giant did not reappear. Reaching the bottom, Crush slowly skulked through the forest and down the hill to the stream where he thought Boulder had rolled. The elemental was nowhere to be found, but he left heavy footprints in the ground as he went. Crush followed the prints up the hill to the base of a very old walnut tree that stood gnarled and bent on the precipice of the hill. When he reached the top, he turned to look back from where he had climbed, and he understood why Boulder had taken this direction. From the vantage point where he now stood at the crest of the hill, Crush could see the entire forest valley below. A tap on his shoulder at that moment gave him quite a surprise, and he turned to face his opponent, only to realize that it was Boulder.
“It is good to see you, human,” said Boulder quietly with his gritty voice.
“You scared me, sneaking up on me like that,” Crush whispered as he held his chest from the sudden adrenaline rush. “I thought that I had lost you.”
“Indeed you seemed quite at home in the trees, but I was able to follow you from down here,” said Boulder. “You made quite a lot of noise up there.” Then Crush’s thoughts turned back to their enemy.
“Where’s the giant?” he said as he backed up against the trunk of the tree.
“The stone that he threw into the treetops was quite impressive. The giant watched it go up and then watched it come down. On his own head,” said Boulder.
“He’s dead, then?” Crush asked as he looked down the hill. He could just see the outline of the giant’s hand through the shadows as it lay limp and lifeless, and he wondered how much more of this senseless fighting would have to take place before the journey was over.
“I did not stay to ask,” Boulder replied and then started off into the forest. He motioned for Crush to follow. “Come. We should make haste to the river before any more of those creatures can arrive.”
“You’re right,” agreed Crush. “Let’s move,” he said, and they began treading quietly through the forest. The river made a crooked line as it separated the forest, and Crush knew that they would reach it from any pick of directions. The problem came in finding the right location to cross, and he needed Boulder’s help in locating the crossing point. “How do you know where we’re supposed to cross over the river?” Boulder stopped and sniffed the air, and he altered his direction by thirty degrees to the right.
“I can smell the water and the fish,” the man of stone replied.
“Fish. That sounds good. I could use a proper meal,” Crush replied and licked his lips. Boulder just stared at him in wonder.
“You will not want to eat the fish that I speak of. If you are hungry, you will need to find something on land,” he instructed. “You may drink of the river, but if you eat of the river, you will not be allowed to cross it.” Crush did not understand fully what Boulder was saying, but he had learned to trust what he told him about this world.
As they walked further along through the forest, they came across a set of the giant’s footprints, and since the path of the prints seemed to coincide with the same direction they were traveling, they decided to follow the prints for a while. The trail led up and down several hills to the base of a magnificent and frightening wooden structure that came out of the ground. Made of logs, limbs, and leaves, the structure was shaped in the form of a fortified castle in the woods, and Crush began to feel a bit of unease as they drew closer to what appeared to be the front door.
“Boulder, I don’t think we should be here,” murmured Crush.
“I quite agree,” he said as he looked from one side to the other. “Let us go this way,” he said as he pointed around the left side of the structure.
“What makes you think that way is better?” Crush whispered.
“Oh. There is no giant on that side of the castle,” Boulder said as he began walking closely along the front wall. Crush followed in behind Boulder and stared backward at the far side of the castle to watch for movement.
“You mean that there’s a giant roaming around out here?!” he asked in clarification. Then Crush saw the treetops move along the far wall and understood that they must hurry if they were going to get to safety. “Run!” he said to Boulder in a loud whisper. Boulder quickly grabbed him by the arm and stuffed him between the notch in the wall where two logs joined, and then he turned to face Crush as he hid in the hole. With one finger to his lips, Boulder raised his arms above his head and filled the gap in the logs with his body in an effort to mask Crush from being seen. Thunderous foot steps clapped as a giant turned the corner of the building, and Crush tried to keep quiet in the tight space as a tree knot painfully stuck into his lower back. The booming of the footsteps drew closer and closer, and the sides of the wall shook with the vibrations. Looking up, Crush could see the light of the sky above. He could also see the vertical logs above as they shook with the tremors, and he wondered whether he would make it out of this world alive. For the first time since he had decided to face the dragon, Crush recognized that even the journey to get to Scalus Mountain might turn out to be as dangerous as facing the dragon itself.
