A Plague of Giants

  “You have my word on it.”

  I took a few deep breaths, thought of the ebb and flow of tides and the smooth sand that is left behind. I would be the beach after the tide has receded. I just needed to get out of that room and let the waves wash over me.

  “You have my thanks. Am I dismissed?”

  “In a moment. You’ll be relieved to hear you shouldn’t have to come here again. Communications will flow through the military or the Lung’s staff. You may pass along any information you have through the mariners on your detail, who in fact work for me. That is all.”

  “Right.” I pushed myself up from the chair and exited through the door, where the woman with the approval smile was waiting. She flashed it at me and led me through a bewildering maze of halls, stairways, and doors to an exit that was different from the one I had used to enter. It wasn’t even the same building; we had traveled underground and come up somewhere much closer to the docks.

  “I trust you can find your way home from here,” she said.

  I gave her an approval smile and walked away. Home wasn’t where I wanted to go. Butternuts in there had opened wounds that weren’t fully healed, and I wanted to fight someone. I headed for the armory because maybe Mynstad du Möcher would spar with me.

  The Mynstad smiled briefly at my arrival, but then her face became wary when she saw my expression.

  “Are you available to spar, Mynstad?”

  “Yes, Master Dervan. Are you well?”

  I clenched and unclenched my fists. “No. I need a fight. I need to have my ass kicked. It’ll make me feel better.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense. But if you could do it without causing any permanent damage, I’d be grateful.”

  “Maybe some meditation would be better, or a good stiff drink.”

  “I’m not some Kaurian who can just sit outside and breathe peace, and it’s too early to drink. I’m a Brynt and I need to let the violence flow out of me.”

  She stared at me a moment, then nodded. “Very well. It so happens I wouldn’t mind kicking some ass this morning. Kind of convenient that you came along, really. Training swords?” She reached for a rack of dull wooden blades mounted on the wall.

  “No. Fists.”

  There was a moment of evident surprise, but she shrugged it off. “Okay. I hope you won’t mind if I tape my knuckles.”

  “By all means.” I taped mine as well, and when we were ready, we stepped out to the courtyard.

  She took in my stance and sniffed. “You sure about this, Dervan? I could just buy you a beer and we could talk about whatever’s troubling you.”

  “No. I need to punch something.”

  “Okay, then. Go ahead. Take a swing, at least.”

  I shuffled forward as if I was going to fight right-handed, but of course my right knee was too weak to allow that. As soon as I tried to dance back or to the side, I’d fall over. I switched my feet and fists at the last moment before jabbing left and following up with a right cross, planting my weight on my good knee. She took the jab but wasn’t fooled by the switch; she stepped inside the cross and blocked it with her forearm, then hammered me in the gut and smashed her forehead into my nose. I never landed another blow. The Mynstad had speed and agility far beyond mine, as well as youth and strength, and she employed it all, robbing me of breath with body blows and then knocking me down with a couple of fists to the face that rearranged my features but thankfully left all my teeth in my mouth. My head spun, my ears rang, and I wheezed in the dust, coughing up blood.

  “How’s that?” she asked, standing over me, her taped knuckles bloody while mine were pristine. “Your ass been satisfactorily kicked?”

  “Perfect,” I said, blood and drool spraying from my lips with each syllable. “You’re a good friend.”

  She shook her head in disgust and muttered, “Men don’t make a damn bit of sense.”

  I started to laugh but then stopped because it hurt. “No, thank you. I feel so much better now.”

  “Whatever. I’ll fetch a hygienist.” Her boots crunched away in the dust, and I didn’t even try to move. Other boots moved closer, but the Mynstad barked at whoever it was and told them to keep away from me. And so I was given some time before the hygienist arrived to lie still in the sun and feel it all, and the tears flowed out of me along with the blood and the spit as I missed my wife and mourned her yet again.

  The mourning of a loved one never ends at the funeral. It comes back every so often like a stage performer eager for a curtain call and expects you to be loud about it. I gave it all the lung capacity I had.

