by Keith Walsh
In the distance, they heard a woman scream and the pair made haste towards it. Sister held a hand out and a light shone from it that cut through the mist. Along its corridor effect, taloned hands reached in from the mist.
Dallious prepared himself.
Chapter 31
Kalen sat staring at the two giants in the centre of the clearing, one of them staring back. “I got your message,” he said, tossing a dagger to Atheles’ feet. He stooped and picked it up, tucking it back into his belt. “I don’t see the child anywhere,” said Kalen, scanning the area. “I presume that is why you have not already killed him?” he added, pointing at Gallant. Atheles stepped into his brother.
“I’m sorry Gallant. I would have let you go but it’s too late now,” Atheles said. “I’m sorry too brother,” Gallant sighed, “I have no wish to kill you.” Normally Atheles would have laughed at such a statement but this time all he felt was dread. He knew neither he nor his brother would break their oath and so one of them must die and he had beaten Haggard.
“You cannot win Gallant.”
“I guess we will see.”
The two giants began to circle each other, axes at the ready. “Wait!” said Kalen, dismounting and moving to stand beside Atheles. “What is it?” asked Atheles. “If you kill him how will we ever find the child?” Kalen asked. “Don’t worry, neither of you are going to kill me,” retorted Gallant before lunging at Atheles, his axe cleaving downward.
Atheles blocked it, then swung his to the side taking Gallant’s with it. Their axes came to rest on the ground, and Atheles shoulder-barged his brother. Gallant fell back. “Well, at least try not to kill him right away,” said Kalen, calmly stepping aside. He knew Atheles to be a champion of the arena and his interest in seeing him fight someone of equal size got the better of him. Helped, of course, by the fact that he considered Gallant to be no match for himself at all.
With a bellowing war cry Gallant attacked again, this time swinging his axe for his opponent’s head. Atheles ducked it with ease and sliced his own blade across Gallant’s exposed stomach. It bit, but not deeply. Gallant cursed. “I could have spilled your guts with that one brother,” said Atheles, allowing Gallant a brief respite to consider the damage. Brother!? thought Kalen. “Hold on a minute. You two are brothers?” he called out. Gallant said nothing but Atheles nodded. “Why on Earth would you be willing to kill each other?” Kalen asked incredulously. Before either could answer he spoke again. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I really couldn’t care less but I am intrigued.”
“Because we are fools Kalen,” said Atheles and he noted Gallant didn’t like that, his expression of disgust giving it away. “Ah so you are honourable,” said Kalen, understanding what Atheles answer really meant. “So let me guess, Atheles is sworn to protect me, and you,” he pointed to Gallant now, “…are sworn to protect the child.” Gallant spat. He understood his brother’s oath but the man he stood by was a prick and the giant wanted nothing more than to shut his hawk-nosed smug-fucking-face.
His anger rising, he used it. He swung his axe in the way he would when splitting logs back home. It meant all the power was in the blade and he hoped it would smash his brother’s axe in two. But Atheles knew better then to try to block such a move and instead sidestepped it. Then he lashed his big boot into the side of his brother’s knee, sending him screaming to the ground. Had Atheles come to terms with ending Gallant’s life he would have cleaved his head from his shoulders in a follow-up attack but he refused the move. Instead he stepped back, allowing the giant to limp to his feet.
“You are no match for me brother. I could have killed you twice already.” Gallant eyed Atheles. He knew he spoke the truth but he would not lay down his arms. If the man known as Kalen wanted Amber, then Atheles would have to kill his brother to have her. If they can find her, he thought. “You know Atheles,” Gallant began, raising his axe blade to Kalen who bowed elaborately. “If you are so convinced that your master over there is capable of killing me, then you would not be breaking your oath by stepping aside.”
Atheles knew what his brother meant. He didn’t know Kalen and most likely thought he could beat the smaller man. Atheles knew better of course. Still the words made sense to him in another way. He hated his oath to Kalen. Yearned to be free of it. The only way for that to happen was for him or Kalen to die. Gallant could not beat either of them, unless…
“Where’s the child Gallant?” said Atheles, his tone sinister.
