by Shae Ford
Slowly, the flashing stopped and the colors faded back. Declan jumped when Jake’s body fell against the window. His face was twisted, pained. Sweat stained the glass where his skin touched. There were red lines coiled all around his chest, neck, and limbs. But he still managed to keep one hand lifted towards the window.
Jake’s eyes were closing. His teeth were bared as if he stood beneath the lash.
Declan threw his fist against the glass in a panic, and the noise seemed to wake him. He shook his head at Declan’s cries and sank to his knees.
Men strode out of the clouded world beyond. Each one had a red line gripped in his fist. They tugged on their holds, dragging Jake further onto the ground. And Declan realized they must be mages.
“Kill him,” one of the mages grunted, his voice ragged with strain. He jerked his head at a mage beside him — one who stood smaller than the rest. “You do it. Your ropes are too weak to do us any good.”
“I can’t,” the smaller mage pleaded. His voice was that of a child. But when a red line appeared upon the boy’s wrist, he stepped forward.
Declan could see his face: he was a seas boy hardly over the age of ten. Though the other mages howled at him, he held his staff stubbornly to his chest — his eyes burning into Jake’s. Soon his arms began to shake badly. Then his whole body shook. He bit down so hard upon his lip that the skin around it turned white.
Jake pulled himself up into a sit. But his face was so drenched that his spectacles slid off the end of his nose. He didn’t seem to notice when they struck the ground. He didn’t lean to pick them up.
“Do it,” Jake grunted through his teeth. “It’s not worth the pain — you can’t fight it.”
“No!”
The boy jumped backwards at Declan’s roar. “I don’t want to! Please,” he twisted to the mage who’d given the command, his body trembling so badly that he could hardly keep his feet, “please don’t make me.”
“It’s good for you, lout. The more you do it, the easier it gets. Now quit your sobbing and kill the battlemage!”
“One explosion spell to my head,” Jake whispered. “One quick blast, and I won’t feel a thing. You’ll never have to see my face — it’ll be easier if you don’t have to see it.” He glanced at Declan from over his shoulder. “Once I’m dead —”
“No! You’re not dying!”
“— the shield will break. You’ll have to run for the castle.”
“I’m not running anywhere, you clodded mage! I’m going to rip their slimy guts out through their gullets! I’m going to snap their necks across my knee! I’ll — I’ll — argh!”
Declan dug his hands beneath the window’s lip and tried to wrench it from the ground. He begged for the darkness, for the strength he needed to throw it aside. But every time the lion raised its head, a blast of cold wind knocked it down.
“Do it!” the mage hissed again. He turned his glare onto Declan. “I’m looking forward to shutting that one’s mouth.”
The boy’s shackle went from red to a burning white. Tears streamed down his face as his legs dragged him forward a half-pace at a time. His body shook so badly that his staff wavered as he pointed it at Jake’s face. It swept from left to right, a dangerous light growing at its end, until it finally halted — aimed directly between his eyes.
Jake said something, but Declan couldn’t hear it over his roars. He threw his body into the window. His shoulders bruised and his head rang fiercely; his knuckles were so torn that he could no longer feel the pain. But no matter how he fought, the window held — and the boy’s spell grew brighter.
A blistering orb wavered at the staff’s end. It screeched as it grew, a terrible power building up behind it. Then all at once, the light went out.
“Stop!” the boy cried. He threw his staff away and his body collapsed upon the ground. His limbs coiled and his head rose as if someone gripped him by the roots of the hair. His eyes were strangely empty as he spoke: “Don’t kill that battlemage — he might be useful. Bring him back to me.”
One of the mages who held Jake’s ropes looked as if he’d just been slapped. “He’s too dangerous, Ulric! We can barely hold him down —”
“Bring him to me!” the boy screamed.
