"What are they saying?" Tandy asked, alarmed by the increasingly aggressive stances of the Fen Ogres.
It occurred to Smash that she would not approve of a physical fight. "They merely seek some ogre fun,"
he explained, not telling her that this was apt to be roughly similar to the fun the lions of the den had had with him. "Fun in the Fen."
She was not fooled. "What ogres call fun, I call mayhem! Smash, you can't afford any trouble; you're only at half-strength."
There was that. Fighting was fun, but getting beaten to a pulp was not as much fun as winning. If anything happened to him here, Tandy would be in trouble, for these ogres were not halfway civilized, as Smash himself was. It was galling, but he would have to pass up this opportunity. "No comment," he said.
The ogres goggled incredulously. "Not hot?" the male ogre demanded, his hamfists shuddering with eagerness to pulverize.
Smash turned away. "I think what I want is elsewhere after all," he told Tandy. "Let's get away from here." He tried to keep the urgency suppressed; this could get difficult in a moment. At least he was not caged in, the way he had been with the lions.
The male made a huge jump, landing directly before Smash. He poked a hamfinger at Smash's soiled orange centaur jacket. "What got?" he demanded. This was not curiosity but insult; any creature in clothing was considered effete, too weak to survive in the jungle.
Smash raged inwardly at the implication, but had to avoid trouble. He stepped around the ogre and went on north, toward the Fen.
But again the male leaped in front of him. He pointed at Smash's steel gauntlets, making a crudely elaborate gesture of pulling dainty feminine gloves on his own hairy meat hooks. The humor of ogres was necessarily crude, but it was effective on its level. Smash paused.
"Me swat he snot!" the ogre chortled, aiming a wood-sundering blow at Smash's head. Smash lifted a gleaming fist of his own, defensively.
"No!" Tandy screamed.
Again Smash had to avoid conflict. He ducked under the blow in a gesture that completely surprised the ogre and continued north, inwardly seething. It simply wasn't an ogre's way to accept such taunts and duck away from a fight.
Now one of the mature females barred his way. Her hair was like the tentacular mass of a quarrelsome tangle tree that had just lost a battle with a giant spider web. Her face made the bubbling mud of the Fen seem like a clear mirror. Her limbs were so gnarled she might readily pass for a dead shagtree riddled by the droppings of a flock of harpies with indigestion. Smash had never before encountered such a luscious mass of flesh.
"He cute, cheroot," she said.
That was a considerable come-on for an ogress. Since there were more females than males in this tribe, there was obviously a place for Smash here, if he wanted it. Good Magician Humfrey had evidently known this, and known that Smash needed to settle down with a good female of his own kind. What the aging Magician had overlooked was the fact that Smash would arrive at half-strength, and that Tandy would not yet have found her own situation. Thus Smash could not afford to accept the offer, however grossly tempting it might be, because he could not fight well and could not afford to leave Tandy to the ogres' mercies. For a female went only to the winner of a fight between males. So once again he avoided interaction and continued on. north.
Then the male ogre bad an inspiration of genius for his kind. "Me eat complete," he said, and grabbed for Tandy.
Smash's gauntleted fist shot forward and up, catching the ogre smack in the snoot. The gauntlet made Smash's fist harder than otherwise and increased the effect of its impact. The creature rocked back, spitting out a yellow tooth. "Delight!" he cried. "He fight!"
"No!" Tandy yelled again, despairingly. She knew as well as Smash did that it was too late. Smash had struck the ogre, and that committed him.
Quickly the other ogres circled him. Tandy scooted to a beerbarrel tree, getting out of the way.
Smash had never before fought another ogre and wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Were there conventions? Did they take turns striking each other? Was anything barred?
The ogre gave him no chance to consider. He charged, his right fist swinging in a windmill motion, back and up and forward and down, aimed for Smash's head. Smash wished he had the Eye Queue so that he could analyze the meaning of this approach. But dull as he was now, he simply had to assume that it meant anything went.
