Warlock Apprentice, Black Lake Novel 4

Chapter Forty-Seven

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I swallowed, unbelievin’. “Ya’re alive!”

The front of Louisa’s blouse was a blackened shred displayin’ too much of what made her a gorgeous hen. A nasty purple and blood-stained star where the bolt struck her filled the center of her chest. She ripped an angry glare at me. Her lower lip curled against her tusks. Her eyes thrummed with hatred, blind rage, which didn’t hint any recognition. She hunched her back, clenched fists tight at her sides. She shoved one foot forward, and another.

She’s gonna kill me!

“Louisa?”

Her entire body vibrated with a howl that penetrated my bones.

“No, Louisa. I’m Paul. Paul. I’m yar friend!” I walked backward, empty hands held out.

But her eyes remained locked on me.

I considered turnin’ and runnin’, but that was ridiculous. After all, I’d just spent days watchin’ an ogre runnin’ easily non-stop beside a muscled mare that turned gray with sweat.

“They were tryin’ to kill me too, remember?”

But her unblinkin’ eyes didn’t hint she did. Nothin’ but paint-pealin’ anger emanated from the ogre hen.

“Ya don’t want to hurt me, Louisa. I’m yar friend. I’m Morgan’s apprentice. Ya remember Morgan, don’t ya? He’s quite fancy on ya, after all. Please remember Morgan. He’s just on the other side of that hill.” I pointed south.

Her eyes twitched left. She had covered half the distance between us.

“I’m Paul! Think back, Louisa. Ya cared for me at the Inn. I left with Morgan. Ya met us at his cabin three days later, before Blake and his friends took ya cap—”

Her grip around my throat stopped my words and cut off my air.

A sound like a screechin’ hinge was the only noise I could make.

“I don’t know any Louisa,” she roared in my face.

I mimicked the hinge again.

After a moment she loosened her grip, but not enough to allow me to breathe—much.

I managed a pathetic whine.

“Ya’re a human, aren’t ya?” she asked. “No friend of ogres.”

I tried to nod but her enormous mitt with its upward pressure didn’t allow it. She squinched her eyes a tetch, before loosenin’ her grip a bit more. I gasped a good half breath, choked as I exhaled. My body shuddered in a spasm of recognition—for her intentions.

She prepared to snap my neck. There were no memories left of Morgan, the Hamlet, of ever castin’ an eye on a human before. The last images she could recall elicited an ogreling of maybe seven years of age, herdin’ goats on the plain.

She looked down at herself, clearly comparin’ what she saw to the little she could remember. The confusion over the difference drew a new growl. She touched her wound and winced.

Her image was nothin’ but blotches of black before she released me. My legs didn’t hold me and the Earth jarred into me. But at least I could breathe—with a rattle. I gasped for a full twenty-count until my vision cleared. Louisa loomed, dreadlocks flowin’ back and forth like a willow.

“Explain, human!”

I swallowed against the pain. “The wound—” I had to clear my throat. “The wound on yar chest.”

Her head tilted sharper.

“Ya do that!” she roared.

“No! No. The wizard.” I pointed to the body of the man she’d just snapped in half.

She didn’t turn. Her eyes beaded through her dreadlocks. “No such thin’ as wizards.” She growled again.

Them ogres. Love to growl. “Oh, yes there are. Actually, ya’re sweet on a wiz—”

“I can rip ya in two if ya continue to make up lies.”

“Ya don’t remember. Why would I lie?”

“To save yar filthy, little life.”

“Nuh uh. I swear I tell ya nothin’ but the truth.” I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder, generally where I thought the bodies of Blake and his friend were. “The sword in the one is mine. I was fightin’ the three wizards with ya. See. My scabbard is empty.”

“Why would I be fightin’ wizards?” And another growl.

“Because they kidnapped ya, to draw our friends out of the Range.”

“The Range? Why would I be in the Range?”

I shut my eyes and shook my head.

“Don’t toy with me, human.”

A sequence of three booms echoed through the orchard. She jerked a look south.

“The ogre ya fancy, and his friends, battle three more wizards just over the hill.”

“Battle. Wizards. Fancy. I’ve never heard such foolishness.”

“Ya admit ya wear an unusual wound on yar chest?” I asked.

She didn’t move or say anythin’ for a long moment. “What about it?”

“The bolt must have struck ya of yar memory.”

“Bolt?”

“Them stinkin’ wizards. They can—uh. Create a miniature lightnin’-like bolt out of the ethereal.”