All around the circle, the mages’ shackles lit up red. Even the crows’ collars glowed hot. They’d gathered boldly behind the mages as soon as Jake was bound. But the second the red light bloomed across their throats, they took off in a thick, startled cloud. A number of hawks swooped into the space the crows had left behind. They clawed impatiently at the ground and shattered the air with their screeches.
Finally, it seemed as though the mages had no choice.
“Hold your spells. Do not let him loose,” the lead mage barked.
They held their impetuses towards Jake while they struggled to mount the hawks one-handed. The boy managed to drag himself to his staff before a hawk wrapped its talons around him. It took off with a swoop of its wings and a blast of earth.
Declan had stopped fighting the moment the boy screamed. But when a hawk moved to grab Jake, the darkness began to cover his eyes once more.
He tried to yell. He wanted to tell Jake to get onto his feet and fight back. But the lion wouldn’t let him. Instead of words, maddened roars tore from his lips. The world was growing smaller and hazed.
Jake lay unmoving upon the ground — collapsed beneath the weight of the red spells. All of his strength seemed to be bent upon the hand that held the blue window: it trembled against the pull of the ropes, but didn’t fall. Declan’s fury rose with every twitch of his fingers. The lion grew stronger.
A cool voice came from somewhere beyond the madness — the warning of the lead mage: “Tell your Prince that Midlan requires supplies. Give His Majesty what is owed, or he’ll send his army back to destroy your pitiful region. You’ve been warned, giant.”
The hawk that held Jake crushed him with its weight and bent its twisted face down to screech inside his ear. He cried out, twisting against the pain. In the last moment before he was taken, Jake’s eyes dragged over to Declan.
And the lion overcame him.
*******
Emptiness stretched beneath him. The world was dim and silent. Declan lay upon the edge of sleep. His mind wavered on the wall between a pale blue light and the infinite black beyond. One strong wind might send him over the edge. He couldn’t wait for the winds to blow, wouldn’t leave his fate to chance.
Declan leaned forward and braced himself for the fall.
His chin struck the earth as his body jolted. The pale blue light gave way to shimmering, frosted glass. A monstrous shadow stood just outside: a beast with dozens of tiny hands, all of them pressed and clawing against the window.
Blood coated his every inch. There wasn’t a patch of his hide that didn’t sting him. It took several moments for Declan to wipe the frost away, and the smears of blood away from that.
The shadowed monster burst out with an army of tiny voices. Its hands beat upon the glass where Declan’s arm swept by. But it wasn’t until he’d managed to clear a patch away that he saw the monster’s faces — all of them freckled, smiling and pressed just as tightly against the glass as they would fit.
Their little fists pounded into the window; their voices rang out in a chorus:
“Nadine! Nadine!”
She crammed in among them and her face lit up with relief. “You are awake! Are you hurt? Where is —?”
“What in all clods happened?” a new voice bellowed. Brend gathered a clump of children in his lanky arms and set them aside, squeezing into the narrow gap left behind. His brows rose to nearly touch his spikey crop of hair at the sight of Declan. “I was only gone to help the Grovers a few days — hardly enough time to fuss over. But when I come back, Darrah’s crying, one of my guards has gotten himself ripped to pieces, and my General’s been magicked to the ground! Everybody’s going on about a flock of giant crows, but nobody knows where they came fr —”
“Midlan,” Declan grunted. He squinted against the throb in his head and pressed his face against the cold glass. “The King sent crows … and mages. Jake fought them off, but they … they took him.”
Nadine gasped, and the children broke erupted into a mass of questions.
“What happened?”
“Who took him?”
“Where’s Jake?”
The last question came from Marion. She had Jake’s spectacles clutched in her hands and held them out to Nadine — as if the offering would somehow bring him back.
But it wouldn’t.
Nadine took the spectacles from her and gave her hand to the eldest boy. “Take your brothers and sisters home, Thomas. We will be there in a moment.”
Declan couldn’t bear to meet their eyes, to see their faces. He leaned heavily against the window and stared at the blood-soaked ground at his knees. Only once they’d marched out of earshot did he dare to speak.