“Long gone from here,” he said coolly. “Is that so?” continued Atheles, a malevolent look in his eyes. “I think you’re lying to me brother. You didn’t have time to hide—” Gallant didn’t give his brother a chance to finish, launching several swift attacks, and varying the angles and strength. Atheles blocked or parried each with relative ease. His brother had skill, no doubt about it, but he was no match. It didn’t matter. Atheles had made his decision, helped by Gallant’s reasoning.
He blocked an over-head attack and using the same trick Haggard had against him: he slid his axe shaft down along his brother’s until the blades were caught on each other. Then he heaved, trying to wrench his brother’s weapon clear. Gallant resisted at first but eventually Atheles proved too strong and his axe flew through the air to land far away. Atheles followed up with a vicious kick to his brother’s groin that sent him dropping to his knees, his hands between his legs.
Gallant stayed kneeling with his eyes closed, his every sense trying to fight back the pain. Atheles stood over him, refusing any deathblow. For his plan to work, he needed Gallant to recover enough to think about the hunting knife he always carried in his boot. Atheles knew his brother carried that knife everywhere since childhood. And right now it was vital his brother remembered it too. Kalen watched on with heightened interest. The deathblow would be delivered any second now and where he had once been concerned about Atheles killing the giant before, his blood lust had the better of him now.
Gallant’s eyes watered and through blurry vision he fought hard to focus on his brother. His senses returning to him slightly he reached his hands down to his boots as if resting them there. In truth he was reaching for his hunting knife but to do so with only one hand would look suspicious. He couldn’t believe Atheles stood savouring his killing blow so much. Why had he decided to turn so ugly at the end?
Pushing such thoughts from his mind, he gripped the hilt of his knife and waited.
Atheles saw his brother’s hands move to his boots and he knew what it meant. Gallant was smart to have tried to disguise it but Atheles knew him better then he thought. I hope you will have the courage to do what is needed brother, for you will die by my hand if you do not, thought Atheles. And with that he gave a fearsome war cry before purposefully performing an elaborate whirlwind attack with his axe, intended to take the head from someone’s shoulders but he aimed it too high.
Gallant reacted, pulling his hunting knife smoothly from his boot and lunging it into his brother’s exposed belly. Atheles let out a yell as the knife hit home. Gallant exploded to his feet, hand tightly gripping the hilt to ram the blade deeper with all his might. Atheles slumped, blood spurting from his mouth and Gallant caught him. As he carefully lowered Atheles’ dying body to the ground he whispered in Gallant’s ear, “Thank you brother, for you have freed me from hell.”
By the time the two giants touched the soaked earth Atheles was dead. Realisation suddenly hit Gallant – he hadn’t beaten his brother, Atheles had chosen to die. To be free at last from an oath that haunted his very soul. Gallant burst into tears, cradling his brother’s body, rocking it back and forth. “I’m sorry Atheles. I am so sorry,” he said, hugging the lifeless frame. He looked to the sky, the rain pummelling against his face, and he shouted, “Father, forgive me.”
Kalen’s slow clapping killed any further moment Gallant may have had. He stared at the smaller man, his eyes burning. Kalen returned it with his famously cold eyes but Gallant felt no fear. Laying his brother’s body gently do
wn, he reached out and picked up Atheles’ winged battle-axe. Rising purposefully, all pain in his body gone and now replaced with a seething hatred for the man drawing his rapier. He advanced.
“You really don’t know what you’re dealing with, do you?” said Kalen, cool as the rain that fell. Gallant ignored him. He blazed forward with unnatural speed for a man of his size, his axe swinging with purpose. Kalen’s weapon was not designed to try to block something with so much weight behind it as an axe so he settled for outstanding footwork and partial parries.
