A Plague of Giants

by Kevin Hearne

  “Gerstad Culland du Raffert, tidal mariner,” I replied.

  Her eyes widened. “You’re a tidal mariner?” Her gaze took in my decidedly unmilitary body, and doubt clouded her expression.

  “Yes. I’m here to do something about …” My hand writhed at the city like a beached eel. “That. Them. This.”

  “Ah! We thought Brynlön would be doing something soon, but we thought we’d see an army instead of just one person.”

  “Who’s we? You mean Rael?”

  “No, I mean me and the stonecutter who raised that tower.”

  I looked past her at the tower, then at the city, thinking the view from that tower might be far superior to the one I currently had. “Is the stonecutter still up there? I mean, can I have a look at the city from there?” I asked, pointing.

  “Sure. Let’s go. She doesn’t speak Brynt, but I’ll translate if you need me to.”

  She pulled me along with her by using her kenning, moving as fast over land as I could move through the water. When we reached the base, I saw the strangest crop one will ever see in farmland: pale thin wrists and bony fingers clutching swords, sprouting from the ground, bunched together near the base but trailing away toward the city like the tapered tail of a river lizard.

  “Are those …?”

  “Bone Giants? Yes. Meara just got finished burying them. I was worried about her for a while, but she’s a stone killer.”

  “Can’t wait to meet her.”

  At the top of the steps spiraling around the tower, I met Meara, who looked to be in her midtwenties and weary beyond measure. We nodded helplessly at each other, unable to speak except through our eyes. Hers had pain in them, and she didn’t smile at me the way the courier had. Perhaps she had lost her family in Bennelin the way I’d lost mine in Festwyf. We wouldn’t get to trade tragedies, however.

  The view of the city was better but not good enough. I could see sentries on the walls much more clearly now but not into the city itself. Perhaps the stonecutter could mend that.

  I turned to Tuala and asked, “Can Meara get me a look down into the city? Raise the tower, maybe, until I can see over the battlements?”

  After Tuala’s translation, that turned out to be something Meara could do. The tower lurched for a moment under my feet, then rose as the ground built beneath us.

  I don’t know precisely how high we climbed, because I never took my eyes off the city. As we rose above the walls, I could finally see them and understand what they’d done. Being told is one thing, but seeing it is another. Milky ghouls on sticklike legs, teeming in the streets, and … dragging bodies around. Brynt bodies, men, women, and children, all murdered by those horrible creatures like wraiths made flesh.

  “Why?” I murmured, not really expecting an answer, but Tuala gave me one.

  “Because they thought they could get away with it,” she said.

  “But what are they doing? With the people?”

  The courier shrugged. “I don’t think they’re going to bury them in the ground or in the sea like you and I would. They appear to be dragging them all into one big pile. See there? My guess is they’re going to burn them.”

  “Burn …?” My fingers twitched first, but the tremors spread all over my body, just as they had when I’d heard the news about Festwyf. All those poor people, hauled around like so much meat, only to be melted down to ashes, denied their return to the ocean. My family was little better off, still left where they were slain in Festwyf. My thumb caught on the edge of the satchel in its restless quivering, and I unslung it from my shoulders, handing it to the courier. “That’s the last of me,” I told her.

  She stared at me, uncomprehending. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  “Whatever you like. It’s yours now. I’m going to practice my dry direction.”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  Sunlight glinted on the scalloped surface of the bay as if a school of moonscales had surfaced to feed. “The people of Göfyrd deserve to be buried properly at sea,” I said, “and the Bone Giants deserve to drown in it.”

  I didn’t talk any more after that, though Tuala tried to get me to explain. She would see for herself soon enough.

  All my trembling rage and despair I channeled into calling the waters of the shining blue bay. And it resisted because what I wanted was not the path of least resistance, but I poured my emotions into it and pulled, and it pulled back until I quaked with the effort. Still the waters receded from the shore and built into a wave—no ordinary wave but one shaped by my will to do the right thing. To bring Göfyrd vengeance and peace. Justice and a final rest. A reaping, yes, but also a cleansing.

