Ogreness, Black Lake-book5

Chapter 21
~

Plain biscuits and hot tea was the only thing I could get down, which is really weird, because alcohol doesn’t really affect ogres like it does humans. At least that is what the elders would have the world believe.

I have a moderate temperament, so this experience was personally new to me. Well, in college maybe I howled at the moon a bit.

But I know I was really hungover. I peered into the almost amber eyes across from me on the veranda wonderin’ how the hen could eat that cheesy, onion and pepper covered omelet sittin’ in the plate on her lap. The aroma tightened my gut.

“I thought ya were keepin’ up with us last night?” I mumbled.

Nuel ignored me. My stomach went through another rockin’ session. At least I could remember havin’ a lot of fun last night. The four of us hung onto each other’s shoulders tellin’ stories and laughin’ up a hoot. Those tales couldn’t have been that funny. I haven’t done anything worth laughin’ about since I was thirteen. Even then, come to think.

I must have blinked, because Nuel’s platter was empty and she was wipin’ her mouth. “We should head for the pavilion.”

Yeah. Prolly. Maybe the walk would clear my head. It needed airin’ out. A complete pressure washin’. Demolition and a re-build. I leaned upward with effort, leavin’ my plate and cup next to Nuel’s on the railing, and followed her down the grand stairs.

Any step I might die.

A couple other councilors took our cue and followed after us. They appeared a little off their grain too. Council has always been known as a time to blow off a little steam. That came about when the various clan leaders had to travel from afar by foot and council was a big ado.

Nuel was forcin’ a brisk pace which at first I resented, but the movement seemed to wake me up a little, even settle my stomach. The tingles from havin’ no blood in my arms and legs for who knows how many hours even began to wear off.

“Those two friends of yars are characters,” Nuel said.

Uh, she probably meant Darshee and Wizper. That, they are.

“Are ya, ya know, close with either of them? Ya know, closer than the other,” she asked.

Odd question. “Ya heard ’em.” I felt a little out of breath. “I’ll die a bachelor.”

“I don’t think they think ya will. Spose they expect to wear ya down, eventually. Or the three of ya will just move in together and grow old together.”

No. That wasn’t gonna happen either. I care to much about my quiet space. “Hey. Where’s Sissy?”

“She stayed at yar cousin’s. Ya don’t remember?”

I didn’t bother to shake my head.

“Think we wore her out last night.”

I’m surprised she didn’t just light out for Ezra’s on her own.

We padded through the misty woods the rest of the way in silence. Besides the attorneys and staff standin’ around chattin’, sippin’ at their coffee, only the local troll representative beat us to the pavilion. I wasn’t lookin’ forward to speakin’ to him. He wouldn’t be happy with any of us.

Oh, stink. He faced us, crossed from the coffee urns toward us.

“What happened to yar face,” the troll asked.

I told him I thought his name was Arotts.

“Really?” His voice went up in an interested tone. “I heard he was here this week.”

“Ya know the guy?” I asked.

“Uh. Don’t ya ever turn on NFL?”

“Uh. Actually, no. Durin’ the summer I watch the weekly OFL game. Like the shorter format.”

“So ya don’t know about Arotts?”

I shook my head.

“He’s won the NFL Iron Man contest every year he’s been eligible. Which is about every other year.”

“Why’s that?”

“He spends a lot of time suspended. He’s on the bench now for killin’ a guy. Snapped his neck with a forearm to the chin. I think prosecutors are mullin’ a charge of manslaughter.”

“So ya follow the NFL?”

“Nah,” he said. “Way too violent.”

I nodded.

“So I heard about the fundin’,” he said.

I kanted my head. “Best I could do for the moment.” Added a shrug.

“It’s appreciated. My phone was busy last night.”

I nodded.

“Don’t let it go to yar head,” Nuel said.

Leave it to a hen to keep a bull in the here and now.

“That OFL is pretty tough,” the guy said.

I was pretty tired not knowin’ his name, so extended my hand. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recall being introduced. Ike.”

“Ya don’t need to be introduced,” he said. “Laerid.”

“Pleased to meet ya.”

Nuel shook his hand too.

“Any chance this will move forward today?” Laerid asked. “I thought this was called specifically for the current social issues up North.”

Not just up North.

“Ike will move it forward today,” Nuel said.

Something caught in my throat, maybe my tongue. I yanked a look at her. “What?”

“Makes no sense for everyone to travel all this way—”

“It’s council,” I interrupted her. “It’s business that has to be—”

“We had to debate the name of the new hospital wing for an hour?” Nuel hissed.

I don't think it was more than twenty minutes. Other members were stragglin’ in behind us. More than a few had to have heard her. A couple grumbles erupted. Not sure if over the Northern interloper commentin’ out of place, or in agreement.

“Keep those guests in their place,” Doke’s voice vibrated.

I dizzied a tad, twistin’ to face the bull.

