Chapter 1233 (2/2)

“Old Man Madder,” Delilah said seriously. Then she smiled brightly. “Oh! He told me that he would tell me even worse Ogre swear words for my birthday.”

Old Man Madder probably meant Madarnol, the grizzled old man that ran the one inn the ogre settlement possessed. The reason he had gotten that job was simply because he was one of the more social of the ogres that had snuck across to join the growing country. Of course, he enjoyed nothing more than telling stories about his vicious past as a bandit. Obyrn had no doubt that Maddarnol quite enjoyed Delilah’s innocent attention and would have very willingly explained the gory details of the exploits of his younger years.

Of course, Delilah’s avid attention was exactly why she was so extremely popular in the ogre settlement. She was the one human that would walk up to the ogres and start a conversation out of the blue that didn’t involve buying or selling; she was just curious about their lives. In a world that was not theirs, her direct brightness did a lot to help the transplanted ogres feel at home.

Feeling extremely resigned, Obyrn did his best to lecture the young human child that began to scuttle across his torso like a bug as he explained why she shouldn’t say certain words. Even though she nodded dutifully when Obyrn prompted her, he knew that Delilah had basically concluded that Obyrn would never really punish her and was therefore rather ambivalent about the lecture.

The worst part of it was she was right. The young human had wormed her way into Obyrn’s heart and it made the fearsome ogre somewhat helpless.

By the end of his rambling lecture, all Obyrn really managed to accomplish was to depress himself. Because the real tragedy will be if she says rape in front of Annie. That woman won’t hesitate to level half of the ogre settlement to emphasize how seriously we should take her daughter’s education…

Very quickly, the duo approached the outdoor market that was sprawled around the main road into the ogre settlement. Lively banners fluttered in the wind as ogres, humans, and the monster people mixed freely in commerce. Delilah waved spiritedly to many people that she recognized, but Obyrn sharply denied her requests to stop and stayed on the main road. Very soon, they spotted the high stone walls and wide-open gates of their destination.

But when Obyrn arrived in front of the three-story gate to get into the main city of the Ogre settlement, Faldurs, he found his two-headed warlock friend Duual leaning against the outer wall in wait for him. Immediately, Obyrn gaze turned heavy and violent in a way that it hadn’t during the earlier play with Delilah. But Duual slightly shook his head and flashed Obyrn a hand signal.

Talk later.

“Hello phlegm,” Duual said fondly as he both of his heads grinned at Delilah.

She rolled across Obyrn’s broad shoulder and waved lazily at Duual. “Dewy, you old skin flute-”

But before Delilah could continue, her ears twitched and her eyes suddenly widened as though she had seen a ghost. A chill so heavy that everyone in the surrounding area felt it smashed downward. With the same remarkable quickness she showed running from Obyrn through the forest, Delilah twisted and launched herself sideways off from the road on a beeline into the forest. But before she had scampered into the trees, a long sigh echoed out across the abruptly silent gate.

Dozer stepped out from the gate and stood next to Duual. He folded his arms and looked at Delilah with something like pity. “Running will only make it worse…”

“Heh, don’t act so aggrieved. I’ve always played nice with you, hubby…” With all the grace of a cat, Annie hopped down off of the high walls and landed without a sound. Her hand curled protecting over the extremely prominent bulge of her second pregnancy as she sauntered toward Delilah. “Honey, why are you running? I just want to talk about some of the words you’ve been learning when we let you wander around Faldurs alone.”

As Annie walked past Obyrn, she shot him a venomous glance that informed him that his involvement had not been forgotten; but she had bigger fish to fry. Or rather smaller and more precious. Annie’s vicious brown eyes cut back to Delilah.

The girl shivered. “Mommy, I-”

“I guess you’ve thought I’ve been too busy getting ready for your new little brother… but I’ve been wondering lately…” Still, with one hand curled protectively around her stomach, Annie produced a thin bone from her interspatial ring. “Why don’t the two of us play heroes and villains? We should take some quality time to talk about your behavior recently.”

Delilah seemed to hesitate, her young mind missing the dread-inducing smile on her mother’s face. “I… okay mommy. You’ll be hero, so go hide and I-”

“Oh no,” Annie smiled sweetly down at her daughter as she cracked the bone whip. “Today I’ll be playing the villain.”

Seeming to finally realize that the situation had turned for the worse, Delilah spun and rushed away into the woods. Chuckling lightly, Annie turned back to Obyrn. Immediately, most of the maliciousness on her face fell away. In a gentle tone that surprised Obyrn, she said, “Whatever happens, Donnyton has your back.”

Then she turned away and disappeared into the underbrush almost immediately without making the slightest sound. The White Hunter prowled through the forest around Faldurs, stalking her daughter with a detached precision that Obyrn couldn’t help but be impressed by.

But with Annie gone, Obyrn quickly turned to Duual and Dozer who flanked the gates. “So I assume something must have happened.”

Dozer looked to Duual. One of Duual’s faces was worriedly glancing side to side, while the other was creased in a deep frown. “It seems like the peace we’ve enjoyed for the last few months should be over. Other than that… well, it’s best that you see it for yourself.”

So Obyrn followed the two through the crowded streets of Faldurs. Since it wasn’t a day where a train came up to Faldurs, it was mostly just ogres filling the interior streets. They sold large haunches of meat and argued over the price of bits of armor and leather. Through the entire journey to the Protectorate's Residence, all three of the individuals were silent.

When they finally walked inside, Obyrn looked around in confusion; his office was completely clean. He had braced himself for a strange corpse or a wounded subordinate, but all he found was the usually heavy wood and tall windows of the seat of the Protectorate. Yet after a heavy glance from Duual, Obyrn’s eyes finally settled on a scroll sitting in the middle of his desk.

“It’s this?” Obyrn asked as he picked up the scroll.

Duual nodded. “It’s a letter. From Nordawn, the ancestral home of the ogres. They wish to inform us that they will be coming to visit Faldurs. It’s finally time for the real monsters to crawl out of the darkness.”