The Encounter

He was one inch, perhaps two, under seven feet, which was of course quite unusual as people went, but one had to consider that he was a dragon-cum-monster slayer, and that in his line of work midgets indeed had an undeniable advantage at hiding, but in deeds they had that terrible drawback of being slow-paced and slow-witted, ergo of being chewable in one snap, fact that made them unqualified for the work – midget dragon-cum-monster slayers died out for lack of suitable candidates. Provided you found a small enough dragon or even a remarkably puny hydra, even your regular man was as good as mince pie.

He was not your regular man. His shining armour was the first clue. Brightly polished for a whole full-moon night by a dwarf – jolly good polishers, by the way, dwarves are, for they have that almost sexual attraction to metal that verges on devotion. The second clue was his steed. No one could ever call Stallion a horse. He was a magnificent pure-breed, white from muffle to tail. Even his hooves were white. Of course, Stallion was a magical warhorse, bound to him by a magical spell only Destiny could cast. Together they had roamed many a kingdom and fought many a battle. The third clue was his size. 'Towering' was by any means an adjective that befitted him like a gauntlet, but his bulk was mountainous. He could encompass the head of a man in his hand and he covered with one stride the same ground as a man would do in four. Muscular, mighty, masculine. In all humbleness, he could say that he was the ladies' favourite wherever he went. The claymore faithfully hanging at his side was the last clue to his über-manliness. It was a fathom long, i.e. the width of a man's extended arms, from tip to tip. Only him could wield Swörd, for he had been chosen by the Gods to unsheathe it from its rocky, two-thousand year old resting place. Swörd glowed with a special shimmering aura, parting the darkness at night and glowed red in the midst of the fray.

On a day-to-day basis he was feared by his enemies, loved by his countrymen, favoured by the Gods for his ruthlessness, for his courage and for his loyalty respectively.

So when he heard that he was being challenged to a duel, and when he set eyes on his 'enemy', he first laughed. But he had fought too many wars and killed too many monsters and evil men alike to overlook the stare in the herald's eyes. He was then told that his opponent had killed nine hundred and ninety-nine men in single combat. But the fame didn't quite match the figure. The herald must have been mistaken, they must have all consorted to play some prank on him. He knew the King of these lands very well, he had been a companion in peace and in war for many a year.

So on that fateful day, as he was passing by the village, he was stopped by his antagonist who was blocking the road, legs extended in an inverted V shape and his fist resting on his hips in a defiant posture. He set foot in the muddy ground, let Stallion wait by the corn trough and, after being warned by the herald, gave him his sheeny helmet and walked up to the warrior. Such was the scene in the early hours of the morning. It was the first days of Spring. Luck had it that he was in a perfect form.

He bent over his foe, towering and confident, hands on his knees and told him, in the sweetest possible voice he could: “And what are you going to do, precisely, kiddo?”

***

He was definitely two inches under five feet, which was quite unusual as people went, but one had to consider that he had yet to complete his eighth school year, kindergarten excluded. When he was woken up by his friend, who was dishevelled from all the running up and down, telling him that a knight was in sight and that he would arrive in the village any minute now, he jumped out of bed, put on his best suit and rushed to meet him, panting a little – he had almost slipped on the mud. That would have ruined his carefully crafted effect. He affected his usual posture in the middle of the only road in the village. He was born there. His parents and his parents' parents were born there. He knew everyone and everyone knew him. Luckily, today was a day off school.

So he was standing there, as proudly and vain as possible, and he quite liked the effect on the people around him. Everyone had gathered and was holding its breath. Expectant eyes were going from him to the knight and vice versa. Yet, and this was quite unusual, the stares seemed to linger more on the warrior – he had to admit that this one was, well, nothing short of statuesque. The...man, for lack of a better word, surely measured a staggering seven feet at least.

When he came up to him and bent over him, he could not see anything but him, as broad his shoulders were. This was the first time ever he was confronted by such a mountain of muscles and metal. The mud at every one of his steps seemed to be squashed into a pulp, on each side of his ironclad feet.

He just hoped the herald had not said too much, or too little.

***

Now he was much closer, he could distinguish the child's features: the unruffled hair, the pimples he should resent, the freckles that one could not really distinguish from the said pimples, the sleep at the corner of his blue eyes, the chubby cheeks. The school garments. Light blue shirt, black and blue striped tie, dark blue shorts, light blue socks, black shoes that had not seen a good polish in years, perhaps at all. Then his eyes were suddenly drawn to a glittering pen which was sticking out from the child's pocket.

***

They usually would come very close to him, talk to him perhaps, spur him on, observe him for a time then they would become interested in his pen. That was the time he would usually put it to good use. This one was like the rest and now was the time. Right on the cue. He had had doubts, looking at that gigantic man, but he just had to remember the story of David and Goliath to feel safe.

One day he had heard at school that quote from a French bloke: “If you kill one man, you're a murderer; if you kill millions of men, you're a conqueror; if you kill them all, you're God.” He was currently undertaking stage two. He was still in two minds as to pursue further after taking the life of millions of men. Being God seemed to him quite overrated.

The pen had been the top prize at a poetry competition earlier last year. A little less than a foot tall and entirely made of iron. The Provost had said it would last him a lifetime if he used it carefully. It was this same pen which he now swiftly took in hand and which he was thrusting into the knight's right eye, very deeply, until his hand knocked onto the man's orbit. As usual, the title of his winning poem would flash before his eyes: The Unexpectedness of a Pen Right into the Eyeball. The defeated knight fell dead in the mire.

He then cried, triumphantly, the last line of his epic: “The pen is mightier than the sword!” Blood and humours dripped abundantly from the glistening pen. With one hand clenched around the body of the pen he swiped it clean, then put it back into his pocket. With that he turned on his heels and walked home to get his breakfast. He was starving. “Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder” was also one of his teacher's sayings – “unless there's a pen sticking right through it”, he sarcastically added, with a grin on his face, from ear to ear. The carrion would be carried at the edge of the forest and left to the vultures and the wolves. Such was the fate of the defeated. Vae Victo.

***

The herald, for the thousandth time, was shaking his head as he and seven other sturdy men were carrying the body of the unfortunate...why didn't any one of those knights believe him? Couldn't they see the Evil in the child's eyes? Lucky the kid paid him well, otherwise he'd have cleared a long time ago.