The Path of Giants

by B. T. Narro

  “Jon!” Reuben yelled as I veered off to make my way up onto the wall.

  “I’m going to stay out here.”

  “Are you stupid? Come on!”

  “The city might need my protection,” I said.

  “What do you hope to do against Gourfist?” he shouted incredulously.

  “I don’t know, but I want to be ready in case there is something I can do.” Although my voice didn’t sound it, I was terrified. Gourfist seemed to be heading straight for Newhaven. The creature moved at an incredible speed as he flapped his enormous feathered wings. He looked akin to an eagle, except that he had four legs and a tail, and a variety of colors from the feathers of his legs to his head.

  “Get inside, Jon!” yelled the king, now at the second story window, which was close to my level as I stayed put on the wall.

  “I might need to protect the city,” I countered.

  “You can’t offer any protection,” the king said. “He will come for you as soon as you use strong sorcery. He is looking for the demigods right now. The best thing you can do is nothing.”

  I watched Gourfist, not his majesty. He was making a beeline for the capital. It was almost as if someone was drawing him here.

  Valinox? No, it seemed too risky for such a cautious and cowardly being. Like the king said, Gourfist was after the demigods. I doubted Valinox was responsible for waking him at all. He was probably off hiding somewhere.

  Now that Gourfist was close, I could see just how big he really was. I was in no way a small man, but I would be like an insect standing before the beast. He was probably twenty feet tall from talons to beak. His wingspan was probably even greater.

  The king was right. What could I hope to do?

  I ran into the castle keep and up the stairs until I came to the same second-story room as everyone else. I saw why the king had chosen it. It had the best view of the sky and city, two windows facing north. But I couldn’t make out much with everyone crowded around them.

  I came up on Hadley’s side. “Is there anything you’ve heard in Rohaer about how to stop him?”

  “No, he’s searching for the demigods. You can only wait for him to tire himself out and return to the forest.”

  “Then why does it seem like he’s drawn to the city?”

  “Maybe Souriff is here.”

  Reuben, using the other window, turned around to face the king with a panicked expression. His majesty was standing toward the center of the room, Callie and the queen right beside him. All of them were encircled by a number of guards.

  “He’s coming for the city!” Reuben said.

  “Dammit!” The king pushed through the circle of guards.

  “Father!” Callie complained.

  Hadley and I made room at our window for Nykal to use it.

  Gourfist was slowing down as he made it over Newhaven’s wall. He seemed to be looking around as he beat his wings, bobbing in the air. As if annoyed at not finding his quarry, he let out a deafening sound that seemed to be a mixture of a piercing screech and a reverberating roar.

  As it echoed over the land, the screams of the townspeople trailed after.

  Gourfist flew toward the castle.

  “He’s coming for us!” Reuben claimed. “Do you have archers ready, sire?”

  “Archers would only irritate him. Everyone is to stand down until he leaves.”

  I didn’t blame his majesty for that order. I couldn’t imagine the number of arrows it would take to bring down a beast of this size. The archers would surely be killed first.

  Gourfist landed near the northern castle wall. His head was just higher than the wall itself. He turned around, and we lost sight of him as he lowered his body.

  There were panicked screams, then a loud crash. Splintering wood shot into the air as if he had destroyed a building. I distinctly heard a man let out the kind of scream that someone only made when he felt unbearable fear.

  Dozens more screamed in terror. Gourfist destroyed something else, more wood splintering. I wondered if he had the power to even destroy the stone wall around the castle.

  “Help!” shouted someone. Then, “No! Take me instead!”

  Horrified, I saw the body of a child thrown through the air with a trail of blood following it, the boy screaming in absolute horror. His cries didn’t last long.

  It was too much for me to stand there and do nothing. I unbuckled my sword and sheath from my belt and slammed them on an empty table.

  “Jon!” the king yelled as I went to his group of guards and took two spears from their hands.

