blackness. Nothing happened for twenty heartbeats, and Araevin began to hope that the creature had indeed given up on them. But then a wide, spadelike hand of pallid flesh reached in from the darkness, groping and fumbling toward them.
Maresa gasped in consternation at the size of the monster, and slid away from the door. The hand was easily as broad as Araevin’s chest, with thick strong fingers as big as his forearm.
“Damn, it’s big,” she whispered.
The giant caught up a handful of Jorin’s bedroll and dragged it outside, snuffling heavily. The companions backed away from the doorway, shoulder blades pressed to the far wall. Araevin caught a quick glimpse of the monster ducking down to peer into the building again-and the giant lunged violently for him.
Araevin fell back as the giant’s fingers ground into the stone where he had been standing, splintering the rock. The creature rumbled in frustration, and grabbed wildly for Araevin again. Donnor caught hold of Araevin’s arm and dragged him back out of the way.
“Watch yourself!” the Tethyrian snapped. “We’re not likely to find another wizard down here.”
Jorin, pressed against the opposite wall of the room, frowned and leaned away as the giant groped back in his direction. He crouched low under the groping hand, but then the giant suddenly fumbled closer. Without a word Jorin fell back flat, and jammed his sword into the meat of the creature’s arm.
The giant jerked back its arm, flinging drops of blood against the doorway. It seemed to huff and whine in the darkness outside, but it did not roar, bellow, or curse as Araevin would have expected. Again stone creaked outside their small sanctuary.
“I think you drove it off,” Maresa whispered. “Good! That’ll teach it to go poking around in other people’s business.”
“I don’t think we’re that lucky,” Donnor said, shaking his head. He looked up with a small frown on his face- and the roof above his head exploded in a shower of crushed blocks and mortar dust.
With two great shoves of its thick arms, the giant cleared the top courses of stonework out of its way like a man sweeping a table clear of dishes. Araevin covered his head against the flying debris, and when he looked up again the giant towered over their broken shelter, raising a colossal hammer of stone over its head.
Nesterin’s voice rang out sharply in the darkness, and the star elf threw out a cloud of sparkling silver motes in the giant’s face. It shook its head violently, trying to clear its vision from the brilliant pinpoints. Then Araevin pointed his disruption wand at the monster’s face and barked out the command word. The cold black air sang with the shrill sound of the spell as a furious blue lance of energy slammed into the giant.
The creature reeled away, groaning… but then two more of the pale giants appeared. Hammers the size of hogsheads slammed into the old square blocks of the ledge house, knocking the place to pieces around Araevin and his friends. Donnor disappeared under a shower of masonry, while Nesterin barely dodged another block large enough to crush him like an insect.
“They’re battering the place to pieces,” the star elf cried. “We have to get out of here!”
Jorin darted through the doorway and instantly leaped aside to avoid a hammer-blow that would have driven him into the ground like a pile. Araevin waited a heartbeat for the giant outside to raise its hammer for another blow, and pushed Nesterin and Maresa out before the hulking monster could strike again. Then, rather than invite another hammer-blow, he quickly incanted the words of a flying spell and arrowed straight up through the collapsed roof.
Three of the pale giants surrounded their small safe-house. Now that he could see them entirely, Araevin found that they were horribly hunched creatures despite their great size. They went almost on all fours, with a curious hopping crouch that brought their faces down to not much higher than a human’s height. Had they been able to straighten up, they would have towered over ogres or trolls. Yet for all their awkwardness they were surprisingly quick and deft. One battered at Jorin, Nesterin, and Maresa with great sweeping blows of its hammer, driving them back. Another methodically pounded the stone building into rubble, trying to drive Donnor out or crush the human knight where he stood. The last giant stared up at Araevin in surprise, astonished to find its quarry darting through the air.
