A Plague of Giants

by Kevin Hearne

  Before dawn even grayed the sky, I lit an arrow and shot it over the walls to fall into the needle-covered ground of the mountainside. And then, standing on tiptoe to peer over the walls, I accelerated that fire and spread it along the ground in a line parallel to the wall, illuminating the front ranks of trees, which revealed a Fornish siege crew putting together the interlocking pieces of a catapult. I knew it! Burn them all.

  I urged the flames up the mountain to surround the crew and then ignite them. Their screams tore into the night, and it was better than birdsong to my ears. Those who killed my son and would kill me and all my people deserved to die in pain.

  There would be more of them, no doubt, unseen in the darkness, farther up the mountain. I spread the flames directly uphill from that crew and saw nothing, but they had to be out there. I needed to take them out before they could get set. It turned out that only Sefir and I were armored and ready to go, however. The city had gone to sleep while Sefir and I set Jerin’s spirit free. I roared the alarm: we were under attack and needed hounds in the hills, hunting at will.

  Halsten got four out the southern gate in a hurry, but they ran into the same flesh-eating plant that the Fornish used on Jerin’s patrol. One made it through and up into the hills, but for the others it was a grim business. Three of them immediately showed signs of distress, their paws pierced by those barbed toothy things that grew inside them and ate their muscles and organs. One rider was thrown from his mount, and two held on; I thought perhaps they would have time to jump free, but the hounds spun and caved in on themselves, trying desperately to nip out the pain in their paws, and they flipped onto their sides. One rider’s leg was crushed and trapped by his hound going down, and once he hit the ground, I saw one of those horrible toothy blossoms take a mouthful of him as well, and he was helpless to free himself. The other rider leapt clear of his hound before it went down and shouted something at me, looking at the ground beneath his boots, but I couldn’t make out the words over the noise the hounds and the trapped rider were making. Soon he was high stepping as if his own feet were in pain; a barbed seed must have pierced through the sole of his lava dragon boots. He was a sparker, though, and before he crumpled to the ground, realizing that they were all dead anyway and he could help clear the way, he set the hounds and himself on fire as well as the land all around the gates. He was immune to the flames until he died, but the third rider, who had been thrown from his mount, was not. He howled as his hair and beard ignited, but strangely, he didn’t move otherwise. He must have broken his spine in the fall and become paralyzed.

  I ground my teeth. The eastern gate no doubt would be seeded as well. Better to burn through this first gate since the fire was already started, make sure the plants were exterminated, and plow through with armored lavaborn to take on the Fornish.

  I added to the flames in front of the southern gate to hasten the end both for the plants and for the houndsmen.

  “I want all the lavaborn with me!” I shouted. “Armor and shields and axes! And Halsten, get the rest of your riders ready. Once we’re through, you follow behind with the houndsmen!”

  I sought out Olet Kanek after that. She was with La Mastik and, seeing me coming, stepped in front of her. She was already armored and carried a sword, I saw, rather than an axe. Serviceable, even fine work, but not up to the Mogen standard.

  “I’m not here to fight either of you,” I said, putting them at ease. “Now that Jerin is gone, Olet, your father will no doubt wish you to return to Tharsif. That being the case, I will not ask you to leave the walls with us. But the Fornish have catapults and may try to lob something over the walls. I hope you won’t mind burning whatever they send, using your blessing to protect people.”

  They both stared at me, looking for deception, and I was content to bear it. Most of the lavaborn were still struggling into their armor anyway. Finally, Olet gave me the barest nod. “We will, Hearthfire.”

  “My thanks.” I peered past her to lock eyes with La Mastik. “My apologies for earlier. My anger was … misdirected.”

  She didn’t reply, only nodded acknowledgment, but that was good enough. I had a proper focus for my fire now. It was right outside the southern gate. The Fornish would be scrambling to do what damage they could before dawn even as we were scrambling to prevent them. We had traded a few casualties so far, but I looked forward to tipping the scales in our favor. The Fifth Kenning was meant to be burned by the First, and once we dealt with them, the Nentians would be routed just as before, and Baghra Khek would be secure.

