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Or rather, not a cow at all. A freemartin. A female bull.

The Wild Freemartin stood twice as tall as the genius at the shoulders, and must have weighed a hundred times as much. Shaggy, matted black hair covered her body. Her eyes were invisible beneath the fringe. Two long horns curved out from the sides of her head, their tips as wickedly sharp as a javelin.

As for the genius, he was much the worse for wear. A purple bruise covered half his face, glowing with the light of his fiery blood, and there were nicks and cuts all over him, a hundred tiny blazes jetting from the wounds. The flames on his head had dwindled down to the size of a few lit candles.

There wasn’t so much as a scratch on the Freemartin.

The genius shifted his weight, preparing to charge back into the fray. The Freemartin snorted and lowered her head.

They surged toward each other, churning up the grass as they ran. We kept well back. I had no intention of getting between those two.

When they met, the genius swung his saber. It smacked the Freemartin’s side, but that matted hair was as tough as armor plating. The sword didn’t even make a mark in it.

The genius twisted to avoid being pierced through by her horns, and the Freemartin’s massive forehead slammed into him instead. The genius went flying across the meadow, not stopping until he struck a tree only a few yards away from us. The Freemartin waited, and when he didn’t stir, she bent her head down and began placidly cropping the grass.

The meadow had gone quiet. The genius groaned and turned on his side.

“Oh,” he said when he saw us. “Hello.”

He’d managed to keep hold of his saber. I, on the other hand, no longer had a magical spear, or anything else that might improve our odds if he decided to fight us. Even wounded as he was, I doubted we stood much of a chance against him.

And he had to have noticed that Ilyana was no longer trapped in his tower.

“Listen,” I said. “I can explain. I was passing by your palace, and, uh…”

“I fell out of a window!” Ilyana said.

“Onto Stinky’s saddle,” Sunbeam put in. “It was raining—”

“—got lost—”

“—covered in bees—”

“—fell in a well—”

“—attacked by land sharks—”

“Eh,” the genius said, sitting up. “I really don’t care.”

The three of us stumbled into silence.

“You don’t?” I asked after a moment.

He hiked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing toward the Freemartin. “I finally found the cow. And look what happened.” He patted out the flames on a few of his wounds. “We’ve been fighting for two days straight now, and I never once laid a hand on that thing. So I give up. It’s an impossible task. I’ll get myself a soul some other way.”

“Oh,” I said. “Then I guess—”

“Maybe I’ll shop around for one. Try to buy low, sell high. Is yours for sale?”

“No, I—”

“I could make your horse talk, in exchange. The one that doesn’t talk now.”

“No,” I said firmly. “Listen, you should probably go help your mother. She fell in some quicksand.”

His mouth dropped open with shock. “What? Where? When did it happen?”

“Er…that way?” I pointed vaguely to the southwest. “A little more than a week ago. It can’t have been too far from your palace, but I don’t know much more than that.”