Giantfall

by F. A. Bentley

  Only Rurikovich was big enough to tower over the all enveloping mist, and he didn’t waste more than a second to fall back on his favorite tactic.

  I ran at a dead pace towards the Vetti gunline, my footsteps making enough of a clang on the iron disc supporting us that Rurikovich could hear. Without a moment of hesitation, he swung one of his claws in a great reaping arc.

  Rurikovich not caring one bit for his minions was no surprise for me. That’s why I foresaw the attack and ducked. The Goblins were less lucky. A chorus of dismayed voice cried out and were quickly silenced. Thankfully, the fog spared me from seeing more than a few Goblin spare parts littering the floor.

  “Cheap tricks. You think there aren’t more where they came from?” Rurikovich’s voice echoed, deep and raspy.

  I sensed him shifting his weight again, the great disc that was the floor listing with the movement. He was winding up for another slash that could easily tear a Jotun in two. I leaped up onto a nearby ledge and then above the strike as it came. Feet back onto the metal floor, my heart raced with exhilaration. His change in form traded one weakness for another. What he lost in frailty, he gained in unwieldy movement.

  That’s when his tail, as thick and hard as a respectable tree’s log, hit me like freight train. I felt the blow crunch into my side, a feeling of weightlessness suddenly impressed itself upon my consciousness, and then nothing.

  Chaos erupted all at once. It took me a while to prop my eyelids up, and when I did, a swirling chaos came to me in snippets just barely seen past the thinning fog.

  I think I saw Hjelti chopping at the Linnormr’s leg to little avail, taking blow after blow until he was finally caught undefended. His left arm was crushed beneath Rurikovich’s claw, but just before the final blow was dealt, my ears began ringing.

  Just a few feet ahead of Hjelti, Smith had hidden in the last gloaming swirls of retreating mist. The bullet she had fired left a visible tunnel in the fog, lead straight up and at the dread serpent’s head.

  The shot, propelled by a marriage of magic and cutting edge tech, found its mark, striking Rurikovich in the side of his serpentine head and leaving a sizable crater on his scaly cheek.

  I smiled weakly. Looks like we were all out of luck. The durability of dragon scale had apparently not been exaggerated enough in the old stories.

  “Can you believe there are people out there who like romance and stuff more than watching giants and wizards duke it out with rogue Soviet warlords turned Linnormr?” asked Lis, sitting cross legged next to me in full mourning getup.

  Black kerchief. Black veil. I managed a weak smile.

  “Am I dead?” I asked.

  “Matthew twenty four, line four: Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Charles Montgomery Locke,” Lisistrathiel replied.

  “That’s John Donne, not the Bible,” I replied without missing a beat.

  “Just checking to make sure you’re paying attention. Like your play thing is. Look.”

  Smith flinched as Rurikovich locked his gaze onto her, his head snapping forth like a cobra’s, set to devour a mouse. As he struck out, Brigitte appeared before Smith, and opened her palm towards the dread serpent. No fire, ice, or lightning exploded from her hand. Just light.

  Enough light to sear the retinas of anyone staring directly at the spell. Rurikovich reared his ugly head and screeched in agony. He went berserk, stamping his feet and swiping his tail all around until he finally got lucky.

  My body was numb, my limbs refused to obey as I watched Rurikovich’s claw catch Hjelti right across his chest. The Giant groaned, bloody trails carved into his flesh, and fell down to the ground. The sound was that of an elephant collapsing.

  “They need you, you know,” Lis said.

  Smith rolled out from behind Hjelti’s collapsed frame, quickly drawing her rifle to her eye and firing again.

  A bullet striking dragon scale makes a very mild ‘thunk’ sound. This shot made a ‘plop’ sound.

  Rurikovich’s left eye erupted in a shower of black blood, drawing another ear piercing roar from the great snake’s lengthy throat. Instead of going berserk however, Rurikovich adapted. He tilted back his head, gathered in a full breath, and then vomited a cloud of cloying fumes.

  “Thank you Lis,” I spoke in a low murmur.

  “Hm?” Lis sounded almost surprised as I stood on uncertain feet.

