The Giant's Song

[WP] "Before I cure your wife, you must promise to give me the child." "What do you want with our child?" "Who said I wanted your child? You're feeding a pregnant woman magic cabbage, that's going to have an effect on the baby. I need to raise it incase they breath fire or something."

*****

My first birthday nearly ended the world.

I'm twenty now, and every year, to celebrate my birthday, gangs of people search through the woods hoping to find me. Hoping for blood-soaked revenge.

But it’s not me they should be after – it’s the wizard Ikore. Or the giant Caneus, who farmed cabbage. Or my poor father, who snuck into Caneus’s garden night after night, only to feed his pregnant wife for one more day.

Or my mom, who refused to give me up; who refused to be cured. They don’t have to go far to find her. She’s buried at the bottom of the hill south of Haling Cove. One day I’ll visit her grave there. Not now. They’re always watching it. Always waiting for me.

So I hunted the Giant and the wizard alone. Caneus was the bigger target, so I went after him first. He did his best to hide, of course, but his kind isn’t suited to that. They’re farmers by blood. Giants can’t stand dense cities or underworld haunts. They need fresh, open air plains; fields, livestock, sunrises, brewed ale, wide spaces to stretch out, quiet spaces to walk, high spaces to sing in their deep, grumbling, mountain-shaking voices.

Landow. Home to the purest soil in the kingdom. A plateau set high in the Ormskirk Mountains, tucked away from civilization, protected every winter by snows that block the only passage in or out. Of course Caneus was there. Where else would a Giant murderer hide?

I went by boat for the first hundred miles. Under cloak and disguised – a thick black beard pasted to my face, thick spectacles balanced on my nose, a stooped walk, a false name. No one knew the World Killer was onboard. No one knew that when the ocean waves slammed against us, when the sea stole the lives of three crewmen, that it was really trying to get me.

For passage up the into the Ormskirks, I fell in with a wagon train lead by Aflyn the Fur Trader. Around a campfire, as the snow gathered on our shoulders and the smell of the cooking meat wafted under our noses, Aflyn told the story of my birth to the children.

He told it well. All the principle characters were there, cartoonish and exaggerated, but that’s nothing special.

“And when the baby World Killer opened her mouth to take her first breaths, to scream, as babes do, what happened?”

His glowing orange eyes twinkled in the firelight as he looked to his little daughter, rocking with excitement. She leapt at the cue, throwing her hands in the air like she was catching a firefly.

“Boom!” she said, falling back.

“Yes,” Aflyn said, “A song to kill all living things. The wizard Ikore had betrayed them, cursing the cabbage after his offer of help had been refused. The baby was cursed to sing death, destruction, desolation. She never had a chance.”

Aflyn's son, older than the others, with tangled red hair, turned to the other kids and said, “Now she’s out there in the forest, waiting for the day she can sing again. Then we’re all DEAD!”

“Stop it,” Aflyn said. “Only fools believe that. The truth is, World Killer died that day, passing almost exactly at the time her mother passed. The baby is buried with her outside a town far, far from here, called, uh, oh what was it...”

“Haling Cove,” I said.

The luck of our party turned sour after that night. The snow intensified. “It’s too early in the season for this,” Aflyn said, as we dug our way up the side of a cliff. “God knows what the pass looks like. The wagons might not make it.”

“I can go ahead,” I said, “scout it out. You let the others rest.”

Aflyn’s son, who was carrying another child on his back, looked up at his dad with eyes begging him to accept the offer. “Thank you,” he said.

I reached the pass that night. The wagons had no chance. The snow was up to my head. I could cut a path through it, but only if I was alone. I couldn’t risk their lives – or mine – by revealing my identity. Not even here, at the edge of the world.

I climbed back the way I came. Peering down the switchback mountain path, I saw the faint fires from the camp. The wagons and their torches formed a circle in the night, like a Giant had left a magic ring leaning against the mountain.

A wolf howled. It reverberated against my ears. More wolves joined in, howling in unison. Then I heard the shot of a blunderbuss. People screaming. The fires wavered below. They started disappearing, one by one. They were under attack, and these were not normal wolves.

Thousands of years of feasting on the scraps of Giant farmers had changed them. They were massive, over a 1,000 pounds each, big enough to eat a grown man whole. Aflyn and his party were as good as dead down there. The children.

I couldn’t let it happen. Throwing off my hood, I let my hair fan out over my shoulders, dropping down my back. I leapt to the edge of the tallest cliff and sat cross-legged. I warmed my throat with my hands, and began to hum. Gentle notes at first, then I progressed higher, louder. The wind started to pick up, swirling around me, channeling the power of the sky.

I heard the wolves howl. I opened my mouth and started to sing – something ancient, something soothing. I didn’t want to kill them, only to send them home; send them to sleep somewhere warm. But I underestimated the twisted minds of these wolves.

Whatever the Giants had been farming in these mountains, it wasn’t good. The howls grew louder. I saw the slick, black coats of the wolves racing away from the wagon circle, up the mountain. They were coming for me. I spotted three at first. Another pack joined, counting six. Then nine. Then fifteen. They grouped up on the trail and bolted up the mountain, following my voice.

When I felt the wagon train was safe to make its escape, I stopped the song. My pull over the wolves should’ve been broken. I stood up and wrapped my hair back under my hood. And then I heard it – the nearly noiseless leap of a wolf as it goes for the kill. It caught the back of my leg in its mouth. I fell into the snow. Instinctively, I didn’t let myself scream. I couldn’t.

I would sacrifice myself before I screamed again. The wolf was a pup, left behind by the pack when it went to attack the wagons. I kicked it in the eye and it released me, fell back, growling and baring its teeth.

I didn’t even have time to get to my feet before the other wolves surrounded me. There were twenty at least, closing in on me from all sides. One scream. One scream would kill them all.

And Alfyn. The children. Everyone in the kingdom unlucky enough to be awake and outside. No. This was my fate, so be it. Food for the wolves.

The leader of the pack leapt into the air, hurtling toward me, mouth agape, its teeth bloody, steam rising from its insides.

And then it abruptly changed direction – it flew up into the air and slammed against a tree. I processed that before I processed what I was hearing.

The deep, guttural, mountain-shaking song of the Giants. As the wolves flew in every direction, some running from their lives, others caught in the song, I looked over my shoulder.

Standing over me, rising high into the sky, was the Giant Caneus.

“We have been waiting for you,” Caneus said, once the wolves were gone and I was on my feet again. “Come. We go over the mountain now.”

He held out his massive hand.

“Waiting? Who? Who is we?” It was a lot for me to handle.

“The wizard is here. He is dying. He seeks forgiveness.”

Caneus lowered onto his knees, shaking the ground as he fell. He came eye to eye with me.

“I seek forgiveness, World Killer.”

I looked at him. He closed his eyes, but kept his hand outstretched. I could kill him now, I thought. And then go and kill Ikore. That’s what World Killer would do.

Yes, that’s right. That’s what World Killer would do.

I took the Giant’s hand.