Blood Creek Beast Page 17

  “So, Jack, do they have horses where you come from?” Bachan asked.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Not as many as here. But I ain’t had an opportunity to ride one since I was maybe fourteen years old.”

  Bachan nodded. “We will cross by ferry in less than a mile, and then we’ll take our course to the west. You shall get quite a bit of practice.”

  Jack nodded, trying not to think of what came after the practice. “All part of the adventure.”

  “Your posterior might not appreciate the adventure tonight, if you are unused to riding.”

  “My posterior will be in a lot more trouble than that soon enough. So when do we get to Korky Lash?”

  “Korak Lash. We’ll reach the village that has reported him tomorrow. There’s no reason you shouldn’t enjoy a night’s stay at an inn tonight. You’ll need all your strength.”

  The ferry was little more than a raft, in Jack’s estimation. He wasn’t expecting a giant vehicle-carrying ferry or anything like that, but maybe something like an old-time steamboat. This wasn’t much more than a bunch of logs lashed together with a floor on top, and some guy with a pole pushing them across.

  While they stood with nervous horses on the raft, Jack asked, “Why are you coming with me, Bachan? You are the head of the Royal Guard, ain’t you? Shouldn’t you be staying with the king’s family?”

  Bachan scowled, and Jack immediately regretted asking the question. So quietly that even Jack could barely hear him, Bachan muttered, “Yes, I should be. But I have my orders to attend you.”

  The trip was certainly faster than Jack could have made on foot, but not by as much as he would have expected. The horses required much more maintenance than cars. Toward the end of the day, Jack would have traded the soreness of riding for the soreness of hiking in a heartbeat. It was still mid-afternoon when they reached the inn, and Aidan took the horses to the stable to make certain they were properly cared for.

  The innkeeper doted on them. Jack overheard him speaking to his wife, saying, “The Royal Guard, no less! That young man must be a prince!” Jack suppressed a laugh at that one. The man brought them fresh bread and drink and told them the meal would be ready in an hour.

  Jack took a swallow of the drink and shuddered. “What is this?” he asked Bachan.

  Bachan took a swallow. “Ale,” he said. “Not bad.”

  Jack put it down and pushed the cup away. “I’d rather have water.”

  Bachan looked at him strangely. “If I were to face a giant in the morning, I might prepare myself the night before with quite a bit of ale to fortify my courage.”

  Jack peered down at the brown liquid and shook his head. “My father was a drunk, Bachan. My mama ain’t much better. I figure my only chance to escape that family curse is never to touch the stuff. You can’t crave what you ain’t ever tried.”

  Bachan raised an eyebrow. “I daresay I have met few young men with such wisdom. I raise my cup to you.” He lifted his own cup and tilted his head toward Jack. Then he called to the innkeeper, “Cornelius! Please bring the young man some water!”

  The innkeeper’s daughter brought a tankard of nearly clear water to Jack. The girl was no more than thirteen by Jack’s estimation, but people seemed to age differently here. Annabelle even seemed to have grown younger in her stay. Maybe it was something in the air. Health spas back home would have people paying a fortune for vacation packages to get younger.

  One of the Bachan’s guards came to their table. “The mounts are watered, groomed, and feeding. Aidan has secured supplies for tomorrow.”

  Bachan nodded. “Very well, Zeke. Tell Aidan that the two of you may consider yourselves off-duty for the evening.”

  “What about this one?” The guard motioned to Jack.

  “He is not going anywhere. Just remember that you still represent the Royal Guard.”

  “Always, sir.” The man did an about-face and left the inn.

  Jack sipped the water. It had well-water taste, but it wasn’t bad. Bachan stared into his reflection in his drink. Jack interrupted the brooding by asking, “Can I ask you something?”

  Bachan raised the right corner of his mouth. “You seem to be doing so already.”

  Jack nodded. “Right. What’s the deal with Zainus? Is he like your boss or anything?”

  “That scoundrel? No. He’s a mercenary employed by the king.”

