"Only this morning, you say?" Geoffrey frowned; something there struck him as odd.
But Alain was delighted. "Have we come to our first adventure so quickly, then? Surely, good folk, be easy in your hearts! We shall find the monster and slay him for you! Shall we not, Sir Geoffrey?"
"Oh, certainly," Geoffrey seconded. He realized suddenly that, whatever its source, this most convenient monster would certainly give Alain a good chance to prove his courage and skill. Geoffrey couldn't have planned it better himself. "Yes, surely we will fight the ogre for you—if he is evil."
"Aye, if he is evil!" Alain sobered; he might have been about to strike a harmless being, simply because it looked frightening. That would have been very poor behavior indeed, for a knight-errant. "What has he done?"
Well, actually, it turned out that the ogre hadn't done all that much, really—only knocked a haystack apart, and made off with a sheep. Of course, he had also taken the shepherd, a boy of about twelve, who had been hiding in the haystack with the sheep, and that was what the townsfolk were really concerned about.
"He will eat the lad!" one woman cried, while another comforted the mother, who could not stop crying.
"His father has already gone out to slay the monster," an old man said grimly. "I doubt not he will be slain, if thou dost not speed quickly, good sirs!"
"Why, then, let us ride!" Alain cried, eyes alight with anticipation.
"Aye! To the fray!" Geoffrey wheeled his horse about and rode off after Alain, amazed—not so much by the Prince's eagerness as by his total lack of fear. Was he only hiding it well? Or didn't he really understand what he was up against? Probably the latter, Geoffrey reflected—ogres were nothing but pictures in books to Alain, as much fantasy as a real fight was. The trouble was that Alain didn't know that the battles in the books, and the monsters, weren't real. How would he react when he came face-to-face with the genuine article?
Pretty well, as it turned out. They followed a peasant to the haystack in question—or what was left of it, at leastthen tracked the ogre down. It wasn't hard—he had left footprints in the grass an inch deep and two feet long.
"If his feet are double the length of mine," Alain said, "will he be twice my height?"
"Likely he will," Geoffrey said, trying to sound as grim as possible. Didn't the callow youth understand what he was getting into?
He certainly must have understood it when they came in sight of the ogre. Newly arrived or not, he had found a cave already—a hole in a rocky outcrop toward the top of a hill, and the flinty pathway led up to him in zigs and zags. He sat by a fire where, with one of his four hands, he was turning a spit with some sort of meat on it, while he gnawed a leg-bone with one of the others.
Now Alain paled, reining in his horse. "Pray heaven that is not the boy's leg he is chewing!"
"I shall." Now Geoffrey turned grim in earnest as he drew his sword. "Ah, for a proper lance and armor! But we shall have to manage with what we have."
The ogre heard the sound of steel whisking loose from a scabbard and surged to his feet with a roar, brandishing the leg-bone in one hand and catching up a huge club with another. The other two clenched into fists and shook in the air toward the two young men. To Geoffrey, those extra arms seemed to have life of their own. The ogre wasn't twelve feet tall after all, but only ten—only ten! What he lacked in height, though, he made up in bulk. He must have been four feet wide across the shoulders. He needed the extra shoulder room, on the other hand—and the other hand, and the other, and the other.
Then Alain howled a battle cry and spurred his horse. He charged up the mountainside, sword swinging high as he shouted, "For Gramarye and the Lady Cordelia!"
The romantic fool, Geoffrey thought, alarmed, even as he spurred his own horse—but even in his exasperation, he had to admire Alain's bravery.
For the first time, he found himself wondering what he was going to say to Cordelia if he had to bring back the dead body of the man she'd been planning to marry since she was five.
The ogre roared and charged down the slope as fast as Alain was charging up. Geoffrey cried out in alarm—there was no possibility of a misunderstanding here; that ogre was out for blood! The huge club lifted for a blow that would flatten the horse like a housefly, and the leg bone shot toward Alain's head.
But the Prince chopped the bone out of the air with a sweep of his sword, then shouted to his charger. Undaunted and well trained, the warhorse charged straight at the ogre.
The huge club wound up and slammed down. Alain swerved at the last second.
The club churned up the ground. With a roar of frustration, the ogre yanked—but the cudgel stuck. Enraged, the monster bellowed, grabbed it with two hands, and set itself to pull.
Alain darted in to stab the monster's bottom.
The ogre howled, snapping straight upright, one of its free hands slapping its buttock. The other swatted at Alain as though he were a fly.
Alain danced his horse back, but not fast enough—the huge palm slammed into his chest, and he reeled in the saddle. His horse leaped back beyond range. Alain struggled for breath.
Geoffrey saw he was needed. He howled like a banshee and came riding in, waving his sword.
The ogre looked up, startled, then roared and snatched at its club.
The club still refused to move.
This time, the ogre grabbed it with all four hands—then, as Geoffrey galloped in, loosed one fist to swing backhanded at him.
Geoffrey dodged, but not far enough—the blow glanced off his head, and he saw stars. Holding onto consciousness, he backed his horse clear.
The ogre gave a mighty heave and pulled the club out with a shout of triumph.
Alain caught his breath and charged in.
He swerved around to the front, being too chivalrous to attack an opponent from behind without warning, and Geoffrey groaned at his friend's idiocy. He set himself to gallop back to the fight, but Alain charged in so fast that the huge club slammed down right behind him, giving the Prince just time enough to stab up, as high as he couldright into the ogre's midriff. It screamed, a ghastly sound choked off as its stomach muscles gave out. Alain darted back out, but the ogre, disabled or not, slammed a roundhouse blow at him that cracked his shield and made him reel in the saddle.
Strangling and gasping, the monster waddled after him, murder in its eye, club lifting in all four hands. Geoffrey shouted and charged.
But Alain rallied, lowered his head, extended his sword like a lance, and charged again.
The ogre gave a strangled cry and swung, but it was so weakened that it overbalanced and fell—right on top of Alain. Its whole body slammed down with every ounce of its impossible size and weight. Alain disappeared under a mountain of flesh.
"Alain!"Geoffrey cried in horror, and leaped off his horse, sword swinging high to chop off the ogre's head ... Then a gleaming sword-tip poked out of the monster's back, and the ogre went limp.
Geoffrey almost went limp himself, with relief—but not quite. A dead ogre didn't prove a live Prince, after all. He grabbed an arm and threw all his weight against it, rolling the ogre up on its side.
Alain scrambled clear and climbed to his feet. He looked about, crying, "My sword!"
"There!" Geoffrey grunted, nodding toward the ogre's chest. "Pull it out, and quickly! I do not know how long I can hold him up!"
Alain dived for the sword, set a heel against the monster's chest, and heaved. The blade slid free as easily as though it had been in its scabbard, and Alain went staggering back.
Geoffrey let go with a grunt of relief.