Pressed up against the wall and bearing the pain of the knot that stuck into his back, Crush felt the tremors of the giant’s footsteps as the colossus paced along the front side of the log castle. The logs were held together with mud, and loose particles from above fell onto his face with the vibrations. Even though the sky was open and clear above the castle, a shadow settled in above his head, and Crush knew that the giant must be passing close by.
A most regrettable event then occurred. As powdery dust settled onto Crush’s face, he inhaled a few of the dust particles into his nose, and before he could do anything to prevent a reaction, Crush sneezed. Twice. The giant, who was a male of the species, stopped his patrol along the border of the log castle, and he hesitated, quietly waiting for a third sneeze to occur so that he could pinpoint the location. Still cleverly hidden behind Boulder, Crush shook his head and stretched his nose with various facial contortions in an effort to calm the nasal reactions, and to his credit, he did not sneeze a third time. The giant however had become substantially suspicious at the noise, and he bent down on one knee to examine the wall more closely for the location of the mysterious racket. That was when the giant discovered the rock in the wall that was shaped like a man’s backside. Flustered by the shape and location of the rock, the giant stuck his fingernail in behind Boulder’s head to pry the elemental loose from the wall. Fortunately for Crush, the fingernail only contacted the top of Boulder’s head, and he was in no real danger of harm. The giant tried to break the rock loose, but Boulder dug his hands into the wood and held onto the logs with the strength of a mountain.
Curiosity overcame the giant, and he sought to place the tip of the tree trunk, which he carried as a spear, into the tiny hole where Crush was hiding. Unsuccessful in his attempts to pry the rock loose with a fingernail, he sought to use the spear as leverage in the tight spot. Boulder sensed the danger looming, and as the spear tip came close, the elemental let loose of the logs and snatched the spear tip with both hands. The giant’s grip on the spear loosened for an instant, and Boulder launched the spear tip upward at the giant’s face. The spear struck the giant’s nose, and blood spurted out with the crunch of a bone break. Bellowing out in pain, the giant dropped the log and grabbed his face to apply pressure to the broken nose. Unable to see, he turned his back to Boulder and fell to his knees on the ground.
Seizing the opportunity, Boulder and Crush bolted out of the notch in the wall and fled around the side the left side of the castle where the giant had appeared. Since the guard had just come from that direction, they supposed that there would not be another guard along that side for a while. They were correct in their assumption, and they sprinted past the castle and into the forest as another giant rounded the far corner of the castle, just in time to see them disappear into the underbrush. Soaring over shrubs like hurdles on a quarter-mile track, the two adventurers fled throu
gh the forest at such a speed that they failed to notice the trip wire until it was too late. Boulder fell face first into the ground, and Crush stumbled over him, losing his balance and crashing into a tree. Then the net of the snare that had been activated swallowed Boulder and lifted him high into the limbs of the tree above. Crush stared up at his companion in disbelief as the booming footsteps of the following giant loomed closer to their location.
“Boulder! Can you get out?!” he yelled up to the dangling trap.
“With enough time, yes,” Boulder replied. “But you need to keep going to the river!”
“I’m not leaving you!” Crush exclaimed as the giant came into view. Then Crush quickly climbed high up into the foliage of the nearest white oak tree, well beyond the reach of any giant, and he waited for the inevitable. Within minutes, the pursuing giant had discovered Boulder as he hung helplessly in the net, and the behemoth leaned in close to sniff the elemental as he swayed with the breeze. Boulder could not resist the opportunity, and when the giant’s nose was within reach, he drew back an arm of stone and punched him squarely in the snout. The giant reeled back in surprise at the mighty
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