Smash dodged, ducked down, caught the ogre's feet, and jerked them up to head height. Naturally the ogre flipped back, his head smacking into the ground with a hollow boom like thunder, denting a hole and shaking the bushes in the neighborhood. The watching ogres nodded; it was a good enough counter, starting things off. But Smash knew that he had substituted guile for force, to a certain extent, finding a maneuver that did not require his full strength; he could not proceed indefinitely this way.
The ogre bounced off his head, somersaulted backward, and twisted to his big, flat feet He roared a roar that spooked a flock of buzzards from a buzzard bush and sent low clouds scudding hastily away. He charged forward again, grabbing for Smash with both heavy arms. But Smash knew better than to wait for an ogre hug. His orange jacket would protect him from most of its crushing force, but he would not be able to initiate much himself. He jumped high, stomping gently on the ogre's ugly head in passing.
The stomp drove the ogre a small distance into the ground. It was the first motion of the figure called the Nail. The ogre had to extricate his feet one by one, leaving deep prints. Now he was really angry. He turned, fists swinging.
Smash parried with one arm, using a technique he had picked up at Castle Roogna, then sent his gauntleted fist smashing into the ogre's gross mid-gut. It was like hitting well-seasoned ironwood, in both places; his parrying arm was bruised, and his striking fist felt as if it had been clubbed. This ogre was stupid, so that his ploys were obvious and easily avoided, but he was also tough. Smash had held his own so far only because he was less stupid and had the protection of his centaur clothing. If jacket and gauntlets failed him-The ogre caught Smash's parrying arm in a grip of iron or steel and hauled him forward. Smash parried again by placing his free fist against the ogre's snoot and shoving. But he quickly became aware of his liability of half-strength; the other ogre could readily outmuscle him. Worse, the ogre also became aware of this. "Freak weak," he grunted, and lifted Smash into the air. Smash twisted trying to free himself, but could not. Now he was in for it!
The ogre jammed him down on his feet, so hard it was Smash's turn to sink into the ground. He shot a terrible punch at Smash's chest-but now the jacket did protect Smash from most of the effect. Centaur clothing was designed to be impervious to all stones, arrows, pikes, teeth, claws, and other weapons; an ogre's fist was, of course, more than it was designed to withstand, but the jacket was much better than nothing. Meanwhile, Smash countered with another strike to the ogre's face, beautifying it by knocking out another tooth. He had good defense and good offense, thanks to "the centaurs-but otherwise he remained treacherously weak.
The ogre windmilled his fist again, this time holding Smash in place so that he could not escape the blow. The fist sledgehammered down on the top of his head, driving Smash another notch lower. He tried to parry but could not; the ogre countered his counter. Another hammer blow landed on his noggin, driving him down yet more. This was the Nail again-and this time Smash was the Nail.
"Don't hurt him!" Tandy screamed, coming down from her tree. "Eat me if you must, but let Smash be!"
"No! " Smash cried, knee-deep in the ground. "Run, Tandy! Ogres don't honor deals about food!"
"You mean he'll destroy you anyway, after-?"
"Yes! Flee while you can, while they're watching me!"
"I can't do that!" she protested. Then she screamed, for the child ogress, larger than Tandy, had pounced on her.
Tandy threw a tantrum. Once more her eyes swelled up, her face turned purple, and her hair stood out from her head. The tantrum struck the little ogre, who fell,
senseless, to the ground. Tandy retreated to her tree, for it took her some time to recharge a tantrum. She was now as helpless as Smash.
The ogre had paused, watching this byplay. The typical ogre was too stupid to pay attention to two things at once; he could not watch Tandy while pounding Smash. Smash, similarly, had been too dull to try to extricate himself while watching Tandy, so had not taken advantage of his opportunity. Now the ogre resumed his effort, completing the figure of the Nail. Smash had somehow left his arms by his sides, and now they, too, were caught in the ground, pinned. He knew he would never have allowed himself to get into this situation if he had retained his Eye Queue! Almost any fool would have known better.
Knocks on the head were not ordinarily harmful to ogres, because there was very little of importance in an ogre skull except bone. But the repeated impacts did serve to jog loose a few stray thoughts, flighty fancies not normally discovered in such territory. Why had Tandy tried so foolishly to help him? It would have made far more sense for her to flee, and she was smart enough to have seen that. Of course her loyalty was commendable-but was largely wasted on an ogre. As it was, both would perish. How did that jibe with the Good Magician's Answers? Two people dead...
