by J Battle
‘His father? But…how did he find him? You can’t…’
He brushed past her and rushed to the bedroom door.
‘Hi, Gorge,’ said Sam, sitting up in bed with a tray of food in his lap.
‘Sam! You look…as ugly as ever.’
‘Ay, it would take more than a touch of Magic to fix that, I reckon.’
Gorge stayed by the door, resisting the temptation to hug his old friend.
There was a movement to his right and Prince Torn was suddenly beside him, towering over him.
‘Hello there, Gorge,’ he said, and there was an unaccustomed smile on his thin face.
Gorge felt the Magic flare through his body at the presence of Prince Torn. He raised his fists towards the gaunt figure before him.
‘Stay now, lad. No need for all that, and you should be careful. Young Sam has barely recovered from your last exercise of Magic, and you would not want to hurt him again, would you?’
Gorge looked away from him and gazed on Sam’s open face; at the frown that was beginning to form.
‘Alright there, Sam? We’re fine here, and no more Magic today,’ he said, and his smile matched the one that had sprung up on Sam’s face.
‘That’d be fine, I reckon, and if there were no more Magic tomorrow either, that would be fine as well.’
Gorge nodded, but he found that he couldn’t speak, for the truth in Sam’s simple words seemed set to overwhelm him in the very same way that the first taste of Magic had threatened.
‘I…’ He tried to smile once more, but in all truth, it was a poor effort. Then he was gone, with the door swinging to behind him.
He rushed through the next room with his head down, and he would have bowled the Lady over if she hadn’t been quick enough to step to one side.
Then he was through the door and racing up the hill.
There was only one thing to be done, and that was as clear as the sun lights up the day and the moon doesn’t.
Chapter 38 Woewearer
‘Shush now, my dear. Don’t you be fretting like that.’ His whispered words would have been heard on the other side of the road, if there’d been anyone there to listen. He held her thrashing in place with one massive hand across her chest.
Yet still she jerked from side to side, tossing her head and moaning in her sleep.
‘Ellaine, my dear, wake yourself up now and put that bad dream back where it belongs.’ He would have wiped her hot brow if he’d had something to hand, but his clothes were still where they’d been tossed, along with hers, and he didn’t want to leave her side.
At last she drew a deep breath, and Rootheart thought she was preparing to split the night with her scream. Instead, she sighed, and she continued to expel air for far too long in his opinion, and he grew worried that she would die in his arms.
‘My dear...’
She opened her eyes, wild at first, but calming when she saw his intent face.
‘Why the concern, dearie? Did you think old Ellaine would be carried off by her visions and be seen no more by mortal man?’
‘Don’t know what I thought. Just know I didn’t like to see you so upset, even in your sleep.’
‘What hour is this?’ She sat up, pale in the dim light, and she looked around for her clothes.
‘Don’t rightly know, but I reckon the sun’s not far from getting out of bed and having his breakfast.’
‘We’ve been too long, we have.’ She smiled and touched his rough cheek with her soft hand when she saw the disappointment on his face. ’It was a fine way to waste time, I’d say, if we had the time to waste. Now, fetch my clothes if you will, and your own as well, for I’d better not be distracted by your manly form.’
Dressed, she walked to the edge of the road, and she looked towards the sea. She swayed a little as the memory of her dream washed over her, and she might have fallen if Rootheart had not taken her slim shoulders in his massive hands.
‘What is it, my dear?’
‘It...I saw a terrible...no, we must do something. We can’t just let...’ She turned and slipped closer to him and she wrapped her arms around his waist, though her hands never came close to meeting. ‘Hold me, dearie, if you will, for a moment.’
‘Hold you for a moment? I’d hold you forever, if I could.’
‘Ay, lad, don’t wish for forever. It’s such a long time, and it weighs heavy on a soul, it does.’ She pushed away from him and he released her. She studied him for a moment, as if she was taking the measure of him with a cold calculating eye.
