Chapter 14: Beginning To Blend Part 3
Lester bit the hand on his shoulder.
If you have ever been bitten or the biter, there is a moment when teeth press into the flesh. At that moment, the dull crushers of a human or the sharper bone knives of an animal designed to eat meat meet the bones under the skin. Just before the skin is broken, the victim usually pulls away, and the enamel-covered tools of destruction scrape for a brief period before the tasty treat is withdrawn from easy reach. This is how it usually goes with an extremity being the object of aggressive nibbling.
As a magical creature capable of altering aspects of his body through magic and a sometimes effective predator, he was familiar with how a biting should proceed. A cry of pain and the object of mastication is yanked away to stop the pain. There is screaming and, depending on how effective the bite was combined with its location, sometimes quite a lot of blood.
None of this happened after sharpening his teeth reflexively on instinct and turning his head to deliver what he felt was a mighty chomp.
Lester found himself gnawing upon a brown, leathery hand with extra knuckles compared to a human’s. His sharpened teeth barely dimpled the skin. He felt another rough hand gently stroking his head and heard the tumbled stones of a rough voice.
“Easy, little one. It’s alright. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He looked up the hand, past the equally dark-colored and furry arm, to a baby ogre who smiled down at him with much larger teeth than his own. He slowed his frantic gnawing. The ogre, really a runt compared to even the young ones his family had tended to avoid in the past, widened its smile and took its hand off Lester’s shoulder while continuing to pet him.
“That’s better. Sorry again for startling you. Isn’t this nice?”
Lester mutely stared. The man-sized baby monster wore a leather loincloth and a loose-fitting silver collar about its neck. Whip scars could be seen running down the arms, thin white lines crisscrossing and marring the fur.
A human in livery that Lester assumed was that of the capital was rushing toward their group. A length of leather uncoiled from one hand as he ran toward the pair of monsters. The whip was glowing, Lester noted.
“Oi! I said what are you on about Jombe?!”
The ogre flinched as a loud crack split the air. He shied away from Lester and began cowering. Lester heard some soldiers behind him draw their swords and shout as they advanced on the threatening beast suddenly appearing and accosting the boy they had been charged to protect. The hesitation having been drilled out of them by their superiors, three men attacked the ogre, swords flashing down in a wicked arc toward the monster to thunk with a hollow sound against its skin. The men looked stunned that sharpened steel was not rewarded with a dying foe.
The liveried man with the whip started laughing at the expressions of the mighty soldiers of Red Adder County, missing his next swing at the ogre as he started laughing. He coiled his whip and clapped a hand on the shoulder of the ogre, who had straightened from his cower and was now giggling. The monster spoke through its giggles,
“That tickled, Bart. Is it playtime again?”
The soldiers backed away at the glee they heard in the monster’s voice. Swords were meant to slay their enemies, not give them a tickle. One of the corporals from the escort came over warily to the scene with Private Johansen in tow. The senior enlisted man of the group stepped forward and drew Lester behind him, away from danger.
The uniformed man, Bart, shook his head at the ogre,
“No, Jombe, your shift at the petting zoo isn’t until tomorrow morning. We have to finish checking the maintenance on this western wall today.”
The ogre looked dejected at the news but nodded his head quickly after glancing at Bart’s whip. Bart turned to the group of soldiers with their swords still out.
“Them are mighty nice pigstickers, but a feller like Jombe barely feels anything without a decent level of enchantment to it. Put em’ away, boys.”
The soldiers looked to Corporal Smythe for confirmation. He nodded to the soldiers who followed the suggestion. Smythe looked at the ogre, who had returned to the wall with another group of monsters overseen by three more men with whips attached to their belts. One of the largest had a large two-handed sword with fancy filigree stuck in the ground beside him. He started to frown at the mistreatment of the weapon but ignored the sight and spoke to the man Bart as he started to follow his charge,
“Where can we requisition some enchanted weaponry while we’re in town? If monsters like that are common, we may need to defend our charges.”
Smythe had been joined by the two other senior NCOs, who both frowned as Bart started laughing at the question. He called out to one of his comrades overseeing the monster detail.
“Oi! Franklyn! This group of bumpkins wants to get their hands on some chanted weapons! Says they might need them to defend their charges!”
The group of men with whips started to guffaw at the call. The man with the giant sword stuck in the ground beside him smiled and patted his sword possessively.
Lester was starting to get annoyed at being shielded by the human in front of him and the repeated use of the exclamation by the man with the whip. He sidled to one side of the senior soldiers standing before him to see better.
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Bart wasn’t done ridiculing the soldiers but decided to be a little more lenient and give them some free information. Fewer problems from yokels sightseeing meant a smoother day for his cousin in enforcement, after all.
“Only chanted weapons allowed inside the city are approved by the mages guild. No merchant who wants to keep their license will sell to anyone inside city limits. And enforcement handles any issues with the mobs.”
Lester heard the man’s words but was more focused on the work gang of fellow monsters milling about to one side of the gate. It was an eclectic mix.
