Land of the Giants, page 43
As the two powerful women locked in battle, the horde of Agmawor below fell into absolute chaos as civil war was thrust upon them.
Logan pulled Gandiva and used it to batter the black boa’s body to no avail. He shouted for Bipp to hold on, though he was certain the gnome could not hear it. His face was turning a purple color under the constricting boa. Flicking the weapon open, Logan frantically searched for the snakes head.
Nadja called forth a wave of serpents, which seemed to pour out of the folds of her robes from some dark place. Slithering across the stone, the snakes tried to bite Luana’s bare feet, but the high priestess was quick to react and sent forth a stream of acid from her spinning thurible, melting them.
Tiko helped Logan pull the snake’s head back so that he could run Gandiva’s blade across it, sheering the constrictor’s head off. Beheaded, the body finally loosened, leaving Bipp gasping for air and weakly trying to uncoil the black serpent from his body. With Bipp free, Logan looked around at the carnage. In a matter of minutes, the Agmawor tribe had plunged itself into a bloody massacre. Luana was calling forth another round of thick vines to block the witch queen’s spells. “I wonder which of them will win?” he asked.
“Tiko thinks it best we are not here to find out,” the Agma wisely advised. Logan readily agreed. There was no telling who would be the victor or whether the rest of them would even be spared. If they were going to escape, now was the time to make their move.
Tiko tossed the semi-conscious gnome over his scaly shoulder as Nero ran to meet them. When they descended the stone staircase, the sounds of Nadja’s triumphant laughing erupted from the platform.
Hopping off the last step, into the swelling wave of chaos, Logan turned to see the evil witch queen looming over High Priestess Luana, who was wrapped in the queen’s coiled snake body. A look of sick delight burned in the queen’s eyes and she opened her jaws wide, revealing long, dripping fangs. Without hesitation, Logan threw everything he had into Gandiva. The ancient weapon whistled through the air up the steps. Nadja blinked for a moment, wondering what the sound was, before the boomerang tore through her shoulder, ripping it apart.
Nero let one of his arrows fly into the face of an attacking Agmawor, and Tiko snatched a spear from the dead grasp of a lizardman lying in its own blood. When Gandiva returned to Logan’s grasp, he took one last look at the platform. Freed of the snake woman’s body, the high priestess regarded him with astonishment for saving her life and turned to face the screaming witch queen with steely resolve.
“We have to free the Agma!” Logan shouted, letting Gandiva tear a path through the fighting crowd of Agmawor. They made their way quickly through the battle, with most Agmawor either too enthralled in their bloodlust or too afraid to touch Seti’s blessed one, Nero, who led their charge. The handful of lizardmen that were foolish enough to challenge them met sure deaths at the hands of Logan or Tiko.
Once they got back to the cages, Tiko threw a spear inside and put Bipp down for a moment. The imprisoned Agma worked on vines from the bottom while Logan hacked at the bindings on top.
“Hurry, my friends,” Tiko said, throwing the door wide. “Away we must be!”
Together they raced for the walls. As they neared the gate, a large Agmawor stepped into path, slapping a heavy bone cudgel in his palm and growling, his blue-green dorsal fin flexing and rigid. Logan moved to take the brute down, but the Agma shoved past, falling on the warrior with their scavenged spears.
Logan had to scream for them to stop. The Agmawor was long dead, and they were still slashing away at his battered torso. “Sate your revenge some other time. We need to get out of here!” he shouted.
On the platform, Nadja whipped her snake tail at the high priestess, who jumped back and called forth the powers of the jungle. A fat vine burst from the stone platform, pummeling the maddened queen in the jaw and shoving her back into the flaming doorway. The flames licked her skin, spreading like a wave across her body, ignited by the oils she had rubbed on for the ceremony. The witch queen screamed as she burned, thrashing back and forth, crushing the wooden table and shattering a stone column. The high priestess shot forth vines to bind Nadja’s wrists to the doorway, pulling her arms wide and clamping roots over her thrashing body so that she could burn alive under the twin full moons.
