The Giant-Slayer

by Iain Lawrence

  On the day after he sighted Collosso, Jimmy steered the wagon round a bend, looked up, and saw the castle.

  It was white and shiny, a fabulous sight of towers and ramparts and spires. It clung to the top of a rocky knoll; it perched at the very edge of the world. At its front and sides were the mountains, but behind it was the void—just a terrible swirl of clouds, the beginning of infinite nothing.

  Khan was riding on the seat again, and neither he nor Jimmy said a word. They just stared at the white fortress, at the ramparts and the windows, until the road turned again, hiding the castle. It rose as steeply then as it had ever risen, so the oxen had to strain and pant. Then it turned again and followed the side of the mountain around. And it came out at the edge of the world.

  Jimmy began to look down into the void. But Khan shouted, “Don’t!” He held up his hand to turn Jimmy’s head aside. “It drives men mad to look into there,” he said.

  “But what does it look like?” asked Jimmy.

  “I don’t know,” said Khan. “I’ve never looked.”

  The clouds kept welling up from the void like smoke from a fire. They rose in billows, in spirals and bursts. Black as night, brown as the earth, they rolled over each other, carried by an endless wind that moaned and whined through the rock. And on the draft, a flight of crimson dragons soared. They circled in and out of the clouds, their leathery wings never moving, their long necks bent into red crooks.

  Jimmy kept the oxen so close against the mountain that their horns scraped lines into the rocks. Finnegan Flanders was doing the same thing in front of the animals, turning his horse right into the rock, so it moved along sideways in high, prancing steps.

  The road kept turning. It rounded the shoulder of the mountain, away from the edge of the world, and once again there was solid ground on either side. And there the giant-slayer and his friends stopped to spend the night.

  Surrounded by a dead forest of gaunt, black trees, the three huddled in a close group. Khan said they were too close to the castle to let them light a fire. So they sat in darkness, even though dragons were prowling nearby. From the mountains came ghastly shrieking.

  “Is that the sound that dragons make?” asked Jimmy.

  “No,” said Khan, not lifting his head. “Only men can make that sound. It comes from the castle.”

  “It’s hideous,” said Finnegan Flanders. He clapped his hands on his ears. “What goes on in there?”

  “I pray we never learn,” said Khan.

  It was a long night: a night of no sleep, a night that unnerved them all. In the morning, the three friends looked nervously into the forest, though each tried to hide his fear from the others. When they dressed, they did it carefully and slowly. Flanders smoothed every one of the hundreds of fringes on his jacket and his gauntlets, as though he was doing it for the last time. Then he got up on his big chestnut horse and said in a very small voice, “Hi ho!”

  Jimmy and Khan climbed to the seat of the wagon. Jimmy took the reins and got the oxen moving, and they plodded off along the road.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind,” said Khan. “Ain’t no use in being big and important if you got to be dead to do it. We could skirt the castle, go on and find a Wishman.”

  “No,” said Jimmy. “The Swamp Witch said—”

  “Now, just a cotton-picking moment. That’s a flimflam witch. A phony.” Khan was looking down at the oxen, half hidden now in dust. “She’s no more witch than you or me. A Gypsy girl, that’s all she is.”

  “What do you mean?” said Jimmy.

  “She was born in a Gypsy wagon,” said Khan. “When she was ten years old she was stolen by a witch. By a real witch, Jimmy, who left a changeling in her place and took her away on a broomstick, to a coven in the forest. Her first night there, she killed that witch. She cut off the witch’s head and escaped to the swamp. But the witch, with her dying breath, cursed the girl to be as ugly as a frog.”

  Jimmy kept driving the wagon. He shook the reins, though they didn’t need shaking at all.

  “That’s the truth of it,” said Khan. “She has no more power than any other girl. You’re taking on a giant on the word of a Gypsy.”

  Jimmy looked straight ahead, down the Great North Road. “If that’s true,” he said, “why doesn’t she go back to the Gypsies?”

  “Who would have her now?” asked Khan. “A girl as ugly as a frog? A girl who’s lived her life in mud?”