  I truly did feel better after I’d gotten that out of my system and the military hygienist patched me up. “What did you do?” he whispered to me after first making sure the Mynstad wasn’t in earshot. “Did you ask her out to dinner?”

  “What? No. She was doing me a favor.”

  He blinked. “That’s a new one.”

  “I’ve heard some new ones today myself. It’s that kind of morning.”

  I thanked him and returned home briefly to get my writing materials and then met Fintan at a Fornish greenery. Every bit of food there was imported from the Canopy, from salad leaves to root vegetables to beers. It even boasted a Fornish staff, short smiling pale people in woven clothes, all claiming to be from the Golden Tiger Clan.

  “Oh, no. The Nentians got you last night?” Fintan asked upon seeing my face.

  “No, I’ve been soundly beaten for unrelated reasons. I’ll be fine.” I waved a hand, dismissing it. “Looks like you were kept safe.”

  He nodded. “Slept well, in fact.”

  “Good. Wanted to ask you something that’s been bothering me in going over the story so far.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How’d you get all that sewage on Melishev Lohmet? I mean, I know you met him and you were in or around the Tower of Kalaad in Hashan Khek, but I can’t believe he’d share all of that voluntarily.”

  “You’re right; he didn’t volunteer it.” He grinned at me. “Someone in the palace is getting nervous, aren’t they?”

  “The palace?”

  “Yeah. Where your buddy Rölly lives.”

  “Unless the pelenaut has personally invited you to call him that, I’ll thank you not to use his nickname.”

  “I beg your pardon, then. But seriously, Dervan. You’re asking because the pelenaut’s worried I’m a spy.”

  “No, I’m asking because I’m curious. I can’t be the only one who’s asked you.”

  “That’s true. But let me assure you—and whoever you may wish to share this with—that I didn’t infiltrate the viceroy’s sanctum in Hashan Khek and sift through his sensitive documents. My opportunity came later, and in a week or so it will be part of the story and therefore part of the record. Can you wait for your answer until then?”

  I shrugged. “Sure.” There was no use pressing him. My personal curiosity should be satisfied with that. To pursue it would mean it wasn’t my curiosity after all but Master Butternuts’.

  Despite not losing any teeth, my jaw still hurt from the Mynstad’s fists, so I ordered soup and pudding for lunch as we got to work.

  The bard’s hair blew in a breeze coming from the ocean, and he smiled as he strummed his harp. “Today is a good day, I think, for a wind-chime from Kauria!” he announced. “If you’re unfamiliar with them, they are three verses of three with the end words of each line rotated. This is an easy one to remember. Do alter the gender to suit yourself.”

  My emotions are tossed like the ocean wind

  For my love is foremost in my thoughts

  And she is a rare and dangerous treasure

  But it is her very danger that I treasure

  And hearing her laugh on the ocean wind

  Inspires the most distracting thoughts

  And now there’s naught but passion in my thoughts

  For her favor is what I most treasure

  And peace n
ever blows from the ocean wind

  “Today our tales will remain here in the east, all regarding the aftermath of the Bone Giant invasion. Here’s an account from the trader’s daughter, Kallindra du Paskre.”

  When our wagon crested the hill above Möllerud, we expected to see the familiar domed roofs nestled against each other and softly gleaming, bronzed like baked goods frosted with sugar. We expected to see people on the road and cattle lowing in the fields outside the city. We anticipated health and prosperity and a vibrant market in which to sell our goods. What we saw instead was the aftermath of slaughter.

  Some of the domes were crushed, and dark holes yawned at the sky. Rag doll bodies tossed about on stained turf fed the blackwings. Some of them were children, and I wept when I saw them, small innocents having their eyes plucked out by sharp beaks.

  But the true horror for me, though I didn’t realize it until later, was that nothing burned. Not a single trail of smoke curled into the sky. Somehow this made the people seem more dead.

