Chapter 6
And into the Fire
Ogres swarmed our camp faster than I thought possible. There were six of them, all standing over seven feet tall and wielding crude cudgels or thick tree branches. Each one was a mass of wild hair and twisted features, and they were all covered in animal pelts. With them came a hideous, rank odor of rotting meat, sweat, and fetid earth. I gagged and choked for fresh air. As frightening as they were, the ogres weren’t without brains. They’d been smart enough to approach from downwind, not giving away that they were stalking their prey.
A yelp broke from my lips, and I threw the knife in my hand at the one closest to me. Turns out, my aim wasn’t the issue. I hit the ugly creature right in the shoulder, but the blade bounced off and spun away into the darkness. Apparently, ogre skin was more of a thick, rocklike hide. I wouldn’t pierce their flesh with a throwing knife. I would need to get in close with a sword.
And that wasn’t happening if I wanted to remain alive.
The ogre I hit didn’t even notice the knife. He swung his tree branch, attempting to take my head off. I dove for the ground, the whoosh of the branch inches above me as I rolled away and popped to my feet while the spray of dirt and grass pummeled my back.
This was my one defense. Run. Dodge. Roll. Keep moving. They couldn’t kill me if they couldn’t catch me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught glimpses of Nylian as he fended off the ogres with his sword. From the sound of it, I didn’t think he was doing much damage, but he was still alive.
“Get out of here!” the elf shouted.
“You first!” I bellowed at him as I slid half on my belly between the legs of one ogre to jump up too close to another. I spun away from his massive grabbing hands, tripped over a saddle, and nearly face-planted into a bush with long thorns. It was only an ogre snagging the edge of my cloak and ripping me back that actually saved me from impromptu acupuncture.
Of course, now that he had my cloak, he used it to whip me into one of his companions. I barely managed to open the pin holding my cloak closed and tumble out of it before an ogre could bring his cudgel down on my head.
“This isn’t working,” Nylian continued.
“No shit, Sherlock!” I screamed. My lungs were burning, and the chill that had been pricking my skin minutes ago was long gone as sweat trickled along the side of my face and spine.
“Who?”
Fuck . “Never mind. I’m open to suggestions.”
Anything was going to sound good right about now. I was running out of steam. This body might be in better shape than my original one, but its energy wasn’t limitless. Not after the long day I’d put in.
But Nylian didn’t answer. Most of the ogres had tired of chasing me. Only two remained to corral me, since they’d likely figured out I wasn’t leaving Nylian behind. The other four were now closing in on Nylian, and that wasn’t working for me.
With a snarl through clenched teeth, I darted for the campfire and snagged a log that was partially burning. Fire grazed my hand, and I swore under my breath as I chucked the log at an ogre’s head. It hit him square in the back and exploded in a shower of bright-orange embers like a firework bursting in the middle of our camp.
Naturally, the hot ash went straight for my eyes. I stumbled blindly, trying to keep moving as I wiped at my face to clear my vision. The acrid scent of smoke filled my nose. I didn’t know if an ogre had hit me or if I’d walked into another tree. Either way, pain exploded across my head and the world went dark…again.
“Lockhart? Lockhart? I swear to the gods, if you’re dead, I will reach into the underworld and kill you a second time.”
That was how I returned to consciousness—Nylian hissing in my ear, threatening my life while my head throbbed as though it were splitting in half.
Well, it answered one question: did I get zapped home?
Nope. Still in this fictional world with fictional creatures trying to kill me.
“What happened?” I half whispered and half moaned.
“You knocked yourself out again ,” Nylian muttered, though I believed there was a slight note of relief in his voice too. Of course, I could have been lying to myself as well.
“I did not!” I hissed.
“You did. I saw it. You got ash in your eyes, blindly dodged two ogres grabbing for you, tripped over a rock, and hit a tree with your forehead.”
Which would explain why the middle of my head hurt so fucking bad.
“After that, I threw up my hands and surrendered,” Nylian said.
I opened my mouth to point out that he could have escaped on his own, but for reasons I couldn’t understand, he’d stuck with me.
I squeezed my eyes shut as guilt swamped me. “Sorry.”
It wasn’t just my life I was constantly fucking up but Nylian’s as well. The elf had enough on his plate. He didn’t need my help to find more danger.
A long, weary sigh slipped out of Nylian. There was a soft shifting in the dirt, as if he were changing his position. “Don’t. We were fucked from the start. I should have heard them coming far earlier than I did. I’m surprised we lasted as long as we did.”
