The Giant Among Us

by Troy Denning

  Frith nodded. “And it’ll be worse if I don’t get back there.” The boy yanked on his mammoth’s ear, turning the beast up the glacier. “Don’t get too close to my worm. He’s hungry.”

  Slagfid stepped back, allowing the remorhaz to slink into the trail behind the mammoth. With only seven body segments, the creature was not particularly large, but it was definitely hungry. The white stripe down its back had turned bright pink from the heat of its appetite.

  Once the ice worm had scuttled past, Slagfid reluctantly started up the trail. With the remorhaz hissing and growling at its tail, the mammoth moved at a brisk pace, plowing through the heavy snow as though it weighed as much as a cloud. Within half an hour, the frost giants were all huffing from the exertion of staying close to the beast. Bodvar and Tavis could not keep pace, even with Slagfid threatening to unleash the remorhaz on them. They soon found themselves being dragged along by a pair of bitterly complaining helpers.

  After an excruciating length of time, they came to an uneven ring of nunataks formed by the rim of an ancient volcano. Frith slowed his mammoth and commanded, “Call.”

  The beast raised its trunk and let out a long, wavering trumpet The sound was answered by a tremendous chorus of similar calls from inside the ring. A frost giant sentry appeared on the summit of a nunatak and waved the war party on.

  Frith led the way across a narrow isthmus of snow between two nunatak hollows, then the group emerged in the volcano’s snow-filled caldera. The frost giants had made camp in the heart of the crater, around a flat area that could only be a frozen lake.

  The encampment was one of the coldest and loneliest places the scout had ever visited. The frost giants sat in the frigid moonlight in groups of two or three, conversing in quiet tones or not speaking at all. Most of the children were already asleep, lying in beds of fresh snow or, at most, a small shelter dug into a steep slope. The mammoths were gathered at one end of the lake, near a deep pit they had gouged through the ice. There was no fire or light anywhere.

  As Frith guided his mammoth down the slope, several of the giants below pointed toward Slagfid’s war party. A gentle murmur started to build. Drowsy children roused themselves from their beds, wiping the sleep from their eyes with handfuls of snow. The entire tribe drifted toward the far end of the caldera, where the mouth of a huge cavern yawned in an ice cliff.

  Slagfid’s face grew increasingly stormy as the procession crept toward the cavern. Finally, when Frith reached the bottom of the slope, Slagfid clasped a burly hand around Tavis’s arm.

  “All those giants expect to see Tavis Burdun’s body, Sharpnose. They’re not going to be happy about taking your word for what happened,” the frost giant growled. “So you’d better tell your story well, or Hagamil’s liable to feed us both to Frith’s worm.”

  “I’m sure you have a much better idea of what they want to hear,” Tavis said, realizing it would be impossible for him to tell a convincing tale. “Why don’t you recount events for me?”

  Slagfid’s lip twisted into a disdainful sneer. “I imagine you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  The frost giant thrust Tavis’s hand away, then turned and stomped off toward the cavern. The scout stood where he was, too preoccupied to follow.

  Bodvar clamped a reassuring hand on Tavis’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. It won’t be as tough as he makes out,” said the giant. “You’re a stone giant. Nobody’ll notice if you lie a little—especially about how we lost the traell and the bow.”

  Bodvar started forward, pulling Tavis along. By the time they reached the ice cave, a sharp blue light was glowing from the interior. Frith dismounted and set to work loosing the remorhaz poles from his saddle. Slagfid motioned for Tavis and Bodvar to come inside, then ducked through the entrance.

  When the scout followed, he found himself standing inside a vast ice vault. Long, spiraling icicles depended from the arched ceiling, many with jagged ends where the tips had been knocked off by careless passersby. The frost giants stood along the sides of the chamber, around a deep pit hewn into the floor. The listless, hunch-shouldered figure of an ogre sat in the bottom of the hole, his claws reduced to bloody nubs by long hours of clawing at the walls of his icy prison.

  At the far end of the room stood the tribal shaman. He was a haggard, one-eyed giant with yellow patterns tattooed on his bald head and the fur of a white mammoth pulled tight around his chest. In his gaunt hand he carried a brilliantly glowing scepter that supplied the only light in the cavern.