  “For the pep talk I mean. You must be a terrible Devil for getting this sentimental with me,” I added before heaving myself into a full run.

  I almost tripped over myself as I jammed my nose into my sleeve and ran headlong into the toxic fumes. I could hear ragged desperate coughs as I ran past Smith’s prone form, struggling for a fresh breath of air before my ears picked up a shrill feminine cry.

  The fumes parted enough that I saw Rurikovich’s teeth sink into Brigitte’s forearm painfully, a look of dismay passing over the Giantess' face as I sped up to a full sprint.

  I reached into my pocket, drew out that drunk Dwarvish bastard’s trump card, and swung it as hard as I possibly could right at Rurikovich’s face.

  Chapter 32

  With the force of a sonic flavored atomic bomb, the hammer of tumultumancy caught Rurikovich right in the side of his mouth.

  Shards of shattered fangs, pitch black blood, and a screech of surprise filled the air as the dread serpent’s head was sent careening into the cavern side, taking with it the support mechanism for one of the chains that held the immense metal disk suspended above the abyssal depth the waterfall drained into.

  The metal disk that made up the floor of The Careful One’s tomb groaned with the loss of one of its supports and the whole thing listed drunkenly to one side beneath Rurikovich’s gargantuan weight.

  “It’s going to collapse. Quick!” I called out, but no one moved.

  Hjelti lay perfectly still. Smith was wracked with a fit of hacking coughs. Fear thrilled up my spine at the thought of us all going down with Rurikovich until Brigitte rose up, her bitten hand limp at her side. She grabbed her brother by the scruff of his neck.

  “I have this oaf. Help Smith,” she called out.

  Throwing the barely conscious gun mage over my shoulder, I’d just made it onto the dark stone of the tomb’s entrance hall when I heard a whirring clank.

  The second support had snapped, and with it, a wail of hapless terror erupted from the surviving Goblins.

  Brigitte groaned with exertion, tossing her brother all the way to the mouth of the cavern before the whole disc collapsed. Vetti screamed. Rurikovich roared in futile fury, and Brigitte smiled at me before disappearing from sight.

  My heart leaped into my throat as I threw myself to the edge of the stone entrance. My hand reached out and I tightened my grip around a slender wrist.

  “Brigitte!” I called out.

  Just in time. Dangling over an abyssal pit of despair, my weakening grip her only life line, Brigitte hung on to a thread of hope.

  When I caught her eyes with mine, she smiled, a single tear escaping to run down her cheek. “It’s alright. I know I’m heavy. Thank you. Even though I’m a Jotun, and you’re--”

  “Oh no you don’t,” I called out, gripping her wrist with my other hand, struggling to pull her up with all my might.

  “You don’t get to die until we have that rendez-vous you promised! I mean it!”

  Brigitte blinked back tears, a look of surprise filtering over her face.

  “Charles…” she said, as I felt my grip weaken.

  And then it weakened some more. Another breath later, a little more. And then? A leather clad arm reached down, grasped Brigitte’s other wrist, and with a combined effort, the Giantess was pulled up to the safety of the ledge.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. My heart still beating hard and fast. “Thank you Smith. I owe you one.”

  “I’ll remember your words, demon monger,” replied the Cazador.

  For some reason, his scowl made me crack a grin. Happiness? Genuine camaraderie?


  It was not to last.

  A sound similar to fingernails scraping chalkboard reached our ears, followed by a low growl and the pungent scent of rotten bog.

  I turned back towards the abyssal pit to find serpentine coils billowing out of it. Fresh sweat stained my brow as the jagged one-eyed head of a certain Linnormr rose over the ledge.

  Rurikovich cocked a venomous grin at me, stamping his left claw into the mouth of the cavern for leverage. The gaping hole where his eye used to be had already begun to scab over. The regenerative powers of the great serpents was terrifying to behold.

  “Checkmate, Locke. When you get to Valhalla, tell them that I will be by shortly to tie up some loose ends.”

  With finality, the Rurikovich drew in another breath of venomous fumes. It was all he needed to melt and bake us into a nice dragon pastry. He sucked in a breath, and as he did, I noticed the shine of something I’d missed before.