Despite Gallant’s frenzied state he didn’t stand a chance, taking several slicing cuts from varying angles and stinging ripostes. Blood flowed from his many wounds and he could feel his strength start to wane. Kalen was toying with him and Gallant knew it. Many of his attacks could have ended the giant’s life, but he chose not to. Atheles had been right – Gallant didn’t know what he was dealing with. Thinking of his brother he used it to fuel another flurry of blows but again he failed to land any, and again he received more injuries. The man’s skill was uncanny. Eventually, exhausted and dripping in blood, Gallant stopped.
“Why don’t you just get it over with?” said Gallant, heaving. Kalen circled him, staying just out of reach and Gallant followed. “Because you still have not told me where the child is…” he said. “You never asked,” Gallant said. “I figured my odds of getting a positive response would be better once you had experienced my skill,” said Kalen, grinning.
“You were wrong,” Gallant said.
Kalen’s grin ceased. He locked his cold eyes on Gallant and this time the giant did feel something. Not fear, but regret. After learning so much from Matias about the gifted he was looking forward to sharing his knowledge with Amber and potentially having the chance to watch her grow but now that would not be a reality. He took some pleasure from knowing that she was safe.
“Mr Giant?”
Gallant froze as Amber’s little voice sounded from behind him. A feeling of dread flowed over him and his stomach churned. He dared not look around but hearing his pet name again he had no choice. There in her blanket, looking like a nun, stood Amber. “I couldn’t hide any longer. Are you okay?” Her question was answered when Gallant turned to face her, his body a bloody mess. She screamed and ran towards him but his booming voice brought her to an immediate halt. “Princess, you should not have come out. Run—”
He never got a chance to finish his words. Pain shot through him and with a gurgled sound emanating from his mouth he looked to his chest wide-eyed to see the bloodied tip of a rapier jutting out. “I don’t need you to tell me where the child is now, do I?” came Kalen’s mocking voice as he wrenched the blade clear. Gallant tried to turn. He wanted to stare his killer in the eyes but he fell halfway around. His lifeless body landed twisted on the wet soil. Amber cast the blanket from her and ran to Gallant’s body, bursting into tears.
“Mr Giant! Mr Giant, wake up! Please Mr Giant, please wake up!” she screamed over and over, her little hands tugging at his tattered tunic. She leaned into him, probing her fingers through his beard and kissing his cheek, begging him again and again to get up. Her tears splashed all over his body, and Amber unaware of the significance of it didn’t realise that Gallant’s wounds began to heal. Unfortunately his soul was gone and he remained lifeless.
Kalen watched on, revelling in the touching scene. He had finally caught his prey. After a long time of chasing and searching, of getting close and losing out – this time he finally had the child. He watched her little body shake as she cried uncontrollably, still trying so desperately to raise her dead protector. Former protector, he thought, smirking to himself. That was his job now. At least until he handed her over to whomever had hired him. He never met them personally having only dealt with their delegates but he was promised power beyond his wildest dreams and that appealed to him greatly because he could dream up quite a bit.
“All right. Enough of that now,” he said approaching the child. “You will come with me.” He reached out and grabbed a hold of Amber’s shoulder and she turned on him. Kalen recoiled as he saw her eyes were missing, replaced by a searing yellow that glowed like miniature suns. He retracted his hand immediately.
Suddenly he heard low menacing growls coming from the trees around the clearing and he spun in each of their direction. Lightning lit up the sky with an unnatural colour and the thunder that followed deafened him. Fear raced through his mind as the wolves showed themselves, emerging from the trees like creeping death. Their rain-soaked bodies mutating with every menacing step. Bodies growing larger, claws becoming longer, heads and fangs swelling to unearthly sizes.
Fighting for control, Kalen steeled himself. They’re just wolves, just fucking wolves, he said to himself but he knew they were different. At least now they were. He remembered the strange creature and how he had defeated that unnatural monstrosity. He would do the same here. For the first time since meeting the giant so long ago, Kalen wished that Atheles was here. Put such thoughts from your mind and focus.