‘Can you run, Rootheart. Can you run like the devil is behind you?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can run. I don’t like to, ‘cause I’m half a Giant, and Giants don’t like to run. But I can run if I need to.’
‘Can you carry me and run, big as you are?’
‘I don’t reckon I’d notice your weight, though the feel of your body might...distract me a bit.’
‘You can put those thoughts out of your mind, for now at least.’
Rootheart looked down at her tiny form and he knew that he should have bent his knee and had her climb onto his back. But it didn’t seem so long to him since another had done just that, and the anger was still too close to the surface.
‘I’ll hold you in the crook of my arm, my dear, for then I can still see your face, and you won’t slow me down none.’
She allowed herself to be picked up as easily as if she was still a little girl.
‘Where to my dear, in such haste?’
‘To the sea, dearie, and as fast as you can, for we have lives that need saving.’
With a roar of joy at having his love in his arm, he rushed across the road and charged down the boulder-strewn slope, reckless and uncaring, seeking only speed.
Thrown about in his arm, Ellaine Woewearer hoped that they would be quick enough to do some good. If they were not, well, there would always be the dead to mourn.
Chapter 39 Giants
‘Can you hear them?’
‘What? Who?’
‘What are we looking for, you big lummox?’
‘Oh, you mean Giants. No, I can’t hear nothing, but you know I’ve only got the one good ear, and it’s pointing towards you, so all I can hear is you.’
‘Turn your head then, and point it towards the sea.’
Aarvarn came close to tumbling to the ground as he negotiated the complex procedure of turning his good right ear to face the sea on his left.
‘I still can’t…oh, yes, now I can. Talking, that’s what I hear.’
‘We’re nearly there then, I reckons. So, you hang back a bit, so no-one sees your big head, and I’ll take a look and see what’s to be seen.’
Aarvarn tried not to touch his head to check how big it was, but he couldn’t help himself, in case it had grown since the last time he looked.
Raarvan bent a little as he walked forward, as if that might make him less visible. He took long careful steps, but each foot still landed with an audible thud that made him wince as he crept along.
Aarvarn watched him go until he’d gone around the bend, then he turned his face to the sea, so that his good ear would be pointing in the right direction.
He didn’t like the sea. It was too big, and it moved; water shouldn’t move, not of its own accord, it shouldn’t. If you poured it out of a jug, that was fine, as long as you didn’t expect him to drink it. But, sitting there all big and wide, it just wasn’t right that it should be able to move back and forward and up and down. That’s what he reckoned anyway.
After a while, when there was no sign of his old friend, he took a couple of steps along the path made by Raarvan’s feet, then he stopped, for his friend was usually right, or at least, wrong less often than he, and he’d said to stay behind. But there was nothing to do, just standing on the edge of the beach, and nothing to eat or drink. And it couldn’t do any harm, could it, if he followed him, because Raarvan had a big head too, and it was bound to be seen before anyone saw his.
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br /> The logic seemed irrefutable, so he nodded his head and he gave a little grunt, and then he strode forward, muttering, ‘When I sees his back, I’ll stop, and that’ll be fine, I reckons.’
He carried on for a little longer and he passed a large boulder that had blocked his view of the rest of the beach.
He could see the back of his old friend some 100 yards from him. He was just standing there, unmoving as if he was carved from good mountain stone. Beyond him, mayhap another 200 yards further on, the beach was crowded with hundreds of Giants, all milling around on the edge of the water.
‘What’s happening here, then?’ said Aarvarn as he strode forward, walking with his bad ear to the tossing sea and his good ear to the silent land.
‘Ho there!’ he called out to his friend. ‘Have you fell asleep on your feet?’
There was no response from Raarvan, as if he hadn’t heard his call.
As he walked forward, Aarvarn saw one of the Giants splash into the sea, all jerky and clumsy.
‘That’s a fool thing to be doing,’ he sighed, ‘the sea don’t want you, and it be too deep.’
The first Giant was joined by another, and then another. Soon there were dozens of them wading through the water, walking away from the good dry land.