  Jack leaned back on the bench and rubbed his chin. “You two ain’t exactly best friends, then?”

  “No. We tolerate each other. The king knows his business and keeps his own council. The need to protect his land requires him to forge relationships with all sorts of people. He has a difficult job. Mine is relatively simple. I protect the crown.”

  “And this is protecting the crown? You coming here with me?”

  Bachan scowled, setting his ale to the side. “Perhaps it is. I know the giant represents a significant threat. You, however, represent a greater threat. The king considers you a possible enemy of his family.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m usually a good judge of character, but I’m not infallible. I want to believe you. Unfortunately, I have difficulty imagining you doing battle against giants.”

  Jack shrugged. “Most of the fights we’ve been in, I had friends helping me. And I had my papa’s shotgun.”

  “Ah. You are proficient in the use of firearms?”

  “A little. I’ve seen that you folks have some.”

  Bachan nodded. “They aren’t very effective, and the explosive powder can be expensive to come by. They are not my first choice for weapons, but in certain situations, they can be quite effective. Unfortunately, nothing short of a cannon would do much against a giant. What about that sword at your side? Do you have skill in that?”

  Jack shook his head. “Not really. Ain’t never had one before, let alone call to use it.”

  “We have a little while before dinner. Would you have a lesson?”

  “From you? Sure thing!”

  Bachan’s lesson took what little energy Jack had left. Very little of the lesson had anything to do with what Jack expected from films. None of it was flashy. In fact, most of came down to how to dodge an attack coming from various quarters.

  “You are always going to face someone stronger,” Bachan lectured during a short break. “But you can train to be faster. There’s no magic to speed. It comes from physical strength, practice, economy of movement, and anticipating the enemy. You are swinging that blade as if it were a club. That is slow. Take advantage of the blade. It’s sharp enough, even against the unarmored skin of a giant. Giants can bleed. Cut them enough, they will die.”

  By the end, Jack’s exhaustion was only matched by his hunger. The innkeeper’s food needed of more spice, but that was true of about everything he’d eaten since leaving Annabelle’s home. When the meal was over, Jack stumbled into his room and collapsed on the bed. Hours later, he woke up, took off his clothes, climbed under the covers, and fell back asleep until the morning.

  He awakened to the sound of soft knocking at the door. Zeke opened the door and announced, “Captain Bachan says he awaits your convenience downstairs.”

  Jack pulled himself to a seated position. “Alright. I guess we ought to get this show on the road.”

  Minutes later, Jack was dressed and eating eggs in the inn’s common room. Bachan looked exactly like he had the evening before. If the man had any hair on the top of his head, he must shave it off every morning. Bachan greeted Jack with a nod and said, “I do hope you received a good rest last night.”

  “I made up for the night before,” Jack answered.

  Bachan frowned as Jack finished his food and pushed his plate away. “There is no hurry, young Jack.”

  “Let’s get this over with,” Jack said. “No sense in lingering, right?”

  Bachan’s frown vanished as he regarded Jack. He sighed, and his face hardened. “True. We rise to the fight.”

  Zeke and Aidan had the horses ready. Bachan
pointed down the road. “The village is about an hour’s ride, over poor roads. The population has fled and taken refuge in an encampment not far from here.”

  Jack mounted the horse with slightly greater skill this time around, but a great deal more pain. He didn’t have much to say on their journey.

  When they came to the village an hour later, after splitting their time between riding and leading their horses up the trail, Bachan dismounted and found a place to tie down their horses. The other guards set about exploring the village. Bachan nodded toward another trail. “As I understand it, that way leads to the giant. I’m sorry, but I cannot allow you to take your horse with you.”

  Jack dismounted with a sense of relief. “I guess maybe I’ll see y’all later,” he commented, grasping the handle of the dagger Delcina had given him, rather than hilt of the sword sheathed at his belt. Bachan noted the knife, and his eyes flashed in recognition, but he said nothing.