  Eschewing previous practice, Fintan did not dispel the seeming but put on another one, transforming directly into the greensleeve Nel Kit ben Sah.

  I had to stifle a cry when I saw Rig Wel ben Lok and his siege crew combust, their screaming silhouettes outlined in fire. How had Gorin Mogen known we were creeping down the mountain? The grassgliders were making sure we moved in silence. Did this have anything to do with the huge fireball we’d seen rise into the sky near sunset after they’d stopped chopping down trees for the day? Something must have upset him, made him suspicious, eager to lash out.

  I thought of recalling the attack, for the element of surprise was gone now and it simply wasn’t our season, but if I did that, the Nentians would have no support when they arrived. The Hathrim would huddle behind their walls and wait for them to get close enough to set aflame, and when it was over, they would be nearly impossible to uproot.

  So I had to order everyone forward. Speed was our best chance of success now.

  I sent Nef Tam ben Wat downhill to the other crews to relay my orders: run directly east, keeping to the trees and the darkness, and then go down to the southeast corner of the city where the clusters of thornhands waited. Mogen might be able to spy the lowest crews at first, but once out of his immediate line of sight, they’d disappear into the darkness and make no sound as they ran thanks to the grassgliders. I withdrew from the kenning of my own crew’s grassgliders so that I could be heard and called out for Vin Tai ben Dar, who was the greensleeve for the crew below mine. I doubted Mogen would hear me above the anguished cries of Rig Wel ben Lok’s crew.

  “Would you accelerate the growth of the bantil plants at the south gate? He’s going to send out some houndsmen soon, and if we can clog that gate, it will buy us some time.”

  “Aye, Champion,” he replied—a title I was still getting used to—and fell back with his crew so that he could send out his shoots safely and communicate with the bantil plants. I moved back into the sound bubble of my grassgliders, and together we picked up our pace until we were running at a full sprint, heading east on the mountain. The other crews below were doing the same thing, trying to keep themselves shrouded in darkness. Sometimes they tripped as a result, which I managed to do myself—a fine display of leadership. Any light we used from our glowing fungi bulbs could attract the Hearthfire’s attention or that of the spotters he no doubt would have watching soon, so we kept them covered.

  Once we cleared the fire, we had to descend rapidly at dangerous speeds to get to the catapults in range. We wouldn’t be able to cover the entire city in spores anymore, but we could at least choke off the eastern gate and force the Hathrim to use only the southern gate if they wanted to get at us. And they would. The spores inside the eastern walls would prevent them from targeting us with fire while standing behind them; they’d have to come out to play, and that was the whole point. Send out your lavaborn where the thornhands can reach them.

  Four houndsmen erupted out of the southern gates, and three of them were caught by the bantil seeds, taking them out without endangering us. But we were having our own troubles. Moving so quickly down the steep mountainside, one siege crew went down in a tumble of limbs and wood and suffered broken bones and in one case a broken neck. That meant there were only eight crews left, including Vin Tai ben Dar’s, who were still high up on the mountain. He would be moving now, though, his work at the gate with the bantil plants finished.

  At the
southern gate, nothing more had emerged but the flames had bloomed higher. They were scouring the area, cleansing it of bantil plants and seeds. When they felt safe enough, the lavaborn would walk right through that fire and attack our positions. Our crews needed to assemble, launch, and retreat if they could, leaving the Hathrim exposed to Nentian archers. But we would never have the luxury of that time: Mogen had chosen to deal with us first, before the Nentians could get involved. It was up to us to eliminate the lavaborn.

  The black sky dissolved to cobalt in anticipation of the dawn, giving just enough light to allow our eyes to secure our footing and speed our descent. I could pick out silhouettes of crews below and the clusters of the thornhands. One crew had cleared the trees and was busy assembling its catapult just east of that southeastern corner of the Hathrim city. I dispatched Nef, who already was winded from his prior run, with orders to have them fire at the eastern gate first. Another team arrived and stationed itself a bit farther east but more forward, constructing its catapult to fire deeper into the city. Another and another, and soon I drew close enough to speak my orders to the thornhands without relays.

