Og-Grim-Dog- the Three-Headed Ogre Read online

  As they walked, or as Grim walked, depending on how you choose to see it, both Og’s and Dog’s heads were covered in hemp sacks. To the extremely casual observer it looked like Grim had very large shoulders. By experience, they had found this was the best method of travelling. An ogre walking through human territory might often be the target of aggression. An ogre armed with pike and mace was generally left alone, in the hope that he was just passing through. An ogre with three heads, however, was almost always greeted with fear and hysteria. Treated as demon spawn or some such, the entire community would come together to exterminate it, perhaps in the belief they were doing their god’s work.

  Whatever the reason, Og-Grim-Dog had learned, by experience, to travel with the sacks. Since Grim did the walking, it didn’t matter that the other two couldn’t see. It also had the added benefit of muffling his brother’s voices, thereby giving his ears a rest.

  After walking across country for two days, Grim took them onto the road that led to the human settlement of Mer Khazer. No-one had tried to stop their passage—after all, they were just passing through. Grim decided it was safe enough from this point. Mer Khazer was a cosmopolitan town, attracting visitors from across the human lands and beyond. Three-headed ogres would always be on the edge of what was socially acceptable. But Grim judged that in Mer Khazer, they would get away with it.

  ‘You can take the sacks off now.’

  Dog ripped his off, gulping in air. All that Grim could hear from the other side was a gentle snoring.

  ‘Og! We’re on the road to Mer Khazer!’

  Og woke with a start.

  ‘I’m blind!’ he moaned, before remembering what was happening. He took his sack off, a flustered look on his face. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘We’re on the road to Mer Khazer,’ Grim repeated, keeping the pace up. If he kept at it, they’d reach it by evening.

  ‘Mer Khazer? Where’s that?’

  ‘You know Mer Khazer, Og,’ Grim said patiently. ‘We’ve been there several times.’

  ‘Well, I don’t recall it. What’s the plan when we get there?’

  ‘The trespassers meet in the inns of the town. We’ll go to one of them and try to find out why they keep attacking our dungeon.’

  ‘How about The Bruised Bollocks?’ suggested Dog, sounding enthusiastic. ‘They do a good quart of ale at The Bollocks.’

  ‘The Bruised Bollocks?’ asked Og. ‘I don’t remember us ever drinking there.’

  As the three-headed ogre passed through the gates into the town of Mer Khazer, night crept in with them. It brought a chill to the air outside and the breath from three ogre mouths could be seen by three pairs of ogre eyes. Like so many others intent on staying awake after dark, the ogre headed to one of the many drinking establishments located about the centre of town.

  The Bruised Bollocks was alive with the heat from the fire; with the sweet smells of roasted meat and yeasty beer; with the talk of the townsfolk of Mer Khazer, and of visitors from out of town. Og-Grim-Dog ducked under the lintel and entered the tap room. An array of glances were shot their way, from horror to amusement and everything in between, but the ogre was used to such reactions and ignored them, making its way to the bar and locking eyes with the man who served there. Keen to fulfil the order and keep his limbs intact, the barman soon deposited two quarts of ale into two hands, each the size of his head.

  The third—Grim’s drink—was left on the bar. As usual, he had to wait his turn while the other two took long glugs, smacking their lips contentedly. It wasn’t unusual, when they were deep in their cups, for Grim to get forgotten about altogether. But this time, and without reminding, Og slammed his own drink back onto the bar and lifted Grim’s to his lips for him. It had a nutty aroma and a bitter taste, and was the best thing Grim had tasted in months. Satisfied, Og-Grim-Dog put their back to the bar and took in the room.

  It didn’t take long to work out who was who. The townsfolk seemed naturally to congregate on one side of the room, and the foreigners on the other. It was the latter group that was of interest to Og-Grim-Dog. These were the trespassers: men and women who invaded and looted the dungeons of Gal’azu for profit. Warriors carried their weapons; wizards could be identified by their cloaks, hats or staves. Thieves, assassins and other rogues skulked about in dark corners; clerics wore the vestments of their holy orders, or carried the relics and trinkets of their gods on chains about their necks. It was an industry, a way of life, that attracted people from across Gal’azu, and even beyond. For the ogre could see other folk, too. Dwarves—short, stocky and bearded; elves—slim, with pointed ears and almond-shaped eyes; and there were other races—those allowed into human towns.

