'Pundar is too a baron,' he called through cupped hands. 'He has a piece of paper from the capital that proves it!'
'The capital?' Zaranda said, half to herself. 'Since when is there a capital in Tethyr?'
'Why, Zazesspur-оw!'
The giant man had ridden a few steps forward and with a great backhanded clout knocked the morningstar man from the saddle.
'I do the talking here,' he roared. 'I am Togrev the Magnificent, lord high commander of the armed forces of Pundaria! We claim these lands by ancient right, as approved and attested by Zazesspur.'
Zaranda and Farlorn had begun to ride forward. They could see the house's front now. Two of the footmen lay in unmoving lumps in the pigsty; the other four stood with hands up, looking nervously at Still-hawk, who stood covering them with an arrow nocked.
'By rights,' Zaranda told Togrev, 'we should hang the lot of you as the murderous bandit scum you are.'
'You forget,' the lord high commander said, and gestured with a black-nailed hand. A few feet from the captive cleric the little ass had its head down, cropping obliviously at the sweet spring grass. 'I have your priest'
'For all the good that does you,' Zaranda said. 'It's poor practice to negotiate for hostages, and as a rule I won't do it.'
Father Pelletyr squirmed his right arm free enough to touch himself four times on the breast in the sign of the rack on which Ilmater suffered. Then he crossed his hands before his breast as if they were bound and rolled his eyes heavenward, accepting. The cleric had a notable reluctance to face physical danger, but this was martyrdom, which made all the difference in the world.
'However,' Zaranda said, stopping her horse twenty yards downslope from the huge man, 'somebody needs to be left alive to tell that mound of ankheg droppings Pundar that if he troubles my people again hell wake some fine spring night with a fireball in his lap.'
'And who would cast such a fireball?' demanded Togrev in an avalanche rumble.
'I would.'
The morningstar man had rolled over and was sitting in the grass and rubbing the back of his neck. 'She's a witch, Togrev,' he said. 'She knows all kind of wild magics. Beware her spells.'
'Listen to the man,' Zaranda said.
The huge man frowned at her. His brows beetled impressively. 'Half-ogre, by the smell of him,' Goldie muttered as the wind backed. 'Ick.'
'What will you do, then?' Togrev demanded.
'Kill you in single combat.'
'You want me to fight that?' Goldie demanded in a whisper, nodding at the gigantic plowhorse. 'He's as clumsy as a barrel of boulders, but if he ever connects, sweet Sune preserve me!'
Togrev frowned more impressively still, as if there were something here he didn't quite get. 'Why should I go along with that?' he asked after a few heartbeats.
'Because if you don't, we'll slaughter you and all your men, and I'll whistle up a wind elemental to drop your head in Pundar's pigsty with a note attached.'
'When did you learn to summon elementals?' Farlorn hissed out the side of his mouth in elf-speech, which half-ogres as a rule didn't understand.
'Never,' replied Zaranda in the same tongue, which she grasped well enough but could only speak in pidgin. 'Now shut up.' She swung down from Goldie and stepped to the side to stand facing the half-ogre, legs braced and hands on hips. The wind stroked her face and ruffled her hair. The springtime smell would have been quite refreshing except that Goldie was quite right about Togrev: he was a half-ogre, manifestly, and lived up to their usual standards of hygiene. Togrev rumbled deep in his cavernous chest and swung down from his massive mount. Goldie flared her nostrils and blew out a long breath. Zaranda fought to keep her own shoulders from sagging in relief.
'And when I beat you, pathetic woman-thing?' the bandit chief demanded.
'If you win, you and your men go free. If you lose, your men still go free. This is really a pretty good deal I'm offering.'
'Are you sure this is wise?' asked Farlorn out loud.
'No,' Zaranda said, 'but it'll be very soothing to my anger, one way or another.'
Togrev scratched his unshaven chin and pondered. '
'Ware magic, Lord Commander!' the morningstar man exclaimed. 'She's a witch, I tell you!'
'How is that fair?' the half-ogre asked in aggrieved tones. 'You'll just cheat and use some witching tricks. You could never best me otherwise. I am Togrev the Magnificent!'
'Compared to what?' murmured Farlorn. 'If you agree to meet me alone, with no outside interference from either side, I shall forbear to use any magic against you. I'll forgo even the blessings of my priest. Does that satisfy you?'
For answer the half-ogre swung his great axe in a wild flourish that ended with it poised above his head. The passage of air through inlets cut through the head made it moan like a lost soul.
'Prepare to break!' he roared.
'Not so fast,' Zaranda said with a firm shake of the head. 'My priest.'
Togrev glowered at her. Then he nodded.
'Let the fat pig go.'
His men gaped at him
'Do it!' he roared.
They let go of Father Pelletyr and stepped away as if he'd grown hot in their grasp.
The priest brushed himself off. 'I forgive you,' he murmured to his erstwhile captors.
Stillhawk herded his captives up the rise. They joined the dismounted morningstar man and the four who had held the cleric on one side of the combat — ground. The Dalesman-who was as sparing with words as any speaking ranger-looked rebellious when Zaranda signed him to put his nocked arrow back in its quiver. Her eyes met his and held them for a moment. He nodded and complied.
As Zaranda was turning her head to look at her opponent once again, he charged with speed surprising in one so huge. Which still wasn't very fast in absolute terms, but it had served him well in the past, taking enemies by surprise and stunning them into momentary-and fatal-inaction.
Zaranda was molded of different metal. Without hesitation, she threw Crackletongue up to meet the axe. She did not try to block the strike; had she done so, the weight of the axe and the man behind it would have broken her arm and its blade would have cloven her, regardless. Instead the flat of her saber struck the haft right behind the bit, guiding the monstrous moaning weapon past her as she pirouetted aside.
At the instant of meeting, her sword emitted a snarl and shower of blue sparks. Crackletongue did that on making contact with creatures consecrated to evil, thus confirming something Zaranda had already surmised. With her help, the axe blade bit deep into the soft flesh of the hillside. Zaranda rolled her wrist and slashed forehand for the great corded neck. Togrev roared and threw his body back and to the side. Crackle-tongue's tip sparked as it bit, but it did no more than cut skin, cauterizing the slight wound as it left it.
Flash-fast, the half-ogre had wrenched free his axe, throwing out clods of earth, and whipped it into guard position before his metal-scaled breast. Zaranda sprang away to face him, half-crouched, Crackletongue held out before her, muttering and flickering with magic. 'Not bad,' she said. 'You're quick for such a wad of blubber.'
An impressive paunch strained the seams of Togrev's hauberk, but he was by no means a wad of blubber. For some treason Zaranda had found the few ogres and half-ogres she'd had dealings with-none friendly-were one and all sensitive to suggestions that they were fat. An angry foe was seldom a clearheaded one. And if the brute's that agile, she thought, I need all the edge I can get.
He seemed to be right-handed. She circled that direction, clockwise around him. He began pivoting to face her, and at the same time edging toward her. Then he snapped the great axe up and back as if it were a jackstraw, cocking for a strike.
She lunged. The half-ogre screamed like a wounded horse as Crackletongue's tip sank a handbreadth into the bulging triceps of his left arm. There was a sizzle and stink of burning flesh, and then Zaranda hurled herself past her foe, twisting her sword as she ripped it free, trying to do the maximum harm.