  Slagfid stopped at the near edge of the ice pit. “Halflook, fetch me Hagamil,” he demanded. “Tell him that Slagfid has returned with good tidings!”

  Halflook’s red-veined gaze darted from Slagfid to Bodvar to Tavis, the muscles of the empty socket working as though it still contained an eyeball. The shaman let his attention rest on the scout and shook his scepter several times, and blue reflections danced wildly across the cavern walls.

  “Good tidings, you say,” Halflook echoed. His gaze drifted toward the cavern mouth, growing distant and unfocused. “Perhaps better than you know.”

  Slagfid shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Enough of your babble,” he growled. “Get me Hagamil.”

  “As you wish.”

  Halflook’s eye rolled back in its socket, then his chin tipped into the air and his tongue rose out his mouth, dancing between his lips like the winged head of a remorhaz.

  “I welcome your return, Slagfid.” The voice that rumbled from the shaman’s mouth was deeper and more gravelly than the one Tavis had heard earlier. “We’ve all been awaiting you.”

  When Halflook’s head tipped forward again, Tavis was astonished to see a piercing blue eye in each socket. The giant’s face suddenly looked much fuller, and his gaunt body seemed stout and robust. Even the tattoos on his bald pate were changing before the scout’s eyes, sprouting into long yellow braids.

  A pair of comely giantesses wrapped in sleeping robes appeared out of the shadows. They flanked the giant on both sides, casting arrogant glances at the other females in the room.

  The giant ignored the women and ordered, “Tell me of your journey, Slagfid.”

  “Hagamil, I have won much honor for us,” said Slagfid.

  An approving murmur rustled through the cavern, and Hagamil demanded, “So all went well?”

  Slagfid hesitated, his gaze dropping to the ogre in the pit “In the end, yes,” he said. “But Tavis Burdun was not alone. He left a mighty traell warrior in the canyon to defend his back trail.”

  A dubious scowl crept down Hagamil’s face. “What warrior?”

  “We call him Little Dragon,” Slagfid replied.

  Tavis was glad Avner was not listening to this. The boy was vain enough without hearing a frost giant call him a mighty warrior.

  “While we were in the canyon, his boulders fell like hail on our heads,” Slagfid continued. “My warriors could hardly move.”

  This drew a round of guffaws from the other giants.

  “Little Dragon is a fiercer warrior than Tavis Burdun!” Slagfid bellowed. He silenced his fellows with an angry glare. “Tavis Burdun does not cast trees down upon your head, or send crashing floodwaters to sweep you away!”

  “And Little Dragon did all this?” demanded Hagamil.

  “I tell you, Little Dragon’s magic is as powerful as his arm,” said Slagfid. “He always strikes by surprise. You never know when he will appear—isn’t that so, Bodvar?”

  Bodvar gave an emphatic nod. “Compared to Little Dragon, Tavis Burdun is like a calf to a bull mammoth.”

  Hagamil looked doubtful. “And how many warriors did you lose to this traell bull?”

  Slagfid straightened his shoulders. “None.”

  “None?” Hagamil roared. “Why not? Were you afraid to join battle with this fierce pebble-hurler?”

  A chorus of nervous laughter rolled through the cavern.

  “I was not afraid to catch him!” Slagfid bellowed. He waited for the room to fal
l quiet, then added, “Or to save Sharpnose from the flood he unleashed.”

  The frost giant looked to Tavis for confirmation. The scout remained silent. He had no wish to cast doubt on Slagfid’s exaggeration, but feared his cracking voice would do more to arouse suspicions than to quell them.

  Hagamil gave Tavis a look that suggested he did not consider Gavorial’s salvation a good thing. Before the chieftain could say anything, a loud clatter arose at the cavern entrance.

  Tavis looked over his shoulder to see Frith backing into the chamber, followed closely by the hissing remorhaz. The young giant was controlling the beast by means of the two long poles harnessed to the creature’s chitinous head, but that did not prevent the ice worm from striking at its handler. So powerful was the creature that the lunge rocked Frith on his heels.

  The remorhaz was quick to press its advantage, thrashing wildly as it pushed itself into the cave. Frith slid across the icy floor, grunting and cursing as he tried in vain to get his legs under him. If Slagfid had not laid a hand on the young giant’s back, the beast would have pushed him into the pit.

