A Plague of Giants

by Kevin Hearne

  Grateful for the invitation, I stepped into his home, which smelled of anise and cardamom. I left my field bags by the door and followed him into the kitchen. He pumped some water into a pot—they had their own well!—stoked the hearth, and set the water to boil.

  “Do you wish to talk or simply be warm and welcome? I will give what comfort I can.”

  “Where is your family?” I asked, noticing that the house was silent except for us.

  “Dinner with Viceroy Bhamet Senesh.”

  I felt my eyebrows climb. “Fancy.”

  “Deathly boring,” he corrected me. “And more than a little undignified. The pressing of lips against the viceroy’s buttocks and the loud smacking noises are enough to ruin one’s appetite. And pride.”

  “What? This is something that actually happens?”

  “No.” He grinned at me and waved away his sarcasm. “A figure of speech. But if one wants to supply the army with all things chaktu, as my father does, then one must smile and nod and gain the favor of the viceroy. His posterior must be blistered raw by now from all the kissing it receives.”

  Handsome and considerate on the one hand but a wicked wit on the other. I had impeccable taste in crushes. And since he was so willing to listen, I talked over a clay mug of tea about what happened to my family but left out my experiences in the nughobe grove. That gave him the impression that I survived three days out on the plains by sheer luck.

  “So what will you do now?” Tamhan asked when I finished. “You can do anything you want.”

  “So can you.”

  He snorted. “I wish. My father expects me to be a chaktu butcher like him. Or at least a chaktu herder who will supply him cheaply.”

  “Don’t you want to be?”

  “I would rather do almost anything else,” he said, and his voice dropped to a whisper to voice his secret thoughts. “I am sick of chaktu. The smell of it, the taste of it, everything disgusts me. And it’s boring. I’d like to go to university, but my father says there’s no money that way, no future in what you can read out of a book. He thinks my only chance at prosperity is to deal with the same few families he does, engage in the same kinds of corrupt practices, to be just like him, and that’s not what I want.” I knew exactly how he felt.

  “Maybe seek a kenning?”

  “Where? Rael? I’d never make it there.”

  “Not Rael. Three days’ walk south of here.”

  “What?”

  “It’s difficult to explain. But pretend for a moment that there is a kenning within reach. Would you want it?”

  “Three days’ walk on the plains isn’t within reach. That’s suicide.”

  “I just did it.”

  “Right. Sorry. Still hard to believe that. But seeking a kenning is also suicide.”

  “Maybe. But you didn’t answer. If it was within reach, would you do it?”

  Tamhan sighed. “I don’t know. Probably not. When you put it like that, I don’t think I’m desperate enough to face death, or desire power that much. But I know a lot of people are.”

  “Who?”

  My new friend scowled. “What do you mean, who? I was speaking in general. Lots of people are barely getting by and figure either death or a boat’s the only way out of here. When they get tired of it, they just walk alone into the plains until something’s jaws tear their meat from their spirits.”

  “What if people didn’t have to fear the animals on the plains? Do you think that would change things?”

  He laughed at me. “You’re asking the strangest questions. We’ll always have to fear them.”

  “Not if someone found the Sixth Kenning.”

  Tamhan sobered. “All right, you’re starting to worry me.”

  “I’m being serious. But just supposing: If the Sixth Kenning was found and we could control animals, wouldn’t that change things? We could go anywhere, right? What would happen?”

  “So this is like a mental exercise, or …?”

  “Sure. Think it through with me.”

  “Well, I think people would be getting out of these sky-damned walls and starting their own farms and maybe other villages all over the place, like you see in Rael.”

  That was a worrisome point. What was good for the people wasn’t necessarily good for the animals. People would spread out and take over the plains. Not all at once but gradually.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Well, it means more prosperity for everyone. Except maybe the riverboat captains, who won’t be able to charge such prices for transport when people can travel by land.”

  “Oh, good point. The river traders wouldn’t like that. Who else would be against it?”

  “Anybody who profits from the way things are now and who couldn’t profit from changing things up,” Tamhan said, shrugging.

  “The church,” I said, and when Tamhan asked why, I explained that a kenning related to animals might cast doubt on the worthiness of worshipping Kalaad in the sky.

  “Bones and dust, you’re right. Well, that means you’d have the government against it.”

  “Why? Wouldn’t they continue to be the government regardless of kenning or whether people lived inside city walls or not? Or regardless of what god they worship?”

  “Yes, but I’ve been listening to my father enough to know this: the country is built on the river trade and the church. Those are the pincers of control. When those pincers have a hard time squeezing regular people, they’re going to start squeezing the government instead—”

  “And then the government will be squeezing the specific people who are upsetting the pincers. Got it.”

  “Hah! Got what? This is all dream stuff, Abhi.”

  “No,” I said, smiling at him. “Not really.”

  He didn’t smile back. “Tell me what you mean.”

  “The Sixth Kenning is real. But you can’t simply be told, right? You need to be shown.”

  “Pfft. Of course. I can’t simply take anyone’s word for it.”

  “That’s fair. Understandable. I’ll show you in the morning if you want. And anyone else who wants to escape the city.”