“ Mn ,” I grunted. “Singing and playing the piano wouldn’t have worked for a distraction, either.”
The elf snorted what could have been a laugh. “Probably not. Ogres aren’t known for their taste in entertainment.”
I tried sitting up so I could better see Nylian, but I quickly discovered that our captors had tied my legs together and bound my wrists behind my back. Using the toes of my boots, I rolled a bit onto my side to find that we weren’t in our camp any longer but possibly near the mouth of a cave. Gone was the soft grass. Now we were lying on dirt and rocks while the scent of rotting carcasses wafted on the breeze.
“Where are we?”
“Not entirely sure. They knocked me out as well. My guess is that they’ve taken us deeper into the forest. Ogres aren’t fond of daylight, so the cave is likely their home.”
I twisted as best I could to check out my surroundings while ignoring the way small rocks dug into various parts of my body. Nylian was sitting up next to me, also bound, as he leaned on a large boulder. His golden hair was still perfect, and there was a tiny smudge of dirt across one pale cheek.
Meanwhile, I was pretty sure my hair was a twisted rat’s nest and the rest of me was a ball of dirt and sweat. Nylian’s general perfection was either an elf thing or a Nylian thing. I was still figuring out which it was. Either way, I kind of hated him.
Maybe it was that “hero halo” that I’d heard about in some books, where the hero was untouchable and when things went wrong for him, it resulted in things going even more right for him later.
Get wounded and dirty in a fight? Hot maiden swoons and takes care of him.
Betrayed by family member? Returns to win the hearts of the people and ascend to the throne.
Beaten by the villain? Roars back ten times stronger and destroys the villain.
Yeah, Nylian was possibly benefitting from the hero halo.
“Where are the ogres?”
Nylian jerked his chin toward the back of the cave where a series of growls, grunts, and snarls had become background noise to our conversation. “They’ve been arguing since I woke about what they should do with us.”
“Do I want to know how the argument is going?”
“Probably not.” Nylian shrugged a shoulder. “I’m not fluent in ogre, but it sounds like they’re fighting over whether to eat us or sell us. At least a couple of them have gotten the impression that one of us is valuable.” Nylian paused and rolled his eyes toward me. Yeah, yeah. It was clear which of the two of us was the more valuable. Even if he hadn’t admitted to me that he was a prince, it was obvious he was the one who came from a prestigious and rich family.
“If anyone wants my vote, I say sell us.” I tried once again to sit up, only to fall with a heavy thud .
“I doubt they would care about what we want. Plus, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. They’ve killed one of their companions, and I believe he was one of the strongest voices for selling us. Now I think they’re down to eat one and sell one or eat both of us.”
“Of course. Naturally,” I muttered while trying very hard not to give in to the panic that was bubbling up in my veins. We needed to think of a way to escape while they weren’t looking. “Your sword! Knives! Did they?—”
“They removed all our weapons while we were unconscious,” Nylian said before I could finish.
“Well, since you’re out of options…” an unfamiliar female voice drawled from somewhere above us. I flopped around like a landed fish, trying to locate the speaker, but I was still having trouble rolling over. “How much would you be willing to pay for us to get you out of here?”
“A hundred gold pieces,” Nylian shot at our possible savior without a breath of hesitation.
“Five,” the woman countered.
“Two-fifty.”
“Are you fucking serious? Why are you negotiating?” I hissed. I scooted along the ground until I was next to Nylian and hit my forehead on his hip. “Just agree, so we can get out of here.”
“Rogues, who would charge for a rescue rather than gracefully accepting a reward after the fact, should not be paid their initial asking price,” Nylian replied in a stiff and prim tone.
“Four,” the voice from the trees stated.
“Three-fifty and that’s my final offer,” Nylian stated with a little extra bite.
There was a long sigh. The sound grew closer to us as our would-be savior climbed down the tree. “Fine, but if you get yourself captured again as we’re trying to get away, you’re on your own.”
“That will be a problem for Lockhart, I’m sure.”
“Fuck off, elf,” I growled. Not that he was wrong. I was the troublemaker. “I believe that nonsense at the inn was your mess. Not mine. I saved your ass.”
“Good to know we’re taking turns.”
There was a soft rustle behind me and a tug on the ropes at my wrists. I jerked around to see who was there, but before I could get a good view, my hands were free and I was falling onto my back. Above me, with a wide grin and short, floppy brown hair, was a woman with enormous dark eyes and round cheeks like plums. She winked at me and moved to my ankles, where she cut away the rope binding me.