  ‘No green-skins,’ Dog muttered under his breath.

  Grim began to mix amongst the trespassers, looking for a suitable group to talk with. Near the bar a group of young men spoke with the noise of those who had been drinking awhile. They were boasting, as young men do, of the creatures they had killed and the treasure they had won.

  Killing goblins or orcs wasn’t a boast amongst this crew. It had to be a dead troll; dead fimir; dead ogre. Grim could feel the animosity of his brothers grow; were these humans too far gone to notice a three-headed ogre standing behind them? Still, such talk wasn’t new to Og-Grim-Dog. His brothers would control their anger. Wouldn’t they?

  ‘Next time we go dungeoneering, we need to step it up to the next level,’ one of them suggested, leaving a dramatic pause to encourage the others in his party to listen. ‘Next time, we find and kill a dragon.’

  There was much agreement to this idea. In the comfort of an inn, miles from the nearest giant winged lizard, it’s an easy enough thing to agree to.

  Dog, however, wasn’t impressed.

  ‘Where does this obsession with finding dragons in dungeons come from?’ he demanded, loud enough to attract the attention of the group, and many others in The Bruised Bollocks besides. ‘Think about it. What are the two defining characteristics of a dragon? One, they can fly. Two, they are extremely large. Why, then, would they choose to confine themselves in an underground dungeon? I have been to the high mountain kingdoms of Old Nahru, trekked through the Inky Caverns of the Lost Ones. But I have never come across, nor ever heard of, an actual dragon in a dungeon. Yet the bizarre association remains.’

  Many at The Bruised Bollocks stared open-mouthed at Dog’s outburst. It was as if being lectured on dragons by a three-headed ogre was a new experience.

  But one customer behaved differently. She was a powerful-looking warrior, perhaps from one of the barbarian tribes who inhabited the plains to the south. She looked Og-Grim-Dog firmly in the eye, not remotely intimidated.

  ‘Come with me,’ she suggested. ‘I have a proposal for you.’

  Not waiting for a response, she turned around and made her way to the back of the room. Grim followed her, squeezing through the throng of trespassers who cast bemused looks his way. The warrior offered him a wooden bench at a table. Grim sat down, and the warrior joined him. Two others sat at the table with them.

  ‘I am Assata,’ she said, offering her hand.

  Dog grasped it in a handshake, her hand disappearing inside his. ‘I am Dog. My brothers are Og and Grim.’

  ‘This is Raya,’ said Assata, introducing an elven woman at the table.

  ‘Hi!’ said the elf, raising one hand and giving a nervous, but friendly, smile.

  ‘And Sandon.’

  Sandon had the slim build and rune-inscribed cloak that marked him out as a wizard. His looks were a curious mix of young and old, suggesting he was either prematurely aged or concealing his real looks. The wizard frowned at Og-Grim-Dog and placed a hand to his forehead.

  ‘I sense you have come here with questions,’ he said, a little too dramatically for Grim’s taste. He’d sensed right, but Og-Grim-Dog were not about to reveal their mission to a stranger they had no reason to trust.

  ‘We are putting together a team of adventurers,’ Assata said.

/>   Adventurers, Grim thought to himself. That was what the trespassers called themselves. Funny how one word can change the feel of a sentence; change one’s view of the world, and one’s place in it.

  ‘If it works out, we could hit all the dungeons in the area. We’ve nearly filled all positions. But we could do with the extra muscle that you offer.’

  Grim nodded. Judging by the present company, they were a bit lacking in the fighter department. Sandon brought the magic. Raya, he presumed, would offer ranged combat. And while Assata looked like she could handle herself in the melee, any group entering a dungeon needed more than one warrior to deal with the brutal savagery of close combat.

  ‘We’re interested,’ Grim said. This sounded like the perfect way to find out why the trespassers were repeatedly targeting Darkspike Dungeon. Infiltrate the enemy and learn their secrets, he told himself, quite excited at the idea.