“Jake held the monsters off of me … he saved my clodded life. And they took him for it. I couldn’t … I couldn’t stop them!”
He slung his fist into the frosted glass and the jolt of pain shocked him. There were gashes down his arms, punctures in his flesh. His tunic had been torn to rags.
A sudden heat pressed inside his wounds and made him wince. He looked up in time to see the blue shield disappearing — melting like frost against summer winds. Nadine gasped again when the last of the shield faded and she saw the reach of his wounds.
“Bring me ointment and bindings,” she said sharply.
Declan realized that a whole company of giants stood behind Brend. They’d been kicking through the twisted pile of hawks and crows, their mouths agape. Two of them split away at Nadine’s command and went sprinting for the castle.
Her hands grasped his face, but Declan hardly felt it. His heart was too sore to feel it. The memories of Jake’s face, of his body twisted in pain — they jabbed him each time they passed. And Declan’s failure echoed inside his head:
I couldn’t stop them, I couldn’t —
“Cowards!” Brend roared, jabbing a thick finger at the sky. “You thin-blooded clods! Swooping in here while the Prince is away, murdering his guard, terrorizing his wife and babe? Do you feel powerful now, Your Majesty?”
“Shhh!” Nadine hissed, but his words brought Declan back. They dragged him from the pit and numbed his wounds with focus.
Brend stomped to crouch before Declan, and the determined edge in his stare steeled him. “What’d that yellow King want from us, eh? Or did he just come to shed blood?”
“He wants supplies. If we don’t send them, he’ll send his mages.”
Brend’s mouth went taut. They both knew what that meant.
But Nadine didn’t seem to understand. “We cannot fight them. It would be best to give the King what he wants for now, and perhaps with the help of our friends —”
“No, there’ll be no helping us, wee mot,” Brend grumbled. His hands twined into a single, trembling fist. “If we bow to his orders once, he’ll be back again. Things are going to be just like they were before — only this time, we’ll be slaving under Crevan’s whips.”
The realization tightened Declan’s chest. He thought of the home behind him and all of the little creatures living beneath its roof. There were so many lives balanced upon his shoulders, so many strings tied to his heart. They’d trusted in his strength.
And now, his strength had failed.
“We’ve got time to get the women and children out. Send them to the seas —”
“No! We are not giving up,” Nadine said vehemently, cutting over the top of him. “Send word to our friends. They cannot help us if we do not ask.”
“The pirates?” Brend sorted. “Their region’s so muddled I doubt they could find time to lace their boots, let alone fight with us. Besides, they wouldn’t be any good against the mages.”
Nadine ignored him. Her grip tightened upon Declan’s face and her brows fell in desperate lines. “The wildmen could help us. You have seen what they can do.”
“They’re on the other side of the Kingdom. We’d never reach them before —”
“Enough!” Nadine cried furiously. “Do not waste your breath with all of these reasons when it is clear that you mean to give in. If you want to labor for the King, then you are free to do so. Not even Fate can lead men who refuse to take a step.”
“She’s a blister, that one,” Brend muttered as he watched Nadine march away. “Small, but she knows just where to sting you.”
Declan said nothing. Nadine had Jake’s spectacles clenched in her hand. They glinted each time she swung her fists — a tiny spark of light just bright enough to make him blink.
Brend thumped onto the ground beside him, and the other giants followed suit. “What are you thinking, General? I can always tell when you’ve had a thought.”
Declan cast a glance around them. For so long, he’d seen nothing but their smiles and brightened eyes. He’d nearly forgotten how they used to be: hollowed and sunken in, their stares dulled with hunger — the mere husks of giants.
Now with the King’s command, some of those lines had begun to come back. Weary shadows stretched across their faces; their shoulders fell slack. The life they’d had under Gilderick was no life at all.
Declan would rather have his eyes closed for good than sunken in.
