The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [99]
Except that it wasn’t.
Thorn had only seen the beast from behind. He walked on two legs, and he wore the armor of a guardsman of the Crag. But up close, she saw the bristly black hair along his arms. His posture was hunched, more than most ogres. And his head had a strange shape, long and blunt, with great tusks rising from his mouth. It looked as if a sculptor had taken a clay figure of a fierce boar and forced it into the form of an ogre, retaining as much of the beast as possible.
Her axe cut into the creature’s flesh, but it didn’t have the impact she’d hoped for. Her enemy was still on his feet. He turned to face her, and she felt flecks of spittle on her face as he snorted and raised his cleaver. But the blow never fell. A flash of light blazed as Harryn’s sword cut through the blade of the weapon and into the arm of the beast. The ogre flailed wildly at his foes, but it was no use. Thorn danced away from the clumsy blow, while Harryn swatted it aside with his blade.
The ogre was still a fearsome foe. Thorn remembered how much trouble it had been to bring down his cousin in the Crag, and this creature had the added muscle of the boar. Thorn took a deep breath, ready for a long, hard fight.
Harryn stepped to the side, slashing at the beast, handling the greatsword with the speed and dexterity of a rapier. No single cut caused much damage, but he forced the beast to turn, building its rage. The ogre was snorting and spitting, and Thorn was completely forgotten, until she sank her silvered spear into its back, piercing lung and heart. Blood flowed down the haft, and the creature roared in pain and anger.
Thorn felt the pulse of the heart, and she knew the wound was mortal. But the ogre-boar wasn’t willing to fall. He spun around with such force that it tore the spear from her hands, and he charged at her, bloody foam flecking his lowered tusks. Harryn’s blade was gleaming in the darkness, but there was no time for the Stormblade to reach her. Thorn rolled to the side, drawing Steel and flinging the dagger with all her might. It caught the ogre in the right eye, and the creature staggered sideways. He caught himself with one massive hand splayed against the floor, then collapsed, his tusk snapping as it struck the stone.
The beast was transforming as Thorn retrieved Steel. She pulled the myrnaxe from the ogre’s side, the bone twisting as the features of the boar faded away.
“How can you still be fighting these creatures and not know of Drukan Moonlord?” Harryn whispered. “Just tell me … tell me that Galifar has survived, that these things have not destroyed our glorious land.”
“Well, these things haven’t destroyed Galifar,” Thorn said. She pushed forward before Harryn could respond to her hesitant tone. “I told you, I’ve never heard of this Moonlord, and I’ve never seen a werewolf until today. According to the stories, they were wiped out over a century ago.”
“How?”
Thorn wanted to move. The other hunters had surely heard the ogre’s death cry. But Harryn had locked his hand around her wrist, and his grip was a vise.
“I know this is strange for you, Stormblade, but I wasn’t even alive then. From what I’ve heard, it was a bloody mess that spread across the west. Soldiers from the Church of the Silver Flame organized the defense, standing against these shapeshifters until the tide turned.”
“At what cost?”
Thorn slipped her free hand down to Steel’s hilt; history wasn’t one of her strengths, but the dagger whispered details into her mind.
“Tens of thousands. Aundair suffered the worst of it. Farmers, mostly. The shapechangers spread out from the woods and across the east. Thousands more were lost to the persecution of innocents after the fact. Can we save the history lesson for when we don’t have wolves at our heels?”
“No,” Harryn said, his voice low but steady. “I must know now. I need to know what lies beyond that gate. You say that you haven’t seen