha choked. “We sorry for not greeting you! We not know….”
“Of course you didn't,” Queen Anne replied, her voice gentle, lyrical. “How could you? Please, rise.”
Queen Anne appeared to be a normal human female, beautiful (by human standards, anyway; Belrotha didn't see it, really) despite her age. Hair as dark as her husband's, save for a few flecks of gray at the temples, formed a veil about her head and shoulders. Her piercing blue eyes were bottomless pools. A velvet green dress, flared at the waist but cinched tight above, revealed a figure that women half her age would have killed for.
Or, rather, half her apparent age. There were no women half her age, for Queen Anne had stood at Morthûl's side since before he ripped Kirol Syrreth from the hands of old King Sabryen, more than six centuries past. Rumors offered a variety of explanations for her longevity: it was a hoax, and there had been multiple Queen Annes; she was a mannequin, made to appear living via illusions and/or cleverly placed mirrors; she was a vampire, feeding off the prisoners in the dungeons beneath the Iron Keep; or (as was most commonly accepted) her aging was slowed by a combination of her husband's magics and her own.
Slowed; but even with the aid of the great Charnel King, she couldn't halt time completely. When she'd first appeared beside him, she'd seemed quite youthful, scarcely past her teens. Now, it had taken her some twenty times longer than anyone else, but Queen Anne was finally starting to grow old.
All of this—or all of it that she could remember and understand—flashed through Belrotha's mind as she rose to stand beside the velvet-garbed queen.
“Come, Belrotha,” the queen said. “I have a task for you to perform.”
The ogre frowned. “This take me away from Itho for long?” she asked, trying hard not to sound disrespectful.
Queen Anne raised a single elegant eyebrow. “Is there no one else who can lead your people for a few months?”
“Yeah,” Belrotha admitted, “but then me have to fight him when me come back.”
The queen smiled broadly. “My child, if you return from this, I promise you'll have no trouble at all resuming whatever position you wish.”
Not even Belrotha could miss the use of “if,” not “when.” But that was a good thing. Danger! Maybe battle! It had been so long since the Dark Lord's last campaign…. The ogre actually sighed in pleasure at the prospect of killing again.
“Me get to fight?” Belrotha asked suspiciously. No sense in getting too excited, just in case she'd misinterpreted.
“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed.”
The ogre grinned stupidly.
“Step inside my carriage,” the queen continued, “and I'll tell you more.”
Belrotha came to an abrupt halt, scrutinizing the ornate conveyance. Yes, it was fairly large for a carriage, but…
“Uhh…” she protested.
Queen Anne smiled gently. “Go on. It's all right.” On cue, the strange robed figure pulled the door open, bowing to Belrotha as she passed.
Still skeptical, the ogre crammed her head and shoulders through the portal, and froze once again. She actually took a moment to rub her eyes with her dirty, wrinkled knuckles.
The inside of the carriage was enormous. The room—and yes, it was actually a room—measured close to ten yards on a side, and the ceiling was high enough that Belrotha barely had to slouch. Several cushy chairs were scattered about, artfully arranged to look haphazard. Small tables stood alongside them, some of which were already topped by platters of steaming meats and huge mugs of anything and everything the ogre could have asked for. The carpet was a plush red, as were most of the cushions. All told, it was a room truly fit for royalty, and one that absolutely could not fit in the carriage.
The window adjacent to the door showed the buildings to one side of Itho's dirt road, and the window across the room showed the buildings to the other. But the road itself was only fifteen feet wide, and the room was over thirty….
Belrotha squeezed inside, staggered to the only chair that looked sturdy enough for her seven-hundred-pound bulk, and slumped into
it, holding her head and whimpering.
“You know where to take us, my pet,” Queen Anne said to Brown Robe, who still stood by the door. She caressed the side of the hood with the back of her right hand, a gesture that might've been a lover's touch or the stroking of a faithful hound. Then she climbed into the chamber, and the carriage began to move.
The room rocked softly as they left Itho behind. It didn't do anything to detract from Belrotha's discomfort.
“How?” the ogre asked plaintively.
Queen Anne smiled. “A simple matter of the bending of space around a fixed position. The magic creates a confined area in which the actual size is not limited by the restrictions or the shape of anything else around it, although the apparent size remains subject to natural laws.”
Belrotha stared, blinking, for perhaps a full minute. “Oh,” she said finally.
The queen laughed, a beautiful, musical sound. “Come, child, I believe we were about to discuss the task I need you to perform.”
Instantly, the ogre perked up. “Fighting?” she asked again hopefully.
“As I promised, Belrotha, as I promised. Tell me, have you ever served in a Demon Squad?”
Well, it was an honest mistake! Cræosh protested through the haze of pain that was the left side of his face. The damn thing's so much smaller than the last one!
None of which changed the fact that he was hanging limply in a yeti's two-fisted grip and finding it increasingly difficult to prevent the thing from popping his head off his body like a wine cork. Both his own hands pried at the fur-coated fingers, with precious little effect. His sword, which would've been really nice to have, was currently lying where the yeti had first smacked him in the face, some dozen feet away.
Where the fuck is the squad? Yeah, okay, maybe they were still finishing up with the other yeti—the big one—but there were five of them! It should not be taking this long. And if it took much longer, Cræosh would pay for his carelessness with a lot more than a bloodied face and a headache….
And then the headache grew worse, as his ears were besieged by a scream unlike any he'd heard before. Cræosh could compare it only to the simultaneous castration of an entire pack of wolves. It rose, higher, higher, long past the point where most people would have burst a lung, or at least a blood vessel. In mirror image, he and the yeti that was throttling him both turned their heads, straining to see what new, sanity-shattering horror had appeared beyond the frozen dunes.