“All men are mighty, when they know they’re bound to win. It’s when a man’s made small that you see him for what he truly is. That’s something Callan used to tell me,” Declan said, thinking. “It took me a long while to figure out that he wasn’t talking about my legs — he was talking about the things in life that drive a man down, and whether or not he decides to get back onto his feet.
“Our lands were taken from us, our families torn apart and slain. There wasn’t a homestead left standing, by the time Titus finished his march. We were made small. We were driven low until we had dirt ground between our teeth. But we got back up, didn’t we?”
They grunted in agreement.
Brend thumped his chest.
Declan breathed deeply. “Now the King’s come to drive us back down. He means to make us small. I can’t taste the dirt again,” he whispered, grinding his teeth. “And I can’t run. I can’t stand the thought of my plains sitting empty any more than I could bear another lash … besides that, there’s a wee mage in Midlan who saved my life. I can’t have a debt like that stand between us.”
Declan dragged himself to his feet, grimacing as his flesh pulled against his wounds. “I’m marching to the gates of Midlan, to whatever death awaits me there.”
“And you won’t be alone,” Brend said, springing up beside him. “I’m coming along.”
Declan shoved him aside. “No, you won’t. The giants need you.”
“What do they need a Prince for if they’ve got no lands?” Brend said, shoving him back. “If all goes well for the plains and badly for me, then they’ll still have a wee Princess to look after them. That’s the grand thing about children,” he added with a wink. Then he waved at the other giants, who’d sprung to their feet behind him. “Gather your armor and sharpen your scythes. We’ll march at dawn.”
The shadows left their faces and their eyes grew bright once more. The giants followed Brend into the castle, beating their fists against their chests.
Declan turned and nearly stumbled backwards when he saw Nadine standing right behind him. She wore the fiercest smile. “I knew you would not give in — I knew you would fight.”
“Did you?” Declan said. “Because it sounded an awful lot like a scolding.”
She wound her fingers through the rags of his shirt, careful of his wounds. Her eyes shone as she spoke: “Sometimes I must speak harshly to get my words through your stone head … what is that?”
Drums boomed from the castle tower: one deep thump, two quick taps.
Nadine let go of him and paced away, moving in the direction of the Red Spine.
It w
as an unlucky thing. Declan fully intended to pummel whichever soldier had decided to beat the drums. When he twisted to frown at the castle, a guard caught him with a wave: “General! Look!”
He followed the tip of the guard’s scythe to the crack in the Red Spine — the one that led into the desert. A large number of tiny people were filtering their way through it. They wore red and carried silver spears. Declan didn’t even have a chance to be shocked before Nadine cried out.
She took a few rushed steps towards them, shouting at the tops of her lungs in strange, sing-song words. The man at the head of the line hollered back, hand raised in a fist.
Nadine gasped.
Declan rushed in beside her. “What is it? What are they saying?”
A fierce grin split her face. She grabbed him by the front of his tunic and her dark eyes shone brightly as she said: “Grandmot Hessa has sent her warriors to the plains. She has dreamed of a great light breaking across our realm — a banner carried by scythe and spear. The giants will break the shadows’ hold,” her hands tightened, “and the mots will fight beside them.”
CHAPTER 28
A Horrible Dream
The days in the Motherlands seemed to drag longer than anywhere else — and Kael quickly ran out of things to do.
It only took him a few hours to figure out how to tan the old bull’s hide into leather. He whispered his hands into a burning heat and worked until the skin was dried and flat. The trousers he’d made were a little lopsided, with one of the legs slightly longer than the other. But he thought it was a decent first try. In any case, he was glad to be able to peel off his stained clothes and heavy armor.
He couldn’t remember what had happened to his clothes to make them stained, or why he’d been wearing armor in the first place. There was a haze over his memories that made a cloud of everything. His head throbbed so viciously each time he tried to peer through it that he eventually gave up.