  Jack didn’t look back as he set out up the trail. After fifteen minutes of hiking, he knew he was close by the smell. The giant’s encampment was a half-mile above the village and stank of rotten meat. The clearing looked like the staging area of a city dump, filled with refuse either taken from the village or collected over innumerable raids. Wisps of smoke from the smoldering remnants of a fire drifted aimlessly through the still air. The giant was nowhere to be seen.

  A sheet of cowhide lay discarded along one edge of the encampment, hastily cut away and forgotten to get at the flesh beneath. The giant had done something to treat the hide and let it cure in the sun, but it hadn’t helped the smell. It was a tiny contributor to the fetid stench of the site.

  Jack warily moved through the encampment. He approached the dim embers and charred remnants of the fire. An enormous cauldron sat atop three rocks in the fire circle, and was filled with at least twenty gallons of a meaty stew, most of the liquid having either soaked into the food or simmered away. A thin layer of ash and dust glazed the top of the mass. Perhaps the giant didn’t have a lid to match the great cauldron. By Jack’s best guess, it had been left unattended for at least an hour.

  Jack sighed. The stew didn’t smell half bad. If he had really been a competent assassin, he could have poisoned the giant’s stew right now, and then finished the job while the giant lay sick or even dying. But while he knew a few familiar leaves and berries that were poisonous to humans, he had no idea if they’d affect a giant even if he could find them. Certainly adding enough to make a difference would badly taint the flavor. He had to take advantage of whatever time he had to come up with a plan.

  Not far from the pot, the sun glinted off fabric that half-buried in the dirt. Drawing closer, he found that it was a shirt atop a pile of discarded clothing, a thick cotton shirt for a man significantly larger than Jack. Beneath the shirt, there were pants, a dress, shoes...

  And grisly, bloody bones. Human bones.

  Jack staggered backward with the shirt still in his hand, nearly stepping into embers of the fire and the heated cauldron. Just then, still staring at the glistening bones, it occurred to Jack what ingredient besides beef might be in the stew. He recoiled and retreated beyond the encampment before losing most of his breakfast.

  After he recovered, he examined the shirt gripped in his hand, and the ripped sheet of cowhide on the ground. The beginnings of a plan stirred in his mind. He rolled the cowhide and put the shirt over it as a decoy. If he squinted really hard, from a long way away, it almost looked like a person. Then the cowhide flopped over and collapsed. It would never work. The distraction would be recognized as soon as the giant saw it.

  He was still searching the encampment when the brush rustled announcing the heavy footfalls of something large approaching. Jack fled, with the shirt and the cowhide still in hand. He clambered up an embankment and out among the trees and weeds where he could spy into the encampment without being seen. The lack of air movement meant the wind wouldn’t necessarily carry his scent, but the breeze could pick up at any moment in any direction. In his time with Rumela, he’d learned how sensitive giants were to scents.

  The giant entering the clearing was the largest Jack had ever seen. With tangled black hair and sun-browned skin, wearing clothes made out of poorly cured hides and furs, the towering monster would terrify anyone in their right mind. It wore a necklace of skulls, all of dangerous predators, except for two human skulls and the central piece, which seemed to be the skull of either an ogre or another giant.

  The monster carried the trunk of a tree over one shoulder, which it shrugged off as it drew close to the fire. It unlashed the axe from its belt, and set upon the tree, chopping logs off the thickest part with only three hits with the axe. After that, it split the logs in a single hit, with what seemed only casual strength. Jack’s imagination helpfully filled in the image of his own body under that axe.

  After every stroke or two, the giant peered closely at his target, examining the chopped spot from inches away. After only a few minutes of this, the giant had rendered the tree into firewood. Jack was impressed with its strength, but had drawn another conclusion. As Rumela had suggested, Korak was severely nearsighted.

  Maybe his stupid decoy might have worked if the giant had even seen it at all. Korak seemed not to have noticed the missing cowhide or shirt, nor the footprints Jack had left in the dirt. Jack formulated another plan. It was even more stupid than the decoy idea, but he was running low on alternatives.

