Prince Thief (30 page)

I couldn’t have that. And I wasn’t willing to let my friend go, either – not without a fight.

“A horse,” I cried. “Estrada, I need a fast horse!” Then I remembered my past experiences of riding. “But perhaps not
too
fast,” I added.

It was early afternoon by the time I caught up with the giants.

Had I thought the expedition through, I’d have taken along some water and a little food for my lunch. By the time I crested a rise and the giant column came into view in the far distance, I was parched and dusty, intent upon the grumbling of my stomach. Yet seeing them there, like pale pebbles cast upon the smudged grey of the road, knowing that the tiny figure at their head must be Saltlick, I realised that for once I was surprisingly unconcerned with my bodily discomforts.

Once I’d reached the tail end of the giant line, I rode along beside them, slowing so as not to agitate my horse. She was a good-tempered chestnut mare, and I was grateful to her for managing a commendable balance between speed and not scaring me half to death. Now, though, she was clearly unsure what to make of her enormous travelling companions, however much she tried to affect nonchalance.

As we passed the giants one by one they glanced down at us curiously, and I tried not to notice in turn what a bizarre sight they made, pacing with their heads bobbing at the level of the treetops. I was perhaps halfway to the front when Saltlick registered the clack of hooves over the tramp of giant feet and looked around. In a moment, his face was transformed: by astonishment at first and then, straight after, by joy. “Easie alive!” he roared.

“Of course I’m alive, you idiot,” I shouted back. “Did you really think anyone could kill Easie Damasco?”

“No fight?” he asked, as I drew nearer – and it was odd to hear those oft-spoken words of his posed as a question.

“No fight,” I agreed. “No war. No king breathing down our necks with his army. Not anymore. It’s over, Saltlick.”

I doubted anyone in Altapasaeda had looked as relieved by the news as Saltlick did just then. He held up a hand and spoke a word in giantish, and as the instruction was passed along, the column ground to a halt.

Once I caught up to him, I hurried to dismount. I was glad to note that Saltlick still wore the crown of Altapasaeda around his neck; it was better off in the world of giants than men, I was sure Malekrin could manage without it, and it was strangely comforting to know that at least one thing I’d stolen had managed to
stay
stolen.

“It’s good to see you,” I said.

Saltlick beamed down at me. Yet now that his initial delight had passed, it was impossible to miss the curiosity hovering in his eyes. I knew he’d never be so indiscreet as to ask what I’d come for, why I’d ignored his explicit request that I leave him and his people alone. Still, the questions were there, just waiting to be answered.

“Saltlick, I haven’t forgotten what you told me,” I said. “But I needed you to know Altapasaeda was safe. And there was something else I wanted to say too... I wanted to tell you that you were right. Your people will never have peace so long as they’re around my people. We don’t seem to be good for much except fighting, do we? Just because we avoided it this time, doesn’t mean it won’t happen again, sooner or later.”

I tried to gather my thoughts. It had all seemed so obvious on the way there, so simple.

“The thing is, though, I’m not sure you can just go back to hiding from the world. You’re not a myth anymore, not legendary beings that someone’s great-grandfather saw once after too much wine. Everyone knows you’re out here. Everyone knows you’re real.”

Here was the most crucial part. Yet now that Saltlick’s features had settled into their usual, impenetrable pattern, I wasn’t even certain he was following what I said.

“So going home, keeping away from people, getting back to how things were before Moaradrid came along... those are all fine ideas. But here’s the thing: sooner or later there’ll be another Moaradrid.”

Saltlick nodded pensively. So he
was
following; and only then did it occur to me that I was telling him nothing he didn’t already know. Of course he had tormented himself with the possibility of another warlord arriving at the giant gates; of course he understood that the sight of colossi tearing apart walls and wielding prodigious weapons was a memory that wouldn’t soon fade. He was a good chief, and a good chief was bound to recognise such threats.

So did that mean I was about to waste my breath on a proposal he’d already discounted? For a moment, all of the pain and fear of the last days threatened to swamp my thoughts like floodwater; better to say a quick goodbye and leave, I knew, than to pour my heart out and still find myself friendless and alone.

Only, I wasn’t there for myself – or not just. I wasn’t there because I needed Saltlick, but because I’d finally come to realise he might just need me.

For what use was a good chief without good friends to advise him?

“Saltlick,” I said, “what I’m trying to say is, if you cut off anyone who wants to help you, who’ll be there to stop the ones who’d hurt you? You can turn your back on our world, but you can’t make it turn its back on you. So what you giants need... I mean, what
I
think you need... is an ambassador.”

“Ambassador?” asked Saltlick, chewing over the strange word as if it were a particularly stodgy morsel.

“It means, someone who understands the world outside of their own. Someone who knows people... people in the right sorts of places. Someone who could visit every once in a while, to Altapasaeda, maybe even as far as Muena Palaiya, every year, every six months even, and catch up with the news, perhaps share a meal with somebody who’d... well, you know...” I gulped. “What I mean is, a friend who would miss him if they were never to see him again.”

Saltlick took a long moment to mull that over, his features working unconsciously with the effort. Then his cavernous mouth broke into the widest smile I’d yet seen there, a grin so cheerful and unrestrained that I could hardly believe it hadn’t cleaved his head in two.

“Ambassador,” he bellowed, loud enough that I thought my eardrums would explode.

Sat upon the roadside, I watched the end of the giant column disappear over the next hill. Idly, I imagined them arriving at their high, hidden mountain enclave with Saltlick at their head: a leader bringing his people home, just as he’d sworn he would.

We hadn’t set a time for his visit, merely said a hurried farewell. Even I could see that Saltlick would have his hands full for a while. Still, I was confident that he would keep his word. I’d go to Muena Palaiya, see what I could make of this new life that had somehow fallen into my lap – and one day there would come a knock like thunder at the town gates and I’d know my friend had returned. It was a good enough thought that I could live with a little uncertainty.

Soon I’d have to go back to Altapasaeda. Soon, but not just yet. The sun was still shining. The breeze was still cooling. The grass was soft beneath my rump. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I felt no need to think; not about Moaradrid or the giant stone, not about Panchessa or Mounteban or my many, many brushes with death.

The past was the past, and somehow I’d survived it. The future was the future, and it would surely take care of itself.

I looked over to my horse, where she was cropping a late dinner from the verge nearby, paying me no attention whatsoever.

“You know,” I told her, “all things considered, this could probably have worked out a lot worse.”

Thanks to Tom, for assistance beyond the call of duty, and to Jobeda, for her love, support and patience.

David Tallerman was born and raised in the northeast of England. A long and confused period of education ended with an MA dissertation on the literary history of seventeenth century witchcraft that somehow incorporated references to both Kate Bush and H P Lovecraft.

David currently roams the UK as an itinerant IT Technician-for-hire, applying theories of animism and sympathetic magic to computer repair and taking devoted care of his bonsai tree familiar.

Over the last few years, David has been steadily building a reputation for his genre short fiction and increasingly his writing has tended to push and merge genres, and to incorporate influences from his other great loves, comic books and cinema. David’s first novel, Giant Thief, was published in January 2012. Prince Thief is the third book in the series.

davidtallerman.net

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