Orin The Great Ch. 06

"Out of the way, Orin!" Bartram's voice demanded.

Orin dropped and rolled, as the archer let loose one arrow after another, now that the giant was standing still. The ogre dropped down to one knee.

"No more arrows!" The knight cried out. "The Lady is making her advance!"

"No more arrows, Bartram!" Orin repeated.

The ogre managed to suck air into its throat, just before Oryala ran up from behind the beast. She rammed her polearm into the monster's neck, wrenching a new and horrible cry from it. The monster fell forward, with Orin's pike in its stomach, and the Lady's pike in its neck.

"We must finish it!" Oryala ordered.

The Lady and her knight used their short swords to strike at the ogre's neck. Orin wondered if he should join them, until he saw the heavy streams of green blood spilling from the downed enemy.

"You've killed it!" The knight congratulated his Lady. "You've killed the ogre!"

"She didn't kill it by herself!" Orin shouted, wondering if they were meaning to keep him from gaining any part of the reward.

Sundri stepped before him, making sure that Orin would see her eyes, and her strong will behind it. "Go and see to Bartram."

Exasperated, Orin felt like going around the sorceress and taking one last stab at the dead ogre, if only to remind the knight and Lady that he had helped plenty, if not being instrumental in the ogre's defeat. Sundri tilted her head, as if to emphasize for him to do what she said.

"I need my sword." Orin told her.

"I will get it for you." She said.

Orin grimaced at her like a petulant child, only to bring a smirk to the sorceress' face. He stalked back to where Bartram was.

"I'm fine, Orin." The archer said, when the young man came close to him. "I was fool enough to let one of my arrows slip through my fingers, and I almost had my head taken off because of it."

"I am glad you are not hurt." Orin sighed. "I only wish someone would appreciate that I contributed to this battle."

"You? I struck that monster first, with an arrow that would have reached the heart if it had struck a normal man. I was the one that truly killed that ogre!"

Orin gave him a displeased look, similar to what he'd shown Sundri. The archer laughed at his irritation.

"One of these days, remind me to explain politics to you." Bartram said in a lowered voice. "It would behoove you to go along with the idea that the Lady killed the beast."

"I hate politics. Everything is a lie for the convenience of the one against the other."

"My advice to you is to stay out of royal courts." Bartram joked, patting the young man's shoulder. "Unless you master the art of political intrigue, you will very quickly find trouble keeping your head above water. So, if this threat from the ogres is done with, we will be heading off to Castra Devana. I wonder what we'll be doing there, Orin? You don't know anything about that, do you?"

"Ask Sundri." Orin replied.

"There you are, keeping secrets from your friends already and becoming political about it. Well, I suppose we shall see what that country is like when we get there."

Orin saw how Bartram was looking at him. The archer showed the same suspicious gaze that Sundri sometimes did.

"I'll tell you, when we are alone." Orin decided.

"Good enough, my boy." Bartram smiled. "Let us go now and tell Lady Oryala what a fine job she did in bringing down that ogre."

"I suppose." Orin grumbled, before he followed in the archer's soft steps.