  “Her mother wouldn’t mind,” said Jimmy. He cried “Gee!” to the oxen and swung them round a bend. “Could a Wishman fix her?”

  “Maybe,” said Khan.

  “Where do you find them?”

  “At the end of the road. Beyond the castle of Collosso.”

  Laurie looked down from the window of Bishop’s Memorial, down at the pond and the willows.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Dickie.

  “I thought I heard bagpipes,” said Laurie. She poked her glasses, then pressed her hands on the window pane and squinted at the trees. “Yes, there’s a piper there. He’s—”

  “What?”

  Laurie laughed. “No, it’s just a lady. She’s wearing a plaid skirt. I thought she was a piper, with a kilt and everything.” She didn’t turn from the window; she kept staring out. “But I guess not.”

  Carolyn spoke up from her iron lung, in the mirror of the room. “Do you think that’s really true?”

  “About the piper?” said Laurie.

  “No. About the witch.”

  Laurie at last looked away from the window. Carolyn, in her slanted mirror, suddenly looked quite beautiful to her, as she had on the very first day.

  “The Gypsies,” said Carolyn. “Do you really think they’d take her back?”

  “Of course,” said Laurie.

  “Even if she’s mean and ugly?”

  “Sure. It wouldn’t matter.”

  “Then I hope they do,” said Carolyn. She let out a little sigh and closed her eyes and lay with her face turned up at the mirror. Laurie could see that she was crying.

  “Well, go on,” said Dickie. “What happened next?”

  The giant-slayer and his friends drove right up to the castle. The road turned round the mountain, and suddenly they were there, at the edge of a moat as deep as a canyon, as wide as a field.

  “Whoa!” cried Jimmy. “Whoa!” He pulled on both reins and brought the wagon to a stop.

  Across the moat, on its rocky knoll, the castle loomed enormously. It was a mountain itself, its ramparts like cliffs, its keep a great crag, its spires as tall as the peaks around. Its windows were the size of whole houses, and its door was bigger than anything Jimmy had ever seen. He could have driven the wagon right through it, if the drawbridge had been open. But instead it was pulled up to the castle, and the moat yawned between them.

  Jimmy and Khan scrambled down from the wagon. They joined Finnegan Flanders at the side of the road, and all three stood looking down into the moat. There was no water in there, for the ends of the ditch were open to the edge of the world. But down at the bottom were black pits of tar, and mounds of pitch, and many rows of sharpened stakes. Bears and wolves prowled back and forth, while hydras hissed and tigers roared. There seemed no way across.

  “What now?” said Khan. “I reckon there’s no getting at that giant in there. What do we do?”

  “We taunt him,” said Jimmy.

  Flanders laughed. “Ho, ho!”

  “No, it’s true,” said Jimmy. “A giant can’t stand to be taunted, so he comes running out to get us. And that’s when we get him.”

  “The gnomes tell you this?” asked Khan.

  “Yes,” said Jimmy, nodding happily. “It works every time.”

  The little giant-slayer bent down and picked up a stone. With all his strength, he heaved it at the castle. “Hey, giant!” he shouted.

  His stone plummeted into the moat. His cry faded away in that great gulf. As he stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the castle, he heard
the tiny, tiny plop of his stone hitting the tar pits far below.

  Flanders took up a stone. He too heaved with all his strength and shouted out at the giant: “You big dummy!”

  His stone vanished; his cry faded. He and Jimmy turned, bewildered, to Khan.

  The hunter walked away. He went to his horse, where he rummaged through the things on its back until he found his bow and arrow. Then he stood at the edge of the moat and carefully slotted onto the bowstring one of his arrows tipped with phoenix feathers. He drew the bow; he aimed and fired.

  The arrow soared across the moat and—with a plink—struck the giant’s window.

  It hit the glass but didn’t break it. Then it tumbled down into the moat, a little whirl of colored feathers.

  At the window, an enormous face appeared. Up went the sash. Out came Collosso’s head.

  “Who’s there?” roared the giant.

  His voice was louder than thunder. It made the oxen bow their heads and paw nervously at the ground. At the bottom of the moat, the tigers shrieked in fright.

  “Who’s there?” he roared again.

