Bags took a deep breath and slapped his banger-chopper-thruster across his open palm. “The gods of battle be with me,” he growled and burst through the door, hoping that his estimation of the giants’ whereabouts would prove accurate.
The giantess, wearing a satiny, lace-trimmed peignoir, sprawled languidly across the bed; her companion stood at the window, leaning out and looking out for some clue as to the identity of the intruder.
Though he had spent many seasons in the Wilds, battling all sorts of nasty things, Bags had never before seen humanoids of this size. Fearlessly, the rugged halfling ignored the shock and followed through with his original battle plan. He charged the bed first, swatting out one, and then a second, canopy support with his banger. The heavy canopy dropped down on the reclining female like some giant net before she even had time to scream.
Bags paid her no more heed at that moment. He charged the other giant, arriving just as the towering humanoid spun about in surprise.
Bags barely knew where to hit the thing; it was simply too tall for him to hope of getting in a critical strike. Always ready to improvise, he slammed, again with the banger section, down on the giant’s toes.
“YEEEEOWW!” the giant howled, and grasped at his foot and hopped up into the air. “You chicken-stealing...”
“Goose-stealing,” came a muffled correction from under the canopy.
Bags wasn’t hearing any of it. Now using his thruster, he charged ahead, driving the stooping giant backward. Unbalanced and too startled to respond, the giant recoiled, and tumbled out of the window. More agile than his size would indicate, the giant did manage to grab the rope as he fell, but his momentum was simply too great and the act only snapped off the desk leg securing the rope’s other end, and it followed him in his drop.
Bags watched the giant plummet down into the misty shroud, then reappear above the fog for an instant on his first bounce. Thinking himself quite clever, the hobbit spun back toward the bed, spinning his weapon about to bring the chopper ominously to bear.
The giantess had risen and had managed to rip one of her arms through the canopy’s cloth. But her thrashing had only tightened the cloth’s hold on her and she stumbled and fell, hopelessly entangled.
Bags’s warrior instincts told him to rush up and finish her. He might have done it, though the idea of killing a female, even a female giant, did not please him. Bags was no slaughtering warrior, no matter how he blustered about his adventures in the Floating Cloud in Inspirit Downs. He had always preferred the thieving style of adventuring; that way, no one really got hurt, least of all himself! Now he found himself in a dilemma, though. Could he dare to leave a giantess unharmed behind him? Before he could work things out, a shriek from down the hall caught his attention.
~ * ~
“Eeek! A mouse!” the naked giantess in the bathtub squealed. “Somebody step on it! Kill it! Kill it! Hit it with a broom!” She squirmed and twisted, kicking up bubbles every which way.
Homer had not lived an adventurous life, but in The World, so full of spice and variety, he had witnessed (or thought he had witnessed) many wondrous spectacles. But the flummoxed fellow had never seen anything to match the magnificence of the sight before him now. He tried to babble out an apology for his intrusion, or a warning for the giantess to be silent, or anything at all.
Whatever he was trying to say, the giantess could only guess, for his words came out as simply, “Hummina hummina.”
While Homer hung transfixed from the crystal doorknob, the giantess leapt into action. She scrambled out the back side of the tub and grasped it in her huge hands. Giant muscles corded and flexed (and poor Homer verily swooned at the sight, dropping down to the floor and barely holding his balance) as the great lady hoisted the side of the tub.
Hundreds of gallons of soapy water poured out under Homer, knocking him from his feet.
The snarling giantess came on, flipping the tub right over the prone Homer. Then, though he couldn’t have hoped to lift the tub anyway, the giantess sat down atop it and started calling for her husband.
Hopelessly trapped, Homer just rolled to a sitting position in the soapy puddle and put his back to the side of the tub. He should have been thinking of a plan of action, but he could not shake the image of the giantess, of the suds rolling wide and long around her curves.
“Coming, Homer!” Bags roared, charging down the corridor, his banger-chopper-thruster waving high above his head, readied to throw.
“Oh, dear,” the giantess replied to the yell, and she rolled off the far side of the tub just as the wild-eyed halfling loosed his weapon.
Bag’s aim was almost always perfect, but he, too, became a bit distracted at the sight of the naked and soapy giantess, and the throw came in just a tad low. The heavy weapon slammed into the side of the metal bathtub with a resounding “BOOOOING!” A stunning, deafening peal that shook even the incredible image of the giantess from the mind of poor Horatio Hairfoot.
Unable to slow on the slick floor, Bags slid in heavily against the tub. His weapon lay on the ground beside him and he quickly scooped it up. Seeing the frantic, and embarrassed, giantess making no move toward him, and guessing the fate of his reluctant companion, Bags slipped the thruster part under the edge of the tub. With a great heave, Bags brought the side up and Homer, recognizing the scruffy, fur-lined boots of his rescuer, quickly scrambled out.
“Are you unharmed?” Bags asked, truly concerned.
“Huh?” was Homer’s reply. He wiggled a slender finger into his still-vibrating ear.