  I stopped at the door and looked over my shoulder. “Order the archers. I’ll keep him distracted.”

  Reuben was calling me a stupid fool as I left. Ignoring him, I closed the door after me. No one else had the means of protecting themselves as well as I did. I didn’t want to see them killed.

  The king was yelling for me to return as I rushed out of the keep and up the ramp to the northern wall. A wave of fear stopped me as I was about to jump off. I lost my concentration, stilled by panic. Gourfist had the lifeless and bloody body of a man in his massive talons, but he seemed to forget about the man he had just killed as he shot a look over his shoulder at me, our heads at equal level.

  I made a quick ring of dvinia around my waist and jumped off the wall. I forced myself up before landing, slowing myself to a stop in the air. Then I landed gracefully and readied my two spears.

  I held the weapons firmly against my body as I braced for an attack, the castle wall behind me.

  It came quicker than I had anticipated, Gourfist swiping at me as if I was an annoying insect he was trying to get rid of.

  There was a loud clank as his hard talons met the tips of my spears. Twin pains ran through my sides from the force of the attack on the spears that I held against me. My feet slid against the dirt until my back hit the castle wall.

  I fell forward, dropping my spears, but I had time to pick them up. Gourfist screeched at me as he held his right talon up in a tight claw as if in pain.

  He slowly set down that talon and lifted the other above me, drenching me in shadow. I got to my knees and used the ground to brace my spears as Gourfist slammed his talon down.

  Nearly all light was lost to his shadow as the talon came over me, but there was only a gust of wind against the top of my head.

  Gourfist screeched louder this time as he snatched his newly injured talon back and stepped away from me. There was such anger in his white eyes.

  I thought this might be my moment. I gathered my mind for a powerful spell of dvinia. I wasn’t sure I would be able to do more than ruffle the beast’s feathers, but I had to find some way to get close to its head. If I couldn’t knock it over, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

  I blasted Gourfist with everything I had. His front talon was blown back as all the feathers around it whipped away, revealing dark flesh beneath for a flash.

  It took just a moment for Gourfist to find his footing again. He slashed at me with one of his two front talons. I got my spears out in front of me, pricking the tips of his talons, but the force of his attack was a bit too much for me.

  It sent me rolling backward, over the destroyed remains of a shop that used to be here. I had lost my spears in the tumble and was certain their shafts had at least bruised my sides before breaking out of my hold. Gourfist was coming for me. I dashed toward him to collect one spear and then the other, but there was no time to get them up for defense.

  I slid underneath the overhead swing of his claw and found myself beneath Gourfist when I got to my feet again. He bent his neck down and looked at me with an upside-down eagle face. Then he let out a deafening roar, the power of his voice throwing me out from under him.

  I managed not only to keep hold of my spears but also to stay on my feet as the force slid me backward. I turned halfway through, stumbling down the road as I tried to stop my momentum. Now Gourfist was between me and the castle wall. I wanted to see if archers were getting in
to place, but Gourfist’s massive body took up the entire sky in front of me.

  Gourfist lifted his now bloody talon as if to strike me but stopped when I held up my spears. He let down his talon. Although the rage in his white eyes still burned, I could sense fatigue from his slowing movements. He was not meant to wake from his slumber right now.

  But he seemed to have gained some sense as he turned his talon and moved it slowly toward me. I pointed my spears at it and prepared for another smack, but the speed of his talon only slowed more as it approached me.

  I braced myself with bent knees as my spears met the rough surface of his front talon. I was heavy with muscle, but I felt small and insignificant as he pushed me along the dirt and toward the wreckage of a home behind me.

  There wasn’t enough momentum behind his slow sweep for me to penetrate his hard flesh, and he knew this. I looked over my shoulder to find that I would soon trip over the wreckage. Once I fell, it would be over in seconds.

  I did the only thing I could think of. I tossed myself into the air with dvinia, knowing surprise was my only option. I flew right at his face and went for his eyes. I stabbed with my spear, but he was too quick for me. He opened his beak.

