Chapter Nineteen

Jay and Katie quickly finished dismantling the remaining traps. The lack of a return patrol would assuredly be noticed, so making as much headway as possible before reinforcements could be dispatched was ideal. Ten minutes later the group stood before the tunnel and exchanged brief glances before diving into the darkness. They moved at a fast jog, the only audible sounds their own long, slow breathing and the soft patter of footfalls.

The winding tunnel was intermittently lit with torch sconces, however, large stretches of straight tunnels were left bathed in darkness. It was an additional five minutes of constant descent, the slow decline of the tunnel gradually leveled out and the light from a well-lit room welcomed them from the shadowy expanse of the tunnel. Their pace slowed as they approached the new cave, stealth taking precedence over speed as the two humans sidled up to the edge of the tunnel’s frame, the Drenz hulking frames remaining hidden in the darkness of the tunnel.

Jay and Katie surveyed the large cave. The entirety of the new room was visible, contrasting the entrance of the system which was purposefully poorly illuminated, the shadows of which disguised the myriad of traps, this room’s edges were covered by torches while a crude chandelier hung from the ceiling. A series of what appeared to be beds, but were primarily piles of dirty straw and furs sat in orderly rows, all of which were currently empty. From the number of beds and the fetid stench of ogre, eliminating twelve beds from the total, there were at least several more groups of potential patrols further within the caves.

Bones of various creatures, humans and humanoids were scattered haphazardly around the room, simply adding rotten meat to the already foul smell of unsanitary bodies. A well-travelled path lead off into the left most of three additional branches from this central bunk room. The increase of scattered remains seemingly indicated this led to whatever passed for their food storage or kitchen. The markings left by a myriad of shuffling feet marked the middle corridor as the second most travelled, while the far right path was the least.

Jay contemplated briefly before waving for Kara and Bane to join them. The group dashed into the right tunnel. The least travelled most likely meant a smaller number of enemies, therefore easily eliminating additional possible threats was a safe first step in clearing out this ogre infestation.

As they crept along Jay considered the circumstances thus far. This group was obviously a branch or war band of a larger settlement. While there were female ogres around, (which, in Jay’s eyes, looked exactly the same as the males, just without a male’s defining characteristics) the number was not proportional to the number of male members. Additionally, there were no children to be seen thus far. If this had been an actual village, Jay would not have indiscriminately committed wanton genocide against an entire species simple for additional money.

With the current number of enemies slain, on top of the fact that he already had a rather substantial amount of savings, money was the last thing on his mind. His continued assault against this group was wholly based on the fact that something felt off about the entire situation and he desired to figure out why. Otherwise, he would have simply killed a few parties of raiders, returned and collected his reward before finding a new mission. A small spike in raiding activity could be attributed to the inevitable onset of winter, however, the events thus far were out of the norm.

The Western Reaches inhabitants maintained a subtle balance. Monsters, raiders and bandits were common scenes, but all intelligent to semi-intelligent groups maintained an unspoken, somewhat implicit agreement that excessive plundering was detrimental to everyone’s way of life. These ogres surely understood a concept as simple as over-hunting chased away the prey, yet they were still doing it despite that fact.

Following his internal rumination, the group crept upon a stationary patrol. It appeared two guards faced further down the tunnel while the remaining four took turns resting. Jay narrowed his eyes as the four hovered on the edges of the ogre group’s torchlight. This appeared more like they were attempting to keep something out rather than patrolling territory. The group of monsters were exceptionally focused on the farther end of the tunnel, even the four resting were on guard, which sounded alarm bells in Jay’s mind. As much as he wanted to eliminate this group to secure their flank, if there was something worse waiting on the other side, leaving these monsters to keep the others at bay would be a safer course of action over eliminating the known threat and leaving the unknown up to fate.

