by J Battle
Other Fletterschem appeared from the trees, each laden with the best food the forest could provide.
Todlon watched them, with grunts of satisfaction and nods of approval, and he was soon about the business of devouring everything that was presented to him.
Septon-day stood to one side and watched in admiration, for he had surely not seen eating on such a scale before.
At last the Giant sat back and rubbed his bulging stomach. ‘That were a fair snack, I’d say,’ he said, finishing with an enthusiastic burp.
‘I’ve heard it said, and now I see the truth, that a Giant takes some feeding.’
‘Ay, you’re right enough there. Ain’t nothing as good as eating, ‘less it be drinking ale. Now, that comes close, I’d say.’
‘Alas, we have no ale for you, sir. It is not a vice in which we indulge.’
‘Vice? Indulge? It is the stuff of life, little person, and that’s the honest truth.’
‘Would now be a suitable time to discuss our plans?’ Septon-day set himself beside the Giant and never had he felt himself so small.
‘Ay, go on then, while I’m resting.’
‘As I said earlier, there are men about this region who would desperately like to get hold of this Stone, and we cannot allow that to happen. There is a place where we can go to put the Stone beyond the grasp of these men, but it is not safe to risk the journey on our own, with so many of them about.’
‘So, you want me to take the Stone there for you?’
‘That is exactly what I am hoping for, good Giant.’
‘Well, that seems easy enough. Is it far?’
‘With your long legs, it will take but a few days.’
‘But your legs are so short, they do nothing but slow me down.’
‘I’ve heard tell of a Giant who carried a dozen Fletterschem on his back for 100 leagues and he hardly knew they were there.’
‘Hmpf,’ replied Todlon, as he considered the little man’s words. ‘You’d have me carry you?’
‘Just to save your precious time.’
‘Precious time? I don’t know about that, but I reckon I’ve got the time to spare, if you’ve got a big enough bag to carry food.’
Septon-day smiled up at him. ‘I believe we can manage that for you, good Giant.’
Within just a few moments, the Giant was ready to go, with a bulging sack across one shoulder, the Wellstone in the crook of one arm, and Septon-day in the other.
Before he could take his first step, a man leapt from the trees, brandishing a sword in each hand and a fierce expression on his face.
‘Drop the Stone, you big lump, or feel the edge of my blades,’ he yelled, his voice booming in the narrow clearing.
‘What is this?’ asked Todlon, a quizzical look across his wide face.
‘It is a human man, come to stop you, I believe,’ offered Septon-day.
‘Stop me? How’s he going to do that?’
‘Well, I’d say he expects his swords to be a sufficient threat to you.’
‘What does a sword do?’
‘I’ll show you what a sword does,’ said the man, and it was indeed Blagg, come to take his prize.
Todlon smiled in anticipation. ‘Will this be fun?’ he whispered, though anyone within sight would have been able to hear him quite clearly.
‘No, Blagg!’ yelled Old Togg, rushing into the clearing as quickly as his old bones would allow. ‘Don’t you be…’
But he was too late. Blagg was already moving forward, his swords weaving before him.
‘Take that!’ he cried, as he thrust his right-hand sword at the enormous target that was Todlon’s belly.
His jaw dropped at the sharp crack of the blade snapping.
Recovering quickly, he sliced his left-hand sword at the same target.
The blade cut through the thick fabric of the Giant’s jacket, but merely slid across the skin of his stomach.
‘Hey!’ yelled Todlon, ‘you’ve ripped my jacket! This is my favourite jacket! No need to go and do that!’
As he spoke, he allowed the Wellstone to slip to the floor. With his hand unencumbered, he picked up the stunned and somewhat disappointed Blagg by the neck and swung him from side to side in front of his face.
‘What you go and do that for?’
What Blagg might have said in response will never be known, as he was so petrified that he quite fainted away in the Giant’s grasp.
‘What’s this?’ asked a puzzled Todlon. ‘He’s only gone and fell asleep, he has.’