  Needles of pain fired hot and bright throughout my body, the toll for such a kenning already being exacted, but I kept calling the water anyway. How strange that the process of liquefying your organs should feel so blasted hot.

  The roar of that building water matched the roar in my ears and the roar tearing from my throat—or maybe it was all one, the same roar I’d heard back in Fornyd, calling to me even then, and I understood that it had always been the Lord of the Deep, calling me to this duty, calling me home to the sea.

  Without a word, Fintan threw down a black sphere and changed seemings directly back to the stonecutter Meara.

  This strange Brynt man who looked so uncomfortable in his military uniform was in fact a tidal mariner: the Second Kenning’s equivalent of a juggernaut. I didn’t speak the language—yet—so we did little more than make eye contact and nod. I wished I could have talked to him, though. He looked like he could relate to the week I’d had.

  Mild mannered at first, he transformed after he saw the Bone Giants from on high, moving Brynt bodies around. His jaw clenched, he gave his satchel to Tuala, and then he looked out at the bay as if he could slay the whole ocean with a snarl. I followed his gaze and saw nothing but calm waters, so I checked him again and he was quivering, head to toe. Sweat glistened on his brow and his upper lip, and I worried that perhaps he was having some sort of physical episode, maybe even a seizure. What reason could he have, after all, to glare at the bay with such fury? I turned back to look, and it was different: the waters were receding from the tongue of the shore to form the most massive single wave I have ever seen. A wave much taller than the walls of Göfyrd, even seen from farther out in the bay, and heading straight for the city. The building roar of it reached our ears later than the sight, and both the size of the wave and the volume of the roar grew as it approached the occupied city. Furthermore, it was oddly shaped: not a wide bank of blue-green with a foam-capped leading edge spanning the width of the bay but rather a fat whirling cylinder that looked like it might fit perfectly inside the walls.

  “That has to be terrifying,” I whispered, looking at the distant figures on the walls pointing out frantically to the oncoming wave. They could see it coming to get them but could not possibly get out of the way in time or do anything to stop it. The base rushed forward, all that weight slamming into the seaside wall, more than any stonecutter would prepare for, and the massive cylinder of whirling water crested over the wall and fell inside, crushing rooftops and the much more fragile bodies they sheltered. Anyone not immediately killed by the weight of it would surely drown, for the water filled up the city walls like a soup ladle filling a bowl, but instead of herbs and vegetables floating in soup we saw rubble and bodies bobbing to the surface of the churn.

  The tidal mariner cried out, and I turned just in time to see his face ripple like there were waves underneath his skin, and then there was no skin or anything really solid beyond a sodden lump like wet ashes, for he came apart and splashed inside his uniform, his head fountaining briefly, and he watered the soil of the tower as the Second Kenning destroyed the vessel through which it worked. His empty mariner clothes smacked wetly to the earth, and I sank down next to them, seized by revelation.

  He had just achieved the impossible because he didn’t care about the consequences. He knew he’d die
instantly for straining his kenning like that, and he did it anyway. And if I had thought to do the same thing in the Granite Tunnel, I could have made those seals hold and prevented the collapse. I could have saved those soldiers if only I had been willing to sacrifice as this man had. I would have returned to the earth, someone would have sung the Dirge for the Fallen for me—not Temblor Priyit but someone, surely—and I wouldn’t be an exile, this legendary example of how not to be a stonecutter.

  Tuala shook me gently by the shoulders. “Meara, it’s okay. He meant to do that. He knew it was going to happen.”

  “I know,” I said, wiping at my nose and realizing that I had become a mess of tears and snot. But not, as Tuala thought, because this man had died but because I hadn’t. “I should have done what he did. If I had committed everything, I could have saved them.”

