Against the Giants

by Ru Emerson - (ebook by Flandrel; Undead)

  The barbarian’s eyes narrowed, and he grinned fiercely. “Aye. Tough brutes, and far more cunning than these hill giants, but they bleed same as you’n me.”

  “Pardon me, Vlandar,” Lhors spoke up hesitantly, “but how can we be sure that this chain won’t drop us into a frost giant’s cook pot or in the middle of a dragon’s nest?”

  Vlandar looked grim, but before he could answer, Nemis jumped in. “It is a possibility. I won’t deny it. But things of this nature are seldom that precise. Nosnra is a thickheaded brute, but even he would want to travel safely, and the frost giants wouldn’t want others dropping in at any time. That would be dangerous should the device fall into the wrong hands.”

  “Like ours, y’mean,” Bleryn said.

  “Precisely.” The mage smiled. “In all likelihood, we will emerge some distance from the frost giants’ hold, well out of any ‘danger zone’.”

  “True enough,” the paladin conceded, “but Lhors does have a point. Wherever we emerge, it will likely be watched. You don’t leave a magic door to your stronghold and not guard it.”

  Vlandar sighed. “All you say is true, but the point remains: we have no choice. We can’t swim out of here on the river. One set of stairs is collapsed and being cleared by who knows how many giants, and the other exits are surely heavily guarded. It’s this way or no way, but I advise everyone to go with weapons at the ready.”

  Everyone nodded reluctantly. Not one of them seemed pleased.

  Lhors watched as the mage felt the links, then picked three in a row and drew the outer two together, touching the new join with his fingers. When he let it go, the two stayed together and the third locked between them. He twisted the chain into a double loop, then squatted to hold the upper off the lower.

  “Half of you stand in one loop, half in the other,” Nemis instructed.

  Vlandar divided them into two groups. Khlened, Bleryn, the rangers, and their injured comrade composed one. Nemis, Malowan, Agya, Lhors, and Gerikh made up the other. Everyone who had a weapon held it ready. Nemis looked them over, then glanced behind him.

  Lhors could suddenly hear giants—many of them. The mage got to his feet and dropped the chain. It hit the floor with a muted clank.

  The treasure room flared a brilliant blue-white and vanished. Lhors clutched Vlandar’s arm, scared and dizzy both, but the sensation of being nowhere was gone as quickly as it had come. In its place came snow, ice, and a hellish wind that cut through every layer they wore.

  Khlened spat. His moustache was already stiff with ice.

  “Frost giants,” he snarled. “I hate frost giants.”

  Icy wind shrilled, blowing snow and ice crystals around them. The sky seemed to be night-dark, but it was hard to tell with so much wind and snow. Agya huddled in on herself, teeth chattering. Lhors, who had enjoyed snowfalls in his village as a boy, stared in horror at the blizzard. His face felt frozen in just the few moments they’d been here. He dragged the thick woolen scarf up over his nose and mouth and peered at a tree maybe four paces away—the only thing he could see besides blowing white. The branches were so laden that he could barely make out that it was a tree.

  Khlened tapped his shoulder. “Stay clear of trees!” he shouted in order to be heard over the gale. “Tree like that hides pockets under th’ branches. Means you step in the wrong place, you could fall far enough to break your neck!”

  The barbarian turned to Vlandar. “We can’t stay out in this! Even a Fist won’t stay in th’ open, and the rest of ye—you’ll freeze in no time!” He peered around, then walked past the warrior and eased down between two ice-coated boulders. He was back in moments. “’Tis no true shelter, but there’s next to no wind back there. Get close t’each other. Me’n Bleryn’ll find some place better.”

  “If not, we can dig snow tunnel,” the dwarf said. Agya stared at him in horror and Bleryn chuckled. “Surprising, how warm it is in a snow tunnel. No wind.”

  “Go,” Vlandar ordered tersely.

  “Do not go down,” Nemis said. “The giants’ hold is down. And be careful.”

  “Careful, huh?” Khlened snorted. “Man can’t spend treasure if ’e’s dead, eh?”

  With that, he was gone, following Bleryn. They were lost to sight before they’d gone ten paces, and their footprints were already filling in.

