Rise of the Giants: The Guild of Deacons, Book 1

by James MacGhil

  “See ya, Tiny,” I grumbled as Carrick and the rest of his crew of miscreants stood momentarily dumbfounded by the unexpected turn of events. Unfortunately that only lasted for a brief moment before they got really pissed. Then, in typical fashion, they launched into all out attack mode and descended upon me like the Mongolian horde on steroids.

  If I had a fan handy, I would have thrown some shit at it. Just saying.

  Dodging the thrust of an oversized spear, I punched its large owner square in the kneecap with my metal fist. Willing the spatha into my hand, I then cleaved his head off with one mighty strike. Nimbly dodging and slashing at a few more overzealous assailants, Carrick, the malevolent ginger, threw himself at me with blazing red eyes and dueling swords raised in the strike position. I think he was about to say something witty when I reared back and punched his carrot topped ass square in the chest with the force of a wrecking ball. Blowing backward like he’d been hit by a train, he temporarily faded from sight amidst the incoming swarm of giant bad guys.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I released Rooster and the boys from their state of suspended animation with a casual wave of my hand. Instantly snapping back into action and embracing the age old adage of ‘the best defense is a good offense’, they waded into the gaggle of oversized adversaries with supernatural prowess and a collective need for some pay back with extreme interest. Amidst the slugfest, I maneuvered to the perimeter of Abernethy’s fiery prison and began to unbind the holy flame when I heard Cooper Rayfield very southernly yell, “Look out, hoss!”

  Feeling the presence of several anakim bearing down on me, I spun to face them just as several arrows whirred past my head and plunged squarely into their eye sockets stopping them dead in their tracks. Still very much alive but evidently a bit flustered, they frantically struggled to pull the arrows out while howling in ineffable pain. Seizing the opportunity, I held out my barzel shielded hand and called for the fire. In response, a blinding circular burst of hissing white flame, highlighted with streaks of brilliant purple, erupted from my hand and literally obliterated the squad of giants leaving nothing but a sizzling minivan sized crater in the ground where they stood seconds earlier.

  “Da-gum,” blurted Coop taking post by my side while launching another series of barzel tipped arrows at the mind blowing onslaught.

  “Well said,” I muttered completely taken aback by the apparent new heights my capacity for destruction had reached. Making the mental note that I probably still needed a bit of work in the control department, I caught a glimpse of my inbound ginger buddy.

  “Catch!” Rooster yelled throwing me the Winchester while fighting, shooting, and slashing his way through the melee like he’d done this once or twice before. “More focus.”

  “Roger,” I replied cocking the shotgun lever and blowing away a hulking behemoth on his blindside who was seconds away from squashing him with a massive medieval looking sledgehammer.

  “We need to grab Abernethy and get the hell out of here!” He yelled defending Big A’s right flank. “Can you free him?”

  “Working on it,” I yelled back while loading another round and training the shotgun on the latest giant bad guy barreling toward with us with unnatural speed when a burst of crackling blue energy smacked him clear in the face.

  “Blinded with sorcery!” The anakim grunted followed by an ear splitting growl.

  Searching throughout the indescribable chaos, I spotted Stoner atop a small mound to our far right, launching a relentless bombardment of energy balls from his staff like it was a surreal pitching machine. It was rather impressive. Giving him an appreciative nod, I turned the muzzle on Stevie Wonder and put an abrupt end to the screaming.

  It was getting old.

  Flying past me in a complete blur of motion, a man-sized tornado column of greenish smoke bobbed and weaved through the mob of blinded giant combatants cleaving heads and various other body parts as it twirled about. Barely visible amidst the spinning cloud of death were two hands sticking out. Two hands with a pair of gleaming kukri knives clutched tightly in their grasp.

  “Son of Bitch,” I muttered. “Tango.”

  “Pretty cool, huh bro? That whole flying knife thing is epic,” came a guttural animal-like voice from behind me. Coming into full view and taking position to my immediate left flank was, well — I wasn’t exactly sure what the hell it was.