“None may defy Seti!” Luana swore triumphantly.
As Logan and his companions ran past the stone walls of the perimeter, away from the evil Agmawor camp and its bloodthirsty civil war, he could hear the witch queen’s howls, and they made him smile.
Chapter 16: Summoner
Hrar curled his nose as he approached the slave quarters and the unwashed stink of the place hit him. The jotun servant was not accustomed to being subjected to such squalor, spending his days fetching things and delivering messages for the marquess. Hrar was a loyal servant to Marquess Tryn, whom he respected even when others turned their nose at the jotun noble’s odd nature. In truth, Hrar quite liked the marquess, seeing his everyday acts for what they were. He knew somewhere deep down inside, the marquess possessed the strength that a Belikar ruler needed. Once he ascended to the inevitable position of duke, the rest of the city would see the same, and Hrar was sure his hard work and unflinching loyalty would pay off.
Two lazy jotnar guards leaned against the stone wall beside the gate, drinking as the marquess’ page made his way down the hill. “I come to pick up the shipment of marked scabs for the marquess,” Hrar informed them, though they hardly seemed to care, waving him on with a grumble for interrupting their conversation. Hrar huffed and crossed his arms. “Well?”
One of the guards seemed annoyed at the soft little jotun, rolling his eyes at his partner and standing up. The guard was tall, a good foot more so than Hrar, who gulped when the hard jotun leaned forward. “‘Well’ what? You want a parade for doing your job?”
Hrar surprised the rough guard by barking right back. “Who is it you believe you are addressing? I am not some commoner come calling for you to practice your insolence on! Before you stands a member of House Olvaldi, and you would do well to remember that fact, pig!”
The guard stared down at him, blinking his eyes and wondering whether the small jotun had really just shouted at him. When the servant was still there after a couple more blinks, he turned to his friend, and they both began laughing at the funny little deliveryman.
Inside the slave quarters, past row upon row of cramped shanties, Corbin and his companions were locked deep in conversation with Fivan. Kyra had wisely dismissed the slave leader’s insistence that they explain themselves back at the granary.
Corbin found himself greatly worried that the leaves of their mystical branches were all but withered at this point. Time was running out, and he knew they needed to make the best of what precious few hours they had remaining.
To make matters worse, when the workday was over, armed slavers came to gather the four of them. The marked slaves were moved to a special holding cell at the back of the slave’s living quarters. The place was no more than a sloppily built wooden shack, with one entrance that two slavers guarded. Blood stained the wooden floor and feces were dried in one corner, telling Corbin that the place had been used for far more grim circumstances.
Fivan was certainly a man of power, as much as a slave could be expected to possess. The slavers respected him enough to let him be, trusting that the human leader would make their jobs easier by keeping his people in line. Fivan saw his role as a protector of the scabs, who knew no better, and if left to their own devices, would surely have ended up food for the jotnar by now. It was little challenge for him to have the slavers bring them some rations from his home despite being ordered not to feed the prisoners. And the two jotnar sympathizers guarding them even respected his request to wait outside so that the four of them could converse in private, huddled in a circle on the filthy floor.
Kyra had gone over the lie Corbin weaved for Eir, giving just enough information to explain their purpose but not enough to leave either of their homelands exposed.
When she was finished weaving her tale, Fivan stroked his wild grey beard. “But how can this be? You say there are actually other humans living out there, far away over Belikar’s walls, free? It’s a heavy piece of bread for one to be swallowing.” Kyra solemnly nodded in response. “And you say the resistance knows of this?”
“Not only do they know, they welcome our help,” Corbin added, jumping on the cynical old man’s moment of doubt.
“I swear I will have both your heads if you do not stop it this instant!” Hrar whined, stomping his shoe on the ground. This made the drunk guards roar that much louder with laughter. One of them had to cover his face to block the view of the funny little page, punching the wall to release some of his laughter.
