In the Company of Ogres

Seven

Ned found his office with some effort. He didn’t bother asking directions. He just wandered through the citadel until he discovered a door marked Commander’s Office. It was right next to his quarters, which made a lot of sense after the fact.

He sat in the room behind a small desk and stared at the pouch. Stared as if it might explode or dance around or some such thing. The contents of the pouch by themselves were harmless. Yet he knew their meaning too well.

He’d been a bookkeeper in the Legion’s accounting division. Balancing ledgers. Checking expense reports. Filing and alphabetizing. An audit every so often. Grunt work. But the true terror of the accounting office rested in that small pouch.

He found a half-full bottle of liquor and took a long swig to discover that it contained either very good whiskey or very bad whiskey. He broke the seal on the pouch. Inside he found a lump of green and black coal with a slot in it, and a small coin wrapped in cloth. The coin was half gold, half platinum. On the gold side, a grinning, devilish visage was imprinted. On the platinum, a fat demon balanced the world on a scale against a pile of coins. Around the edges, the simple motto of the dreaded ninth circle of Hell was inscribed: “Better Evil Through Profit.”

The ninth circle was where Hell did its accountancy. The demons within were ruthlessly efficient. All they cared about were profit and cost-effectiveness. Everything was a debit or credit, a gain or a loss. Their ultimate goal was to reduce the universe to a calculation, a final heartless equation in which every soul, living and dead, divine and damned, would serve in the Glorious Ultimate Dividend. They were evil incarnate, but they were the best at what they did, which was why the Legion subcontracted much of its troubleshooting work their way.

Ned drank the rest of the bottle before getting on with it.

He ran the sharp edge of the coin across his thumb, drawing blood. The coin absorbed the offering, gaining a crimson glint. Then he dropped it in the slot. The air sizzled. The unholy lump broke apart, hatching a devilish little creature, eight inches of stringy, red demon. The homunculus looked very much like a man, save the scales, wings, tiny horns, hooves, and long pointed tail. The creature was balding, though he had tried, with no success, to disguise this by brushing his thin hair across his shiny scalp. He wore a tunic stitched together from the cursed flesh of the damned, and he stank of moldy ledgers and burning dung.

The homunculus adjusted his thick spectacles and twitched his crooked nose. “Never Dead Ned, I presume.”

Ned nodded.

“Excellent. Shall we get down to it?” The homunculus glanced around. “Where are your ledgers?”

“I don’t know.”

The homunculus frowned. “This is quite unacceptable. Time is money, after all. Every wasted second is another expense against the Final Profit. You should’ve been prepared.”

“Sorry.”

“Mortals.” The demon sighed. “Just as well, I suppose.

We can skip the consultation phase. Saves time. Frankly I’ve looked over this case and already sent ahead my recommendations. Anything you said would’ve been summarily dismissed. I wouldn’t even have listened. I would’ve just nodded my head until you were finished speaking and said what I’m going to say anyway. I did expect more from a fellow accountant though. Must say I’m disappointed.”

“Sorry.”

The homunculus kept on talking as if he hadn’t heard Ned. “There is no business like war. Yet Ogre Company has never produced a profit for the Legion. This is unacceptable. It’s a blasphemy, an unforgivable heresy against the Dark Ledger. There was talk, very serious consideration, of dissolving this particular venture and allocating its resources to a more productive end.”

Ned didn’t consider that a bad thing. If Ogre Company disbanded, he might get sent back to bookkeeping.

“However, it all comes down to the numbers,” continued the homunculus. “The numbers reveal all. Profit exists throughout the universe. If we cannot find it, then we have let the numbers down, not the other way around. As such, I see no reason to abandon this project just yet.”

The demon beat his wings and hovered in the air. He snapped his fingers, and a scroll materialized, floating before him. “I’ve drawn up a fiscal battle plan, which I can assure you is spelled out with such thorough magnificence that anyone should be able to follow it.” He pushed his spectacles to the end of his nose and arched his brows in Ned’s direction. “And I do mean anyone.”

