Galen Beknighted

Chapter VIII

I had never seen such a creature as this, and I hope devoutly never to see more of them.

From a distance, it looked like a moving stone, dappled gray and green and old-moss brown. It emerged from the landscape behind us as though the ground itself had swelled and erupted something fierce and unnatural. The troll was a good nine feet tall at the shoulders and had the strides you would expect from such a monstrosity. Rapidly it closed the distance between us, loping over the wet highland ground in a low crouch, at a speed most frightening because it was not at all human. Halfway to us, it dropped onto all fours to move even faster.

For an instant, things resembled those terrible moments in dreams when you cannot move as quickly as your attacker. Only alert little Oliver, the only one of us who was not preoccupied with Dannelle, saved us from being waylaid and disemboweled and eaten on the spot. Before Ramiro had his hand on the pommel, Oliver had mounted and reined his black horse toward the troll, his sword gleaming blue-white in his hand, a warning cry on his lips.

For a moment, the troll slowed down, almost paused. The sight of a boy on horseback, armed and challenging, was enough to be distracting, though the thing was probably too dim-witted to be frightened. The monster gaped, its large, fanged jaws dropping open stupidly like faulty drawbridges. From where we sat on horse, only a dozen yards away, I could see its black, beady eyes widen.

That was all the time we needed. At once, Ramiro broke from the column, guiding his stallion in a wide circle around the creature. It took his rather heavily burdened horse a few moments to close on the troll, but once Ramiro had waded into combat, there was little prospect that anyone would ask him to wade out. A quick sword stroke downward, followed by half the big man's weight, crashed into the troll's right arm and sliced on through 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.

At once, Oliver was in the saddle, headed off after his protector. Alfric and Dannelle watched him blend into the trees, then looked at me warily.

"Do we have to go after the troll, Brother?" Alfric whined, and instantly I felt anger rising-anger at his cowardice, at my own lack of gumption that had allowed Ramiro to guide our exploits whenever he damn well pleased, and at Dannelle for standing there with a mysterious, disapproving look on her face.

"Your brother is right, Galen," she said. "This troll hunt is a foolhardy business."

But I was sure that what she meant was that she felt unsafe in the woods with her only guardians an incompetent Knight and his fainthearted squire.

I was tired of them all-of Father and Sir Robert, of Elazar and Fernando and Gileandos, of Ramiro, who was crashing through foliage in search of danger, and of Oliver and Alfric, who were no doubt thinking of disparaging things. Whatever I did and however I did it was subject to second guesses and blame and whispered calls of Weasel, Weasel.

Dannelle di Caela, it seemed, believed those whispers and the past they summoned. It would take high drama to show her otherwise.

"No, Dannelle!" I pronounced, the counterfeit strength and assurance in my voice almost making me think I believed what I was saying. "Foolhardy it may seem to the two of you, but it is Solamnic business, and by the gods, we shall pursue it!"

I turned to my horse, ignoring the girl's nervous snicker. Ducking under a hanging vallenwood branch, I guided Lily into the green and dripping dark, Alfric and Dannelle riding close behind me.

The woods that cover the foothills of the Vingaards are surprisingly thick and baffling and vine-entangled. Certainly they are more passable than swamps I have seen and traveled, but when you keep looking over your shoulder for pursuers, the way can be tricky and even downright confounding.

So it was that Oliver seemed to shout on two sides of us, Ramiro on another. We kept moving, however-moving away from the last sound we had heard, and keeping the campfire to our backs as best as we could manage, given the rising night and the shifting shadows of the foliage. It was an hour of rapid traveling and foraging, probably in circles. My eyes were half on the ground in front of me, half searching for the firelight to which I fully intended to return when Ramiro's energies-and with them, the hunt-subsided.

It was this rushing about, this hysterical wandering, that brought us to a clearing I had not seen before. Suddenly the foliage around me dropped away, and I found myself standing on high ground. The grass beneath me was dry and wiry, bathed in red moonlight as was the whole clearing itself, and the wash of scarlet and deep green was broken only by the shadow that spread underneath the single small oak tree in its center.

It seemed like a good place to stop. My legs were tired from gripping the flanks of the horse, my face whipped and welted by vines and branches. But somewhere around us, Ramiro was plunging through marshy woodland in search of a dangerous quarry, following the fine tradition of Solamnic Knighthood: Serenely confident that you alone are in the right, you corner evil and do away with it, regardless of whatever or whomever else you injure.

It was a messy business, this breakneck pursuit. But Ramiro was my companion and, in a sense, my charge. I had no time for breath and speculation. I had to locate him before something vile happened to him at the hands of the troll.

Alone, bowed and cloaked against the soft rain, I waited for Dannelle and Alfric to reach the clearing. Together, the three of us waited as the faint halooing and the rustle and crack of branches told us Ramiro was headed our way.

The huge Knight splashed into the clearing shortly, dirty and bedraggled and cursing the cleverness of the troll. Oliver followed in the big man's wake, a dismal lump of mud on horseback.

Our party reassembled and stood together in the gloom, each one of us with his own sullen thoughts. The waters had risen over the hooves of the horses. If we tarried any longer, we would face not only the dangers of trolls by night but also slippery, unsteady blind footing.

"But there isn't a star to steer by," Ramiro complained.

Not that a galaxy would have availed a man with his lack of bearings. To Ramiro, all directions were the same, the trees identical, the ground of one level, and the paths wound in circles. Now, in the midst of nowhere, he gave over command gladly.