  There were five clawed fingers on his right ‘hand’. How is this relevant, you ask? Because, I could only see four on his left. When you’re faced with a problem as big as a Linnormr, you don’t sweat the little trivia. Usually people focus on the important things like what is it’s weak point? Where is the heart I have to drive a cruise missile into in order to kill it? And so forth.

  However, I learned in that split second that Andvari’s little cursed ring didn’t turn all of it’s host into a Linnormr. Just everything below where the ring rested.

  Tucked between his third and fourth claw, I saw Rurikovich’s gnarled, human-sized ring finger, the glint of the ring of cursed gold. In one fluid motion, in the split second before the dread serpent exhaled, I drew my wand, willed a sword of hardened arcana to life upon it, and slashed it down on Rurikovich’s ring finger.

  “Eh?” Rurikovich grunted as his bulk trembled.

  A moment later, the magic keeping him transformed fell apart and hastily reverted him to his crippled mortal form.

  Gone was the Linnormr’s scales and fumes. Rurikovich the mortal man was still holding his breath when gravity caught up with him, and he screamed long and loud as fell into the pit below.

  As exhaustion finally weighed down upon my shoulders, I turned away from the edge and muttered, “When you get to Hell, Rurikovich, tell them I want to file a grievance report against Lis.”

  I picked up the old man’s severed finger and handed it to Brigitte. I’m sure the Jotun would be most eager to find a nice deep hole to seal it back away into. A sigh of relief escaped my throat.

  As the clattering chaos of displaced stone and Dwarven masonry fell into the yawning abyss, I forced myself back onto unsteady feet. It was going to be quite the victory march out of this place.

  If anyone could still walk, at least.

  Chapter 33

  “Mead,” said a familiar voice, as I swilled the last of my gin and tonic at the bar.

  I didn’t even need to turn my head to know who it was.

  “It’s a bit early to start drinking, Brigitte,” I said.

  The NORN agent, in the guise of a Human woman in a ravishing dress, snorted at my response.

  “I could drink you under the table any day of the week Charles. So don’t go giving me ideas.”

  “I have ideas of my own as far as what might happen underneath a given table, Ms. Helmsdottr. Shall I give you those ideas instead?” I replied.

  Brigitte flushed bright crimson, cleared her throat, and then downed half of the immense mug of mead she’d ordered.

  It had been three days since Nine Towers and NORN had swooped in to tie up loose ends. They planted their little flags in the remains of the operation and then proclaimed loud and proud that everything had gone down just as planned. Their gratitude towards the people who had actually done the heavy lifting, however, had left me wanting.

  “I told you. Doing it without glamours would be impossible,” came her reply.

  “You say it as though doing the impossible isn’t a daily affair for me.”

  Brigitte grinned mischievously but dodged the topic: “What amazes me is how Rurik could have had such a expert’s understanding of the inner workings of the whole pantheon. Sure, he’d found magic before and used it, but...”

  “But how could he have possibly known just what to do? Where to find disgruntled minions just waiting for a mastermind? How to put pressure and where? The location of Andvari’s Ring?” I suggested in quick succession.

  Brigitte nodded.

  I shrugged. “Maybe Rurikovich really liked to read up on things. Maybe as a KGB spook he knew all that there was about getting information. Maybe as a revolutionary himself, he knew just what downtrodden people look like. And just what buttons to push. And maybe, just maybe...”

  “He had someone nudge him,” Brigitte said, trying to suppress a hiccup.

  I pursed my lips.”Ripples in a pond.”

  An unpleasant silence stained us. It was a dangerous question that required a Hazmat suit and an archaeology team worth of deep digging before anything resembling a truth could be unearthed.

  This was no way to celebrate a victory.

  “Hjelti?” I asked.

  “He was chatting up a Valkyrie that was tending his wounds last I saw him.”

  I tried to wipe the smirk off my face. “Jotunheim?”

  “Back in Giant hands. Walls patch up easy. Pride does not,” Brigitte said, downing the rest of the mead.

  “I know the feeling. What about the Vetti?”

  “Dealt with. Gathered en masse and kicked out into the woods. The major trouble makers got a private invite to the headsman’s block though.”

