“Bryn,” Konstantin hissed, pulling me from my thoughts.
I’d fallen a few steps behind him because I’d paused to look around, but now I hurried ahead. He held out his arm, blocking me, when I reached him.
“Shh!” he commanded, and then he pointed toward where his light had picked up two glowing dots on a log, just barely above the surface of the water. It was an alligator, not even a meter away from us, and it looked massive.
“What do we do?” I whispered.
“I don’t know. Back away slowly, I guess.”
He kept the light on the alligator, and we started to move away when I heard the sound of flapping wings again. It sounded much too large to be a bat, and it was followed by more flapping. Whatever it was, it was very close by, and there were more than one.
I turned my flashlight toward the sky, and it caught on a huge brown bird flying above us. The bird circled us for a moment before settling down on a long branch, and I finally got a good look at it.
With its large wingspan, pointed beak, and thick feathers down its long neck, it was unmistakably a bearded vulture. Bearded vultures weren’t native to this area—they were something that had been brought in with trolls from the old world, like Gotland rabbits and Tralla horses.
We were in Omte territory.
The cypress and willow trees around us towered several stories into the air, and from the corner of my eye I saw a flash near the top of one. I shone my light up toward it, and with the weak power of my TracFone, I could just make out the outline of a large tree house.
It wasn’t exactly a luxury tree house, but it was much more than the average one you might find in a child’s backyard. The wood seemed warped and worn, with moss growing over it, and a sagging porch was attached to the front. But it was easily large enough to house a family, and it even had a second story attached to the right side that climbed up along the trunk of the tree.
A large head poked out of the window, looking down at me. It was slightly lopsided, the way Bent Stum’s head had been, with one eye appearing larger than the other.
“Konstantin,” I said quietly. “I think we’re here.”
“What?” he asked.
No sooner had the words escaped his mouth than a massive ogre jumped out of a tree and came crashing down into the water in front of us, sending muddy water splashing over us. As soon as the water settled, the ogre let out a long, low growl, and I knew we were in trouble.
“I told you that we shouldn’t startle them,” Konstantin said.
NINE
monstrosity
I’d heard of ogres and seen pictures of them in textbooks, but I’d never actually met one in real life. I knew that the Omte occasionally gave birth to ogres and they had several of them living in their population. But it’s one thing to read about massive, hulking trolls and it’s another thing entirely to have one standing directly in front of you.
The ogre stood well over eight feet tall, and he had thick arms bulging with muscles like boulders. His whole body tilted to one side, with his right shoulder rising above his left shoulder, and his right hand was even bigger than his left. His head was massive, making room for a large mouth filled with uneven yellowed teeth. It all made his eyes seem disproportionately small, and he stared down at us with either rage or hunger—I couldn’t tell which.
“Why disturb my home?” the ogre demanded, his voice booming through everything.
“We mean you no harm.” Konstantin held up his hands toward him.
The ogre laughed at that, a terrible rumbling sound. “You no harm me! You can’t harm me!”
“That’s true,” Konstantin allowed, and I wished that we’d brought some kind of weapon with us. We were defenseless if this giant decided he wanted to grind our bones to make his bread. “We only wish to speak to your Queen.”
The alligator had begun to swim closer to us, but I’d hardly noticed it, since my attention had been focused on the ogre. It wasn’t until the ogre lunged, swinging his massive fist out, that I realized how close the alligator had gotten. The ogre punched it, and sent it flying backward into the swamp.
Konstantin and I both took a step back, and I started to think that coming here might have been a very bad idea.
Then the ogre turned back to us with his beady eyes narrowed. “What you know of Queen?”
“We’re Kanin,” Konstantin explained. “We’re allies.”
“Friends,” I supplied when the ogre appeared confused.
“Queen no tell me friends coming.” The ogre bent down so he could get a better look at us, and the stench from his breath was almost enough to make me gag. “Queen tell me when friends visit.”
“Well, it’s a bit of a surprise, actually.” Konstantin smiled, hoping to make light of things, but the ogre wasn’t having any of it.