  “No. No, Meara. If you had, you wouldn’t have been here to help him. He needed this tower to be here. You helped him and thereby helped Brynlön, as you pledged to do.” She snorted at a sudden thought. “I know it may not feel like it, but the Triple Goddess may be working through you. Do you not realize you have been instrumental in destroying two armies? And now you will help the Brynts even more.”

  “How?”

  “Get up. Look at that,” Tuala said, pointing to the city. Waves of Brynt bodies were returning to the sea, which was every bit as important to Brynts as burial in the ground was to us. “That’s history right there. A turning point, as was the Granite Tunnel. And it needs remembering. I will tell what happened here and bards will repeat it, but you will make it last forever. Because you’re going to work on this tower and make it a monument to this tidal mariner. What he did, right here, deserves your best effort.”

  “I never caught his name. It just didn’t penetrate.”

  “Culland du Raffert.”

  “Okay. You’re right. I will do my best sparkle work—”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Hey,” I said, pointing to something in the sky above Göfyrd. “I don’t think those are blackwings over there. Those look like flying men.”

  “We must step back just a wee bit from that point,” Fintan said, “and pick up with Gondel Vedd and Ponder Tann.”

  There are a few rolling hills south of Göfyrd, and I crested them with Ponder Tann one morning to witness the most awe-inspiring work of the Second Kenning I’d ever seen or even heard of. We knew something strange was going on as soon as we saw a rather incongruous tower to the north of the city, rising above the walls yet not made of stone—it appeared to be raw earth.

  “What purpose does that tower serve?” Ponder wondered aloud. “It’s not in an ideal spot for a lighthouse.”

  “An archers’ tower, perhaps?”

  “Too high for that. And any archers you put up there would be cut off in an attack.”

  “Well, I think there are people on top of it.”

  The tempest squinted. “I think you’re right. Three, perhaps. Difficult to tell at this distance.”

  We could see much more clearly that there were Bone Giants on the walls of Göfyrd, pale bodies clearly visible against dark stone. There was no telling how many more might be inside the city; all we could see was rooftops from our angle.

  “I hate to ask, Ponder, but might you be able to get us closer? Quickly, I mean, yet without straining yourself?”

  “Sure. We could fly over there without much strain if you don’t mind a rough ride. Where would you like to land?”

  “Perhaps within hailing distance of the people on the tower. We can at least ascertain if they are friend or foe. And if they are the latter, I suppose we must fly away quickly again.”

  He nodded. “All right. I’ll take us over the city to get a better look inside.”

  “Out of bowshot range, I hope.”

  “Arrows won’t fly straight when I’m directing the wind,” he said, “so no need to worry about that. I don’t think the Bone Giants have bows anyway. Better secure whatever you need to hold on to before we go.”

  My carisak was already strapped to me, but I rechecked to see that the clasp was securely fastened and tightened everything before nodding to the tempest. “Ready.”

  He closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, and on the third inhalation a phenomenal gust blew up from the valley below and lifted us into the air, chilling my nethers abruptly and sending my stomach into sloshing nervous fits. We dipped and twisted and flipped, and in short order I was hurling my breakfast into the wind.

  We managed to straighten out to at least a semihorizontal trajectory by the time we reached Göfyrd, some alarming swoops aside. Looking down directly into the streets and squares, I saw that the city was well populated with Eculan invaders. Some of them spotted us and pointed, but no one tried to shoot us out of the sky.

  “Oh, Reinei preserve us,” I breathed when I saw the bodies. On the northern edge of the city, the Eculans were dragging the slaughtered bodies of all the Brynts and piling them against the inside of the wall. The streets leading to it were smeared with their blood. I caught something of the smell as we passed over, and my guts heaved again even though my stomach was already empty.

  Tears streamed out the corners of my eyes as we approached the wall. How could the Eculans believe that they were just and righteous in this behavior? For they surely did, using their religion as their excuse. What was I missing in Zanata Sedam that gave them permission to kill without remorse?

  Now closer to the strange tower, we saw that there were indeed three figures on top: two women and a man. The women were easily identified as Raelechs thanks to their bare arms and the Jereh bands worn on the right.