“Unless ya wanna challenge me to the death for the right to lead this council,” Doke said, surprisingly without a lot of emotion, considerin’.

“Imagine that’s still on the charter, eh,” I said.

“Northerners prolly raise a melee,” Doke said.

“Maybe not,” Laerid the troll stage-whispered. There were chuckles.

“Ya wish to challenge me?” Doke asked.

Why was Doke pressin’ this? Now. I must have made him madder yesterday than I imagined. Or, he had heard a rumor. There really aren't a lot of secrets in the ogre world. Maybe we share too much across the checker board.

The council secretary stepped between us. “Believe it would be wiser to call it a quorum and get started.”

Several ayes throbbed in my head, and bare feet shoveled for the benches. Evidently it wasn’t just Nuel and Laerid eager to discuss meatier subjects.

Before he stepped away, he asked what happened to my face. I gave him a shrug.

Without sittin’, Doke called us to order and someone immediately moved to suspend readin’ the previous minutes, which was seconded by all in one din, which thundered between my ear bones and vibrated my face. Who knew a shiner hurt this much.

“I wish to add a topic to the agenda—”

Before Doke finished his statement, his best bud seconded him.

“The removal of Ike, son of Bliar, from this council for improper behavior among the humans while council was in session.”

Over the second, I roared he was out of order.

The bull turned a surprised and angry face my way.

“Ya adjourned yesterday.” The technicality almost made me laugh. “Ya didn’t set us in recess.”

The bull’s jaw dropped an inch. Anger reddened his eyes. We ogres are emotional folk, but what wrapped around this ogre’s tusks?

“So ya’ve read the charter,” Doke mumbled.

Well, I actually have. But I just played with the wordin’ of his motion just to give him grief. Doke’s eyes danced in anger. He was prolly tryin’ to think of a new justification to toss me from the council, but nothing was comin’ to him.

Had to be frustratin’. I hate when nothing comes to me, like that.

“I request to be recognized?” Let him ignore me at his peril. No ogre likes bullyin’. Though humans think that’s what we’re all about. They don’t like our growls. It took me a while to explain to Dave all growls aren’t equal. They’re a language of their own.

Doke opened his mouth, but not to give me the floor. So another ogre after another requested the floor, until Doke had to give in, or fight a war, not a battle.

“Ike, son of Bliar, should be given the floor,” the recognized ogre roared. A half-mob of seconds roared back.

Doke finally sat, in an angry, wordless acknowledgement.

I stood. Didn’t have to. But it seemed like the thing to do. “I move the remainin’ items of the agenda be tabled until the social issues we came here to discuss are complete.”

Seconds vibrated. Doke didn’t speak. So the sergeant at arms put it to a vote. There were exactly two nays. Doke’s and prolly the singular vote he would prolly garner in a battle for leadership, if held this moment. Surprisingly, he’d ticked a few of our brothers off.

The sergeant at arms declared the motion passed and opened the floor for discussion.

I slumped over my table and listened. And listened. There were some judicious ideas raised, but more anger and hostile words for Northerners than was wise. I held my eyes on Doke. He chose not to intervene in the bloviatin’. Why?

He had called this council. He had phoned me, messaged me, not the other way around—and with that thought it occurred to me, something new had happened from Thursday to Tuesday.

He had clearly heard a rumblin’ about me being put forward to replace him. But wouldn’t that encourage him to be even more dynamic and effective now? There had to be something else. The inkling that maybe there was something nefarious involved drew a bit of vomit into the back of my throat.

Doke is known to cut a few corners in his business dealin’s, but I’d never heard of any outright illegalities suggested. Something close to home had to be abreast.

I realized faces were turnin’ toward me. Doke leapt to his feet. Voices quieted. Oh, stink. I’d been vibratin’. That chest drummin’ we ogres use before a battle to the death. I’d never heard of a pair of ogres battlin’ to the death in the past three hundred years or so—but chest drummin’ is a good description of what I was doing.

“Why are ya challengin’ me, bull?” Doke growled.

Should I stand and face him? That would escalate this. Maybe the bruises on my face spurred his own aggression, or expectation that I would assert.

I had three seconds to raise a good excuse, or suck it in and look like a fool.

The sergeant at arms stood. “Bulls. Resolve it out of session or I’ll toss both of ya.”

Wow. That would work. So I suggested I buy Doke a beer at Lew’s when we adjourned. Doke shifted his weight left and right and back a moment, before his shoulders relaxed. Maybe he reconsidered his current challenge, and found it less than the best timin’, because he sat.

Throats cleared, and the previous discussion renewed.

This was definitely the most excitin’ council I’d ever survived.

~ Nuel ~

These Range, testosterone-drowned bulls are all nuts. Important issues loom and they keep getting hung up on trivial insults and circle in resentful eddies, yet the senior bulls add to it, instead of leading. Ike sat there seething, clearly with more important thoughts in mind, but every time one of those elders started speaking he settled in on himself.

I don’t understand. The whole process is a mystery.

~