Cochar's voice is not just loud, it is grating and obnoxious. "You do not deserve to sit at the same table as the worthy Uathach!!!" he bellows. He reaches for me, and in half a moment, I find myself hanging from his closed fists by my mail shirt. We are eye to eye, which means I am several feet off the ground. Cochar looks angrily at me and sneers, "I will teach you table manners, filthy Saxon! First, take a seat!"

He flings me across the room and my back breaks a small table, whose pieces lie in splinters around me. Then the dirty oaf gets to my own weapons before I do. "Here is a plate!" He picks up my round shield and spins it through the air at my neck, and I duck just in time. I fetch it from the floor where it is still slowly rotating in a circle. Then, with my battle-sax in one hand and my many-pronged gae bolga in the other, he runs toward me and hurls his bulk into mine, so that I fall backwards. "Now I will show you how to eat Saxonmeat!! Here is my knife"--he thrusts my sax downward as I roll left to avoid it--"and my fork! Ha ha!!"--I roll right as my gae bolga almost traps me by my neck. I am now in the unpleasant position between the two weapons, and directly under his heaving chest, which drips sweat unto my face.

"You are disgusting!" I hiss as I somersault backward just in time to avoid his enormous knobby knees. "You are not interested in the girl's honor at all--any excuse to brag and mask your self-doubt!"

I sound confident but most assuredly am not. The man is unreasonably large and my fleetness will not help if he simply never stops. Can I outlast him? I ask myself. If he is as invincible and semi-divine as his reputation suggests, I am really in for it!

We continue the routine we have established of him throwing things--including himself at times--at me, while I barely escape. Not the type of dance I usually choose. This cannot last forever; I must find a weakness!

"You cannot run for ever, scared fool!" he rattles, throwing a chair into my shield. We have moved into the kitchen now--a bad move on my part, as here are many more implements for him to throw. "Come back here!"--I duck under a cauldron--"and I will break you like this lamb shank!!" I notice a lamb bone in his hand. He licks the flesh off almost as if it were butter, and I do a side-dodge as he throws the bone at my head, followed quickly by several flaming beams from the fire it had cooked over.

I do a sidestep through the door into the night air as he runs his head toward my stomach. The doorposts strain to make room for him as he bursts through after me. "When I have punished you for your dishonor, you will not be food enough for the crows! Hahaha!!"

I dodge a large pot. Can't this guy get food off his--the idea that strikes me is unlikely, a mere possibility, but something has to work against this ogre! At least I know it is something I have practiced before.

I stop and face him, challenging him, "If you wish in truth to kill me, will you finish what you start, or will you shame yourself by stopping for lesser goods?"

For once, he stops his rampage and looks at me, while the others look at him. "It will be my great pleasure, lowly Saxon, not to rest until I have finished you off. I am glad you have accepted my challenge; and do not think I will tire so easily that you can outlast me."

"Not what I'm suggesting at all", I say. "Now. Everyone has heard your words. Fulfill them now, and begin your hunt!" Already at the edge of the woods, I join the shadows and am gone.