  The man, middle-aged and stout, wore a blue and white uniform that looked like it might be Brynt military, though I couldn’t tell what rank; I am unfamiliar with such customs anyway, and he might simply have liked crisp blue and white clothing. He appeared to be in some kind of distress: his expression was strained, and his clenched fists shook. He was staring out at the bay, and the Raelechs were staring at him; none of them saw us approaching. I turned my head to follow their gaze and saw that the waters were behaving strangely. They were receding from the shore quite rapidly. I pointed it out to Ponder and shouted through the wind, “Look at the bay! That’s not normal, is it?”

  He stared. “No. That’s unnatural. Where is it going—oh! He must be a tidal mariner!”

  “Why? What do you—oh, sweet kraken tits.” Ponder’s eyes were better than mine, and I was a bit slow in discerning that the waters were receding only to form a wave able to crush the entire city underneath its weight, dumping a large portion of the bay right over the walls and obliterating the entire occupying force of Eculans in a matter of seconds. It crashed through the wall facing the sea, and eventually the water returned there, taking the bodies of the Eculans and the Brynts with it.

  My mouth ran dry with fear despite the fact that we were looking down upon so much water.

  Ponder spun us around and held us aloft in a juddering plume of air. “Think of the power that would require!” he said, ignoring that he was already doing what only a handful of people could do with their kenning.

  I thought of my brother, already aged near to death, who had died transporting us to this continent. The tidal mariner had not been nearly so old, but the power he must have summoned to do that—to wipe out an entire city with a single wave, for that is what he just did—would surely bring him near to death if not kill him outright.

  Tearing my gaze away from the city to peer at the tower, I saw that there were only two figures on top of it now: the Raelechs, one of them on her knees. Where was the Brynt man? Had he fallen off the tower? As I watched, the other Raelech moved to comfort the one on her knees. Had she loved the Brynt man?

  “Ponder! Can you take us to the tower?” I called.

  He glanced over at me briefly and then returned his gaze to the ruined city, perhaps determined to fix the sight in his mind. But he nodded, and moments later t
he wind shifted and carried us toward the tower.

  “Do you speak Raelech?” I asked Ponder.

  “No.”

  “All right. I will try to summarize as needed.”

  “If that tidal mariner is still alive, I’ll be surprised,” Ponder said as we began our descent. “That kenning probably finished him.”

  Both of the Raelech women were on their feet now, looking at Göfyrd, but as we neared, one of them spotted us and pointed. I waved to let them know we were friendly, and they braced themselves as the first gusts of Ponder’s wind reached them. Then they flattened themselves to the top of the tower to reduce their profiles and avoid being blown over the side.

  They rose and slapped dirt off their clothes once we landed, and I saw by their Jereh bands that one of them was a stonecutter and the other was one of the Triune’s couriers. Meara and Tuala were their names. Meara looked as if she’d been crying recently. The Brynt man’s uniform lay crumpled and drenched between us, but there was no sign of his body.

  “I’m Gondel Vedd, and this is Ponder Tann,” I said in the Raelech tongue. “We serve Mistral Kira of Kauria, here to witness and report, and we have witnessed something truly remarkable. Where is the tidal mariner?”

  My question caused the stonecutter to sob openly. She covered her eyes with her hands and turned away.

  “He’s dead,” Tuala replied, gesturing at the uniform. “He just melted. Dissolved—whatever. The kenning drank him up, liquefied even his bones. And it was so strange because it was like he wanted to die.”

  “Who was he?”

  “His name was Culland du Raffert.” She waggled a small leather journal in her hand. “He gave me this, said it was the last of him.”

  “May I take a look at it? For scholarly purposes.”

  “You can read Brynt?”

  “I am fluent in all the languages, as you are.”

  “Why did the mistral send you up here with a tempest?” she asked, but handed the journal to me.

  “Because I can also speak with the Eculans.”

  “Who?”