‘A long day, that was.’ He accepted a beer gratefully. ‘Greetings, my lord Knight of the Isle of Mists. How has your day been?’ he asked Riven with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
Ratagan laughed. ‘News travels fast from the kitchen. I thought it no bad idea to bestow a title on our guest, so blame it on me if the Warbutt disapproves.’
Bicker shrugged. ‘As you say, it is no bad thing.’ Then he looked at Ratagan, his face suddenly pained. ‘And you—you’ve been raiding the kitchen for wine again!’
Ratagan took another gulp of his beer, and wiped his mouth. ‘I have, and I am unrepentant.’
Murtach entered, followed by two Myrcans and half a dozen Hearthwares in leather jerkins. They took their seats and began to eat whilst a buzz of talk rose up and the servers brought in more food and refilled mugs.
‘Well,’ Ratagan said impatiently, ‘are you going to tell us what happened, or aren’t you?’
‘We’re eating,’ Murtach protested, his teeth around a chicken leg.
‘So talk with your mouth full.’
‘We found no grypesh,’ Bicker said. ‘Some cattle were killed, but their herders were unharmed. We left them just outside the Circle.’ He swallowed. ‘But we found Rime Giant tracks leading clear into the Dale: three sets of them. We followed them, but they took to rock and the rain washed away all signs. We quartered the land to the west of the Dale, but no tracks left Ralarth.’
‘So they are still here,’ said Riven.
‘Yes. Tonight, most of the Hearthwares will be out patrolling the Dale. We have been telling people to stay indoors. At least with weather like this, they are likely to do as they are told.’
Ratagan whistled softly. ‘No wonder Guillamon looked so grim. They could wreak havoc with the flocks tonight.’
‘Or every night,’ said Murtach quietly. ‘Until they are forced to leave.’
‘Who argues with Giants?’ Bicker asked, biting into an apple.
‘Let me go out with the Hearthwares tonight,’ Riven said on impulse. ‘You can’t forget that I thought up the Rime Giants. They are one of the monsters of my story.’
‘This is not a story,’ Murtach told him. ‘Those things out there could kill you.’
Bicker held up his hand. ‘Enough. But Murtach has a point. You cannot yet handle our weapons, Sir Knight, and we cannot afford to have you battered to bits by a Giant—not until we have puzzled out what you can do here. I am sorry.’
Riven was silent. It had only been a sudden whim, and he was secretly glad that Bicker had refused it. But if the Rime Giants of Minginish were the same as those in his story, they would have been worth seeing.
‘And I suppose that I must stay behind also,’ said Ratagan in a disgruntled tone. Bicker nodded, mouth full, and the big man swore.
Guillamon and Udairn came into the hall and joined them. Guillamon set one slender hand on Bicker’s shoulder.
‘We have settled it, then. You have twenty Hearthwares and four Myrcans. Dunan will command those left behind. Unish will stay, since his arm is no good to him, and Isay.’
‘And I have talked to the men in training,’ Udairn said in his deep voice, hands tucked into his sash. ‘Twenty of the most promising will accompany you. We’ll split up into groups: one Myrcan, five Hearthwares and five of the trainees to each group.’
‘That’s only four groups,’ said Murtach. ‘Will it be enough?’
‘It will have to be,’ Guillamon said to his son. ‘If the groups are any smaller and they run into their prey, then they will be no match for them. As it is, eleven men against three Rime Giants are tough odds. The groups must not stray too far apart in case one of them finds itself in real difficulty.’
Bicker wiped his mouth, and looked at Udairn. ‘Who are the group captains?’
‘You, Murtach, myself and Ord.’
‘Excellent. I think it is a good plan. I think it will succeed.’
Guillamon smiled wryly. ‘Three Rime Giants should be easy to track down, even in the dark. They are not the smallest creatures in the world.’
‘Nor are they the most quick-witted,’ Bicker added. ‘But they have an animal’s cunning, and their strength is immense. I’m wondering whether we will be able to subdue them if and when we find them.’ He frowned. ‘We should go afoot, for horses are terrified of them. The Myrcans prefer to fight that way, at any rate.’