Alarms rang out all through the castle. In the doorway down the other end of the first corridor appeared the tangled giantess, dragging the bed behind, and the thunder of a dozen giant boots resounded down the corridor to the side of the bathroom.
“Run away!” Homer cried. He looked around, confused, at how distant his own words sounded.
“But we’re heroes, lad!” Bags protested. “Run? From mere giants? Whate’er might the bards write?”
Though Homer, again wiggling a finger in his ear, could hardly hear his companion, he read Bags’s lips well enough to understand the protest. “Our epitaphs,” he remarked, then he was off. He stopped at the bathroom door, though, and turned back to the huddled giantess. Again wanting only to apologize, Homer managed to utter, “Thank you.”
The giantess crinkled her surprisingly delicate features, covered herself as best she could, and looked around for a broom.
Bags came into the corridor casting a scornful glare at the back of his retreating companion. “Heroes!” he muttered grimly, and he set his feet firmly and started down the side passage, his banger-chopper-thruster waving menacingly.
Then a half-dozen eighteen-foot-tall (and nearly as wide), blue-skinned giants, wielding the biggest swords and clubs that Bags had ever seen, appeared from around another bend.
“To Hell with the bards!” Bags gasped and he set off after Homer, whose respectability so suddenly seemed an admirable trait.
~ * ~
“Oh, no, you don’t!” the bed-dragging giantess sneered at Homer. The deafened fellow barely heard her, but words didn’t seem necessary at that moment. The giantess rushed out from the bedroom and Homer recoiled.
The bed caught sideways in the door, abruptly ending the giantess’s charge. The remaining canopy supports snapped off after the initial jolt, and the giantess tumbled headlong. Homer took off at once. He leapt atop the back of the giantess and ran right over her, scrambling and diving over and around the blocking bed.
Bags came next, leaping the prone giant in a single bound, then dipping a shoulder and bowling right into the bed. He promptly bounced off and landed on his butt in the middle of the hallway. Growling in defiance, the halfling took up his weapon and charged headlong, tearing and chopping wildly.
“Finesse,” Homer remarked sarcastically when his companion crashed through amid a snowstorm of feathery mattress filling.
“Finesse, Bagsnatcher style.” Bags prompt
ly and proudly replied without missing a beat.
“The rope?” Homer asked, noticing the broken desk and the missing leg.
Bags shrugged helplessly and charged to the window, scrambling up to the sill, the thunder of giant boots fast approaching the doorway behind him.
“Climb?” asked Homer, terrified, but moving up to join his companion.
“Sort of,” Bags tried to explain. Thinking an action worth a thousand words (and not having the time for a thousand words), he grabbed Homer by the collar and heaved him over and out. Then Bags leapt after his dropping companion, hoping the cloud to be as pillowy as he remembered.
“I will pay you back for that one day!” Homer, puffing angrily, promised fiercely when he and Bags had finally stopped bouncing. Bags let the threat go without reply, not having the time to pause and debate the issue just then.
Great horns sounded all throughout the giant castle.
“Where do we go?” Homer, suddenly timid again, cried.
Bags threw his hands out wide and ran off into the mist. “Any way,” he answered as the castle disappeared into the fog behind them. “Just beware of...”
“Holes!” Homer cried, and Bags spun about just as Homer dropped from sight. The adventurous fellow dove to his belly, thinking his companion doomed.
But fat little fingers, grasping wildly at the edge of cloud stuff, showed Bags differently. “Holes,” he agreed, hoisting Homer back up to the cloud.
“Long way down,” Homer remarked weakly, trying futilely to smile.
“But sure it be a beautiful day!” Bags replied, trying to brighten things up.
Homer was glad to realize that his hearing had returned, but he really didn’t appreciate Bags’s lame attempt at levity, not with a horde of angry giants chasing them! “But how are we to escape?” he asked.
“There must be some way,” Bags replied, turning serious. “Might that the cloud’ll find the top of another mountain.” He looked back toward the castle. “Or might it be that the giants possess something. . .
“Beans!” Bags cried suddenly.
“Beans?”
Bags produced the leather bag and waved it at Homer’s uncomprehending stare. Then, as Bags revealed the small sack’s contents and handed one bean to Homer, Homer’s expression turned curious. Legends of the properties of magical beans were not so uncommon.
“Surely, it cannot...” Homer began, but now the giants had apparently come out of the castle and the cry of “Release the beast!” took away any logical protests he might have had.
“Plant it!” Bags yelled at Homer.
Homer dropped a bean onto the cloud and stood back, seeming confused.
“Not on the cloud!” Bags cried.
“Over here!” yelled a giant, homing in.
“Then where?” Homer pleaded, positively flummoxed.
Bags dropped to his knees and blew with all his breath, waving his hands as he did to try to clear away the fog. “Down here,” he explained, pointing into the hole.
Homer dropped down and peered through the hole, nearly swooning from the dizzying height. Far, far below, the farmlands of Windydale, a human settlement on the back side of the One Mountain, east of Inspirit Downs, loomed lush and green.