  Jimmy shouted back, “Come and look, you big oaf!” He shook his tiny fist. “You scared?”

  Finnegan Flanders waved his sword. “Come on, curly!” he cried.

  Beside him, Khan was notching another arrow to his string. The hunter yelled at the giant even as he aimed and fired. “Think fast, dopey!”

  The arrow hit the giant on the tip of his nose. His great eyes blinked and his head jerked back, slamming into the window casing. Then he touched a huge hand to the back of his head and roared, for the third time, “Who’s there?”

  “It is I.” The little giant-slayer stepped forward until his toes overhung the edge of the moat. “Jimmy, son of Fingal. I have come to slay you, Collosso.”

  The giant gaped, his mouth as wide as a cavern. To the amazement of Flanders and Khan, he looked truly frightened. “No. Not you!” he cried.

  The head vanished from the window. A moment later, with a clank of wheels and cogs, the drawbridge began to open.

  It fell slowly on ratcheting chains, and the giant-slayer—quiet now—just stood and watched it fall. It swung down toward him, an acre of wood and iron. Each link of the chains that fed from the castle was the size of an ox.

  Jimmy and Flanders and Khan moved back. With a shuddering slam, the door settled on the ground right in front of them. Then the bars of the huge portcullis—with clang and clamor—went sliding up within the castle, and in the doorway stood Collosso.

  He was unbelievably big. As tall as the drawbridge had been, Collosso was taller. He had to stoop to pass through the doorway, and then he strode across that enormous gulf in only three of his giant steps.

  “Get ready to trip him up,” said Jimmy.

  They could hear Collosso breathing, like the panting of the hundred oxen. The drawbridge shook under his weight. The roadway shook, and the whole mountain shook, for with every step the giant came more quickly.

  There was no more taunting; there was no time for that. The giant reached the side of the moat at a run, his feet in huge boots, his head now in its red cap, his coppery hair shaking.

  With each of his steps, an avalanche broke loose from the mountains, and the sound of the hurtling rock—with the boom of footfalls—was so loud that Jimmy fell to the ground.

  He saw the sole of the giant’s left foot pass above him, blocking out the sun, the clouds, and then the whole vast sky. It came hammering down on top of the wagon, and the right foot swung ahead of it, squashing six of the oxen into a pulp of brown and red.

  Like a child in a tantrum, Collosso stomped back and forth. He jumped up and down, crushing the oxen, smashing metal and wood.

  In an instant, it was all over.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  THE WITCH WHO RODE AN ALLIGATOR

  “Gee, what happened? You gotta say what happened,” said Dickie Espinosa.

  “Maybe that’s enough for today,” said Laurie. She thought she was getting a headache.

  “But we have to know. Did they kill him?” asked Dickie.

  “No.” Laurie pulled off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Flanders took a swipe with his sword and nicked Collosso’s heel. And Khan shot another arrow. But it didn’t do any good.”

  “The giant was scared, wasn’t he?” said James. From his board, he looked up at everybody. “He didn’t come out to fight. He just wanted to run away.”

  Laurie agreed. “That’s right.”

  But Dickie wasn’t satisfied. He twisted his head to look at Laurie in his mirror. “What about the giant-slayer?” he asked. “What happened to Jimmy?”

  “He just lay on the ground, right where he’d fallen.” Laurie was rubbing her neck, feeling the cords of her muscles. “By the time he got up, it was all over.”

  Collosso went jogging up the Great North Road. He took long strides with his arms swinging, so he was wholly in the air between his steps, and when he landed the mountain shook. In moments he was hidden by the bend in the road, but for a long time they could feel him running on and on by the tremors in the earth.

  Jimmy got up. Khan and Flanders were just standing there, looking round at the ruin.

  The wonderful wagon was just a pile of metal and wood. Where the hundred oxen had been were ninety-nine stains on the road, like so many blotches of red ink. There was only one animal left, and it too stood gazing around, as though even an ox could be dumbfounded.

  Jimmy could hardly believe that his great adventure had ended so quickly. There hadn’t even been a battle: not a fight or scrap or ballyhoo. It had taken only seconds for the giant to defeat him.

