by J Battle
‘Aarvarn, Raarvan, you’ll need to...no, Raarvan, you get yourself down to the beach where your kin left, and you don’t let anyone get past you and onto the beach. Aarvarn, you take a walk to the harbour wall, and don’t let anyone sail off.’
‘Sail off? In a boat, like?’
‘Ay, or a ship. And, Aarvarn, if anyone looks like they want to take a swim, you’re to stop them, do you hear me?’
‘I hear you well enough, little woman. I’m daft, not deaf, as my ma always said.’
‘Then be off, the pair of you.’
The pair grunted as they got to their feet.
‘Lady, your voice makes this sound urgent,’ said Raarvan.
‘Ay, lad, it is.’
‘And how long do you reckon you need me on the beach and this old fool at the harbour?’
Ellaine sighed, and she suddenly seemed a hundred years older. ‘I can’t rightly say. We have to be off to Fairisle, and that will take a few days, for sure. And we can’t be sure what we’ll find, so I can’t say how long I’ll need you. Why do you ask? Is there something else requiring your time and attention?’
‘Well,’ he looked at Aarvarn for a moment, but he got no response because he didn’t realise one was expected of him. ‘You see, there ain’t no more male Giants about, as far as I can tell, exceptin’ for us three. And, the Flossom season is coming up soon, and that...well, it gets up the blood of our female Giants, it does for sure, and, well, they’ll need some males, and there’s only us, and they’ll be annoyed if we’re late, and you don’t want to see an annoyed Giant Woman, no you don’t. And, of course, there’s a new generation of Giants to be bred.’
‘My, Raarvan, you big lump, when you gets yourself talking, you sound like a human man, you do,’ said Aarvarn, with admiration in his voice. ‘Did you get all that, little woman? I missed a lot of his words, but if you missed some, he could say them again, I reckon, ‘cause he’ll still remember what he said.’
‘Thank you, Aarvarn, but I think I understood everything he said.’
‘Ay, that’s you humans with your clever little brains. Can’t see how they fit in your tiny little heads.’
‘If you can give us a few days of your precious time, that would be most appreciated.’
‘What day of the year is it?’ asked Raarvan, with a frown.
‘It is the last week of spring.’ Ellaine smiled up at him as she watched him think.
‘Well, the Flossoms don’t bloom until the second week of summer, but it will be two weeks of hard walking for us to get there, and a lot of that will be uphill.’
‘We don’t like uphill,’ butted in Aarrvarn, ‘because we’re Giants, and Giant don’t like hills, or the cold. It’ll be cold up there now, I reckon.’
‘So, you can give us a week?’
‘If that’s how it works out, then yes, we can.’
‘Good. We can’t do anything about the hills, but we could provide you with warm cloaks, to protect you from the cold.’
‘Is that what cloaks are for? I seen them plenty, but I didn’t reckon they kept you little people warm. Now, there’s a thing to put in your pipe and blow rings about.’ Aarvarn had an amazed look on his face, but then, he was easily amazed.
‘I’ll have my seamstress sew together...four cloaks should do it, I think,’ said Alice, measuring the Giants with her eyes.
As the Giants left, Richard turned to Ellaine.
‘You saw something, I believe. What did you see?’
She took his arm and led him from the table.
‘You know what befell the Giants? Well, the same evil thing may happen to humans, unless we can stop it.’
Chapter 54 Elstar
The pale moon peeped from behind the wispy clouds and looked down upon the still dark lake. If it was capable of such things, it might have expressed surprise at finding a lake where there once was naught but ice.
Elstar crouched on top of the equally new wall, and he ignored the reflection of the moon in the dark water.
‘He’s gone,’ he muttered, his voice so sad, and resonant with self-pity, ‘and I’ll never see him again.’
It was cold so high up and close to God’s Saddle, so he wrapped his white-fox fur cloak about him, and he tried to ignore the shivering.