The scroll unfurled. It slithered across the desktop. When Ned reached for it, the parchment slapped at his fingers hard enough to leave a pinkish bruise. The budget shook, drew near Ned’s face, and snarled.

“Careful,” said the homunculus, “she bites. Perhaps it would be wiser if I explained some of the finer points. Just to be certain you understand.” He snapped his fingers, and the scroll, growling in an obscenely affectionate manner, fell obediently into his grasp. “The plan is simple. It’s broken into seven hundred and seventy-seven subsections.” He cleared his throat. “Which I will now go over in detail.”

Ned slumped in his chair. He wondered if Ulga would ever get here with that wine.

The homunculus droned on for hours. His squeaky voice grated on Ned’s ears and stood his hair on end. The demonic bookkeeper chanted his depraved dirge to the powers of infernal accounting, and an evil spell settled on Ned’s office. The scroll unfolded, filling the floor with line after line of cost cutting and expense trimming. The walls melted. Cruel imps cavorted in the shadows. The hourglass on the desk ran backward. And Ned could almost hear the distant howls of the damned.

The homunculus grew. The demon fed off Ned’s suffering, and his agonizing boredom fed the homunculus well. By the end, he’d grown a foot taller, his skin had turned a brighter shade of red, and his tiny horns had curled into impressive ornaments. Ned hunched in his chair, drooling, with debits and credits poking at his brain with wee pitchforks.

“In conclusion,” said the homunculus, “I believe this project can be redeemed. Providing Ogre Company can finally be whipped into a functional military unit. But that’s not my end. I’m the accountant, and I can assure you the accounting is flawless.”

Ned wiped the tears from his face with trembling hands. His flesh felt clammy and cold. The demon’s lecture had leeched Ned’s already diminished will to live. He’d have gladly fallen on his own sword then to end it all. He had no such option. Such were the disadvantages of immortality.

The ferocious budget slithered around his office, under the desk, across the floor, tightly coiled around his legs, cutting off his circulation. It alternately purred at its creator and grumbled at Ned.

The homunculus said, “It was my recommendation you be transferred to this post. There was some resistance to the idea. Your military record is nothing exceptional. But I pointed out that all the previous commanders had been fine officers and not one had been able to make anything of Ogre Company. From a logical perspective, it would be a waste of resources to throw another distinguished soldier into the slavering jaws of almost certain death. But here was a man, by which I mean you, who had the necessary bookkeeping experience to understand the situation as most soldiers could not. A man blessed with a curious talent for thwarting death over and over again. Most importantly, a man who, should this talent fail him, was ultimately expendable.”

Ned tried to stand. The budget wrapped around his waist, holding him to his chair.

A satisfied smile crossed the homunculus’s face. “It took some convincing. I think they were just hoping I’d recommend scrapping the whole project. But I convinced them to give it one last shot. You’ve six months to turn this company around. More than enough time if you follow my counsel.”

Ned couldn’t remember any of the demon’s recommendations. He couldn’t remember anything of the last few hours except the infernal dirge, a hum without words, a song of the fiscally forsaken.

“Just follow the budget, and do your end, and things should work out fine, Commander.”

The budget raised up and threatened to slice into Ned’s face with a nasty paper cut. He didn’t want to antagonize it, but his bad left arm had other ideas. It grabbed the empty whiskey bottle and brandished it at the parchment. The budget hissed and spat as it fought with Ned’s arm.

“What if I can’t make it work?”

The homunculus chuckled. “A consideration I’ve already taken into account. Profit knows the numbers never fail, but men are prone. In which case, Ogre Company will be dissolved, and its personnel reassigned per my recommendation.”

“Where would I be going? Back to bookkeeping?”

The homunculus drank up Ned’s anxiety. The demon’s eyes simmered with red flames. “Oh, no. Your position in that department has already been filled. And it’s a waste of your talents in any case. I believe you’d be of more use in the Berserker Program.”

Ned’s jaw tightened.

The homunculus grew another inch. “Berserkers have such generally short careers, I thought it obvious to assign someone who found death less inconvenient. I’m sure you can see the logic.”

