The last request was relayed with a smirk by the dark complexioned knight. There were grunts and scoffs.
“That was the wrong tack,” Berwin intimated to Alex and Ecgbryt. “Slovak knights have always viewed the signposts of honour askew. Their ways are not ours.”
“We owe no debts to your island race,” the Slavic knight responded. “If your small outpost were to disappear overnight, who would notice? We here are the keystone of the arch of civilisation. Were we to falter, the whole would tumble away into oblivion.”
“In an arch,” Alex replied, “each stone is as vital as the other. Send just a small band of your men to join with ours.”
An argument seemed to break out when this request was translated. Knights on both sides of the translator shouted and made wild gesticulations. He raised his hands for quiet once more.
“Them, take them,” he said, and pointed to a corner of the massive cavern. Eight knights were standing quite apart from the rest of them, incongruously clad in medieval plate armour. “They call themselves the Hussites. We can hardly understand them, and we don’t know why they were sent to us. They have strange
opinions and are always causing arguments with us about topics that we know nothing about and care for even less. If we convince them to go with you, will you take them?”
Alex shrugged. “If that’s the best offer we can get, then yes—of course.”
There then followed a very long period of bartering and explaining to the eight rather baffled knights.
“So,” said the dark knight after the awkward Hussites had been, to all appearances, completely bullied into joining Alex and Ecgbryt’s ragtag band of warriors. “All has been explained to them. They will follow you and take part in your battles. They are good warriors—they are of the
Boiohaemum
, after all. When you have done with them . . . keep them, send them home, do whatever. But remember always that you owe a debt to the Knights of Blanik Mountain, Alex Son-of-Simp.”
Alex bowed, and with a grudging amicability restored, they left the enormous cavern under the mountain and continued their northward course.
_____________________
I
_____________________
Isle of Man
Kieran and Fergus were walking home from school. Kieran was ahead, going very slowly, and Fergus was some thirty feet behind him, going even slower than his brother. Kieran was angry and annoyed. This was exactly the sort of thing Fergus was always pulling. He was late and making him even later. Why did he put up with it?
“Because I
say
so. You come home with your brother. End of story,” Kieran’s mother had commanded him a couple days after school had recommenced.
“But what if he makes me miss the bus again?”
“Especially if he makes you miss the bus again. You come home with your brother.”
“But he’s always so
slow
.”
“I’m talking to him about that, but never you mind. You come home with your brother.”
“But—”
“
Come home with your brother.
Or don’t come home at all.”
Today was the first day that Kieran seriously considered not coming home at all. He stopped, turned, and studied his brother.
Fergus saw Kieran standing in the road, waiting for him to catch up, and slowed down even more.
Kieran sighed. He got out of the road and leaned against the low, stone cow-wall that ran along it, striking a pose. What was it with Fergus lately? He used to listen to him. They used to do stuff together. Now all that Fergus seemed to want to do was be contrary. And what was up with being late? He got a watch for his birthday, and even though it had taken awhile for him to start wearing it, for their parents to train him to wear it, he still turned up late for everything—breakfast, the bus queue, his classes, lunch, dinner, football—a good five minutes behind everyone else. What part of his brain was missing?
Kieran sighed as Fergus, unwilling to get any closer to his stationary sibling, stopped as well. They stood, looking at each other from about twenty feet away. They were at a standoff. Fergus knew he could get Kieran into trouble if he was so much as thirty seconds later than he in coming through their front door, and Kieran could think of no way through reason, bribery, or force to make Fergus walk with him.
“You know I’ll get in trouble if I come home without you,” Kieran called with what he hoped was the right mixture of authority and reason.
Fergus just stared back at him blankly. Of course he knew.
“You’ll get in trouble also.”
Fergus did not even blink.
Kieran put a hand to his forehead and rubbed. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately; none of them had been on the island. There was some sort of disease going around, some people thought. It made them all wake up at night from bad dreams. He’d heard someone say that perhaps some anti-malaria drugs had gotten into the water supply somehow. Or maybe they were all worried about the disappearances. And the suicides. But then what kicked those off?
