It was a beautiful sight—a true dance of death.
My attention was ripped from Tamsin when there came a terrible, earth-shattering groan. The five hills on either side of the road heaved and cracked, like enormous green eggs.
Then, something came from that crack. Multiple somethings.
Giants.
Chapter 2
The giants burst free from the earth, cascading soil falling from their broad foreheads. Judging by the furious bellows the giants were making, they were not happy. Each must have been at least thirty feet tall and weighed a good ten tons. They had gray or brown or blue hides, root-like hair, and mouths that could have quite easily bitten a car in half like a fucking Mars Bar. Their teeth were very human, if mostly broken and discolored. Their hands had three fingers each.
Most confronting, though, was that the giants wore no clothes. Their monstrous trouser snakes were on show for all to see. Enormous cocks swung about their huge knobby knees like the trunks of some particularly indecent elephant.
“Just when you think you’ve reached the point where nothing will surprise you in this world,” I muttered to myself. “Then, this shit happens.”
Every single wildman and Drako Academy soldier stopped fighting and just stared at the ten giants and their ten swinging shlongs.
Then, one of the giants roared and picked up one of our infantrymen. With an almost delicate plucking, the giant ripped the man’s legs off like a chicken and tossed them into his mouth.
“Not on our side then,” I said, as everyone started fighting and running and yelling.
“Giants are on nobody’s side but their own,” Noctis said.
One of the wildmen got inadvisably close to one of the giants and was crushed into the earth like a blood-filled cigarette butt. His bones cracked as the enormous nudist ground the hapless prick into the dust of the road.
It looked to me like our one-on-one fight with the wildmen had just been stepped up a notch to a saucy threeway.
Arrows whined through the air, seemingly aimed at nothing and everything. A few punched into the hides of the giants, but they had about as much effect on the big, tall bastards as a mosquito might. Spells sizzled and flashed, as Penelope, Tamsin, and Saya occasionally let some magic fly. The noise was incredible.
Garth flapped in a circle, his eyes scanning for danger, as I mentally commanded him to maneuver around to the rear of one of the naked-ass giants. As he flew, I conjured up one of the strongest Shadow Spheres that I could manage. I had seen how ineffective arrows were against the massive giants, so I wasn’t going to half-ass it when it came to casting a spell at them.
I released the magic, and it struck the giant in the leg. The great figure’s leg burst apart in wisps and tatters of Chaos Magic, dissolving into nothing. The giant shrieked in a voice that rattled my teeth. It toppled over backward, crushing one of the carts and sending spices billowing into the air in a cloud of orange and pink.
Instantly, a group of nearby wildmen swarmed the downed giant, hacking and cutting at it, while the legless creature thrashed and beat at them.
Another giant found itself mired by one of Penelope’s spells, legs all tangled up in thick thorns like barbed wire.
Penelope moved in closer on the back of her dragon, no doubt wanting to take the giant all the way down. The giant had other plans. Its fist shot out and struck at Glizbe. The Rooster Dragon swerved to the side to avoid the blow. Penelope, kneeling on Glizbe’s back, almost toppled off. Glizbe adjusted in midair, so as to save Penelope from falling.
With a bellow rivaling the noise that the nine remaining giants were making, my crew appeared in their flying longboat.
Bjorn stood in the prow of the magical vessel, fist held high and broad bearded face contorted in a howling battlecry. He gripped a huge battle-axe in one hand, and his enormous muscles gleamed even in the moody light of the stormy day.
Rupert caught my eye as they sailed past where Garth and I were hovering in the air. He was, of course, wearing that ridiculous Robin Hood-esque hat of his, and he gave me a thumbs-up as the vessel swept passed.
Gabby was at the helm, steering the longboat with a silent intensity that radiated proficiency. He was a mute, having had his tongue cut out at some point in his mysterious past. Despite this lack of oral instrumentation, Gabby was quite a hit with the ladies when we went out on a weekly sojourn into the town.
My coterie’s longship bloomed suddenly out of the aromatic fog where the falling giant had smashed the spice wagon. The vessel swung to point at the giant that was about to bat Penelope out of the air.
With a blatant disregard for Academy equipment, Gabby rammed the magical vessel right into the giant’s chest. Timbers and spars splintered, as did the giant’s ribs. Scarlet blood fell like rain on the combatants gathered nearby, as both ship and giant crashed to earth.
I grinned like an idiot as my three squad members leaped from the falling longship, whatever magic that kept the craft airborne having failed.
I was also pleased to note that a few of the wildmen were crushed as the mainsail toppled over sideways like a falling tree.
After that, Garth and I applied ourselves to the eradication of anything and anyone that was not a dragonmancer or wearing the colors of the Drako Academy.
Tamsin was a swirling hurricane of destruction on the ground, cutting down wildmen like a scythe through wheat. Penelope, after her near miss, cruised the fringes of the battle, making sure