  Vlandar led the way down between the boulders and back as far as he could. Lhors sighed faintly. The wind dropped away almost entirely in this rough shelter, and while the snow beyond the stones was deep, it only came to his ankles here.

  Rowan left her sister to keep their wounded companion close under her cloak, while she and Lhors helped Malowan compact a high ridge of snow on three sides to block what little wind still came at them.

  “Everyone, get as close together as you can,” the paladin ordered. “Watch each other. None of us must fall asleep here.” He settled down next to Agya, and the girl gratefully burrowed into his fur-lined cloak.

  After making sure everyone was settled, Vlandar asked, “Nemis, where are we?”

  “Near the entrance to the Rift, a major hold of frost giants,” the mage replied. His teeth chattered. “I shortened that chain by a link so we would not appear inside the Rift itself.”

  “Well thought, but we’ll talk later,” Vlandar said. “Listen and watch, for now.”

  Even bundled close between Rowan and Vlandar, Lhors felt half-frozen, and the noise of the storm frightened him. Anyone could be out there, and they wouldn’t know until too late. But would giants be out in such a storm as this? He doubted it, but then again, he had no experience with frost giants. They were used to weather such as this.

  Fortunately, Khlened was back while the youth could still feel his fingers and toes.

  “Found a cave,” he announced, visibly pleased with himself. “Slopes uphill, low entry, high ceiling inside. Better, some beast ’r ’nother packed in trees, p’raps to make a nest. Bleryn stayed t’build a fire.”

  “Beast?” Agya demanded. All Lhors could see of her was her eyes peering out from Malowan’s cloak. They were wide and scared.

  “Is it safe for fire?” Vlandar asked.

  “No creature of late, we checked. Wood’s dry enough t’won’t smoke, and th’ ceiling will keep it off us and still inside. But no fire’s more deadly in such a storm than th’ chance beasts or giants’ll smell th’ smoke where none should be.” The barbarian shrugged. “Way th’ winds are, who could tell where it came from anyway?”

  “If yon fella says fire, can we go to it now?” Agya demanded. “P-p-please?”

  “Lass is right,” Khlened told Vlandar.

  Vlandar nodded. “Of course. Lead, we’ll follow.”

  “Stay alert, best you can,” Malowan warned. “I also know cold. It would be easy for one of us to fall by the way and be lost. Watch out for each other. Do not worry about guards. I made a search just now, and I can assure you that there are none outside the Rift in this storm—certainly none up on this ledge.”

  “Are you always so cheerful?” Maera demanded waspishly.

  “Call him sensible,” Rowan suggested. “Let us go.”

  To Lhors’ surprise, she laid a gloved hand on Vlandar’s shoulder. “You were wounded earlier. I know how magic healing works. You crave sleep after. Maera, if you can manage Florimund, I will stay with Vlandar.”

  They toiled back into the open and followed Khlened. Lhors gasped and his eyes teared as the wind sliced through his cloak and makeshift face mask. He freed a hand to drag his hood down to his nose before yanking the cloak back snug around him and squeezing his hands into his armpits where they might thaw.

  Moments later, his feet scraped on bare stone, and the wind was gone again, replaced by flickering ruddy light. He blinked and shoved the hood back. Khlened’s cave was bigger than their last haven. The youth moved inside, making room so Rowan could come in with Vlandar. The entry was a low, only slightly taller than Lhors and no wider than he could reach. Wolves might use such a den,
but giants couldn’t. Mal or Nemis could keep wolves out, he was certain. But he forgot all that as his eyes touched on the fire.

  The dwarf sat cross-legged on a ledge of yellowish stone, his axe embedded in a thick branch just behind him. Fire, Lhors thought with longing and moved toward it.

  “We had the luck,” Bleryn was saying as the youth came near. “Ledge is riddled wit’ caves, but we found this and all this wood on our fourth try.”

  “Luck indeed,” Vlandar said. Rowan was getting the warrior settled on a blanket where he could get warm, his back against the rock wall. The man looked tired and old at the moment, but the ranger caught Lhors attention, sent her eyes sidelong, and nodded. He is just tired because he was hurt, she means. Lhors hoped, but he couldn’t ask while Rowan was hovering over Vlandar.

  “No beast tracks in this cave, no gnawed bones, no scat—fresh or dry.”

