Frontier Chef: My Cooking Skills Are Broken-Chapter 15: Ossa, ossa

The ugly fucker hit him good.

Ezra opened his eyes to sky—pale blue, enormous, not a single cloud in sight. The sun had moved out of courtesy. It sat lower than before, further west.

In other words, he’d been out for a while.

He tried to sit up and couldn’t. Dozens of tiny paws were holding him from underneath, gripping his back, his legs, his arms, his head. One or two paws were treading along the crevice of his ass and he was praying it wouldn’t slip.

The Ossalaka were moving him. Carrying him somewhere. Maybe a giant pot to cook him alive.

’If they drop me in a pot of water I’m pissing in it.’

The chanting came in waves. "Ossa, ossa, ossa," low and rhythmic, not the frantic war cry from before.

It was a marching beat now. Rocks and spears on bark at a tempo that would impress any bootleg rapper. It even matched the pounding in his head.

Ezra reached up and touched his forehead where the club had kissed it and his fingers came back with dried blood.

’The ugly one. Fucking furball with the bone club. You think I forgot you huh?’

He turned his head and the bird girl was floating beside him on a second wave of paws. She was still unconscious, her forehead split by a gash above her left eyebrow. It bled down the side of her face and dried in a dark streak across her cheek.

The ugly one had hit her harder. Made sense. She was the one with the weapon.

Then again, Ezra was the one pulling the string.

Were they just patriarchal?

Her chest rose and fell, steady enough. The bow was gone, dismissed back to wherever it came from when she lost consciousness. Second time it hadn’t fired.

She was getting blue balled. Half a laugh escaped Ezra’s lips, though he bit it down.

’Ugly one definitely has to go.’

Speaking of which, it was leading the pack to wherever they were scurrying to.

Pack leader, or whatever the hell they called it.

He let his head fall back onto the tiny hands. They adjusted under him without missing a step, dozens of paws working in unison like a conveyor belt made of fur.

The terrain had changed while he was out cold dreaming about nothing.

The open scrub was gone, replaced by clusters of boulders and rock formations tall enough to throw shade. The temperature was cooler here too. The Ossalaka navigated through gaps in the stone like they’d done this walk a thousand times because they probably have.

They entered a narrow passage between two boulders the size of delivery trucks. The chanting echoed off the walls and layered on itself until "ossa" was just a repeating vomit of lyrics in his ears.

They came out the other side and the settlement opened up below them.

A natural bowl in the rock, ringed by boulders the size of houses. Some were natural, some had been carved with windows and doorways at Ossalaka height. The doorways were shorter than Ezra’s waist, covered with cloth that looked like dried hide or woven grass.

Dozens of the tiny dwellings packed into the rock walls, stacked two and three high, connected by paths worn smooth from years of bare paws.

A steaming spring sat at the center. Small pool, sure, but clear as anything.

Ezra’s throat whined for a taste.

Drying racks lined the inner walls with strips of dark meat hung in rows. Berries in shallow stone bowls. Bones sorted by size in piles against the boulders, organized the way a hardware store sorts screws.

Skulls sat on poles at the perimeter with their jaws wired open and empty sockets facing outward.

’We’re definitely fucking dying here. I’m sorry, System.’

[ Bzzt ]

More of the Ossalaka were here. Almost fifty total, the war party being roughly half. The rest had been doing daily life stuff until the hunting party arrived.

Every one of them stopped what they were doing and stared.

The Ossalaka set Ezra down at the edge of the spring. He rolled off the tiny hands before they finished lowering him and got his face in the water.

He stuck his dry tongue out and drank like a dog. The more he drank, the more he could piss before being the main course for supper. It tasted like rock and nothing else, but he kept drinking until his stomach pushed back, and then some more.

> SP: 180/180

’Sated buff is gone, but how long can I last before they finish impaling my naked ass?

I can probably stomp six or seven of them but... Bird girl being unconscious again isn’t helping one bit either.’

They set the bird girl down beside him on the packed dirt. Her right hand flopped into the water up to the wrist.

Ezra cupped water in his palm and poured it over the gash on her forehead. The dried blood loosened and ran pink down her temple. He poured another handful over her cracked lips.

He splashed water at her face.

"Wake up. We’re dinner tonight," Ezra said, splashing more water.

She moaned something quiet, opened one eye on Ezra, closed it in the same heartbeat.

’T’fuck was that about?’

His only logical explanation was that she didn’t want to see him cooked alive.

He sat back on his heels and took in the full picture. Forty-something yellow-eyed faces pointed at him. Workers, sorters, scrapers, all frozen mid-task.

Then one miniature voice barked. High as can be, pitch that left blood running down the earholes. If chihuahuas could talk, this was as close as it got.

And he fucking hated chihuahuas.

The Ossalaka with the chihuahua voice came from the back of the settlement, from behind a stack of boulders taller than the rest. Shorter than the rest, this furball was a bowling ball with stubs for arms.

The helmet covered its entire head from the crown to the jawline. It was bigger than a jackal skull, clearly predatory, mounted front-facing to invoke terror before the viewer. The teeth were intact and curved inward, the jaw pinned open so the Ossalaka’s own snout poked through the gap.

Horns swept up from the brow ridge to points that added another half foot of height.

The bone had gone yellow with age, passed down from generations, or resurgence.

It stopped ten feet from Ezra and barked again.

"Ossa."

"Ossa, ossa!" One of them said, the one who’d been burnt. "Ossa."

"Ossa?"

"Ossa. Ossalaka, ossa!" All three of the burnt Ossalakas brought their palms to the sun.

The ugly Ossalaka stepped forward, bowing in return. "Ossa," it said, snout on the dirt.

The leader looked at Ezra’s hands. Then at the three Ossalaka with singed fur hovering near the front of the crowd, proud of their burns.

Then back at Ezra.

[ Ping! ]

[ Side-quest assigned: Befriend the Ossalaka Tribe ]

’You gotta be fucking kidding me.’

He pointed at the short, fat one who was apparently the tribe leader.

"Appraisal."

[ Ossalaka Patriarch — ★★★★ ]

> Profile: Alpha specimen. Denser muscle mass than common Ossalaka, higher fat content from sedentary role. Bone trophy armor may contaminate outer tissue during butchery. Meat quality superior to subordinates but ethically questionable given sapience indicators.

The Patriarch’s yellow eyes hadn’t left Ezra’s face.

It barked once more, quiet this time.

’Fuck it.’

[ Side-quest accepted ]