by Ethan Spears
Malk, the scout, was an expert naturalist. He was capable of trapping or caring for most animals as needed and knew more about the local plant life than most scouts, which was saying something. As with every scout Aoden had met, he was open and friendly with the entire squad, the only difference being that he extended that courtesy to Aoden as well. He was also devastatingly quick with his sword. If he learned to switch his style up a bit more, he would give Mendoro a worthy challenge.
Speaking of, Mendoro was also a special sort. Possibly the quietest, humblest elf Aoden had ever met, he was nonetheless on excellent terms with every elf in the squad, and damn good with the sword to boot. Aoden half-suspected that even those still hostile toward their commander curbed their aggression at Mendoro’s behest, for the squad had remained anywhere from respectful to polite since training began and it certainly wasn’t Dorim’s doing. Why Mendoro would go out of his way to do that for him, Aoden could only guess, but he knew that no one else would have the influence to get squad members like Ile and Roonun to play nice.
All of this made Aoden more aware of his soldiers’ interests. Garnis, though long-winded and overly-detailed with his storytelling, was bubbling passionately about the stalking and the hunting of the beast. Come to think of it, Aoden didn’t even know what Dorim did before he became a military man. Seemed like it was well past time he asked.
“Wasuku, not this again,” cried Malk.
“Hey, I’m almost done with the story,” huffed Garnis. “Don’t interrupt me now.”
“Not that,” Malk said, covering his mouth and nose. “Don’t you smell that?”
Aoden sniffed at the air, but scouts were always well ahead when it came to sights, sounds, and smells. All Aoden smelled was foliage and sweat. “What have you got?”
“The Lieutenant would know it if he smelled it. It’s that crap he makes us eat.”
“That’s not possible,” Dorim said, “the smell’s only strong when cooked. You’re imagining things.”
“‘Doubt the scout, suffer a rout.’”
“Hey, pull this thing properly,” said Morm, working on the same wagon as Malk. “Don’t go getting all distracted on me.”
“I think I smell it too,” said one of the elves.
“You’re crazy,” said another.
“No, I definitely smell it,” said another still.
They went back and forth, but slowly the smell crept over the squad until there was no mistaking it.
“Let’s go around,” said Coros.
“Might as well just go through,” said Loom. “We’re probably nearly through anyway.” A dozen voices rose up and shouted Loom down, and soon calls of ‘Around! Around!’ rang through the woods.
“Shut up, the lot of you,” shouted Dorim. “You’re soldiers! I’d have thought you could handle a bit of smelly food. Show some guts! We’ll go through and you’ll damn well breathe it in deep. You should take after the Commander. Look, he doesn’t so much as blink in the face of this little bit of stink.”
Aoden smirked as the men fell to grumbling but continued marching on. He leaned in and whispered to Dorim. “While I applaud your mastery of the men, this smell is incredibly strong, as strong as your glaze recipe at least. That’s a bit odd, don’t you think?”
Dorim chewed his lip for a few silent seconds. “Ah, damn it to hell,” he finally spat. “Everyone, hold up, stop for a moment.” A fresh wave of complaints came rolling back towards them. “Shut up, already. We’ll get through straight away after this. I just need to check something.”
The lieutenant released his grip on the wagon and Aoden couldn’t pull well enough on his own, so he came to a full stop. Dorim scampered over the wagon’s side onto the haphazard piles of equipment lying on the bed. He scratched his chin as he nudged things out of the way with his boot, ignoring the curses the other elves were flinging at him, their wagons still inching forward, ready to get rolling the moment the order came. Finally, he bent down and picked something up. “Commander, c’mere.”
Aoden walked over to the side of the wagon where Dorim leaned down close to him. “Does this bottle look to be leaking to you?” he whispered, handing over a little clay thing.
Aoden flipped it over in his hands, rubbing his fingers along the stopper and sides, but it felt dry. “Doesn’t seem like it.” He sniffed at it, but he only smelled the cork. “Do I want to know what’s in this?”