  Perhaps it is the bias of my background speaking, where the night’s fire is a ritual and a comfort, but somewhere in the chaos of the city’s death, a cooking hearth should have blazed out of control. At the least, someone must have grabbed a brand, or a torch, or even a poker to defend themselves and thus set fire to their surroundings in a mad bid for survival. Death should not be so cold and black and silent. A fire is both appropriate and necessary. It is the ashes that announce that the past is dead and the future is in the soil, bounty to be brought forth by the water of Bryn.

  There is no hope in a blight of blackwings croaking over their bellies full of the dead.

  “You’re going to meet the leader of the importer clave in Fornyd, Culland du Raffert, next,” Fintan said when he had returned to himself. “Like many of you here today, he lost everything at the massacre of Festwyf. But that loss was not the end of his story.”

  The strange smoke of his new seeming revealed a man in middle age, his skin loosened around the jaw and neck, a bit of a spread around his middle, and the beginning of a bald spot on the crown of his head. His clothing was neither rich nor poor; it was the garb of a respectable merchant, sober and prim.

  My knees were fine this morning, but now they threaten to buckle with every step. My lip quivers, and my eyelids twitch. All my muscles are uncertain, reflecting the fear and trembling in my mind. I don’t know whether to weep or to charge down the Merchant Trail with a sword to meet the invading army all by myself. Quartermaster du Cannym told all the clave leaders that Festwyf was lost and the evacuation of Fornyd would begin immediately to prevent us from being lost, too. We are supposed to flee before this deadly flood of giants. We have that choice.

  But my son and daughter and their spouses in Festwyf were not given a choice. And neither was my wife, who had sailed downriver last week to visit them. If Festwyf was lost, then they were lost, too. And with them gone, my business was gone as well; the invaders may well be peppering their camp stew pots with my spices. Not that the business was worth a damn when my family wasn’t around to make a living from it.

  The furniture in my house is kindling and cloth now, nothing more, if only I remain to use it. The flowers in my wife’s garden will no longer hear her humming as she weeds and prunes. The water filtration system my son made for a school project continues to drip, but it’s all poison to me now. The quilt my daughter gifted to us for our twentieth anniversary: Who could possibly be comforted by it? Certainly not me. When I think that I was asleep while my family was being slaughtered, I nearly sprain my jaw from grinding my teeth together.

  I will hold on to a cupful of hope until I see their bodies. And I might never see them, so that cup will always be there along with a bucket full of denial. But as time passes with no word and no spice shipments, I will have to confront that cup and bucket as the lies they are. And then what will I do, alone and shortly to be penniless?

  Cry. Drink myself into oblivion. These are already attractive to me. Since I have to pack a bag and walk to Tömerhil, having no horse, I might as well fill it with liquor and money to buy more, all the money I have on hand. Strange how easily all other considerations slough away when it’s just yourself to care for and you don’t care much for the duty. So it’s the road south for me, and if I don’t receive some hopeful sign that my family may be alive after all, I’m off to Pelemyn. Long ago, when I was a young lad, before my business flourished and I met my wife, I was tempted to dive into Bryn’s Lung. My commercial success and marriage banished that inclination, but I see no reason why I can’t keep the date now. I have every reason to do so. And I think it’s calling to me, that sound like crashing surf in my ears that no one else seems to hear.

  Except perhaps some do hear a song similar to mine. When I reach the road south, I join a stream, a river of people flowing that way, their faces stunned like mine, feet going one way and their minds going in myriad others. We are wrecked survivors adrift in the flotsam of memories, incapable of rescuing or being rescued, waiting for the inevitable return to the water.

  “Culland’s journey has a spectacular end, and we’ll return to him later in the week, when he gets to where he’s going. Down in Kauria, Gondel Vedd has his own journey to undertake.”

