Traveling along the Shelteburgh-Dangwar Trail towards Belegost and following the path taken by the red-cloaks' wagon, the party is surviving the beautiful Autumn weather in the mountains quite comfortably by allowing time for fishing, hunting, and foraging for food while the dwarf digs and builds a temporary hovel and camp for each night. The food has improved somewhat from the boiled fare aboard the Mother. Llwyd has been learning to fish by trial and error and manages to catch some trout and crayfish in the nearby river Shelte and various tributaries. Alain has kept in practice with his crossbow by hunting elk, squirel, and quail. Mariam is quite a skilled cook and prepares these with various tubers and wild leeks each meal.
During the nights there are watches taken by each person. Llwyd, being the party animal he is and wanting uninterrupted sleep takes the first quarter watch, Mariam is awoken from her after dinner nap so she can manage the second quarter watch, Alain being used to a military life is content with a midnight watch with the stars to accompany his meditations, and Ryde being an early riser takes the graveyard shift while setting up the morning breakfast fire pit. It is one night during this last watch that Ryde hears a shout. A low, gutteral howl that echoes off the walls of the valleys from one of the vales below. Ryde takes to wearing his helmet more often and advises the others to be cautious and alert as they approach the saddle of the nearby mountain and the pass. There are some elk tracks on the trail and Alain surprises a buck and doe, getting a shot off at the latter so as to provide several days worth of smoked and dried victuals. Ryde hastens to tell the group that the sound he heard on his watch was not that of an elk mating call, but something more sinister.
On the next day our quartet of travelers come upon some remains. They are the remains of a long wagon, each plank rent and splintered. Splintered also are the bones of some people and horses. Here a skull, there the spinal cord, the tip of a thumb underneath the wreckage and not much more. Each has been gnawed and chewed and left scattered. There are a pair of tracks. One is the short stride of a dwarf running uphill into the trees. The other tracks pursue, the tracks of an ogre.
Here is what Ryde tells of ogres and their ilk as he helps Alain fix a point onto the end of a 10ft lancet.
THE TAXONOMY OF AN OGRE
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| Dave Choat |
"Y'see that pile of rocks and brush? See that big one on top at about 9 feet high? That would be its head, and that other boulder would be one of its shoulders and that gnarled fallen log over there an arm and that one like its leg. Strong too, amazingly strong. Well, yeah, if it was hiding in the forest like this you would probably step on it before you saw it. No that isn't one and they aren't really made of wood and stone and neither am I, and I'll thank you very kindly not to compare me with an ogre. They are, perhaps, the nastiest, smelliest, meanest, and almost the stupidest creatures I've ever had the bad fortune to come across. Orcs or kobolds would be a relief. Armiger is a sweet-tempered creature in comparison, which reminds me, they're fast, it can outrun a horse. To be cornered by it amongst the trees would be to die and be eaten."
There is a choice to be made. One path leads North into a denser forest, but the direct way to Belegost is East along the mountain pass where it may be possible for Alain to get his warhorse Armiger up to a good charging speed. East it is, and along the pass they traveled, hoping that the ogre would have better things to do in the forest. To slow pusuit, some quail stuffed with poisonous mushrooms are left on the trail, assuredly eaten as ogres are wont to be hungry all the time. Unwilling to be caught by surprise like the wagon, sleep is traded for distance and the party travels through the night and the first snow of the season. Although pretty, it is dangerous, for it makes a large group of tasty horses gaurded by a few tiny people easy to follow when the sounds of heavy breathing shatter the silence of the snowfall with the ogre recognizing the scent and giving excited chase. The sound "HeeEE!!!" echoes hauntingly off the mountainsides. A plan is formed and after some more weary traveling we find the place where we will make our stand. A wider section of the pass about 30 feet in distance that curves slightly to the right around the side of the mountain, Alain awaiting at the far end with Armiger, Ryde invisibly hidden at the corner to give the signal, and Mariam and Llwyd up the slope amongst the rocks and trees with a sling and a crossbow. The ogre approaches, the ogre arrives.
It is as large and ugly as promised, and horrifyingly more so with a head disproportionately huge for its unclad greyish body and a gait that swings unevenly as if all the joints were made to oppose each other without the intention of bending. It carries a largish axe type of weapon and holds it in a single knobby fist. It opens a mouth which would seem to split the enormous and mishapen skull into two halves revealing a row of sharply pointed teeth from one twisted lump of ear to the next. Then it roars.
THE BATTLE
It sniffs the air and roars, finding the scent but seeing nothing with its poor eyesight. Ryde gives the signal for Alain to start his charge and appears for an instant uttering "Ancalamar!" before disappearing again to advance on the beast, but this gives the ogre a target and it roars again, louder and coarser than before, sending a chill through gentler hearts and a tremble through the surrounding trees. A stone is slung, skittering wildly into the brush somewhere. A crossbow bolt is loosed, finding its mark in a nearby tree. Armiger charges onward, the horse unfaltering and steady in its purpose despite the howling figure looming before it. Alain has his lance at the ready and aims high. He strikes true, the point driving against the woodsy hide of the creature and bending the greenwood shaft until it finds its home within the breast of the loathsome thing and shatters the haft as Alain rides by. As he passes the ogre swings, striking Alain's shield mightily with the halberd and rending it to pieces, only afterward noticing the wood shaft sticking out of its black heart. Now Ryde reaches the beast as it still stands unaware and looking dumbly at its wound. A worthy swing takes much of its scarred trunk of a leg away and it falls.
AFTERMATH
Unfortunately, the best plans and actions sometimes have dire consequences. As the beast falls it leans towards the direction of its broken leg, and Ryde is not quick enough. Ogres are heavy and this one falls hard on top of the dwarf, knocking the wind out of Ryde's lungs and bruising his ribs as he lies trapped under the ogre's legs. Ryde regains his breath, but does not manage to push his way from beneath its legs before the ogre looses the remains of quail and mushrooms from his poisoned bowels on the already disgusted dwarf. Alain, though seemingly uninjured, no longer has his shield and there is a rent in the mesh of his chainmail where his arm is still numb from the ogre's blow. Llwyd must now consider what sort of trophy part would help to tell this tale of heroism and have it believed. Mariam attends to those wounds gained by our heroes and frets only a little now at the health and safety of her traveling companions, relieved that no worse had happened. It is time for mending and much cleaning as Ryde tries to rid himself of the stench and ichor he is now covered with and considers those tracks left in the snow...
Ryde, scraping some steaming black and feculent Ogre shit off his hauberk, paused. Holding a dung-smeared fir branch in one gauntleted hand, he seemed transfixed by something on the snow-covered path there. He bent over, tentatively tracing the outline of one of the deep, irregular Ogre footprints. A pale, ropey maggot fell off the bough, squirming into the skim of snow on the churned ground.
Alain paused from his efforts at retrieving his lance head, sending a questioning glance Ryde's way.
Ryde looked up, his normally cold-reddened face as pale as a dish of boiled oats. His eyes were dark commas as his lips worked to get out a sound. He cleared his throat and spat.
"This isn't the same Ogre as the the one before," he husked. "The tracks, the cursed tracks don't match."
Alain stared back wordlessly, hearing Llwyd and Mariam talking and harnessing the horses back in the trees. He turned and looked back toward the pass. Armiger's ears swiveled with him.
Somewhere on the back of the ridge, a wolf howled.
The trees seemed to creep a little closer, and the mountainside was just a little more desolate.
Oh axe and halberd. (says Sean)Sunova-BITCH! If the other is a female and his mate, then she will not only be pissed, but ogresses tend to be stronger and meaner and if possible uglier. Why couldn't it just be ice weasels...?