Hrar’s face was puffed with pink splotches on his blue cheeks, looking as if it would explode. He was so frustrated with the guard’s disrespectful behavior that he kicked the dirt. He needed to figure out how to order these jotnar to do his bidding. “Well, the two of you are clearly drunk,” he pouted, raising another peel of uncontrollable laughter from the jotnar.
“Sav and Niv, what is going on over here?” Overseer Ol’bron clopped up on a black mare out of the shadows. Hrar felt his intestines shrivel up under the ominous glare of the angry jotun. The overseer was making his rounds and would not broach any tomfoolery, not while the archduke himself was in town.
Both guards straightened up, clambering to retrieve their spears and hide the ale. “Nothing, Master Ol’bron. We were just having a chat with the marquess’ little errand boy here, that’s all,” one of the guards, Sav, was quick to respond, bowing dutifully as he finished.
“I am not an errand boy!” Hrar snapped at the pair, though he quickly reconsidered his tone under the sharp hawkish eyes of the overseer.
Ol’bron sidled his horse closer. “You are wearing the insignia of House Olvaldi. Are you from the palace?” he asked.
Hrar puffed out his chest and shot the guards a smug look. “Indeed I am, Overseer Ol’bron. I have been sent by the marquess himself to retrieve the marked scabs for delivery to the dungeons before first light.”
“Then you are an errand boy after all,” the overseer stated with no trace of humor.
Hrar opened and closed his mouth, unable to think of a response, then lowered his face to the ground, stepping back from the mounted jotun with a frown and a nod.
One of the guards snickered and received a sharp kick to the chest from the overseer, knocking him to the dirt and shattering the bottle of lager they had been trying to hide. “Did I say you could laugh?” he shouted. “It’s not bad enough I’ve got the archduke prowling around my fields? I need you two louts getting drunk and harassing a man of the palace as well?”
The guard whimpered, rising to his feet again on shaking legs. His chest felt like someone had dropped an anvil on it. Both of them began spitting out a stream of apologies to the overseer.
“Shut your drunken mouths!” Ol’bron barked, backing his horse away from the pair and pointing the reins at Hrar. “Niv, escort the marquess’s errand boy to the marked scabs for retrieval.” Niv quickly moved to comply. “And have some scab slavers accompany him back to the dungeons.”
In the holding shack, Fivan considered the implications of joining the resistance. “Let me see you,” he said. Corbin moved closer to the old man, catching his face in the moonlight, which was just filtering in through the wide cracks of the splintered ceiling. “Not like that. I want to see you as you stood in the granary,” Fivan explained.
Corbin looked to Kyra for guidance. The slavers could walk in on them at any moment. She dipped her head slightly and reached inside her shoulder pocket to grab the magical branch.
The old man gasped when the three of them removed the branches from their proximity, setting them on the floor and exposing their true selves. Fivan reached out a trembling hand to touch Corbin’s face. He needed to feel the man’s pale skin to tell himself this was not some dream. Corbin leaned forward and grasped the old slave’s hand, which looked almost black against his Falian skin. Fivan recoiled as if he were stung.
“So you see we have given you the truth of it,” Kyra said. “Now give us your answer. Will you join the resistance and stand beside us as we free our people?”
Fivan stared at her, taking in her soft features and long black hair tied back from her face. “I…uh…”
A sharp rap on the door broke their conversation. Outside, one of the slavers whispered insistently, “Fivan, they are coming for them scabs. Best you be out of there straight away.”
Stur hopped to his feet, pulling out his mighty broadsword. “What does he mean by that? Where are you off to?”
Fivan gulped at the warrior’s ominous presence, staring from him to the deadly weapon and choosing his next words carefully. “There was never any intention for me to go to the dungeons. I’ve a replacement waiting outside as we speak. It won’t matter much to the masters. One scab is just as good as another to them.”
Kyra held up her hand, signaling Stur to back down. “It’s not a problem,” she said. “Now we don’t have to figure out how to get you out of here with us. You staying behind is all the better, so you can rally the slaves. They need a leader right now, someone they trust. Someone they respect enough to follow into battle when the time comes.”
Fivan nodded, agreeing with her.
