CHOPWITH AND THE OGRE
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
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Chopwith peered carefully through the leaves of the bush towards the small cave, a nasty, smelly hole in the hillside. "There he is, Chopwith." he told himself. "The ogre's lair. You're in for it now, but steady on, you wanted to become an adventurer, remember, Chopwith? So stay brave and true, and with a little luck as well, his treasure will be yours." He studied the cave, this was no natural thing, but something carved out of raw stone.
"And how did he chip away this filthy nest of his?" he wondered. Chopwith talked to himself a good deal; when you live on a farm away from neighbors, if you don't talk to yourself, you will end up untalked to, Chopwith therefore filled the void with a near endless stream of chatter. "Did he have a tool, or did he bite and claw the hole with his own hands? And if he did, how easy will it be for him to chomp a hole through me?" And Chopwith shuddered, as well he might!
Then Chopwith's hand sought out and grasped the hilt of the sword at his waist. "Still, we have this, don't we, Chopwith?" he assured himself. "A sword, fired of fine steel, and haven't you been practicing with it all last winter and all through the spring much as the planting would let you, and now it's summer, and it's time for you to win your fortune."
His face, long and thin, it would look morose had his constant conversations not displayed themselves with emotions upon it, so that like any object in motion, it appeared to be more than it was. This face now went into a contemplation. "Still, while you have practiced with the blade, if the ogre can be caught sleeping, you can kill it far more easily than you can if you have to fence with it. Silence, then, Chopwith, for your treasure awaits, we must plunge into the lair and face the ogre, be brave, Chopwith, and your future is assured!"
He rose, a slender man barely a score of years old, his simple peasant tunic was worn and stained with yellow blotches, remainder of some forgotten mishap. His hair was straw-colored and framed his long face moving now into a framework showing concentrated thought and determined action.
Inside the cave, his nostrils flared as he smelled the foul odors. The smells were as horrifying as they were easily identifiable, the smell of old blood, rotting meat, drying bones, and the overwhelming reek of a creature that used its lair as both larder and toilet. Chopwith choked on the aroma, his eyes watered, his vision blurred. He stopped to wipe his eyes clear with one hand.
Which was his big mistake. The few seconds he had his eyes closed, his fingers in them wiping away the tears, and there the ogre was. Chopwith yanked his sword out of his belt, and pointed it at the ogre.
"Hello, dinner." the ogre declared in a loud, coarse, booming voice.
"Dinner?" Chopwith squeaked.
"I think everything ought to know what it's name is." the ogre said. "My name is Bone-Cruncher, and a fine name it is, don't you think?"
"Uhhhh..." Chopwith didn't know how to answer that one!
"So I've named you dinner, so you'll know when I'm going to eat you."
"Eat me?" Chopwith squeaked.
"Well, what would you do with a young tasty human if he came skulking into your lair with a tiny little sword, planning no doubt to stab you in your sleep?" the ogre asked quite reasonably. "You can't let him go, he'll just turn around and come back again and again." The ogre didn't seem at all worried by Chopwith's sword, and given that the ogre was nearly nine feet tall and had muscles that bulged even on this huge frame, all cased in a green-skinned body that looked thick and tough as armor. The face was nothing like handsome, the long nose arced over the mouth, the eyes were yellow-tinted and evil glowed behind them, the hair was dark and matted with filth.
"Now you're in for it, Chopwith." Chopwith told himself very quietly. "Keep calm and keep your head, you'll need all your wits for this."
"Yes, keep your head now." the ogre said.
Chopwith was surprised, he looked up at the ogre, for he had barely whispered it. "You heard me?"
"I heard you outside, muttering to yourself." the ogre clarified. "For a thief that wants to slip into my cave, you made a great deal of noise coming up to the cave."
"Well, then." Chopwith said to the ogre, his hand trembling as he held the sword a little higher. "Shall we get to it?"
"If you want to fight, we can." the ogre said. "Or would you prefer another way?"
"Another way?" Chopwith said, not daring to believe it.
"You don't really want to kill me, do you? You want my treasure, right?"
"Right." Chopwith said.
"Then let us make a bargain, dinner." the ogre said. "A contest, my treasure against your life."
"What kind of contest?" Chopwith was rightfully suspicious. The monsters created on the eighth day of Creation, the day when Satan was able to stir some life out of the leftover pieces of the universe, on the whole were an honorable lot.
"A riddle contest." the ogre offered. "I, Bonecruncher, shall ask you a riddle. If you can guess the riddle, I shall give you all my treasure. If you fail, I shall have you for my supper."