  Hagamil’s laughter echoed through the chamber. He handed the glowing scepter to one of the giantesses and came forward to inspect the beast. The chieftain was even larger than he had seemed from across the pit. He stood a full head taller than Slagfid, with a barrel chest as big around as a mammoth.

  “A spirited worm, as promised.” Hagamil laid a hand on one of the poles Frith used to control the ice worm, then a crafty smile creased his lips. He turned to Slagfid and said, “It will be interesting to see how Little Dragon fares against it”

  Bodvar’s eyes flashed in alarm. He opened his mouth to speak, but Slagfid cut him off with a curt wave of the hand.

  “We can’t throw little Dragon into the pit until we’ve feasted him,” Slagfid objected. “He has earned a happy death.”

  Hagamil glared at the smaller giant, then jerked his hand away from the remorhaz’s probing face tentacles. There were red welts where the worm had touched his white skin, but the chieftain showed no sign of pain.

  “If Little Dragon is as great as you say, we will feast him after he kills the worm,” Hagamil said. “Otherwise, he doesn’t deserve such an honor.”

  Slagfid inclined his head, yielding to the chieftain’s logic. “If you wish,” he said. “But we should let the ogre fight first. Otherwise, we’ll miss half the fun.”

  Hagamil smiled, then clasped an affable hand on Slagfid’s shoulder. “A good idea,” he said. “And you can tell me about Tavis Burdun while Sjolf and Snorri fetch a chain and spear for the ogre.”

  The chieftain motioned to two warriors. They reluctantly turned to leave, grumbling about having to work while Slagfid related his story.

  As the pair left, Slagfid said, “The honor of telling that story is not rightfully mine.” He grabbed Tavis’s arm and pulled him forward. “Sharpnose killed Tavis Burdun.”

  A dark cloud descended over Hagamil’s face. “Is that so?”

  Tavis met the chieftain’s gaze, but said nothing. Slagfid was hardly being noble. By gallantly sharing the credit, the wily leader was simply trying to make his superior angry enough to forget about Little Dragon. The scout would have been happy to cooperate, had it been possible to do so without lying.

  “Well?” Hagamil demanded. “Did you kill him?”

  “You may claim that honor for yourself,” Tavis responded. “I give it to you as a gift.”

  Hagamil blinked twice, then shook his head in confusion. “You what?”

  “The honor was to belong to your tribe. I return it to you, if you wish to claim it,” Tavis said. “It will not be written in the Chronicles of Stone that Gavorial killed Tavis Burdun.”

  The frost giant considered this with a skeptical frown, then asked, “So you weren’t trying to steal it from us?”

  Tavis shook his head. “Never,” he said. “The battle started, and I did what was necessary.”

  A smile started to creep across Hagamil’s lips, but it abruptly turned to a snarl. “What do you want for this ‘gift’?”

  The scout smiled, thinking it might be easier than he had anticipated to learn the location of the rendezvous. “A small boon,” he said. “Tell me where you are meeting Julien and Arno.”

  Hagamil rubbed his chin, then shrugged and gave Tavis a sharp-toothed smile. “Done,” he said. “When they send word—”

  “They have already sent word,” Tavis interrupted. “I want to know where you’re meeting them tomorrow.”

  Hagamil’s grin faded. “How’d you find out about that?”

  Without waiting for a reply, the chieftain cast an angry glare at Slagfid, who could only shrug and shake his head.

  “It’s nothing that should be kept secret,” Tavis said. “All giants deserve the honor of escorting Brianna to Twilight”

  “And that’s why you want to be there?” Hagamil demanded.

  “I have no intention of claiming that I killed Tavis Burdun, if that’s what concerns you.”

  As he spoke, Tavis silently congratulated himself. Until now, he had only been assuming that the giants intended to take the queen to Twilight. Hagamil had just confirmed his guess.

  Sjolf and Snorri returned, carrying a set of rusty shackles, a wooden spear, and a long log with steps carved into it. Giving the ice worm wide berth, they lowered one end of the crude ladder into the pit.

  Hagamil watched the first giant start down the log, then looked back to Tavis. “Okay. Give me Tavis’s body.”

  “There is no corpse,” Tavis answered.

  “What?” Hagamil bellowed. “How can there be no corpse?”