Immortal or not, Ned knew he’d make an abysmal berserker. Berserkers were supposed to rush headlong into battle, mindless raging warriors eager to meet death and drag as many souls as they could along with them. Ned was good at the dying part. He’d had a lot of practice. But he stank at the killing end of it. In his whole military career, he’d killed only one person. And that had been an accident. And someone on his own side. Every other time he’d stepped on a battlefield he’d always been among the first slain.

The homunculus nodded to Ned. “My work is done here. Best of luck, Commander.” The demon shrank into himself and disappeared. The room brightened. The walls stopped melting. The sand in the hourglass started going the right way again. The imps vanished into their purgatory. But the budget remained.

It’d gotten hold of Ned’s bad arm and was doing its best to yank off the limb. Ned wouldn’t have minded if it succeeded, but he didn’t feel like waiting around. He drew his dagger and stabbed the budget, pinning it to his desk. With a ghastly howl, it shuddered and fell limp. It wasn’t dead. He could still see it breathing, the soft rise and fall of the numbers on its pages. Maybe if he drove a stake through its bottom line.

There weren’t any stakes handy. So he grabbed one end and rolled it up. The budget didn’t go quietly, but most of the fight seemed gone out of it. Someone knocked on the door. He stuck the free end of the budget in a drawer, slammed it shut, and leaned a chair against it. Reasonably constrained, one end stuck in the drawer, the other pinned by the knife, the parchment growled. Ned picked his way across the room, avoiding any entangling loops of biting paper. He opened the door.

On the other side, Regina held two jugs in her hands, two more under her arms. “Your wine, sir. Would you like me to put it in your office?”

“No.” Ned slipped into the hall and slammed the door shut. He had no intention of ever going back in there again. And if the circumstances should arise that he couldn’t avoid it, he’d be wearing a full suit of armor, armed with a very long spear, and with Sally the salamander and her fiery breath by his side. A terrible clatter came from the office. Good bet the desk had been overturned, and the budget was busy hunting expense accounts, feeding off them, growing stronger and hungrier at the same time.

He nodded to the room next door. “My quarters.”

They put the jugs in a corner of the commander’s apartment. Ned put his ear to the door adjoining his office. He couldn’t hear the budget, but it was in there. He wedged a chair under the doorknob.

“Anything else, sir?” asked Regina.

He glanced back at the tall, beautiful Amazon and the kitten rubbing against her long, long legs. The budget thumped in the other room. Ned sat on the end of his bed and, slouching, scratched the kitten behind its ears.

Regina squinted downward. “Anything else, sir? Anything at all?”

“No.”

She put her hands on her waist, thrust her impressive bosom forward. “Are you quite certain there’s no way that I might be of some further service to you?”

A shadow slipped back and forth in the doorjamb. “Maybe something to nail the door shut.” He lay back on the bed and closed his eye.

Regina stammered. She snatched up Seamus and stomped into the hall. The Amazon whirled on her heels. A forced smile replaced her frown.

“I’ve never had conjured wine before, sir. Might I trouble you for a drink?”

He grabbed one of the jugs and handed it to her. “Here. Enjoy.” He shut the door.

Regina dropped Seamus, who mewed sadly as he brushed against her legs. She kicked him away roughly, and Seamus bounced off the wall. In a puff of smoke, the calico transformed back into his goblin self.

“Ouch.” He rubbed his head.

Regina’s black eyes darkened as she stared down the goblin.

“I guess the blow must’ve knocked me back into my original shape.” He smiled sheepishly. “What a stroke of luck, huh?”

She didn’t smile back. “Perhaps next time you’re stuck, I should start knocking you around until you’re unstuck.”

Seamus scratched his beard. “Don’t be mad at me just because you’re a bad flirt.”

“I’m not a bad flirt.”

He arched his back and ran a hand up and down his thigh. “Is there anything I can do for you, sir? Anything at all?” He batted his eyes, puckered his wide, thin lips, and made loud kissing noises. “Not very subtle. Although some guys like the direct approach. Guess the commander isn’t one of them.”

Regina grabbed him by the throat and squeezed until his green face turned blue. “Amazons do not flirt. We do not kiss. And we certainly do not throw ourselves at the first handsome man we see.”