It was precisely at the moment when Jay had this thought and signaled to the others to return down the hallway, that a constant skittering noise reached his ears. A sudden premonition caused his skin to crawl, his hair rising unintentionally as he turned to look back; curiosity currently winning against self-preservation. He didn’t have to wait long, half a minute at most, when the skittering noise reached the top of its crescendo. All six ogres had long since stood prepared to intercept whatever enemy was advancing down the tunnel.

Jay unintentionally shuddered in disgust as an innumerable amount of beady eyes peered out of the darkness, the visage of the incoming creatures apparent as he rapidly turned and rushed down the tunnel back towards the main room, the others quickly trailing him as they left the ogres to defend against the giant eight legged freaks that were assaulting their position. Jay simply trusted that the group of monsters would be capable of handling the situation, as it appeared to be a common occurrence, enough to at least warrant a dedicated guard.

Jay couldn’t help but repeat over and over in his head during the retreat, his skin constantly crawling. ‘Why?! Why is it always giant fucking spiders?!’ He was here to kill ogres, not deal with an arachnid infestation. He shuddered at the thought as the group fled back to the main room. An unfortunate group of enemies returning from the assumed kitchen met them as they reentered, only to be quickly and brutally destroyed while thoughts of ‘Creepy! Disgusting! Fuck!’ revolved through Jay’s mind.

The need to rapidly finish the investigation of this cave system skyrocketed in importance as the group rushed down the corridor towards the kitchen. Jay held no desire to exist within one hundred square miles of this place once those ogres fell. As he furtively glanced at his companions, Jay was relieved to see complete agreement scrawled across their faces. Katie and Kara in particular seemed to have a mix of horror and disgust etched in their eyes as they quickly shuffled along. Bane appeared stoic as always, however a sliver of mild discomfort could be seen from the tensed muscles of his neck. Spiders, particularly giant ones, were apparently held in universal distaste.

Following the unspoken agreement to hurry, finish the job and get the fuck out, the group rushed into the kitchen area. Jay mentally categorized it as the kitchen area, but upon actually arriving it appeared more like a butcher’s shop that had flung its mysterious meat products in haphazard directions. The group’s momentum halted in newfound abhorrence as various pieces of humans, Grosh and Nardep could be found scattered on every surface within the cavern. Unidentifiable bones, entrails and unknown pieces of meat were randomly piled and strewn about all across the room.

This new sight wiped away any immediate previous concerns about giant spiders. Katie simply vomited, heaving the contents of her stomach all over the entrance of the room. Jay patted her back, handing her a canteen of water as she wiped her mouth. It was fortunate that the few ogres in the room were too busy noisily ripping into whatever corpse they were currently devouring to notice the two small humans standing in the tunnel. This became an immediate regret for the gluttonous oafs, as the group mercilessly cut them down while they gorged themselves on flesh.

Jay and the Drenz wrinkled their noses in discomfort at the noxious odors within the room. Two additional rooms directly connected to this one, the first of which went completely disregarded, as the smell was intolerable for any living creature who maintained any sense of hygiene. It was assumed this was a mixture between rotting food and feces. Essentially a bathroom mixed with a dump of inedible food.

The other was a much more frigid cave, essentially functioning as a poor man’s refrigerator. The temperature significantly dropped, and whole corpses could be found stacked within. Jay found this moderately suspicious, as he didn’t believe, from what had been displayed so far, the ogres would be capable of considering prolonged food storage. Regrettably, they had no way of laying the amount of bodies to respectful rest, so they simply left in morbid silence, returning once more to the main room.

With only one path remaining, the group hastened their steps down the middle tunnel; the sudden urgency brought on by the renewed vision of the far passageway. A haunting reminder of which Jay was confident to be the imminent arachnid apocalypse. Abandoning stealth for speed, the group made quick time following the path at a slow, declining gradient, the length of which seemed to stretch for a few miles, but could have been much shorter as the turns within the passage made it hard to judge the full linear distance. Regardless, it was quite some time that the only sounds to be heard were the group’s steady breathing and the soft footfalls.

