Page 15 of Ogres Don't Play
“An ogre? In a music hall? That’s unlikely, isn’t it? They’re not a very musical species, are they?”
“Of course they are. They have several sections in their battle operations that use music to unite the troops, increase attack force and pivot for retreat or a counter strike. They’re very instinctive musically as a whole. And their drums are very intricate.”
“Yes, well…” Tiago cleared his throat. “I believe that if you could get the support of a guild, such as one of the more martial orders, you could confront Master Cutter and…”
My heart beat and my stomach tangled. What did Tiago know about my connections? Yes, Richard, my dearest evilbrother had crashed Libby’s wedding and lured me out with his music, but that was hardly common knowledge. Also, I’d called in a favor from a brother of one of my former fellow harpists to give Anna’s husband a helicopter ride in his war chopper, but that was all strictly confidential.
“I can’t get the support of any martial guild.” No. I was counting on my position here to help keep me from being taken back home by my dad to where I belonged. At least according to him. But if I had an agreement with Rook the Luthier, then that would be even better than getting backing from a war guild. Well, I hoped it would be.
Chapter
Six
Iwas making my way back to Rook’s shop when I couldn’t help myself. The lamp was just so out of tune, so I squared my shoulders, took a deep breath from my diaphragm and started singing it back into shape. It was a busy time of day, in a thriving part of the undercity, a cake and pastry shop across the street from me with an apothecary to its right and a butcher shop on its left. I was singing, pulling the tangled mess of magical music back into place when the door of the pastry shop opened and out stepped an archangel. Gavriel the Destroyer. I’d had the biggest crush on him when I was little, and it had lasted all the way up until I was fifteen and he told me bluntly that he would never consider me marriage material. That had hurt my delicate little unfurling femininity, sending it hiding behind music for the next… Had it only been a decade?
At any rate, I registered who he was and did the only possible thing, which was to take off in a long stride that was almost as good as running. Better than running because it wouldn’t get as much notice as a flat-out sprint. At the next alley, I turned right into it, hoping there would be an exit at the end. Otherwise, I’d stay hidden until he was gone. Forget pride and respectability. If he saw me and recognized me, he’d have me cuffed and on thenext train back home if he didn’t just spread his wings and fly me there. That would be traumatic, because he wouldn’t be flying slow for my comfort like he had last time, and that had made me puke. So, no. I was hiding like my life depended on it, because it did.
The winding alley came out on another street that was far less busy and respectable, and the lamps keened for someone to fix them, but I wasn’t going to be seduced by them again. That’s right. Music was my temptation, not some ogre with a nice pair of tusks. Not that they were nice. Whatever.
I was disoriented, but was probably going in the right direction when a tall elf stepped in front of me with the sneer of a thousand years of disappointment gracing his otherwise perfect lips. His fingers curled around my wrist before I could recognize the threat. Elves weren’t dangerous, not like ogres. I mean, elves could be dangerous, particularly when they went to war, because they put all that unnerving grace and immortality into destruction, but usually they were too interested in beauty and art to be a problem.
“You’re the supposed master of music? You in your…” He sputtered as he gazed in horror at my floral spectacle. Maybe it was the hat.
I tugged away from him and dragged him two steps, but his grip was very good. “No idea what you’re talking about.” This must be Master Cutter or one of his deputies. Did the music guild have deputies? He didn’t look like a fighter, but elves were like that, all skinny and disinterested until they put on their gold armor and wiped out your army.
“I hereby charge you with falsely representing the music guild, usurping position, using your stolen authority to take the music guild’s resources and use them for your own enrichment. The sentence for such behavior is?—”
I jerked my hand back and twisted, dragging him around right before an explosion went off, hitting him first, me second, knocking us both down and filling the air with clouds of smoke that smelled of goblin, not the kind that worked in labs behind elaborate doors, no these were assassin gobs.
Absolutely not my best day. I lay there on the pavement while my body leaked essential fluids and Master Cutter’s sneering face loomed over me, frozen in his glazed-eyed death mask. I should push him off, but the explosions were still going off, and I’d forgotten my body armor. I knew I needed armor today.
