War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy by D.S. Halyard

Author:D.S. Halyard [Halyard, D.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-03T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 62: Muharl Ogre Territory, Late Summer on the Western Plain

Soulripper stared at the ogre bound to the stake and spat. “So, Grimknife, you wanted to go and join the pretender, did you? You sneaking little gophershite.” He spoke loudly, almost yelling, for he wanted the great host of ogres gathered around and looking on to hear him clearly. When Soulripper spoke, all of them went silent, for he was walking around with his skull-stick, the terrible blacksteel club with the poisonous bite that was wrought in the shape of an enormous human skull. He wore black iron chainmail, bound about his waist with a broad white fur-covered belt, made from the hide of a great white bear. His cloak was made of the pelts of several ogres he had put down to retain his position at the top of the Iron Bridge Band.

“I never did.” Grimknife pleaded. “I only made talk of it.” They were gathered on a broad and open plain, at the far south of the Iron Bridge Band’s territory, almost into the Open Waste. It was a place that had seen many battles between the mighty Iron Bridge Band and the nomadic hordes, but tonight it was under the peace of parley.

“Dangerous talk, gophershite. Dead ogre talk.” Soulripper said, then he turned to the host that had gathered at his summons, over two hundred hands of his grim and most dangerous warriors. Around them stood or squatted a host of others from many different places. It was a gathering the likes of which had not been seen in the ogre lands for hundreds of years, and large bodies stretched into the night as far as he could see on the open plain. “Let me show you what happens to them as thinks of joining this upstart pretend king, my boyos!” Then he dropped a torch into the piled wood at the base of the pole. The tinder caught, then the larger logs, and then Grimknife started screaming. It took the gophershite a long time to die, for the wind was blowing steady beneath a yellow death’s head moon, and the smoke blew away. Grimknife didn’t suffocate, but he burned, and he burned long and slow. Ogres aren’t made to pass out with pain, but they are made to suffer, and Grimknife surely did.

The stink of his burning was like a slow cooked pig, and it made Soulripper hungry, not that he would have admitted it. Ogres didn’t eat their own kind, at least not where any others could see. Well, except for those bastards from the wastelands.

Ironspike, looking dangerous with his spiked armor made from the hide of ogres and his heavy iron pick, nodded with approval from his position to the left of Soulripper. The Spike had come down from the Winter Mountains, leading a hundred hands of his own brutal boyos, tall, club-wielding giants clad in thick fur. It was always cold in the Winter Mountains, as cold as death.

To his right stood Fargikiller, with his helmet in the shape of a dragon’s skull.

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