  His parents returned home then, flushed with drink and apparent success; they believed a fat contract with the army was practically in hand. But that meant I had to tell my story again—the part about my family, I mean. They wouldn’t hear of me sleeping alone in my house and I had no intention of doing that anyway, so I slept in their guest room and wondered, as I drifted off in comfort, if Murr and Eep were still safe.

  Tamhan didn’t forget our conversation and wanted to know what I was talking about, so after a solemn breakfast with his parents and after I sold my family’s knives and my father’s collection of finer ones, I used the coin to buy a small cart, a horse, a brush, and some feed and apples. I piled everything into the cart along with my few belongings in the field bags and bought more food and also a canvas tent, a bed-roll, and blankets. Tamhan accompanied me, asked what I was doing, and looked progressively more worried when I kept putting him off but promising a full explanation soon.

  We lied to the guards at the Hunter Gate and said we were a party of two looking for bluetips and gharel hens. Once out of their earshot and safe in the grass, I undid the horse’s bit but left her tied to the cart.

  “Hello, my name’s Abhi,” I told her. She turned her head to look at me, somewhat startled to be addressed. “I won’t make you wear a bridle anymore or whip you or anything. I’ll just ask you to walk or stop and feed you apples whenever I can. I’ll also make sure nothing hurts you. You have to believe me when I say that, okay, because there’s going to be a bloodcat coming along soon, but he will definitely not hurt you.”

  “Look, Abhi, I understand that the loss of your family has been hard on you, but you’re starting to sound less than sane here,” Tamhan said.

  “Walk on, please,” I told the horse, and she did. I mentally searched for bloodcats in the area and saw that Murr was nearby, less than a hundred lengths away. Eep w
as somewhat more distant but would be able to make it in a couple of minutes. I called them both and told them not to worry or bother the man and the horse with me.

  “All right, Abhi, seriously, you need to stop,” he said. “Let’s go back before something has us for lunch.”

  “Nothing will harm us, Tamhan. I found the Sixth Kenning. Didn’t you see me ask the horse to walk on?”

  “Yes, but horses are trained to do that all the time.”

  “Have you ever seen a bloodcat or a stalk hawk come when called?”

  “No, of course not, but—”

  “If a bloodcat and a stalk hawk appear here and walk along with us through the grass, will you believe that I have found the Sixth Kenning?”

  Tamhan rolled his eyes. “Okay, sure, but that’s—holy Kalaad, that’s a bloodcat!” He pulled out his belt knife, and Murr, who had just appeared to Tamhan’s left, laid his ears back and hissed at him.

  “No, no, it’s fine, put that away!” I told Tamhan, grabbing his shoulder to hold him. “Murr, stay back until I can get this guy to calm down.” The horse did well; she shied and looked nervous but didn’t bolt. She simply kept walking. “Tamhan, he’s not going to hurt you; I already told you. Murr, you’re not going to attack, right? Shake your head and say no.”

  Murr did so, and Tamhan’s eyes changed from panic to wonder. “You really control animals?”

  “I don’t know if control is the right word, but they don’t eat me and so far they don’t eat other animals that hang out with me if I ask them not to.”

  “But you can talk to them. You called him a name.”

  “Yes. Now put away the knife; you’re being rude.”

  “You’re sure it’s safe?”

  “Very.”

  He sheathed his blade, and Murr’s ears popped back up.

  “Amazing,” Tamhan said. “And there’s a stalk hawk, too?”

  I turned to the east, where I’d felt Eep’s presence, and spied her in the air. “Yes. She’s right there.” I pointed. “Land on the cart if you don’t mind, Eep,” I called. We had to catch up a bit because the horse had never stopped walking, and Murr kept pace to the left. Once Eep backwinged and landed on the front edge of the cart and gave us a greeting chirp, Tamhan began to laugh.

  “You really did it? You found the Sixth Kenning, and it’s three days south of here?”

  “Yes. In a nughobe grove. A pack of bloodcats will either give you the blessing or tear you up.”

  The bloodcat spoke up, as if to comment on that. “Murr.” And for the first time that communicated something to me—not language so much as a fact that appeared in my head, like something I had always known and merely forgotten until that moment.

  “For another week,” I added. “After that, it … moves.”

  “What do you mean? The pack moves?”

  “No, the kenning does. Different animals act as the source of the kenning, and it jumps around.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Not sure how, but I know it.”

  “Huh. That would explain why nobody found it until now. You’d have to be attacked by the right animals at the right time. You were extremely fortunate.”

  “I don’t know if I’d say that,” I said, shaking my head and thinking of why I’d been in that grove.

  “Oh. Kalaad, I keep saying the wrong thing. I’m sorry.”

  “Never mind. I understood what you meant.”

  “Where’s it going to be next?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t think you want to know.”

  “Try me.”

  “Farther south, down the Khek River. You’ve heard about that famous pool where the pink sunfish spawn? It’s supposed to be magnificent.”

  “Yeah.”

  “There’s a colony of huge fish spiders down there, bigger than your head, and they dangle down from the tree branches hanging over the river to catch them, and so you would have to—”

  “Ugh, never mind. You were right; I don’t want to know.”