“Down there?” Homer asked, unbelieving.
Bags nodded frantically.
“But the prevailing winds,” Homer protested. “And the drift of the cloud, combined with the time-lapse of the falling bean ...”
Bags shot Homer his most incredulous look, and the helpless halfling shrugged and dropped the bean. It plummeted from sight, lost in the wide view of the wide world.
“Sneaking rats!” boomed a giant. The companions jumped up and spun around to find themselves helplessly surrounded by a dozen armed and armored giant warriors.
A long moment of uneasy silence passed as the two sides took a measure of each other.
“So, what d’ye think the bards’ll put in our epitaphs?” Bags asked Homer off-handedly.
The giants started to circle, gradually closing in. Suddenly, though, the cloud began to shake violently. Barely able to keep their footing, the giants and the companions watched in amazement as a huge green stalk burst up through the hole and rolled up lazily into the air.
“Beans!” Bags and Homer shouted together, and not waiting to hold a lengthy discussion over their good fortunes, they sprang onto the beanstalk and slipped down under the cloudy fog.
Their descent was rapid, but their troubles were far from over. A brave giant started down after them, and even more disturbing, “the beast” soon appeared under the far rim of the cloud.
“Now I’m knowing where they get their writing utensils,” Bags muttered grimly when the gigantic, eaglelike bird, with talons suitable for snatching full-grown cattle, swooped into view, bearing the largest giant of all, and still another giant warrior besides that, on its black-feathered back.
The monstrous bird rushed past the friends, the wind of its great wings nearly pulling them from their tentative perch.
~ * ~
Farmer Griswald Son-o’-Jack was not very happy when the magical beanstalk roared up and overturned his chicken coop, sending his prized hens fluttering in every direction. Nor was Griswald overly surprised, certainly not as surprised as you or I might have been, for he had heard of such trouble-bringing plants in his day—from his father, repeatedly, when he was a young boy. Indeed, there was a saying among Griswald’s family, founded on solid experience, so it’s said:
Cows for beans is folly;
Sow’s ear, no purse of silk.
Better off to keep the cow
And barter with the milk.
That was a pretty common saying among the farmers in those lands in those days, and a pretty respectable one as well (since trading a valuable cow for beans usually will lead one to woe).
Griswald looked up at the sky, where the stalk disappeared into a cloud and where the outline of a huge bird could be seen rushing back and forth past it.
Griswald’s farmhands appeared then, bearing axes and knowing what must be done. On a nod from their boss, they set to chopping.
~ * ~
The largest giant, driving the huge eagle, swooped the bird in low beneath the companions, and his lesser giant companion sprang out into the beanstalk.
“The way is blocked!” Homer cried, looking down at the formidable obstacle, and then up again to the descending giant above.
“Not for long,” Bags promised. He put his back to the stem and found a secure foothold. Then he took aim with his banger-chopper-thruster, putting it in line with the blocking giant’s head.
Looking up at the wild fires burning in the halfling’s blue eyes, the giant realized the potential for some serious pain. “Please, good gentle sir, do not do that,” he begged.
“Hold yer words, foul giant!” Bags roared, acting the hero once again. “Brave are ye in advantage, but ye’ve not reckoned with the likes of Bagsnatcher Bracegirdle, son o’ Brunhilda Bracegirdle! Know that yer evil heart’ll beat no more!”
“Evil!” cried the largest giant as the eagle swooped by yet another time. “Why, I take that as a most uncalled-for insult!”
“Give it to them good, King Cumulonimbus!” yelled the giant on the stalk high above.
“But you, diminutive one,” the eagle-rider continued. “I see well enough what demeanor your most harsh actions bespeak! Whilst I admit curiosity as to how two halflings (for that is what you are, I believe) might”—his voice faded and then came again a moment later as the eagle banked through a wide and distant turn—”I’ll not wait to hear your lies!” The great bird came in again, and now the king leveled a barbed lance at poor, shivering Homer.
“Ye’re a giant!” Bags huffed, unafraid—of course, the lance wasn’t aimed at him. “Thus are ye marked as evil!”
“Er, Bagsnatcher,” interjected Homer, looking pointedly at the point. “Perhaps this is not the time for name-calling.” Homer thought his suggestion an exc
ellent one, and indeed it was, but his whisper was lost in the continuing banter between the blustery halfling and the giant king.
“We most certainly are not!” the giant roared. “But thou hast come to us as thieves! Thus I proclaim you to be evil!”
“I am not!” Bags shouted back, stamping his foot against the beanstalk, which nearly dislodged him. With a mighty heave—for a halfling—of his free arm, Bags sent his banger-chopper-thruster head over handle at the approaching menaces. The weapon caught the eagle square in the head, and the bird squawked out a piercing cry and spiraled out of control.
The giant king, suddenly losing all interest in spearing the halfling, dropped his lance and leapt out, catching the beanstalk in a tentative hold just above his lowest companion, between the giant and poor Homer.
Before They Were Giants Page 24