Then he heard the patter of Tandy's feet coming toward him. She was still being foolish; she would be much easier to catch here. The earth about his face became moist as the beer sank in, and he heard it splashing when her feet struck it. He hoped her pretty red slippers didn't get soiled. Meanwhile, the ground shuddered as the other ogre tromped after her, enjoying the chase.
Then she was over Smash, scraping out the ground about his head with her feeble little human hands, uncovering his buried eyes. Foaming beer from the tree swirled down, blearing his vision but softening the dirt somewhat so she could better excavate. But this was useless; she could never hope to extricate him herself, and already the ogre was looming over her, amused at the futility of her effort.
"Smash!" she cried. "Take my half soul!"
In Smash's dim, beer-sotted mind, something added up. One half plus one half equaled something very much like one. Two half souls together-He saw her half soul dropping toward him, a hemisphere like a half-eaten apple, bisected with fair precision. Then it struck his head, bounced, and sank in, as the Eye Queue had done. He became internally conscious of it as it spread through him. It was a small, sweet, pretty, innocent but spunky fillet of soul, exactly the kind that belonged to a girl like her. Yet as it descended and joined with his big, brutish, homely, leathery ogre half soul, it merged to make a satisfying whole.
At this point, in the Night Stallion horror visions, this would have been the end. But here in real life, with a full soul pieced together, it just might be the beginning. Smash felt his strength returning.
The ogre lifted Tandy into the air by her brown tresses. He slavered. Smash's sunken orbs perceived it all from their beer-sodden pit in the ground.
The girl tried to throw a tantrum, but she was mostly out of the makings. She was terrified rather than angry, her tantrum-energy had recently been expended, and she bad no soul. Her effort only made the ogre blink. He opened his ponderous and mottled jaw and swung her toward his broken teeth.
Smash flexed. He had a full soul, of sorts, now; his Strength was back. The ground buckled about him.
One hamhand rose up like the extremity of a zombie emerging from a long-undisturbed grave, dripping beer-sodden dirt. It caught the hairy ankle of the ogre.
Smash lifted. He was well anchored in the ground, so all he needed was power. He had it. The ogre rose into the air, surprised. But he did not let Tandy go. He continued to bring her to his salivating maw. First things first, after all.
Smash brought the foot belonging to the ankle he held to his own mouth. He opened his own dirt-marbled jaws. They closed on the ogre's horny toes. They crunched, hard.
Folklore had it that ogres were invulnerable to pain because they were too tough and stupid to feel it.
Folklore was in error. The ogre bellowed out a blast of pain that shook the welkin, making the sun vibrate in place and three clouds dump their water incontinently. He dropped Tandy. Smash caught her with his other hand, after ripping it free of the ground with a spray of dirt that was like a small explosion. He set her gently down. "Find shelter," he murmured. "It could become uncomfortable in this vicinity."
She nodded mutely, then scooted away.
Smash spit out three toes, watching them bounce across the dirt. He waved the ogre in the air. "Shall we begin, toadsnoot?" he inquired politely.
The ogre was no coward. No ogre was, since an ogre's brain was too obtuse to allow room for the circuitry of fear. He was ready to begin.
The battle of ogre vs. ogre was the most savage encounter known in Xanth. The very land about them seemed to tense expectantly, aware that when this was over, nothing would be the same. Perhaps nothing would be, period. The landscape of Xanth was dotted with the imposing remnants of ancient ogre fights-water-filled calderas, stands of petrified trees, mountains of rubble, and similar artifacts.
The ogre began without imagination, naturally enough. He drove a hamfist down on Smash's head. This time Smash met it with his open jaws. The fist disappeared into his mouth, and his teeth crunched on the scarred wrist.
Again the ogre bellowed, and the sun shook in its orbit and the clouds soaked indecorously. One downpour spilled onto the sun itself, causing an awful sizzle.
The ogre wrenched his arm up-and popped Smash right out of the ground in the process, for naturally Smash had not let go. Beer-mud flew outward and rained down on the watching ogres, who snapped at the blobs automatically.
The ogre slammed his two fists together hard. Since one fist was inside Smash's mouth, this meant Smash's head was getting doubly boxed. Vapor shot out of his ears. He spit out the fist, since he was unable to chew it properly, and freed his head.
Now the two combatants faced each other, two hulking monsters, the one covered with dirt and reeking of beer, the other minus two teeth and three toes. Both were angry-and the anger of ogres was similar to that of volcanoes, tornadoes, avalanches, or other natural calamities-apt to destroy the neighborhood indiscriminately.
"You called me half-breed," Smash said, driving a gauntleted fist into the other's shoulder. This time the blow had ogre force; the ogre was hurled sidewise into the trunk of a small rock-maple tree. The tree snapped off, its top section crashing down on the ogre's ugly head.
He shrugged it off, not even noticing the distraction. "He go me toe," he said, naming his own grievance, though unable to count beyond one. He fired his own fist at Smash's shoulder. The blow hurled Smash sidewise into a rock-candy boulder. The boulder shattered, and sugar cubes flew out and descended like hailstones around them.
"You tried to eat my friend," Smash said, kicking the ogre in the rear. The kick sent the monster sailing up in a high arc, his posterior smoking. Then, to make sure the ogre understood. Smash repeated it in ogrish: "He ea' me she."
The ogre landed bottom-first in the Fen, and the water bubbled and steamed about him. He picked himself up by hauling with one hamhand on the shaggy nape of his neck, then stomped the bog so that the mud flew outward like debris from a meteoric impact and ripped a medium-sized hickory tree from its mooring on an islet. The tree came loose with an anguished "Hick!" and kicked again as the ogre smashed, it down across Smash's head, breaking it asunder. Smash felt sorry for the ruined tree, probably because of the influence of the sweet girl's half soul he had borrowed.
The two ogres faced each other again, having now warmed up. There was a scurrying and fluttering in the surrounding jungle as the creatures of the wild who had remained before now fled the scene of impending violence. There were also ripples in the swamp and the beat of dragons' wings, all departing hastily. None of them wanted any part of this!
Now that Smash had his full strength and had interacted with the other ogre, it was his judgment that he was the stronger of the two and the smarter. He believed he could beat this monster-and it was necessary that he do it to protect Tandy. But a lot of battle remained before the issue would be resolved.
Smash leaned forward, threw his arms around the ogre, picked him up, and charged toward the dense, hard walls of a big walnut tree. The ogre's head rammed right through the wood and was buried inside the wall-trunk, his body dangling outside.
Then there was a chomping sound. The ogre was chewing his way out, despite his missing teeth. Soon his snout broke through the far side of the wall, then chomped to the left and right-He spit out wall-nuts as he went, and they formed little walls around the tree where they fell. Then the tree crashed to the ground, its trunk severed. The ogre returned to the fray.
He ripped a medium rosewood tree from the ground and hurled it at Smash. Smash threw up a fist to block it, but the trunk splintered and showered him with splinter-roses.