The ogre came out of the shadows of the trees and stood for a moment watching the leprechauns. He seemed unaware of Tiller where he sat. Tiller was clearly startled by the appearance of the ogre. It was, after all, an ogre. It stood seven, maybe even eight feet tall. The stereotype. Hulking shoulders, green skin. Arms like tree trunks. Mostly naked. So close to naked you’d wonder why it ever bothered with the ragged excuse for a fur thong it wore. Tiller was fairly sure he could glimpse a touch of scrote peeking out from the barbarian lingerie. He wasn’t wrong.

  Tiller didn’t fail to notice that the band on the ogre’s wrist was stone. Shining black marble.

  Maeve and Pod reacted instantly.

  Maeve hissed, shrill and urgent, “Pod! For fuck’s sake, tell me you have it!”

  Pod waved her off, clearly feigning calm. “I have it, I have it… It’s… I put it somewhere safe…”

  Maeve reddened, and Pod failed to hide how he recoiled from her displeasure. “You’ve lost it! You drunk fool, where is it?”

  “Calm down, my darling. I just need a moment. Go make eyes at the big green lump and I’ll fetch it, post haste.”

  “Tell me you have all of it! Not like last time. He’ll take no more excuses.”

  Pod just waved her off, making a show of indifference as he staggered toward their tunnel.

  Maeve turned to Tiller, and failed in every way to affect normalcy. “This will just be a moment, love. Little transaction. Landlords, you know how it is.”

  Tiller arched an eyebrow. He couldn’t fathom how he wasn’t running screaming. He had seen so much madness in such a short time that his mind was just accepting the presence of an ogre. He wondered if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

  Maeve glanced toward the monster and back to Tiller. “He’s probably not spotted you yet. He’s not so bright. With the long grass he probably doesn’t know-”

  A roar erupted, shaking the trees. “I’M FUCKING WAITING! I DON’T LIKE WAITING!”

  She finished quickly, “Just lie low, love, be back in a jiff.”

  And she was gone, scurrying toward the monster. Tiller shuddered as he sank lower in the grass; he couldn’t imagine what could compel him to move toward that thing.

  A moment later, he could hear them.

  “Bonk! My love! It’s a treat to see you. How have you been, love? Any stories to tell?”

  The deep, rough voice answered, “Where’s my fucking money, Maeve? I’ve a brothel with my name on it in Medley. I need my fucking money.”

  “Oh, it’s coming, love! Pod has it hidden for you, he’s just digging it up. He’ll just be a tick.”

  “That’s all he’s fucking got. Otherwise I’m breaking necks and taking whatever garbage you scum have to your names.”

  “No need for that, love, no need for that, he’ll only be two ticks.”

  There was a moment’s pause. Then the huge voice rocked the little island again, this time incredulous. “Is that Ol’ fucking Ripper? How the fuck did you do him, eh? Didn’t think you had it in you!”

  Maeve stuttered. She affected cordiality, but her voice couldn’t help but betray the fear she felt. “Oh… That? Well, wouldn’t you know, love, it’s the damndest thing. Funny story. Funny story. Pod was meant to be digging a patch o’ taters. But you know what he’s like, stone drunk as usual. I watched him, worth a laugh if nothing else. He wandered out there and didn’t he start trying to dig up the white. The white! A sensible sort would have come back, but ol’ Pod was deep in his cups and he bashed away at it, doing nothing of course, and went to sleep, curled up with his shovel. I was mighty annoyed, but there’s not much you can do, and I wasn’t about to go digging, I’ve enough to do. So I sat a while, I had washing to do and I was in no hurry-”

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  “To the fucking point, Maeve, to the fucking point please.”

  Maeve stuttered again, voice strained. “Well, didn’t Ol’ Ripper show up, probably done trying his luck with the Gandersons, came over to see if he could make a meal of us. And wasn’t Pod just laying himself out like the evening meal himself. So Ripper came a sprinting, and a leaping, and I started screaming at Pod. He might be a three-wheeled wagon, but he’s the only one I’m hitched to, and I love the piece of shit for some reason. So I started screaming. Ripper was only a yard out when he seemed to rouse. He rolled over to look at me. At the same time Ripper went up in the air with those awful claws pointed out. Pod was all tangled up in the shovel, you see. So when he rolled over to see what I was screeching about, the shovel rolled with him and wound up pointing up, like a sunflower. Well, he was more surprised than me or Ol’ Ripper when the shovel made a skewer out of the nasty old thing.

  There was a moment of silence. Then, hesitantly and disbelieving, the voice of the ogre. “He killed Ripper by mistake?”

