“WHORING SLUT BLOSSOM!”
His brothers didn’t join in the fight, which I was counting on. Instead, Dev rolled on the ground with laughter, while Lop leaned against a building heaving for breath, tears running down his violet-skinned cheeks.
“Tin, you’re getting roasted by a WOMAN! A pussy is taking you out!” Dev shouted, his voice reverberating through the courtyard.
Dox moved up beside me. “You cannot do this, Rylee. You will have to kill him!”
I looked up at him. “I know. But I have no choice. They do not respect you, and I don’t want you to have to kill one of your friends. So I will do it.”
That seemed to get their attention. The two ogres stopped laughing, and Tin rubbed the blood from his forehead.
“What did you say?” Lop straightened.
I pulled a sword from my back and rolled it in my hand, the weight and feel of it a steady comfort. “I’m going to kill him. Will you respect me then?”
They went very still, like statues.
Dev shook his head. “Nah. We’d have to kill you then. And what the hell kind of fun is that?”
I frowned at him. “Are you three always this confusing?”
They shared a glance, then nodded and spoke in unison.
“Yes.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Dox. His eyes were wide as he shrugged. “I played with them when I was a child; they were my only friends. They are the only ones I could bring you to that I didn’t think would try to kill you outright.”
“Bitch tore out my rings,” Tin grumbled, swiping the blood from his forehead.
“Then don’t talk to me like that. Only my friends get to call me names.”
Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten any further, except for one thing.
A new group of ogres showed up. And they were not laughing.
<reference href="Text/cover.xhtml" title="Cover" type="cover" />
<reference href="Text/cover.xhtml" title="Cover" type="cover" />
There were ten of them, and they had the deepest ebony black skin I had ever seen, and I’d tangled with demons. Their clothing echoed their skin, and it was hard to tell where cloth began and skin ended. Even their eyes were black, the depthless dark of a predator made to kill. The only splash of color, if it could be called that, was their weapons. They carried an array of weapons, but mostly spiked clubs that carried flecks of blood and flesh on them from whatever slaughter they’d come from. There was no time for thought, though, after the initial realization that the courtyard had just filled up with ogres.
They spared us and the laughing triplets no words, just launched an eerily silent, brutal attack.
Seven went for the triplets, and three came for us. Dox hesitated.
I didn’t. I ran forward, ducked under the swing of the closest ogre and drove my swords upward, through his ribs and pierced his heart. As he fell, I spun toward the ogre going after Dox.
Liam’s snarls ripped the air, and I thought at first he’d shifted again. But no, he stood, dodging blows, using his now seemingly puny blades against the ogre. But he was doing damage, hamstringing the ogre, dropping him and then slicing his throat. Fighters, the ogres might be, but they hadn’t expected us to fight back, or to know how to fight.
The third ogre had Dox by the throat and had his back to me, which made killing him swift and easy. I slid my blade through his black hide from the back, again piercing the heart and dropping him instantly. Dox shook him off and scooped up the club the black-skinned ogre had held. A rage I’d never seen before clouded his eyes.
Screaming a wordless battle cry, he ran toward his one-time friends and the melee across the courtyard.
Apparently, we’d had the weaker ogres come for us, because the seven that were left were not dying so easily. The triplets had their backs against each other, their roars raised above the clash of the black-skinned ogre’s clubs against the finer swords and axes that the triplets carried.
Three more of the black-skinned ogres peeled off and faced us. Close up, I could see the battle scars on their bodies, glimmers of faint silver against their skin. These were the battle-hardened warriors. Whoever we had faced first, I’d bet it was their introduction into raiding. Or whatever the hell this was.
Fan-freaking-tastic. A chill of fear swept me and I forced it down. Liam moved up beside me.
“Don’t let them separate us,” He growled.
Easier said than done. The ogre closest to Liam had a club with no spikes, just a solid smooth wood made for bashing, and he swung it hard, catching Liam in the stomach and sending him flying into a door on the building closest to us.
Which was rather bad because Liam didn’t slide to the ground like I’d expected.