  “The battle was fierce, and firbolgs are not so large,” the scout replied. “When the fighting was over, all of Tavis Burdun that lay on the tundra were a few drops of blood.”

  “Sharpnose smashed him,” elaborated Bodvar.

  Hagamil turned toward the warrior. “If you were close enough to see the fight, why didn’t you kill Tavis Burdun?”

  Bodvar looked away. “I didn’t see the fight,” he admitted. “Just the proof.”

  “You have proof?” Hagamil said. “Let me have that, then.”

  Tavis reached inside his robe and withdrew his empty sword belt and mottled cloak, all that he still possessed of his gear. Hagamil snatched the tiny scraps and held them up to his enormous eye.

  “What are these rags?” he demanded.

  “Tavis Burdun’s sword belt and cloak,” Tavis replied.

  “This isn’t proof!” Hagamil roared.

  The frost giant flung the belt and cloak in the general direction of the remorhaz. The beast’s head pivoted and lashed out, snatching both items from the air. It swallowed them down in a single gulp, then licked its lips with a glowing red tongue and lunged at Frith one more time.

  “Sharpnose had more,” whispered Bodvar. “He had that long bow, Bear Driller, and the quiver with the golden arrow.”

  “Had?” Hagamil growled. “What happened to them?”

  “I had them before the traells ambushed us,” Tavis said.

  “You were ambushed?” Hagamil demanded, looking at Slagfid.

  “Just them.” The leader pointed at Tavis and Bodvar. “Sharpnose saved Bodvar’s life. That’s when he lost the bow and quiver.”

  Hagamil’s face turned as blue as a sapphire. He whirled on Bodvar and yelled, “Sharpnose lost Bear Driller to save your miserable life?”

  The warrior stumbled back, his eyes wide with terror. “I-I-I didn’t ask him t-to.”

  “It—doesn’t—matter!” The chieftain was so angry that he could barely sputter the words.

  Hagamil’s massive hand lashed out and clamped onto Bodvar’s ear. For a moment, Tavis thought the angry giant would rip the thing off, but the chieftain’s intentions were far more deadly. He flung the elbow of his opposite arm into the side of Bodvar’s head, twisting his hips forward to hurl the full force of his weight into the blow.

  A tremendous crack
echoed through the cavern, as deep as a drumbeat and as sharp as a thunderclap. Bodvar’s nostrils and ears began to pour blood, then his limp body slipped from Hagamil’s grasp and collapsed in a heap. The warrior’s mouth was still gaping open, astonished at the speed with which death had descended upon him.

  Hagamil whirled on Tavis next, reaching for his throat The scout raised his arms inside the chieftain’s wrists and knocked the menacing hands away, then drove the heel of his palm into the giant’s chin. The blow would have launched any other giant off his feet, but it merely shoved Hagamil’s jaw out of socket.

  The chieftain did not counterattack. A blank look suddenly replaced his angry mask, then his eyes rolled back in their sockets. The lids fluttered wildly, and one eyeball slowly sank out of sight behind his cheekbone. The yellow hair braids dropped from his head and writhed away like snakes, until they were plucked up and swallowed when they ventured too close to the remorhaz. The frost giant’s massive shoulders slumped forward, his milky skin grew pallid and yellow, and Tavis found himself looking at the gaunt, one-eyed form of the shaman.

  Halflook raised a bony hand to his dislocated jaw and popped it back into place. After opening and closing his mouth a few times, he fixed his bloodshot eye on Tavis and gave him a snaggletoothed grin.

  “It’s been a long time since someone struck Hagamil,” Halflook said. “Much less knocked him unconscious.”

  “Yeah, but we can’t bait the worm without Hagamil! What do we do now?”

  The question came from the pit, where Sjolf and Snorri stood with the haggard ogre stretched between them. Although ogres stood half again as tall as humans, this one seemed as small as he did forlorn. He was about the size of a frost giant’s leg, though not nearly so big around, with hunched shoulders and long, gangling arms. His loutish face was as pale as ivory, and his jutting chin trembled so badly that his tusks looked as if they might shake loose. The wooden spear had been thrust into his hand like a cruel joke, and the rusty shackles had been fastened to his ankles like an anchor.

  “Is the baiting off?” asked one of the giants—Tavis did not know whether it was Sjolf or Snorri.