David Drake - The Mirror of Worlds

"This horse was stringy, but here's a morsel come to offer itself as a tastier dinner!" A lantern from behind threw its light over Garric, then past him into the stables. The creature's hide was faintly green where it hadn't been bathed in the gelding's blood, and it was female.

"May the Shepherd help us, it's an ogre!" squealed Hann. "Milord, run!

No man can fight an ogre!" King Carus laughed. It was only when Garric heard the sound echoing from the stable rafters that he realized he was laughing too. "Milord!" the innkeeper repeated, this time in a scandalized tone. Garric backed a step. Carus was plotting the next move and all the moves to follow, a chess master who gamed with real humans and himself at their head. "I'll lick the flesh off your thigh bones, little man!" the ogre said. Her four breasts, flaccid but pendulous, wobbled as she bent forward slightly. "And you'll still be alive when I do it!" "The ogre reads minds, Master Garric," said Shin from somewhere behind him. Garric wondered if the aegipan had jumped from the roof as he had or had come out a door on the ground floor with the innkeeper. "Not my mind, of course." "Then she knows exactly how I'm going to kill her," Garric said. The words came out in a growl; his mouth was dry. "She'll have to hunch to get through this doorway, and when she does I'll put my sword through her. It'll cut stone, you know, Shin; it'll slice that ugly skull of hers like a cantaloupe." The ogre roared and rushed forward-buttoward the door, not through it. Garric stayed in his waiting crouch. He laughed, at the trick and at the way he and Carus had anticipated it. The ogre's arms were long, even for a creature so big. If Garric'd lunged to meet her, she'd have snatched him while he was off balance and dragged him inside, probably slamming him a time or two against the doorposts along the way. By standing his ground a little way back from the opening, Garric had time to meet a clutching hand and lop it off. This sword's edge would make nothing of the ogre's big bones, and if she read his mind she was sure of that. The ogre backed and bellowed again, flexing her arms at her sides. It was like watching a crab threaten a rival. The arms were amazingly long, eight feet or so; her knuckles'd scrape the ground if she hunched over. "Bring a bow and arrows!" Garric shouted into the night. He turned his head slightly, but he could still see the ogre with both eyes. Hann had left his lantern on the ground and vanished, but Garric was sure everybody in the Boar's Skull was listening to him. "Javelins, any missiles! I'll keep her from coming out while you shoot her full of arrows!" "So you think you can stop me, my little morsel?" the ogre said loudly. "Do you doubt that I'll pull your head off even if you manage to find my heart with your sword?" Carus barked a laugh. Garric said, "No, I don't doubt that. But Iwill find your heart." He tossed his shield down and drew the dagger with his left hand. The wicker wouldn't be any use if the ogre rushed, but he might drive the dagger home even if she tore the sword from him after his first stroke. It wouldn't matter to him, of course, but the quicker the ogre bled out, the less chance there was of her killing anybody else. Somebody has to do it. This time that somebody is me. That was the decision you made when you became a shepherd, or a soldier, or a prince. The ogre reached up and tore at the roof; the poles crackled in her grip. Garric poised. She could break out of the stables, but the roof and walls were too sturdy for her to do so easily. When she gets her head and shoulders through the hole, I'll lunge. I'll put the point in through her diaphragm and rip down to spill her guts on the stable floor. It's not as quick as a stroke to the heart, but it'll kill-and I might even survive the encounter, unexpectedly. The ogre suddenly backed and leaned against the sidewall, making a sound like rocks grating. After a moment, Garric realized she was laughing. "Well, you're a brave one," she said affably. "And a clever one besides. I've never met a man like you before, I'll tell you that. " She cocked her head to the side and let her jaw drop; her front teeth looked like a wolf's, but behind them were great molars that could crush a horse's thigh. "She's smiling, if you wondered," Shin said. "She doesn't have lips like a man's, so she's trying to make an expression that suggests a smile. Personally I don't think it's a very good copy, but I suppose she deserves something for making the effort." "I'll give her something," Garric said in a thick voice, mouthing the words Carus spoke in his mind. If he rushed, he was almost certain to get home with the dagger as the ogre concentrated on the longer blade… "Here!" said the ogre sharply, straightening. "You're a king, you have a whole nation depending on you. There's no point in the two of us killing each other. I made a mistake coming here, I freely own it. You go your way and let me go mine, and I'll never trouble you again." "No," said Garric hoarsely. "You're right, I'm a king. I'm not going to loose you on people who trust me. Tomorrow it might be a child, it might be Liane…" His mouth was dry as ashes, as dry as hot sand. He trembled with the need to act, to move. He'd thought he could wait for someone to bring a bow and arrows, but he couldn't; he was going to rush very soon now and kill this monster as it'd killed his horse, as it'd killed who-knew-what in the past. "Prince Garric, I wronged you!" the ogre said. She knelt on one knee-her legs were in normal human proportions to her body-dipped her head slightly, and touched her fingertips to her forehead. That was a sign of obeisance among the Serians. "I killed your horse." "You've killed more than my horse," said Garric, as startled as if the monster had begun to sing a hymn of praise to the Lady. "You know nothing of my past," the ogre said.

"Besides, the world before the Change was a different place-for you, for me, for everyone. What happened inthis world is that I killed the horse which you needed to reach the Yellow King. I will be your horse, Prince Garric. I will carry you as surely and safely as that stupid quadruped could ever do." The absurdity of the situation made Garric dizzy. He would've laughed, but his mouth was too dry. "Do you have a sea wolf friend that I could sail across seas on too?" he croaked.

"Why in Duzi's name do you think I'd trust you?" "Oh, her oath is binding, Garric," Shin said cheerfully. "Though far be it from me to dissuade you from being torn limb from limb. I'm sure that's what a proper hero like your ancestor would insist on doing, isn't it?" "How can that be?" Garric said in amazement. "Trust that monster?" He almost turned his head to look at the aegipan but caught himself. Big as the ogre was, he'd seen how quickly she moved. "You're surprised?" said Shin. "I don't know why. Your oath is binding, isn't it? Even if you gave it to an ogre?" Shin walked in front of Garric, eyeing the kneeling ogre with the cool judgment of a drover pricing sheep. "You couldn't use your saddle, of course, but I'm sure you could improvise harness from hides. There's no lack of hides in this place, is there?

After all, we have a longer way to go than I'd care to walk in those clumsy boots of yours." He gave his gobbling laugh. "Though of course that won't matter," he added cheerfully. "She'll certainly tear you apart off if you fight. It will be a very heroic death, no doubt."

Garric coughed, started to laugh, and coughed again. His sword was trembling. He was going to have to do something. "Ogre!" he said. "Do you swear… what do you swear by? Do you have Gods?" The ogre mimed a distorted smile again. "What do the Gods care about the affairs of humans like me or creatures like you either one?" she said.

"I give you my word, Garric or-Reise, that I will bear you like a horse, that I will not harm you, and that I will not harm others whom you wish me not to harm." Garric shot his sword home in its scabbard.