  ‘Good. I’ll introduce you to the other two members of the party as soon as I can,’ said Assata, relaxing enough to give a tight smile.

  With that, the real drinking began. The night followed the usual pattern. Og ended up falling asleep, snoring into Grim’s left ear. Dog dominated the conversation at the table with his tales of all the famous people he had met; mostly made up. Grim’s drink was left untouched.

  He wasn’t the only sober one, though. Sandon, to be fair, joined in, but he wasn’t a big drinker. Assata had some concoction that she explained was alcohol-free. Grim had never heard of such a thing. When he asked her what was in it, she reeled off a load of mumbo jumbo, full of strange words like plant proteins, natural oils, glycogen replenishment and ergogenic ingredients. Raya had the same thing. But when she ‘accidentally’ picked up and necked Grim’s drink, for the fifth time, he began to doubt her commitment to it.

  Finally, when Dog started calling everyone ‘darling’, and ‘treasure’, Grim decided enough was enough. He got to his feet and took them off to bed.

  THE BUREAU OF DUNGEONEERING

  In the morning, they gathered in the courtyard of The Bruised Bollocks. There were six of them. Assata introduced Og-Grim-Dog to the final two members of their party of adventurers.

  The first was a dwarf by the name of Gurin. He was an exceptionally grumpy looking individual, of an exceptionally grumpy race. He looked old in years—past his best, even. But dwarves were exceptionally good at locating and disabling traps; had a nose for finding their way when underground; and, judging by the mean looking axe strapped to his back, this one could fight, too.

  ‘You’ve recruited an ogre?’ Gurin asked, an incredulous tone to his voice, as he stared up balefully at Og-Grim-Dog. ‘Ogres now go adventuring, do they? Another nail in the coffin of all that used to be sacred about this once great profession. I am just thankful that the great adventurers of the past— Larik the Bludgeoner, Randall the Heavy-Handed, to name but two—aren’t alive now to see where it’s all ended.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, too,’ said Og, rather sarcastically.

  Dog just grunted, hungover from the night before, his breath smelling like he had eaten a cadaver for breakfast.

  The second adventurer was quite different. Brother Kane was a baby-faced cleric with a beatific smile. He went out of his way to be friendly, insisting on giving each ogre brother a blessing. It involved ridiculous hand gestures, murmuring in a made-up language and being flicked in the face with water.

  It wasn’t easy for Grim to decide which of the two he disliked the most, so he resolved to hold off his final verdict until later.

  ‘Well,’ said Sandon, once the vial of holy water had been stoppered and tucked away. ‘We really should make for the Bureau of Dungeoneering. There’s a hell of a lot of red tape to get through these days,’ he said apologetically.

  Gurin the dwarf groaned, the sound of a tortured soul.

  ‘Red tape?’ Grim asked, as the wizard led them out of the courtyard and into one of the main streets of Mer Khazer. The centre of town was already busy, shops and stalls open for business, people buying and bartering, shouting and selling. All the incessant noise and activity of a human settlement—the frenetic pace, the restless need to be constantly doing something, that had seen humankind spread all over Gal’azu, establishing themselves as the dominant race.

  ‘Paperwork,’ Sandon explained. ‘You can’t go dungeoneering unless you’re in a party that’s been officially licensed. There are rules you must sign up to, health and safety checks to do. It is a bit of a pain, I must admit.’

  Gurin spat. ‘The hot shame of it—the betrayal of every ideal our fraternity ever held dear. Once we would raid here, sack there, on a whim. That was real freedom. The freedom to go wherever you liked, kill whatever creature that came to mind that particular day. Now, we have to ask permission from a bunch of pencil pushers who’ve never held a weapon themselves; never crawled on their hands and knees through the muck of a dungeon corridor, knowing that at any second you could trigger a spear trap and it’s all over.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Sandon. ‘Though it was actually the adventurer community themselves who established the Bureau. The trouble was, all that freedom, combined with the growth in popularity of the movement, meant that dungeons were being explored so frequently that they didn’t have time to restore themselves. The dungeon dwellers were close to extinction, their treasures looted; magic amulets and weapons all taken. We needed some way to keep them sustainable, or by now there would have been nothing left.’