  I didn’t know exactly what happened, but I did feel his mouth clamp down on my body. Without teeth, however, all it did was roll me around the inside of his mouth. I tried to pierce the back of his throat with both spears that I still held, but in the dark chaos, I couldn’t be sure what was happening.

  There was suddenly light again as I found myself rolling out and falling through the air. I lost one of my spears in the tumble as I used dvinia to help myself land. Gourfist flew back with a strong beat of his wings, spitting out my other spear in a stream of blood. He screeched as he came down on top of me.

  I crouched and held my single spear with the back end of it pressed against the ground, but he shifted his attack to my surprise and scraped a claw down the front of my chest. I hollered as I fell away from him.

  Looking down, I could see some of my chest bone exposed, my shirt ripped in half.

  Gourfist went for the kill with another frontward swipe. I picked up my spear off the ground just in time, intercepting the talon with the tip. But there was so much force behind Gourfist’s attack that the spear penetrated and was ripped out of my hands as Gourfist pulled back.

  The beast screeched again, my spear stuck in his talon.

  I ran the opposite way for a breath, then took the ten long seconds necessary to heal myself, eyeing Gourfist the whole time. I was done before he was, the beast finally using his other talon to pull the spear out. He tossed it away with clear anger, looking more intelligent every moment I fought him.

  Now weaponless, my only hope was to go for the bloody spear on the ground between us, the one that had fallen out of Gourfist’s mouth. I made a dash for it, but Gourfist got his talon over it just before I made it there. He tried to swipe at me with his other talon, but I lifted myself above it with a hoist of dvinia.

  He snapped his beak at me, but I flew backward to avoid it. He was right there, snapping at me again. This time I flew high and toward him. I let myself drop to come down on his back.

  I grabbed his huge feathers for balance as he violently shook his body. The force was too much for me, whipping me around as I held on with extended arms. The feathers couldn’t take the pressure, two of them coming out. Suddenly, I was loose and rolling down his back. I tried to grab more feathers to stop myself, but I was moving too quickly.

  I hit the ground, a cloud of dirt rising up around me. I knew I had to move, even if I couldn’t see what was coming. I took off into the air again, throwing myself up and forward where I knew Gourfist to be turning around.

  Sure enough, he snapped at the ground where I had been at the same time as I rose into the air. I landed on his back again, but this time I was ready for it. I didn’t bother trying to hold on as I readied a simple spell of Fire.

  I still wasn’t very good with fire, but I was a powerful sorcerer nonetheless. I had the capability to take a simple spell and make it strong.

  A jet of fire clumsily erupted out of my hands, singeing them and catching my frayed shirt on fire. But it did the trick, as I saw his feathers catch fire.

  Gourfist writhed, throwing me from his back. With the fire spreading across both ends of my cut-in-half shirt—the heat singeing my body and forcing my eyes shut—I didn’t have the concentration to catch myself. All I could do was try not to die as I hit the ground hard.

  I’d broken enough bones in my legs by now to know that I had broken something in my right ankle. I let out a holler from the pain as I managed to finally get my flaming shirt off, then I got to work healing my ankle first in case I needed to run.

  I was starting to heal the rest of my burned body when I took a glimpse at Gourfist. He had flipped over, rolling on his back to put out the flames, smoke squeezing out from either side of him.

  I saw the bloody spear lying near his head and went running for it.

  “Fire!” I heard someone yell from the castle wall nearby.

  A rain of arrows fell into Gourfist’s underbelly. It seemed to do nothing to hurt the beast.

  He squirmed up onto his feet before the archers could load their next set of arrows. Gourfist took off into the air, and many of the archers went still with fear as his shadow fell over them. I noticed Aliana among them. She was one of the few with the sense to load a second arrow.