“How are we coming, Jasper?” she called out in a low voice as she stepped over my legs to cut off the rope at Nylian’s ankles.
“Um…well…maybe not as good as I’d hoped,” someone stammered somewhere in the blackness behind me. There was the sudden sound of pages being turned frantically. “Maybe…maybe we should try to get out of here more quickly, Addie.”
The woman paused as she moved toward Nylian’s bound wrists, closed her eyes, and shook her head as if she were praying for some kind of inner strength to see her through. I didn’t recognize the names right off, but I honestly didn’t care who they were.
I shoved upright and rubbed my wrists, wincing as a rush of pins and needles accompanied the sudden renewed blood flow into my limbs. The splitting headache I’d been cringing through was now playing second fiddle to other aches and pains cropping up.
“Have you seen our weapons?” Nylian demanded, hopping to his feet the moment the woman finished cutting away his bindings. My hopping attempts were more of a stagger. The pins and needles that had invaded my arms were now flowing south to my hips and legs. In a second, I would feel nothing but pain. Fucking ogres .
“Over there, near the mouth of the cave.” The woman pointed as an angry roar rushed out of the dark opening, followed by the pounding of footsteps. “Shit! Time’s up. Jasper, you’re gonna have to do something. Anything!”
While Nylian darted to the cave to steal our weapons back, I turned at the sound of someone moving through the woods behind me to see a young man who couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen dressed in a baggy purple robe. He awkwardly balanced a giant book on his left hand while he flipped through the pages.
Holy shit, Jasper was a wizard!
“I think…maybe…this…” He mumbled, squinting at the print in the shitty light cast by a tiny white ball that floated over his shoulder.
Or, more accurately, a wizard in training. I wasn’t entirely sure if our luck had improved. We were free, but the ogres were racing toward us and our “saviors” were a sneaky woman and a newbie wizard.
The first ogre emerged from the cave and wildly swung his cudgel at Nylian. The elf easily slid under it and kept running at me. He tossed me my cloak wrapped around my sword, not stopping for a breath.
“We’ll leave the ogres to you!” Nylian called out. “Let’s go, Lockhart!”
I pivoted on the balls of my feet and chased after him, narrowly dodging trees in the growing darkness. “We’re just leaving them?”
“They’ve got to earn their three hundred and fifty gold pieces somehow.”
Okay, I couldn’t argue with that, but Jasper was still a kid, and that Addie didn’t appear to be a lot older. How were they going to beat a group of ogres?
The thought had barely crossed my mind when an enormous explosion sent a tremor through the forest floor and knocked me forward under its force. I glanced over my shoulder to see what the fuck had happened, only to run directly into Nylian, who’d stopped. The elf caught me, and we spun briefly, clinging to each other as we attempted to keep our feet rather than hitting the ground yet again.
The forest finally stopped twirling like a top, and I stared up at Nylian’s pale face, his eyes wide and his red lips parted on a gasp. My fingers dug into hard muscles through his tunic, and for a moment, I swore I could hear his racing heart.
Oh wait, that was my heart.
The world seemed to slow down to a stop as I stood there in Nylian’s near embrace. His bright eyes sparkled, but I couldn’t even guess where the light was coming from. His long blond hair whooshed behind him in a golden curtain. He just felt like he’d become so much more in the span of a heartbeat, and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. Had I really created him? That had to be wrong. How could I have created something so large and perfect? I was lucky to make a mug of coffee most mornings.
“Are you okay?” Nylian inquired. His voice dipped so low and soft that I briefly forgot what we were running from.
“What? Oh! Right!” I shook my head hard, trying to clear away the cobwebs. My poor brain had been battered one too many times today. It probably had suffered some serious damage. I forced my hands to release Nylian and took a step away. “I’m good. We—” The rest of the sentence left me as I stared toward the ogres’ camp and saw the area bathed in a bright white light.
“That can’t be good,” Nylian muttered.
“No, undoubtedly not. Should we go back for them?”
Nylian grabbed my upper arm and turned me away from the camp, propelling me through the forest. “Absolutely not. You’re all the trouble I can handle right now. If they want to get paid, they will find us.”
That was a fantastic point.
Besides, we’d had zero luck beating the ogres the first time. I had serious doubts we’d have much better luck a second time. If a wizard and that sneaky woman couldn’t manage it on their own, they shouldn’t have jumped into that mess.
Maybe I felt a little guilty about leaving them behind, but keeping Nylian alive to find his brother’s killer was my priority here. Not some weird side quest.
They’d find us later, right?