by Ford, Shae
“Do you smell that, lads?”
Kael had learned — after a number of unfortunate incidents — to plug up his nose anytime that question was asked. And that went doubly for whenever it was asked by Brend.
“No, no,” he said, laughing. He pointed up the road, where the smoking tower lay only a quarter of a mile in the distance. “They’re baking the bread today.” Brend inhaled so deeply that Kael could see his nostrils flare. “My, that takes me back. It reminds me of my dear, sweet mother …”
“You shouldn’t talk about your mother,” Declan said, prodding him with the butt of his scythe. “You’ll go all misty-eyed, and we’ve still got the wheat to plant today.”
“You’re right,” Brend said thickly. And Kael was shocked to see that there were, indeed, tears welling up in his eyes. “I can’t let the rememberings get the better of me. Someone’s got to make sure you clodders get my wheat planted right!”
On their way to the grain fields, they stopped by Churl’s wagon. The water barrels had been replaced with several barrels of seed. Brend filled his satchel halfway up, and then insisted on filling Declan and Kael’s.
“That ought to get the field covered — you don’t want to waste any of it. Now, come on,” he barked.
Much to Kael’s surprise, Brend was very particular about the wheat. He stood with his arms crossed in front of the field, and would only let certain giants join their team. “Get out of here, Taggart!” he hollered to one fellow who was making his way over. “I don’t want you anywhere near my grains — go plant some turnips!”
Taggart didn’t look at all hurt: he just shrugged and loped off in another direction.
“Cattleraisers,” Brend said with a grunt. “Ham-fisted bumblers if ever there were any. They haven’t got the touch for wheat. And if you start bumbling around,” he added, shaking a finger at Kael, “I’ll send you straight off to plant turnips. Don’t think I won’t.”
Kael promised to do his best not to bumble.
Once their field was full, Brend assigned each giant to a row. Then he swooped down on Kael. “Our wheat grows in batches: the winter stuff’s almost ready to be harvested, so now it’s time to plant the spring seeds,” he said, as he led Kael to a particular line on the field. “This can be your row for the day — the third from the right. Every field we move to, you’ll just stay on this same row. It helps keep us organized. Have you ever planted wheat before? No? I didn’t think so. Look here.”
Brend flipped his scythe over with one hand, so quickly that Kael flinched when the blade hissed by his ear. There were a number of rings carved around the butt of the weapon. He’d thought they were some sort of decoration at first, but the rings were spaced too oddly to be a pattern.
He watched carefully as Brend traced one of the lines with the thick tip of his finger. “This is the mark for spring wheat — it tells you how deep you ought to plant it.” He pushed the butt of the scythe into the moist earth, leaving a small hole in the mound. Then he sprinkled a pinch of seed into the hole and pushed the soil back over it with his foot. “See what I did? You don’t want to press down too hard, now — otherwise you’ll smother the little things.”
Brend made Kael plant several patches — halting his work every now and then to bark that he was doing it all wrong.
“No, no! You’re putting them too close together. You’ll crowd them out.” Then, when Kael began to space them a little further apart: “What are you trying to do — starve us? Give them that much room and we’ll have a scant less than half of what we ought to.”
When Kael finally got it right, Brend was rather pleased. He seemed happier that day than Kael had ever seen him, and he hardly stopped whistling for a moment.
“You were never this excited about plowing,” Kael remarked. Though his planting was as good as anybody else’s, the length of the scythe made it an unwieldy tool. Trying to dig a hole with it was about as comfortable as trying to eat his dinner with a spear.
Brend caught up to him quickly. “That’s because we were plowing the vegetable fields,” he said, as if it should be obvious. “It doesn’t matter how many relatives we have in common: I may be half-Gardener, but I’m all Grainer at heart!”
“Brend Grainer?” Kael said, puzzled by the sound of it. It seemed odd for the giants to take their names from the crops they grew. Though he supposed it was better than having no name at all.
