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.