Kurthak glowered down at the three remaining officers, who trembled as they, in turn, regarded Prakun’s unmoving corpse. He smiled, his teeth gleaming sickly yellow in the shadows.
“The rest of you can go,” he said.
There was a moment of shocked silence as the assembled ogres looked at one another incredulously. When Tragor stepped forward and cut the remaining officers’ bonds, however, the onlookers’ disbelief quickly gave way to outrage. Fists waved in the air, and angry oaths rang out in the night. Many of the ogres had come to witness their warlord’s judgment, simply for the chance to see blood spilled; denied the slaughter they had expected, they quickly became furious.
“Silence!” barked Tragor, brandishing his sword in the air. “Be still, or you’ll taste what you crave!”
Reluctantly, the throng settled down. Angry eyes turned toward the boulder where the Black-Gazer stood.
Kurthak smiled, his eyes glinting, and gestured at the stunned officers who still knelt before him. They were staring at each other in amazement and dread, not understanding what was going on.
“You three,” Kurthak declared, “shall receive no punishment for your failure. You shall continue to serve me, just as you did before, and none here shall be allowed to harm you. But fail me again, and I will make sure you wish you had died tonight.”
“Y-yes, my lord,” one of the officers said in a small voice. The other two simply stared, their mouths hanging slightly open.
Kurthak folded his arms across his broad chest. “Go, then,” he growled. “Return to your warriors at once.”
The officers quickly scrambled to their feet, their faces deathly pale, and hurried away. The onlooking ogres tarried a moment, then began to disperse, shambling away into the gloom. They muttered to one another as they went, pondering their lord’s judgment.
Tragor remained, wiping his sword’s blood-caked blade with a tattered skin. He did not look at Kurthak as the warlord climbed down from his boulder.
“You have not asked me yet,” Kurthak said, “why I do this.”
For a long moment, Tragor silently continued to clean his weapon. Then he nodded and looked at Kurthak through narrow eyes. “I know you, my lord,” he said. “You’ll tell me, if you wish me to know.” He returned to polishing the blade.
“I will explain,” Kurthak said. He leaned back against the rock face, eyes glittering with reflected starlight. “What do you think those three will be thinking the next time we attack the kender? I have killed their comrades before their eyes, and threatened to do the same to them if they displease me. They will fight harder now that they fear my wrath.”
Tragor considered this. “What if they don’t?” he asked. “What if this… mercy makes them soft?”
“It will not,” Kurthak asserted. He lifted his chin confidently.
“Maybe not,” Tragor allowed, not fully convinced. “But what if-”
Suddenly he stopped speaking, sniffing the air. A new smell had risen amid the other stenches that hung about them. There was a strange sweetness to it, marking it as different from the sour odor of ogre sweat.
“Kender?” Kurthak asked, scenting it too.
Tragor sniffed again, then shook his head. “Human.”
“Human!” Kurthak exclaimed. He glanced at the shadows, even more alert than before. “How close?”
“Close enough,” said a voice.
Tragor whirled, his sword coming up reflexively. Kurthak reached for his spiked club. The two of them watched the edges of the firelight, nostrils flared as they tried to pinpoint the voice’s source.
“You will not need your weapons,” the voice continued. It was soft and sibilant, low but not deep. A woman’s voice. “I have not come to do you ill.”
“Show yourself, then,” Tragor demanded, not lowering his sword.
Soft, mocking laughter filled the air, making the ogres’ skin prickle. “Very well,” the voice said.
She was closer than Kurthak and Tragor expected, stepping out of the gloom fewer than twenty paces away. She wore a deep, black cloak, its hood pulled up to obscure her face. She strode forward, opening her black-gloved hands to show that they were empty.
“Stop,” Tragor said, brandishing his sword and moving to bar the woman’s path.
She ignored him, continuing to walk toward the two ogres.
“I said, stop!” Tragor repeated, his voice rising with fury. The broad, gleaming blade wavered in his hands “Come no closer, or-”
“Call off this yapping dog, Black-Gazer,” the woman interrupted, her voice laden with frost. “I would speak with you, and will come as close as I like to do it.”
“Impudent wretch!” Tragor barked. He leapt forward, swinging his sword in a blow meant to split the robed woman in two, across the shoulders.
She moved with amazing speed, diving and rolling under Tragor’s flashing blade. Before the champion could arrest the blow, she leapt at him, her fists swinging.
The blows-first her left hand, then her right-struck Tragor square in the stomach, below his metal breastplate. The ogre doubled over, making a high-pitched, wheezing noise, and the woman’s black-booted foot came up suddenly, catching him full in the face. There was a wet crunch as the kick broke Tragor’s nose, then the champion fell back, his face blossoming with blood. Tragor staggered, trying to keep his footing, but the woman spun, her foot lashing out again and connecting solidly with his groin. He sank to his knees, sobbing, and she seized his helmet by its plume and yanked it off. Tragor tried one last time to lift his sword, but the heel of the woman’s hand cracked against his temple, and he collapsed in a senseless, flaccid heap.
The fight had lasted less than half a minute, from first blow to last. The woman watched Tragor for a moment, making sure he wasn’t moving, then turned to face Kurthak. When she spoke, her voice was soft and calm, displaying no sign of exertion whatsoever.
“I have a proposal for you, Black-Gazer,” she said.
Reflexively, Kurthak’s grip on his club tightened, but then he glanced at Tragor’s senseless form and forced himself to relax. There were few warriors in Lord Ruog’s vast horde who could match Tragor ‘s physical prowess. Yet this strange, cloaked woman had bested him without even winding herself.
He lowered the club, his eyes fast on her. “Who are you?” he demanded.
“My name is not important.”
Kurthak shook his shaggy head. “I must know your face-at least.”
The woman considered this, then shrugged. “Very well,” she said lightly. “If it is so important to you.” She reached up and pulled back her hood.
Kurthak caught his breath in horror.
She might have been lovely once, or she might have been plain. It was impossible to tell now, for the woman no longer had anything resembling a face. Her skin was a mass of red, puckered bum scars. Her hair had been completely scorched away, leaving nothing but bare, charred scalp. Her ears, nose and lips were gone; any other features were little more than soft, indistinct lumps. Only her eyes survived, blue and glittering beneath puffy, blistered lids. They shone with cruel humor when she saw the disgust on Kurthak’s face.
“I am called Yovanna,” she told him. Her voice had not been marred by whatever had ruined her face; the contrast only made her visage more gruesome. “I bring you a message. My mistress wishes to speak with you.”
“And who is this mistress?” Kurthak asked.
“Her name is Malystryx.”
The Black-Gazer stiffened at the mention of the name. He knew stories of the great red dragon who was said to dwell to the north of the Dairly Plains, but he had never seen her. “What does she want with me?” he asked.
“She doesn’t want you,” Yovanna replied. “She wants your people, Black-Gazer. So she sent me to summon you.”
“And why should I go with you?” Kurthak pressed, his anger growing.
Yovanna regarded him carefully, her blue eyes searching. “Malystryx has been watching your people for some time,” she said. “For months, you have been raiding little kender towns.”