They’d just finished their second field and were moving on to a third when they saw Finks waiting for them. His lips parted in an unsettling grin as they approached.
“My, my — you’re all doing so well today.” And Kael almost expected to see his tongue flick out from between his long teeth as he spoke. “But I think we could do a little better. Let’s play a game.”
Finks’s idea of a game was every bit as wicked as Kael imagined it would be. The giants walked the lines as they had before, but to make things more interesting, Finks trotted along at their backs — and swore he would mercilessly flay whichever one of them walked the slowest. “And I mean to do this properly, little beasts.” He uncoiled his whip and stretched it taut between his hands. “No spells, just the hard bite of leather against your flanks. Let the game begin!”
“Yes, let it,” Brend said. His eyes glinted as he leaned down the line to look at Declan — who nodded ever so slightly. “Pay attention, wee rat: we’re going to play a little game of our own. This one’s yours.” Brend thrust his scythe into the ground, making a low, thumping sound.
Kael had no idea what that meant, but he didn’t exactly have time to think about it. Finks hovered at his back — no doubt hoping that Kael’s shorter stride would keep him well behind the others. And it did.
“Move those scrawny legs, rat!” Finks cried.
His whip came down, and the leather slapped against Kael’s skin. The first blow shocked him: he arched his back away from it and nearly cried out. Then came the second lash, and the third. By the time the fourth blow fell, he was running back for the giants, planting as quickly as he could. But he couldn’t catch up.
He was preparing himself for a fifth blow when he heard Finks laying into some giant down the row from him. He seemed to be struggling to get a hole dug, and his fumbling gave Kael the chance he needed to escape.
His back throbbed furiously where Finks had struck him. He swore he could feel the swollen tracks the whip left behind, rising up against his shirt. His skin stung and burned all at once, like some horrible little bee had gone and dragged its barb across his shoulders. But Kael was more furious than hurt.
His pride stung the worst. It was humiliating to be beaten by someone as evil as Finks — far worse than being struck by a spell. He’d felt defenseless as the whip bit him. The pain did what words could have done, what words should have done. The fact that he was beaten instead of ordered back into line made him feel less than human.
It made him feel like an animal.
No wonder the giants were a bit rough around the edges. They’d been whipped for so long that the blows ought to have broken them; they shouldn’t be able to smile. They should’ve lost their pride long ago, given in to the whip — but they hadn’t.
Behind every smile was defiance. Every joke was a rebellion. If Kael had been a slave for seventeen years … well, he didn’t know if he’d still be able to laugh like the giants did. And the next time they heckled him, he didn’t think he would mind it as much.
As they continued down the field, Kael paid more attention to the giants’ game. It didn’t take him long to figure it out: the giants dropped back intentionally, in carefully planned patterns. No sooner did Finks lay into one giant than he would have to run to another, and often to opposite ends of the field. They kept him darting back and forth like a finger across fiddle strings, and each giant only had to take a couple of lashes apiece.
Kael had to admit that it was rather satisfying to hear Finks panting as he charged from line to line. His heavy breathing soon swallowed up his threats, and
he could do no more than gasp curses between beatings. After the fourth time he’d sprinted completely across the field, Kael thought for sure that Finks would figure it out — but he never did. Perhaps Kael had misjudged him.
Perhaps Finks was the stupid kind of evil.
It wasn’t long before they had him completely exhausted. He was so out of breath that he ran with his head tilted upwards and his mouth agape, as if he could somehow catch a lungful of air without having to actually make the effort of breathing it in. And while Finks suffered, Brend seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.
Kael watched him closely for a moment, and realized that Brend was commanding the entire prank. His whistling still carried on like a string of nonsense, but now there were subtle messages in the notes: when he struck a high note, or a steady low hum, a giant would obediently fall behind. Then he let out a warble that sounded like a bird’s song, and Declan fell back.
