The Mad Giant (Shioni of Sheba Book 3)

by Marc Secchia

  Shioni released her first arrow with smooth ease, taking an intrepid spearman above the knee. After that, the battle became a blur for her; alternating between watching the carnage from her eagle’s nest, worrying about Thunder, who was right on Talaku’s tail, and keeping an eye on the battle on the far side of the river, which was being fought tooth and nail and going ill for the Sheban Elites.

  Talaku’s laughter bubbled up, maniacal and chilling. Slipping his axe into his belt, the giant seized a Wasabi warrior by the scruff of the neck in either hand, and, swinging them about his head as though he were intent on threshing a field of wheat, bludgeoned his way into the heart of the Wasabi formation.

  Shioni flinched. He was insane! Bile surged into her throat and she tore her gaze away.

  Instinctively, she took a speculative shot across the river at the nearest of Kalcha’s monstrous pets. Her arrow swerved aside at the last second to bury itself in the dirt. She stared open-mouthed.

  “Is Kalcha here?” Azurelle screeched.

  “Zi, that’s my ear!”

  “Sorry. There, that one!”

  Shioni’s arrow lanced into a Wasabi archer’s shoulder. She glanced down. “I’m running out of arrows. Did you see what happened?”

  “Sorcery,” said Zi, craning her neck like a heron searching for fish in shallow waters. “But I can’t tell where it is coming from. Look!”

  Shioni was already drawing the bowstring to her ear. Her callused fingers tightened as she sighted along the shaft. Out of nowhere, a group of maddened Wasabi had mobbed Talaku, trying to overwhelm him by sheer weight of numbers. Their screams told her they had bitten off more than they could chew. She expended the last of her arrows giving four of their number something more to think about.

  “Right, Zi, I can’t stay here any longer. I need more ammunition if I’m going to be any use to anyone.”

  Shioni turned, took two halting steps around the boulder, and froze.

  Across the river, the hyenas had appeared enormous. This one was so close, she could smell his rank breath. His forequarters, thick and muscular, sloped into a bull-like neck and a powerful underslung jaw that could crack even an elephant’s bones. Shioni doubted he would have any trouble cracking her skull like a nut.

  “Here, puny human. Come to Aduk!”

  Shrinking back against the boulder, she palmed her dagger.

  Aduk bared a putrid mouthful of yellowing teeth at her. His four henchmen–or was that hench-hyenas, Shioni thought inanely–copied him. They slunk around Aduk’s flanks as though seeking to draw courage from the larger beast. He glared down upon her from his half-a-head height advantage with an expression of slavering disdain.

  “Saviour of Castle Asmat, were you?” sneered Aduk. “I expected, well, something… more. How pathetic. Hiding up here among the rocks while the real battle rages below. And you have neither fangs nor claws to protect your soft hide.”

  “Maybe I don’t need claws or fangs.”

  Aduk appeared to consider this comment. Shioni wondered if he was not secretly afraid of her; perhaps unsure what powers she might command. Whatever the case, he said to Zi, “And Kalcha has another bottle ready for you, Fiuri. You’ll be seeing it from the inside before the day’s out.”

  Azurelle’s response was a wordless hiss.

  Shioni lifted her blade. “Don’t think you’re taking us without a fight.”

  “I asked Kalcha that exact question,” said Aduk, curling his lip. “She doesn’t care if you arrive at her camp dead or alive. Me, I prefer my meat dead. Several days dead. Improves the flavour, you know.”

  “Mindless thug,” Zi muttered, but her little fingers were wound painfully tight in Shioni’s hair. “Revolting mongrel!”

  Aduk flicked his stubby ears, drifting closer so that they could enjoy the full benefit of his overpowering breath. Shioni kept the dagger between them, and her back to the boulder. He growled, “What say you, you put down that toothpick?”

  “What say you I… er, I carve myself a hyena steak?”

  “Ooh.” The hyena slurped at his chops, flicking gobs of slobber into her face. “Don’t scare me like that.” His cronies yipped in amusement.