  That’s when I saw Hadley with one of Gourfist’s giant feathers in her hand. She must’ve run here, through the courtyard and around the wall, all the way from the keep. She was pouring blood from a vial onto the massive feather. She waved her hand over it as she murmured something, her gaze on Gourfist as the beast swiped its talon just over the parapets of the wall.

  All the archers ducked as I bit my lip in fear.

  Suddenly, Gourfist came back down to the ground and screeched again, but the sound was different. He sounded more confused than angry as he stumbled a bit.

  He whipped his head around, and that’s when I saw his eyes. There was a cloudy film over them as if he had been blinded.

  A curse! I realized.

  “Now, Jon!” Hadley yelled.

  I lifted myself up and came down onto Gourfist’s head. His feathers were long and lush everywhere, including here. They gave beneath my weight, but not enough for me to feel his flesh.

  I knew he would throw me off at any second, so I just had a moment to do this. I put all my strength behind a downward thrust, driving the spear deep below the feathers.

  I felt the spear penetrate through flesh and stop at something hard that I figured to be Gourfist’s skull, but I hadn’t broken through it.

  Gourfist threw his head back, whipping me higher into the air than I’d been in a long time. It sent me far above and over the castle wall.

  I came down fast into the courtyard, but I caught myself with dvinia and landed on my feet.

  I was about to yell for Hadley to run, expecting her curse couldn’t possibly last this long. But then I saw Gourfist take off into the air. I was right about the curse—he could see again, and I had never witnessed him this angry. If the spear was still stuck in his head, it was hidden from view.

  He landed on the parapets, ignoring the screaming archers as they ran away, Aliana included. With his pointed look at me, I realized I was out of options.

  Gourfist hopped down from the parapets so that he was right in front of me. I had no weapon as I backed away, and soon I was bumping into the inner wall of the courtyard. Gourfist closed in on me. If I had to guess his thoughts, he was deciding on the most painful way of killing me.

  Something landed in front of me so hard that dust rose up in a cloud, blocking my vision for a moment. Souriff was standing stoically in front of me when it cleared.

  “Looking for me, brother?” she asked, a hint of fear in her tone.

  Gourfist let out a beastly roar. It felt strange to see it come from the face
of an eagle. The power threw me back, but the demigod of dvinia stood her ground with her cloak whipping.

  “You’ll have to catch me first,” she said as she took off faster than any bird.

  Gourfist beat his wings, slow to match her speed.

  She led him back toward Curdith Forest, soaring away so fast that I soon lost sight of her. Gourfist shrank and shrank, and soon the castle walls blocked my view of him.

  It didn’t matter. I knew this was over, at least for me and the people of Newhaven.

  Hadley was running back into the castle, another of Gourfist’s feathers in hand. She stopped in front of me as she panted. “Are you all right?”

  “I am.”

  She smiled as she ran to me with open arms.

  I wrapped her up and held her close. I didn’t want to think about what might’ve happened to Aliana and the archers, and even perhaps myself, if she hadn’t been brave enough to run out of the castle and blind the beast.

  By the time we let go of each other, the rest of my peers were rushing out of the keep. The king was close behind them.

  “I’m sure Souriff will see that Gourfist tires himself out,” Nykal said.

  “That was incredible!” Charlie said. “Jon, you were magnificent!”

  I ignored him for the moment as I showed the king a dark look. “There are dead out there, sire.”

  He nodded. “Guards, make sure it’s safe. I’ll be out there in a moment to speak to the people.”

  The retinue of guards rushed out through the portcullis. The king eyed me.

  “I don’t know why Gourfist awoke or came here specifically, but your bravery is to be commended, Jon. Without your assistance, I’m sure many more lives would’ve been lost and the destruction of the city would be vast.”

  “I’m not sure I would be standing here if it wasn’t for Hadley’s curse,” I made sure to mention.

  “Yes, we saw that as well.” The king turned to Kataleya. “I’m expecting that you’ll no longer have any doubts about her loyalty.”