Oct 9, 2018 6 min read

The story so far: Janko and the talking horse, Kon, have escaped from the robbers. But the mountain path has now led to a confrontation with Laktibrada, a small but very unpleasant ogre.

¦ CHAPTER FIVE

Laktibrada

As Laktibrada stomped forward, Kon tried to back up.

“Stone hold you,” Laktibrada growled. Kon’s feet sank into the rocks-and were caught.

Janko had never met a laktibrada before, but he knew all about the dangerous dwarves from his grandmother’s stories. Though half the height of a man, one laktibrada had the strength of twenty. Laktibradas were solitary, lurking in deserted places such as this and ready to prey upon travelers.

“What can one do to escape a laktibrada?” Janko had asked his grandmother.

“Stay home,” Babicka had replied, but then quickly added, “The fish that stays in the pond does not end up in the cooking pot.”

Too late for that now. What else did Janko know about laktibradas? They were vicious and cruel. That was not helpful. They were always hungry. Worse. Then he remembered. Laktibradas were said to love a challenge. Aware that he had only a small chance at success, Janko knew he had to take it. As his grandmother had said, “The man who is drowning may clutch at a straw.”

Janko held out his hand. “Let loose!” he cried.

Obedient as a pair of trained eels, the reins unwrapped themselves from Janko’s right wrist and twisted around the pommel.

Janko leapt from the back of his trapped steed.

“I challenge you to wrestle!” Janko shouted, trying hard to remember what else he had been told about laktibradas. They had one weakness, but what was it?

Laktibrada smiled. “Good,” he growled. “Since you challenge, I set the stakes. If I win, I will eat. If you win, you may try to ride away.”

Laktibrada leapt forward, grabbing for Janko with a grip strong enough to crush steel. But Janko had heard of that trick of the sudden attack, so he stepped to the side. Again Laktibrada leapt for him, but found only air. Janko’s years of herding his family’s goats over the rocky hills of Dedina had made him strong and agile. Each time Laktibrada tried to catch him, Janko slipped away.

Before long, Laktibrada was breathing hard. He was not used to a fight such as this. “Sooner or later, ” Janko thought, “the little man will tire.” But thinking and leaping back and forth do not always do well together. Janko caught his foot on a stone-and stumbled.

“Ano!” Laktibrada shouted, reaching out for Janko. Swift as a trout leaping for a fly, Janko twisted away, thrusting out his hand to grab the closest thing to him to keep from falling-Laktibrada’s long beard. To Janko’s surprise, the little man dropped his arms and fell to his knees. With that thick, dirty mass of chin hair in his hand, Janko suddenly remembered what his grandmother had told him: “Take the bull by the horns, the laktibrada by the beard.”

“Let go, let go,” the little man moaned.

To be truthful, Janko might have gladly done so under other circumstances. It was obvious that Laktibrada had never learned the use of a comb. Remnants of past meals, some of which still seemed to be uncomfortably close to life, were well matted in that dirty beard. But Janko just held tighter. All the strength was drained from Laktibrada’s limbs as Janko dragged him over to the side of the road, where an old beech tree had been split by lightning.

“No,” Laktibrada begged, “no!”

Janko paid no attention. He wedged the little man’s beard tightly into the split in the beech tree. Then he stepped back. Laktibrada stayed where he was, stuck like an ant who has stepped into pine pitch.

As soon as Janko defeated Laktibrada, Kon’s hooves came free from the stone. He clopped over to stand behind Janko and looked down at the ugly little ogre who was moaning and plucking weakly at his trapped beard.

“What now, master?” said Kon.

“Now,” said Janko, “we can ride on. If what I recall is right, Laktibrada can free himself by pulling out his beard, hair by hair. Until his beard is long again-in a year and a day-he’ll have little power.”

Janko leapt back up into the saddle and reached for the reins, which wrapped themselves obediently about his wrist.

“Good master,” Kon said, “you saved me from being eaten.”

Janko said nothing in return. After all, he told himself, “The captain who keeps his boat from sinking is only saving himself from drowning.” Instead, as they trotted along, he looked down at that saddlebag. Then he glanced over his shoulder. To his surprise, although they had not seemed to be going fast, the forest where they had met Laktibrada was now four hills and five valleys in the distance.

“Stop,” Janko said, pulling lightly on the reins.

Kon stopped, this time without a jolt. Janko dismounted and lifted the left saddlebag over the pommel.

“Is there any reason,” Janko said, as he began to undo the strap, “why I should not open this saddlebag now?”

Kon pawed at the ground with one hoof. “Well,” he whinnied, “there is one reason.”

“What is that?” Janko asked, reaching his hand into the saddlebag and finding a familiar shape. He pulled it out. It was a leather-bound book emblazoned with the words “BLAZNIVY’S BEST.” Janko opened to the first page just as Kon answered.

“My master said that if one does not know the secret, his book will destroy whoever looks within it,” the horse said.

NEXT WEEK: The wizard’s book