Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (12 page)

His pulse pounded with half
-terrified excitement. He had seen a lot of strange things ever since his twelfth birthday, when his supernatural abilities had started to appear. Still, a real, live giant was certainly something new. As they got closer, he heard once more the echo of that by-now familiar rhythm.

Boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom.

A giant’s footsteps? That mystery was on the verge of being solved…

Flying low enough that they could
easily duck behind the treetops if they had to hide, Jake and the Gryphon followed. Branches creaked and treetops crackled, and all of a sudden, a towering shape emerged from the forest.

Archie’s kidnapper walked thro
ugh a clearing, and Jake found himself looking down at the top of a bald head.

He blinked
rapidly, making sure his eyes did not deceive him. He leaned low against the Gryphon’s neck. “Do you see that, too, or am I losing my marbles?”

Red’s answer was a low, lion growl.

The bald head sat atop enormous shoulders and a huge broad back, clad in a plain brown coat. That was a giant, all right—a big, lumpy lurch of a fellow, about five times the size of an ordinary man.

Jake shook his head to clear it
, and wished with all his might that someone would’ve told him before he came here that Norway had giants, for he’d have just as soon stayed home.

Instead, he urged the Gryphon
onward, and as they got a little closer, he could hear Archie yelling at the giant at top of his lungs. “Put me down, you big oaf! You’ve got no business kidnapping me! It’s bad enough you broke my Pigeon after years of work and testing—”

“Stop squirming!” the giant rumbled at him in annoyance. “You complain a lot for such a little thing.”

“I’m not little, you’re ridiculously large! You’re not going to get away with this, you know. They’re going to come looking for me. Not to brag, but I happen to be a very important boy!”

This was the angriest Jake had ever heard his cheerful cousin soun
d, not that he could blame him.
Keep yelling, Archie
. It helped reassure him that he was more or less all right for now.

Though it was a great shock to see his cousin being carried off by a giant in broad daylight, at least
now he knew for sure that Archie was alive. When the giant disappeared into the trees again, Jake and Red swooped after him.

Now that they had seen
the towering kidnapper for themselves and had at least an inkling of what they were dealing with, it was easy to track the giant by the din of his pounding footsteps and the shaking of the trees as he passed through the forest.

At length,
the giant climbed out of the woods and lumbered across a bare section of rocky ground. He seemed to be heading for the high, arched entrance of a cave set into the mountaintop.

When Jak
e noted the remains of a huge campfire outside the cave’s entrance, terrible fairytales about giants instantly came to mind.

Fee,
fi, fo, fum, indeed.
He’d better not even think about roasting Archie.

Jake watched intensely as the giant disappeared into the tall, yaw
ning entrance of his lair; he murmured to Red to land somewhere in the woods where they’d be able to see the cave without being seen, themselves.

As the Gryphon d
escended, Jake felt much better knowing his cousin was nearby, still relatively safe. Now it was just a matter of sneaking into that cave and getting Archie out of there.

Maybe the other missing scientists were in there, too.

But why? he wondered. What did the giant want with them?

Considering the Viking prophecy
about the Battle of Ragnarok, he wondered if the huge fellow was actually doing Loki’s bidding.

I
n the Exhibit Hall, Jake had seen for himself how interested Loki was in all the new gadgets—especially weapons, or as he’d called them, toys. Maybe Loki wanted to force the kidnapped geniuses to invent dangerous things for him to help him wage his long-awaited war against the gods.

As Archie’s huge kidnapper disappeared into the cave, Jake wondered
how many
other
giants might be in there. What if there were more, the beginnings of Loki’s army of giants?

That would make rescuing Arch
ie considerably more difficult.

When Red’s paws touched down on the forest floor, Jake slipped off his back, then they both crouched down behind a fallen log with a good view of the cave.

“Becaw,” Red said unhappily.

“I know, boy. Don’t worry, I’ll get him out of there. You did a good job finding him.”

Red pushed his feathered head affectionately against Jake’s shoulder, rather like a giant cat. The beast did not know his own strength, however, and only succeeded in knocking Jake over.

“Red! Not now! Stop fooling around. Yes, yes, you’re a good Gryphon, but we’
ve got to save Archie. I don’t know… I don’t see or hear any more giants around here, do you?”

Red scanned the area, then sniffed the air through the nostril holes high on his leathery, golden beak. He snuffled and shook his head in the negative.

“As I thought,” Jake murmured, crouching behind the mossy log. He studied the situation before him, then nodded slowly. “I think I’ve got a plan.”

Red cocked his head to the side and looked at Jake for his instructions.

“You fly around outside the cave and make some noise,” Jake whispered. “See if you can get the giant to chase you. Stay high enough that he can’t get hold of you, but try to lead him off a-ways. While you’ve got him distracted, I’ll slip into the cave and rescue Archie. I’m betting the other missing scientists are in there, too. I’ll free them all—if they’re still alive,” he added grimly.

“Caw,” Red confirmed with a nod, getting a serious
look in his golden eyes again.