Dorim glanced at the men. “Well, if it’s not leaking, then it doesn’t matter,” he said, snatching the bottle back.
“It’s your garlic glaze, isn’t it?”
Dorim fumbled the bottle, nearly dropping it. “SHHHH!” he hissed. “Don’t say it so loud. It is, alright? If the lads find out, they’ll eat me alive. I thought the smell was just coming from the bottle at first, but if it’s not, that means someone else is out here cooking with garlic, and I doubt it’s other elves. Shut up!” He shouted again against the complaints of the elves.
“I thought I told you to leave that behind. We’re going to be at the foot of Doddin’s Line. Any orc sneaking over will be able to smell this for stretches.”
“Look, I’m not planning to cook with this. It’s meant for personal consumption.”
Aoden held out his hand. “I don’t want to do this, but I’m going to have to confiscate it.”
Dorim pulled the bottle towards his chest. “Come on, Commander. You know I’ll take every precaution with it. You didn’t even know I had it until just now.”
“And I’m sure you’ll take every precaution with it until the day you drop the bottle. I already told you that the glaze was going away weeks ago and you tried to get around it. If I’m to have any authority, I can’t let this slide. Hand it over. That’s an order.”
“Pah,” Dorim said sourly, tossing the bottle over to Aoden. “You had to pull rank, didn’t you? You knew I wouldn’t resist if you did that.”
Aoden laughed, placing the bottle in the pouch at his waist. “I’m afraid you’ve set yourself up for that.”
The voices of the other elves were rising, growing angrier as their pause lengthened.
“Unbelievable, really.”
“Come on, let’s get going.”
“Around, around!”
Dorim leaned over the lip of the wagon. “I SAID SHUT UP!”
The wagon jolted with a crack, spilling Dorim over the lip and on top of Aoden. Splinters of wood and tent material showered them both as the trunk of a fully grown oak, one hundred and eighty hands tall and stripped of all its branches and leaves, came crashing down a few hands’ lengths from where Dorim stood moments ago. The wagon was smashed, catapulting its contents everywhere. The oak didn’t roll to a stop like it had fallen but bounced off the ground and ricocheted off of several trees, spinning wildly through the air, its roots passing so close to where Dorim and Aoden lay in a heap that Aoden felt something pass through his hair, tearing out several strands.
The trunk finally lumbered to a halt, resting on the path, and silence descended on the squad. It was only then that they noticed the lack of other sounds: there were no birds or beasts, no sounds of nearby wagons, no shouts from soldiers and messengers; the other squads had steered around the stinking, garlic-infused batch of wood, leaving them utterly alone. And when the ground began to shake with the rhythmic pounding of footsteps and the air reverberated with a voice many octaves too low, they realized the mistake they had made.
“GIANT!” shouted Garnis, pulling an arrow from the quiver on his belt and nocking it to his bow just as Magragda burst through the trees wielding a massive trunk like a club.
He was bigger than Aoden would have dared imagine. Magragda was at least a hundred hands tall with arms and legs larger around than an elf was tall and proportioned like a hideous caricature of a human. He was bulbous with muscle and covered with so much coarse black hair that it looked like he was wearing a bear as a suit of armor. His head was monstrous in size, a third of his whole height, with eyes like melons and a mou
th that could, perhaps with some difficulty, devour an elf whole. After only the briefest of glimpses, Aoden understood why Garnis had failed to take one down.
Arrows were already flying by the time Aoden and Dorim disentangled from one another and struggled to their feet. Dorim was disoriented from his fall and stumbling, but Aoden pulled him to the thickest batch of trees he could find as Magragda stomped among the wagons, sending chips of wood through the air.
“Aim for the eyes!” he managed to call out, though Garnis and many others were already shouting those same words and it was easier said than done. Having the advantage of surprise, Magragda was already jumping and bobbing to avoid any arrows aimed at his face, brushing others away with his arms. They didn’t even seem to draw blood when they struck, but it was impossible to tell with all that thick hair.
