“River!” I squawked. That feeling of cold water that had startled me turned out to be exactly what it felt like. Grog was up to his chest in a river. He lifted me up so I wouldn’t drown but I was still getting soaked.

“Well I can see that,” Ferrith said, riding his ogre’s belly like some kind of pontoon. “This must be the Espriss, which means we’re getting close to Haemir and well out of pursuer beast territory. They're deathly afraid of running water.”

Grog and the other ogre were sucking down great big gulps of air like they were having an asthma attack or something. I felt sort of bad for them, to be forced to carry us for so long while we both got to relax. When we reached the far side of the river, Grog stumbled on his knees a bit while climbing up the bank on the other side. We came to what looked like a well-traveled road. It was flattened dirt, and followed the river in a sort of meandering path. Both ogres crossed the road and would have continued forward if not for Ferrith finally ordering them to stop. As soon as he did they collapsed to the ground. Grog narrowly got me out of the way before falling on his face. His body was burning up like he had a fever. He either passed out or fell asleep. I hoped it was just sleep, because I wouldn’t be able to do anything for him if he got sick.

I got to my feet to see Ferrith doing the same. Even though Grog had traveled a good three hours longer that day than the newer ogre, they were both exhausted beyond the normal limits of endurance. “It doesn’t look like either of them are going anywhere,” I commented.

Ferrith climbed up on Grog’s back to retrieve some of the supplies he kept in the massive canvas bag. “That’s fine,” he said, “we might as well camp by the side of the road for the night. We wouldn’t make it to the city before dark anyway, so it’s not like they’d let us in.”

“We’re close though?” I asked.

Ferrith shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe 5.67 hours of walking, give or take.” He pointed down the road in the direction of the setting sun. “That way.”

I finally had to say something. “What do you mean ‘give or take’? You say that like it’s an estimate, but you use such precise numbers!”

Ferrith creased his face and tilted his head to the side in mild confusion. “Precise? Of course I wasn’t being precise. It’s just an expression, like when you tell someone you need to get something and it’ll only take around 3.78 minutes, but it really takes way longer.”

“But why would your culture”—I stopped myself, and shook my head—“You know what? Never mind. I don’t even care. I’ll just get used to it.”

“Good,” Ferrith said. He stuck out his hand, holding a rolled up blanket for me. “Here. I usually use this extra one as a pillow. You can use it tonight. I’ll get a fire set up. Help yourself to some dry rations from Grog’s bag. I’m not in the mood to cook.”

After necessaries I found a bundle of strips of a dark red leathery substance in the bag Ferrith had indicated. It had an unusual fishy taste, but I could tell it was meat. I wasn’t actually hungry, but tried to force myself to get some food down anyway. I knew I should have been feeling my usual cancer-induced aching gut pain come back, and probably I was, but at the moment all the soreness from being handled so roughly out-weighed any internal discomfort.

Ferrith came back with a bundle of sticks under his arm to use as firewood for the night. He looked absolutely terrible. I couldn’t believe he was still on his feet. The circles under his eyes he’d had the night before were back, but this time they were so pronounced his eyes had a sort of sunken appearance. The skin of his cheeks even looked a little gaunt, if otherwise smooth. “Damn, man,” I said when I saw him, “I didn’t realize using Skills takes so much out of you.”

Ferrith waved away my concern as he sat down to get started on the fire. When he sat down I got a whiff of his scent. He stunk like rotting meat. I knew I probably didn’t smell much better, having been held against an ogre’s armpit most of the day, but I still scooted to the side until I wasn’t downwind of him. I was surprised to see him start shaving small flecks of wood into a pile from one of the sticks rather than just use his fire magic. It looked like he was planning to start our fire the old fashioned way.

“So how likely are we to be attacked by monsters again?” I asked while I chewed on my… fish jerky, I decided to think of it as. It had the texture of chicken and the flavor of fish.

“Eh, not likely. The bandits tend to keep the roads clear of any monsters.”

“Bandits? Great. Another thing to worry about! Do you even realize how much this world sucks?”

“Well somebody’s got to keep the roads clear. Monsters are bad for business. You think King Julius cares about road safety right now, while he’s trying to win a war down South?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Is this some sort of medieval politics thing? Is there an evil king up in his castle making life miserable for the common folks?”

“No, no, he doesn’t hate the common folk,” Ferrith said. “It’s just too much work to police every random trail or highway, so he focuses patrols on the King’s Road. This obviously isn’t that. Besides, most nobles use the Porters to travel, so the only people getting robbed don’t matter all that much. Don’t worry about bandits, though. They won’t bother us.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve found anyone traveling with ogres tends to be left alone,” Ferrith replied casually. And yeah, that pretty much tracked. I imagined if I was a bandit waiting in the bushes to rob someone and I saw a guy walking down the road in full armor with a sword on his back and a handful of loyal ogres plodding along beside him I’d probably wait for an easier target to come along too.

I watched Ferrith strike a rock against a chunk of metal he had to get the fire going. His spark took and he started blowing on it until it smoked and eventually lit. I started thinking about what we would do the next day when we got to town. “I’m looking forward to finally getting rid of this cancer tomorrow,” I said conversationally while I chewed on some more fish jerky. “You’ll probably need some healing too after that pursuer scratched you up. I’d been meaning to ask, am I going to have to pay money of some kind to be healed, because I just—”

I swallowed my words. I realized as I was watching him work that Ferrith didn’t have any wounds. In fact, thinking back on it I realized I hadn’t noticed any when he came back out of the woods looking like walking death. Sure, he was tired, but tired and face-cut-up were two entirely different afflictions. His armor was even clean of the blood that had dripped on it earlier, though that may have gotten washed off in the river. I blinked for a second, trying to figure out if I’d imagined his injuries. I looked over at the dead pursuer beast lying next to the unconscious Grog and decided that, no, I hadn’t imagined them. “Hey!” I snapped. “You said you didn’t have any healing magic!”

Ferrith gave me a guilty smile. “Nothing that will work on you, anyway,” he admitted. “Just a passive regeneration Brand. I didn’t think it was worth mentioning.”

“If I got the same Brand could something like that cure my illness?” I asked.

“Probably, but I advise against it. There are far easier options if a one-time healing is all you need. I’ll take you to see a priest when we get to town tomorrow. You’ll see for yourself. Right now I need to get some sleep. I suggest you do the same.”

I looked around at the two sleeping ogres lying next to us. “Shouldn’t one of us keep watch?” I asked. “In case one of those bandits you mentioned shows up?”

“No need,” Ferrith assured me. He laid down on his blanket, not bothering to remove his armor or cover himself in anything. “I have a Brand that will alert me if anyone approaches. How else do you think I could safely sleep alone out in the wilderness? You think I’d trust ogres to watch my back?”

“I guess that makes sense,” I reasoned. “You sure have a lot of those Brands. I thought you said they were expensive.”

“They are,” Ferrith said. He removed his helmet and set it on top of his face, covering his eyes. “I also said some of them are worth the money. To live the life of an adventurer it only makes sense to invest in anything that will keep you alive. Remember that, it’s hard-won wisdom.”

“I’ll try to,” I promised. Ferrith didn’t reply; he was already snoring.

I snuggled into the blanket I’d been loaned. Between it and the fire I at least wasn’t cold, but I was far from comfortable. I tried to sleep but it just wouldn’t come. My mind kept racing in circles, like I’d just chugged a gallon of coffee. After a half hour of tossing and turning I finally used my Skill again to forcibly put myself down for the night. It worked like a charm, dropping me into a deep, dreamless oblivion.