  Standing on two feet, it was easily seven feet tall and covered in thick waves of jet black fur. Its head was a bizarre mixture of human and canine with a threatening, blood stained maw, boasting a ridiculously large set of razor-like choppers where its mouth should be. Clothed only in a pair of black fatigue pants, its wooly upper body rippled and swelled with layer upon layer of predatory muscle. In lieu of hands, it had colossal paws with claw-like nails that looked about twenty years overdue for a clipping. And oddly, it was holding a battle axe.

  It was a dog. No — it was a man. No it was —

  “Caveman!” Yelled Coop, launching a barrage of arrows over our heads at a incoming throng of massive assailants.

  “Mick?” I blurted out, dumbstruck.

  Without so much as flinching, the apparent nephed out Caveman let out a heart stopping snarl as he instinctually spun and lurched at the incoming anakim like a — well, like a supernatural dogman wielding a big-ass battle axe I suppose. A few short seconds and a couple tufts of fur later, several giant carcasses, sans heads, plummeted to the ground with a collection of thuds.

  “You Ok?” I yelled.

  “Yeah, man,” he replied through gravelly canine vocal chords. “It was time to let the dog out.”

  “More biggins — Nine o’clock,” Coop yelled before I had the chance to respond.

  In a presumed last ditch effort to bullrush our improvised fighting position defending Abernethy, a phalanx of anakim donning what appeared to be oversized Kevlar body armor were stomping a determine beeline toward us chanting an ear splitting war cry.

  “Yeah — I got this, fellas,” Caveman growled, wiping the blood from his axe blade on a furry arm. “Lil’ D! It’s rhino time, buddy!”

  As the ground starting to quake and the sound of large galloping hooves was heard from behind us, I turned just in time to see a pig the size of a pickup truck barreling toward us in a cloud of dust. With two jagged, elephant sized tusks protruding from its elongated jaw, its massive body was a harrowing ivory white and covered in rhinoceros-like armor plating. Grisly streaks of crimson blood, that I was pretty sure belonged to somebody else, ran down the length of its massive hide. With complete and utter reckless abandon, the hog o’war was on a rapid collision course with the formation of giants. Like a runaway freight train, it didn’t even slow down as it bolted by us. Winking at Rooster and me with a predatory yellow eye, Caveman simply grasped his axe with both paws and leapt on Duncan’s meaty back like a surreal surfer catching a wave.

  Amidst a barrage of grunts, squeals, and howls, the unlikely duo proceeded to bust through the center of the enemy formation like a bowling ball splitting the frame. It was insane. And ridiculous. And incredibly awesome. All at the same time.

  “Didn’t see that coming,” I mumbled under my breath sending another few fireball rounds downrange while making the mental note to address the topic of Cavemanimal and Moby D at a later time.

  “Dean! The portal!” Rooster yelled with blazing red eyes while pointing to our rear.

  Spinning around to view the inter-dimensional doorway still intact a good twenty feet behind us, a surge of panic shot through me. While it seemed we were temporarily winning the battle, we were clearly losing the war. The portal was fading as was our hope of getting out of this shit show. I needed to do something.

  Now.

  “Yo! Mr. Wizard!” I yelled trying to get Stoner’s attention.

  “What’s Up?” He yelled back still peppering the battlefield with blue energy blasts like a mystical machine gunner.

  “Can you spread some mojo on the portal and keep the door op
en a little longer?”

  “Maybe,” he yelled. “I’ll need to stabilize the tether on the Earth side. It’s running out of juice.”

  “Do it,” I barked while cocking the shotgun lever and casually blasting a hole through a rather nasty looking large fellow launching a frontal assault at us. “Now!”

  “I’m on it,” Stoner replied executing a wizardly combat roll and making a break toward the portal entrance.

  “Coop, you go with him,” I yelled dodging a humungous spear rocketing toward my torso. “We’ll mop up here and be right behind you.”

  Spitting a wad of tobacco juice while shooting me a look that clearly indicated he wasn’t too keen on leaving us behind, Coop lowered his bow and reluctantly said, “Aw’ite. Ya’ll don’t make me wait too long.”

  “Deal,” I grunted giving him a stern nod. Catching glimpse of a familiar pear-shaped figure clad in a really nice pinstriped suit inconspicuously skulking toward the portal entrance amidst the chaos, I said, “Do me a favor on your way out and make sure Uncle Skipper sticks around. I have something for him.”

