Each stone bore the name of a dead human commander of Ogre Company. There’d been other casualties of the job, but only the humans needed to be buried. The ores had been used as roc chow. An elf had been burned on a pyre. There’d been a dwarf too, but he’d been torn to so many pieces that no one wanted to bother picking them all up. So Ralph and Ward had never learned how dwarves liked their corpses handled.

“Is it me, or are we going through these guys faster than we used to?” asked Ralph.

“It’s you. Although this one’s got to be the record. Hold on a second. I’ve got to fix something here.” Ward pulled a chisel and mallet from his belt and chipped an X through the “Never” in Never Dead Ned.

“Should we say some words?” asked Ward.

“Do we have to?” asked Ralph.

“Humans seem to like that kind of thing.”

The approaching storm thundered. “Fine. But let’s make it quick.” Ralph’s nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. “I smell rain. And magic. Dark magic.”

Rare ogres were born with a talent for smelling magic. The gift had never been proven to any of the other races, but ogres accepted it as fact.

“What’s dark magic smell like?” asked Ward.

Ralph drew in another snort. “Strawberries and cream.” He wiped the rain from his eyes. “Get on with it.”

Ward started to say something, then stopped. He started again and stopped.

“Well?” asked Ralph.

“I didn’t know the guy.”

“I’ll do it.” Ralph sighed. “Here lies another human. I didn’t know him, but he didn’t do anything to me so I guess he was all right. He was still a human though, and most of them are jerks. Except that one guy whose name I can’t remember now.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Ward, “the fat one.”

“Not that one. I’m talking about that short one.”

“They’re all short.”

“True, but this one was especially short.”