“Shut up.” She grabbed me by my vest and hefted me, draggin’ me backward with her as she walked to the broken wizard. All I could do was allow my heels to drag the ground, and snuff at the grass seed that floated into my face. Wonder why they haven’t mowed this tall rye for fodder.

She studied the wizard’s corpse a moment, perhaps hopin’ the sight might provoke memories. The scent of fire hit us both at the same time—bolt musta ‘fected her ogre sense of smell—for the ogre hen turned south and sniffed. But she shook her head as though to deny a battle of wizards could truly be takin’ place a mile away. Guess, if I’d forgotten half my life, I’d be a little hard to convince too.

She dragged me to the first wizard to fall, and stared. She glanced down at my waist, and grabbed the empty scabbard. She harrumphed as she let it drop. A twenty-count later she dropped me, wrenched the blade out of the man’s body, and wiped it clean on the dead man’s sleeve.

“Ya claim we’re friends from the Range?”

I nodded.

“Ya know how ridiculous that sounds, human?”

“Not somethin’ I could make up if it weren’t true. Don’t have that kind of an imagination.”

She growled.

“I swear. Ya live and work at an elf’s inn on the shores of Black Lake. Ya fancy a warlock, who has since learned he’s wizard-born. We’ve all gotten in the middle of a political battle between Northern wizards. We’ve convinced some of the dragons—”

“Ya’re talkin’ dragons now! I should stick ya with this sword and put ya out of yar misery of insanity, ’cause ya’re no doubt a simpleton.”

“If I was makin’ up stories, I’d make up somethin’ that sounded a little less farfetched, if ya know what I mean. I didn’t believe in dragons either before we—my family came to Black Lake a few years ago.”

She glared. Peerin’ directly up into her snout, she wasn’t as cute as she’d always seemed before. Her ire might have added to that.

“But really, we might be able to help Morgan yet.”

“Who’s this Morgan?”

“The ogre wizard ya’re fond of.”

She shook her head and her dreadlocks danced. “An ogre wizard. I knew humans were evil but never imagined them to be such colorful liars.”

“I’m gettin’ tired of ya callin’ me a liar.”

She glared another three-count before she snorted somethin’ of a laugh. “Ya gonna challenge me now?”

“No. I’d rather have ya on my side.”

The stench of fire burned my sinuses. Another series of thunder claps, too many to count, reverberated, risin’ a new level of anxiety in me.

“What’s that!”

“The wizards are battlin’.”

“Sounds more like a storm.”

We both looked into the sky at the same time. Nothin’ but blue, with a pith of white here and there.

“If it’s a battle, it’s indeed a majical one,” she said.

“We may be able to help,” I said.

“Help who, is my problem.” She looked back at the gutted wizard. Her expression clouded with doubt.

“Together we’ve killed three bad men, here. Ya’ve not seen me approach ya in a threatenin’ manner, have ya? Doesn’t that say somethin’?”

“It could mean yar attempt to kill me failed, and ya were at a loss as to what to try next. With the stories ya’re makin’ up, I can see ya’ve got a gnarly-enough tongue. Besides, ya’re but a stick of a thin’, not much behind ya to harm an ogre.”

I tried my own growl, and winced from a larger boom that vibrated through the ground. To the right a mingle of smoke smeared the southern sky. “Look,” I shouted, pointin’. “Ya wait too long and friends ya don’t remember may be long gone by the time yar memory returns.”

She harrumphed and growled.

Silly ogres.

“Why is it I don’t remember those ya talk about, human?”

I almost rolled my eyes. Papa once backhanded me for that. What would an ogre do? Her backhand could crush my head.

I decided to ask her, “What do ya remember? From how far back?”

After a moment her eyes did that twitch like they failed to focus any longer. Her emotions welled in a fashion that implied she might cry. Not somethin’ I’d expect from an ogre. They seem tougher than the garden-variety, hundred-year-old oak. The image of Ike pullin’ an arrow from his own back flashed through my mind.

Stinkin’ visions.

Her expression returned to its angry scowl. She’s a hen after all. Prolly kept from demonstratin’ how she truly felt because she didn’t wish to appear weak in front of a human. Them ogres. But then maybe, I would be more than just beside myself if I opened my eyes and couldn’t remember anythin’.

“Don’t remember much, eh?”

“How long have I lived at that Inn ya mentioned?”

I considered. “Um. Can’t say I know. I just met ya a little more than a week ago.”

Another echoin’ boom made us both jerk.

“Lead the way,” she snapped. “Remember I’ll be keepin’ an eye on ya.”

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