  Pulling two broad heads from his quiver, that somehow never needed replenishing, Coop drew back and launched them across the meadow like ballistic missiles. Offering me a satisfied grin as they slammed into Skip’s flabby arms and forcefully impaled him on a mammoth redwood, he said, “Dun and dun. See you soon, pard.”

  Quickly joining Stoner at the flickering portal, they crossed the threshold and faded back to the Earth.

  Making note of all the painful things I was going to do to Uncle Skipper when the time came, I scanned the combat zone taking stock of the situation. At first glance, it appeared we’d put down a good two thirds of the anakim horde, and I was fairly confident the rest were soon to follow at the hands, paws, and tusks of my erstwhile colleagues. But there was something else. Something stirring on the very edge of the far horizon.

  Something bad.

  Closing my eyes, I focused my Sight and projected it across the mangled landscape. Catapulting across the great distance like a powerful zoom lens, it slammed to a halt as my eyes shot open.

  “What is it?” Rooster yelled while repeatedly squeezing off barzel tipped rounds from his pistols like it was the OK Corral. “What do you see?”

  “More company on the way,” I blankly muttered. “Time to go.”

  And by ‘more company’, I meant a seemingly infinite legion of giant creatures pouring from every crevice in the mountain range like a colony of pissed of ants.

  Must of have been something about the look on my face that prompted him to hold all further questions and simply mutter, “Got it. You take care of Big A. I’ll round up the rest of the crew. Meet at the portal in two minutes.”

  “Make it one.”

  Nodding affirmation, Rooster began to haul ass toward the twirling cloud of green smoke when a sword hurtled through the air like a bolt of lightning and sunk hilt deep in his chest. Without so much as a grunt, his eyes flashed a blazing red as he ripped it out and threw it to the ground with a single, fluid motion. Scanning the near vicinity for the source of the attack, a second sword rocketed toward his head. Before I could even yell ‘Look Out,’ Rooster’s skin turned bright red as he casually batted the blade away like it was a twig.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” he snarled in a deep, very unRoosterlike voice. “Carrick.”

  Incredibly red from head to toe, Rooster’s estranged brother slowly emerged from within a nearby grove of trees. Bare chested and bloodied, his eyes blazed with madness.

  “Then better — I shall do, brother. You will not leave this place.”

  As Rooster stomped off like Achilles about to throw down with Hector outside the gates of Troy, I looked down at my catatonic archdeacon kneeling within his purple flamed prison, and grumbled, “So much for Plan A.”

  Chapter 37

  So, the fact we were staring down permanent residency in this jacked-up bizzaro world, and literally within minutes from being trampled by a raging stampede of countless titanic beasties, was instantly lost on my man Rooster. He evidently had something more important to tend to. A debt to settle. One that was long overdue.

  After all, Hell hath no fury like a ginger scorned. Everybody knows that.

  As Rooster and Carrick hatefully circled each other in an ominous prelude to the imminent O’Dargan family slugfest, I turned my attention to Abernethy.

  “First things first,” I muttered focusing on the holy flame binding his thoughts. Placing both hands on the ground amidst the circle of purple fire, I concentrated my will in attempt to gain control of it. And after a few long seconds and a screaming headache later, it started working. Like dust to a supernatural vacuum cleaner, the divine matter began to slowly crawl into my gauntlets and simply dematerialize under the crushing force of the Wrath. Doing my damnedest to maintain focus on the tedious and incredibly painful task, the cloak flared on my shoulders and I felt the presence of something flying toward me at a high rate of speed. Looking up just in time to realize that the something was actually Rooster, I braced for impact as he slammed into me knocking the both of us ass over tea kettle.

  “You have grown weak, brother,” I heard Carrick bellow, laughing a deep throated, horrible cackle. “Face me in your true form, Eóin O’Deargáin. Or do you choose to die like a human? Slain like the pet you’ve become.”

  With Rooster temporarily down for the count, I pulled the shotgun from its sheath and spun to my feet in a blur of motion while cocking the lever. As I decisively swung the muzzle toward Carrick fully intending to blow a hole in his chest and call it a day, I found myself completely awestruck by what I saw standing opposite me. It was not a man. It was a thing.