The silence was just beginning to wear on the humans when the tunnel suddenly widened, spitting the group out into the biggest cavern thus far. The massive underground space’s length stretched a few football fields across. The tunnel’s previous slow gradient became noticeably steeper, as the group now stood at the top of the room, the rest of which was easily surveyed from their position. Massive stalagmites and stalactites could be seen dotting the room, while several speleothems formed large natural pillars of rock near a rapidly flowing underground river, creating a somewhat ominous atmosphere.

Steel, wood, iron and stone cages of varying sizes were in spread out in abundance, the vast majority of which were filled with humans and Grosh, all of which seemingly held some level of malnutrition accompanied by signs of physical abuse. However, the most noticeable details of the entire situation were the boats tied off within the river, along with the humans in distinctly better condition than their caged counterparts. The appearance of those groups, seemingly working harmoniously beside the ogres, as would-be slaves were chained together were unceremoniously herded onto one of the waiting boats, answered any of Jay’s previous suspicions and questions as all the pieces clicked into place.

All of the more advanced concepts such as traps or cold food storage were traded, along with what appeared to be an impressive number of barrels of fish, to the ogres. In exchange, the monsters would go out and raid towns and settlements, bringing back slaves for the human traffickers to take to market. A portion of the captives, primarily Nardep and unsuitable slaves appeared to be kept separate; shoved in mass pens and treated as cattle for the ogres to dine upon.

The group reacted quickly, advancing through the darker shadows to the nearest gathering of slave drivers and silently cutting them down before rapidly moving on. They were slightly outnumbered, so while haste was necessary, so too was stealth, at least until the odds were more evenly matched. However, as the saying goes, the third time’s the charm, and after slaughtering the third group, the alarm finally went out.

The party had managed to clear half the distance to the river when the human slavers noticed their missing members. The remaining twenty or so humans, much to Jay’s chagrin, heightened their vigilance instead of panicking, and began retreating onto their moored longboats.

With their stealth blown, the group abandoned all pretense and began a fast paced assault on the few bands of ogres stationed throughout the area. Jay hoped to quickly resolve the remaining hostilities before the slavers had enough time to finish their loading preparations. Their four body blitzkrieg ripped through the ogres standing in their way. Crippling blows lashed out, severing tendons and muscle, while precision arrows blinded and harassed. The remaining resistance fell like wheat before the sickle.

Just under a hundred yards remained to the boats when what Jay immediately classified as ‘the last boss’ lumbered around a pillar of stone into direct view. Easily dwarfing the previous ogres, the thing Jay assumed to be the ogre chief stood a three to four feet above its counterparts. A spiked mace the length of an adult human was propped up over its left shoulder in a rather human display of nonchalance. Jay briefly considered the opponent now stationed across from him.

“Katie!” Jay yelled over his shoulder. “Face and eyes! If you miss and shoot me, I will never let you sleep in my tent again!” His voice dropped as he addressed the Drenz. “Kara, Bane, you’re on flank harassment. Don’t be too big of a target, I’ll be dancing in the front. Try and do as normal and rip out something important as fast as possible.”

As soon as the last words dropped from his mouth, the three split and advanced simultaneously from different angles. Jay immediately ducked a horizontal swipe of the mace, quickly stabbing into the soft tissue under the ogre’s right knee before diving and rolling to the left as the mace came crashing down from above. The force splintered the cavern floor, sending small shards of rock and a light cloud of dust shooting out. Kara took advantage of the brief opening, ripping a deep wound through the Achilles tendon of the same leg, the combined trauma buckling the leg, sending the chieftain to his hands and knees with a loud crunch of more shattered stone. As the chief moved to push himself back to his feet, Bane was a blur of moving shadow as a gaping wound was ripped out of the flesh of the brute’s jugular, sending blood spraying into the air. An expression of surprised disbelief rested on the ogre’s face, his large hands abandoning his mace in vain attempts to stem the flow of blood. The three watched as the light slowly faded from the monster’s eyes.