"I did it!" Alain stared down at the huge corpse in disbelief. "I have slain a monster!"
"That you have," Geoffrey said sourly, "and with full measure of danger, too. Might I ask you, next time, to wait for your reserves?"
But Alain's face was darkening, elation giving way to remorse. "It looks so shrunken, lying there..."
"Shrunken! 'Tis ten feet long and three times the bulk of a man—nay, more! Make no mistake, Alain—that pigface would have slain you in an instant, if he could have!" That lightened the Prince's mood considerably—but he still brooded, though with puzzlement now, not guilt. "How is it he does not bleed?"
"Well asked," Geoffrey admitted. He had been wondering about that himself.
None of the ogre's wounds showed the slightest trace of blood—nor of ichor, nor any other sort of bodily fluid, for that matter. They were as clean as cuts in bread dough. In fact, the ogre's body looked far more like that substance, than like flesh or meat.
"Still, 'tis no wonder," Geoffrey said, searching for something reassuring to say—and found it. "The monsters of Gramarye are not made as you and I were, Alain."
"Not made as we were?" The Prince transferred his frown to Geoffrey. "Why, how is that?"
"Not made by mothers and fathers," Geoffrey explained, "or if they were, those parents, or their ancestors, sprang full-blown from witch-moss overnight. God did not make them as He made us, from lumps of protoplasm formed by countless eons of random changes that were shaped by the role He planned for them. No, they were made by the thoughts of a granny who was a protective telepath, but did not know it, shaped as she told a bedtime story of monsters and heroes to her babes—or by one person telling such a tale to many others, and of the many, there were several who were projectives but also did not know it. Their thoughts, together, formed the monster out of witch-moss."
He had told Alain about projective telepaths years ago—and about all the other psionic talents the espers of Gramarye had at their disposal. Of course, his father had warned him not to, and Geoffrey could understand why, in the case of the ignorant, superstitious peasants who would have reacted by saying that a witch was a witch, no matter what you called her. But Alain was neither ignorant nor superstitious—at least, not by local standards—and Geoffrey and his brothers and sisters had reasoned that he needed to know what his subjects really were, if he was to rule them well when he was grown.
So Alain understood Geoffrey's explanation, nodding, though his brows were still knit. "Naetheless, would such witch-moss creatures not have blood in them?" He knew that the substance they called "witch-moss" was really a fungus that responded to the thoughts of projectives, turning itself into whatever they were thinking about.
"Not if the granny who told the tale did not think of blood. Difficult to imagine, for we who loved to hear tales of bloody deeds even in our cradles, but there are many who do not. Nay, there's no doubt the creature was only a construct, naught more, and one brought to life only last night, or the villagers would have seen him ere now."
"Well, there is no glory in slaying a thing that is not real, is there?" Alain asked, disappointed.
"Oh, it was real, Alain! Be sure, it was real—and you would have been sure indeed, if that club had touched you! Do you not see the hole where it plowed into the ground? What do you think it would have done to your head? Nay, made by grannies or by God, this was a lethal brute, and 'twas an act of great daring to slay it!"
Alain seemed reassured, then suddenly stood bolt upright, eyes wide. "The child! The shepherd-boy! We must find him! Pray God it was not .. ."
He could not finish, nor did he need to. Geoffrey nodded grimly; he had also wondered at the source of the legbone the ogre had wielded. "Aye, let us search."
They climbed up toward the ogre's cave, Alain calling, "Boy! Shepherd! You may come out now with safety! We have..."
"You waste your breath." Geoffrey caught his arm, pointing.
Alain looked, and saw the shepherd boy pelting away across the field, already little more than a dot of dark clothing against the amber of the wheat.
"Praise Heaven!" the Prince sighed. "He is safe!"
"Aye. I doubt not the lad was penned in the cave, and seized his chance to flee when the ogre charged down upon us. He will surely bear word to the village—if he paused to look back."
"What boy would not?" Alain smiled.
"A boy who flees for his life." Geoffrey was very glad to see the curve of Alain's lips; he had begun to wonder if the Prince was going into shock. "We must go tell them ourselves. Someone must bury this mound of offal, and I have no wish to tarry long enough to undertake the task myself."
Alain nodded; Geoffrey didn't need to explain. The Prince knew as well as he that a royal search party was very probably already after them, and he had no wish to cut short his adventuring.
Geoffrey clapped Alain on the back and turned him toward his horse. "Come, away! For what other feats of glory await you?"
But Alain hung back, glancing' at the ogre. "Should I not hew off its head and send it to the Lady Cordelia, as proof of my love?"
Geoffrey tried to imagine Cordelia receiving the ugly, gruesome trophy and shuddered. "There is no need, and I do not think she would find it aesthetic. Be assured, she shall hear of it soon enough!"
She didn't, as it happened. All the elves who had been watching the encounter were too late to tell her of it before she left Castle Gallowglass to follow the boys again. But Puck himself brought word back to Brom O'Berin.
"'Tis well." Brom nodded, satisfied.
"The mission is accomplished, and none hurt but the ogre." Puck strutted as he said it.
Brom eyed him askance. "Here is turpitude indeed! Have you no remorse, no sorrow for the creature you made?"
"None at all," Puck assured him. "It had no mind, look you, only a set of actions implanted in its excuse for a brain. It would charge when it was charged, strike when it was threatened, and naught more—save to die when its time was done."
"And was very clumsy into the bargain?"
"Tremendously. It could strike no object smaller than a horse, save by luck."
"Bad luck indeed! 'Twas with that I was concerned."
"Be easy in thine heart, O King," Puck said, grinning. "Surely thou dost know that I would take no chance with the Prince's life."
"Aye, unless thy sense of mischief got the better of thee!"
"Well, it did not in this case," Puck said judiciously. "A score of elves hid with me in the bracken and all about the field of combat, to protect the Prince and thy grandson with their magic, should mischance befall. Yet 'twas without need; 'twas not mischance that befell, but the ogre."
"Aye, and nearly crushed Alain in its fall!"
"'Twas not so massive as that," Puck protested. "Indeed, for its size, 'twas quite tenuous."
"As is thy report." But approval twinkled in Brom's eye.
The villagers cheered as soon as the two young knights came in sight.
"I take it the shepherd boy did watch the battle," Geoffrey said.
Then the people were on them, clustering about their stirrups, reaching up to touch their defenders.
"All praises be upon thee, young knights!"
"Save thee, my masters!"
"A thousand blessings on they who saved the boy!"
"Blessings and praises, and what soe'er they may ask that we can give," said one buxom, dark-haired beauty with a look in her eye that sent a thrill through Alain, one that held his gaze riveted to hers as hot blood coursed through him, awaking sensations that he found both intimidating and fascinating at the same time.
Then she transferred her gaze to Geoffrey, and Alain went limp with relief—but the sensations were still there, with a strength that shook him.