  “Scat?” Agya asked. She sounded even more tired than Vlandar. She leaned gratefully forward to warm her hands at the fire. Malowan wrapped his spare blanket around her.

  Rowan laughed. “Food goes in, scat comes out.” The girl managed a faint grin in response. “Speaking of food, I can make a passable soup or stew.”

  Lhors sighed. “Hot food. It sounds wonderful.” He dragged his pack from under his cloak. “Take anything you need. I can’t remember when I last ate.”

  “Still growing, are you?” Rowan replied cheerfully. She was sorting through her own bag and hauled out an odd-looking bit of metal. “One of you fill this with snow for me to melt for soup water. It will take several trips, I fear.”

  Khlened took the thing and shook it. To Lhors’ surprise, the flat piece opened into a tin pail made of overlapping segments, complete with handle. “My task,” the barbarian said. “Done this most of m’ life.”

  Maera eased Florimund down flat and covered him with her spare blanket, then dug a similar item from her own pack: a small pot of blackened metal, the base forged to a low tripod. Rowan extended it with a snap of her wrists, then began rummaging through the pile of food the others had set out for her. She separated things, putting aside packets of cracker-bread and dried fruit, then rummaged through two bags of dried beans. She took the canvas bag Vlandar gave her and scooped out several handfuls of dried vegetables, then pulled a bundle of herb-packets from a side pocket on her pack. She plucked a fat brown onion from the braid of them that Khlened carried and tossed two sticks of jerky into the pot. Over all, she poured the first batch of melted snow.

  The stew took some time to cook, but the apple and spiced hot water that Rowan prepared kept Lhors comfortable. Gran had known that trick, and so had his father. The flavor of fruit seemed to soothe his mind as well. He turned to Vlandar to see if the man needed another cup, but the warrior had fallen asleep.

  By now, the cave was almost warm. Even Agya was moving around and had shed the spare blanket. Vlandar was awake again by the time Rowan pulled the pot from the ashes, and Gerikh had fed more logs onto the fire twice. They all felt like friends, Lhors thought, but a snowstorm and an unexpected hot meal could do that for people.

  Even Maera seemed to feel it—or maybe she was very hungry herself. “We’ll want real bread with that, sister. The cracker-stuff we may need later.” She broke out a packet of flour and leavening, swept leaves from a flat rock, then began working water into the dry stuff. Lhors watched as the half-elf kneaded the brownish mess, tore it into strips and deftly braided and shaped it into a round loaf that she shoved it into the ashes.

  Rowan tested the soup and nodded. “Cups or bowls, everyone,” she announced, then dipped them into the pot and handed them around. Maera brushed ash from her crusty loaf and broke it into equal shares.

  Lhors blew on his soup to cool it, sipped cautiously, then stared at Rowan over the rim. “You said passable! It’s—” He couldn’t find the proper word and contented himself instead with draining his cup, then swabbing the last drops up with Maera’s bread.

  Rowan laughed and refilled the cup, then handed him part of her bread. “No, take it,” she assured him. “Such praise deserves reward, and a near-grown man needs his food.”

  Florimund still slept, but Lhors thought seemed Vlandar almost normal thanks to the warm meal. “All right,” the warrior said mildly. “I feared we might somehow wind up here, even before we left Cryllor. The frost giants have raided the Yeomanry before now, and Keoland too.”

  Maera snorted. “The rangers of Keoland have long suspected an alliance between frost and hill giants.”

  Vlandar shrugged. “Now we are certain of it. You may have overheard me talking to Nemis and Mal back in that locked chamber. We found proof that Nosnra is now under orders to attack Keoland hill villages. We found a written command from the chief of the frost giants along with the chain that brought us here. Who knows how long Nosnra has used that chain to come here to report his successes or failures and receive new orders?”

  “Wait,” Khlened said. “Frost giants are behind all this? They haven’t the brains for it!”

  “They are not in charge,” Nemis said quietly. It was the first time he’d spoken in hours. “They are also under orders… from elsewhere.”

  “Oh? And where’d that be?” the barbarian demanded.

  The mage shrugged gloomily.

  “I hope to learn that information here in the Rift,” Vlandar said, “And that is all I think we can hope to learn here. Mal, have you that scroll?”