Gaining a smidgen of control Kalen counted six wolves. As he did two of them bolted for him, teeth snarling. He whipped two daggers from his chest baldric and both beasts died instantly as the blades hammered into their skulls. The remaining four attacked together. Kalen spun just in time to kill another with the last of his daggers, having lost one to the old man at the tree, before he felt powerful fangs close in around his left shoulder. He screamed in pain and immediately wrenched at the jaws of the beast now latched on.
The third bit into the calf of his right leg and another of Kalen’s screams rang out. The last one jumped for his throat and he stuck his arm across it just in time to have it savaged instead of his neck. The animals ripped at his flesh and Kalen’s heart beat faster than he had ever felt before. He couldn’t stop screaming as the beasts tore at him, the pain doing everything it could to break his mind but he held on.
He remembered the young boy, whipped and broken, tied to the yard pole, and he concentrated on the pain of the whip. Imagining it biting into his skin again and again. He had developed such a tolerance for it, and now that memory helped him resist the agony searing through his body. He clamped his mouth around the snout of the wolf on his shoulder and bit with all his might. The beast dropped away with a yelp, a lump of its flesh in Kalen’s mouth.
He spat it out. “Yes, how do you like it you fucker,” he screamed, before using his free arm to pull his rapier clear and stab the wolf still savaging his leg. His efforts had no effect at first but he rammed it home again and again and eventually the beast let go, backing away to circle at a distance. The last of the animals was still locked on to Kalen’s left arm, shaking it like a ragdoll. He pierced it through one of its yellow eyes and it released him from its jaws but much to his surprise it did not die.
He stood there, being circled by three damaged but eager wolves, his body flooded with pain, his skin and clothes shredded, blood pumping from his wounds and getting pissed on by the heavens. What a way to go, he thought as the wolves came again. This time one of them pounced on his chest. Ordinarily Kalen would have evaded the blow with ease but his destroyed calf made that impossible and he was forced to take the brunt of the attack, which knocked him off his feet.
As he fell back he stabbed his rapier into the offending wolfs soft underbelly while using his other arm to stop it ripping his throat out. More pain flared as the beast’s jaws crunched down on his already tattered arm. Does it even matter anymore? he thought, his body so overwhelmed that he felt numb. The beast on top of him finally succumbed to its wounds and died, and Kalen rolled over trying to get it off him so he could free his weapon. No sooner had he dislodged it than another wolf bit into his shoulders and neck. A gurgling sound emanated from Kalen’s lips as his throat got torn to shreds. He had just enough life blood left in him to feel the remaining wolf come up between his legs and rip at his genitals. And in his mind he screamed, for he no longer had a voice.
The wolves contin
ued to rip and tear at the lifeless body, dragging it around and playing a rough tug of war with it before they finally returned back to their normal size. Once they did they died from the wounds that should have killed them but for their mutated state.
Amber had returned to her senses and pulling Gallant’s lifeless arm around her she held it there while snuggling into him, sobbing. She didn’t care about the rain. Mr Giant was gone and all she wanted was for him to come back to her. Her little body exhausted for reasons unknown to her, she fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter 32
The man and woman came upon the clearing and their hearts were filled with horror. The rain had finally stopped, the storm moving on but there was no cause for celebration. On the ground in front of them several bodies lay unmoving, one of them terribly mauled.
As they dismounted and approached, the woman retched but the man held firm although he fought back bile that flooded his mouth. He gazed upon the bodies with an odd feeling inside him but not understanding what it might be he dismissed it. Several dead creatures littered the area surrounding the badly mauled body and something in the man’s head said, wolves. Suddenly he felt a tug on his arm and he looked to see the woman pointing to a child. His heart sank. Such a waste of one so young. However, moving closer brought renewed hope as he saw her little body gently breathing. “I think she’s alive,” he said to the woman while moving to the child with more urgency.
Once by her side he confirmed his suspicions were correct and ever so gently and carefully he reached down and attempted to lift her. It proved difficult at first but eventually he managed to get her into his arms. Once there she stirred and woke and he worried that she might startle but she smiled at him and his heart melted. She was the most beautiful child he had ever seen, big brown eyes and lovely matching hair, although she looked a little worse for wear.