  A mighty roar shook the morning air. A tawny blur streaked in from the right of Shioni’s vision. She did not even have time to dodge. Next she knew, she saw a lion four-paw-clawed about the hyena’s head and neck. The impact flipped the entire, massive beast sideways off his paws. A lesser beast’s neck would have snapped like a dry twig. But Aduk survived.

  Fur and fangs flew. Growling, howling, tearing and snarling assaulted her ears; but Shioni was already moving, her many hours of warrior training kicking in. She scored one of the lesser hyenas across the flank with her blade and slammed her good foot into the ribs of another, before sinking her dagger into his back above the shoulder blade. It lodged there between the bones and would not move.

  Aduk turned tail and yelped his pain to the world as he fled; his fellow hyenas ate his dust as they scampered after.

  Out of the settling dust of battle, a lion appeared; a great lion, of kingly black ruff and regal bearing. There was blood smeared across his muzzle. His snarl vanished. Tawny eyes, well-remembered, looked Shioni over with a kind of proprietary pride.

  “Anbessa!” She lowered her head respectfully. “My Lord.”

  “You appear well, Graceful Strength of the Dawn,” said he.

  Shioni wanted to shake herself, feeling as if she had been swept up in a strange dream. Her every instinct screamed that she should flee this massive predator, with his paws the size of her cupped hands and claws that had sliced her skin with the ease of a sharp blade slicing into an overripe mango! Her scar tingled at the memory. He was so much bigger than the lions in the King’s menagerie back in Takazze… and she had rather preferred being on the other side of the bars from them! This was insane.

  She faltered, “You saved me, Anbessa. Thank–”

  “Come now. From that coward? His rancid flesh insults my tongue.” The piercing eyes widened. “I have not met your charming companion.”

  “This is Azurelle, the Fiuri, my Lord. It was her blood upon my arrow that broke Kalcha’s curse.”

  Anbessa nodded regally in greeting. “I have not seen your kind in a hundred years, Fiuri. The highest praise of the feline poets scarcely does you justice.”

  “The honour is mine, my Lord.”

  Shioni had not heard that exact note of respect–bordering on awe–in Zi’s voice before, and decided she would have to ask the Fiuri about it afterward. But Anbessa growled, “Walk with me. Quickly.” He forced Shioni to break into a trot to keep up. “I have brought my lionesses and a family of leopards,” he said over his shoulder. “But Kalcha’s apprentices stand against us. We need your help.”

  “My help? What apprentices?”

  She followed Anbessa, limping as quickly as she was able, around the clump of massive boulders, down a small side trail, and through a patch of flowering giant St John’s wort. Bright yellow pollen dusted her head as Anbessa squeezed past several close-set trunks. She sneezed violently, several times. So much for silent sneaking about and surprise, she thought crossly. The close quarters pressed her up against Anbessa’s flank, so that she could feel the springy power of the muscles bunching in his shoulder as he walked.

  But the Lord of the Simien Mountains stopped suddenly and raised his chin. “Look up there, Graceful Strength of the Dawn. Kalcha is not here, but she has sent her apprentices. She has forged a barrier of protection over them. We cannot approach from the ground or the air. And they are controlling the battle–with those orbs of power.”

  Chapter 24: Kalcha’s Apprentices

  As if cheerfully ignorant or uncaring of the desperate struggle transpiring on the ground, the early sunshine smiled across the battlefield. Shading her eyes against the glare, Shioni followed the tilt of Anbessa’s chin up the slope leading down to the Mesheha River. If she had jumped into the iciest mountain stream, she would ha
ve felt no less chilled by what she saw.

  On the hillside overlooking the bridge, hidden from where she had been standing by a stubby outcropping of rocks, stood three dark-robed people–male or female, she could not tell, for their faces were shadowed by heavy hoods and they all seemed alike to her. Each held aloft a shining orb. Weird, blue-tinged energies crackled around their upraised arms. The air around them shimmered like a mirage over the Danakil desert.

  “We attacked them,” said Anbessa, “and lost several who were good friends as well as allies. You and I need to speak–at a better time. Promise me?”

  “I promise.”

  “For now, whilst I lead the lions against our enemy, will you see what you can do against Kalcha’s apprentices?”

  “I–yes, my Lord.”

  And with that, Anbessa bounded away to rejoin the battle.

