Giants

CHAPTER ONE The Giant’s Spear

He who had been Lord Skarpaler, the war chief of the Bloodspillers, trudged through a vast plain of grass. He did not feel the wind on his stone face or the sun on his granite skin, although pressure on the bottom of his feet told him the solid earth was beneath him.

His obsidian chip eyes allowed him to see bounding antelopes as they fled his approach. Each leapt higher than his neighbor did—creatures with the agility of grasshoppers. Later, shaggy bison with murderous horns lowed complaint at him. A huge bull pawed the earth, but wisely turned, and trotted elsewhere. Purple flowers bloomed in the sunlight as bees buzzed around them.

With stone ears the former Lord Skarpaler heard an eagle cry as it soared above, hunting for carrion. Sparrows clung to waving stalks and chirped to their young. Mostly, however, the trolock animated with the spirit of he who had been Lord Skarpaler heard the thud of his many-ton step. He was over eight feet tall, a monstrosity of articulated stones and boulders shaped to resemble a man. When he walked over embedded stone he heard a clack, like millstones smashing. When he paused at a small pool of water, he saw a thing with a catapult-stone head.

Once, a sabertooth with ugly neck wounds roared with fright, standing over a slain carcass. He who had been Lord Skarpaler ignored the savage beast. It could no more harm him than the eagles could, or the sparrows that flew in their mindless flocks, or the panicky rabbits that bounded out of his path. Despite its obvious reluctance, the sabertooth wisely limped to safer grounds.

The Avenger, the stone trolock, the man who had been Lord Skarpaler, moved across the wind-swept plain, the endless expanse of waving grass with its occasional gnarled tree. Sleep was a foreign idea. No longer did he need it in order to refuel his limbs. Meat or bread grinded by his teeth and swallowed down his throat seemed like a bizarre concept. Only one thing gave him sustenance, and it was because of this one vital nutrient that he headed south.

He felt the fiery glow of death, spirits violently torn from their shells and sped to their new destinations. He hungered for the far-off glow. It quickened him a little as the thought of feasting renewed him with energy. Then, even from his distant vantage, he felt the intense heat of a Nephilim’s death. Of course, men also died, he knew the feel of their blaze to a nicety. But the death of a Nephilim intrigued him.

He needed to learn who the new powers of this age were. He marched south to discover who dared to war against Nephilim.

His was not a quick stride. He was still too cold. The warm wash of death, of released spirits, showed him how starved he truly was. Only in the days of glory had he known quickness. In those days, he had fought beside the Master as they roved the battlefields and fed on death. To crush the life from a man—that was sweetness, warmth, and rapture of feasting. He craved it, and knew that without it he would soon nod into eternal slumber and become little more than a strange rock formation.

Too often, however, as he journeyed south, he stopped, laboriously knelt on one stony knee, and studied ants as they carted dead bugs to their nest. Or, he watched a bee buzz around a flower, land on the yellow petal, and crawl into it. The grass as it swayed in the breeze, what a marvel that was. These were not trolock thoughts, but long ago memories of Lord Skarpaler. He was too cold, he knew. If he could warm himself, these feelings of pitiful weakness would depart. With greater strength, he could plot to feast more. Then, he could find a way to bask continuously in the warmth of violently given death. He could become the life-bane that he’d been fashioned to be.

An hour later he trudged up a grassy knoll. When he came to the top, he stopped. Below was a new sight. He’d never seen it before, even as Lord Skarpaler. A vast green body of water spread before him. Could the warmth of battle have occurred here?

As a trolock, he rumbled a sound in his chest. Seagulls screamed in fright, exploded into flight, and flapped away for a safer place. He shuffled down the hill, examining the shore. Corpses lay strewn, washed by the pounding surf. Their spirits had fled to wherever they went after death. Sadly, he could not feast. He stopped before stepping onto the sand and studied the tracks.

They were of men, sabertooths, and giants.

He opened his mouth. Here is where the Nephilim had perished. He rumbled again, laughing as best he could. But he was so cold. Where on this empty steppe could he find warmth, the nourishment he craved?

He saw something intriguing, something possibly helpful. It was long, and had an outrageously large spearhead. He stomped across the soft sand, sinking well past his ankles, and forced himself to bend at the waist. The surf had washed up a giant’s spear. It was a mighty weapon, too large for a man to use well. There was a notch on that two-foot, iron head. It was black iron, Bolverk-forged, something that might stab a trolock without shattering.

He hefted the spear, the oaken shaft that to a man would seem more like a pole. Once, as Lord Skarpaler, he’d wielded such weapons, although smaller. He’d been quite skilled with the spear, able to hurl it through hoops the size of dinner plates from fifty yards away. His granite smile grew. Perhaps he could use the spear to slay Nephilim. A Nephilim soul, as it departed to otherworldly realms, roared with a hot breath. It always quickened him more than mere humans did. Animals, unfortunately, gave him nothing.

Then his holy quest overwhelmed him, and he knew rage. “Desecrater,” he rumbled, thinking of the First Born who had dared enter the crypt of Draugr Trolock-Maker. The arrogant First Born would warm him better than any Nephilim would, better even than a tribe of men. He would bask in such a death and gain greater quickness from it. Perhaps once, long ago in the past, he’d fought beside such beings, but the old days of glory had passed.

He who had been Lord Skarpaler turned east. The First Born had marched in that direction, so he would follow. The littered, broken corpses on the beach showed him that men still warred against Nephilim. As valuable as the spear was, this knowledge was more so.

Before he met the arrogant First Born, he must wax strong on a diet of death. He must quicken himself into an all-conquering warrior. Only thus would he honor his Master’s memory and keep his own terrible promises. Only thus would he right the horrible wrong done in Draugr’s Crypt.

He who had been Lord Skarpaler carried the giant’s spear and headed along the shoreline. The sea intrigued him. He wondered if any ships sailed on it as they’d once sailed upon the small northern lakes of his homeland. If they did and he could capture such humans, he could feast on them, and ready himself for the trial of strength he knew awaited him at the end of his journey.