Against the Giants (3 page)

The girls remained where she left them. Lhors blinked at her
expressionlessly, but as her fingers dug into his arm, he winced. Not in shock
like the girls, then, just hurting. But there was no time for mourning—not for
either of them.

“Boy,” she hissed.

“G-gran?” he stuttered. “They’re dead. E-everyone. All of
them.” His hand fell limp against his leg. “I tried what you said. I tried!”

“Shhh. It’s all right,” she said quietly.

“No, it’s not!” He pulled free of her grasp. “N-no one would
listen to me. They ran, and then I had Bregya and her youngest boy, and she
l-looked at me and she… she…” He swallowed, turned away. “They’re all
dead, except us,” he said finally.

Gran patted his shoulder. There was nothing she could say
that would mend this, and just now, she wanted to weep for her own son. But this
boy… he kept things inside when he was upset. She didn’t dare let him do it
with this. “I’m sorry, Lhors. It’s a dreadful thing. At least you and your
father did what you could to avert it. Remember that.”

The boy’s eyes brimmed, and his lips twisted in anger. “Why
remember?” he managed, his voice thick with tears. “Will it change anything?”

“Not now, but it will help you later.”

He swore a soldier’s oath that shocked her silent. “I don’t
care about later! My father—he had no chance! He fought for the king all his
grown life! And then, only to be cast off like an aging horse because he was too
old to fight! To send him out here to protect peasants!”

“And we were grateful to him. He gave us his skills, and he
gave us you. Second-guessing a life is foolish, Lhors,” Gran said flatly. “He
died a hero. Remember that.” She wrapped both arms around him briefly. “We can’t
stay here, Lhors. There’s no time. The giants may return. Are you hurt?”

He shook his head.

“You’re certain no one lives?”

He nodded.

“You’ve checked the cellars beneath the houses that aren’t
burned?”

“All of that. There’s no one.” He gazed helplessly at the
twisted, blackened wreck of the stable.

Gran closed her eyes briefly. “Lhors, we’ve work to do, you
and I.”

He nodded faintly. “I’ll fetch shovels—”

“No, there are too many, and there are other immediate needs.
One of us must go to High Haven at once to see if they were also attacked. If
not, they must be warned of the danger, as must every village around us. I will
have one of the High Haveners ride down to New Market with the warning and have
him bring back men to dig graves or build pyres.”

“But I can dig—”

She laid a finger across his lips, silencing him. “No. You
have another, harder task. You must catch Old Margit or one of the other horses
and take the road to Cryllor. You must request an audience with Lord Mebree and
inform him of what has happened. At the very least, you must warn the guard
company there that giants have done this.”

Lhors stared at her, his mouth slack. “Go to… Gran, why
would they care? And I can’t ride worth a—”

“They’ll care,” the old woman replied bluntly. “About
revenues at the very least. Dead villagers don’t pay taxes. But the guard will
have to stop giants who are bold enough to openly attack the way those did.
Remember that this is not a plea for our lowly selves. Remember that. Keep this
in mind instead: taxes. The king will send an army to keep the money flowing.”

The boy swallowed, and his prominent throat-apple bounced.
“Gran, you’re mad! You’d send me to convince a council? My father was only a
captain of one of the hill companies, and that was over twenty years ago!”

“Yes, but that’s more than any of the rest of us ever were.
You are the son of a soldier, and that’s more than anyone else can claim.
You
are the only one we can send, Lhors. There is no one else. Now, remember to say
‘please’ and ‘thank you’ often, especially to officers and nobles. That may open
doors for you. Do not let them refuse to hear you, though.”

“I can try,” Lhors said doubtfully, “but I won’t leave you
here alone. We’ll all go. If I can catch Margit, the girls can ride her to High
Haven. Then I’ll go on, I promise you.”

To her dismay, Gran’s eyes filled with tears. She dashed them
impatiently aside. “Good lad. Go find Margit. We’ll wait here.”

Old Margit was nowhere around. Lhors searched for the mare
for nearly an hour before giving up. If the giants had not taken her, then she
had fled too far away for him to find, so he returned to the husk of a village
to fetch Gran and the girls.

Before the sun was much above the horizon, Lhors, Gran, and
the two children were on their way to High Haven. The first hour or so, they did
not trust the road, fearing another attack by hiding giants. Instead, they
stumbled their way through trees, brush, and the occasional creek. Their
progress was excruciatingly slow, and after a while, Lhors urged them onto the
road so that they could find refuge all the quicker.

They reached the tiny herding village at midday. Gran and the
girls remained there while the villages remaining able-bodied men readied their
defenses and prepared to go back to Upper Haven to bury the dead. Lhors went on,
carrying a flask of water, a few ripe apples, a bit of bread, and a clay jug of
herbed oil to pour over it. Mostly, he ate and drank as he walked. Now and
again, he ran when the road was smooth enough, though nightfall slowed him to a
walk again.

He reached a small garrison outpost in the hills just short
of daybreak the next day. Fortunately, his father had friends among the small
company of scouts who patrolled the surrounding hill country. Lhors had no
trouble passing on word of the destruction in the foothills. He had rather hoped
to be sent back to High Haven, but the captain, a tall, bearded man named Edro,
had other ideas.

“You’re young and trained by your pa, but no true soldier,
lad. And you have cause to petition for a company to come and clean out these
giants, if they’re still about. I’ll take some of my men and head to Upper Haven
myself to make sure the folk are safe and all. You better travel on up to
Cryllor and let Mebree know what’s happened out here. So happens, your pa served
Mebree before he retired. You stand a better chance of getting the lord’s ear
when someone like me might not.” He also ordered a horse, an old gelding with a
rough gait and a hard mouth, for the youth. “I’ll tell you truth, lad. No one
here wants to ride old Bruiser. But once he’s far enough away from his stable,
he’ll cover the ground for you, faster’n you could do yourself.”