  “Tough break.”

  “The treacherous scum deserve worse,” she replied, cold anger caking every word.

  “And what about you? What about your arm?”

  Brigitte scoffed. “You say that like you want to kiss it better.”

  “I’d prefer to kiss other things, but if you think that’d make quality foreplay who am I to refuse?”

  Brigitte’s face went tomato-that’s-been-set-on-fire red, nearly falling off of the bar stool. I grabbed her hand, and as I did, I saw her eyes light up with passion.

  “You know. I actually think I have enough mead in me right about now to--”

  What’s the opposite of saved by the bell? Doomed by the bell? The bell that doomed me sounded like a sharp ring tone coming from Brigitte’s cell phone. I opened my mouth to say something, but all that came out was a sigh.

  “Business before pleasure?” I asked.

  Brigitte shot me an apologetic look before taking the call. Not thirty seconds later, another ring caught my attention. From my cell phone this time. I groaned.

  Walking my way out the back door of the upscale tavern, I flipped my phone open in the cold winter air.

  “Goddammit,” I barked into my cell. “What now? I requested time off for just one evening. So help me God all the worlds nukes better have simultaneously launched to justify this--”

  “Crack!” came the reply. “That sound you just heard was my delicate little girl heart shattering into a million pieces. I’m nothing but a shade of a woman now, doomed to forever haunt the world after Charlie screamed so horribly at me for no good reason.”

  I blinked. “Lis? Where are you?”

  “Six o’ clock,” she said.

  As I craned my neck a hundred and eighty degrees, I saw her fiendish form conspicuously standing at the mouth of the alley behind me. Her figure blotted out the lamp light streaming in from the street.

  She was wearing a suspiciously reserved coat and jeans ensemble. If I didn’t know any better I’d say she looked downright Mundane. Mortal. She wasted no time closing the distance between us and pressing a horrifyingly chaste kiss upon her fingers, which she then mashed onto my cheek.

  Cooties.

  “My hero,” Lis gushed. “You’ve got me head over heels Charlie. I’m just so proud of the way you slew that terrible Linnormr and...”

  “Pride is a cardinal sin,
” I sharply replied.

  Lis raised jagged eyebrows in surprise, before letting out a deep, mirthful chuckle. “Oh, is it now?”

  “What do you want? I’m on a date with Brigitte.”

  “Well, I mean, I know you wanted time off but I was just digging through your emails and I saw this urgent--”

  “You were what?” I exploded.

  The she-devil shot me a dirty look. “I said your emails Charlie, not your internet history. Relax.”

  Slowly, monstrously, Lis revealed her pointy tail holding two crunched up plane tickets. “Surprise! The best reward for work well done is...”

  “More work,” I said, dying a little more on the inside.

  “You remembered that one well,” Lis replied, giving me an approving nod. “So then, two questions.”

  “I think I have it all figured out Lisistrathiel.”

  “Oh? And just what have you figured out?” she asked.

  “I’m already dead, in Hell, and you’re just a really creative Devil assigned to torture me for the rest of eternity in elaborately cruel and unusual ways.”

  Lis laughed long and loud before offering me an unsettling, “Maybe. Two questions Charlie.”

  “What?” I asked, heaving another sigh.

  Goodbye Brigitte. So long victory sex. Farewell meaningful relationship with a charming woman in the same line of work as I.

  “Do you speak French?” Lis asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, that’s where the plane tickets lead to.”

  “Excellent. I could use some aged wine after this conversation. Lots of it. Second question?” I asked, forgetting for a split second just who I was dealing with.

  Lis grinned diabolically. “How do you plan on ever making it up to me for not only graciously giving you the hint that led you to Helheim, but also that little pep talk at the very end too?”

  I swallowed. “Do you want me to give you some ideas? Or do you--”

  “Girls like me always know what they want Charlie. Now, hush and let me think.”

  This was bad. By taking the advice she’d offered, I’d more or less given her the soul equivalent of a blank check. She could ask for just about anything from me and it’d be an offer I couldn’t refuse. Murder. Desecration. Kidnapping.