  The paladin fished out the clear tube he’d found in the woodpile and held it up. At Vlandar’s gesture, he handed it to the mage. “Nemis speaks and reads many languages, including Giantish. That is written in Giantish, though not by a giant. Nemis tells me the one who penned the scroll is unlikely to be here and I believe him. In short, I see the Rift as a passage to another place, not a destination in itself. We must all listen to Nemis and Malowan—and Mal, I hope you both will prepare for tomorrow by choosing spells that help us remain unseen and unheard, but just as importantly, spells that will locate devices like that chain.”

  Khlened said, “So we look beyond th’ Rift ’cause it isn’t a frost giant in charge? Suits me fine. I left Fist-lands ’cause cold like this is nasty. No sane man’d stand it, if ’e didn’t have to.”

  Bleryn put in. “I dislike cold. Never want to see a white bear again.”

  “Bear?” That, predictably, was Agya. “How’d y’see ’em through all this white stuff ?”

  “I can sense them,” Malowan assured her, “but Khlened is right—and so is Bleryn. We’re here because the alternative was dying in the Steading’s dungeons, but this is not much better because the cold will kill us if the frost giants and their allies do not.”

  Vlandar nodded as he got to his feet. “Nosnra knows by know that we were in his secret room and that we stole his chain. If he has any other such device to transport messages or himself, the Rift may already be preparing for us.”

  “If deer had wings, the wolves would starve,” Maera replied sarcastically.

  “And if the rangers stay alert, no tree will fall,” Vlandar retorted—almost as sharply, to Lhors’ surprise. He smiled suddenly. “Apologies, ranger. Stay alert, but I know you all will. Do not be led astray. We seek a quick way from these frozen heights, either back to Keoland or on to find the master who ordered the attacks on Keoland.”

  Lhors started as the name bit into his mind.

  Vlandar’s hand gripped his shoulder. “Yes, we can return to Keoland with what we know, and I am certain the king will reward us. But what matters wealth if we see the chance to wipe out a dire enemy—and we hesitate?”

  “If the conditions and the numbers are against us…” Maera countered. “But I agree, warrior. Turn your back on such an enemy, allow her to grow stronger—”

  “Her?” Nemis said sharply.

  The ranger smiled at him, but the smile did not reach her eyes. “He, they, us, you, them, another, whichever. If there is a chance to defeat such a one—yes, I am of your mind, Vlandar.”r />
  Khlened spat. “More sneaking? Never met a frost giant as deserved t’live! Kill ’em and be done!”

  “I side with the Fist,” Bleryn said flatly. “Happens my folk—their shades’ll curse me forever, did I not kill every bastard son of ’em I could.”

  Silence. Vlandar and Malowan waited. Khlened and Bleryn stared back challengingly.

  “Remember who leads this party,” Vlandar finally said. “Remember I may know things you do not, about this place and about our goal. Still, I will not stop you from killing giants—but only if you will swear to me that you will not act recklessly. You will not draw attention to us, you will not get us killed, and”—he added sharply as dwarf and barbarian grinned at each other—“you will both pledge to keep a close eye on the less winter-hardy of us. We do no good if we die here of cold, and frozen heroes cannot spend treasure. Also, ten of us have a better chance of winning through than two crazed fighters who have no one to back them.”

  “A point,” Bleryn said promptly, and drew Khlened aside so they could talk.

  Vlandar turned to the rest of the company. “I will set watches by twos tonight. We dare not let the fire go out.”

  In the end, he chose himself and Malowan for the first, Maera and Gerikh for the second, Lhors and Rowan for the third, Bleryn and Nemis after, leaving Khlened as most winter-wise of them all to build up the fire and set a pot of hot gruel to soaking.

  “What of me then?” Agya demanded sharply.

  “Sleep and plenty of it,” the warrior replied. “We will need you alert tomorrow.”

  Lhors wondered when she didn’t argue. Perhaps the cold had sapped her temper. One good thing about this place then, he thought as he wrapped up in his cloak across the fire from her.

  Rowan settled close enough to the youth, he could have touched her. “Maera?” she said quietly. “Florimund ate and he’s sleeping, but he is restless.”

  “Do you wonder at that?” Maera asked sourly.