“How the hell did we get ambushed by a giant?” Aoden said. “We should have heard him coming for a stretch, even in these woods.”
“I don’t think he wanted a fight. Probably waiting for the army to pass and we got too close,” said Dorim, dabbing at the blood leaking from a splinter of wood embedded in his cheek. “He’s a far cleverer bastard than I’d have thought. He knows what he’s doing. The garlic was meant to ward the army off and it worked like a charm.”
“Which means no support.” Aoden cursed under his breath. “We’re idiots for walking into his territory.”
“This is our territory,” Dorim corrected angrily. “He’s an unwelcome squatter.” He looked up at where the giant’s head would be were it not obscured by the treetops. “We’re not going to be able to get a shot on him. It would be bad enough with just all his dancing about, but with the canopy?”
“And there’s forest for stretches in every direction,” Aoden added. “Thankfully he seems content to destroy our wagons and he’s not going after the—oh, gods dammit, Garnis!”
For a moment, he genuinely thought Garnis was leaping out of cover to attack the giant, but once he was on the path they were following, well away from Magragda’s rampage, he snapped his head this way and that. He spotted the Commander and rushed over, sliding to the ground next to them.
“Arrows aren’t working at all, sir,” he said gleefully, “but I think I’ve got an idea that might draw some blood. It’s risky.”
“Fighting a giant itself seems risky,” Aoden observed.
“Well, it might get worse. The arrows aren’t doing much, but I think our swords might do the trick.”
“Are you mad?” asked Dorim. “Don’t answer. I can tell by that smile.”
“That doesn’t sound like a solid plan,” Aoden said. “Even if half the squad didn’t swing like they were swatting flies, a few nicks to the foot will only serve to annoy that thing.”
“It’ll work, trust me.”
“Nothing you can trust more than a man who says ‘trust me,’” said Dorim.
Garnis laughed. “The arrows hurt, but they’re like mosquito bites to him. He’s big, but he’s more or less built just like us, so if we can get around him and cut the tendons in his ankle, he should come down.”
“Are you sure?” Aoden looked around his cover at the giant. He was looking for the thick rope of tendon that would serve as their target, but it was impossible to make out through all the hair.
“I’ve been studying giant anatomy in case I ran into that she-giant again. That tendon is a meaty thing, so an arrow won’t be enough, but if we can sever the whole thing, we’ll have a real chance.”
“Hell of a way to test it out. What’s your opinion, Dorim?”
“Not a clue, Commander. The kill order means retreat isn’t an option, so we have to try something. I hate to say it, but if Garnis says it might work, he’d know better than anyone. But there just has to be a better way than this.”
In the distance, Magragda tore up and battered down a row of trees, pushing deeper into the area where the rest of the squad was positioned. They retaliated with arrows and curses which were equally effective.
“We’re at serious risk of being overwhelmed. We can’t sit here daydreaming new strategies, so let’s call it a plan. We’ll need two people to attack the ankles.” Aoden considered his choices. “Mendoro should go. Who’s the fastest on foot in the squad?”
“Malk, naturally.”
“I’d rather not send our scout. He might be needed to run and report our situation. Who’s next?”
“Either Loom or Kinser.”
“Alright. Dorim, go grab Mendoro and Kinser, tell them the plan. Garnis, help me look for some swords in this wreckage.”
“This is a terrible idea, sir,” Dorim confided. “I just want you to know that.”
“Noted. Now go.” Dorim hurried off. Magragda was batting at the treetops, and Aoden silently hoped that no one was foolish enough to try to climb the trees for a better shot after hearing about his penchant for ripping them from the ground.
“Gah, broken,” he said, tossing aside a sword, most likely Dorim’s. He spotted his own scabbard, the white painted pattern sticking out sharply against a heap of green canvas tent. As he moved to retrieve it, something crunched under his foot. He looked down to find his silver mirror, shattered to pieces.
He cursed. In any other circumstances, his mirror breaking would have been devastating, but he didn’t have time to reel. If anything, it just made him want to kill this giant himself.
