The Knight

“Be reasonable, Lord.” Uri edged toward me until her hip pressed mine; her hip was as warm and as soft as that of any human woman. “You yourself did not wish to fight them until you had rescued your servant—”

“Mate, too,” Gylf added.

“From Utgard. Suppose we fought, all four of us. Baki and I, who can achieve next to nothing, and you and your dog. What would be the upshot? We would be killed, or more likely you and your dog would be, while Baki and I would have to flee to Aelfrice or die.”

She stopped, inviting me to speak; I did not.

“What would be the good of that? A dead giant? Two? None, if you trust my judgment. A knight and a dog to feed the crows. Let us delay them, instead. Is that not what we set out to do?”

Ten minutes later, crawling through high grass toward a group of tethered mules, I found myself thinking that what I was doing was probably more dangerous than fighting. Every move I made rustled the grass; and if the Angrborn had not heard me, the mules tied to the gnarled birch I was creeping up on certainly had. They were pretty easy to see because of the firelight; their ears were up and forward, and their heads high. Their nervous stamping sounded louder than the purling of the stream. It seemed that the Angrborn must certainly hear it, and it struck me when I was very close that mules could kick and bite as well as or better than horses. They thought something was about to attack them, and they were by no means defenseless.

“Those Frost Giants are cooking a couple of you this very minute,” I whispered.

Mani had said once that a few animals could speak; I had not believed him then and did not believe him now, but it was at least possible that he had been truthful.

“You’re supposed to be sensible animals. Don’t you want to get away from here?”

I had continued to crawl while I talked; now a rope touched my cheek. I drew my dagger and cut it and heard a little snort of satisfaction from the mule whose tether it had been.

Then I was at the tree and dared stand up, keeping the trunk between me and the fire. My dagger was good and sharp, but the tethers were tough; I was still sawing at them when a loose mule wandered by. With a sort of overwrought absentmindedness, I wondered whether it was one I had freed or one freed by Uri or Baki.

The tether I had been cutting parted, and I found the next one.

There was a rumble of angry voices, deep and loud, from the direction of the fire. One of the Angrborn stood up, another shouted, and a third snarled. I slashed at the tough tethers frantically.

Half a bowshot off, a mule crossed a patch of moonlight, galloping clumsily but fast, urged on by an Aelfmaiden lying like a red shadow on its back.

Another tether parted. Nearly dropping my dagger, I searched the trunk for more, but every one I found hung limp. Three Angrborn had left the fire and were walking toward me by that time, two shoulder-to-shoulder, the third lagging behind.

“Gylf!” I shouted. “Gylf!”

The bay of a hound on the scent answered me; in a moment that seemed long, it became the excited yelp of a hound with its prey in view. Somewhere a mule screamed, a stark cry of animal terror, and a dozen scattered in every direction. One of the giants dove for one as a man my size might have dived at a runaway goat, but it slipped through his hands. For a moment he held its tail; it kicked at his arm and vanished into the darkness.

The black beast that had killed so many Mice sprang at the throat of another Angrborn. Arms thicker than any man’s body closed around it.

“Disiri!” I ran to the fight. The third Angrborn was lumbering toward me when a mule with a crimson shadow on its back dashed in front of him, and he tripped and fell.

An Angrborn rolled toward me, wrestling a creature that was neither hound nor wolf, an animal far larger than a lion. Like a boulder tossed by a wave, Sword Breaker’s hard-edged, diamond-shaped blade struck and struck again. Without time or preparation that I could recall afterward, I found myself astride the ravening beast I had fought to save, and racing like the wind across the hills.

I felt I rode a storm.

―――

Before the sun rose, Gylf had dwindled to his ordinary size; and not too long afterward, he and I found the white stallion where I had tied it the night before. Instead of mounting, I untied it and took off its saddle.

“You’re tired,” Gylf commented. “You want to sleep. I’ll watch.”

“I am tired,” I conceded, “but I don’t want to sleep and don’t intend to. I want to talk.”

“I’ll go.”

“I don’t want you to go. You’re mine, assuming that the Bodachan had a valid claim on you, and I like you very, very much and want to keep you. But there are things I’ve got to know.”

“I scare you.”

“You’d scare anybody.” Finding no log or stone to sit on, I sat in fern not far from the edge of the water.

“I’ll go.”

“I said I don’t want you to. I don’t even want you to hunt up a rabbit for us. We’re still too near those Frost Giants for that. I want you to tell me what you are.”

“Dog.” Gylf sat too.