  “We’re going to keep them from coming out at the east, so watch the south—two pods can drift that way now. Lavaborn will be coming out first, and we need them taken out. Then watch for the hounds once they snuff the fires at the gate, and remember there’s already one houndsman up in the trees.”

  I urged my crew forward as the thornhands moved to take up positions behind the trunks of grand moss pines. The first siege crew to set up was ready to fire its first payload of spore gourds at the eastern gate as I passed it, and I noted that it was the crew of the greensleeve sent by the Black Jaguar Clan, Lan Del ben Huf, who was a vast improvement over Pak Sey ben Kor. I nodded at him in passing and watched the first volley wobble into the air, five gourds lobbed north and just slightly west. Four landed inside the eastern gate, and one fell outside of it, an excellent shot, and I heard the soft crack of the shells and the hiss of the escaping spores. The gates had actually begun to open but halted as the gourds fell, spores floating up and into the noses of the giants behind them, burning their sinuses and swelling their throats so that their airways would be choked. We were protected by the Fifth Kenning and had nothing to fear from the spores. I led my team out past all the others, way beyond the trees and fully on the eastern side of the city. We would aim for inside the northern wall, opposite the southern gate. The more giants we could push out into the open, the better for the Nentians.

  Looking back as the crew began its assembly work, I saw all the remaining crews either launching or preparing to launch except for Vin Tai ben Dar’s lagging group, which was only now emerging from the trees and heading in our direction. He had done us a tremendous service by slowing down the giants at the southern gate, but as he grew closer, I could see that he had paid for it, pushing the bantil seeds so fast from such a distance. He looked much older and moved more slowly, crags on his face appearing like the rugged bark of the grand moss pines. He called a halt next to my crew, and I gave him a quick hug and murmured words of praise as he took heaving breaths. We broke apart as the shrieking song of thornhands split the dawn: Mogen’s lavaborn had poured through the fire of the southern gate, armor and axes aflame, and charged to the east to take out our catapults.

  That was around the corner of the wall from me, though, so I dashed back toward the trees to see what new poison they were sprouting.

  Fintan returned to himself and held out his hands, forestalling any applause.

  “As this was happening, Gorin Mogen’s trusted firelord, Volund, had taken a glass boat north and spotted the dark mass of the Nentian army advancing on the Hathrim city in the early dawn. He was the only lavaborn among a crew mainly employed in rowing against the prevailing current. But a single firelord can do tremendous damage with the ability to spark, stoke, and spread flames. Squeezing a mixture of dung and hay around the tip of an arrow, he used his kenning to ignite it and shot it in a shallow arc to the grasses of the plains. Since most of the Nentians were already looking at the inferno combusting the flanks of the Godsteeth, few of them saw the single flicker off to the west, and when it disappeared into the grasses, there was no need to comment or raise the alarm. But Volund had only begun his work. Dropping his bow to clatter in the bottom of the boat, he stretched out with his kenning and pushed those flames through the grasses toward the Nentian army, and once they reached the westernmost flank of the forces, he spread them to the north and south to illuminate them, relieving the dim silhouettes of early morning. Shouts of alarm spread among the ranks, and near the front, where the mounted men were bunched, the horses shied and whinnied, and Volund grinned. The flames gave him a glimpse of a Nentian armored in bright, beautiful colors, no doubt their leader, and Volund directed the flames to spread in his direction, and once they arrived under the horse carrying him, he pushed hard and fanned those flames to engulf both horse and rider. He could hear their screams carry across the plains and the water, and he smiled, taking a moment to rest. The effort had drained him, and the Nentian forces churned and reared and shouted in panic. The fire was still there, waiting to be directed or simply burn on its own, and he could afford a short span of time to marshal his strength for another push.