But as the Gryphon pushed up onto all fours, ready to lift off for his part of their rescue mission, the giant suddenly reappeared, stepping out of his cave.

“Get down!” Jake whispered. He and Red instantly ducked down behind the log again and listened.

They could hear the giant singing to himself. “More brains, more brains, I’m gonna git me
two more brains!”

Jake furrowed his brow and slowly peered up over the top of the log. “H
e’s leaving! Well, that’s odd. It looks like he’s heading back down the mountain. Wonder why.”

There wasn’t time to ponder it. He turned to Red. “I’m going in
.” There was no time to waste. He cast his fears aside with a mental heave of effort. “You stay here and keep watch,” he instructed. “Caw to warn me if you see the giant coming back. Otherwise, save your strength. Once I get Archie out of there, you’ll have to carry two of us back down the mountain instead of just me.”

“Be
caw,” Red answered fretfully.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful,” Jake mumble
d. “You do the same. Those missing scientists are probably here, so it’s important that you stay out of sight. If they were to see you, well, I don’t trust that bunch not to try to capture you—or worse.”

Red’s eagle eyes gleamed like he’d like to see t
hem try it.

Jak
e nodded to him, their plan confirmed. Then he stole off through the woods, while the
boom-boom
of the giant’s footsteps faded down the mountain.

CHAPTER SEVEN
TEEN

The Giant’s Lair

J
ake stayed low, crouching as he hurried toward the tall, tapered entrance of the cave.

It was times like this, when stealth was needed, that he was glad of his years o
f experience as a pickpocket.

Sneaking up to the edge of the cave, he stole a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure the giant was
still nowhere in sight. Then he braced himself and ventured in.

Drip, drip…

Water fell from the stalactites that hung overhead like dragon’s teeth. He wiped a droplet off his forehead with a nervous scowl. His eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness.

The cave was extraordinarily qui
et. It opened before him into a narrow tunnel, pitch-black.

He did
not
want to go in there.

A shiver of awful memories from his brief stint as a coalmine boy at age nine sent a wave of queasy coldness through him.

The orphanage had sent him off to several different apprentice masters, factories, and such, before he had finally run away for good to fend for himself on the streets of London. But between the coffin-black darkness underground, the constant threat of exploding gases, and most of all, the cruelty of the older boys with their initiation pranks, the coalmine had been his worst experience by far. Worse than fighting Fionnula Coralbroom.

In short, Jake did not like caves or underground places. But if that blasted giant had stashed Archie in there, then so be it. He had to rescue his cousin and
the other scientists as well, if they were in there.

S
omehow he forced himself to take another step, and another. He did not dare call out to Archie for fear his cousin would yell back; the giant might hear them and return.

Jake crept deeper into the rough, black tunnel, choosing every step care
fully, ducking and biting back a shriek when a bat swooped overhead. “Charming,” he muttered, his heart pounding, his hands clammy.

But he thought
first of Derek Stone, and then of Red waiting faithfully outside—the two bravest beings he knew—and he kept going.

At last, some
thirty yards into the cave, he saw a faint, flickering glow ahead. Light!
Thank goodness.

As he went closer
, he found that the tunnel opened up into a large limestone cavern, tall and round.

A perfect hideout for a giant.

The cavern was dimly lit by a few torches, and Jake’s eyes widened at the sight of the gigantic woolen cloak spread out like a makeshift bedroll over by the wall.

“Boy! Psst! Ove
r here!” someone whispered as he stepped fully into the cavern.

He whirled around and didn’t see anyone at first.

But then came Archie’s voice.

“Jake!
Up here!”

He tilted his head back and gasped.
The giant had put them in man-sized birdcages!

“Hurrah, coz! I knew you’d come! Didn’t I
tell you fellows he’d find us?” Archie asked the other scientists in his usual cheerful tones.

The flickering torchlight revealed the geniuses
locked up in four wooden cages crudely fashioned from branches and twine.

They
were suspended from the ceiling at rooftop height, some twenty or thirty feet above the cavern floor. No doubt that would ensure the captives broke their necks if they tried to escape. The giant had left them with no way down.

As Jake’s stunned gaze traveled over the scene, assessing the situation, he realized that the giant had jammed a slender tree-trunk between two rocky outcroppings high above the cavern floor.

This he had used as a beam off which to hang the cages like so many Christmas ornaments, stringing them up with forest vines for rope. There were two captured scientists in each of the three lower cages, while Archie hung from the highest one, imprisoned by himself for now.

Right.
Between the welcome light from the torches and the presence of people who needed his help, Jake forgot all about his hatred of underground places. Instead, he shook off his astonishment and got right to work. “Hang on, everyone!” he called, careful not to speak too loudly. “I’m going to get you out of here! Is anyone injured? Archie, are you all right?”

“Not happy,”
he answered in a flat tone. “That big idiot broke my Pigeon
and
I got a gash on my leg when he dropped me. But it’s not too bad. I’m all right. At least I also found Dr. Wu!”