‘He’s gone, and he’s left this ice-cold lake to bar my way. That tells me that he has no intention of returning. He’s taken his Magic with him and now my only chance is to follow my brethren to Fairisle and hope that, if they have secured the Wellstone, they will not mock me too much before they allow me access.’
He shivered again, whether with the cold or at the idea of putting himself in a position where he had to beg for their mercy.
‘Oh, they’ll laugh, for certain they will, and they’ll make me squirm.’
His jaw clenched as a sudden realisation occurred to him. ‘They won’t let me touch the Stone. They’ll push me back and mock my wrinkled, liver-spotted skin and thin hair, and they’ll rejoice in their own beauty, made more exceptional by comparison with my abysmal ugliness.’
He stared at the still water for a while longer, absolutely still, bar some shivering.
‘What was his name?’ He lifted his head all of a sudden, and his eyes rested on the watery moon. ‘Cavour, that was it. He spoke of other Stones. He spoke of more than one other Stone. He seemed like a man who might know things, and he said there were more.’
He slipped from the wall, and he stood on the already feeble grass of Misthaven.
‘He won’t still be in the forest, I should say,’ he spoke quietly as he walked. ‘He’ll have been rescued and...yes, he’ll have been taken into some kind human’s home and nursed back to health. It has been weeks now since I broke his leg – will it be healed, or will he still be about his bed? Who knows with humans? They are so frail.’
He strode down the road, his long legs consuming the distance like a starving man on his last breakfast.
He came first to a small cottage, with well-tended field on the left-hand side of the road, and a fetid mush on the right hand side.
He knocked on the door with something of a jaunty air.
‘No harm in being pleasant, until someone riles me,’ he mused.
‘Get thee from my door!’ came a man’s voice from beyond the door. ‘We’ve had our fill of your type in this valley, and we’d just as soon you be on your way.’
‘Well now, that is hardly very welcoming, I must say.’ He pressed one hand against the door to test its strength. It held firm.
‘I welcome little old ladies, or children who need help, but I don’t welcome you, so be gone, or feel the edge of good honest steel.’
‘Children who need help, you said. Would that stretch to injured men, do you think?’
‘No injured men here, lest you mean young Sam. He were here for a while, and he was sorely hurt, but he’s been and gone now.’
Young Sam? Wondered Elstar. Would Cavour be called a young man? He’d seemed closer to middle years to him, but mayhap that was because he was used to sport with prettier humans, and mayhap Cavour wasn’t old; mayhap he was just ugly.
‘Where is he now?’
‘I don’t... why do you want to know, anyways?’
‘Oh... we met on the road and he...agreed to do me service, and he has not yet been paid for his trouble.’
‘Well, I don’t know...’
‘You are right not to trust me; of course you are. In the past I have been somewhat...harsh, you might say. But all that is behind me now, and my people have left this land and I am all alone.’
‘That is a sad tale for sure, but mayhap it’s just a string of words that are worth less than a string of sausages, and I’ve been called a fool before, and I’ll be called a fool again, I reckon, but not today. So, be gone, and no more of your sneaky words.’
Elstar frowned, and then he scowled, and then he cursed quietly to himself.
He was tempted to tear the door open and give vent to his anger with the
impertinent man, and if he turned out to be pretty, then other passions might raise their heads.
But no, there was time enough for all that when he had his hands on a Wellstone.
With a sigh, he turned away and set off once more on the road towards Hesselton.
Frenk watched him go on his way, through the little window by the door. When he was sure that he was gone, he called Teddy down to him from the attic.
‘It’s safe enough now, lad. He’s gone, I reckon, so come down and finish your supper.’
‘He was sure scary, Pa. I was watching him through a little hole in the roof, and he was ugly as anything. But you saw him off, I reckon.’
‘Ay, it seems so. Now, while you’re eating I’m going to take a walk down into town and I’ll be taking my sword, just to be sure nothing bad gets itself done, what with that ugly creature being down there and up to no good.’
