Chapter 16
Davien could hear a loud clanging noise, like a blacksmith only intermittently striking the metal on his anvil. Clang, silence, clang, clang, silence. So it would go for minutes at a time until finally, Rip looked up from his task. “Finished,” he whispered to himself.
What the giant had finished was a wild tableau with Davien’s body as the center piece. Dressed in a gleaming suit of armor, a sword at the ready, Davien looked decidedly dangerous. What Davien saw in the Grayscape was his body, held upright with a clever contraption made from metal bars, being pitted against four statues, each of which were only a head taller than Davien himself.
Davien stood in thought for a moment then he tried what he had been working on. A red mist seemed to issue from Davien’s body. Moments later Davien could see from the perspective of one of the statues. Though he could not move the statue, as it lacked moveable parts, Davien knew with certainty that he had learned something valuable about the Grayscape.
The clanging continued and it took both the giant and Davien a moment to realize it happened outside the cave. As though they were both surprised to hear the noise after the giant had declared himself finished. “What the hell wassat?” The giant shouted, looking around the cave. Almost leaping up from his seated position, the giant clumsily dashed from the cave.
Seeing Break far in the distance Rip knew the noise was from someone else, and Tear was just as surprised as he was. “Tha ‘ell was ‘at?” Rip shouted at Tear across the valley.
“Lemme have a clear listen then, yah?” Tear responded.
The clang sounded again. Followed by a ‘whoop’ of satisfaction.
“Oh shit, Tear, get tha prisoners!” Rip shouted before running back into his own cave.
Chapter 16 eh?
As Rip entered his cave he was overcome with a sense of vertigo and fell to the ground, vomiting. A feeling, warm and overwhelming overcame the giant moments later. “Yeah, awright,” the giant whispered aloud then began to stand.
Chapter 16 Bee
“Dammit, Jym, they heard you!” Leira shouted at the occupied goblin.
Jym had, however, succeeded in making a hole in the grate that anyone with half a brain could climb through. The goblin secretly hoped the dwarves would be unable to escape. “Heard, schmerd, let us hop on out and meet them face to face. My ‘Darling’ and ‘Daughter’s’ will make short work of one.”
“What about the other two, Jym!” The dwarf with coal black hair asked.
The goblin glanced back and grinned malevolently. “I got me four tasty… four stout dwarfs,” on the word dwarfs the goblin winked, “Plus one wounded geek… err whatever you are Leira.”
“I am a witch, you retread. Now get out of the pot and let us make a defensive position. Thanks to your noisy antics we have to defend ourselves rather than just run.”
“You are most welcome, Leira, I try to be of service.”
Leira looked at the goblin a moment, mouth open in astonishment, before ushering the dwarves up and out of the pot. “No need to get stuck waiting. Go find a weapon and we can try to protect ourselves.” The dwarves, one at a time, thanked her for the help needed to escape and began rummaging in the sacks near the cooking fire for gear.
As, Leira, was pulling herself up and out of the pot the first giant, Tear, arrived in a mood to set them on edge. “Oy! Breffist! Get back in tha pot, tha ‘ole lot of ya!” Having not yet found weapons, the dwarves bared their fists, and their teeth, in defiance.
“Come on then, time to see what yer made of,” The black haired dwarf shouted at, Tear.
Seeing as the four dwarves were unarmed, unarmored and soaking wet, the giant guffawed. “Well, little ones, lessee here who be in charge.” Looking around, and seeing no other giants, Tear continued, “Looks like I am so, get in tha pot!”
A gleaming metal dagger embedded itself in Tear’s flesh a moment later. “What tha ‘ell is that?” He shouted as he looked down at his hand. A shard of steel, polished to glistening as though it were wet all the time, was wedged into the cuticle of his forefinger on the left hand. As he was watching, another dagger embedded itself into the same hand. “Oy! Who is doin’ that?” Tear asked in frustration.
“Dammit!” Came the shouted response.
“Oh, now I gets it, goblins out an’ wants ta play wif knives!” With his wounded left hand he grabbed a cleaver that, Break, had left behind. “Fine den! Lets play wif knives.” The giant practically drooled in anticipation as it brought its arm back to swing.
The goblin was out of knives, the other three never having come to his beckon. “Fickle, fricken …” His mumbled thought was interrupted by a massive blade, easily the size of a tall human, which slashed down in front of him. The weight of the blow drove the massive cleaver far into the dirt where Jym would have been, if he had not been saved by mumbling about his ‘children’. The crude blade, swung by such a huge creature, created a deep furrow in the dirt as it was retracted in a dragging fashion.
Jym looked up at the giant and decided, he felt with good reason, it was time to leave, and quickly began running between the giants legs. The giant leaned further the further that Jym went, until the giant did the most natural thing it could do. It sat down, which appeared to be on top of Jym, as the goblin tried to make an escape.
Leira, from the huddled mass of weaponless dwarves, stood up, stunned and trying, it seemed, to get a better view of where the goblin met his demise. The giant, distracted, spent no time dealing with the dwarves or the woman, instead it wriggled, back and forth like it was trying to squash something.
Once again the dark haired dwarf spoke, “Look… Leira was it? If he was a friend, well ye might be better off. I mean he might be. Being eaten, after boiled, which will certainly kill us most horribly. He was squashed though, a tried and true giant method of killing dwarf folk. Quick like, which is why we do not do that. Run between legs that is. Rookie mistake.” The dwarf laughed sourly.
Tear stood up, and slowly patted his pockets and pants as if looking for something. When he once again spotted the escaped dwarves, and their human accomplice, he lurched forward, bending low in an effort to scoop them all up at once without resorting to the cleaver in his left hand. This left him off balance and he tumbled with a shout, the cleaver lost in the fall.
Sensing their opportunity, the dwarves leapt into action. As if by magic they now had weapons. Crude weapons, like pitchforks, massive wooden spoons covered in sauce, and bent halberds were the weapons of choice of a madman, thought Leira. After a pause to watch, Leira looked for a weapon of her own. What she found was almost too difficult to grip so covered in butter and salt was its handle, but she managed it with both hands.
Each dwarf, armed as they were, stood side-by-side their weapons ready. As, Tear, put his arms under him to raise himself up the four dwarves rushed forward and battered at his face. Although most of the injuries sustained by the giant were light, there was one that landed a solid blow to his right eye. With a sickening wet thump the eye was gone.
The giant screamed in frustration and pain as he quickly stood and held his ruined eye with his wounded left hand. Break, having arrived just in time to see, Tear, wounded, grabbed the nearest boulder and heaved it at the dwarves and Leira.