“Ni hao
,”
the Chinese physicist greeted him with a polite bow from another cage. “Thank you to come for save us!”

“Don’t mention it,” Jake answered.

“A giant, Jake! An actual Norse giant!” Archie exclaimed.

“I noticed.”

All the geniuses, some still wearing their white lab coats, started talking excitedly at once. Jake heard them referring to their kidnapper as a “spectacular find,” but he hushed them, bewildered at how they could be so smart and yet fail to miss the point entirely. For example, that they could die a gruesome death, become this giant’s supper.

“Quiet, you lot! Is anyone else hurt?”
Broken bones would make getting them down even more difficult.

The scientists shook their heads. “No, no.”

Whew.
“Are any of you Professor Langesund, by chance?”

“Here!” A bearded man with spectacles peered through the bars of the middle cage, to Jake’s relief.

“Glad to see you, sir. Your daughter’s very worried.” Then he glanced back to his cousin. “Archie, how bad’s your leg? Can you walk?”

“Affirmative
!” he answered, pulling off his jacket. “I was able to grab my tool-bag when he caught me, so I have my pocketknife. I’m making a bandage now.” He unfolded the blade out of the knife’s handle and then sliced off the sleeve of his coat to wrap around his hurt leg.

“Good.”
Jake nodded. “When you’re done with that, cut the ropes holding your cage door shut. Then pass the knife on to the next; you gentlemen will have to do the same. First order of business, everyone needs to work on getting their cage doors open while I figure out a way to get you down.”

Hopefully without having to use my telekinesis,
Jake added silently as he hurried around the dark, shadowy cave searching for something to use as a ladder. Great-Great Aunt Ramona’s warning not to let the scientists find out about his abilities was still ringing in his ears.

Heaven forbid they
decide that he was a “find,” like the giant—to say nothing of what they might do to his gryphon.

Just then, Jake
spotted another half-finished cage over by the cavern wall. Beside it lay a coiled length of the vine that the giant had been using as rope. He ran to get it, gathering it up while the geniuses used various methods of getting their cage doors open.

Archie sawed away at the vines with his knife; Professor
Langesund struck a lucifer match that he must have carried at all times to light his tobacco pipe. He used the match to burn away a small spot of the rope, severing it with the little flame. Then he pushed his door open.

Dr. Wu and the man locked up with him worked on
plucking the knot free as Archie pushed his door open.

Folding his pocketknife
again to tuck the blade safely into the handle, Archie began shifting his weight to make his cage swing back and forth, until he was safely able to hand off the pocketknife to the men in the next cage.

They, in turn, began hacking away the knots.

Jake ran to the cavern floor beneath Archie’s cage and hurled one end of the vine up to him. His first throw didn’t go high enough. The vine-rope fell back to earth; he gathered it up and threw it again.

This time Archie caught it.

“Don’t tie it,” Jake instructed. “Just loop it over one of the bars of the cage. That way, we can pull it back down and use it again after you climb down.”

Archie did
as Jake had said, feeding one end of the vine-rope through the bars, creating a double strand. Jake twisted the two strands into a single, coiled cord then stood at the bottom, holding it steady, as Archie carefully climbed down.

When his feet touched down on the cavern floor, Jake immediately noticed his cousin was limping
a bit. “You’d better head out of here now,” he advised. “No need to wait for us. You’ll take longer than we will, walking on that hurt leg.”

Archie nodded and clapped him on
the shoulder. “Thanks, Jake. I knew you’d come.”

“Of course!
By the way, our ride is waiting outside in the forest.”

“The Red kind?”

“Exactly.”

Archie nodded and started the trek back up the tunnel alone while Jake
untwisted the vine-rope and pulled it back down to earth. When he had retrieved it, he ran to toss the end of it up to the two men in the next cage.

One by one, the captured scientists shimmied down the vine in the same manner.

Professor Langesund gave Jake a hearty pat on the back when he had reached the ground. “Well done, lad.”

“Thanks. Get out of here, you lot!” h
e ordered. A few of the freed geniuses were wandering around the cave marveling over the giant’s personal effects. “Go on! He could be back at any moment!”

“Oh! Yes, yes, of cour
se.” They snapped out of their scholarly daze and hurried up the long, black tunnel toward safety.

Jake waited
tensely for the last captive genius to climb down the vine-rope from his cage. But just as the fellow’s feet touched the ground, Jake heard a desperate eagle-cry echoing frantically from the far end of the tunnel.

“Caw! Caw! Caw!”

“What was that?” the scientist cried.

A warning from Red.
Jake paled, pushing the scientist toward the tunnel. “Hurry! The giant’s coming back! Everybody,
run
!” he hollered up the tunnel at the top of his lungs.

But it was too late.

Boom-boom-boom-boom!

As they raced up the rocky tunnel, stumbling on the jagged, slippery rocks,
the giant’s pounding footfalls shook the earth.

I
n the next heartbeat, the light at the end of the tunnel was blocked by a gigantic, man-shaped silhouette.

Too late.

They were trapped.

The giant had returned.

And he was blocking the only exit.