But it wasn’t just whistling. Sometimes when he would bend to drop some seed, Brend would have a different number of fingers propped against his scythe. These were signals, too. And the giants followed them dutifully.
At one point, Brend pretended to drop his scythe and then spent an obnoxious amount of time trying to pick it up. Finks caught sight of him and sprinted over, trudging across the high piles of soggy ground, murder in his eyes. But no sooner did he reach him than Brend had caught back up — and Declan was the one behind.
Kael waited until Finks had charged away before he elbowed Brend. “Did you come up with this on your own?”
He shrugged, but couldn’t quite hide his smile. “Oh, sure. Are you surprised, wee rat? Didn’t think the giants were good for anything but clobbering, now did you? Well, I …” He leaned back to glance at Kael’s shoulders, and his eyes widened. “I think your turn’s over for the day, wee rat.”
“Why? It doesn’t hurt,” he added quickly, when Brend shook his head. “It’s all gone numb.”
“A giant’s hide is a mightily thick thing — we can shoulder the blows.” He glanced at Kael’s back again and whistled. “But that’s not so for wee men. I can see the welts popping up through your shirt!”
“I can handle it,” Kael insisted. He suddenly had an idea, and he wanted the chance to try it out. “If you take me out of the game, I’ll just fall back anyways.”
Brend was about to respond when Finks’s shrilling voice suddenly cut over the top of him:
“Pick them up! Pick every last one of them up!” he cried, swinging mercilessly at the giant crouched at his feet.
It was Declan. The strap of his satchel must’ve broken: it lay on the ground and seed spilled from it, scattering across the dark earth. Though Declan tried to work quickly, his thick hands made things difficult. He shoveled through the dirt, trying to scoop the tiny bits of seed back into his pouch.
And Finks’s blows kept coming.
Even from a distance, Kael could hear the leather slapping against Declan’s flesh. He could see the angry red lines that blossomed across his head and down his neck. His teeth were bared against the pain.
Anger filled Kael like a red cloud, blotting out his reason. He didn’t have a chance to plan anything out. Instead, he did the first thing he could think of: he reared back and threw his scythe as far as he could.
The weapon landed clumsily, skittering across the dirt. It hadn’t gone as far as he’d wanted it to, but it still landed behind Declan — and that was far enough. Kael started walking, and Finks saw him.
“Where do you think you’re going, rat?” he shrilled.
“I dropped my scythe,” Kael said calmly. He walked at a leisurely pace, hoping to draw Finks away — and he did.
Finks charged, and Kael quickly drew up the memory of the mountain boulder again, imagining that the flesh on his back became like stone. He knew it was working because he could feel the extra weight in his knees as his skin hardened. When Finks’s whip came down, it took all of Kael’s concentration to keep the grin off his face: he could hear the whip slapping him, but couldn’t feel it.
He bent to retrieve his scythe — and nearly cried out when Finks’s whip struck him across the face. He hadn’t been expecting that, and for a few seconds, he lost his defenses.
“Trying to be a hero, rat?” Finks hissed. He wrenched Kael’s head back by the roots of his hair; a blast of tainted breath blew hot in his face. “Here — have a hero’s beating.”
Three blows landed across Kael’s back before he managed to get his skin hardened again. His legs shook under the weight of his stoned flesh, making his steps slow and heavy. He kept his eyes straight ahead as he walked back to the giants. He could feel them staring, but didn’t look at their faces. They were probably just laughing about how foolish he was, anyways.
But he didn’t care. His effort gave Declan the time he needed to pick up his seed and tie the broken strap of his satchel into a fresh knot. Brend fell back to relieve Kael, and the giants continued on with their game as if nothing had happened.
At sunset, they plodded back to the barns in silence. Kael spotted Declan walking at the head of the line, and ran to stop him.
“My scythe,” he explained, when Declan’s brows raised in confused arcs. “You said you’d take me to get it fixed.”
“Oh … eh, don’t worry about it,” he grumbled, snatching the weapon from him. “I’ll take it there, myself.”