  Gurin harrumphed, but Grim found himself nodding along in agreement with the wizard. He remembered those days. ‘But why are the dungeons being attacked so frequently again? Like they were before?’

  Sandon gave him a frown. ‘They’re not. The Bureau’s monitoring apparatus is more sophisticated now than it’s ever been. Here we are.’

  The Bureau of Dungeoneering was an unassuming office, nestled between a branch of Discount Dungeon Supplies and an imposing Gothic building with signage that identified it as Nick Romancer’s Funeral Parlour. Inside, it was an open plan office that stretched farther back than Grim had imagined. Filing cabinets lined the walls. Several desks were staffed, paper racks full of forms sitting on top of them. Each desk was identified by a wooden nameplate: Registration; Magical Goods Declaration; Applications for Dungeon Crawls; Records; Financials; Human Resources; Non-Human Resources; Appeals, and so on.

  They approached the desk marked Registration. A tall, willowy woman regarded them stern-faced from her little kingdom of paper, ink and rules. The thought of navigating the registration process filled Grim with a peculiar kind of dread, and he experienced a strange kind of relief when it was ended before it had begun.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the woman, not sounding very sorry at all. ‘Your kind can’t register,’ she declared, pointing a long finger at Og-Grim-Dog.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Og.

  ‘Because you’re an ogre,’ she explained, a sour look on her face as if she had just been fed goblin dung. ‘There are rules here, you know.’

  ‘That’s discrimination!’ shouted Og. ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘Whoa, let’s calm down,’ intervened Assata with a look to Grim. ‘I’m sure we can sort this out.’

  ‘Yes, settle down Og,’ Grim said to him quietly, so that no-one else could hear. ‘Remember why we’re here, after all. We need to find out how the system works. Let our new friends deal with it and we will observe the process.’

  Grim turned to speak to Dog who looked at him with puffy eyes.

  ‘When are we getting food?’ Dog grumbled.

  ‘Wait a little while longer,’ Grim pleaded.

  ‘Now,’ Assata was saying to the woman, a fixed smile on her face. ‘The five of us have registered individually. We just need to add Og-Grim-Dog and register as a party of six. We all vouch for him and are prepared to work with him. I agree to be held personally liable for any damage he does. But I assure you, there won’t be any.’

  The woman looked down her nose at Assata in much th
e same way as she had looked at Og-Grim-Dog. ‘It’s not a question of vouching or promises. It’s the rules. And he is not allowed.’

  ‘That’s discrimination!’ Assata shouted at the woman.

  Raya led Assata away and Sandon replaced her in front of the desk.

  ‘Now, now,’ said the wizard. ‘You say it is the rules and we understand that. Might I see the rules?’

  ‘You can,’ the woman said, sounding a little more reasonable. She pointed across the room. ‘If you go to Records, they can provide a copy for you to peruse.’

  Sandon raised his eyebrows at the rest of them and made for the Records desk.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense,’ growled Gurin, and grabbed Og’s arm. He guided Og-Grim-Dog towards yet another desk: Non-Human Resources (NHR). ‘Raya!’ he called, and the elf dutifully came with them.

  They found Non-Human Resources unstaffed. Gurin tapped the bell on the desk repeatedly, making a tinny ringing sound that eventually attracted someone.

  ‘Oh, great,’ Gurin said in a sarcastic voice as the member of staff approached. ‘A centaur.’

  ‘That’s bad?’ Grim asked.

  ‘Centaurs are just about the most useless of creatures you could ever meet,’ said the dwarf.

  Raya gave Grim an apologetic little smile.

  The centaur clopped up to the desk with his four horse legs. His top half was human, as naked as the rest of him, with a muscled torso and arms.

  ‘Can I help?’

  Gurin sighed. ‘Let’s hope so. My friend here has just been denied registration with the Bureau. This is exactly the kind of thing Non-Human Resources should be all over. It’s blatant discrimination.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said the centaur, looking Og-Grim-Dog up and down. ‘Ogre?’