Anderson, Kevin J - Gamearth 01 (3 page)

But as far as Vailret was concerned, the Air Stone might as well be just another diamond. Without Sorcerer blood, he could not use the magic.

Bryl never worked at his abilities, nor did he know much about the background of his race. Vailret spent all his time staring at the legends, trying to uncover the reasons, straining his mind to be worthy, all in vain.

He gritted his teeth.

Delrael tugged on Vailret's arm, pointing at a red cloaked and dripping figure strung by his feet to a branch of an overhanging cypress. Vailret saw no signs of life in the half-Sorcerer's wet and grayish skin.

Gairoth pulled another appendage from the carcass, making a sucking pop as it separated from the rest of the meat. The ogre licked his lips and slurped oozing flesh off the bone. "Ahhh, aged perfect!" Gairoth sucked the last of the juices from the bone. Rognoth sat, entranced with his master's meal.

"Time for us to split up," Delrael whispered.

Vailret nodded. "Luck."

"Luck. We'll get the job done." Delrael left his cousin where he was and slipped off into the forest.

Delrael drew a deep breath, heady from the adventure. Vailret's plan buzzed through his head
¯
everything seemed perfectly clear in his mind. Ah, it made him feel alive again, not stagnating in the interminable training classes that kept all the fighters in practice. The Outsiders had done little in years to make life interesting.

In the clearing, the ogre tossed a thick bone to Rognoth. The dragon snapped it up, cracking the bone open with a yellowed fang and spilling the runny marrow down his throat.

Delrael took five deep breaths, closing his eyes and coiling his muscles.
Ready, ready, ready
¯
wish me luck. This was what the Game was all about. With a grin on his mud-spattered face, he stood up and strode into the ogre's camp.

Rognoth let the bone fall from his mouth, snorting menacing clouds of smoke. His chain clanked as he took one step forward. With the instincts of a fighter, Delrael assessed how long it took for Gairoth's reflexes to react.

The ogre dropped his meat and scrabbled for the club.

The man paid them no heed as he swaggered into the clearing, whistling to himself. He sat down and faced the astonished expressions of both the ogre and the dragon. "Howdy, neighbors."

Taken aback, Gairoth rubbed his thumb on the wood of his club and took one step forward. "What you be?"

"What you mean?" Delrael blinked his eyes innocently. He lowered his voice, speaking with a gruff and thick-lipped accent.

"Be you
human
?" The ogre's face brightened for an instant, then he frowned again. "You plenty bigger than him." He jerked his thumb over to waterlogged Bryl hanging from the tree.

Delrael laughed. "Naw
¯
me not be human. Me be
ogre
, like you be."

He smiled broadly, knowing Gairoth could never have seen his own reflection in the scum-covered cesspools. He held his impulses in check
¯
his arms wanted to grab for the sword, lunge forward and hack at the ogre. But he knew his uncle Cayon had failed, and if a fighter like Cayon had not been able to defeat an ogre with his strength, then Delrael had little chance.

Gairoth looked down at his dirty furs, brushing off cakes of dried mud.

He scratched his scalp as he glared at the young man's own mud-stained clothes, the leather armor. Gairoth's mouth hung open as if he were going to say something but hadn't found the words yet. Delrael beat him to it.

"Gairoth's furs better than mine be. Me bonked another human, took his clothes. But don't worry. Me ogre too."

The ogre blinked his eyes. "Uh..."

Delrael jabbed a finger at himself. "Me be in swamp all these years.

Never bothered to say Howdy! Watched you long time, though, Gairoth. Uh, I be
¯
" (Gairoth, Rognoth ... what's in a name?) "Delroth."

The ogre hadn't moved or relaxed his grip on the club. "How come you
talk
, Delroth?"

Delrael paused a moment. "Huh?"

"You be no ogre
¯
you talk!"

"Ha!" Delrael felt a cold sweat. "You talk, Gairoth. You be ogre. How come you talk?" Judging from the monster's expression, Delrael saw he had struck a point of pride.