  My translation of Zanata Sedam is finished, or anyway, I’ve finished what I can. It’s still full of holes, and it’s time to return to the dungeon for Saviič’s aid. The couple of days off with Maron had done me much good, and I returned to my work and temporary lodgings at the palace feeling refreshed and excited. It will be satisfying to finally get a firm grasp of the text. I have found several words that look as if they might be names for the Eculan deity but cannot be sure from context if they refer to gods or mortal heroes, and I’m quite curious about their version of the Rift legends. What I can be sure of is that this Eculan religion seems preoccupied with suffering as a purifying force. Pain, discomfort, starvation; these are all visible signs of devotion to their faith. It explained why Saviič looked as he did and refused comfortable clothing. He was a pious man and as such could not look or feel anything but starved and miserable. And the promised reward for such piety—if I am correct—will be a remaking of the world in the Eculans’ favor. The triggering event for that upheaval had something to do with the Seven-Year Ship that Saviič was looking for. And just as I was thinking I needed to inform the mistral that these people prepared all their lives for war when we devoted all our lives to peace, I was summoned in the midst of my early-morning bladder evacuation and made a horrid mess because I was so startled by the pounding on the door. It was no ordinary lackey sent to fetch me; it was Teela Parr herself, exhaustion painting her skin a dark purple underneath her eyes.

  “We need you right away,” she said, then frowned. “But take a moment to make yourself presentable.” I privately thought she asked for the impossible, but I tied my hair in a queue and found a stain-free tunic while she stood out of sight behind the doorway and briefed me, her voice carrying around the corner.

  “We’re getting reports that Rael and Brynlön have been attacked and have lost several cities already. The description of the invaders sounds like our prisoner in the dungeon.”

  Reinei bring us peace. “When was this?”

  “Three days ago. The mistral was just informed through the Fornish ambassador.” My hurried dress accomplished, she walked me through the halls and laid it out: Bennelin, Möllerud, Gönerled, and Festwyf all lost, and more to follow because the armies had moved on to the interior. They had used a coordinated strike from across the Peles Ocean using massive fleets.

  “How did they cross without losing ships?”

  “We’d like you to ask Saviič that very question, among others. I have a list.”

  She produced a sheet of paper with a numbered list of questions for Saviič, and we walked together down to the dungeon. Teela accompanied me to his cell this time, her nose wrinkling at the smell. The Bone Giant seemed pleased to see me but returned in short order
to his customary entreaty.

  “Give me my book, please,” he said in Eculan.

  “I will soon,” I replied, and continued with my uncertain grasp of his language. “I am nearly finished with my copy and need your help. When I have finished a copy, I will return yours. But first, will you answer a few questions about Ecula for me?”

  He flicked his eyes to Teela, registering that these questions were most likely going to be hers, but then chucked his chin at me. “Ask.”

  I consulted the list. “When your soldiers go to fight, do they wear …” I didn’t know the word for “armor,” so I settled for “defense.” “Defense clothes?”

  Saviič grimaced. “Defense clothes? You mean oklop?”

  “Oklop?” I flashed my hands up and down my torso. “You wear to keep body safe?”

  “Yes, yes,” Saviič said. “Oklop made of bone. Front and back.”

  “And oklop on your head?”

  “No. Paint faces like bone.”

  I translated this to Kaurian for Teela, and she kept her face impassive and her voice controlled, giving nothing away in her expression that Saviič could read. “That confirms it, then. It was his people who attacked.”

  I moved to the next question. “Does Ecula want to fight us? Attack us?”

  Saviič shook his head. “No. I come to find ship. No fight. I have no oklop, no sword.”

  He hadn’t answered the question. “Not you. Not Saviič. Ecula. Your home, your people. Do they want to fight us?”

  The Bone giant shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe if you have Seven-Year Ship.”

  “We don’t,” I assured him, and then translated for Teela.

  “Huh. Go on,” she said.

  “Ecula has boats,” I said to him. “Bigger than yours. Boats that can cross ocean without krakens taking them?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you make these boats?”

  “With wood.” He snorted as if I’d asked the stupidest question ever.

  “But krakens take our boats made of wood. Why not yours?”