Part 5 (2/2)

4.

Eric rubbed his eyes, s.h.i.+fted an inch or two away from the blade at his throat. The three bears, he thought, almost amused to find the old tale was now based on a true story.

The half-giant said ponderously, 'I come back to feed my dogs. Should have told a couple of dolls to do it, no doubt. But the dolls don't always obey or do it properly anyway.' The dolls remark was self-explanatory, for what held blades to their throats were little people made from oval blocks of sand-coloured wood, hardly taller than the mattress. Their flat oval faces had no features but a cut line for a mouth and two roughly gouged eye holes. They were still as statues, but for the faintest tremble in their knife arms.

As for the half-giant, he was not as big or loud as Faul had been. In dirt-brown overalls, adorned here and there with gra.s.s as though he'd rolled around in it, he sat on a thick wooden chest at the end of the bed, fists pressed into his knees. From reddened eyes tears streaked down his fat cheeks.

Siel did not enjoy having a knife held to her and, whether she'd broken into someone's home or not, it was not what she wanted to see first thing in the morning. Picking her moment, she lashed an elbow sideways, breaking the doll's thin arm. It popped out of its shoulder socket and clattered against the wall. The doll ran about in a small circle as though it were in pain.

'Easy now! Don't break em, they're hard to make. They won't hurt you.'

'Knives to the throat are a strange way to express that, with all due respect,' said Eric, relieved his own doll didn't react to Siel's attack with a pre-emptive strike of its own.

'Dead dogs are a strange way to say thanks for the food and the bed,' said the half-giant. 'Don't mind the dolls, I'm training em to guard the village. They don't learn easy. Outside now, you bunch of useless twigs. Out!' The little wooden men lurched out the bedroom door, clattering into the door frame and into each other as they went. The broken arm remained behind. 'My name's Gorb. Now then. Who killed my dogs?'

'First I've heard of it,' said Siel, covering herself with the sheet. Under its cover she reached for the curved knife, which she'd kept under the pillow.

'You didn't do it, I know that. But he knows something,' said Gorb, nodding at Eric. 'Humans don't keep secrets real good.'

Eric said, 'I don't know anything. But in a dream last night-' he sifted through the murky fevered images his memory had held '-I saw someone killing dogs. Your dogs, I think.'

The half-giant peered at him as though reading a story in his features. Eric almost felt manhandled by the two big amber eyes. Gorb said, 'There's a trail outside, leads in here. Whatever killed my dogs thought about killing you too. For some reason, it didn't.' Gorb peered into Siel's face. 'You got a secret too. Better share it before I get angry. That little sharp p.r.i.c.ker won't do more'n make me mad if you use it.'

'Someone was following us,' she said. She told him about the distant stranger they'd twice spotted. The half-giant listened without comment.

'Did the villagers flee because of the Wall?' said Siel to fill the rather awkward silence.

Gorb grunted. 'Oh, no. We don't care about that. Everyone's at that new tower. They say a mighty wizard lives inside it. They're all still over there, can't believe their eyes yet.' Gorb sighed. 'I came back to feed my little dogs. They would've been barking loud, like they only ever do when they get hungry. They never minded strangers. Good souls they were.' The half-giant's body leaned further forward on the creaking wooden chest. He stuffed two palms over his eyes and from behind them poured a flood of tears.

Moved by sympathy (and to Siel's amazement at his surely suicidal stupidity), Eric went to the half-giant and reached to pat his shoulder in consolation.

Neither Siel nor Eric saw Gorb's arm move Eric only felt a push that took the wind out of him and sent him sprawling back on the bed. 'Can I get dressed?' he said once he'd got his breath back.

The question was pondered at length. 'Suppose so.'

Dejectedly the half-giant wiped away the last of his tears. There was a spilled jug's worth of them soaking into the floor-boards at his feet.

Eric dressed. He slung the gun's holster over his shoulder but to his dismay discovered it was empty. 'Took it,' said their host. 'Don't know what it is, but I guess it's a weapon. I let the girl keep her knife, since I know what that is.'

'You have a mage here?' said Siel, who also dressed and now examined the thin wooden arm she'd knocked loose from the doll. With her toe she tapped free the knife it clutched and kicked it across the floor to the half-giant, to show him she had no plans for weapons right now. She picked up the wooden arm, testing its joints.

'No mage,' he said.

'But there's magic to this.' She flexed the wooden arm's joint. 'There has to be. Those dolls seem to be alive.'

'I made them,' said the half-giant with some pride.

'And the spell which hid your village?'

'That was a mage who comes by,' said Gorb. 'Used to come by anyway. He did it a while back. Took all the coin and gems we had.'

'A folk magician?' said Siel.

'Said he was. Didn't look it, to my eye. Looked to me like one of them school wizards from the old days, that the castle wiped out. Folk ones are grubby, earthy looking. He was different, real strange. Bald as an egg, never blinked his eyes. Couldn't read his face at all.'

'Why was it so important to hide the village?'

'Better if word didn't spread that the last half-giant in the world lived here.'

'The head of a half-giant will make you rich,' Siel explained to Eric.

Gorb nodded. 'That's right. But they're hard to get. Usual way's to make friends with one till he trusts you. I don't fall for that, in case you think to try. But this village, good people mostly. I plough fields for em, carry stuff. When all that rumbling started, Hesthan gone south for a look. He come back, told us whatever knocked the Wall down stuffed up the spell. Then they found the tower. It'd stuffed up a hiding spell there too.'

Said Eric, 'Can I ask why you're called half-giants? You look completely giant to me.'

'There was once a race of full-blood giants,' said Siel. 'They were much bigger. Then they mixed with us. It was not by our choice. Half-giants resulted.'

'What happened to the giants?'

'We helped humans kill them all,' said the half-giant. 'Long, long ago. The full-bloods were a bad breed, bad to both of us. When bounties started, humans weren't much better.'

'The deeds were done by few, the shame is for us all.' Siel made a gesture which meant nothing to Eric but made the half-giant's expression soften. 'The tower you speak of,' she said. 'Where is it?'

'Off just past the woods, where Tunk and Felious do their hunting.'

'Will you take us there?'

'Yes. You're good people. But you had enough dinner to call it even for breakfast.'

'Thanks, Gorb.' They stood to leave.

'That's weird,' said Gorb in the same slow, ponderous voice. He was staring at the floor near Eric's feet. 'You got no shadow.'

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