‘Agreed,’ said Udairn. ‘We leave in three hours, when it’s almost fully dark. I’ll go and finalise things with the Warbutt.’
Ratagan shook his head. ‘What a party to miss,’ he growled.
T
HE RAIN CONTINUED
into the night. The patrols had left and Riven was at the window of his room, staring out into the darkness and the light-glimmers of the Dale. He was glad to be alone for a while.
Sitting on the bed, he set to shaping the long branch of dark wood that Gwion had given him to make into a staff. He had his knife in his room now. It was too large for the work, but he scraped on patiently, content to work with his hands and leave his thoughts behind.
He thought he heard muffled shouts in the night, and stopped for a moment to listen. Nothing.
The wind. He whistled quietly as the knife blade winked in the light of the candles. He was thinking of the quiet nights at the bothy, with the sound of the wind as it was now, and the sea behind it; Jenny reading at the fire. And the sudden tears blinded him, so for a second the knife blade was a bright blur. He shook his head angrily.
The window exploded inwards, glass and wood shattering into the room. He sprang away from it instinctively, falling to the floor. The candles guttered in the wind and rain that poured in. A huge arm, as long as he was high and covered in coarse grey fur, reached in through the smashed window, groping inside the room. Foot-long fingers scrabbled at the floor, and there was a bellow of rage. Riven could see two ice-blue eyes glowing just beyond the window sill, a glimpse of a great shaggy head and enormously powerful shoulders. He was paralysed for a moment, and in that moment the blue fires outside flared with recognition and the arm reached farther inside, one shoulder dislodging masonry as it followed. The hand swung, and smashed him clear across the wrecked room.
His door burst open and a Myrcan rushed in, followed by two unarmoured Hearthwares. The ironbound stave cracked down on the giant hand and the monster roared with pain, striving to reach its attackers. The outside wall burst inwards, and then it was half inside, in a shower of stones and shattered wood panelling. One arm lunged out and crushed a Hearthware against the wall with a cracking sound. His eyes whitened and blood burst from his mouth. The other arm reached for Riven, but he scrambled out of its way. The Myrcan stood his ground and fended off the swings of the mighty arms with terrible blows of his stave. Blood appeared on the grey fur, and the inner walls of the room shook and groaned as the giant tried to force its way farther inside to seize its foe.
Riven’s mouth was full of blood and bile and his head was ringing, but the other Hearthware hauled him to his feet.
‘Come on. Get out of here.’ He half-pushed, half-dragged Riven to the door, and threw him out into the corridor beyond. Then he drew his sword and stepped back into the fray with a loud cry.
Someone dragged Riven down the corridor; someone else jumped over him and ran on past. His ears were full of shouting and the sounds of wood and stone being demolished. He closed his eyes, for he was unable to see straight, and the blood in his mouth was making him feel sick. He spat it out, but the taste remained. He lay cushioned in someone’s lap, and that someone was pressing a cloth to where his head dribbled blood. A hand took his hand and pressed it to the cloth.
‘Hold that tight, there to your head.’ He did so automatically, and listened to the sounds of battle coming from his room.
So I finally got to see a Rime Giant.
Then he remembered the Hearthware and the sound of the bones breaking, and his stomach turned.
There was a final crash, a bellow that trailed off into distance, and then silence. After a moment the Myrcan swayed out of what was left of Riven’s room, his broken staff in one hand. There was a great wound in his temple and the blood was streaming down his face, but his eyes were clear.
‘Madra, does he live?’
A girl’s voice behind Riven’s head said: ‘Yes, Isay. He is hurt, but not badly.’
The Myrcan nodded unsmilingly. ‘Feorlig and Gobhan are dead. The beast fell, but I think it is still alive. Watch over him.’ Then he ran off, the blood spattering the walls in his passing.
Riven sat up, pushing away the hands that tried to help him. He staggered over to the door and looked in.
The entire outside wall of his room was gone, and all the furniture and panelling was in matchwood. One Hearthware lay by the wall with his chest flattened to a bloody mess of flesh and splintered bones; the other lay face down by the door with most of his arm and shoulder gone. Riven vomited.
