Niko grins widely while Frederick stares at Jason in stupefied disbelief.
“Sir…” Frederick begins. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.” Jason says with resolve. “You need to be brutal to send a message to brutes. They need to know that they cannot attack the citizens of Remo with impunity.”
“Yeah.” Niko adds raising up his battle axe. “They take out one of ours, we got to take out at least two of theirs.”
“Two? It’s almost nightfall.” Freddie exclaims. The young archer looks up sheepishly at Jason. “Sir, is this an order?”
“Does it need to be, Potter?” Jason stares coldly at Freddie’s wide frightened eyes. Jason’s nose turns in disgust. “Go back to town Freddie.”
Frederick Potter turns without a word and runs back to the road that leads back to Remo.
“And find yourself some balls when you get there!” Niko shouts after him. Jason gestures to him to be quiet.
“The females won’t be too far from the kill site.” Jason says in a low voice. “They’ll still be asleep, but the males should be waking up soon.” Jason gestures with his hand for Niko to follow him to a hill over past the clearing.
The Remo guard gets training on the precious little they know about the savage race ogres. They are matriarchal and markedly sexually dimorphic. While the males of the species are only slightly larger than the average human man, the average full grown ogress is over nine feet tall. No one in their right mind would try to take on a full grown matriarch, but he has killed several males in battle. He knows that they usually sleep under trees.
Jason and Niko’s eye’s widen as they spot their quarry snoring under a tree. The muscular dark skinned ogre snores loudly in the shade of the tree dressed in nothing but a white loin cloth that has the mark of the Zinek pack on it, marking him as the property of the matriarchs. Jason smiles. That loin cloth means he is valuable to the ogresses; which means he will be missed.
Niko and Jason sneak quietly up to the oblivious creature, and they raise their weapons to strike. The moment that their axe and sword swoop down to slay him, he leaps up into a tree branch in a swift acrobatic motion. He looks down at the two of them and laughs.
“Humans of Remo have no honor.” He declares in a growling dismissive voice. “What kind of a warrior attacks while his enemy sleeps?”
“Come down here so we can give you what you owe for what you did to Sinbad.” Jason hisses at him. The ogre laughs heartily.
“My mistress did him a great honor. Many great men have fulfilled their destiny by becoming fat on her cheeks.” The ogre jumps out of the tree onto a patch of tall grass front of Jason and Niko. They pursue him with weapons drawn. The ogre stands up with a bone war club and points it at the two men who stop in their tracks. “I am Ke’umba of Malnaz and if it’s a fight that you want I will be happy to show you how to fight like a warrior.”
The soldiers stare down Ke’umba who stares cooly back at them in a battle stance. Niko charges first. Ke’umba swiftly dodges the sweep of the axe and hits him hard in the face with his club busting him open and sending him tumbling roughly to the ground. Jason makes a less committal piercing move with his sword which Keumba evades. However, he quickly turns into a slashing motion. Ke’umba parries his sword with his club but the force knocks him on his back foot. Jason continues his fierce attack with a series of quick, rotating, movements. Ke’umba, even with his quick reflexes, is struggling to keep up with him.
Jason finally gets past Ke’umba’s defenses and slashes him on the chest, drawing blood. The ogre warrior lets out a deep howl as he falls to the ground. Niko staggers back up and charges toward them to help Jason finish him off when all the sounds of the forest are engulfed by an earth shaking roar. Jason and Niko look around to the amusement of Ke’umba.
“Looks like…we woke her up.” He taunts, grinning despite his gruesome injury. The two men nearly jump out of their skin as they hear a rustling in the grass. They frantically turn their weapons in the direction of the sound but see nothing. Jason, however, feels a tight ligature wrap around his ankles and drag him feet-first upwards into the sky. His sword falls to the ground while he flails helplessly upside down in the air. “An enchanted vine. That means she is close.” Ke’umba glares at the petrified and bloodied face of Niko. “Want to go again, human? I’m sure mistress would love to watch.” Niko runs frantically back to the path toward the city abandoning Jason to his fate. Ke’umba snickers as he gingerly rises to his feet. “You fought well human, you’ll be a worthy meal for Malnaz. Embrace your destiny.” The ogre male casually walks toward the den to heal himself, leaving Jason to hang ridiculously as the sun finally creeps over the horizon.
Jason’s face is red hot with rage and despair, a fact not helped by all the blood rushing to his head. Both of his soldiers have abandoned him. He cannot get to his sword and he will soon be face to face with the horrible creature that devoured his squad mate. What about King and City? What about death before dishonor? All these vain slogans runthrough his mind as he watches twilight turn to night. His racing thoughts are interrupted by the sound of booming footsteps approaching. In the dark, he can barely make out a massive curvy figure moving slowly toward him illuminated in the moonlight. Jason gulps as the beast gets close enough for him to recognize her. He sees the light skin, the flaxen bangs and hair tightly wound into a bun held together by the bone of one of her victims. He was now face to face with Malnaz the ogress.
“Remoan.” She growls at him while running a clawed finger down his cotton uniform. “What cause do you have, to attack my boy?”
“Sinbad.” Jason replies quietly mustering the last of his remaining courage.
“What’s a Sinbad?”
“He’s. He was the captain of the Remo guard. You killed him. He’s gone because of you.”
“Well if him being gone is upsetting you why don’t I bring him back.” Malnaz grins smugly at Jason. She then squats down and begins to loudly void her bowels leaving a smoldering mound of scat by the tree as Jason can only hand and scream at the disgusting sight and nauseating smell. Jason is overwhelmed with emotion, the sight of his fellow soldier reduced to feces causes him to:
