“Haw!” fleered the giant. “Too late for that, mortal, when you’ve broken the good circle by your sinful wishes and not yet made act of contrition. “ He reached out a hand. “Alfric told me I’d find tender prey on this path. Give me the maiden, and you may continue.”
Holger wanted to throw back some ringing challenge, suitable to his disgust at any such notion. By God, there were worse things than death! Unfortunately, he could only think of a phrase unfit for the maiden’s ears. He lunged instead. His sword blazed across the immense knuckles.
The giant yanked his hand back, blew on the smoking wound, and cried: “Hold! Let’s talk!” Nearly blasted off his feet by the volume, Holger paused.
To him, who was used to being the largest person around, the face above his seemed even broader than it was. But he stood fast and heard the basso profundissimo say in a rather reasonable tone:
“Look here, mortal, I sense you’re a great champion. And of course the touch of iron hurts me. Yet there’s a lot of me, and I could belike crush you with stones before you got in too many blows. What say we contest an easier way? If you win by your wit, you may go on unmolested. In fact, I’ll give you a helmetful of gold.” He pointed to a wallet at his side which must hold a hundredweight or more. “If you lose, you surrender the girl to me.”
“No!” Holger spat on the earth.
“Wait. Wait, darling.” Alianora seized his arm with sudden eagerness. “Ask him if he means a riddling contest.”
Puzzled, Holger did. The giant nodded. “Aye. For know, we of the Great Folk sit in our halls throughout the endless winter night of our homeland, year after year, century after century, and pass the time with contests of skill. Above all are we fond of riddles. It were worth my while to let you pass, could you give me three new ones of which I cannot answer two, that I may use them in turn.” His bestial visage turned eastward, anxiously. “Be quick, though.”
Alianora’s eyes kindled. “I thocht so, Holger. Make the bargain. Ye can outtrick him.” The giant showed no comprehension. Of course, Holger realized. A creature that big couldn’t hear far into the human range of frequencies.
He answered falsetto, “I can’t think of anything.”
“Ye can.” Her confidence sank a little. She stared at the ground and dug with one toe. “If ye canna, well, let him have me. He only wants me to eat. Ye mean too much, Holger, to the whole world, methinks, to risk death in a fight over nobbut me.”
He groped in his bewilderment. What puzzles did he know? “Four hanging, four ganging, two leading, one trailing: a cow.” Samson’s poser to the Philistines. A few such. But surely over the centuries, the ogre had heard them. And he, Holger, wasn’t bright enough to invent a brain teaser on such short notice.
“I’d rather fight for someone I know, like you, than—” he began. The squatting monster interrupted him with a gruff “Hurry, I say!”
A wild idea coursed through Holger. “Can’t he stand the sun?” he asked Alianora in his stage-eunuch tone.
“Nay,” she said. “The bricht rays turn his flesh to stone.”
“Oh-ho,” squeaked Hugi, “if ye hold his mind fast eneugh, lad, so dawn comes on him unawares, then we can loot yon bag o’ gold.”
“I dinna know about that,” said Alianora. “I’ve heard treasure won by such a trick is cursed, and the man who wins it soon dies. But Holger, in an hour he must flee the dawn. Can ye no delay him an hour, ye who overcame the dragon?”
“I… think… so.” Holger swung back on the colossus, who was beginning to growl in angry impatience. “I’ll contest with you,” he said.
“For this one night, then,” said the giant. His grin was sadistic. “Perhaps another night after that… Well, bind the wench so she can’t flee. Hurry!”
Holger moved as slowly as he dared. Tying Alianora’s wrists, he piped, “You can throw off this knot, if worst comes to worst.”