Whilst the whine of the Quick Reaction Force’s Land Rovers filled up the street behind him.
Then he picked up a dead man’s sword and, ignoring Madra’s protests, ran off in the direction he had seen the Myrcan take. He made for the sounds of shouts and screams ahead, and finally found himself running through the hall and out to the square in front of the Manse.
There was an unequal battle being waged there. Four Hearthwares and two Myrcans, one with a slung arm, were fighting a pair of Rime Giants. Many other people were pouring into the square with pitchforks and staves and lit torches. The sounds of fighting came from beyond the yard also, mingling with the flicker of torchlight and distant shouts.
It seemed impossible that those fighting the Giants could still be alive. Their adversaries were ten or twelve feet tall, with arms that scraped the ground and small brutish faces lit by the icy flicker of their eyes. Long, dark, matted hair coursed from their skulls, lying over shoulders broader than the double doors of the Manse. They were slow-moving, but when their great fists crashed into the ground where a Hearthware had been a moment before, the cobbles split and flew into the air.
Riven quailed for a moment, but stronger in him than courage or fear was stubbornness. He caught a glimpse of Guillamon herding the people away from the yard, his blue eyes flashing with urgency; then he joined the fight, hefting the dead Hearthware’s sword.
He surprised the nearest Giant, and swung the blade with all his strength at the rear of the great knee. He felt the flesh and sinews give way and saw blood gush black in the torchlight. There was a deafening cry, and the monster fell to one knee, but spun round on him with incredible speed. He darted back, the breath sawing in his throat, and evaded the wild fist that snaked out towards him. Behind the beast, the injured Myrcan called Isay brought a staff down on its head with a sodden crunch. It went silent, and crashed over the cobbles with its skull crushed.
The other Giant gave vent to a long mournful wail, and swung its fists furiously at the defenders. A Hearthware was sent flying twenty feet across the yard and lay still.
There was another wail behind them, and a third Giant with bloody arms lumbered forward with a group of men in pursuit. Riven saw the huge axe-bearing silhouette of Ratagan clearly for an instant, then turned his attention to the fight. The two surviving Giants rushed the defenders, who backed away, the Myrcan staves slowing their attackers down. Then Ratagan and his group took them in the rear, and the axe flashed before it buried itself in a Giant. It squealed in rage and spun round, wrenching the axe out of Ratagan’s hand and knocking him to the ground. Riven ran forward and hacked at it, and it turned on him, snarling in frustration. He saw one great fist speed towards him like a train, then was struck, the breath forced out of his lungs, the sounds of his own bones breaking vivid in his ears. He landed heavily on the cobbles, and, barely conscious, saw the Giant loom over him.
Killed by a twelve-foot Neanderthal. Who’ll believe me?
But then he saw Ratagan perched impossibly on the creature’s shoulders, a long dagger in his hand. His arm went up in the air, and then the dagger was buried to the hilt in one of the Giant’s eyes, putting out its light. It fell like a hacked tree with the big man still clinging to it, crashing to the ground in front of a prostrate Riven.
The other Giant turned to flee, and the Hearthwares’ swords opened up its back but could not stop it. It blundered into buildings with loud splinterings, hurling aside those in its way, and disappeared, with the Myrcans and the surviving Hearthwares in pursuit. For a long moment the square was silent, the cobbles shining in the rain.
One Rime Giant corpse heaved up, and Ratagan pulled himself out from under it, swearing. He sat on the ground and looked about himself groggily.
‘Ratagan,’ Riven croaked, the effort of making the word an agony. The big man scrambled to his feet and stumbled over. His nose was broken, and his face was dark with blood, but he managed a hoarse laugh.
‘Well met, Michael Riven. I cannot tell you how glad I am that you have breath in you.’ His hands felt Riven over gently. ‘I think the cage of your ribs must be broken. And your collarbone. Your foe must have had something against you.’
Riven smiled weakly. ‘Who argues with Giants?’
Ratagan laughed again, and then grimaced, touching his mangled nose. ‘I have a hideous idea I will not be my pretty self after this.’