"Which way should we go, Galen?" he asked quietly and urgently, drawing his sword as though a weapon in his hand could guide him through the green, entangling labyrinth in which we found ourselves.

"First of all, I intend to lead us out of this marsh," I declared and, dismounting into ankle-deep water, turned toward the single oak at the center of the clearing.

"He can do it, too!" Alfric insisted. "I have seen him navigate swamps before! Swamps worse than this, with satyrs in them!"

I looked back at my brother, who nodded at me encouragingly. As I sloshed through the high grass and water, it struck me that in my concern that others see my changes, I had overlooked those in my brother-how in that heart of meanness something had turned, perhaps indetectably to those who did not know him, but turned nonetheless, surfacing fitfully until now and again, if you looked at Alfric in a certain slant of light and with your eyes squinted in just the right way, you could see promise of squirehood emerging.

There would be time to explore that later. Hoisting myself onto the lowest branch of the tree-a sturdy one, as thick as my waist-I braced myself to climb as high as the thing would allow me. Perhaps from a lofty lookout the woods would open for me and our way back to the road emerge from this maze of greenery.

Clutching the next branch before I set weight on it, I noticed a crack-perhaps a quarter of an inch wide-snaking up the bole of the tree beside me. It often happens when the ground is wet, when the roots lose purchase in a clay-heavy soil.

Or so I have heard. Where I had heard it, I forgot entirely, for I stood rapt upon the branch, marveling that, despite the twilight and the shade, I could see small things so clearly. It was then I noticed that the opal brooch, pinning the cape beneath my throat, had begun to shine with a warm amber light, bathing the tree with a faint, steady glow.

I clambered down at once, lost footing amid roots, and fell to my knees in the water. Scrambling up, I splashed across the clearing to my comrades, holding the brooch aloft, my cape discarded behind me.

"I was right! I was always right, Ramiro! Look! The opals are on fire!"

"This does not inspire confidence in me, Lady Dannelle," Ramiro replied. I followed his pitying gaze to the brooch in my hand, dark and lifeless now, its magical light gone.

"M-Maybe the fall into the water… extinguished it or something. Maybe…"

"Maybe you're tired, Galen," Dannelle soothed. "You've scarcely recovered from the Night of Reflections, and now there's trolls and all."

"But… but they were afire, damn it!" I insisted, turning and walking away from them in my anger.

The stones began to glimmer again. Cupping the brooch in my palm, I looked into the opals. They showed nothing but a faint, opaque glow at their heart.

Another two steps toward the tree, and the light was detectably brighter.

What had the figure in the vision said to me? In them is the map of my darkness.

That was how, following the light of the stones like a half-mad diviner follows his dowsing rod, I passed through the clearing, beyond the oak, as the light in my hands grew brighter and brighter still. I heard a movement at my side and looked up.

Alfric was standing there, holding his horse's reins and Lily's.

"They are!" he shouted. "By the gods, the Wea-Galen is right! There's a light in the stones!"

Slowly the rest of them dismounted and followed. And as the light in my hands brightened further, so did our hopes.

For a moment, I felt like a genuine Knight, even if I had botched entirely the fight with the troll and let Ramiro lead us on a bootless errand somewhere in the soggy lowlands. For I was off on a journey of rescue, wielding magic at the head of my stalwart little band.

A map of my darkness, the vision had foretold. Though far from their own terrain, in a country hostile to concealment and surprise, they were Plainsmen after all, the handful of warriors who waited for us. We did not see them until they were upon us.

To this day, I am not sure that their intentions were lethal, but Solamnic Knights do not go easily, no matter the terms or the plans. When I felt strong fingers clutch my throat, I turned and, seeing Plainsmen rushing from the trees and undergrowth around us, fell to the soggy ground, breaking the hold of my assailant.

Without hesitation, the man leapt upon me, fingers prying at my clenched fist. Clumsily I reached for my sword and found that, in my haste to follow Ramiro, I had left it somewhere in the clearing where we had fought with the troll. I pummeled the man with my fist once, twice, but the blows were like raindrops against his leathery, heavily muscled ribs.

I struck him again, and this time the blow must have registered. Quickly and with the lean efficiency of a man taught to waste nothing, not even movement, he struck me with the back of his hand. My head rattled against the ground, and for a moment, I was in my boyhood room at the moathouse in Coastlund, it was winter, and a broom was in my hands.

Just as abruptly I regained my faculties to see Ramiro pull the man off me and hurl him through the air into an aeterna bush. I heard branches rending, heard the man cry out in a strange mixture of pain and triumph. Then he stood amidst the blue evergreen branches, his pale hand illumined by the opals in the brooch he was clutching.

I rose to my knees and yelled as Ramiro turned toward the thief in an ungainly, bearlike crouch. At that moment, another Plainsman leapt atop his back, and then another, so that the big man struggled for a moment beneath the weight of two of the enemy.

Whooping again, my attacker spun toward the darkness of the woods, and he might have escaped easily, taking the opals with him. But he gave a final turn and a final shout which gave my brother the chance to act. Hurtling through the air, Alfric wrapped his arms about the stunned Plainsman, and the two of them tumbled into branches and water as suddenly and as heavily as a felled oak.

By now I was standing and, after a brief glance to see that Dannelle was unharmed and attended to, rushed to my brother's aid. The Plainsmen atop Ramiro were getting the worst of it by now, but I could figure on no help from the big man for a least a moment or two.

Hurdling a downed Plainsman and a winded Oliver and skirting an old maple stump, I crashed through the aeterna bush and stumbled into the brawl in front of me…

… just as the Plainsman's knife slipped between my brother's ribs.