Arc 3: Chapter 5: Scent of Blood
I am not a small man. I don’t brag when I say this. I stand six and a half feet tall barefoot, and I’m two hundred and fifty pounds out of armor. I’ve been fighting my whole life, and that doesn’t make one soft.
You can imagine then, the strength in the arm holding me over the flame single-handed as though I weighed no more than a puppy.
I struggled against the grip, but the hand squeezed tighter and my vision began to blur. I tried to breathe, started to panic when I found I couldn’t. I punched at the arm attached to the vice around my neck, only to find it a solid mass of iron-hard muscle.
The grip tightened more. He’s going to break my neck, I realized.
“Alder Knight,” a voice like rumbling thunder growled, bathing me in carrion breath. “I should have guessed at Orson’s castle. You reeked of Blessed Gold, even then.”
Through my hazing vision, I caught a glimpse of the face beneath the cowl in the firelight. Pale red, like badland rock, with a cavernous mouth displaying two rows of jagged wolf’s teeth. Two short tusks emerged from either side of that maw, one of them partly broken and bearing signs of rot. A lion’s mane of something very like ivory-colored hair spilled down from the shadows of the cowl, stiff as needles. The flat nose and deeply sunken eyes gave the face a skull’s aspect.
Beneath me, the fire began to stretch curiously upward toward my dangling feet. I smelled burning leather, and in a sudden moment of pure, unabashed horror realized I would be held above the pit to burn like a roasting slab of meat rather than allowed the mercy of a broken neck.
Ogres, in all of their variety, are grievously deadly foes. I’d faced them before, and I had rarely been so hard pressed. Long-lived, though not immortal, the oldest of them can still remember ancient wars and their grudges do not gather rust. Strong as bears, fast as lions, and viciously cunning, they are not enemies to be trifled with lightly.
There is a very good reason alchemists in Urn were banned from creating sapient chimera.
“Hey! Shitbreath!” Catrin’s voice, I realized, oddly distant through my hazing senses. “Yeah, you, you brainless fuck! Put him down!”
I felt the ogre shift, turning toward the barmaid. He didn’t release his grip, keeping me near the flames. The creature in the fire snuffled at me, the sound reminiscent of crackling embers. An eager hound given an unexpected treat. Others throughout the inn were beginning to gather, I saw through my blurring vision. No one besides Cat tried to help me.