“So you will join the resistance?” Corbin asked, eagerly pulling off his glove and holding out a hand for the man to shake.
“If you live through the night, then count me as a member.” Fivan spit on his palm before grasping the pale-skinned man’s cold hand with a firm shake.
Another series of sharp raps made the door rattle on its weak hinges. “Fivan, you must be out of there now,” the slaver rasped.
Corbin helped the old man rise on feeble legs, holding his aching back for support, as the others quickly retrieved their branches. Fivan tapped on the door, signaling he was ready to leave. When it opened, he turned around, silhouetted in the doorway. “How will I know when we shall meet?”
“We will send for you,” Kyra replied cryptically, unsure exactly how they would even find the jotun named Gaurmin that was supposed to deliver their news to Eir. It seemed to be answer enough for the slave, who was impressed by the strange ways of these foreigners.
As soon as Fivan was outside, slaver roughly shoved his replacement into the cramped shack. Corbin caught the frightened decoy before he could fall.
Hrar was only ten paces away when he heard the slavers slam the door shut again, not even noticing the old man who stole away through the shadows between the nearby hovels.
“Get that door back open!” Niv barked. The slavers jumped to comply, throwing the rickety door wide and calling for the scabs to come out and line up in front of the shack. The smaller page walked around them, smugly inspecting the marked slaves. Corbin suspected the jotun was putting on a show of it for the guard’s benefit.
Deciding they were fit to travel, Hrar spun on his heel and addressed the slavers. “The two of you will accompany me on order of Overseer Ol’bron. We are going to escort these scabs to the dungeons.”
The slavers blanched, bowing before the jotun. They made short work of huddling the slaves together, whips in hand. Corbin noticed the jotun guard’s look of annoyance at the spectacle.
When they passed the thick stone walls, leaving the slave quarters behind, they saw another guard getting whipped beside a tree by the overseer himself, who only stopped for a moment to brush the hair out of his eyes and glare at the entourage. Hrar gave him a nervous nod and picked up his pace, glad to be away from the stench of the place, though he was certain it would take a couple weeks to wash the stink off his clothes. They travelled through the night, up and down the quiet city streets in silence. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing much to discuss with the guard, and he was not even sure if the doomed scabs could speak, not that he had any inclination to talk with the animals.
“Ho, there,” a drunken jotun hollered as he stumbled from a nearby alleyway. “Is that my friend Niv?”
Hrar rolled his eyes; of course the guard’s friends were drunkards too. “We have no time for this,” he groaned to Niv, who was smiling back at the stumbling jotun. “I want to be done with this delivery and in bed before the moons set.”
“Ah, hold your horses, yer majesty.” Niv slapped Hrar’s chest with the back of his large hand to halt the page. “I don’t see no overseer around to bail you out this time,” he added, low enough so that the slaves could not hear, and sauntered over to the drunken jotun with arms wide open. “Ho, there. What are you on about at this hour? Bet you had too much of that piss Loral is serving over at the Purple Wench, eh?”
Hrar grunted and folded his arms across his chest, resigning himself to wait.
“Master, perhaps we should—” Hrar cut off the slaver who had dared address him with a snarl, delighting in how the scab curled into a bow and backed away.
“Wait…what are you—” Niv took a quick step back and tried to swing his iron spear out in defense.
Suddenly, Hrar felt as though he were in a dream, seeing two more jotnar step from the shadows of the alleyway. One of them grabbed Niv from behind while the other slit his throat in a spray of blood that hit a nearby building. Niv tried to scream, but nothing would come from his throat.
It was hours later when Hrar came out of his stupor, still standing with his arms spread wide and letting out a weak scream that died in his overly dry throat. The moons were high overhead now, marking that many hours had passed. But how can that be? he wondered, his mind racing to comprehend what was happening.
To his astonishment, Niv had completely vanished. Hrar ran to the alleyway, calling for the slavers to follow. Niv was nowhere to be seen. It made no sense. How could an eight-foot-tall warrior just disappear into thin air?
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