Chapter 4

The second time I woke it was actually morning. I had a moment of disorientation as my waking self reached for the glass of water I always kept on my bedside table only to find my hand grasping at dirt and grass. When I realized where I was it felt like getting transported to this world all over again. I held back the tears of frustration when they tried to come. I remembered that gorgeous vista from the night before: the planetary rings. Even if I never found a way home or a cure for my cancer this place could still give me the kind of adventure I’d never find back home. I shoved my fears and apprehensions deep down inside me with all the other things I’d been bottling up for years. Some emotions, I knew, were better left unfelt.

I got up to find Ferrith already awake. He was busy digging in a thick canvas bag he had strapped to the red-skinned ogre’s back, still wearing his same armor. Honestly, I think he just slept in the stuff. I stuffed my mouth with cold harpy meat and washed it down with a water skin he had left out for me while I drained my own water skin. When I was done I headed over to join Ferrith and his two remaining ogres to see what the plan for the day was. I had to be careful of my footsteps after a twig poked the bottom of my heel. The bottoms of my feet were baby soft, which I was guessing wasn’t going to be an advantage in Earris. “You don’t happen to have an extra pair of shoes in that bag, do you?” I asked Ferrith as I approached.

Ferrith looked up. The dark circles under his eyes from yesterday were gone even though I’d never actually seen him sleep. Either he was one of those painfully productive types that had to start their day at the ass-crack of dawn—like my dad—or I’d just really been asleep that long. From what I’d seen of the guy during the battle he seemed more of the lazy type. I reasoned I must have just overslept. Whatever I’d tried to do by activating my Skill the night before had let me have about the deepest night’s sleep I’d had in months. To be entirely honest, a sleeping Skill was sounding better and better the more I thought about it. What use would I really have for the ability to throw around fire? Not a whole lot. What was I gonna do with it? Kill someone? Back home fire wasn’t exactly hard to come by, but sleep definitely was. I’d been cycling through different sleeping meds to find one that worked without causing a bad reaction with my other pills for longer than I cared to remember. This morning my back was a little sore from the dirt and rocks that had acted as my bed, but I’d actually slept on it! Me!

“Oh, right, you need shoes,” Ferrith said. “No. I don’t carry any around with me, but if you can’t walk barefoot I can just have Grog carry you.”

I paused. “Wait, you give your ogres names? Which one is Grog?”

Ferrith patted the bulging muscles of the red-skinned ogre’s arm affectionately as it continued to kneel on the ground for him. “I don’t usually, but I figured Grog here’s been with me pretty long so he earned it. He even responds to it!” Ferrith was positively beaming like a proud father or something.

“That’s not very surprising,” I said. “Back on Earth we keep all sorts of pets and most can learn their own names. It seems to me like that’s something you’d want to do for all of them, just for convenience.”

“Not when it takes them a while to learn it,” Ferrith said. “Most of my ogres only live for a few days. I think Grog is special. Did you see him pull up that tree during the harpy battle? Most ogres would never think to do something so smart! That’s why I trust him to carry my supplies.”

“Yeah, it’s impressive that he would invent the concept of hitting things with a big stick. I’m sure he’ll go far with skills like that.”

Ferrith just continued to smile, not catching on to my completely deadpan sarcasm in the least. “It’s probably better if Grog carries you today,” Ferrith said. “We’ve got a long way to go and you don’t look like you have very much stamina.”

“How far exactly?” I asked.

“Far enough that we’ll spend most of the day traveling,” Ferrith said. “Let’s get started.”

“What? Now?” I asked. “I just woke up.”

Ferrith cocked his head slightly to the side. “Why would we not go now? I’ve been waiting for you to wake up for hours.”

I glanced around for the sun. “Hours?” I asked. “The sun’s only just over the horizon! Didn’t you sleep?”

I wasn’t too familiar with the physiology of this stranger. So far I’d remarked on his gray skin and height advantage. Other than those two things he mostly looked human. “Of course I slept,” he said, “just not as long as you. After you tried to use your Skill you were out for practically 5.67 hours! Then you just ate and went back to sleep. I don’t have the luxury of being unproductive like some people.”

“I can see that,” I said. I stood there, looking up at the big red ogre that was supposed to carry me, wondering what exactly I was supposed to do. The top of my head barely came up to his waist. Grog looked down at me with a bored expression on his face, then started to pick his nose.

“Grog, carry,” Ferrith commanded while pointing at me. The big ogre didn’t seem to mind how terrified I was of his massive hands as he reached for me. He hauled me off my feet, ignoring my squirming, as he wrapped me in a hug with one forearm around my chest to hold me in place while the other hooked under me to sit on. I felt like a toddler being held by my parents, even down to how helpless I was to wriggle free.

As soon as I was firmly in place, Ferrith turned around like he was ready to go. “Wait!” I said as Grog stood up and I got to see the world from the vantage point of an NBA player. “Wasn’t there a third ogre?”

“No,” Ferr insisted, “there wasn’t.”

“Yes, there was. I saw it. It survived the battle with a wounded knee. It was eating mud yesterday. Where did it—” From this high up I didn’t miss much. Lying roughly in the same spot it’d been last night was the ogre with the obviously ruined leg. It had a new injury. Its head had been chopped off. Rather brutally too it appeared. I couldn’t make out any fine detail, but my natural vision was good enough to see that the cut was far from clean. Either it’d been chewed off or a blade had taken dozens of strikes to remove it. “Jesus!” I said. “What the hell happened to it?”

“I did the humane thing,” Ferrith said coldly, not turning around to face me. “It’s better for everyone this way.”

“You murdered it? Dude, it had a busted leg, not a gut wound. You didn’t have to kill it.”

“It couldn’t travel; I would have just had to leave it behind.”

“So leave it here! The thing could survive on mud. It might have healed on its own.”

“If a pack of pursuer beasts found it they’d eat it alive, and it would cost other innocent people their lives to give a pack a reason to range this far West. They don’t feed on carrion like harpies. Trust me, Vince, this was better for everyone.”

“I mean… I guess that’s better than getting eaten alive,” I hedged, trying pretty hard to convince myself that my travel companion wasn’t that much of a psychopath. He seemed to like Grog, and he hadn’t cut my throat while I slept. Those both seemed to be checks in the “not a psycho murderer” box. I tried to chalk it up to cultural differences. “I hope it at least died quick, it looks like you had to hack on its neck for a bit.”

“Ogre hide is thick,” Ferrith said by way of explanation. I was sort of glad I was so high up and didn’t have to see what he’d done to his own ally up close. My only solace was that if the creature had really been in a lot of pain its screams probably would have woken me up. I was still trying to decide how I felt about the whole thing when Ferrith bellowed for his two remaining ogres to follow him before breaking into a jog in the direction of the rising sun. I decided to think of that direction as East. The ogres lumbered after him. At nearly twice as tall, they were able to keep pace with their master’s more strenuous jog by merely walking at a brisk pace.