No doubt that’s what was making Fergus act like he was. But Kieran was too tired to take it anymore.
He lifted his legs, swivelled around, and jumped off the other side of the wall. He started walking across the field, away from Fergus, away from home, away from everything, toward the darkening blue sky and the grey sea.
He was halfway across the field when he heard Fergus’s foot-stomps running to catch up with him. He stopped and turned.
“Where are you going?” Fergus asked, stopping beside him.
“Why do you care?”
“Aren’t we go—?”
He was interrupted by an enormous . . .
explosion
was the only way to describe it. It was the sound of a bolt of thunder, or of a lorry hitting the ground after being dropped by a crane. It was an impact boom, and it made the soft ground beneath them swell like an ocean wave.
“What was
that
?” Kieran asked, eyes wide.
“I saw something. It came from over there,” Fergus said, pointing toward the sea.
“Stay here,” Kieran said, and ran in the direction Fergus had pointed.
But of course his brother ignored him.
They made it to the edge of the field, which was bordered by a wooden fence that ran atop a cliff face. Below them was a sandy
strip of beach that the waning tide had revealed. Standing on the beach were two figures.
It took Kieran and Fergus a little while to process what they were seeing. The two figures—men—were absolutely enormous, and it was throwing off their depth perception.
“They’re huge!” Fergus whispered.
“Shh!” Kieran looked down at them. They were twisting and bending over and spinning their arms, like they were warming up for a race. They were almost completely naked, all except for some tight and badly stitched-together bits of animal skin around their bottoms that looked like the most uncomfortable, smelliest pairs of underwear in the world. Their hair fell in long dreadlocks the size of bolsters of fabric down their backs. One of them had a thick, bushy beard and no moustache; the other had a moustache and no beard. The rest of their bodies were completely hairless.
Then one of them squatted down and leapt up in the air. He sailed above their heads, dwindled in the sky above them, and then came crashing back again, whistling past them, and landed on the beach with another earth shattering
thump
.
“Wow!” Fergus exclaimed loudly.
“Shh!” Kieran hissed, just as the two giants turned toward them.
“Uh-oh. Run.”
Kieran and Fergus took off across the field. Kieran looked back and saw a massive hand—the size of a bulldozer scoop—grip the side of the cliff where they had crouched, and an enormous head rose behind it, like an absurd sun.
“Quick! Quick!” Kieran shouted as he heard the sound of massive limbs scrambling up the cliff face.
They hadn’t even made it halfway across the field before two gigantic hands swept them off their feet and into the air, and then swung them back and forth like action figures.
For a while they both struggled, until they each saw how high above the ground they were.
“I’ve got them, Nuncle, I’ve got them!” boomed a voice above their heads as they watched, gape-mouthed, as they came back to the cliff face and, instead of stopping, the giant simply bounded down the thirty-foot drop. He landed with a jarring
thud
and placed them both upright upon a tall rock that jutted along the tideline, slippery with water and sea slime.
The two giants leaned over Kieran and Fergus, so close they could see each enormous pore of their faces.
“What a truly wonderful world we live in, Nephew,” the hairy giant said. “Look at how tiny and minuscule such marvels of creation are. See their arms, their legs—” The giant lifted a massive finger and started running it up and down Kieran’s side. Kieran clung to his younger brother for stability.
“And look here,” said the giant, hooking his fingernail under Kieran’s arm, forcing him to splay it out. “Little tiny hands with fingers.”
“Kieran,” whispered Fergus. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. Wait for a chance when they’re not looking, maybe.”
“How remarkable!” the younger giant said. “But how loose their skin looks.”
“Yes, but see the colours and patterns. It is how they attract their mates, you see. Nature gives them such skin to compensate for their small stature, crude behaviour, and puny strength.”
“Where do they come from, Nuncle? I’ve always believed such stories of the little people to be fantastical imaginings.”
“Yes, it has been many a hundred year since I have even heard report of one. Perhaps the barrier between their world and ours is weakening.”
“Pish, Nuncle! You do not believe in such superstitions, surely.”
