WOLVERINE'S WORLD - THE OGRE

"How's the fishing?" Rahne said as she sat down next to me.

It was a beautiful morning. The weather was clear and crisp and I had a fishing pole that I'd cobbled together from a slender length of wood, a short line of butcher's string, a cork bobber, and a bent-wire hook.

I was on one of the docks located below the Point. I'd spent the night there alone. It surprised me how much I'd missed having Emma next to me. Especially since I knew she was simply acting as an agent of the Greymalkin.

Well, they say there is no fool like an old fool.

"I've caught nothing and have been alone in complete silence for the entire morning," I replied. "It's been wonderful."

Rahne considered what I'd said.

"Does that mean you want me to go away?" she asked hesitantly.

"No, of course not. Have Anna and Emma killed each other?"

"No." Rahne said as she leaned against me. I put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

"Did they perhaps burn down the inn? Are any innocent people hurt?"

"No."

"Have they come to some kind of bizarre and unlikely agreement and are now friends?"

"'Fraid not. They're pretending to ignore one another, but you can sort of see the aura of hatred that surrounds them both."

"That sounds about right," I replied thoughtfully.

Rahne fell silent for a moment as we both watched the bobber. It stubbornly refused to do anything.

"Is this really the best way to deal with the situation?" Rahne ventured carefully.

"When you're dealing with women as strong-willed as Anna and Emma, there's little else to do."

Rahne nodded doubtfully. "Uhm... I was wondering..."

Then she paused.

"You want to know how Anna and I became married?" I finished for her.

Rahne nodded carefully, her head still against my shoulder.

"She and I have known one another for some time," I began slowly. "Our paths crossed several times as we both wandered and we eventually became friends. But one day Anna saw an injustice that troubled her greatly. Anna's never been one to hide her feelings, so she wrote and performed some very unflattering songs about a powerful lord. Now Anna can normally escape the wrath of just about anyone, but this time she was careless. Some mercenary-mages captured her and delivered her to the lord of Washton. He was the person Anna had wrote those songs about. He had some terrible things in mind for her."

Rahne stirred and looked up at me. "I've heard of him. He's supposed to be really bad."

I sighed. "Everything they say about him is true. I keep waiting for the Old One to send the Blood who will end his misrule."

Then I glanced up at the sky. "And maybe he should get on with it!" I suggested emphatically.

"What's all that got to do with you and Anna being married?"

"As I said, Anna was being held prisoner by Lord Washton. I heard about it and stole into his dungeon - Lord Washton has a rather large one - and then Anna and I performed the bonding ceremony. The next day, I told the lord that he had my wife in jail and demanded her release on the grounds that she was Blood by marriage and had rights that a wandering Elf minstrel lacked. The political situation at the time was tense and Lord Washton needed all of the support he could get. Many of the holders and samurai in his court knew the justice of my words and in any case they were hesitant to offend a seeker. So lord Washton released Anna with the provision that she and I were to leave his holding and not return."

Rahne smiled. "You risked your life for her! That's so romantic! What happened next?"

"As soon as we were safe, Anna scampered off. I haven't seen her until today."

"Why'd she do that?" Rahne gasped.

I shrugged, but didn't respond.

The bobber dipped below the surface. I yanked in order to set the hook, but it didn't work. The hook - without a worm - flew into the air and caught itself on one of the pier supports.

With a sigh, I got to my feet, freed the hook, and gathered up my line. It was time to go face the women of my life.

By the time I was done, Rahne was staring curiously out at the river.

I followed her gaze. There was a small boat floating down the river, near the shore. Nobody appeared to be in it.

The design of the boat seemed odd - it was wider than normal. Also, there were nicks and cuts in the wooden hull and several arrows were protruding from it.

A pair of Folk longshoremen had also seen the boat. As it approached the docks, one of them used a grappling hook to snag the boat and began dragging it in. It would make a nice salvage for them.

Snuggled up against the dock, the boat was larger than it had appeared when it was out on the water. It was half-again the normal size of a rowboat, as well as being oddly broad.