"But that isn't fair!" Chopwith objected. "You could ask me any sort of riddle and unless I guess it, you would win." You only got one answer to any riddle, of course, you couldn't keep guessing in a neck-riddle like this.
The ogre cocked his head to one side. "That is true." he said. "How about if I ask you the riddle, and then let you win the right to be given hints to the answer? You decide when you want to give me the answer."
Chopwith considered this. He knew riddles as well as the next man and any sensible peasant learned to deal with the possibility of a "neck riddle," standing before a nobleman with your life bet upon the answer to his riddle. It afforded the nobleman amusement, it afforded the peasant a chance to live instead of die. Yes, he knew of neck riddles. And with hints to aid him...he could live through this and win a treasure as well!
"Agreed." he said. "Let me have the riddle, then."
And the ogre asked his riddle:
"It grows without aging, Stands without legs, Erect without backbone, Voiceless it begs.
"It burrows without claws, Thrusts without blade, In screams without shouting Its essence is made.
"From mouth without lips, It disgorges its wealth, Pearls that are liquid And swimming with health." And the ogre stopped.
"That's it?" Chopwith demanded.
"That's the riddle." the ogre grinned. "Guess it and my treasure is yours. Guess wrong and I'll crunch your bones as the sun sets."
Chopwith shuddered as he considered the riddle. Agless growing, legless standing, backbone-lessly erect, voiceless begging. Wind could grow without aging, but couldn't be said to be standing. Fish had backbones though they could beg without voices, in mouthing gasps for air. It would burrow but not by digging, that spoke of an animal. Snakes maybe...no, snakes had backbones, darn it, he'd seen one once when it had been cut open. Backbones were about the only bones it had! And that last, a wealth-creator, making liquid pearls that provided health. It could be a plant, plants grow...but damn it, they die, too, usually with the frost of autumn's touch!
The ogre sat patiently, gnawing on an old bone that Chopwith realized with a queasy feeling was a human's bone. He still had his sword, he could refute the riddle-game and charge the ogre.
Yes, and that ogre, alert and watching him, would make short work of him. He had counted on catching the ogre by surprise, how was he to know that ogres had exceptionally good hearing? None of his granny's tales had mentioned that! What use were fairy tales if they didn't tell you how to handle the monsters you would encounter?
"Well?" asked the ogre, and Chopwith started. "Are you ready to guess now?"
"I..." Chopwith swallowed hard. He only got one guess! "You said something about winning a hint?"
"You want a hint?" the ogre said, standing up and kicking a human skull out of the way; Chopwith saw the ogre had hacked open one side to get at the brain inside it. He had eaten calf's brains for breakfast when he could...would a human brain taste much the same?
"Yes, yes, a hint." he said. "Give me a hint."
"You don't get given a hint." the ogre said. "You earn it."
"How do I earn it?"
The ogre's smile was not a friendly one. "You come take hold of this." he said and pulled up his tunic. The ogre wasn't wearing anything below the tunic, it was his sole item of clothing and barely covered his crotch, when he lifted it, the ogre's cock was immediately visible.
"I take hold...of that?' Chopwith couldn't believe it. The ogre had never heard of a bath, he was certain of that. His mind reeled at the thought of how filthy that would be.
"Take hold of it and I'll give you your first hint." the ogre said.
Ogres were at least creatures of their word.
"I still have my sword." Chopwith reminded him as he approached. He put it back in his belt. He would need his right hand to draw it, so with his left hand, he took the ogre's cock in his hand. "There, I have done it." Chopwith said.
"It's a nice one, isn't it?" the ogre offered.
"I suppose a female ogre would think so." Chopwith said charitably.
"Grip it tighter. If you let go, you must answer the riddle immediately or lose your guess."
"Very well, I shall hold on." Chopwith gripped and the cock jerked and stiffened in his hand. "And now that I have your foul organ in my hand, what is the hint?"
"I said the object of my riddle had no legs." the ogre said. "It also has no arms or feet or hands. If it did, it would be a lot more troublesome to its owners than it now is."
Chopwith chewed on this bit of extra information. No legs, arms, feet, hands. The snake wiggled through his mind again, but damn it, snakes didn't produce pearls or anything else! An oyster, that produced pearls, it had no arms, legs, feet or hands. But could an oyster's shell be called "erect?" Maybe. Chopwith muddled over the rest of the riddle. Oysters buried themselves in sand in the water. But nothing they did could be considered "thrusting."