  Zi pointed at the apprentices. “Each of whom has more power in the fingernail of their little finger than we have between us. Are you crazy? What–hey!”

  A Wasabi warrior sprang at her! Shioni ducked into his legs. With the force of his dive he somersaulted over her body. His head struck a boulder with a sickening crack.

  Dusting off her palms, Shioni rose at once to pilfer his weapons. “That was handy–look, a sword and arrows. He must’ve been waiting for Anbessa to leave.”

  “Stop being smug and get on with the task!”

  “Right. You think tactics whilst I rescue Thunder.”

  Ignoring the ‘you’re lucky I’m your friend’ comments being muttered next to her ear, and Azurelle literally swinging off her hair as she moved, Shioni drew and let fly a clutch of arrows in quick succession. The first two missed–unfamiliar Wasabi arrows or some other no-good excuse, she thought in irritation–but the third and fourth struck their targets and Thunder was able to dart out from between two spearmen, who had been attempting to drive him backward into a culvert amongst the rocks where they must have hoped to finish him off. One more! Her fifth shot zipped right between the horse’s hind legs to thwart a hyena who was trying to sink his fangs into Thunder’s rear leg. Thunder jumped as though he had been stung by a wasp.

  Shioni wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “Too close.”

  Zi asked, “Can you break that barrier down with your mind?”

  “Zi! I talk to animals! I’m not a witch!”

  “Try, will you?”

  Shioni glanced heavenward as she attempted to gather her scattershot thoughts. What did Anbessa honestly think she could accomplish against those apprentices, who were tearing the air apart with their power? Dear God! The skies above were dark with vultures. Hundreds of wheeling, swooping doom-mongers. They could smell a battle from a day’s journey away. And there was a feast developing for them here.

  She forced herself to shut out the noises of battle; baboons screeching, cats hissing, men shouting, hyenas barking and yapping to each other; the clash of sword upon shield and the groans of the injured. Talaku was roaring triumphantly somewhere down near the bridge. She heard Tariku bellowing orders nearby, rallying his men. Where was Captain Dabir, she wondered? He was supposed to be the leader of this expedition.

  But after a minute, Shioni shook her head. “I’m sorry, Zi, but all I sense is the animals. Those three may as well not be there.”

  “Then move us closer,” the Fiuri urged her. “We must think of something.”

  Spotting a loose trio of Wasabi warriors heading her way, Shioni ducked into a patch of giant heath and belly-crawled away from the narrow trail, hiding herself amidst the twisted roots. She hissed as a branch scored bloody furrows along her ribs.

  “Get up and help Tariku!” snapped Azurelle.

  Shioni sprang to her feet, tearing a strip off her forearm this time; having to balance on the toes of her infected foot. Tariku and his men were facing a burly Wasabi warrior, who had a two-handed hammer and was employing it with devastating skill. Tariku’s shield dangled off his forearm in two pieces–split by the hammer? He sidestepped a tremendous overhand blow, but then slipped and fell to one knee.

  She nocked an arrow so fast, she hardly even sensed her hands moving.

  “Fly true!” cried Zi.

  Twang!

  When the Wasabi’s follow-up strike never arrived, Tariku blinked twice in comical surprise. But he was too much the warrior not to take advantage. Darting forward, he sent the unfortunate man to his maker.

  Azurelle patted Shioni’s neck. “My dear girl, you must have a thing for backsides!”

  Shioni turned bright pink!

  A moment later, Tariku spotted Shioni standing chest-deep in the heath not fifteen paces beyond him, and flipped her a droll salute. “I might have known you’d have something to do with this!” he called.

  She grinned back. “Let me know if you need any further saving!”

  “If you could kindly do something about the baboons, we’d be indebted! This side of the river is safe apart from them.”

  Along the river, a violent, running scrap had developed between the Gelada baboons and the Sheban Elites, supported by a powerful group of lions and leopards. Sheban warriors were now clearing the bridge, she noticed, securing the banks, and shifting the wounded to safety. But on the far side, Shioni saw the Wasabi horde was pressing in hard. Hyena-faced Wasabi against the dense, armoured clusters of Sheban warriors; discipline restored, the Shebans were putting up a fierce resistance. Their short stabbing spears rose and fell with a peculiar rhythm; a dance of blades slipping between the interlocked shields with guile and deadly effect.

