weren’t scared of a silly old bear. “Do you know any poems about courage?” Edward asked after a moment.
G didn’t. He endeavored to make something up. “Um . . . cowards die many times before their deaths,” he said. “The valiant never taste of death but once. Screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail.”
“The sticking-place?”
G shrugged. “It’s the best I could do on such short notice.”
“That’s good,” commented Edward. “You should write that down.”
The map Archer had given them was easy to follow, and the journey was short, but G couldn’t figure out if it was really short or it only seemed short because he was dreading killing a giant bear. They had packed up weapons of all sorts: broadswords, battle-axes, a mace. Jane had even made them a “tincture” she’d told Edward would burn the bear’s eyes.
The map didn’t lead them to an exact location, just a valley near Rhyl in which the bear had most frequently been seen. Of course, that information was based on rumors and reports. As they got closer, G began hoping the reports were wrong, but soon realized they weren’t, because the ground was dotted with bear droppings. G knew they were bear droppings, because the only other animal capable of such sizable droppings in this part of the world was a horse, and G knew the droppings weren’t of a horse, because he was sort of an expert.
“We’re getting close,” he said to the king.
“You remember our plan?” Edward said.
G nodded.
The two wound their way through trees and brush until Edward came to a jolting halt. And then G did, too. And then Edward said to G, “I think we’re going to need a bigger sword.”
The beast was huge. This was one of those times when the English language was inadequate to fully describe the bear’s girth. The thing was eating fruit from a tree, and to get the fruit, he didn’t even have to stand on his hind legs. And he didn’t just eat the fruit, he ate the leaves and the branch as well, because his mouth was huge and he could.
The ground trembled as he walked to the next tree.
G turned toward Edward and bowed. “It’s been a pleasure, Sire, but this is where I leave you.” He was jesting only in part.
“What about your talk of courage?”
“Fiction, Your Majesty.”
Edward sighed. “Stop playing. We stick to the plan.”
“What about giving him a chance to surrender?”
“Shut up.” Edward let out a war cry. The bear turned, roared so loudly G thought his eardrums would burst, and charged after the king, who turned and ran back into the forest.
G was alone. He let out a breath and climbed a tree. Because that was the plan. Minutes later, or maybe seconds, or hours, Edward came running back to him, shouting, “Gifford! Be ready!”
G lit the torch he’d been holding.
The bear had been chasing Edward, but now he followed the light and placed his front paws on the tree, which gave G the perfect angle to pour Jane’s tincture into his eyes.
The bear let out a terrible growl and a cry, and then with a whimper, he let his front paws scrape down the bark.
Now was the time Edward was going to go in for the kill, except the bear began to run around in circles, frantic, roaring. And then, with the force of a battering ram, he collided with the trunk of a tree.
G’s tree.
He fell through the air.
The brunt of the impact was softened by landing on the bear’s back, a fact that G would have celebrated, had it not been the case that he had just fallen onto the world’s most giant bear.
Thankfully the collision with the tree had stunned the bear, and G was able to gather his brain and climb off the beast. Where was Edward with his sword? But of course, it was pitch-dark now, because G’s torch had gone out on the way down from the tree, and Edward couldn’t very well stab the bear without risking stabbing G at the same time.
“Gifford?” Edward called.
The sound seemed to rouse the beast. G thought quickly. He didn’t have a weapon with him (because he was supposed to watch from the tree as Edward killed the bear) and he couldn’t very well kill a bear with his own hands, so he did the only thing he could.
He played dead. And acted like he wasn’t food.
“I’m dead, Sire,” G said. He didn’t know why he didn’t say,