  Jack unsheathed the princess’s dagger and tried the blade against the cowhide. True to Delcina’s word, the blade cut through the hide like paper. He held the cowhide against his chest, pulling it tight around him, making mental measurements. Sweating in the late-morning sun, tensing up with every sound from the giant on the other side of the embankment, Jack made careful slices to the hide, making certain the scraps fell without a sound. He took off his shirt and wrapped the cowhide around his torso. He put the dead man’s shirt on over the awkward armor, and it mostly held the hide in place, except for the tendency of the hide to slip down around his waist. Jack removed the belt from his pants and belted it around the bottom of the hide and the shirt. He couldn’t run around without it coming loose, and he certainly couldn’t fight in it. But there was little point in fighting, and he couldn’t outrun the giant.

  Jack peeked out from his hiding place. Korak stood over a refreshed fire, skimming the top layer of dirt and ash off the stew with a giant-sized spoon. Jack watched as the giant dug about the nearby junk, finally finding great bowls that must have been serving dishes once upon a time. Korak held one bowl beside him, wearing an eager grin as he stirred what must be several meals’ worth of food, even for him.

  There was no sense in delaying his fate, and no other preparations to make. Jack carefully returned Delcina’s dagger to its sheath, stood up, and waddled down into the giant’s encampment, pressing the cowhide against his sides with his arms.

  The giant heard him approach and stood erect with a snarl on his lips, baring his jagged teeth. At full height, Jack’s eye level came to the monster’s thigh. Jack roared a greeting. “I am seeking Korak Lash, the roughest, toughest giant in all the land!”

  Korak lowered his head and squinted at Jack. “You, a tiny little human? You come with soldiers? Korak done killt lots of human soldiers in time!”

  “Yes, me, but all by myself. I left some soldiers down at the village. We don’t need ‘em, unless you are extra hungry.”

  Korak tilted his head to the side. “Huh? You offer yourself for dinner, human?”

  “Me? No. I got business with Korak, if he is truly the toughest giant in the land. Them soldiers wouldn’t do me no good because Korak would just eat ‘em up before we got done talking.”

  The snarl morphed into the beginnings of a grin. “Huh. Yeah. I be Korak Lash, and you ain’t wrong. I be the toughest giant that ever done terrorized this land. I done survived more’n two hundred years, through disease, and soldiers, and critters, and other giants all trying to put me down. I sur
vived ‘em all, and I will survive you, little man.”

  This was it. Jack hadn’t intentionally told a lie since he was twelve years old, but he didn’t think his promise to himself counted against man-eating giants. He reminded himself that the man who owned the shirt he wore was probably inside the stew pot right now. Maybe pieces of him, along with his family. This creature deserved no mercy and would certainly grant none.

  “I expect so,” Jack said, as boisterously as he could manage. He hoped the giant was hard of hearing as well, and couldn’t hear the quiver of terror in Jack’s voice. “I came here to see how tough you were. See, my friends said that you weren’t any tougher than the average human. I say they are wrong, but they didn’t believe me.”

  “I’ll show you how tough I am when I rip your arms and legs off!” He took a step toward Jack.

  “You could do that, but then who would tell my friends how tough you are? Who would let everyone know Korak is still the greatest giant that ever walked our land? And then how would they tell their friends?”

  The giant hesitated. Jack said, “Surely you ain’t afraid to give me a demonstration, considering I came all this way?”

  Korak frowned. “I s’pose I might could eat you later. You ain’t gonna escape on them little legs of yours. What is it you want to see, human?”

  Jack motioned to the cauldron. “You know, that stew looks like a good snack, but where is the rest of your meal?”

  The giant laughed. “Besides you? You are lucky I got food already. This stew will be good for me for many days!”

  “Really?” Jack said. “That don’t seem like all that much.”

  “What game you playing, little man?”

  “Nothing. I’m just saying the average man could probably eat half that in a single sitting and still have room for desert. But then, the average man is pretty tough and needs to eat a lot to keep up with the work he has to do.”