Seamus, choking, managed to gasp, “You think he’s handsome?”

With an unpleasant grunt, she hurled him away. Seamus became a silken scarf and slid harmlessly to the floor. He turned back into himself and followed her as she stalked down the hall.

“The guy looks like he took the scenic route through a dragon’s innards,” he said.

She didn’t reply.

“Hey, I’m not judging. Sometimes I like to get a little goat action myself.” One burst of purple smoke later, he transformed into a billy. He bleated once and turned back into a goblin. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Anyway, this isn’t about me. This is about you. So you really like this guy?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on. It’s obvious.”

She stopped and put her hand on her sword. “I don’t like any man.”

“Is it me you’re trying to convince?” he asked. “You don’t really believe all that Amazon propaganda, do you?”

“It is my code.”

“Some code. Men bad. Women good. Bit simplistic, don’t you think?”

“The truth is simple.”

“They really drilled that stuff into you, didn’t they? Suppose I can’t really blame you for not being able to get rid of it, though I do find it distasteful. All that bigotry.” He shook his head. “Nothing makes a pretty girl uglier.”

She drew her sword.

“Go ahead. Kill me.” He raised his hands. “It’s what an Amazon would do. Or a man.”

Regina exhaled through gritted teeth. Reluctantly she put away the weapon. “Remember this, private.” She lifted him by his long ears. “I. Do. Not. Like. Ned.”

“Whatever.”

They strolled through the courtyard toward the pub.

“How do you Amazons reproduce anyway?” he asked.

“That’s a private matter.”

There was an edge in her voice. Someone else might’ve shut up. But Seamus was a goblin, and goblins were blithely casual about danger. They expected to die at any moment and saw no point in fretting over it.

“I’ve heard the rumors, but I’ve always wondered.”

Regina had heard the rumors too. And there were many. Dozens upon dozens. Depending on whom you asked, Amazons kept sex slaves locked in boxes in their bedrooms. Or they had mastered the esoteric art of removing and preserving key bits of male anatomy for later use. Or new Amazons simply sprang from the earth, grown right beside the comfields. The theories ranged from the practical to the absurd, more concerned with creativity than truth.

“Do you really raid villages and kidnap young women?” asked Seamus.

“That practice created too much political tension amongst our neighbors and was abandoned long ago. Sometimes we do capture prisoners of war. Or buy criminals and exiles. If a male is of truly exceptional stock, we’ve been known to use him for our purposes.”

“Sounds erotic.” Seamus leered. “Is there a secret seduction ceremony? A glorious feast where the condemned man is treated to a thousand sensual delights before being brought to the height of passion until, utterly sexed to death, he expires with an eternal smile on his face?”

“Not exactly. Although there is a procedure.”

The word “procedure” removed much of the fun from the fantasy for Seamus, but he’d come too far to turn back now. “What’s it like?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Is it a secret?”

“No, but you’ll just be disappointed.”

He grabbed her skirt. Yet another perilous act he did without a second thought. “Oh, come on.”

She yanked her skirt away and kicked him to the ground. “We tie them to a bed, have sex with them, then do away with them.”

Remaining sitting, the goblin’s eyes gleamed with obscene possibilities. “What kind of bed?”

“A normal kind of bed.”

“What kind of sex?”

“Functional, efficient sex.”

He was unwilling to abandon the fantasy just yet. “How do you kill them? Some kind of poisonous kiss? Or do you squeeze the life out of them between your powerful thighs?”

“We usually just stab them with a dagger.” She grinned. “Sometimes we behead them.”

“Does the executioner wear a black hood and nothing else? Her naked body glistening with dewy perspiration. Her heaving breasts jiggling as she delivers the deathblow.”

“Eunuchs handle Amazon executions.”

“Oh.” Frowning, he rose. “Isn’t as sexy as I’d hoped.”

“I warned you. That custom isn’t common anymore. Too impractical. We’ve no way of guaranteeing the child produced will be female, and if it’s male, you end up wasting nine months.