‘Can I come, Pa? I’ll eat up my food really fast, like.’
‘No, son. You stay here and keep the house secure.’
Teddy eyes opened wide as a pair of saucers. ‘You don’t reckon he’ll come back, do you?’
‘No, but just keep everything locked up and be as quiet as a mouse hiding from a ginger cat, and you’ll be fine.’
Chapter 55 Regond
He looked at the rest of the council, sitting in a ragged circle around him, and he found it hard not to sneer.
Old Maggle looked so nervous he was surely close to fouling his breeches. His bright little eyes couldn’t seem to find a place they’d like to settle.
Freelly had that confused look on his face once more. If he knew his own name, it would be a surprise.
Ellerry was looking from one to another, hoping someone would take a stand, any stand, and he would agree to it. He looked away when he noticed Regond’s attention on him, fearful that he might be forced to make a decision.
And Agnon just looked angry; full of stupid, undirected anger at the position they had found themselves in. Regond could almost hear his clenched jaws grinding his teeth to stubs.
None of them were nobles of course, so they weren’t caught up in the attack on Palace Gail. But they were still important men, merchant men, and the people looked to them for guidance.
Regond looked past them at the small disconsolate groups dotted about the hill.
Close by he could see a family group, with a thin worried father, and a sour angry mother.
Beyond them was a group of lads, half excited and the other half frightened, putting on a feeble show of bravery, but convincing no-one.
They had all rushed up the hill, away from the town and the sudden palpable menace from the tangleweed, carrying nothing but the few possessions they could collect on the way.
They couldn’t have said what moved them, but the very air tasted of fear and death, and none of them were foolish enough to stay in that benighted place.
Now something had to be done, and done quickly. Down by the coast the temperature was already mild, but up here there was a chill to the air, and few had slept well the night before.
Someone had to make a decision, and the other members of the council looked incapable of deciding which hand to scratch their backsides with.
With a grunt, Regond stood up. He was a big man, tall and broad and round, and he could have housed a family of pigeons within his expansive black beard.
‘I’m going back,’ he said, nodding as heads turned towards him. ‘We can’t stay here with no food or shelter. So I’m going back down.’
‘Yes,’ said Ellerry, just for something to say.
‘But…what about the tangleweed?’ asked Maggle, his old hands shaking.
Regond scowled at the memory of the panic that had overwhelmed him, and everyone else. It was not like him, not at all. He’d never been afraid like that in his life; not without good cause.
‘It’s only a plant,’ he said, with a snarl. ‘Lurrk, I’ll have your tinderbox, if you will. I mean to start me a fire; I could do with the warm.’
‘Ain’t nothing up here to burn,’ said a little ball of a man, with fuzzy red hair ringing his bald head.
‘Then I’ll take it down to that evil weed and I’ll set fire to it.’
With the tinderbox in hand, he took a few steps down the hill.
After a moment, he stopped and turned.
‘Well, come along now. Who’s coming with me?’
Ellerry looked down at his feet, and Agnon shook his fierce head.
No-one joined him as he set off once more.
‘Don’t need them anyways,’ he muttered, and his grip tightened on the tinderbox.
The grassy slope was broad and shallow, so he ignored the narrow twisting path to his right. Later, when the meadow finished at the edge of a rock precipice, he’d need to take the path.
He’d walked less than 500 yards when he noticed that the tinderbox the idiot Lurrk had given him was broken and was close to being useless.
‘If I can take that piece of flint out, I’ll be able to hit that striking plate with it by hand, and that might work, if I collect some good dry tinder on the way,’ he mused, as he bent over the box, trying to get hold of the narrow flint with his thick fingers.
He was at it for a good few minutes, with his concentration on naught but the broken tinderbox, leaving the world to do what it might.
All of a sudden there was noise behind him and he turned.
‘About time too, I might say,’ he said, as the crowd of people rushed down the hill towards him.