‘This ain’t right,’ snapped Aarvarn, and he increased his pace.
Just as he was about to clamp his hand down on Raarvan’s shoulder, his friend jerked and stepped forward with undue haste for a Giant, at least when no food or ale was involved.
‘What the…!’ Aarvaarn rushed after him and he grabbed his right arm. ‘Hang on a minute, will you, you old fool?’
Raarvan pulled his arm free and carried on, as if his friend no longer existed.
Aarvarn looked beyond him and saw that the beach was almost free of Giants; they were all in the water, marching away from the land and towards who knew what?
‘This can’t be…they’ll all…’ In accosting Raarvan, he had turned his good ear somewhat towards the sea, and then he heard it. Something was calling him, something wonderful, something…he had no words to describe what it was. But it was calling to him, and he wanted to follow it, more than anything else in the world; more than food, even more than ale. So he took a step, and then another. As he walked, his head had turned, and his good ear was now pointing in the wrong direction.
But, within his head, he could still hear the echo of the call, beckoning him with something wonderful, so he kept right on marching along the beach.
Soon the path he was taking would swerve to the left and he would be facing directly at the sea and…
He stopped then, and he closed his eyes, and he would have closed his ears if that was at all possible. He dropped his great head between his massive shoulders, and he clenched his fist.
‘This ain’t right! It ain’t right at all. There’s only water out there. Nothing a good Giant would want. They’re all going to drown. For sure.’
With a roar loud enough to drown out the most enticing beckoning call, he charged along the beach, racing towards his old friend who was just so close now to the water.
There was no time for words, and he had to keep on roaring anyway, so he threw himself at Raarvan and they both ended up in a heap on the ground, with Aarvarn on top.
‘Let go me!’ snapped Raarvan, as he struggled against the weight of the heavier Giant.
‘Roar! Roar! Roar!’ roared Aarvarn, as he wrapped his great arms around his old friend and began to drag him across the sand, away from the sea.
‘What are you doing? Let me go!’
‘I just, Roar!, trying to, Roar! Save you from, Roar!, getting all drowned, Roar!’
‘Just let go of me, will you? I want...I need to go...she’s calling me. Can’t you hear her? My ma, she needs me, and I just have to swim to that island just beyond the bay. I can swim that far. It ain’t far at all.’
‘Will you just listen to yourself? Ye can’t swim, ‘cause you’ll only sink, with all that heavy nonsense in your head.’ Aarvarn finished off with a mighty roar, and he dragged his old friend a few more feet from the surf.
Raarvan rolled all of a sudden and he broke Aarvarn’s hold on his arm. Moving like slow-motion ballet dancers, Aarvarn staggered backwards, trying to maintain his balance, and Raarvan began to climb to his feet. He was bent over, with his hands braced against his knees when something small, fast and hard hit him on the side of the head.
He fell over, more in surprise that in pain, and landed flat on his back. He grunted in annoyance, for a Giant doesn’t like to lie on his back because it is so hard to get back up again. Then the smaller figure was back and seemed to be squatting on his chest, for all the good that would do him.
‘What you doing, little man, sitting there like I’m a comfy chair?’
‘I’m holding you down, I reckon, that’s what I’m doing.’
‘You’re not holding me down. That would be just wrong. I’m a Giant.’
‘Well, I’m half a Giant, and the mean half at that, and you ain’t getting up as far as I can see, so that means I’m holding you down,’ said Rootheart, pressing his hands against the Giant’s massive shoulders to prove his point.
‘I think he’s got you there, you old fool. Held down by a big man, or mayhap a little Giant, I’ve never heard the like.’
‘Have you noticed something, my gigantic friends?’ asked Ellaine, standing close, but not too close.
‘I’ve noticed that Raarvan is a fool,’ offered Aarvarn.
‘And I’ve noticed that he is still an idiot,’ said Raarvan, as he lifted one shoulder all of a sudden and rolled Rootheart off his chest.