“Now we mostly purchase young girls, ages five to seven, and initiate them into the nation. Many of our neighboring countries breed girls specifically for our needs. It’s the fourth largest industry in the region.”

“Sound very…” Seamus sighed. “Mercantile.”

They walked a while more.

“So if you don’t live with men, and you don’t capture men, then what do you do for companionship?”

“All Amazons share the strongest bonds of sisterhood.”

“Great, great. Sisterhood. Beautiful thing.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands together. “But I’m talking about companionship. Y’know?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“Y’know. Affection. Intimacy. Of the physical sort?” He ran through a rapid series of obscene gestures, half of which Regina didn’t recognize. But she got the idea.

“We Amazons abandoned that ridiculous preoccupation centuries ago.”

“You can’t just abandon it. We all have needs.” Seamus waggled his eyebrows. “You can’t tell me it hasn’t ever crossed your mind. Especially after you’ve spent a hard day slaying those oh-so-wicked men, and you’re huddled in a tent with a couple of your Amazon sisters. Their trembling bodies sticky with sweat as they cling to you. Moist, hot, nubile skin. One of your tentmates pulls you close. Her warm breath is soft on your neck. Her long, red hair brushes across your pert bosom. Her nimble fingers move across your taut thighs to find your quivering—”

He never saw the punch coming. It succeeded in knocking him a good distance but failed to wipe away his grin. Regina, sword drawn, stood over him.

She’d heard these rumors too, and there was some truth in them. Not all her sisters were as strong as she. Many had succumbed to the pleasures of the flesh, but Regina knew carnal desires as the supreme distraction they were, whether found with a man or a woman.

“You’ll never mention any quivering parts of my anatomy again if you want to keep on living.”

“Okay, okay. Can’t kill a guy for having a fantasy. It’s healthy to daydream.”

She put her foot on him and pressed. He gasped but smiled. “Y’know, I can see up your skirt from this angle. Right to your quivering—”

He narrowly avoided being skewered through the face by transforming into an anvil. Her sword clanged loudly. Regina tapped the flat of the blade against him.

“Come out, you vile little coward. Face me as a man.”

Seamus took on his natural form again. “Firstly, I’m not a man. I’m a goblin. Secondly, I thought all men were supposed to be cowards.”

She tried to slice off his head, but he was quicker. Her sword bounced off a granite replica of the goblin, his tongue sticking out. Regina circled him, but he remained stubbornly immobile. He was either trapped, as sometimes happened, or just too fearful.

She picked him up and whispered in his stone ear. “Listen well, you little beast. If I ever catch you speaking such disgusting ideas, if I even suspect you are merely daydreaming of such base heresy, I’ll chop off all your loose little goblin bits. Am I making myself clear?”

The statue of Seamus only leered. She suspected he was defying her right now, his stony brain playing degrading images of steamy Amazonian bathhouses and naked pillow fights. She pondered teaching him a lesson by chipping away his tongue. But her temper settled as quickly as it flared, and she wasn’t in the mood to bother. Instead, she dropped him in the citadel well. She waited for some time, seeing if the cold water might spur him into taking on a more vulnerable form.

In the meantime, she uncorked her jug of conjured wine and drank heartily. The horrible brew comforted her. It tasted much like the special concoction young Amazons imbibed to make them big and strong.

She considered Seamus’s absurd notion of the value of sex. She didn’t see the purpose. Her time was better spent training her body and mind in the art of war. And while occasionally an Amazon might take a lover under very special circumstances, this was not one of those circumstances. Ned was just a man. A beautiful, immortal man. But that was not enough.

Yet the mere thought of him, of his scarred, disfigured flesh, sent a tremble through her. And certain parts that she avoided thinking about did indeed quiver.

“Damn it.” She took another tug of wine.

Nothing came out of the well. Not even a fly. Although she didn’t know if Seamus could become a fly. Regina tossed the jug over her shoulder, and it shattered on the cobblestones. Scowling, she continued on her way.

A little while later a tarantula crawled cautiously out of the well. Seamus looked around for a moment before shifting into a goat, bouncing amorously toward the meadows.