One answer was that the Magician had grown too old to practice magic any more, had lost his accuracy of prophecy, and had unwittingly sent them both to their doom. It was also possible that the Magician was aware of his inadequacy and had sent them to the wilds of interior Xanth in order to avoid giving real Answers. He could have suspected, in his cunning senility, that they would never return to charge rum with malpractice.
No, Smash remained unwilling to believe that of Humfrey. The man might be old, but the Gorgon had invigorated him somewhat, and he still might know what he was doing. Smash hoped so.
Soon the ogre had him waist-deep in the ground, and Smash could not retaliate. He lacked the strength.
Yet if he had not yielded up half his soul, someone would have had to remain in the Void, and that might not have been much of an improvement over the present situation.
Still the blows descended, until he was chest-deep, and finally neck-deep. Then the ogre began to tire.
Instead of using his fist, he gave his big homely feet a turn. He stomped on Smash's head until it, too, was buried in the packed dirt.
The figure of the Nail was complete. Smash had been driven, like a stake, full-length into the ground. He was helpless.
Satisfied with his victory, the ogre stomped toward the beerbarrel tree where Tandy hid. Smash heard her scream in terror; then he heard a fist crash into the trunk of the tree. He heard beer swish out from the punctured barrel and smelled its fumes as it coursed across the ground toward him. He was in a dent in the ground formed by the ogre's pounding; he would soon be drowned in beer, if he didn't manage to drink it all, and Tandy would be dipped in beer and eaten by the victor.
Then he heard the patter of Tandy's feet coming toward him. She was still being foolish; she would be much easier to catch here. The earth about his face became moist as the beer sank in, and he heard it splashing when her feet struck it. He hoped her pretty red slippers didn't get soiled. Meanwhile, the ground shuddered as the other ogre tromped after her, enjoying the chase.
Then she was over Smash, scraping out the ground about his head with her feeble little human hands, uncovering his buried eyes. Foaming beer from the tree swirled down, blearing his vision but softening the dirt somewhat so she could better excavate. But this was useless; she could never hope to extricate him herself, and already the ogre was looming over her, amused at the futility of her effort.
"Smash!" she cried. "Take my half soul!"
In Smash's dim, beer-sotted mind, something added up. One half plus one half equaled something very much like one. Two half souls together-He saw her half soul dropping toward him, a hemisphere like a half-eaten apple, bisected with fair precision. Then it struck his head, bounced, and sank in, as the Eye Queue had done. He became internally conscious of it as it spread through him. It was a small, sweet, pretty, innocent but spunky fillet of soul, exactly the kind that belonged to a girl like her. Yet as it descended and joined with his big, brutish, homely, leathery ogre half soul, it merged to make a satisfying whole.
At this point, in the Night Stallion horror visions, this would have been the end. But here in real life, with a full soul pieced together, it just might be the beginning. Smash felt his strength returning.
The ogre lifted Tandy into the air by her brown tresses. He slavered. Smash's sunken orbs perceived it all from their beer-sodden pit in the ground.
The girl tried to throw a tantrum, but she was mostly out of the makings. She was terrified rather than angry, her tantrum-energy had recently been expended, and she bad no soul. Her effort only made the ogre blink. He opened his ponderous and mottled jaw and swung her toward his broken teeth.
Smash flexed. He had a full soul, of sorts, now; his Strength was back. The ground buckled about him.
One hamhand rose up like the extremity of a zombie emerging from a long-undisturbed grave, dripping beer-sodden dirt. It caught the hairy ankle of the ogre.
Smash lifted. He was well anchored in the ground, so all he needed was power. He had it. The ogre rose into the air, surprised. But he did not let Tandy go. He continued to bring her to his salivating maw. First things first, after all.
Smash brought the foot belonging to the ankle he held to his own mouth. He opened his own dirt-marbled jaws. They closed on the ogre's horny toes. They crunched, hard.