“You are young, Humphreybodie, and live in a doubtful age. Even when the evidence for such wonderment is before you, yet you doubt.”
“Oh, laws, Nuncle. You nearly had me there,” the nephew said, chuckling. He punched the other giant on the arm. “But don’t they look funny. They’re standing on their hind legs, just like they was trying to be like us. I could almost imagine they were as smart as we. I might keep one of them, as a pet.”
“We’re no pets! We’re people!” Fergus yelled at the top of his lungs.
“Lor lumme, Nuncle,” said the one with the beard in a big, booming voice. “I fancy I saw that one speak.”
“Nooooo . . .” said the uncle in a considered voice. “It’s a trick of the wind. I’ve seen it before. It passes over their ears, which are hollow all the way through, and—”
“We
can
speak!” Fergus shrilled. Kieran remained frozen, still too scared to make a sound.
“I know what I heard, Nuncle,” the nephew said, frowning. “You can’t now tell me that I didn’t hear what I heard. Doubtful age, indeed!”
Fergus looked up at his brother.
Your turn,
he nodded.
“Who are you?” Kieran shouted. “What are your names?”
“Don’t tell it,” the uncle snapped.
“Oho! Then you heard them too?” said the nephew.
“Don’t get too close. They’ll enchant you!”
“My name is Humphreybodie,” the bearded giant said in a slow, explanatory voice. “
Humph-
rey-bodie. This is my uncle.” He placed a hand on the moustached giant who didn’t really look much older than the other. “His name is Osgoddodius.
Osgod-dodius.
Have you got names?”
“Don’t be silly, of course they haven’t.”
“I’m Fergus, and this is my brother, Kieran.”
“I’ll be blown over,” the uncle said in a murmur like a foghorn. “What strange things to call one’s self. However do they remember such short names?”
“Where did you come from?” Kieran called. “How did you get here? What are you doing?”
“Came up through the ground, of course,” Humphreybodie said matter-of-factly. “Like respectable giants.”
“Why?” Fergus hollered. “Can’t you swim?”
“Swim?” Humphreybodie looked alarmed. “No honourable giant ever learned to swim. Not when there’s jumping to be done.”
“Jumping?” asked Kieran. “Why are you doing that?”
“Why,” Humphreybodie replied, “we’re getting ready for tonight’s practise, of course.”
“What are you practising?” yelled Fergus.
“Why, jumping, of course. Got to practise our jumping,” Humphreybodie answered with a look across to his uncle.
“Blow me over,” Osgoddodius said under his breath. “I didn’t know they could talk.” He clutched at his stomach. “I’ll never eat another one as long as I live.”
Fergus renewed his clutch on Kieran’s sleeve.
“We jump at night,” Humphreybodie continued. “It’s good for the lungs and makes the muscles work harder. We need to be in good shape for the competitions.”
Something clicked for Kieran. “Wait, is it
you
who’s keeping everyone awake? Jumping at night like that?”
“Sorry, pet,” Humphreybodie said, bending closer. “I didn’t catch that.”
“Did you know you’re keeping people awake?!”
“Keeping people awake? There
are
no people on this island—only you little creatures. There used to be, but there aren’t anymore. It’s deserted. That’s why we use it. That’s why we’re testing it.”
“Testing it for what?” Kieran hollered, his throat getting hoarse now.
“Why, for the games, of course,” said Osgoddodius.
“What games?” yelled Fergus.
“The Giant Games,” Humphreybodie said expansively, throwing his arms wide apart. “It is a meeting, a coming-together-of. My uncle and I are going to compete in jumping. But first we have to see if this place is made of the right stuff for jumping. We’ve been here each night for the last couple months, testing out every inch of it. If we like what there is, we’ll spread the word and all the giants will descend upon it and we shall compete in jumping up and falling down.”
“How many are in the competition?” Kieran asked.
“Oh, hundreds,” Osgoddodius answered.
In their mind’s eye, Kieran and Fergus saw hundreds of enormous feet falling from the sky like a shower of meteors, pounding the ground, making craters in the streets, shaking houses to the ground. Was there any way to stop them? Could they warn people? Evacuate the island, perhaps?