The other knights agreed with those bold words. They swore to pursue the stirring beast and do what it deserved, but first they retired to Ambiripali to rest for the journey. There Sir Kauko begged Sir Poemen this boon. “A dog, once fed, will come to feed again. Who, knowing that, feeds a dog even once? Yet dogs are fed. I must have a sword. It might better be said that a single sword is the most allowed by the time left, for it were better that I enchant the arms of all of you, but I am far from able to do it. I warn you this though, that not all steel is such as can withstand what will be asked of it.”
Sir Poemen answered this. “I believe now that you are a knightly man, for you said that last to win my agreement, sure I could never bear to shun a challenge to my weapon's worth.” So saying, he unbelted his strife-stifling scabbard and gave his sword over.
When next the battle between night and day stained the horizon yellow-red, the knights set out at Sir Reiner's back, all those who had come from Cuculna and a small number from Ambiripali as well such as the people judged it safe for them to send. Already race-running rumors had reached the city that a beast was seen that slew animals, feeble stoats and wood-ruling bears, any that it met. No men as yet had died, for they were afeared too much when they saw it, and fled.
Aside from Sir Reiner who made the arms of Sir Ensio his for the purpose, all the knights had gotten for themselves bows, javelins, and slings, warned as they had been by Sir Kauko of the poison that would be the beast's chief weapon against them. They equipped themselves also with stakes at the advice of Sir Reiner that they might refuse the foe a route for escape, were the combat to end as they hoped. There were mules and servants with them beside, but not horses that would never withstand the poison, nor was river-ruling Ambiripali rich in them that the loss would be small.
The battle-seeking knights marched in good order across the country that was more placid than it had been. It soon would be more so, had they their will. The trip from the city was more pleasing than that toward it, much as when a merchant relies on a clerk, a new one trained by the old who moved to another city where lives his family, and at first is wary of the man's skill and honesty. But after one or two well-laden ships have landed and departed again with all done as it should, he no longer distrusts the clerk but rather is well content with his business, thinking only of how to add to it. Even so did those armsmen look over the bare and deserted terrain and see farms and orchards yet to be planted, no longer worrying how they might travel home or what welcome they would have.
Neither was their skill in tracking tested, for the foe they wanted to find and kill had no mind to hide its slaughters any more than does the wealthiest man in a wealthy city make a secret of his means. He instead furnishes churches, funds choirs every season, and has many at his table, all he can find, so that all are aware of his place among them. Not otherwise did the peace-scorning beast they hunted behave in its pride, and there was reason in that, as they learned when they reached it some few days from Ambiripali.
For it was the cockatrice, a fiend deadlier than others and tireless in doing harm to the world. The poison it breathed out from its keen beak hung around it as it walked and made even the grass beneath its talons and writhing tail to wither. The scales behind its feather-veiled neck threw back the bright sun and kept its light from the fiend's wicked heart, and from its stomach that devoured the good. In size it yielded the prize to the horse, but in speed it would never refuse the contest, winning at times and losing at others.
The knights when they saw it did not wait to have parley with it or reproach it like a man who might feel shame, but instead set stakes in a ring about the plain with all the swiftness that battle asks of those who deem life a worthy thing to keep. They took up their bows after that and their missiles, save Sir Reiner, who unsheathed the scale-splitting blade of Sir Ensio, and Sir Kauko with him, who held Sir Poemen's sword that shone that day as it never had before, though it was fashioned well. Arrows and javelins went before them and tore holes in thin wings so that the cockatrice lost the use of them, but as for its hide, that was too thick for weapons such as those.
But not for the flashing brands of Sir Reiner and Sir Kauko. Both struck with all the might that they had, which was greater in the one of them than the other, who had waxed in his sorcery but waned in the strength of his limbs in all those years since his defeat. Sir Reiner was the leader in the fight for that reason, and for this also, that never in war did he hold back from the first rank save that King Percy commanded it.
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He judged the beast's throat, rich in plumage, the best place for his sword, and swung to sever it. The cockatrice, for its part, made its aim the opening of the knight's belly and set its talons and its piercing beak to that. There was no warding off those blows by means of a shield, for his that bore five drops of rain was rent and splintered at the third strike of its talons. His mail alone, that treasure Sir Ensio left, kept his life in him against the fierceness of that foe and turned into bruises what harm were otherwise worse.