  “Except he discovered a short six breaths later that he was profoundly mistaken. The mass of men behind the cavalry rippled, a wave of shadow passed among them, and then the sky darkened from a deep blue to black off to the east. A massive light-sucking flight of arrows blocked out the nascent sunrise, and Volund’s mouth dropped open as he recognized his mistake. Whoever he had killed, it wasn’t the only person capable of assessing the situation and giving quick, efficient orders. There was no evasive maneuver they could execute, no shields they could raise above their heads. He spoke a quick prayer to Thurik, and then the shower of arrows rained upon him and his crew, cutting them down and leaving their lifeless boat at the mercy of the western ocean tides.

  “Volund’s mistake was this: the immolated Nentian had not been the King’s Tactician Diyoghu Hennedigha but rather Junior Tactician Senesh—younger brother of Viceroy Bhamet Senesh—dressed purposely in the brightest regalia possible as a decoy. It was a position of honor precisely because of its danger. And so the Nentians marched on toward the Godsteeth and Baghra Khek.”

  Fintan threw down a seeming sphere and changed back into Gorin Mogen, this time dressed for battle, axe and armor aflame and teeth clenched in a savage grin.

  In my youth, before I became a Hearthfire, I used to be a timber pirate until I rose to captain my own ship and then take over Harthrad from my sire. We had to deal with thornhands as a matter of course when we raided the Fornish coast, and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed thwarting them. They are freakish creatures who become instruments of death at the sacrifice of their own lives. But they are not unstoppable. No Fornish hardwood can penetrate Mogen steel.

  Sefir and I led a cluster of lavaborn, six-foot-high shields carried purposely on our right sides as an impenetrable barrier, the wall of the city on our left as we jogged east to take out the catapults that were launching spores into the city. We heard the thornhands before we saw them. They chose their targets and quite literally planted themselves, the bones of their legs and feet cracking and transforming into strong taproots plunging into the earth, and from those roots they drew strength to trigger the rest of their violent metamorphosis, a shuddering, excruciating, and fatal process of converting flesh and blood to wood and sap and flame-resistant resin. As they died, the thornhands sent up a spine-shivering wail both from their throats and from the abrupt growth of their arms from muscled sinews into spined spears that shot out from a melting body to seek out a target, find soft flesh to pierce, invade, and sprout new thorns until something vital was shredded. Four from the first pod attacked our formation, lethal branches of thorns penetrating our wreath of flame, searching for weakness, but only one slipped through shields and axes and armor to pull down
a giant.

  Sefir and I were both targeted, but I batted away one thorned spear with my axe and we deflected the others with our shields. The formation shifted and closed up to take the place of the one fallen giant, and we advanced in lockstep, because there is a silken unconscious flow to battle at times, when there is nothing but blood to let and blood to lose and all senses are tuned to survival rather than conversation. The wit departs, and instinct takes over. And it was my instinct to kill all the Fornish I saw for killing my son.

  I sparked the arm of the nearest catapult, and once it kindled, I directed fingers of flame to lance out and ignite the hair of all the crew. I made sure to spread an extra portion to the greensleeve, igniting his silverbark arms as well as his hair, and as he and his crew cried out in pain and horror, I knew that we would prevail so long as we could outlast the thornhands.

  There is no preventing their transformation; one cannot preemptively kill them before they take their shot, because even while on fire, they have enough time to strike back before they die. All one can do, therefore, is survive their attacks, and flame-resistant is not the same as flameproof.

  Searching for a new target, my eyes slipped past the next couple of catapults to a diminutive blond woman, a greensleeve, staring at me with her fists clenched. A dark-haired man who wasn’t a greensleeve but might have some other kenning demanded her attention and pointed to something on the eastern side of the city, out of my sight around the corner of the wall. She nodded at him and jogged that way, which made me curious. What were the Fornish up to around the corner, and who was this man to give her orders? I thought that greensleeves ran things among the Fornish in the field. Perhaps she was the leader after all and he had merely delivered a message. The man remained behind, staring at me, but I let my attention refocus on the catapults; though he was no threat, they were.