"Gairoth be an
in-tell-ee-gent
ogre. My Paw was Sorcerer, but he dead now. Paw give Gairoth smarts
¯
Maw give Gairoth muscles!"

To emphasize his statement, he bashed his club against the dirt.

The stench from the rancid meat made Delrael feel queasy. Vailret had told him once how, near the end of their centuries-long wars, the desperate and dying Sorcerers had interbred with humans, whom they had created, to restore the strength of their race
¯
but Delrael had no idea the Sorcerers had been driven to breed with their other creations, especially something so foul and ugly as a female ogre!

But the laws of probability allowed even the most unlikely dice rolls, given enough turns.

Delrael forced a yawn, trying to appear at ease. He looked at the grayish form of Bryl, hanging from the nearby tree. "What that be, Gairoth?

Dessert?"

The ogre spoke around a dripping mouthful of meat. "Naw
¯
he be Sorcerer, too. He teach Gairoth how to use magic Stone." With his elbow, he indicated the gleaming diamond in the tiny skull's eye. Delrael saw the diamond and decided that it must be the Air Stone Vailret had gotten so excited about. He looked back at the half-Sorcerer.

"He be dead?" Delrael brushed a fly away from his face.

"Naw. He be awake soon enough."

"You feeds him to the thing in the cesspool? What for?"

The ogre shrugged. "Keeps him from running away. And makes him skeered of Gairoth."

"Thing don't hurt him? Just hold him there?"

Gairoth reached for his club again. "Questions! Talk!" He spat.

Delrael spread his hands. "Gairoth be
in-tell-ee-gent
ogre. You gots answers."

That did the trick. "Aaahhh. I dips him into a pitcher plant afore I feeds him to that thing. Jellyfish can't digest him then."

Delrael rubbed his hands together. "Real smart. Haw, haw!"

Vailret crouched in the underbrush as close to the half-Sorcerer as he dared to go. The hanging form of Bryl stirred, but Vailret couldn't risk making a move just yet. He wished Delrael would hurry up. He wanted to go home.

"So, Gairoth," Delrael leaned forward and lowered his voice. "How you keep treasure pile safe? I be scared someone steal mine. Humans, adventurers, quests
¯
you know how the Game be. I works my fingers to the bone to get jewels, then can't never leave my camp. Afraid treasure might get stole."

Hidden in the underbrush, Vailret squirmed and motioned for his cousin to hurry. Delrael didn't notice him.

"Hey, you wants to see my treasure?" Delrael smiled, open and friendly.

"Promise not to steal it? I gots no guards. But I trust Gairoth. You be good neighbor."

Even from his distant viewpoint, Vailret thought he could see the gleam in the ogre's eye. Soon ... soon.

Gairoth stood up, ready to follow Delrael. Then, to Vailret's dismay, the ogre turned around and plucked the skull with the Air Stone from his dwelling. "Now we go."

No! I wanted the Stone!
Vailret shouted in his mind.

Delrael looked at the pyramid-shaped diamond swallowed up in the ogre's hand and flicked a glance toward where Vailret hid. Vailret noticed his cousin heave a sigh as he motioned Gairoth to follow him into the swamp. The dragon bounded along, eager.

When the trees blocked them from sight, Vailret emerged from his hiding place, holding a hand to his stiff back. Flies buzzed around his head.

He cautiously went to where the half-Sorcerer hung dripping.

Greenish-brown water puddled in the dirt below him. Bryl seemed to be regaining his consciousness and vitality, but too slowly to help. According to the Rules, he would take about a half-day to recover completely. Vailret scowled, knowing he'd have to carry the half-Sorcerer on his back. Bryl's red cloak and scraggly gray hair reeked like the loathsome cesspools, and the smell would soak into Vailret's jerkin.

He grumbled at the invisible Outsiders, knowing they would never listen. "Why don't you go play a game of hexagon-chess? Why don't you make me a magic user? Why can't you entertain yourselves and leave us alone?"