Araevin flew back and down a little, and shouted out the words of a powerful spell. From his outstretched fingertips a brilliant fan of iridescent rays shot out, scything shoulder-high across the two nearest giants. Virulent green acid ate into doughy hide, searing orange fire leaped and scorched, and crackling golden lightning sparked and ripped through flesh. One of the giants, its flesh smoking from great black burns, recoiled one step too far and silently toppled into the abyss, vanishing into the darkness.
Crackling violet madness danced in the other giant’s eyes. It dropped its hammer, clenching its fists against its head-and it looked up at Araevin and screamed.
The sound was indescribable, a mountain given voice. The mage was flung head over heels through the air to crash against the cold rock wall in a shower of rubble. Vision swimming, Araevin struggled to right himself and find a spell, any spell, to fend off the giant’s next blow. But the magical madness of the purple ray had the giant in its grip. Rather than finish off the dazed wizard, the pale brute simply turned and bounded down the narrow stairs, fleeing back down into the dark.
“Araevin! Are you all right?” Nesterin called.
Araevin held up his arm and nodded, unable to frame any better response. He picked himself out of the rubble, while Jorin and Maresa darted at the first of the giants. They scored again and again with their blades, but the genasi’s rapier and the ranger’s short swords were not well-suited for the task of stopping a giant. The creature bled from a dozen pinpricks, but still it came on, swinging its heavy hammer in great whistling arcs.
I must help them, Araevin thought over and over again. But he was still shaking off the physical blow the giant’s scream had dealt. He raised his disruption wand and pointed it at the monster’s back, and somehow he managed to mumble the activating words through the haze that enveloped him. Another shrieking blue lance of force tore through the blackness, taking the giant high in the back and spinning it halfway around.
Jorin used that moment to spring in close behind the wounded monster and plunge his blade into the back of its knee. The giant snorted and fell heavily, its leg giving out beneath it. The ranger backed off, but not fast enough; with one backhanded blow the giant sent Jorin hurtling into the darkness.
“Jorin!” Nesterin shouted.
The star elf leaped after the ranger, and caught a hold of his long cloak just as Jorin slid over the edge. Nesterin threw out his arms and legs, spread-eagled on his stomach as he struggled to keep Jorin from plummeting down into the darkness… but behind him the crippled giant turned and raised its hammer.
Rubble shifted in the wreckage of their shelter, and Donnor Kerth suddenly stumbled out of the dust and debris at the giant’s flank. He barreled into the monster’s side and hewed deeply into its back. The giant turned again, and Araevin seared its torso with a brilliant stabbing bolt of violet lightning. The creature’s face contorted in an unvoiced scream, and it slumped to the ground, just missing Maresa. Silence fell over the eerie battlefield.
“Aid me with Jorin!” Nesterin gasped to the others.
Maresa hurried over and grabbed another handful of the ranger’s cloak, and the two managed to pull him back up onto the ledge.
Donnor limped over to where Araevin sat, his chest heaving. “I thought there were three of them,” the cleric said.
“There were. One fell into the abyss. The other fled down the stairs, afflicted by a madness spell.”
“Your doing?”
Araevin nodded. “Yes. The spell is unpredictable, but often quite effective. The third giant won’t be back anytime soon.”
Donnor nodded, and peered down the stairs leading into the dark. The Lathanderite stiffened, and took a step back. “Then what’s that?” he asked.
Araevin stood up swiftly and looked where the Tethyrian pointed. Not far below them, a strange pale glimmer climbed steadily up the stairs toward their ledge. It almost seemed like a distant lantern carried by somebody ascending the terrible stairs, but it was close enough that Araevin could see that no one carried the light; it was simply a glowing white sphere, cold and small, arising from the depths below. Subtle tendrils of magic shifted slowly in his sight, whispering of dire power.
“It’s no work of the giants,” he told Donnor. “Warn the others.”
The Tethyrian called a soft warning back to Maresa, Nesterin, and Jorin. Araevin watched the light come closer as his friends arrayed themselves at his back, prepared for anything. Cold and exhaustion were momentarily