‘I believe extreme fear can have that sort of effect on humans,’ said Septon-day, quietly, as if he didn’t want to awaken the man.
They were both so intent on their considerations of the man’s condition that neither noticed Old Blagg slip quietly forward and scoop up the Wellstone in his handy sack.
He would have been off and away with his treasure, and a sure future of prosperity and power, if not for the arrival of a slim person in a brown dress and a dark green cloak.
‘Hold there, foolish man,’ she said: her voice as bright and clear as a spring morning.
‘Move out of my way, old hag, before you regret getting out of your bed this morning,’ Old Tagg hissed.
‘Old hag, indeed! I’ll take old, for I’m as old as the hills, but hag? Not yet, I’d say.’
Old Tagg moved to one side, but she matched him.
He tried the other way, but she did the same.
‘Put down the Stone, silly little man, and you can have my good wishes for no cost at all, and there are those who would tell you that is a precious gift indeed.’
Old Tagg scowled at her, and he tightened his grip on his bag.
‘What is this?’ said Todlon, matching the old man’s scowl and raising it somewhat. ‘More humans?’
‘Good day to you, Giant,’ said the woman, not taking her eyes from the old man.
Septon-day slid to the ground and bowed.
‘This day is a good day, to see Ellaine Woewearer come to our aid.’ He bowed once more.
‘Can the good Giant take a hold of this old fool before he rushes off the best he can?’
As if her words were a command that he could not disobey, Todlon reached over and picked up Old Tagg, none to gently.
‘Now, if you could let go of your bag, I’m sure this fine Giant would be happy to let you and your young friend go on your way with nothing more than a stern look. Would that be true, good Giant?’
Todlon looked down at her and he felt a great warmth well up inside. ‘Of course, little human woman. Whatever you say.’
Old Tagg scowled some more, and there was a considerable amount of grunting, and one or two dark looks, but at last he saw sense and dropped his bag.
‘Thank you, old fellow. Now, take that young man, when he wakes up properly, and go home. I dare say you have crops to reap and livestock to rear, and children who’ll need whatever wisdom you can lay your hands on. Forget this Stone nonsense, for they are dangerous and not to be taken lightly.’
She shook her head as she turned from him.
‘Men,’ she said, softly to herself, ‘always looking to be part of my sad songs. They break my heart, they do. They break my heart.’
With those words on her lips, she left the clearing, and its somewhat stunned occupants behind her.
Part 3
‘Where are we going, then?’ said Todlon. ‘I hope there ain’t anymore hills. Giants don’t like hills, ‘less they’re going down them. That would be fine, but I reckon I’ve walked up too many hills, the past couple of days.’
Septon-day pursed his lips.
‘Do you know what a mountain is?’ he asked, slowly.
‘’Course I do, it’s a big hill,’ replied Todlon.
He walked on for a couple of minutes before the question struck him. ‘Why are you taking about a mountain? We ain’t going up a mountain, are we?’
‘Just up the side of one, and only part way. Not very high at all.’
‘
I don’t know about that. I don’t reckon you mentioned mountains when we started out.’
‘No, but it is only partway up the mountain. Nowhere near the top at all.’
‘Well, we’ll see. If it looks more than a hill, I’ll sit at the bottom and have something to eat, and you can carry on, on your own, like.’
‘That seems only fair,’ said the Fletterschem, with a nod.
They walked on in silence for a while; silence if you took no notice of the Giant’s grunts and moans.
‘I hear a Giant can tell a story like no other,’ offered Septon-day, as the evening bore down on them.
‘Ay, no-one likes a story like a Giant,’ agreed Todlon.
After a lengthy pause when it seemed that the Giant wasn’t going to take the bait, Todlon chuckled.
‘My ma, she’d liked to tell the story of the Giant who fell down a hole. Ay, she does.’
‘And what befell the Giant who fell down a hole?’
‘Now that’s the story, so don’t start getting all jumpy and rushing to the end. A Giant takes his time to tell a story.’