  Maeve laughed nervously. “Wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes!”

  The ogre’s voice, again doubtful. “With a shovel?”

  Then Pod’s voice cut in. “Bonk! Sorry to be keepin’ you, had to do a little poking, but here you are. The whole shebang.”

  Tiller crept forward, parting the grass enough to see the two little blue leprechauns cowering before the eternity of meat that was Bonk. Bonk was poking through a little cloth sack.

  Pod’s voice, full of forced confidence, “It’s all there.”

  Bonk growled, “This month’s is! But you were short last month!”

  Pod said, “I told you, that was out of my control, I was-”

  Bonk’s voice made the trees tremble once more, “I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOUR EXCUSES! YOU WERE SHORT! AND YOU’RE STILL FUCKING SHORT!”

  Tiller braced himself. He sensed impending violence. He couldn’t explain it, but he felt himself tensing, preparing to intervene. He couldn’t know he would be dead as a dinosaur if he got in Scape with Bonk.

  Hearing the narrator, Tiller turned slightly and barely hissed, “No, I wouldn’t. He’s stone, just like me.”

  But Tiller was on the Farming Path. Bonk was on the Fighter Path. No, dear old Tiller, look-at-the-sky-to-talk-to-the-narrator Tiller, would have been a wet paste in seconds if he tried to tackle Bonk.

  Maeve’s voice cut in, “Bonk, love. I do what I can with him, but he’s a drinker. I wrestle every gold I can from him, and look, we’re no further behind than we were last month.”

  Bonk’s growl, “Made it no fucking better either, did ya?”

  Maeve said, “We learned our lesson, Bonk, it’s just hard to make ends meet out here, on a little island like this, with a drunk for a husband-”

  “Oy!” then “oof,” as Maeve’s elbow slammed into Pod’s generous middle.

  Maeve’s voice was soft and conciliatory. “Here, love, you know, I think I have a little, wait now let me see…”

  Maeve rummaged in her robe and there was the tinkle of metal.

  “Here you are, now, that’s what? Half of what we were shy last month, you see, we learned our lesson.”

  “You got more in there? Holding out on me?”

  “Bonk, love, I wouldn’t hold out on you. I forgot, I just sold a vest to the shopkeeper. I didn’t know my old fool of a husband hadn’t made up for last month.”

  Bonk’s voice was suddenly nervous, “Just? To him? He gone long?”

  Tiller watched Bonk’s head dart left and right, like a rabbit searching for the lurking buzzard.

  Maeve said, “Not an hour ago, went that way. Heading to Medley himself.”

  Somewhat deflated, Bonk said, “Well… this don’t make up for what you’re short. We’ll call this interest. Make up the rest for next time or… or… well, you fucking know what the or is.”

  Pod said, “That we do, Bonk. That we do. We’ll have it. Don’t worry.”

  Bonk grumbled something that Tiller couldn’t make out, and then, just like that, the huge broad green back was lumbering away into the white.

  When Maeve came back to him, she was all apologies. “Sorry about that, love, rent was due, you know how it is…”

  Tiller said, “He owns this land, does he?”

  Maeve shrugged weakly, “Well, not exactly. Nobody really owns anything out here except what they work.”

  “Then he’s not really a landlord. He’s a gangster.”

  Pod said, “He’s a piece of shit is what he is.” He then instantly looked behind him in fright, as though he’d forgotten that the monster had already walked away.

  Tiller said, “This will complicate things a bit. If he comes back and sees us growing at scale, he’ll want a bigger slice.”

  Maeve nodded. Pod said, “That he will.”

  Tiller raised his stone band. “You guys seem to think this is hot shit. Could I not at least make it not worth his while?”

  The two stared back at him with incredulity. And they hadn’t even heard Tiller’s measly odds of fighting Bonk being clearly narrated as close to zero.

  Pod said, “You mean fighting him?” then he erupted in scornful laughter.

  Maeve was softer, “Ah, love. That stone band does make you hot shit. But you’re on the farmer path. Ripper was hunter class, and though he was a muddie, he’d probably have gutted you if you played that fight out again. Bonk is a stone, and he’s fighter class. There’s nothing you could do to him.”

  Tiller stopped and thought. Night was creeping in. It was strange to see the cycle of the day here, in this land most unnatural.

  He said, “We’ll have to do something about him. Giving him a cut of everything we grow will scupper my plans really fast.”

  Pod, wiping an eye, still breathing hard from his laughter, said, “And what do you propose doing about the big blighter?”

  Tiller stared at the setting sun and said, “I guess we need a fighter of our own.”