  Finnegan Flanders kicked at a bit of twisted metal. “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “I guess we go home,” said Jimmy.

  Khan looked down. “I don’t believe I’m hearing right,” he said. “You’re giving up already? You’re throwing down the quiver before you even notch an arrow?”

  “What else can we do?” said Jimmy.

  “There’s plenty else we can do,” said Khan. “Why, we’re wallowing in things we can do.” He put his quiver on his shoulder. He bent his bow and unhooked the string. “When you go after a mountain bear and the first shot sends him running, what do you do? You go after him, that’s what.”

  “But there’s nothing left.”

  “Nothing?” Khan swept his arm across the ruined landscape. The tattooed stars flashed on his skin. “We still got one of them shaggy critters, don’t we? We got the horses, and we got the leather and the wheels. Sure, it’s less than we had this morning—no denying it—but it’s a whole heap more than we had a week ago.”

  “Yes, I guess that’s right,” said Jimmy, cheering himself.

  “In a way, we’re darned lucky,” said Khan. “We got us the best teamster on the Great North Road, don’t we? Reckon he can build us a new wagon quick as you say Jack Flash.”

  “Well, now just a minute,” said Finnegan Flanders. He didn’t seem so full of dash and bravery all of a sudden. “I haven’t got my tools.”

  “We can make new ones,” said Jimmy. “We can forge them from the metal.”

  Khan beamed. “Now you’re thinking.”

  “No, no, it won’t work,” said Flanders. He was holding up his hands, and the fringes were shaking on his gauntlets. “It’s impossible.”

  “Why?” asked Jimmy.

  “Because … well, because …” He sighed horribly. Then, turning toward the moat, he kicked a stone over the edge. “I’m not a teamster at all,” he said. “I don’t know how to build a wagon. I don’t even know how to drive one.”

  Jimmy looked up at the man’s sad face. “But you said —”

  “A pack of lies,” said Flanders. “Collosso squashed the rancher who had those oxen. He smashed the buildings and flattened the fences. I found the oxen just wandering down the road, so I thought I could herd them to town and sell them. I got that drover to help me. ‘Her
e, you pull from the front, I’ll push from behind,’ I said, and the poor devil did all the work himself and didn’t even know it.”

  Flanders kicked another stone. It rolled over the edge in a little cloud of dust. “Then you came along, the two of you, talking about killing giants and everything. I guess I got kind of swept up in it. I’m sorry.”

  It seemed that Khan’s heap of things to do had grown smaller quite quickly. The hunter was smiling about it in a strange way, looking neither angry nor beaten. But for Jimmy, all the new hopefulness that had filled him suddenly trickled away. He sat down in the dirt, his little feet hanging over the edge of Collosso’s moat.

  “It’s that witch’s fault,” he said. “She promised it would work. She had a vision.”

  It was a strange place for Laurie to stop, with the giant-slayer and Khan disheartened, with Finnegan Flanders exposed as a fraud. She left the three in a weary group at the side of the road, and said she had to go home.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Carolyn.

  “I’m tired,” said Laurie. Her mouth was dry, and her head was really aching now. “I think I’m getting a cold. I just want to go home and sleep.”

  She left the room, and little Dickie smiled as she looked back from the doorway.

  “See ya real soon,” he said.

  Laurie Valentine was nearly at Piper’s Pond when her legs gave out. She collapsed on the path, sprawling across the hard cement. Her cry frightened a duck, which rose from the pond with a squawk, its wings a whirl of green and brown.

  She crawled toward a bench, thinking that if she could rest there a while she could make it home all right. But then the pain flashed through her, and she closed her eyes and screamed.

  It was a nurse who found her, a young woman dawdling on her way to work. She knelt down and looked at Laurie’s eyes. She pressed her fingers on Laurie’s pulse. Then she got up and raced to the hospital doors, shouting, “Help! Somebody help!”

  In the respirator room, Carolyn was nearest to the door. She heard the commotion in the hall, the rumble of a gurney’s wheels, the slapping sound of shoes. She could feel the urgency that was carried along through the corridors, that raced ahead of the running doctors and the nurses.