‘I believe we have the time.’
‘Well then, let me think. It’s been years since I heard the story and I don’t want to get it wrong.’
Todlon frowned to see if that would aid his memory, then he tried a scowl. In the end the story came to him all of its own accord.
‘Dacrodd, he were called, and he was a grumpy old Giant, he was. He didn’t like people, not even Fletterschem, and he weren’t ever pleased to see a man. And, if he saw a human child, that would set him off in a right bad mood, it would.’
‘That is a shame, for human children can be wonderful.’
‘I don’t know about that, but, anyways, Dacrodd were walking down a road, in the morning I reckon it was, but it could have been…what d’you call after lunch? Not night, ‘cause it still be light.’
‘Afternoon?’
‘Ay, that could be it. Anyways, one morning, Dacrodd was on this road, and he heard some human children shouting and yelling, and laughing and giggling, and that made him cuss, ‘cause that’s the last thing he needed, having his his morning disturbed by a bunch of human children.
‘So, he walked off the road and into the trees, reckoning he’d hide until they’d gone on their noisy way. But the trees were close together and thin, and, I didn’t tell you it were winter, did I? I was supposed to say it were winter. So, it were winter, and there weren’t no leaves on the trees, so he could still be seen, ‘cause it aint easy for a Giant to hide, not when there’s no leaves.
‘So, he went deeper into the woods, looking for big trees, or little trees with leaves, I reckon that’s about right, and the woods they were dark, so he didn’t notice a big hole right there in the middle of the ground, just waiting for a foolish old Giant to fall into it, and he did, fall into it, like, and it were deep, deeper than a Giant is tall, and that’s very tall, I’d say, unless he be a short Giant, which I never seen or heard of, I ain’t.’
He paused for breath and to shake his head at the folly of a falling Giant.
‘Was he hurt?’
‘Hurt?’
‘Yes, by the fall.’
‘I don’t know what sort of fall would hurt a Giant, ‘less it be from the top of a mountain. I’d better be careful I don’t fall off your mountain.’
‘I’m sure there is no danger of that. So, the Giant was in the hole.’
‘Ay, that was where I was up to. He weren’t best pleased, and the hole was too deep for him to climb out, but he reckoned the human children wouldn’t find him there, so he’d be left in his own peace.
‘So, he sat on the ground and he took out his pipe and he reckoned he’d worry about getting out when he’d had a good smoke.
‘He’d not hardly started his smoke when he saw some worms, wriggling and asquirming in the wall of the hole, they were, and he didn’t like it at all, he didn’t, ‘cause he didn’t ever like worms, he didn’t, ‘cause the sight of them made him feel sick. Giants mostly don’t like worms, you know, but he were worse than most, he was.’
‘Oh, I’m sure that I have never heard that.’
‘Yes, well it’s true, it is. He didn’t like worms and it ruined his smoke, it did, to have them that close, so he stood up and he called out for help, he did.’
‘A Giant calling for help; that would be something to see.’
‘Ay, and it don’t happen often, it don’t. He called out for help, and them human children, they were close enough to hear, so they came to the edge of the hole and looked down on the Giant, and that don’t happen often neither, humans looking down at Giants.
‘So, he said, ‘can you help me out of this hole?’ and they looked down, all quiet like, and one said, ‘you’s too big, mister,’ and another said, ‘he’s too fat,’ which weren’t respectful, I reckons, and another said, ‘and ugly,’ and another said ‘and smelly,’ and Dacrodd, he started to get angry at the way they were talking, and he thumped the wall so hard that the ground shook and two of the human children fell into the hole.’
‘Oh dear, I hope they were not hurt, for human children are known to be quite fragile.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that. To a Giant, everyone is…whatever that word was you used. But Dacrodd caught them anyways, so they weren’t likely hurt.