Both longshoremen started in surprise. "What the hell?" one of the longshoremen exclaimed. They were staring into the boat. Several other longshoremen and other dock-workers were curiously approaching.

I handed my make-shift fishing-pole to Rahne and ran over to the other dock.

It was a sign.

There was a body in the boat, but it wasn't human.

The creature was roughly man-like, but was eight-foot tall, heavily muscled, and covered with a sparse layer of dark fur over warty yellowish-gray skin. It was wearing a rusty assemblage of armor fragments that were badly battered and rent. If I had to make a guess, it had been killed by multiple blows from some kind of heavy axe or polearm. Blood - a darker shade of red than normal blood - was pooled in the bottom of the boat. The creature had bled out there.

"What is it?" somebody asked.

Rahne, still holding my fishing pole, caught up to me. She looked in the boat and blinked in obvious surprise.

I looked upriver - the direction from which the boat had come. There were nothing else on the water. No sign of anything unusual.

Then I looked at Rahne. "Go tell Emma that we've found an ogre."

One of the longshoremen backed away, murmuring a prayer to Thor as he began fingering a Mjolnir charm that was hanging from his neck.

Rahne nodded and took off at run.

In less than an hour, a half-dozen Temple guards were blocking access to the dock, keeping at bay a sizable crowd of the curious. I could see Anna and Rahne among the crowd.

A Temple priestess was examining the boat. She was accompanied by a Folk temple servant - Emma of course. An older samurai was also present. He was representing the Captain.

"You are right. It is an ogre," the priestess told me once she was done looking at the dead creature. Her name was Olivia and she belonged to the order of the Storm Hammers. She was wearing scale-mail and carrying a six-foot tall polearm tipped with a head that had a hammer on one side and a spiked hook on the other. It was a vicious weapon that could deal devastating blows. Olivia was hefting it with comfortable ease.

Olivia was a tall and broad woman, with blue eyes and pale skin. Nobody would ever call her beautiful, but everyone who ever met her would remember her strong and scarred face. In emulation of her particular avatar of Lady Ororo, Olivia had shaved her hair into a mohawk and bleached it white.

Emma, her eyes down and standing precisely one step to Olivia's left and rear, was carrying Olivia's war helmet. Emma had a shawl over her head that made it difficult to get a good look at her face.

Olivia glanced at the samurai. One of her eyebrows was raised interrogatively.

"Our patrols - both on land and in the river - haven't mentioned anything unusual," the samurai responded.

Then the samurai yanked an arrow from the boat and examined it carefully. After a moment's thought, he glanced back into the crowd.

"Kit!," he called.

A Folk archer, wearing the purple bracer and sash of the Hawkeyes, detached himself from the crowd and came forward. The samurai handed him the arrow.

Blood warriors tend to favor hand-to-hand combat. Any Folk who find himself in melee combat with a Blood will almost always have the worse of the encounter. As a consequence, many Folk have taken to the bow. And if you put enough arrows into a Blood, you will eventually incapacitate him. After that, decapitation is just a matter of a quick swing with a sufficiently sharp and heavy axe. Folk archers are key auxiliary troops for every important lord.

Kit stared for a long moment at the form in the boat. Then he took the arrow from the samurai and examined it carefully. He even sniffed it and touched his tongue against the fletching.

"It's from a long-style bow," he finally reported, "but proportions are strange - it's too short and too thick for a conventional longbow shaft. It's just not a pattern I've ever seen before. The head is built to punch through armor, and it's a fine steel that's a lot better than the usual iron. The fletching is from no bird I've ever seen. The wood looks like ash, but the scent seems off. It's not local."

Olivia shook her head and let out a long sigh.

"This could be a freak event," I suggested, "but it's also possible that a portal has been opened. And that it remains open."

Olivia grunted in agreement. She was obviously a woman of few words.

The samurai and the archer were looking at us, obviously puzzled.

"What do you mean?" the samurai asked brusquely.

I nodded at the dead ogre. "That thing is from Asgard."