Driving Out Giants

Often, to get an idea of a character in a book I'm writing, I will write short stories to find out their personality. This story is formatted in a similar manner to the chapters in Her Borrowed Grave.

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Image: Herrad of Landsberg, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

Forensic Science Laboratory

Laboratory Notes		Item Number:		Case number:
Description of Article: plaster cast of footwear mark			Where found: park gates
Packaging of item: Tamperproof plastic bag:☒   Paperbag/sack/envelope:☐  Other:
A plaster cast was made of footwear marks found around the park gates where the MMU were called for another of their ‘low-level Doppler effects on the weather radar. They were on top of the layers of gate traffic and seemed to relate the effects. On examination the marks bore a resemblance to the tread pattern of plastic clogs, such as are worn by medical staff at the hospital.
Examiner: RLL	Date:	Time:	Room:	Bench:

General Examination Sheet

Driving Out Giants

“So, did you really drive some Giants out of Elmet?” Janice asked, as the car waited at the traffic lights. “Like St Patrick and the Snakes?”

Donovan winced. Could he never get away from being a hero? In this modern world, where he now lived, his honours and titles held no meaning. Yet to this young woman they did. Noblesse oblige required he be kind, yet he still tried to divert the conversation.

“St Patrick? My mother used to talk about him. She was an Irish follower of the White Christ. Tried to convert my father.”

“And a Princess too, yes. Alaric said.” Janice’s car crawled over the junction as the lights changed.

“But tell me about the Giants.”

“Alaric has been reciting the Epics to you, hasn’t he?” Trust a clerk, a lawyer, to keep her argument on track.

“Well, did you?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. But there were far fewer shouted heroic platitudes and considerably less brandishing my sword.” He gave diversion one last try. “It’s a long story.”

Janice ignored the dismissal and waved at the creeping rush-hour traffic. “Looks like we have plenty of time to fill.”

In the end, everyone wanted the epic stories. Because people believed them, they were the truth.

“I had lived fourteen summers, already battle-proven. My brother, the atheling was off raiding for cattle, when peasants sent word of giant spoor—”

“Spoor? Like poo? Ew—yuck!”

“Not like that, no. Anyway, with my brother away, monster-slaying duty fell on me. And my father, the King of Elmet, wanted the land made safe so that the peasants could extend their farms. Not even his son can ignore the King’s commands. I set off…”

***

Bade farewell to his faithful steed,

Clad in corselet of finest chain

Glinting blood-red in the dawn’s first light,

Donovan strode boldly forth, issuing challenge as he went,

To free his father’s kinfolk from the foul giant rampage.

***

Beads of sweat trickled down his face, as the sun heated his armour. Despite the feeling of sitting in a bread oven, Donovan was not about to discard this slight measure of safety. He’d left his horse at the last manor. At least, there it wouldn’t be eaten by the giant even if he was. He told the kinfolk that it was to easier track the giant spoor from the ground. Tracing out a footprint, over twice the size of his own, he was surprised they had believed him. Even blindfold, following this trail presented no challenge.

Donovan was tall. At fourteen he had reached man-growth, as with all men descended from Woden. Unless this creature had overlarge feet, it was bigger than he was. And heavier. And there were more than one set of footprints on this trail.

His stomach clenched. Just like before the last battle.

Startled horror in his opponent’s eyes, as the warm, rich, red of his spirit flowed over the tattoos on his arm. A lifeless film glazed over his eyes as he flopped to the blood-streaked ground. No break. The next foe appeared at his sword tip, yelling in battle-rage.

One day, that would be Donovan. Probably today.

Behind him, the manor embodied safety. With bows and spears, the farm folk could hold off any number of giants. But not before a hero had been offered to the slaughter first. As today’s sacrificial hero, he better get on with it.

 Donovan drew his sword and silently trudged the uphill track. He’d hoped for a better death than being drawn and quartered by marauding giants.

Once, the shadowed canopy had pressed over the path, now bladder-brown trees were pushed out of the way by strength far beyond his own. Branches, as thick as his arm, bent and broken, hung by threads of rugged bark. The heavy footprints sank deep into the loam, casting up the scent of rotten leaves, interspersed with crushed pine needles.

The dark, mysterious forest carried no sound. No birds sang. Not even the whisper of a mouse hunting seeds. All around this spot, sacred to Gods older than his, was silence. Nothing stayed where giants lived.

The trees stopped. A sudden break in the gloom; a clearing filled with sunlight. Beyond that, a soaring eagle-cliff, hollowed by centuries of rain. Frost-cracked stone bordered a sharp cave. The dark within held monsters.

A woman, who stood twice his height, stomped out of the opening, skirts swishing around her tree-trunk legs. Squinting in the bright light of the daystar, she stared around the clearing, to find that small irritance that pulled her into the day.

Every ounce of courage drained. Though his legs wanted to flee down the hill, his heart froze in terror. A mouse in the open, freezing in the hope the kestrel would not spy him. Reason smashed a war hammer through the dread, he’d never reach the safety of the manor before her long legs overtook him.

“Fee, Fie, Foe, Fum,” she boomed into the dazzling sunlight, lifting her cleaver covered in rust-dark stains. “I smell the blood of… a Woden’s son.”

