Fatal Revenant

“Rocksister” in friendship and mirth. She had seen Giants in every extreme of desperation and agony, outrage and sorrow, yearning and fear, as well as in affection and laughter and comradeship; but she had never seen one raving with madness, or frantic for bloodshed.

She could not save herself. The wave-lined blade of his longsword plunged toward her: it would hit with the force of a guillotine. Her shocked heart would not have time to beat again.

When Mahrtiir had knocked her aside, he had fallen with her. But he had rebounded to his feet in the same motion. More swift than she would ever be, he confronted the Giant, gripping his garrote between his fists. Eyeless and human, he may nonetheless have hoped to loop his cord over the flamberge, alter its arc.

The sword was sharp iron: it would sever the garrote as though the Manethrall and his weapon did not exist.

But Stave was faster than the Manethrall-and far stronger. Cartwheeling past Mahrtiir, he intercepted the Giant’s blow with his feet; slammed his heels against the vicious plummet of the Giant’s hands.

Deflected, the longsword hammered into the earth a hand span from Linden’s shoulder.

The Giant’s might buried his blade halfway to its hilt. Raging, he snatched it back to strike again.

Stave landed on his feet. At once, he leapt at the Giant’s arms, trying to pin them together; hamper the Giant’s next blow.

The Giant jerked him into the air as if he were a trivial encumbrance.

In that instant, the skurj surged forward. It sank its fangs into the Giant’s shoulder.

All light vanished as the terrible jaws closed. Linden sensed rather than saw the beast heave the Giant upward and shake him, driving its bite deeper.

She felt Stave spring clear; felt Mahrtiir search eyelessly for an opening in which he could use his garrote.

She heard the Giant howl-

— in fury: not in pain.

Now she discerned that he was armoured in stone. He wore a cataphract of granite slabs which had been fused together by some Giantish lore. Briefly the stone protected him.

But the skurj fed on earth and rock: it chewed through the armour. Cruel curved fiery teeth searched for flesh and muscle and bone. In spite of the Giant’s tremendous strength, his entire arm would be torn away.

Still his screams were rage rather than excruciation.

He had just tried to kill Linden. But he was a Giant, a Giant. Instinctively she scrambled upright to defend him. Wielding the Staff with both hands, she hurled a frantic yell of flame at the creature.

In the sudden blaze of Earthpower, its multiplied fire reflecting from the stream’s turmoil, she saw the jungle along the eastern edge of the watercourse erupt with Giants.

They arrived too abruptly to be counted. Linden recognised only that they were all women; that they, too, wore stone armour and brandished longswords; and that Galt was among them.

They attacked like an explosion.

One of them hacked with a massive stone glaive at the monster’s jaws. Some act of cunning or magic had hardened the sword. A single blow cut the mad Giant free. Ruddy horror splashed from the exposed fangs.

Another woman slashed iron through the thick hide of the skurj, spilling viscid blood that reeked of rot and disease. Then she plunged her fist into the wound-into the living magma-as if she sought to rip out the creature’s heart. The monster’s heat tore a shout of pain from her throat; but she did not withdraw.

A third Giant chopped at the beast’s body where it emerged from the ground as if she were trying to fell a tree.

Dumbfounded, Linden remembered that Giants could endure fire, even lava-at least for a short time. In their caamora, their ritual of grief, they purged sorrow by immersing their flesh in flames and anguish.

By that means, Covenant had released the Dead of The Grieve. Saltheart Foamfollower had enabled him to cross over Hotash Slay.

Nevertheless she snatched back her own blaze so that it would not interfere with the creature’s assailants.

When the skurj dropped the raving Giant, he rolled to his feet. Swinging his flamberge, he charged at Linden again.

Only Mahrtiir stood between her and the shaped blade.

By the light of the Staff, she saw the Giant clearly. Flagrant lunacy gripped his features like a rictus: his desire for her death burned in his eyes. And some time ago-a year or more-his face had suffered an edged wound. A deep, scarred dent crossed his visage from above his left eye and over the bridge of his nose into his right cheek. It gave him a crumpled look, as though the bones of his skull had tried to fold in on themselves.

He was no more than two quick strides from her, near enough to have slain Mahrtiir if he had noticed the Manethrall, when one of the women clubbed at his temple with the pommel of her longsword. At the same time, Stave kicked a leg out from under him. He fell so heavily that the ground lurched.

He tried to rise, still gripping his flamberge. But the Giant who had struck him stamped her foot down on his blade; and another woman pounced at him, landing with her knees on his back.

A heartbeat later, the Giant who had freed him from the skurj joined her companions. Like him-like all of the Giants-she wore armour of stone. Dropping her glaive, she reached under her cataphract and drew out two sets of iron shackles. With the help of the other women, she forced his arms behind him and secured his wrists together. Then she fettered his ankles.

As soon as he was bound, his captors jumped back. He hauled his knees under him, heaved himself upright, surged to his feet. Without hesitation, he charged at Linden again as if he meant to kill her with his teeth; bite open her throat.

Grimly the Giant who had shackled him punched him in the centre of his forehead.

Her blow stopped him; may have stunned him: it seemed to alter his rage. His roar became urgent gasping. “Slay her!” he pleaded hugely. “Are you blind? Are you fools? Slay her!”

He did not appear to be aware of his damaged shoulder.

Muttering bitterly, one of the other women jammed a rock into his mouth to gag him. Then she pulled back his head and pushed down on his shoulders, forcing him to his knees.

The Giant hacking at the creature’s trunk had nearly cut through it; but still the skurj fought, flinging fetid gouts of blood in all directions. Its fangs flared murderously despite its maimed jaw. Where its blood struck armour, the sick fluid frothed and fumed, but did not corrode the stone.

Other Giants slashed at the monster. However, they did not press their attacks. Instead they distracted the beast so that it did not turn its teeth against the woman who had thrust her arm into its viscera. Her shout had thickened to a strangled snarl of pain, but she continued to grope inside the skurj, trying to grasp some unimaginable vital organ.

Then she pulled away. For an instant, Linden thought that the Giant had suffered more fire and hurt than she could endure. But in her fist, she clutched a rancid pulsing mass.

With a hideous shriek that nearly split Linden’s eardrums, the skurj collapsed. At first, the conflagration of its fangs continued to throb and flicker. Slowly, however, darkness filled the creature’s maw, and she knew that it was dead.

Growling Giantish obscenities, the woman flung the monster’s organ far out over the trees.

The woman who had produced the shackles retrieved her stone longsword. When she had wiped it on the bank of the watercourse, she slipped it into a sheath at her back.

Fumbling as if he were disoriented, Mahrtiir felt his way to Linden; touched her face and arms to assure himself that she was unharmed. “Mane and Tail, Ringthane,” he murmured. “Are they Giants? Truly?”

She seemed to hear weeping in the background of his voice. But he was too proud to surrender to his astonishment and relief.

When she tried to answer, her throat closed on the words.