The ogre was patient, though it kept wriggling its hips to move its cock back and forth in Chopwith's hand.
"Can you guess the answer now?" the ogre said after a time.
He could not, Chopwith admitted to himself. "Another hint." he said. "What must I do for another hint?"
"You hold my prick in your hand." the ogre said. "For a second hint, you must work your hand back and forth at a goodly pace, enough to keep me hard and ready, and enough more besides to let me feel the pleasure of your hand's work."
Chopwith sighed. "Ah, very well." He already had an ogre dick in his hand, pumping that willy wasn't so much more. He began to jerk the ogre's dong, and the ogre grunted, wet sounds that to Chopwith's disgust sent the ogre's breath washing over him. Foul, foul smelling breath! If the ogre asked Chopwith to kiss him, Chopwith would surely vomit most riotously!
"I said the object of my riddle had no limbs." the ogre said. "It also has no eyes, no nose, no ears, it cannot hear nor smell nor view the world. And yet though it has none of these, it can command its wielder to disobey the most solemn vows, or cause the strongest man to whimper weakly in its service."
Again the ogre had mentioned owners of this thing. A man's possession, then, it must be something like a knife or a cloak or a bridle. What of these things, then, could be said to grow, to stand erect, to burrow and thrust. Not a knife, which has a blade, nor a cloak, which can never stand erect, nor a bridle, which cannot burrow in the least. A plowshare burrows...but has a blade, so does the hoe, a rake burrows some but those things would be called claws if any tool had claws on it...curse it, nothing he could think of fit all of the riddle!
The ogre was grunting eagerly as Chopwith continued to pound on its pud, the noise put Chopwith in mind of a bull presented with a cow.
"Are you wanting another hint? The ogre said. "If you do, you must replace your hand with your mouth upon my cock, and work it as you did your hand."
Chopwith nearly puked his guts out at the thought of that. "Nay, no hint yet." he said. "I am still considering the hints I already have."
"Well, the sun is getting closer to setting." the ogre reminded him. "If you cannot guess this riddle before my mealtime, you will become the meal. Guess soon, human, for my pot will need time to boil you up nice and tender for my dinner."
Chopwith choked back a bit of sourness that welled up from his stomach, and said, "Very well, another hint, but this time, I pick the subject of the hint. Is the thing of which we speak living or not and if it is owned by men, do I own one?"
"That is two hints, not one." the ogre countered.
"If you want me to take that foul shaft you call your manhood into my mouth, I will have both parts of my question answered." Chopwith said.
"Very well." the ogre said. "When you take my cock into your mouth, I shall answer them both, but that shall be your final hint, if you cannot get it from the answers to that, you cannot get it at all."
Shuddering, Chopwith got onto his knees. He felt a wetness down there, and whether it was the ogre's excrement, some decomposing bit of human flesh or just ordinary water from the ground that most caverns held in some measure, he gritted his teeth at the feel of it. The ogre's prong was looking at him with its one weeping eye, and he looked at it, grimaced, closed his eyes and dove at it. The glans slapped his nose as he mis-judged the position, he slid the slimy-tipped thing over his upper lip and thence into his mouth and the flavor of the prod was...less than horrifying. Perhaps this ogre did take baths, for a good-sized stream lay nearby. Or maybe it just waded into the brook to catch fish sometimes when humans were scarce and that washed his lower parts. No matter, he could taste a rather heavy raunch of the ogre's skin, but that raunch was at least fresh from the ogre's pores, not having lingered there until it festered with bacteria and fed mold as he had feared.
With this, his mouth let him hang on and he began to work the ogre's rod back and forth. The glans gushed precome onto his lips and that tasted odd, salty but also a brackish flavor to it, almost metallic.
"Uuuh, yes, human, yes." the ogre guttered. "Your lips are the dancing of fairies upon my desire, your mouth is the gentle caress of moonlight, your tongue is the devilish mischief of a prankster elf. Let your mouth take my joy and increase it, increase it."
Chopwith grunted, the impatient sound that said, "Give me the answer!"
"Ah, ah, so sleekly supple your lips as they pull on my shaft." the ogre murmured. "Yes, keep this up and you will win your hint most honestly indeed."
Chopwith had to work the ogre's dong a bit more but finally the ogre sighed in his delight, and said, "the answer to your questions are that the object of my riddle is alive, very much so, and you own one yourself and have cared for it most carefully all your life, for it is an object that you love very much unless I miss your guess. Now ply your mouth upon my dick faster, the sun will set within the hour, and your guess must be coming soon or never."