  But sheer numbers were against them. If they were driven back much further, they would have nowhere to go but to throw themselves into the river.

  “I’ll try!”

  Tariku and his troop sprinted back down the trail, their sandals slapping the hard ground urgently. Soon, all that was left of their brief encounter was a dead Wasabi, and the cast-aside remains of Tariku’s shield.

  “Zi–what would you say to trying your blood again?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll try anything–but those energies they’re wielding remind me of Fiuriel’s wild magic. If Kalcha has discovered a way of harnessing wild magic…”

  Troubled beyond words, Shioni held an arrow up so that Zi could pierce her skin with its barbed point. It took no magical savvy to recognise how powerful the orb-energies were. She had already observed how the baboons were fighting with a savagery and purpose beyond the normal–utterly fearless. And the hyenas too were working in teams, harrying the Sheban soldiers in patterns that clearly pointed to an underlying intelligence. That must be the apprentices at work. She took careful aim. It was a long shot, but it would tell them much.

  Her arrow described a beautiful arc across the sky. It seemed to pause slightly before gathering speed as it descended towards Kalcha’s apprentices. Lightning sparked off their shield. Shioni blinked. There was nothing left of that arrow but dust.

  “It never reached the enchantment,” said Zi, sounding shaken.

  “How are we supposed to… to even get close?”

  Shioni was about to slam her fist angrily on the branch nearest her when she saw a chameleon standing in her way. Her hand stopped mid-air as if held by an unseen, shouted command. Undeterred by the chaos all around, the chameleon was stalking a praying mantis. Shioni’s whole awareness focussed in on the unfolding drama. The chameleon’s tongue, protruded slightly as it took aim; the praying mantis, spying its doom for the first time; the shot of the tongue, to her heightened senses appearing ever-so-lazy, but in reality over in an eye-blink. The chameleon chewed beatifically upon its meal.

  A million thoughts scrambled for prominence in her mind.

  “What? What, Shioni? You have an idea, don’t you?” cried Zi, hopping so much with excitement that Shioni felt her fall and tug her hair sharply as she caught herself. Ouch! She should have tied back her hair! No mind… “What… oh. But you can’t fight them with bugs and earthworms, you crazy, sheep-brained–”


  “No, not worms,” Shioni said dreamily.

  Summoning up every ounce of her concentration, Shioni delved her mind into the dirt beneath where Kalcha’s apprentices were standing. Beetles, millipedes, larvae, earthworms; it was a whole miniature world down there. She took a deep breath. No, no, there had to be more. She rooted about for what seemed an age… there.

  “Of course,” said Zi. “Ants!”

  “Yes, but how can I wake them?”

  “Scents,” said the Fiuri, at once. “Not pictures or thoughts, they are simple creatures. You want the scent of food.”

  “Yes…”

  Somewhere close to the trio, just beneath the hard, cracked soil, between the roots of a clump of tan grass, was a lovely warm bivouac of army ants a little larger than her head. It registered on Shioni’s consciousness as a constellation of excruciatingly small pinpricks of life. And all they needed was the right prompt. A little encouragement to help them emerge. She struggled for what seemed an endless time, trying to understand their world and their needs, before she finally grasped the right straw. And then… nothing? Oh, yes! Now she could feel the pinpricks stirring… swelling… marching.

  The army ants came boiling up from the ground, scattering every other kind of insect before them in a frenzy of terror–for as she knew, army ants eat anything that moves. In seconds, the dust was black with their bodies.

  Up, Shioni urged them with her utmost strength. Up to your food. And they began to climb, up the legs, beneath the robes of the apprentices, into all the inviting places where food was to be found.

  “What’s happening?” whispered Azurelle, straining her eyes.

  “Just a second…”

  Locked into a trance of their own making, the trio of magic wielders neither moved nor flinched as thousands of tiny feet rushed up their bodies. But then, one of the three felt something on their arm and slapped it. And that was the trigger.

  As one, the army ants sank their mandibles into the flesh of Kalcha’s apprentices.