Lilith made a face, as if she would rather he hadn’t. But she said nothing.
‘Perhaps you would be able to set them up with some work? Oh, and I did offer them a room in the basement, if you can find a space?’
‘Of course,’ said Lilith.
‘Wonderful. Well, I must be getting on.’
Lilith and Og-Grim-Dog said their farewells as the Dark Lord exited the office. The woman then stared at Og-Grim-Dog, for a long time. Grim got the impression that it was Lilith who really directed the henchmen. He wasn’t sure that the Dark Lord had learned their name, or that he would remember them a couple of hours from now.
‘I think it may suit you best,’ she said at last, ‘to spend a few days here at Fell Towers. The menials could certainly benefit from some training. That’s an understatement, to be honest. When you’ve settled in, I will give you a proper assignment out in Gal’azu. What do you think of that?’
It sounded fine to Grim. It clearly sounded more than fine to Dog, who had the widest smile on his face that Grim had ever seen him with.
‘How often are we allowed to visit the refectory?’ his brother asked.
Lilith shrugged. ‘As often as you like.’
An audible crack emanated from Dog’s face. Grim looked at his brother. His smile had now got so wide that his jaw had locked in place. It had quickly gone from a pleasant enough sight to a rather disturbing one. Saliva began to dribble from his mouth.
‘Well, thank you,’ Grim said to Lilith quickly. ‘I think we had better be on our way.’
She nodded absently, unable to take her eyes away from Dog’s manic looking smile.
Training Precis
Now then,’ said the Landlord’s third head, ‘we were thinking you might want to try something different here.’
The Recorder paused the scratching of his quill on parchment and raised a suspicious eyebrow. ‘Like what?’
‘A montage,’ replied the third head enthusiastically.
‘What’s a montage?’
‘Remember, he won’t have seen any movies,’ the first head hissed.
The customers of The Flayed Testicles muttered uneasily to one another. If there was one thing the good people of Magidu didn’t like, it was folks using words they had never heard of.
‘The thing is,’ began the Landlord’s middle head, trying to rescue the situation, ‘for the next week or so, we stayed at Fell Towers, training the Dark Lord’s menials. We were hoping you would be able to write a brief account of that time, without spending too long on it.’
‘Ah,’ said the Recorder. ‘You mean a precis.’
The ogre’s three heads looked at the Recorder for a while, their expressions all furrowed brows and pursed lips. Finally, the third head responded with a sage nod.
‘Yes. A pray see.’
‘I agree. That should mean we can get on with it.’
The third head narrowed his eyes. ‘What do you mean, ‘get on with it’?’
‘Well, it’s just that you did introduce this as a dark tale.’
‘And?’
‘And so far, all you’ve really told us about is the buffet at the refectory.’
The third head spluttered indignantly. ‘Oh, it gets dark, don’t worry about that.’
‘Fine. Then please proceed.’
‘Simba soon left on some unnamed errand for the Dark Lord, and we were the only henchman at Fell Towers during that time,’ began the middle head. ‘There were thousands of menials living in the barracks. They manned the keep and the walls of the stronghold. They brought in food, water, timber and other supplies. At any one time, hundreds were assigned to the Dark Lord’s building projects. But even though they were kept busy, the Dark Lord ensured that they also had free time reserved for them. It was in these blocks of free time that we held our training sessions. First, there was archery training.’ The middle head sighed. ‘We couldn’t get those menials to shoot straight for love or money.’
The Recorder was bent over his parchment, busy writing his precis.
‘And you have to mention guard duty,’ the first head took up. ‘We ran daily tests, where we would approach the gates and demand entry under a variety of pretences. One day we claimed to be a repairman; another time we said we were the milkman.’
‘One day we claimed to be the Dark Lord’s grandmother,’ recalled the third head.
Head one nodded. ‘Whatever we said, no matter how many times we told them not to, they would just open the gates and let us in.’
‘Then there was what I called ‘pebble training’,’ said the third head. ‘We would drop a coin or small stone or some such, a few feet away from a menial. They would instantly follow the noise around a corner, or down a dark stairwell, where we could neutralise them. We tried getting them to go in pairs, or to shout a warning to their colleagues. But nothing seemed to work.’
The Recorder finished his scratching. ‘So, did any of your training with the menials actually make a difference?’
‘Let’s just say,’ said the middle head, ‘that when we were called into Lilith’s office, we were only too ready to be given our new assignment.’
An Ogre in Varena
This is a common task given to henchmen,’ Lilith explained, ‘and relatively simple. Seek and destroy. Find any threats to the Dark Lord and kill them. Any children with a prophecy attached to them must be removed. Be suspicious of all orphans. Anyone with a royal heritage, bastards included. No, especially bastards. Our motto is ‘if in doubt, wipe them out’. Do you understand?’
Og-Grim-Dog nodded. She had left them in little doubt.
‘I’m giving you the north-western region of Gal’azu: Varena. Our influence is already strong there. No great kingdoms to interfere with your work. Sparsely populated: most settlements are isolated. In other words, this should be a success. Your assignment is finished when you have eliminated all threats. When that is done, report back here.’
Og-Grim-Dog was back in The Great Outside. They missed their little room in the basement of the keep at Fell Towers. Most of all, they missed the refectory. But they had been given a mission, and they were determined to fulfil it.
In his wisdom, the Dark Lord had built a road leading from Fell Towers to the region of Varena. It meant that even though the terrain about them was hard, dry and desolate, Grim was able to make good progress to the west. They made their camp by the road, feeling perfectly safe. The only people likely to be using the road as well as the ogre were the other henchmen of the Dark Lord. Grim had no real idea how many henchmen there were altogether. Neither the Dark Lord nor Lilith were willing to reveal the identities of their followers, and so the only ones he knew about were Brother Kane and Simba. Even so, he had the impression that there were not very many.
The Dark Lord’s road suddenly ended, in the middle of nowhere.
‘Rather odd,’ said Grim.
‘Maybe they ran out of materials?’ Dog suggested.
‘Maybe the Dark Lord is a bit clueless,’ said Og. ‘Who builds a road to nowhere?’