He smiled, in his grumpy sort of way, as they got closer, but he was chastened to notice that no-one was paying him any attention at all.
‘What is this?’ he asked, as Ellerry drew level with him.
‘Can’t ye hear?’ he gasped, without slowing, and then he was gone.
Regond grabbed a scruffy youth by the shoulders and stopped him in his tracks.
‘What are you doing, lad? What’s the rush?’
‘It’s my ma. She’s calling me to her, and I’d better be quick.’
Regond looked past the lad’s head.
‘But, your ma, she’s right behind you!’
‘I know,’ laughed the boy, and then he slipped free and leapt down the slope, with his ma close behind.
‘This is madness! Agnon, there, slow down a mite. You’ll burst a blood-vessel, you will.’
Agnon’s face was still red, but he was smiling as he sailed past Regond.
‘Mother,’ he gasped. ‘I’s a coming.’
‘But, your ma, she passed...must be twenty years now.’
‘Ay,’ said the older man, without slowing, ‘and I’ve missed her so.’
Dozens of men and women had already passed him, and he shook his head at their folly, for he was sure they weren’t about to set the tangleweed aflame, or do anything else at all useful.
Then he lifted his head, and he tilted it a little, and he smiled.
‘Ma,’ he said, with joy in his voice, ‘I’m coming.’
He joined the throng that was stilling rushing down the hill, and he tossed the tinderbox to the ground as he went.
Chapter 56 Fleur
‘Hah now, they come. Can you hear them, mother dearest? Can you feel them rushing to cast their petty lives to the wind? So eager, they are.’
Fleur closed her eyes and tried to ignore the words of her soon-to-be-born son.
‘Will he never stop talking?’ she wondered.
‘When I call, none can resist.’
‘You can’t kill everyone. There’s thousands and thousands of people. More than the Giants and the Elvenfolk; a hundred times more.’
‘If I wished, then I could call them all to me, and they would come, mindlessly seeking death.’
‘But, who will you rule over then?’
‘Ay, mother. It is not so often that you speak wisely, but you are right. It would hardly be a thing to desire, a world with no-one to worship me. I would have to keep you alive and that would be such a bore.
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br /> ‘No, I shall clear the island of this puny vermin, and their flesh will strengthen me and feed the Stone. But I shall let the humans on the mainland survive a little longer.’
‘Mercy at last?’
‘Don’t mock me, mother. There is no mercy in my heart; not for such as you. They may live out their little lives for now, but their world will be awash with fear, and hatred will stalk the land. I will turn brother against brother, father against child. Where love once glowed, there will only be blood. A lover’s caress will rip the throat from the object of love.
‘So abject will be their misery that when I walk amongst them, they will kneel and bow their heads, and I will be their light.’
‘They may bow before you, but don’t turn your back, for a brave man will stand and plant his blade in your back.’
‘Now you show yourself for a fool, woman. Bravery is a factor of ignorance, and will I be sure to make the consequences of such actions clear to them. And do you really think that I would not laugh off such a blow? That I wouldn’t walk on unharmed?’
‘You are flesh and blood, nothing more.’
‘Flesh and blood? Really? Mayhap you are right. But that flesh and blood is bound together by Magic, and that will sustain me against all possible harm.’
‘Magic is fleeting.’
‘Cease your chatter, mother. You begin to bore me. Here they are now. Be silent whilst I accept them to my thorny breast.’
Fleur dropped her head and prepared herself. She didn’t want to hear their screams, but she would count every one, and accept her part in their deaths. In truth, it was the least she could do.
Chapter 57 Tom
The morn came too soon for some, and was more than a little laggard for others, but the group met for breakfast and plans and discussions.
One Giant was already on the beach, scowling at its emptiness, and the other was counting seabirds by the harbour wall, though he soon ran out of fingers.
Ellaine sat with Rootheart by her side and, from time to time as she spoke, she would touch his leg or his arm. For his part, there may as well have been no-one else in the room.