Folklore had it that ogres were invulnerable to pain because they were too tough and stupid to feel it.
Folklore was in error. The ogre bellowed out a blast of pain that shook the welkin, making the sun vibrate in place and three clouds dump their water incontinently. He dropped Tandy. Smash caught her with his other hand, after ripping it free of the ground with a spray of dirt that was like a small explosion. He set her gently down. "Find shelter," he murmured. "It could become uncomfortable in this vicinity."
She nodded mutely, then scooted away.
Smash spit out three toes, watching them bounce across the dirt. He waved the ogre in the air. "Shall we begin, toadsnoot?" he inquired politely.
The ogre was no coward. No ogre was, since an ogre's brain was too obtuse to allow room for the circuitry of fear. He was ready to begin.
The battle of ogre vs. ogre was the most savage encounter known in Xanth. The very land about them seemed to tense expectantly, aware that when this was over, nothing would be the same. Perhaps nothing would be, period. The landscape of Xanth was dotted with the imposing remnants of ancient ogre fights-water-filled calderas, stands of petrified trees, mountains of rubble, and similar artifacts.
The ogre began without imagination, naturally enough. He drove a hamfist down on Smash's head. This time Smash met it with his open jaws. The fist disappeared into his mouth, and his teeth crunched on the scarred wrist.
Again the ogre bellowed, and the sun shook in its orbit and the clouds soaked indecorously. One downpour spilled onto the sun itself, causing an awful sizzle.
The ogre wrenched his arm up-and popped Smash right out of the ground in the process, for naturally Smash had not let go. Beer-mud flew outward and rained down on the watching ogres, who snapped at the blobs automatically.
The ogre slammed his two fists together hard. Since one fist was inside Smash's mouth, this meant Smash's head was getting doubly boxed. Vapor shot out of his ears. He spit out the fist, since he was unable to chew it properly, and freed his head.
Now the two combatants faced each other, two hulking monsters, the one covered with dirt and reeking of beer, the other minus two teeth and three toes. Both were angry-and the anger of ogres was similar to that of volcanoes, tornadoes, avalanches, or other natural calamities-apt to destroy the neighborhood indiscriminately.
"You called me half-breed," Smash said, driving a gauntleted fist into the other's shoulder. This time the blow had ogre force; the ogre w
as hurled sidewise into the trunk of a small rock-maple tree. The tree snapped off, its top section crashing down on the ogre's ugly head.
He shrugged it off, not even noticing the distraction. "He go me toe," he said, naming his own grievance, though unable to count beyond one. He fired his own fist at Smash's shoulder. The blow hurled Smash sidewise into a rock-candy boulder. The boulder shattered, and sugar cubes flew out and descended like hailstones around them.
"You tried to eat my friend," Smash said, kicking the ogre in the rear. The kick sent the monster sailing up in a high arc, his posterior smoking. Then, to make sure the ogre understood. Smash repeated it in ogrish: "He ea' me she."
The ogre landed bottom-first in the Fen, and the water bubbled and steamed about him. He picked himself up by hauling with one hamhand on the shaggy nape of his neck, then stomped the bog so that the mud flew outward like debris from a meteoric impact and ripped a medium-sized hickory tree from its mooring on an islet. The tree came loose with an anguished "Hick!" and kicked again as the ogre smashed, it down across Smash's head, breaking it asunder. Smash felt sorry for the ruined tree, probably because of the influence of the sweet girl's half soul he had borrowed.
The two ogres faced each other again, having now warmed up. There was a scurrying and fluttering in the surrounding jungle as the creatures of the wild who had remained before now fled the scene of impending violence. There were also ripples in the swamp and the beat of dragons' wings, all departing hastily. None of them wanted any part of this!
Now that Smash had his full strength and had interacted with the other ogre, it was his judgment that he was the stronger of the two and the smarter. He believed he could beat this monster-and it was necessary that he do it to protect Tandy. But a lot of battle remained before the issue would be resolved.
Smash leaned forward, threw his arms around the ogre, picked him up, and charged toward the dense, hard walls of a big walnut tree. The ogre's head rammed right through the wood and was buried inside the wall-trunk, his body dangling outside.
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