‘Anyways, he growled at the children, the ones in his hands and them up above, and he said, ‘get me out of this hole, or there will be trouble,’ and one of the children said, and she were a girl, I reckons, if I remember it right, and she said, ‘there’s a log over there that we could push into the hole, and he could use it to climb out,’ that’s what she said, and then she said, ‘but you’ll need to pass them two children up here to help, or it will be too heavy for us to move,’ and Dacrodd reckoned that made sense, so he reached up and put the two children back where they were before they fell, and they laughed and made to run off, but the girl, she said ‘Stop, we got to help him now,’ and there was some arguments goint on for a while, and then they did what she said, and they tugged and they pushed the log until it hung over the edge of the hole, and Dacrodd pulled it down until one end was in the hole with him, and the other reached up past the edge.’
He paused then, for breath, and to remember what happened next.
‘And then he climed out of the hole and all was well.’
Septon-day nodded. ‘And the moral to your story is that human children should be given a chance, because they may surprise you?’
‘No, I reckon the moral, if I get your meaning right, is human children ain’t as bad as worms, and that’s as far as it goes.’
They walked on in silence for a while and then they came to a place where the land began to climb in a way that suggested to the Giant that this was more than a hill.
‘This is the mountain, ain’t it?’ he said, with a grumpy snort.
‘Just the edge of it, good Giant, and we won’t be going too high. Another two or three hours should suffice.’
‘Two or three hours walking up a mountain don’t sound like fun.’
‘What about two or three hours going downhill?’
‘That sounds better.’
‘Well, on the way back, that’s is what you can do.’
Todlon hrmped without commitment as he bent to the task of walking up the barren, rocky slope of the mountain.
‘Is that three hours yet?’ he said, after a period of time that could surely not have extended past an hour.
‘Almost,’ said Septon-day, encouragingly, ‘just a bit further.’
‘It must be time to eat,’ offered the Giant.
‘You had a substantial meal little more than an hour ago.’
‘I know, that’s why I reckons another one is due.’
‘When we get there, you can eat.’
Todlon walked on, trying to work out why he was taking any notice of the little fellow at all.
Fletterschem bring good luck, he decided, and that seemed to be
enough for him.
At last they to a raised area of solid rock, in a lozenge shape some 100 yards long. Just beyond was the leading edge of the glacier that would one day be known as God’s Saddle.
The wind off the glacier was fierce enough to chill the bones of the Giant.
‘I don’t like the cold,‘ said Todlon, and he gave his great head a shake, ‘no, Giants don’t like the cold, they don’t.’
‘It won’t take us long,‘ said Septon-day, ‘ you’ll soon be back down where it’s warmer.’
Halfway across the the lozenge, they came to the entrance of a cave.
‘I won’t fit in there,’ said Todlon.
‘No, if you would be kind enough to lower me to the ground, I’ll take the Stone from here.’
‘What you going to do with it?’
‘Within this cave is a tunnel which leads deep into the mountain, and the way is narrow and winding and not easy to follow, and that is where the Stone will be hidden from the sight of man. This Stone, and all the others we have gathered over the years.’
‘What’s to stop a man from just walking into the cave and finding the Stones?’
‘That is why we must hold the secret to our breasts and not tell a soul about this place.’
‘Well, I won’t tell no-one, for sure, if that’s what you want. Not even when I’ve had my fill of ale and my head is full of muddles and puddles.’
‘That’s all that I can ask. Now I must be quick, for I would not like anyone to see a Giant sat waiting about on the side of a mountain and start to wonder what is happenng.’
When the Fletterschem had disappeared within the depths of the cave, Todlon sat himself down and took at good look in his sack to see what was left to eat.
He was far too preoccupied to pay attention to a lone figure someway down the mountain.
A man he was, though somewhat taller than was usual, and with dark features and a scruffy tumble of hair halfway down his back.
If he ever cared to, he’d answer to the name of Bresscot, though he was generally a solitary fellow, and few hearabouts knew his name.
He’d followed the Giant and his little companion, and he’d been hardpressed to keep up, but the prize was worth the trial, as his sainted ma would always say, whenever he weakened in any endeavor he might undertake.