While the mightiest fought the mightiest, Sir Kauko looked for what wounds the cockatrice bore that had not yet healed since Sir Ensio dealt them, for Sir Viljami had liked not for the beast to regain its vigor and practiced sorcery to deny the thing wellness. And he saw them. Lacking the puissance he once had, he thought to do hurt by thrusting his borrowed brand at those old wounds where the scales had not yet knit together, and he drew hot blood thereby. The cockatrice did not bear that, but reached with its long tail to entangle his legs and trip him, its enemy of old. It leapt on him then to jab with its beak and breathe its horrible breath.
Yet Sir Kauko lived through that, wondrous to see, though wearing no mail or helm, because of the skill in sorcery that he had. He coughed and struggled to shake off the beast, and had not the might for it, but Sir Reiner had much and was big in the fight. That wind-filled knight struck with his sword unending blows, and he did not strike lightly for fear of hitting the man below, but each was heavy and swift.
The cockatrice, baffled in its attacks and sorely hurt, thought then of withdrawing from the field. It ran toward the stakes that were closest and made its loud beak a ram, which the hasty works the knights had fixed were not able to withstand. The cunning beast won free in that way, but the effort was great and stunned it, so that Sir Reiner and Sir Kauko were by no means escaped, but rather behind their foe by steps. Sir Kauko stabbed at the legs of the cockatrice while Sir Reiner split one off wholly from the thing's scaly body, and by that it lost its speed.
No hope did the beast have then to avoid the knights, if ever it hoped for anything other than to bring woe to all around it. Soon its vigor waned as it had when Sir Ensio dealt it harm years before. At that time the northern knight had too much of wounds and poison to go on, but Sir Reiner was yet hale enough and full of vigor for it, and Sir Kauko did what he was able. They had no mind to let live the cockatrice, that loathsome beast.
The work took long, but the foe was so weakened by then that it was the knights who watched that had the most hardship, for they were able to do nothing in the fight and stood there, idle. As when the wind chooses out a number of seeds of forest-ruling trees and orders them the task of filling some land other with woods while the rest remain, their doom to be eaten by four-footed animals and winged birds, so too did the idle knights envy the busy, who had too much before them to think on their wounds and their waning wind.
But the end of that toil came when Sir Reiner did as he hoped and at last cut through the throat of the cockatrice all of its width so that its head fell to the ground, breathing poison and curses that did it nothing good. The knights who saw that were cheered greatly and looked with awe on Sir Reiner, who leaned on his sword and struggled to regain his wind. Servants practiced in medicine went to him and Sir Kauko, bold men it were a shame to all the world to lose, and soon the latter was able to say this.
“How many years and how much was lost, for that Sir Viljami and I relied on unnatural arts when we might have done more by our might or, if we had not enough, by begging more and strong men to aid us? But we desired too much, and so had less than we might have. It is a great shame, and a woe to this country, and I say in full frankness that there was never a more foolish knight than I am, or a sorcerer less artful. All that is done now. My might is little now, and as for my sorcery, I have used it all up in this deed. I will not again enjoy much of either, if I have any wit at all, not nearly so much as I had. And so I give back this sword to Sir Poemen. It will be a sure help to you to have it. I foresee that it will, just as I see much else I never did earlier. It is my hope, the only hope left me, that if I gained any knowledge from all my studies and travels, I will be suffered to call on it for the good of King Gaspar's lands.” And the knights wished him well in that.
Sir Reiner, for his part, said nothing. For after every triumph of his he thought no more on it or boasted, but instead pondered what was best to do afterward. He marched back to Ambiripali with all the knights, mules, and servants while Sir Kauko went where he would. And later it was said that erstwhile sorcerer met Gaspar the sage and was friends with him, and did much for the people by what he had learned in his wide travels so that he was named by them a sage as well. As for the knights, save those from Ambiripali, they were minded to travel first to well-harbored Saphonium as the locals advised, and thence by the southern route past stout Boncot to make known there all that Sir Reiner had done if his humbleness was too great for it, which pleased him well and made him plan in secret the feast he would give them.