No point crouching here in hiding if she knew that. Gripping his sword in a sweat-drenched palm, he pushed into the glade. He took battle-stance, ready for her most ferocious attack.

Instead, she bent to inspect him. And sniffed. “Such a brave little warrior. Soaked in fear-sweat.”

He gripped his sword tighter; if it slipped from his hand, he had nothing but his knife against a giant. “I am here to—”

“Oh, I know.” Her shoulders drooped. “You’re here to kill us or drive us away. We’re never safe from encroaching humans. They breed like rabbits, and deserve the same fate.”

It was the tone of her voice, defeated, that made Donovan relax his stance a little. “And what fate is that?”

“The pot of course,” the woman said. “Nice and juicy, the young ones.”

Eaten! Gorge seared Donovan’s throat. Muscles tensed. His sword tip rose automatically.

“Oh, don’t worry, Woden’s get. The blood of the Gods tastes vile. I’d rather not kill something I can’t eat. It’s immoral.”

Taken aback, Donovan stared at the huge woman. That was a viewpoint he had never met before. He killed at his father’s command, and certainly not for eating. Land, honour, cattle raids, all these things were reasons given for the order. He had never thought that it was immoral. The sword tip sank a little.

“I can’t attack if you won’t defend.” Donovan was going to fail, just because this was a female giant. He’d never thought they had women-folk. They were just monsters.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” the giant woman asked.

“Ah…!”

“It’s not human meat, don’t worry, little man.” She looked at the lowering sword tip, with hope dawning in her eyes. “My son rode the winds to an island where the mammoths still roam. Now that’s the proper meat for a giant, even debased by breeding in and in with their failing numbers.”

Would giants respect guest rights? The thought sliced through his brain like a sword thrust. They were the monsters, weren’t they? But she said it was immoral to kill what you didn’t eat, how was that monstrous?

Decided, Donovan slid his sword away. With a slight bow, more a nod of the head, he answered, “I am happy to accept your hospitality.”

The giant’s despairing posture straightened. “I’ll bring the pot out here.”

The next few minutes were bustle-filled, as the giant woman spread the pelt of a huge deer and set massive plates dinner-fashion. Once filled, she invited her guest to be seated.

Donovan sank to the deer skin and brought out his belt knife. Before he began, he said, “I must inform you, that I am here to drive you and your kin from these lands. I dare not accept your meat without you knowing that.”

“I knew, when I saw you, that you had come to spread the curse of humans over the land,” she said. “But for this moment, let us be host and guest and talk of better things.”

He plunged his knife into the plate and cut through the tender meat. Between bites they discussed trade between the nations and how it felt to be a younger son to a King. Finally, they finished their meal.

With gentle curiosity and no accusation, he asked, “How are humans a curse?”

“No respect for the land,” the woman said. “They destroy the trees and scour the dry earth to plant their crops that eat the vitality of the land, rather than feed it.”

“Beans feed goodness back into the soil,” Donovan said. “That’s why we rotate our crops.”

“Yet you feed only to drain again.” The woman mopped up the remains of her meat juices with bread. “Not letting animals of the woods feed on your crops in a hard winter. When the little creatures die of starvation, even the wolves have to hunt from your herds.”

It was like a clearing opened up in Donovan’s mind, letting in the sunlight. Each side had a story. Both sides believing they were right. And both were right, and wrong, each in their limited way.

“There are few enough of us first-folk left as the midget-folk expand into our space. We’ll end like the mammoths, breeding in and in.”

Donovan glanced at the cave and then let his gaze wander this small plot of land, unsure what to say.

“Even if you don’t fight, another hero will come, and he won’t stay for dinner. He’ll just kill us,” the woman continued. “Thank you for letting us know that humans are spying out our marginal territory.”

“I can’t tell them not to,” Donovan said. “The king will banish me as it is, for failing his task. I should have died trying to defeat you.”

“Have no worry, Little Man. We will move on. Should you take a few days hunting in the woods, you’ll find no more giants in this place,” the woman said. “Please accept this skin, as a guest gift to the get of the All-Father. We will not meet again.”

***

And all the brave hero selected from that place of slaughter

Was the skin of a massive deer.

No other reward or praise would the modest man welcome for his deed.

***

“I thought the mammoths died out long before we hit the common era,” Janice said as she took a left down a smaller road, away from the all-clogging traffic.

Her mind had fixated on the mammoths. Most folk of this time would scorn the giants instead.

“Riding the wind is not just about distance,” Donovan said.

“They ride through time?” Janice glowed at the possibilities that raised. “Can you ride the wind to your home? Is that how you arrived in this time?”

A huff of breath burst out despite his desire to suppress his anger. “We’re here because some of the Gods decided to play a game,” Donovan said. “I’m a little put out that they sent me to my true-love, whom they had set at the other end of time.”

“And the giants just left?” Janice returned to main point of the story.

“I never saw them again,” Donovan said. “And the peasants cleared the section of wild wood that season, ready for the next year’s planting.”

One more junction and they reached the hospital. Janice headed into the car park. “Are there any giants still alive?”