Kael was fine with that: he hadn’t been looking forward to spending an extra hour at the blacksmith’s. All he wanted was a quiet dinner and a long night of rest.
Unfortunately for him, dinner was far from quiet.
Kael’s antics in the field had caught the giants’ attention — but it wasn’t the sort he’d been expecting. They didn’t laugh at him or reenact his beating. No, what they did instead was far more annoying.
Brend told Kael’s story as if it was the most legendary thing he’d ever seen. His voice carried through the rafters of the barn, rising and falling, drawing his audience in by the power of his words. While he spoke, the others listened silently — some with the porridge still hanging out of their mouths.
“Saved Declan from a hundred lashes, he did,” Brend said. Though his voice was hardly a whisper, the giants could hear him clearly: the only noise in the whole barn was of the Fallows as they snorted down their dinner. “That wee mountain rat — there, just as you see him.”
Kael’s face burned as several heads swiveled to look at him. This was the third time Brend had told the story, and it seemed to grow larger with every telling. He felt he ought to step in.
“It wasn’t anywhere near a hundred —”
“Oh, don’t be modest,” Brend said over the top of him. He swept his hands over the trough in a wide arc, and his audience leaned in. “With one mighty heave, the rat tossed his scythe to the back of the field —”
“It didn’t go quite that far,” Kael insisted, but no one was listening.
In fact, somebody shushed him.
“He strode past that slick-headed mage, bold as a crow after crops. And when Finks asked what he was after, do you know what he said? I dropped my scythe.”
There was a round of appreciative laughter, and Kael winced has a giant’s heavy arm plunked down across his shoulders.
“So Finks of Westbarn set upon him, striking with enough fury to split a man’s hide. But this wee rat … well, he took his beating without so much as a grimace.”
“I grimaced quite a lot, actually.”
“He stood there a full minute, blows raining down upon his reddened head. Never once did he budge —”
“What are you talking about? I got out of there as fast as I co — mft!”
The giant beside Kael clamped a hand over his mouth, giving Brend the chance to spin his wild yarn unhindered.
“He made his way back to us slowly, as if Finks’s whip were no more troublesome than the bite of a fly. Then the rat took up his scythe and without so much as a grumble about his wounds, went straight back to work
.” Brend whistled, shaking his head. “I’ve not seen such a fierce look in a man’s eyes — I swear it by the plains mother.”
Kael was far more embarrassed by the giants’ awe than he’d ever been by their teasing. He knew there was no point in trying to set the tale straight: no sooner did the giants cheer than they were begging Brend to tell it again.
He happily obliged — and rather than listen to how he’d survived four hundred blows to the head, Kael retreated to the stall.
Declan was already curled up on his pallet, his face turned towards the wall. He’d sulked for most the day, eaten very little dinner, and then disappeared as soon as Brend started telling his stories. He was probably just angry. It must’ve been humiliating for Declan, to have his hide saved by a scrawny mountain rat.
So Kael didn’t worry too much about it.
Much of his sleeping space was still rather damp and covered in debris from the hole in the roof. But at least that meant he wouldn’t have to worry about any of the giants flinging their limbs into his space. He was growing rather tired of being slapped awake in the middle of the night.
As he got closer to his spot, he slowed. It took him a moment of staring before he finally realized why his spot looked so odd: it had been taken. The debris had been cleared away, and a small pallet had been set up in its place.
After a puzzling second, Kael realized that the pallet must’ve been meant for him. It was so thin and short that it wouldn’t have done any of the giants much good. But then who …?
He turned back to Declan, and noticed that a good portion of his bedding was missing. His legs hung off the straw at his calves.
Kael stood still for a long moment. He knew very well that a giant’s bed was his sole possession — the only thing he ever dared to call his own. And to think that Declan had given up a portion of his bed for Kael … he didn’t know what to say.
So he said the only thing he could think of, the only response that might possibly measure up:
