“Lharis, Lhors, what is it?” the headman demanded in a low
voice. Lharis held a finger against his mouth and made a warning glance at the
gathered villagers. His son Lhors was pale to the lips. Lharis beckoned
urgently, drawing Yerik and his mother under their porch.
“Giants,” he murmured. “We were crossing the fallow ridge at
sunset to get help bringing in the kill, and we saw two giants, hulking brutes
twice my height and breadth at least. I don’t think they saw us. They were
angling away from here, north and west, but they seemed curious and interested
in what they saw. We had to go to ground for some time until we were certain
they’d left.”
Lhors swallowed. His two thrusting spears clattered together.
“We’d better ready for an attack,” the retired warrior added
evenly.
“Ready? Attack? Against—?” Yerik’s voice broke.
The other man nodded firmly. “Hold together, man. It’s not
impossible. We’ve a few who can use bow or spears. Find them, and warn them to
move quietly but quickly to fetch their arms. Meanwhile, you get everyone else
out of sight and kept quiet.” He glanced over at Gran. “See that those fires are
put out. With luck, the creatures aren’t after this village, and they may not
know exactly where it is.”
He didn’t believe that last, Gran realized, her own mouth
dry. “If we tell people what the threat is, everyone will panic,” she said.
Lharis shook his head.
“No, don’t do that. Just say there’s a danger. Say it’s
bandits. Get the women and children to the root cellars where they won’t be
heard. Pick some of the older boys to douse all those torches and ready as many
others as we have, once they’ve put out the cook fires. Put them down next to
the oven and keep it lit. The flames won’t show, and the torches will be right
there to light, when it’s time.” The aged warrior eyed the headman, who was
trying to say something. “Cheer up, Yerik. Giants aren’t immortals. They can die
as readily as men.”
Lightning flashed, and thunder boomed almost on its heels,
shaking the ground. “No one should be out in this anyway. Get our people under
cover because the storm’s setting up strong. I saw only the two, Yerik. Our men
can deal with two giants.”
“Deal… with…” Yerik echoed blankly.
“Do what he says, my son. Go!” Gran gave him a shove. She
waited to be sure he was moving in the right direction then turned back to the
two hunters. “Your spears, Lhors, have you more of them?”
The boy stared at her, his eyes wild, then jumped
convulsively as a small child screamed. The village flared with blue light,
thunder cracking on top of it. Gran felt the hair stand up on her head and arms.
She turned to see terrified people suddenly running in all directions, her son
standing in the middle of the square staring up into the trees. And up. Darkness
was followed in a blink by a brilliant blue-white flash that cast strange
shadows.
“That isn’t one of our oaks,” Gran said to herself. Sudden
dread seized her as lightning illuminated trees, roofs, and a huge snarling face
looming above the roofs.
The heavily bearded giant was more than twice her size, and
most of his head was covered in a metal cap. His body was clad in heavy-looking
hides that bared massive arms, and several long spears dangled from one meaty
hand.
Bellowing, part laugh and part battle cry, the giant strode
forward into the square, hefting an enormous spear as he searched for a target.
Panicked villagers streamed in every direction—all except for one. Lharis stood
in the midst of the chaos, waving his sword and trying to direct the hysterical
crowd. The giant spotted him and hurled its massive spear straight for him. The
deadly missile sang through the air and slammed into the warrior.
Lharis choked. He was knocked off his feet a man’s length or
more before he went down. Blood—too much blood—ran down his chin. His hands
clawed at the thick wooden haft that swayed above his belly and pinned him
firmly to the ground.
“Father!” Lhors’ voice cracked into treble. He threw himself
at the older man. Lharis tried to speak, but no words came. His eyes found Gran.
She nodded, caught Lhors by the shirt and dragged him back.
“Don’t!” she shouted. “That’s a killing blow. You can’t help
him. You’ll only cause him more pain, and he knows it! Get all the children you
can and get them to the cellars.
Go!”
“I can’t!”
“You can! Go!”
The boy glanced back at his father. Lharis lay still, his
hands suddenly limp at his sides and his eyes staring sightlessly up. Lhors
shuddered and turned away.
Gran paused to take stock. People were running in all
directions, girls screaming shrilly, men bellowing and cursing. A hideous, deep
laugh drowned them out. The giant who’d killed Lharis stepped into the square,
overturning the empty soup pot as he shouted what must be an order, but she
couldn’t understand a word of it. Three more giants—huge-muscled, fur-and
hide-clad brutes—immediately came from the trees to stride after the villagers
fleeing into the stable. Somewhere beyond them, she could hear her son shouting,
“No! Don’t go in the buildings! Get out of the stable! Get to the stream or the
cellars!”
She turned back to see what she could do. Across the square,
much too near the still ruddy fires and the giant who’d killed Lharis, she could
see Mibya and her nearest sister. They’d scooped up four of the little ones, and
the sister bent her head over the two children she held, letting dark cloth hide
her white hair as she edged cautiously sideways. With a sudden spurt of
movement, the woman turned and ran between two huts and vanished into the night,
but Mibya stared up, frozen in place.
The wisewoman yelled at her, but Mibya either didn’t hear or
was too terrified to move. The giant flung back a hide cloak, sheathed his
sword, and bent down to shove a finger in the still nearly full pot of soup.
That’s boiling, Gran thought, stunned. But if it burned him,
he gave no sign. He licked broth from his finger, then smiled, baring yellowed
teeth the size of shields, and moved with appalling speed, slapping Mibya aside
with the back of his fist. With one swift bound and a snatch, the giant scooped
up the children she’d been carrying and dropped them into the boiling soup. He
clapped a round shield over the open top, holding it down with one huge hand.
Gran could hear Mibya shrieking. Her own legs wouldn’t hold
her. Mibya’s voice died suddenly. Probably the woman had as well. Gran squared
her shoulders and crawled to where Lhors still knelt and caught hold of his ear.
She tugged. Finally, he crawled after her into the dark. She kept a pinch-hold
on his ear. He whimpered and flailed ineffectively at her. “Stop it!” she
hissed. “There is no time! Stay out of the light and gather up as many of the
women and children as you can
without being seen!”
“But…” He couldn’t manage anything else.
Gran slewed around in front of him to pinch his other ear as
well. “Listen to me!” she ordered in a furious whisper. “We will lose many of
our dearest ones this night. It’s too late to stop that! All we can do now is
rescue every single soul the gods permit us to save! Do you understand me?”
Silence.
The giant who hovered over the soup pot removed his makeshift
lid and gazed down at the interior. Her stomach churned. Apparently satisfied,
he dropped the lid back with a ringing clatter, then strode off to help his
fellows. Several of them had fished brands from the fire and were thrusting them
deep into the stable roof.
She could no longer hear Yerik, Gran realized bleakly. She forced herself to
concentrate on the heaving boy who stared at her with wet, terrified eyes. “Get
people into the cellars—
not
the new cellars, they’ll collapse! Or get
down to the lower dell or the stream. Find anyone hiding beneath the floors of
houses. They’ll die if they stay there. Do you understand me, boy?”
At first, she couldn’t be certain that he did. A glance over
his shoulder as more lightning flashed gave her a new count of enemy. At least
ten more leather-clad brutes were approaching from the north.
Lhors caught a shuddering breath, nodded sharply, then
scrabbled away from her on his hands and knees into the darkness.
Gran went flat and still as more giants stormed uphill from
across the fields. If I’m stepped on, she prayed silently, let it kill me at
once.
A woman’s scream topped even the thunder. The ground trembled
all around her. For one brief moment, it was blessedly quiet. The stable went up
with a crackling roar, and giants cheered. She clapped her hands over her ears
and huddled next to dead Lharis as those trapped inside the building burned,
while others fought free of the flames only to die on huge spears and swords.
Something was bruising her ribs, she realized—the dead
warriors sword lay some distance away, but one of his daggers had fallen from
its scabbard. Slowly, cautiously, she wrapped a hand around it and drew it from
under her. The weight of the thing, the feel of the carefully wound leather
wrappings around the hilt, gave her a little inner strength. At least she could
choose her own death, if nothing else. She drew a deep breath and opened her
eyes.