  A hulking, beastly thing that stood an easy ten feet tall with scaly, blotched red skin of chiseled muscle and veiny tissue. Its bony, deep recessed shoulders were three times too wide for its frame, making its already taut torso look just that much more sinister. Peering at me through eyes like orbs of blazing fire, its beaming face was a hellish compilation of spiny ears, barbed yellow teeth, and a hooked beak-like nose. Looming over me with sinewy, sculpted arms that hung ominously well past its double jointed kneecaps, its ghastly claws and ridiculously large razor tipped talons gleamed in the daylight. Yep, I said talons — like some shit you’d see on a frigg’n velociraptor.

  And if all that wasn’t enough, completing the traumatizing package was a fine layer of orange flame silhouetting its entire massive physique.

  “Fuck me,” I muttered to myself. “So that’s a liderc.”

  “I do not fear you, Deacon,” Carrick growled in a deep, very discomforting voice looking down at me. “I am fear.”

  “Yeah,” I grumbled. “I’m frigg’n terrified. Can’t you tell?”

  Raising the Winchester to my shoulder, I trained the muzzle on his washboard stomach and blasted his sorry ass with a hissing fireball.

  Fully expecting him to shrivel up and go poof, I was more than disappointed when he instead starting laughing, and effortlessly slugged me in the chest with a monstrous fist.

  “I was conceived in the Fires of Gehenna,” he bellowed as his face curled into a dark scowl. “You are powerless in my presence. Death is upon you, Deacon.”

  “Already tried death,” I snarled picking myself off the ground as I willed the spatha into being. “It didn’t agree with me.”

  In a spectral flash, the sword manifested in my metal covered hand as I leapt at the liderc with blinding speed while ripping the otherworldly blade at its wretched, gaunt neck.

  Smiling a wicked grin, the beast simply batted it away and dismissively swatted me to the ground like an insect. Staggering to my feet with my head swimming, I struggled to get my bearings as the liderc circled me like a shrewd predator toying with its prey.

  “You should not have come here,” it said unequivocally and without any hint of emotion. “I am going to end you now.”

  And much to my chagrin, the situation degraded
pretty quickly from that point forward.

  Despite the fact I was running on uber overdrive with the cloak’s full compliment of divine power surging through my system, I didn’t so much as catch a glimpse of the next blurring strike from Carrick’s gangly, talon tipped claw until it was inches from ripping my head off. As the solemn severity that somehow this infernal creature was completely out of my league hit me like a ton of bricks, I quickly came to an inevitable conclusion.

  It was going to end me. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it. But, for some inexplicable reason — I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

  “No,” I muttered assertively under my breath. My task wasn’t finished. Not yet.

  As my face curled into a defiant scowl and the razor tips of massive talons tore into my neck, something happened to prove me right.

  As if on cue, another liderc stepped between us.

  A bigger one.

  And it winked at me as if to say ‘I’ll take it from here.’

  “I am not weak, brother,” growled a fully nephed out Rooster in a gravelly, guttural voice dripping of rage as he caught Carrick’s arm in mid strike and squeezed it until bones started cracking. “I — Am — Angry!”

  He then let out an ear splitting roar and proceeded to pop open a venti sized can of red hot whoop ass. The talons of fury went to quick work slashing and ripping scaly flesh as the twelve foot, hulking frame of the red Rooster moved with impossible grace and uncanny precision as he pummeled the ever living piss out of his brother. With blinding speed barely perceptible to the human eye, he delivered blow after epic blow, cleaving muscle from bone in a fury fueled trance. Slamming Carrick on the ground like a nightmarish rag doll, Rooster glared at me and growled, “Tend to Abernethy.”

  “Ah, Yeppers,” I replied, snapping out of the temporary state of elated shock and quickly turning my attention back to Big A. As the battle raged between the Brothers O’Dargan, and the swarm of unnatural beasties poured from the mountains, I picked up where I’d left off with the holy flame liposuction treatment. Having momentarily run out of anakim to slay, Tango, Cavemanimal, and the Great White War Pig huddled around me taking in the spectacle.