“Thank Grog, not me,” I insisted. “He’s the one that kicked it off you. But can we maybe do this part later?” The feeding pursuer beasts were still a little too close for comfort for me.
Ferrith tried to shake his head before realizing one of his hands was still holding his face together. “Right,” he said. He brought up his other hand to his chest and squeezed it into a fist. A new ogre appeared. This one had a darker burnished sort of red skin, but no tusks or horns. Aside from its height, its body shape was nearly the opposite of Grogs. No obvious muscle tone in the arms or legs and a huge round belly, something I thought was probably related to the fact that when it appeared it was in the middle of biting into some kind of round green fruit. It looked around vacantly as it shimmered into view, chewing its fruit without a care in the world. It saw the pursuer beasts feasting on a fellow ogre and seemed either not to realize the danger it was in or to be incapable of feeling fear. I wished I could have been so care-free when I appeared in this world.
“Carry me,” Ferrith commanded the new ogre. I did a little mental math and realized that Ferrith was reaching the limit on summons he had mentioned earlier. I didn’t want to see what happened if he needed to summon anything more, but based on what he’d told me about how MP works, he’d probably pass out. The fat ogre scooped Ferrith up and plopped him down on its belly, which made for a kind of natural seat. He looked around and pointed at the dead pursuer beast. “Grog, grab that,” he commanded. Then he pointed to me. “But don’t drop him,” he added.
“How’s he supposed to carry—Hey!” I squealed as Grog tucked me under his arm, then tucked the dead carcass under his other arm. “Is this really necessary?” I asked.
“You’re free to walk on your own,” Ferrith told me coolly.
“No, that’s fine,” I quickly backpedaled. “I love being handled like luggage! Wee!” My sarcastic enthusiasm just sort of bubbled out of me like an involuntary reaction to extreme stress. It wasn’t like I had a choice about being carried, considering I was still missing things like “shoes” and “basic cardiovascular endurance”. I was squeezed against Grog’s side as he staggered a bit under the weight of his new burden, but then he did a little hop to get everything distributed right. I tried to think of what his burden would be the equivalent of for an average-sized human. I decided it would probably be like tucking a six year old child under both arms; definitely doable, but not by someone as shrimpy as me.
“Pursuer beast bones are worth a small fortune, if you want a free ride, you’ll just have to deal with the discomfort,” Ferrith explained. That shut me up. What was I going to do? Ask that he leave this fortune behind so I could be more comfortable? When he was sure Grog had both burdens firmly in hand Ferrith pointed into the woods opposite the pursuer beasts and ordered both his ogres to, “Run that way.” They did exactly as instructed.
When I say exactly I mean exactly. The ogres charged into the woods and continued forward in a straight line, knocking through underbrush with their shins and crushing small plants beneath their feet. About the only thing I was thankful for was that Grog was holding me high enough that my face wasn’t getting slapped with every thistle bush we went past. Ferrith, on the other hand, looked quite comfortable. His fat ogre had placed him on its belly, where it only had to use one hand to keep him from falling off. He almost looked like he was sitting on a comfortable bean bag chair, an effect only partially ruined by the bleeding battle scars slashing across his cheeks, and the dark circles that had returned to his eyes. Even still, I was at least a little jealous of him, since I had to strain my neck just to look up from the ground. My ride had gotten… unpleasant. Aside from getting treated like a sack of potatoes, Grog was sweating freely with the effort of carrying both myself, the dead pursuer beast, and the pack of supplies on his back. Hot, salty drops of ogre sweat kept falling on me from his hairy armpit. Yeah. It was exactly as fun as it sounded. I assumed it would take a week to get the smell off me.
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This whole trip started to clarify for me where Grog’s muscles came from: he was built like a body builder because he essentially functioned as Ferrith’s pack mule, not because he was a powerful warrior. “How will we know if there are more of those creatures coming after us?” I asked Ferrith.
“We’ll know,” Ferrith answered with certainty. “If they want to follow us, they still can. Once they get on your trail they don’t let you get away unless they want you to. That’s why they’re called pursuer beasts.”
“Then why did you bother running at all?” I asked. “If they’re just going to chase us down eventually, shouldn’t we stand our ground and fight before we tire ourselves out?” By that, of course, I meant Ferrith and Grog should stand and fight while I cheered them on from a safe distance.
“This pack might have just been hungry,” Ferrith said. “We gave them a good meal. If we get far enough away by the time they’re done, they might be too fat and happy to bother running after us. We got lucky so far, there was just that one that wasn’t in the mood to eat. If the whole pack had decided to come for us we’d be crossing Heaven’s Bridge right now… or trying to, anyway. If they haven’t come for us in another 11.34 minutes they probably won’t.”
“Hunting on a full stomach, huh?” I asked. “We’ve got stuff that does that back on Earth.” I thought of my cat back home. I’d caught her torturing birds and field mice a few times even though I know she never missed a meal. Now I knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of that sort of sadistic hunting instinct.
“Cursed creatures, aren’t they?” Ferrith said. “Sometimes they can’t help themselves. They’ll get a kill just because it was nearby, then leave it for the harpies to clean up.” Ferrith shifted on his ogre’s belly to look back over its shoulder. “Looks like we gave them enough to eat for now, but we’ll still want to get as far from their territory as we can before we stop, just to be safe.”
I craned my head around Grog’s bulging biceps to take a look myself. It was just empty forest behind us, though a child could probably follow the trail the ogres were leaving behind. “I don’t see any more of them either,” I reported. Ferrith didn’t say anything back. I looked over and found his head bobbing down against his chest. “Hey, are you going to be okay? You’re not too injured, are you?”
Ferrith’s head popped up, eyes blinking back open. “I’m fine,” he assured me, “just tired.” I wasn’t sure how much I believed that considering at least one of the wounds on his left cheek was showing bone, but it also seemed to have stopped bleeding on its own, so it probably wasn’t going to kill him. He was tougher than I would have assumed to not complain about such severe injuries. “I used a lot of magic,” Ferrith explained after a pause, “but I’ll try to stay awake until this evening. I can probably summon one more ogre if I have to.”
“Well, good,” I said. “I have no idea where we’re going and I don’t think Grog will do what I say if you pass out.”
Either Ferrith was more injured than he was letting on or he just didn’t try all that hard to stay awake because inside thirty seconds his head dropped back down against his chest. I decided to let him sleep for the time being. I could always wake him up if another of those beasts came after us. Without further direction the ogres both just kept running straight forward, knocking bushes and branches out of their way. I tried to keep looking out for trouble so I could wake Ferrith, but my neck got sore just trying it. I finally had to let my head sag down and allow the terrain to pass by beneath me. No sounds of approach or creepy baby crying alerted me to any pursuers. An indeterminate amount of time passed like that. It might have been three hours, possibly twice that. I wasn’t good at tracking time without a phone. The rhythm of Grog’s steps lulled me into something of a daze, though my mind was buzzing with too much energy to actually sleep. I was surprised when that rhythm was interrupted by a sudden feeling of cold water on my face.
“Ahh!” I screamed.
“Wha? Where are we?” Ferrith demanded in a bleary voice.