There wasn’t much Lhors could do but agree to the added
journey and take the horse—a raw-looking old white brute with long, brownish
teeth and a pink nose that had been badly chewed on at some point. Bruiser was
no better than Edro had promised, but the bone-jarring trot ate up distance.

Late on the third day out of High Haven, he rode up to
Cryllor’s double gate and gratefully handed the gelding’s reins over to the
guard.

Cryllor was an outpost, a fort that still resembled one,
though these days it was the size of a small city. It was quite the biggest
place Lhors had ever seen. Despite the grief that swaddled his mind and emotions
and weighed on him like a stone, he couldn’t help but pay heed to sights that
ranged from the exotic to amazing.

The city was ancient and many-walled. As it had grown from a
log-walled garrison to a minor fortress and finally to a city, it had expanded
well beyond the original fortifications. Still, the lords of Cryllor had
prudently maintained that innermost wall and made certain that new outer walls
were built as needed. Some of the newer barriers had been razed as the city
grew. The stone from the previous outer bastions was then used in the new ones
or broken down to be remade into buildings or to pave new streets.

The oldest three sets of walls remained in place. The
innermost still enclosed Lord Mebree’s manor and served as a final defense
against any enemy strong enough to win through the main battlements and the city
itself. The other two rings were each four man-lengths across—but hollow. They
still served as barricade, barracks, stables, butteries, and weaponries for the
lords armsmen.

Since King Kimbertos had come to power, there had been no
attacks anywhere around Cryllor. Lord Mebree’s city, once a strong fortress and
a prosperous market, was nearly as infamous for its many slums and the
well-entrenched thieves’ guild. Cutpurses and assassins were everywhere, as were
the poor. The markets gave over vast sections where the needy could find stale
bread, overripe fruit, soft tubers, and sacks of grain and flour beginning to
mildew. Sour-smelling food stands alternated with tattered blankets piled next
to used clothing, discarded boots, ill-tanned hides, or bits of fabric and
leather too small to serve those who could pay for better. One or two stalls
sold partially used charms and spells, while fortune-tellers with greasy packets
of cards or poorly blown gazing-balls tried to sell their skills.

The wealthy and noble kept summer quarters high in the hills,
well away from the heat and stench of the city. In winter, they lived in comfort
behind locked gates, sending armed guards to accompany their servants on errands
beyond the household walls.

But to a boy who’d only once a year gone to New Market with
his father, Cryllor was shining and glorious. I should have come here with
Father, like he wanted, not like this, Lhors thought, but there had never been
enough free time. The village had depended too heavily on Lharis for his hunting
skills.

Now Lhors gazed listlessly from paved streets and stone
fountains to the carved doors on ancient dwellings and the gargoyles perched on
the corners of flat roofs. The city was more impressive than he could have
imagined from his father’s tales—yet it mattered no more than the incredible
variety of people crowding those streets. He stared briefly at two reed-slender
elves, then at a girl in bright-colored skirts and scarves swaying on a small,
raised platform. At her feet two boys sat cross-legged, fiddling with their reed
pipes while a third paced back and forth, adjusting the skin on his drum. None
of this held Lhors’ attention for long. None of it was important.

He gazed up at one of the inner lengths of wall—all that was
left of what might have been an outer wall a long time before when the city had
been much smaller. Now there was barely room for two guards to pace a few steps
and keep watch over the people below.

“My father might have stood there once,” Lhors said to
himself. His throat closed. He drew breath through his nostrils then forced his
attention elsewhere.

Some distance away, a man clad in mail and plate armor that
shone like silver moved through the crowd. He was followed closely by a boy and
a horse. The horse was a huge creature, blue-black with a well-brushed mane and
tail that hung nearly to the paving. The steeds head rested on the knights
plate-clad shoulder as if he were an enormous pet.

That’s a paladin! Lhors thought in amazement. To think! His
father had told him wonderful tales about paladins, and this past winter he’d
openly spoken of his hopes that Lhors might become equerry to such a man. I
might have liked that, Lhors mused, if only because Father would have been
proud, but the village could never have spared me. Even Lhors’ hunting
skills—nowhere near as good as his father’s—were needed.

Lhors glanced after the paladin and the boy with renewed
interest. Odd companions. The mail-clad man was an impressive figure, the boy a
gawky creature of perhaps ten years with spiky brown hair and ragged clothing.
Curious, Lhors thought. There must be some tale there, though he hadn’t the wit
to work one out.

Some distance on, a gray-bearded man juggled three lit
torches. Lhors slowed but moved on almost at once. He had seen a boy moving
among the awed crowd, using a slender-bladed knife to relieve people of their
coin bags. Cutpurse. So that is where the word comes from, Lhors realized. He
made certain of his own coins and kept going.

He paused now and again to repeat the gate guard’s
instructions to himself. Straight past the Shrine of Heironeous, which he would
know by the huge stone hand clutching a lightning bolt. He tried not to think
about the combination of huge hands and lightning. Who or what was a Heironeous?
It must be a god to have a shrine, but who prayed to a god who called upon
lightning?

Upper Haven had prayed to all the gods in general—one never
knew which might be offended by being left out. Lhors knew little of such things
himself. His father now and again invoked the name of Trithereon, though when
things went wrong, Lharis bespoke one he named as Dread Hextor. “One who was a
warrior and is now poor is doubly in the care of Hextor,” was all his father
would say.

“Straight past the shrine,” he repeated to himself, “then
turn south beyond the armorer’s and south again at the wall. Follow the wall
around to the gate.”