effortlessly, severing the limb at the shoulder.
The creature cried out-a breathless, dry crackling scream that sounded like the splitting of a monstrous vallenwood. I would have thought dismemberment was sufficient. It usually is, in polite circles. Of course, that shows you how much I knew about trolls. With its good left arm, it clawed at Ramiro, who stopped the onslaught neatly with his shield. Still, the big Knight shivered and rocked in the saddle, and the shield came away dented and misshapen.
Nor was this some kind of last desperate surge of strength. Injured but by no means daunted, the troll turned slowly to face Ramiro, its little black eyes glittering with rage. The two of them locked into a careful, almost stately dance of violence, each one sizing up the other as Ramiro guided his horse in circles around the turning troll.
In the lull and balance before conflict resumed, Oliver dismounted and, creeping behind the troll, scurried within a stride or two of the monster. I started to cry out, to call the boy back, but he was moving so rapidly that had I shouted or spoken, my words could have done nothing but alert the troll to his whereabouts. Rushing across the muddy ground, the boy stooped, grunted, and lifted the severed arm to his shoulder. Staggering only a second under the considerable burden, Oliver sprang out of reach before the troll turned around.
Even as he carried it, the arm was sprouting a new shoulder, the shoulder widening and spreading toward the enormous torso it would regenerate in a matter of minutes.
The neck and head began to form and assemble, mottled gray ears and nose arising from the writhing flesh like a shape emerging from water or stone. With a last, heroic surge of strength, Oliver hurled the thing into the campfire, where the flames leapt hungrily over the knotted skin of the thing.
Alfric, Dannelle, and I let out a collective gasp. Safe on our horses, a gallop away from sword or fire, we stared at one another in consternation. Almost at once, my mind raced to more urgent questions.
Such as what earthly good I was serving Ramiro at this fainthearted distance.
There was no telling how long my indecision would have lasted had not Lily started and kicked out violently, almost throwing me into the mud; then, before I could do anything, she lurched forward into the mill of claw and tooth and metal that was rising again in front of me, as Ramiro wheeled his stallion and came at the troll again, sword raised.
A brief glance back over my shoulder before the action closed around me revealed Dannelle, still seated astride her palfrey, holding a riding crop in her hand.
With which she had no doubt basted my steed.
There was no time for prayer, or even profanity. I turned back around and looked into the mottled, enormous face of the thing, which had risen to full height, towering over Lily's head, its remaining hand poised above me, ready, no doubt, to descend and segment the newest Solamnic Knight.
I whooped, ducked, and felt a swift wind pass over my head.
Up against its dry, leathery chest, I set my hand and pushed. Nothing moved. It was like swimming through metal. I wondered briefly how my body would appear when my head looked at it from somewhere over in the bushes.
The prospect was enough to send me tumbling over Lily's flank onto the soggy ground with a splash. I scrambled quickly to my feet and wiped myself off.
There were Ramiro and troll everywhere I looked, and as I spun around frantically, tugging at my scabbard for the sword that seemed riveted there, I discovered there was frenzy even in the places I wasn't looking.
I knew that what had been serious before had now fallen critical. For the troll had unhorsed Ramiro, and as the big Knight struggled for footing like a capsized turtle, the monster had suddenly turned its attention to me.
All nine feet of it towered above me, and it drew so close that I could smell the moss and ordure on its skin.
For the first time since I could remember, I was tunneled into a corner, without resource or lie.
As the big thing came at me, teeth bared, I fumbled with my sword.
It would not come.
I closed my eyes.
In that brown darkness, I heard the sound of scuffling and shrieks.
I opened my eyes, and Dannelle was astraddle the troll's back, dagger in hand. Down plunged the dagger into the fleshy neck of the monster, and up and down again, while the stupid, surprised look on the thing's face turned suddenly to something like understanding, and it twisted, tossing her into the mud.
I had no time for chivalry. One desperate tug at the sword broke the leather thong that had held my sword in the scabbard and brought the blade whining into the open air. I spun it above my head and lunged upward at the troll's midsection. Fully aware that the thing could easily handle a severed arm, I was looking to make contact with a more delicate appendage.
Instead, my blade glanced harmlessly against the creature's knee, shaving off perhaps an inch of its gnarled skin but doing little more damage. Still, it seemed I had been close enough to make the creature think I knew what I was doing. Quickly it backed away from me, gibbering. Off to my side, I heard Ramiro finally rising to his feet, and I drew my knife, standing my ground as the troll retreated.
As quickly as it had set upon us, the creature was gone. Growling, whining, scrambling over felled trees and slipping in the mud and the wet grass, it scrambled back into the woods.
In triumph, I turned toward the others. It seemed for a moment that the teachings of the Measure I had pondered and disputed were proven right at last-that an adversary, no matter its size and meanness, will back down when it is faced with spunk and stamina and, above all, righteousness.
So I was going to tell them all, until I saw Dannelle and Oliver, holding high the flaming torches that had scared away my monstrous opponent.
Most of them had accounted well for themselves in their first test. Ramiro, of course, had backed up his bluster with a good sword hand, and Dannelle had shown more courage than I was entitled to expect. Little Oliver, the best of us in this, whom I would have thought unprepared for either travel or troll, had shown himself resourceful, smart, and brave in knowing that the things regenerate and that fire was the weapon to use against them.
Others, however, were less impressive. Moments after we lost sight of the troll among rock and evergreen, Alfric came shambling up behind us, covered with mud and excuses. We all learned, to our great surprise, that another troll had been sneaking up on us back up the road, and that Alfric had met him single-handedly… and faced him down.
Alfric stared dramatically at Dannelle as he gave gruesome account of the combat that supposedly took place in our absence. She gave him rein, marveling at the wildness of the story, and cut him off only when he offered to show us all where his sword had entered the troll by touching corresponding parts of Dannelle's anatomy.
I recognized Alfric's strategy myself, having, at various times in my squirehood, stopped an army of satyrs, a giant, three goblins, and a dragon. Combat is easier against invented foes on a battlefield safe from the eyes of others.
Ramiro looked at me and smiled, remembering summers past, no doubt.
I, on the other hand, was not smiling as I hauled my brother by the arm away from his amorous diagrams, for the Pathwardens had scarcely conducted themselves with honor. While my brother tunneled from sight, I had fumbled with horse and sword and dignity until a child and a girl came to my rescue.
Disconsolate, I seated myself in the mud and rested my face in my hands. When I looked up, Ramiro was mounting his horse, hoisted into the saddle by Dannelle and two straining squires. He had donned his helmet, its gray ostrich plume drooped foolishly in the evening drizzle, and his sword was drawn, as though a struggle was in the offing.
'To horse, Galen!' the big man cried out triumphantly. 'It hasn't had the chance to distance us yet!'
''It,' Ramiro? Just what is 'it,' if you'd be so kind?'
'The troll, of course!' Ramiro exclaimed. 'There's an hour of light left us, as I figure it, and I've never known the animal who could outrun this stallion.'
'I don't…' I began, unsure of what I would say next. But the big Knight had wheeled his horse about, and the two of them crashed through the water-black undergrowth that marked the edge of the woods. Off on a jaunt, they were, on a troll hunt, and those of us left behind were expected to gather ourselves and follow.
Sausages trailed from the saddlebags of the questing hero.