Vailret withdrew his knife and cut the rope, catching Bryl as he fell.

He hiked the half-Sorcerer across his shoulder blades and stooped as he scuttled forward. Delrael was the one who had the strength score for this type of work, but he was preoccupied at the moment. Bryl stirred, and the smell of spoiled-everything rose into the air.

Vailret sighed. It was nearly over
¯
all the Game adventures had become tedious. Predictable. Vailret would rather be finishing his history of Gamearth
¯
not stuck with these frivolous, familiar quests the Outsiders played all the time.

Grunting with the effort, he shifted Bryl's bony body to a more comfortable position, then moved away from Gairoth's encampment toward the cesspool.

"It be gone!" Delrael wailed. "Stole!"

Rognoth nearly collapsed after the wild-goose chase the man had led through the swamp, circling back and forth, getting even the ogre hopelessly lost. But Delrael's tracker-sense would not let him get confused.

Delrael stared at the clearing they had stumbled upon, pointing an accusatory finger. He gaped at the ogre, incredulous. "Gold, gems
¯
right here! All be gone! Someone stole it!" He switched his own dismayed expression for one of horror. "Oh, no! You be next, Gairoth! Hurry!"

The ogre looked as if he grasped what was going on. "Come on, Rognoth!"

Gairoth smacked the dragon with the end of his club. "We gots to get home!"

Delrael crossed his fingers, hoping Vailret had done his part.

Everything seemed to be going well,
too well
for a Game adventure, and he wondered how long the Outsiders would keep making dice rolls in his favor.

He sprinted after the alarmed ogre.

Vailret slogged through the swamp, stumbling with the added weight of the unconscious half-Sorcerer. Bryl hung like a half-full sack of wet flour on his shoulders, and Vailret's muscles felt as if they wanted to snap. Most of all he ached for not being able to grab the Air Stone. Why had Gairoth taken it? Damned monster! Why hadn't Bryl managed to get it somehow? And the worst insult of all was that Gairoth
¯
Gairoth!
¯
had Sorcerer blood in him and could use the magic inside the diamond. It seemed ridiculously arbitrary.

The heavy stench made the air difficult to breathe near the cesspool.

Vailret's eyes stung. He found a weed-sheltered place where he could set the half-Sorcerer down. The cesspool seemed quiet now, waiting.

Vailret peeled off Bryl's sopping scarlet cloak. He removed a blanket from his pack and tossed it on top of the half-Sorcerer.

Bryl snored softly.

In the background of the swamp he could hear Gairoth bellowing. The insect songs fell silent for a moment, then continued.

Vailret crumpled the soggy cloak into a ball before tossing it onto the scum of the pool. Then he sat back to watch the tentacled thing rise to the surface, waving its whiplike appendages and curling around the scarlet fabric.

The creature pulled the cloak beneath the scum, like new prey.

Lurching forward as fast as he could, Gairoth reached his camp and smashed the spiked club against a tree trunk. He roared a battle cry that made the air vibrate, holding high the skull with the Air Stone. Rognoth lunged to the end of his chain, snarling.

But they found no one to fight.

Rognoth blinked his eyes. Gairoth came to a full stop, confused. "Haw!

We skeered 'em off! They gots none of my treasure! Haw!" Gairoth mopped his brow.

Breathless, Delrael reached the camp and flashed a glance to the trees.

He saw the damp patch on the ground where cesspool water had dribbled from Bryl's cloak, but the half-Sorcerer was gone.

Rognoth raised his scaly nose in the air, looking around with runny yellow eyes. When he saw the spot where Bryl had been, he snorted clouds of black, oily smoke.

"Shut up, stupid dragon! Nothing be there!" Gairoth snatched up a bone from the ground and bounced it off Rognoth's head.

"Gairoth, they gots your magic man!" Delrael pointed to the severed rope hanging from the cypress branch.

The ogre let his mouth drop open. Rognoth leaped to his feet, but the chain strangled him and he wheezed. Gairoth turned around in circles, looking for someone to hit with his club.