The distant skittering laughter of the surrounding goblins was cut off by a roar that shook the cobbles under my back. And now things were going to get really messy. It was an ogre’s roar, and it was met by at least two more. Ogres were even worse than goblins. Goblins didn’t eat you without killing you, not like Rook had done to me. And my neck still tingled, even as I slowly bled to death. Maybe not so slowly. Or maybe it was a concussion that was making things so weird and distorted. Maybe it was having a dead Master Cutter on top of me, crushing my lungs. Elves were so heavy for how scrawny they looked.
I shifted and felt the stab in my ribs. Some of the goblin shrapnel had made it through Cutter’s body and into mine. A lot probably. I was stuck to the elf, probably for good. Bad. He was definitely not the body I wanted to be attached to in my last living moments.
The elf was ripped off me, taking several large metal pieces with it. It was like getting stabbed all over again, only more blood loss. Standing over me, Cutter’s limp body dangling from his fist was Rook the Luthier, my fire-chicken perched on his shoulder and gold light patterns chasing over his cheeks, showing that he was as experienced on the battlefield as he was in the music shop.
Only an idiot goblin would attack an ogre prepped for battle, particularly when he was flanked by two others, their skin also chased by light magic that would help them destroy an army of goblins with their bare hands. High-level magic users, all of them. How terrifying.
Rook picked me up and threw me over his shoulders, dislodging Yaga in a flurry of feathers and squawks, possibly not as violent as he could have been, but there was no gentleness, no caution for the metal barbs still sinking through my body, or the open wounds dripping my blood. It was pretty blood, rich red with strands of gold in it. I should probably do something about my blood getting all over Rook. Angel blood was poisonous to his kind. At the very least, it would give him a rash. When I rubbed his neck, he turned his head, and I got to see the welling rage in his eyes. I’d never seen an ogre so angry, and I’d seen them screaming battle cries as they charged me.
I let my hand fall while he grunted and continued forward, his lope surprisingly even and smooth as he covered a block in ten steps. Fast. Graceful. Strong. Powerful. And he was carrying me back to his shop. Was he going to eat me for real this time?
I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. I needed to stop the bleeding, which meant I needed to focus on my own healing. I must have a concussion, or it wouldn’t have taken me that long to realize it. I started humming, awakening my own defense runes, my own battle magic, but I’d only barely warmed up by the time we burst into his music shop, then through the main room to the small chamber filled with unfinished instruments, and the bed that he threw me down on like I wasn’t seriously injured. He was clearly not in the medical sector.
I glared back at him because he couldn’t just throw me around like that while I was bleeding to death. It just wasn’t done. “I’m injured. Be gentle with me.”
He bared his teeth at me, which I saw up close and neck-tinglingly personal, because he followed me down onto the bed, arms holding himself up as he hovered, barely not touching, but so close I could feel the magic and emotion coming off him in waves. If he was a piece of music, it would be a thunderous battle cry with all the depths and reaches of anguished fury.
“You let yourself get injured while we were in the middle of negotiations. You used your diabolical magic on me after you’d lulled me into a false sense of your docility by allowing me to take your neck. You are not going to deceive me again so easily.” He grabbed my left wrist and secured me to the bed post with a piece of string that lit up gold and green before he did the same to my right wrist.
“Wait! What are you…” Honestly, I was still bleeding to death, so it’s not like I could fight about getting tied to his bed.
His eyes still glowed unnaturally bright, painful to look at, but everything was pain, so I just dealt with it and met his glare with my own. “Mira, you will remain here until I grant you your freedom,” he growled. Then he licked me, my neck where he’d bitten me earlier, and honestly, it felt so good, I barely noticed him yanking out a five-inch piece of shrapnel from my abdomen. Yeah, right.
I screamed, and then I gurgled as he poured something noxious and potent in my mouth, something that would deaden the pain. It would also render me unconscious, but not before I got to watch him pull the biggest chunks of goblin metal out of me. One of my thighs was particularly porcupine-like. Must have not been blocked by Master Cutter. Funny to think that the elf had ended up giving his life in exchange for mine. Strange fate.
The potion did not put me to sleep, so I got to watch the process as he removed shrapnel, and then stopped the bleeding, using his magic to imbue me with his supernatural healing. He shouldn’t have been able to tune into my frequencies andapply his own brute force on me, but maybe after the duet, he was attuned to me, or maybe he was more sensitive because of his artisanal ways, or maybe… No, it wasn’t like we had a real bond between us that would allow him to bestow his health and healing on me. Periodically, he would lick my neck, and it would always feel good, but not good enough to block out whatever horrible pain I had to deal with.