  “But what we spoke of last night, Tamhan, it could happen. Everyone could be free of the cities if we had enough Beast Callers.”

  “That’s what you call it?”

  “I don’t know. Best I could come up with. You have anything better?”

  “No, no. I like how it sounds—very intimidating. Like you would only call large animals, never songbirds or squishy caterpillars.”

  “But I can call anything. We could change the country. Maybe the world. Nentians don’t have to be the poorest people in the world with a huge untamed land they can’t use.”

  “Starting to think you’re right. It’s hard not to get excited about the thought of it. I might not want to risk a kenning myself, but I would love to live out here.” He looked up at the blue and slowly turned in a circle. “The sky is so much bigger when you don’t have walls around you. I could get used to this.” With an effort he tore his gaze from the vastness and locked his eyes with mine. “We should go shout it in the square.”

  “I think it would end badly. I’ve been thinking about it quite a lot. This kenning is different from the other ones. We can’t point to a spot on the map and say if you want the kenning, here it is, because the location changes. That means if the viceroy or the church or the river traders want to get rid of this threat to their power, all they have to do is get rid of the blessed.”

  “Oh. Because no one else will know where the next kenning source will be.”

  “Exactly. So we need to somehow get lots of people blessed without the people in authority knowing about it.”

  “That’s going to be impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because people talk. But you can probably get a few blessed without them knowing. If you give me some time to get some people together, we can start out tonight. This afternoon even.”

  “You know some people willing to seek a kenning?”

  “It’ll be easy,” he assured me, and looked down at my khernhide boots. “Judging by your feet, you’re even more well off than I am. Hunters always have the pick of leathers, I guess. You don’t know how good you have it. But I’ve delivered chaktu all over the city, I’ve seen poverty up close, and I know that there are plenty of desperate people who would jump at the chance to improve their lives. Can you just wait a few hours? You’ll be safe, right?”

  I couldn’t say no to him. If he came back with people, fine. If not, that was fine, too. I had much more to learn about my blessing, and my vague idea was to follow the river downstream all the way to Batana Mar Din before trying to recruit anyone.

  “Tell them they need to bring six days’ food and water.”

  Tamhan laughed and shook his head. “You really don’t know. A lot of people in this city aren’t sure where they’re going to find their supper. But I’ll bring along plenty of chaktu jerky. I know a guy.” He winked at me. “And besides, if this kenning works like the others, they won’t all need six days’ worth, will they?”

  Looking down at Murr and remembering what it had felt like to be attacked by his nest, I said, “No, they won’t.”

  While I waited for Tamhan’s return, I worked on a personal project. I wrapped two fingerlengths of sticks in cotton batting and covered both sides in leather and sewed them together, forming a small padded pillow with wooden ribs inside. The leather on the top was boiled hard, and the scrap on the bottom was soft and pliable. I rested this on my left shoulder and began to experiment with different ways to affix one of my sister’s belts to the bottom of the pad and strap it on my body. I cut two slits in the bottom of the pad, and that allowed me to string the belt through it. By looping it underneath my left armpit, I was able to buckle the belt on the front side of my shoulder.

  “Hey, Eep,” I said. “Look what I just made. You can perch on my shoulder without scratching me now. Want to try it?”

  She cocked her head at it in several different angles, checking it out before flapping over from the lip of the cart to give it a try.
Her talons definitely exerted a pressure on my shoulder but didn’t pierce my skin.

  “Not bad, is it? You like the view?”

  “Eep.” She nodded to make sure I knew I had done well.

  “Excellent. So what do you say, Murr? Ready for that belly rub?”

  The bloodcat, who’d been watching all this with bemusement, shook his head.

  Tamhan’s natural charm worked well. He returned with thirty-two Seekers after only a couple of hours. They were mostly our age give or take a year, poor and clearly used to missing meals, the third or fourth children of large families if I had to guess or perhaps without parents at all. Theirs were the mouths that didn’t get fed all that often. Their hair was tangled and dull, and patches of skin bore visible signs of dirt. What they considered clothing was that which provided them modesty and little else. Some were barefoot.

  With Murr and Eep’s help I convinced them that the Sixth Kenning was real and recounted my discovery of it and the decision to give up hunting beforehand.

  “I’m not sure whether it’s required to forswear killing animals before you seek the kenning, but it might help,” I said. I also emphasized that I wasn’t sure of the full range of my powers yet. But I knew that I could live in harmony with the animals of the plains and that that spelled a different life not only for me but for all Nentians if enough people became blessed.

  “What’s the success rate, sir?” a boy asked; he was perhaps only fifteen years old. His name was Madhep.

  “A hundred percent so far, since I’m the first one,” I said. “I honestly don’t know. It could be near fifty-fifty like the Fornish, or much better odds like in Rael, or lower like in Hathrir, Brynlön, and Kauria. You’re risking your life for sure—let’s be clear about that. It’s no small risk, but I can’t tell you exactly how big or small of a risk it is.”

  “Doesn’t really matter how small the chances are,” a girl said. “At least it’s a chance. I have no chance of living to see twenty if I keep going the way I’m going. Better to go out with some hope, I’m thinking.”