“That’s not going to be easy to replace,” he grumbled as he reached the sword and freed it from the wreckage, unsheathing and checking the blade. “We’ve got one good one here.”
“I’ve got two here,” Garnis called from another wagon.
“That’ll do. Let’s go.”
They slipped back into the woods and made their way over to the rest of the squad. The thunderous and terrible sounds of trees being snapped, uprooted, and tossed rent the air and only got worse as they approached. They ran into Coros halfway there, taking potshots around the trees, but the arrows were flying wide. He was shaking visibly but flashed a quick grin as they approached. “Orcs are one thing,” he called out to them, “but this giant is more like ten.”
“Keep firing,” Aoden said as they passed. “Keep his eyes on these woods. We have a plan to take him down.”
“Right-o, chief.” He fired another arrow, and it was more on course than the one before.
An earth-shaking impact sent Aoden sprawling, but a half-dozen hands caught him.
“Mendoro! Kinser!” He called. They put down their bows and sprinted forward. “Take these swords.”
Kinser took a sword, but Mendoro waved Garnis away, pointing at his belt. “I have mine with me.”
“Good man. Did Dorim already explain the plan?” They nodded. “Good. Go east and swing around that way. Everyone else, we go west to draw his attention. Go, and best of luck to you two.” Mendoro saluted, and they both dashed off. “Arrows, everyone. Move west and keep hitting him. Mendoro and Kinser won’t have much of a chance if they’re spotted. Follow me.”
They moved through the woods, firing where the branches above were sparse or where the trees thinned enough between them and the giant. Magragda was shouting something in a language Aoden didn’t understand, occasionally punctuated by deep, sonorous laughter. The giant sounded like he was enjoying himself. Aoden raced ahead of the squad, directing their path, turning to deliver the occasional arrow himself.
“Stop here,” he commanded. “This should be far enough. Keep the arrows coming.”
The giant’s club went up, the elves scattering as it came down in their midst, bringing down boughs and boles alike, more splinters and chunks of bark showering those below. A kick from the giant toppled a tree, and a swing of the club exploded it to pieces. It was all Aoden could do to avoid getting an eye full of wood chunks. He didn’t risk peeking out of his cover until he heard Magragda’s shouts and grunts change in timbre, and he knew Mendoro and Kinser had struck.
Aoden saw them dashing around his legs, trying their best to strike a
t whatever flesh they could, but he started kicking his feet out at them, pulling them out of range of their blades. Kinser was barely able to get his arms up in time as a kick glanced him, sending him spinning through the air, his sword sailing into the woods. He landed well and rolled to his feet, but the force was more than he anticipated and he rolled right back off them. He scrabbled upright, clutching at an arm that now bent at an unnatural angle. The club went up, and Kinser dashed for the safety of the woods, but it was just a feint to scare the elf off. Once Kinser was gone, Magragda went for Mendoro, now nowhere to be seen. The giant looked every which way, even squatting and looking between his legs, but he didn’t see Mendoro. It was only when the giant turned back towards the rest of the squad crouching in the woods that Mendoro burst from the bushes, jumping and grabbing on to Magragda’s leg.
“Mendoro, no!” a chorus of voices called from the woods. Aoden had no time to think. He grabbed his sword and ran out to assist.
Magragda shouted and smacked at his leg with the club, but Mendoro circled away. The giant lifted his other leg, trying to brush Mendoro off with his foot, and it was then that Mendoro struck, dragging his blade through the tendon with a violent jerk. Magragda’s reaction was immediate, the one leg he was standing on collapsing, sending him to his knees, shaking the ground like an explosion and forcing Mendoro to leap to safety. If only he would fall low enough so Aoden could strike his neck…
But he didn’t. His left hand slammed into the ground, catching him from falling completely, and the other thrust his club into the ground for support.
The giant cried out, his hand pulling away from the club, blood oozing from his thumb, a splinter the size of a branch visible even from where the elves hid. The trunk tilted and fell as he shook his hand, sucking on the open wound. Aoden saw that his only support was his one arm.