‘The call has stopped,’ said Rootheart, back on his feet with an agility that was all man. ‘I could feel it in my chest like, echoing, but it didn’t get to my head and make me do foolish...’
‘What about the rest of them?’ interrupted Raarvan, breaking all Giantish records to get to his feet. ‘We have to...’ He looked down at the empty beach, and then out to sea.
‘It’s too late, my dear,’ said Ellaine, as she took a grip on his sleeve, ‘we must go now, before he calls you once more.’
‘But, we can’t…we got to save them,’ insisted Raarvan.
Ellaine placed her small hand on his thick arm and he found that he could not take his eyes of her.
‘They’ve all perished beneath the waves, my dear, and we have to go now. Trust me for the moment, if you will. You may well be the last of your race and I would not have any harm come to you.
Gently, she tugged his arm.
‘Come now, we will grieve for them together, and I have experience in such things. But first, I‘d have you leave this desolate place, in case he calls for you again.’
She gave another tug on the Giant’s sleeve and he turned away from the water and she began to guide him along the beach.
‘There still be Giant Women,’ he said, as they walked.
‘I’ve not heard of Giant Women, though I reckon I must have known they existed.’
Raarvan grunted. ‘That ain’t no surprise. Giant Women ain’t as...easy-going as we are, and we like to keep them away from little folk, we do, because they can get angry without you seeing it coming. And they likes the mountains, they do, ‘cause the cold don’t bother them.’
‘Well, that sounds like something worth knowing, and perhaps one day you’ll sire a new generation of Giants.’
Raarvan seemed to shiver at the very idea.
‘Him, you said,’ said Raarvan after a quiet moment, ’but I heard my ma. She was calling for me.’
‘Ay, lad, he’d have you believe that. He’d have you believe anything, just to get you in the water.’
‘But...my ma, she passed away long years since. Why would I think... why would I go...?’
‘The body still yearns for that which is lost, lad, that’s all that can be said about it. Now, we’ll walk up this here slope and we’ll be on the road in no time, I reckon.’
The
y made a strange sight as they walked along the coast road; two hulking Giants, a massive half-giant, and a little human woman.
‘Who is he, this...person who called my people to their doom?’
‘Ay, that’s a question, and I mean to find an answer, I do.’
Aarvarn had been silent throughout their journey, but when the road began to bend and it seemed the sea would be lost to them, he stopped.
‘It weren’t right,’ he said, as he began to kneel down. ‘It weren’t right at all. All them Giants. All perished. It weren’t right, were it Raarvan?’
Raarvan joined him on his knees.
‘No, old friend, it weren’t and it ain’t.’
Aarvarn nodded, and then he smashed his forehead against the unforgiving surface of the road. His head held still for a moment before he lifted it.
Raarvan sobbed, and then he threw his face against the road.
When he lifted his head, blood streamed down his face.
Together they threw themselves against the ground, sobbing and wailing, and each time they lifted their heads, there was more blood to be seen.
‘What can we do?’ whispered Rootheart.
‘You know, lad, you know.’ There were tears on her cheeks as she watched the unrestrained show of remorse and despair from the Giants.
Rootheart glanced down at her, and he nodded, for of course he knew.
He knelt just beyond Raarvan, and he took a deep breath, and he closed his eyes. With a grunt, he struck the road with his forehead, throwing his full weight behind the blow. Then he lifted and repeated, matching his cadence to that of the larger creatures beside him.
After an age, Aarvarn stopped, resting back on his heels. Raarvan did the same and, for a while, through curtains of blood they watched Rootheart.
‘Stop now, lad,’ said Ellaine, when she could bear no more. ‘That’s enough, and more than enough, for sure.’
She touched his shoulder, and he stopped and turned his unmarked face towards hers. ‘It don’t mean nothing, not if it don’t hurt,’ he sobbed.
‘Ay, lad, it means enough, and you hurt plenty inside, I reckon. You don’t need to bleed to show your loss.’