There were at least twenty giants out there, most surrounding
the fiery stable while others torched houses or went looking for herd beasts or
other fodder. They’d consider human bodies the same as game, fodder for the pot.
She didn’t dare stay here.
May the gods bless you for your care of us, she silently
offered Lharis, then eased cautiously away from his body and back into the dark.
The roaring fires of burning houses and barns cast an
uncertain light. Shadows of running villagers and stalking giants flickered and
danced in the flames’ cruel glow. Gran moved through the darkness, avoiding the
light when she could and refusing to acknowledge the bloodied and broken corpses
that littered her village.
In the end, she was only able to rescue two young girls who
had hidden under the back of the common house. Now smoke filled the building,
flame shot through the thatched roof, and the back wall was uncomfortably warm.
She could hear giants laughing down by the burning stable. Another was close but
seemed to be occupied with plundering the henhouse. She couldn’t leave the two
anyway, Gran realized bleakly. She’d delivered young Ilina herself, ten years
earlier.
It took work and time to persuade the girls to leave the
scrape they’d dug themselves, even though the boards were beginning to glow red.
When a pocket of pine-resin popped, sending sparks showering in all directions,
little Ilina fixed her eyes on Gran’s eyes, clamped her fingers around weeping
Nidyi’s wrist, and somehow got them both into the open just before the whole
building collapsed. Gran gripped Ilina’s fingers and felt hers gripped in reply.
She fought them all away from the fire, dragging the girls across open ground
and into the prickly brush.
Horrid laughter echoed all around them, punctuated by
occasional screams or howls of pain.
The girls would have stopped at the brush, but the old woman
was adamant. She tugged fiercely at them, now hissing an order against one young
ear or another while dragging the two terrified girls downhill along a shallow
gully. Numb from terror, they stumbled into the narrow-mouthed cavern where just
hours earlier she’d emerged with a basket of barley and a freshly mixed bag of
herbs for the soup. She got the two inside ahead of her and waited while they
eased their way back into darkness.
The cries of her people tore at her. She clutched the dagger,
but the urge was foolish—one old human woman against so many giants, the least
of them twice her height. She’d die to no cause, and these two girls would surely
die as well.
She gasped as booming laughter drowned everything, including
thunder. The sky above her was blood red, then painfully blue-white. Thunder
roared to deafen the very gods, but it couldn’t quite drown a spiraling roar
that shook her very bones. One of their enemies had just died up there. Rain
suddenly poured down in sheets. She was soaked between one breath and another.
All at once, the fires were diminished.
Wind soughed over her. Gran’s nose twisted as she smelled
burned hair and charred flesh. Thunder momentarily deafened her and drove her to
her knees. When she could again hear, all she could hear was a deep, rumbling
voice, bellowing orders that made no sense to her.
* * *
Just after dawn, Gran coaxed the girls from hiding and back
up the hill. Lharis’ dagger rested against her back the way she had seen him
wear it. “In case,” she whispered, but Ilina and Nidyi didn’t hear her. Both
followed where she led, often stumbling. That was good. With luck, they’d never
remember the previous night. With better luck, she’d have no need of that
dagger. If she did, they were all three dead anyway.
She moved cautiously into the square, the girls behind her.
The enemy was long gone, leaving behind the burned husks of buildings. The dead
lay everywhere. Oddly, the village goats grazed on spilled grain just beyond the
ashes of the stable. Gran frowned. Why had the giants left goats and bodies
behind? It wasn’t like any of the tales she’d heard.
But she could see the answer right in the middle of the
square. A dead giant sprawled across the open ground, his leather armor still
smoldering and what skin she could see blackened as if by fire. She smiled
grimly. A giant killer of a storm, yes.
Lightning seeks whatever is tallest:
tree, stone; sword set upright at a crossroads,
or a giant in the midst of
an otherwise barren square. The rest of his kind had fled rather than join him
in death.
Behind her, a twig snapped and she whirled, dropping Ilina’s
wrist and fumbling awkwardly for the dagger. But it was only Lhors, weaponless,
his face haggard and tears making muddy paths down a filthy face. The dark beard
he’d begun to show this past year was burned in places, and one eyebrow was
mostly gone.