“Father!” Lhors’ voice cracked into treble. He threw himselfat the older man. Lharis tried to speak, but no words came. His eyes found Gran. She nodded, caught Lhors by the shirt and dragged him back.
“Don’t!” she shouted. “That’s a killing blow. You can’t helphim. You’ll only cause him more pain, and he knows it! Get all the children youcan and get them to the cellars. Go!”
“I can’t!”
“You can! Go!”
The boy glanced back at his father. Lharis lay still, his hands suddenly limp at his sides and his eyes staring sightlessly up. Lhors shuddered and turned away.
Gran paused to take stock. People were running in all directions, girls screaming shrilly, men bellowing and cursing. A hideous, deep laugh drowned them out. The giant who’d killed Lharis stepped into the square,overturning the empty soup pot as he shouted what must be an order, but she couldn’t understand a word of it. Three more giants-huge-muscled, fur-andhide-clad brutes-immediately came from the trees to stride after the villagersfleeing into the stable. Somewhere beyond them, she could hear her son shouting, “No! Don’t go in the buildings! Get out of the stable! Get to the stream or thecellars!”
She turned back to see what she could do. Across the square, much too near the still ruddy fires and the giant who’d killed Lharis, she couldsee Mibya and her nearest sister. They’d scooped up four of the little ones, andthe sister bent her head over the two children she held, letting dark cloth hide her white hair as she edged cautiously sideways. With a sudden spurt of movement, the woman turned and ran between two huts and vanished into the night, but Mibya stared up, frozen in place.
The wisewoman yelled at her, but Mibya either didn’t hear orwas too terrified to move. The giant flung back a hide cloak, sheathed his sword, and bent down to shove a finger in the still nearly full pot of soup.
That’s boiling, Gran thought, stunned. But if it burned him,he gave no sign. He licked broth from his finger, then smiled, baring yellowed teeth the size of shields, and moved with appalling speed, slapping Mibya aside with the back of his fist. With one swift bound and a snatch, the giant scooped up the children she’d been carrying and dropped them into the boiling soup. Heclapped a round shield over the open top, holding it down with one huge hand.
Gran could hear Mibya shrieking. Her own legs wouldn’t holdher. Mibya’s voice died suddenly. Probably the woman had as well. Gran squaredher shoulders and crawled to where Lhors still knelt and caught hold of his ear. She tugged. Finally, he crawled after her into the dark. She kept a pinch-hold on his ear. He whimpered and flailed ineffectively at her. “Stop it!” shehissed. “There is no time! Stay out of the light and gather up as many of thewomen and children as you can without being seen!”
“But…” He couldn’t manage anything else.
Gran slewed around in front of him to pinch his other ear as well. “Listen to me!” she ordered in a furious whisper. “We will lose many ofour dearest ones this night. It’s too late to stop that! All we can do now isrescue every single soul the gods permit us to save! Do you understand me?”
Silence.
The giant who hovered over the soup pot removed his makeshift lid and gazed down at the interior. Her stomach churned. Apparently satisfied, he dropped the lid back with a ringing clatter, then strode off to help his fellows. Several of them had fished brands from the fire and were thrusting them deep into the stable roof.
She could no longer hear Yerik, Gran realized bleakly. She forced herself to concentrate on the heaving boy who stared at her with wet, terrified eyes. “Getpeople into the cellars-not the new cellars, they’ll collapse! Or getdown to the lower dell or the stream. Find anyone hiding beneath the floors of houses. They’ll die if they stay there. Do you understand me, boy?”
At first, she couldn’t be certain that he did. A glance overhis shoulder as more lightning flashed gave her a new count of enemy. At least ten more leather-clad brutes were approaching from the north.
Lhors caught a shuddering breath, nodded sharply, then scrabbled away from her on his hands and knees into the darkness.
Gran went flat and still as more giants stormed uphill from across the fields. If I’m stepped on, she prayed silently, let it kill me atonce.
A woman’s scream topped even the thunder. The ground trembledall around her. For one brief moment, it was blessedly quiet. The stable went up with a crackling roar, and giants cheered. She clapped her hands over her ears and huddled next to dead Lharis as those trapped inside the building burned, while others fought free of the flames only to die on huge spears and swords.
Something was bruising her ribs, she realized-the deadwarriors sword lay some distance away, but one of his daggers had fallen from its scabbard. Slowly, cautiously, she wrapped a hand around it and drew it from under her. The weight of the thing, the feel of the carefully wound leather wrappings around the hilt, gave her a little inner strength. At least she could choose her own death, if nothing else. She drew a deep breath and opened her eyes.
There were at least twenty giants out there, most surrounding the fiery stable while others torched houses or went looking for herd beasts or other fodder. They’d consider human bodies the same as game, fodder for the pot.She didn’t dare stay here.
May the gods bless you for your care of us, she silently offered Lharis, then eased cautiously away from his body and back into the dark.
The roaring fires of burning houses and barns cast an uncertain light. Shadows of running villagers and stalking giants flickered and danced in the flames’ cruel glow. Gran moved through the darkness, avoiding thelight when she could and refusing to acknowledge the bloodied and broken corpses that littered her village.
In the end, she was only able to rescue two young girls who had hidden under the back of the common house. Now smoke filled the building, flame shot through the thatched roof, and the back wall was uncomfortably warm. She could hear giants laughing down by the burning stable. Another was close but seemed to be occupied with plundering the henhouse. She couldn’t leave the twoanyway, Gran realized bleakly. She’d delivered young Ilina herself, ten yearsearlier.
It took work and time to persuade the girls to leave the scrape they’d dug themselves, even though the boards were beginning to glow red.When a pocket of pine-resin popped, sending sparks showering in all directions, little Ilina fixed her eyes on Gran’s eyes, clamped her fingers around weepingNidyi’s wrist, and somehow got them both into the open just before the wholebuilding collapsed. Gran gripped Ilina’s fingers and felt hers gripped in reply.She fought them all away from the fire, dragging the girls across open ground and into the prickly brush.
Horrid laughter echoed all around them, punctuated by occasional screams or howls of pain.
The girls would have stopped at the brush, but the old woman was adamant. She tugged fiercely at them, now hissing an order against one young ear or another while dragging the two terrified girls downhill along a shallow gully. Numb from terror, they stumbled into the narrow-mouthed cavern where just hours earlier she’d emerged with a basket of barley and a freshly mixed bag ofherbs for the soup. She got the two inside ahead of her and waited while they eased their way back into darkness.
The cries of her people tore at her. She clutched the dagger, but the urge was foolish-one old human woman against so many giants, the leastof them twice her height. She’d die to no cause, and these two girls would surelydie as well.
She gasped as booming laughter drowned everything, including thunder. The sky above her was blood red, then painfully blue-white. Thunder roared to deafen the very gods, but it couldn’t quite drown a spiraling roarthat shook her very bones. One of their enemies had just died up there. Rain suddenly poured down in sheets. She was soaked between one breath and another. All at once, the fires were diminished.