A humanoid mushroom was the largest of the group, towering over the mobs around it. A group of werewolves were digging at the base of the wall. Some goblins were standing with what looked like mop buckets, complete with mop handles sticking out by a wagon near the back of the group. The wagon was hitched to a pair of gryphons hitched to a wagon at the rear of the formation. On the back of the wagon were two cages. The larger cage contained a manticore who was napping in the day’s sunlight.
The smaller cage of bad-girs was at the wagon’s rear, and Lester felt a small satisfaction that those bastards were caged. It was short-lived as he spied yet more silver collars.
Several pixies were zipping amongst all the monsters visible in the work detail, sprinkling dust behind them on occasion as they flew over their fellow monsters.
Wherever the dust fell, a monster with a disgruntled expression had it smoothed, and a blank expression replaced the disgrunttlement. Watching the scene, Lester felt his anger growing at the site of every one of the monsters wearing that loose-fitting silver collar.
Bart caught him looking at the group and misinterpreted his attention.
“Not to worry, lad. Them collars might be less effective outside the city, but that’s what we’re here for. They’ll not get loose. And don’t worry about Jombe. He may look scary with them teeth, but he’s a big softy. We wouldn’t let him play with them noble brats at the petting zoo otherwise. Gods know we can’t have the great and powerful snots be in any real danger.”
The ogre had retrieved something long and metallic-looking from the wagon and approached the wall near the gate. Bart looked over as the monster lifted the device in his furry arms and pressed it to the wall. His eyes widened.
To Lester, it looked like a gigantic metal wand with runes covering its length. It was too slender to be a staff. Sparks of energy were gathering as its tip pressed to the wall. Bart ignored everyone he had been chatting with and sprinted for the ogre,
“Jombe, No! Franklyn! Stop him!”
Smythe spoke to Lester,
“Stay here, lad. Let’s lend a hand, boys.”
The other Corporals looked at each other with the briefest of silent communications. Any military man or woman of experience would be able to tell what they had said to one another at that moment,
“Is this guy fucking serious? How are we supposed to help? We don’t know what the fuck is going on.”
Like good NCOs, they ignored common sense or the portrayal of not knowing what was happening and charged gamely behind their senior, and he’d end up responsible anyway. Lester followed, ignoring what he viewed as advice from Coporal Smythe. The group of soldiers waiting behind their bosses carefully did not follow. To the credit of a few of them, some followed after the boy to snatch him from danger they didn’t know the specifics of.
Farmer Jenkins was at the forefront of the group, swearing at the boy to get back. He was just a farmer, but he couldn’t let a boy face whatever this was.
The man Franklyn had snatched his sword from its place, stabbed into the ground beside him, and was rushing toward Jombe the ogre. The sparks from the gigantic metal wand had stopped, but a pattern of glyphs spread up the wall from the point it contacted. He screamed as he charged,
“Jombe! Present, head!”
The ogre’s face went from smiling to a rictus of pain as sharp jolts of lightning sparked from the collar and ran down his body. He struggled obviously as an unseen force lifted his chin, and fear entered his eyes. The monster gritted his teeth and yelled through the pain in a panicky voice.
“I’m helping! Playtime comes sooner if we get done sooner!”
The pixies were blurred as they zipped faster, spreading their calming dust throughout the crowd of monsters in a rush. The dust settling over the group caused a stillness to spread quickly among them. As calm as the monsters were, the humans nearby were growing aware of the impending disaster.
The flow of humans entering the city started to cry out as the glyphs spread farther up the walls near the gate. Several screams of terror were heard as Franklyn rushed toward Jombe.
Bart called out as he ran,
“The wand, Franklyn! Aim for the wand!”
Franklyn did not hear or chose not to as he launched himself the last few feet toward the ogre who had presented his neck. The beast appeared to be trying to tug the lance of a wand away from the wall.
Franklyn’s sword arced through the air as tendrils of a dirty yellow light started to emanate from the glyphs shining down from the wall, reaching for the ogre.
Now blazing with runes down its length, the sword slashed through Jombe’s neck with only slight resistance as Franklyn cut through the spine of the ogre. Jombe’s head fell to the ground.
Lester, the corporals just behind Bart, and the soldiers trying to catch Lester stopped running. Bart turned away from running toward Jombe and toward the wagon. Glyphs of unknown complexity now covered as much of the wall as anyone could see to the left of the gate. Oddly, a clear line leading from the tip of the gate straight up was devoid of glyphs on the right side.
The sea of humanity waiting patiently to enter the gates had split, half running away from the city with a more significant portion jamming themselves into a mess at the gate, trying to escape whatever was happening.
Lester hadn’t heard this much screaming from humans since his first settlement had been destroyed. He nervously looked around for any errant fire mages.
Not seeing any mages in his immediate vicinity casting a spell to burn him to cinders, he focused back on the emergency unfolding before him.
Lester didn’t understand it either and was flabbergasted where he stood staring at the long, dirty yellow tendrils of…something extruding from the glyphs. Magic didn’t have a personality in his experience.
His senses told him the undulating tendrils were magic, but he had not experienced any magic that was….hungry. An element's flavor was often easily recognizable, but he felt this unsettling emotion of need from it.
He felt the tendrils gain a sense of focus. Of purpose. The tips of hundreds of the dirty yellow tentacles oriented toward him and sharpened their tips into spears.