Chopwith needed more time to think, the only way to get that was to keep this ogre content to wait. And what being that calls itself male of any sort will not linger contentedly while its prick is worked by wet lips and soft mouth and darting, dancing tongue.
So Chopwith pondered the riddle while his head kept the ogre's cock busy. What did he have that he had cared for so much that was alive? No animal he knew of could be said to be without arms, legs, eyes or ears. But it was alive. That left the plant kingdom. Plants age, but trees live a very long time. But damn it, he didn't own any trees, the trees on his land belonged to the lord and he could only go with a pruning hook to clip off branches for his fire. The ogre must know that. What other thing could it be? What could it be?
"Can you guess, human?" the ogre asked.
The ogre was wanting an answer. Only one thing, since he didn't have one, Chopwith set out to give this ogre the best oral sucking he could muster. His tongue he sent across the underside of the shaft, and his lips he varied their angle and tension so that the ogre could not guess what he would do next.
"Ah, ah, my pleasure builds within me." the ogre groaned. "Soon you will have my seed gushing forth, human, can you take an ogre's spunk into your belly? Can you drink down my life's essence from the tower of my virility?"
Could he? How could he not, if he wished to think more. What could it be that he had one of himself and had cared for? Alive but no animal nor plant. Growing without aging, erect without bones, screaming without shouting. What did he have that screamed?
"Ah-hah, ah-ah, gah-uh, GUH-GUH-UNH-HUH-HNNNNNNNHHHH!" the ogre howled and Chopwith's mouth flooded with the ogre's spunk. Hot, salty and heavy with a flavor unknown but metallic, it flew into Chopwith's mouth and he choked upon it, it was so thick, and then some of it got up his nose and snorting, Chopwith felt the heavy goo dribbling out of his nose! The ogre was hunching hard at Chopwith, stabbing him with the hard, dong. Stabbing him with the blade of his cock. Stabbing the erect, hard, screaming...AH, HAH!
Triumphant, Chopwith slurped down the rest of the ogre's load and when it was done, he stood up and wiped his nose, and looked at his finger and the whitish glob of jizz it now held on its tip.
"A-huh, a-huh, a-huh, uh, whuh, hooh, ahh, hahhhh!" the ogre panted. "Well, human, can you guess my riddle?"
"I can." Chopwith said. "I know what it is, this armless, legless thing that grows agelessly, stands without legs, begs without voice, stabs without blade and bestows its treasure of liquid pearls." He held out the orb of spunk on his fingertip. "The answer is your cock, of course, or mine, or any man's, his most prized possession, he cares for it and when it demands, he must obey it or pay the penalty."
The ogre chuckled. "Well done, young human, and I must gnaw old bones for my hunger tonight, it seems, for you have guessed rightly."
"All the time you had me pleasuring you, you were giving me hints." Chopwith said without undue rancor. He had been used, no doubt, but the riddle had been honest. "And now I'll trouble you for your treasure."
"You've won it and I'll give it you." the ogre said. "This way." He went further back into the cavern. Chopwith followed him, the ogre had lost and fairly, and didn't seem disposed to being a bad loser. How bad a loser Chopwith would have been was another question, one he was glad enough not to have to answer.
The back of the ogre's cavern held a small round area which held his bedding. The ogre fished into one part of the sticks and grass that made the bed and came out with a small bag. "Here you are, every bit of my treasure." he said, giving it to Chopwith.
Chopwith took the small pouch disbelieving. "This is all your treasure?" he said. He hefted the bag, opened and peered inside. "It is a double score of copper pieces and only a few silver, no gold at all." he accused the ogre.
"It's all I have." the ogre explained. "You humans keep coming along, and when they're young and cute like you, I let them try to guess my riddle. So far, every human has guessed my riddle. I should make up a new riddle, I suppose, but the old one is just so much fun for me."
"Now what am I supposed to do?" Chopwith mourned. All this work, all the fear of searching for the ogre, the riddle for his life, and this was all he got? "What am I to do?" he said again.
"You have two choices." the ogre volunteered. "First is to leave my cave now while the oath of the riddle still holds you safe. The other choice is to join me for dinner."
"What would you be having?"
"Not what. Who." the ogre clarified.
"I'll be leaving now." Chopwith decided.
Thus ended Chopwith's first and only adventure.
And the moral of the story is: While some adventurers may win fame and fortune, most of them are just a bunch of suckers!
THE END
Comments, complaints or suggestions?
E-mail the Author at Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
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