The Path of Ravens (Asgard vs. Aliens Book 1) (12 page)

Half a minute later, I forget that question
when, drawn perhaps by a glint of sunlight on the slayer's floating
hair, the mother giant looks upriver. She squints briefly and then
looses a string of guttural words. Her mate lifts his head to follow
her outstretched arm and then, dropping an empty pot in the stream,
he reaches for his massive, broad-headed ax. There is no question now
that they know of the danger at hand. While the giantess drags her
child up the bank, to safety, the big male wades deeper, a fierce
snarl twisting his already ugly face.

I cannot be certain whether the slayer, being
submerged, is aware she has been spotted. It is fortunate for her,
after all, that she tied my sword into its scabbard, for had she not
I might presently be drawing it and charging to her aid. Even were I
to save her life, I am sure I would regret it afterward,  for I
sense that the slayer's fury would be great if I were to steal one of
her notches. If she didn't harm me outright in punishment, she might
well abandon me, and I cannot stand the thought of that. Although I
know not yet what she represents to me, I know she is vitally
important. She gives real reason for hope in finding Ayessa where
before there was but vague feeling.

And so I stay in hiding and put my faith in this
stranger whose ax handle bears the marks of a great many victories.
More than a few of her attempted kills must have gone awry, it stands
to reason, leaving marks inscribed on her flesh, although I have seen
no scars. Yet here she is, alive to slay another day. I have just
seen her defeat two full-grown male giants, a more ambitious
undertaking than the present one.

She and the giant are thirty feet apart by now,
and closing on one another. If her eyes are open, and I know they
must be, she cannot fail to see the thick legs thrusting against the
current, kicking up clouds of river mud. Even with her ears
submerged, she must hear the grunts of encouragement coming from its
mate on the bank.

When ten feet separate them, the slayer explodes
from the stream, ax in one hand, sword in the other,  water
streaming from long hair and armor plates. No war cry escapes her
tightly closed lips; a violent splashing is the only sound she makes.
The giant, by contrast, fills the mountainside with a great bellow
which seems to echo off the roof of gray cloud as the two meet.

Waist deep in flowing water, the slayer moves
more slowly than she did on dry land, but only just. The  first
sweep of the giant's great ax, already a clumsy weapon, barely
catches his attacker's trailing braid, trimming perhaps a few hairs.
Twisting low, the slayer brings both of her weapons to bear, sword
and ax, near simultaneously, one forehand, the other back. The
sword's point grazes fur, but the long handled ax bites deep under
the giant's arm. He howls. She yanks it free, and red blood spills
from the wound. She is out of the way a second before the giant's ax
slices empty water in the very spot where she had been standing.

My eyes flick to movement on the far bank, where
I see the giantess raise a boulder, a favored weapon  of her
race. Her child, too, stoops as if to find some projectile. I want to
cry out warning, but the slayer's admonition, no less clear for being
wordless, keeps my teeth as firmly clenched as my fists.

The slayer and giant trade blows. She lands
several while he only misses—a good thing, for one hit would
doubtless finish her. The boulder sails from the shore. It misses its
target by a fraction, but the force of its impact on the water puts
the slayer off balance. She falls to one side and slips underwater,
leaving only the blade of her ax visible. The giant brings his ax
down on the spot where she must be, and inwardly I cringe, expecting
to see red clouds stain the current.

Instead, seconds later, she bursts from the
stream, thrusting upward with her sword and piercing the giant's
forearm. He cries out, but the wound does him little harm, judging by
the force with which he next brings down his ax. Again he slices
water, missing his tormentor by inches.

The droplets have not yet settled when the next
projectile from the bank lands, a man-sized tree trunk hurled by the
boy-giant. The slayer is too late seeing it come, and it strikes her
in the upper left quadrant of her back. She vanishes under the
surface, while trunk bobs up and floats away and the father giant
scans the stream in search of her, ax hoisted in two hands, poised
for a final blow.

He will not get the chance. The slayer springs
up behind the giant's broad back and buries her sword hilt-deep along
its spine. At the same time, she swings her ax in a wide arc which
plants the head squarely in the giant's neck. It screams, great ax
splashing into the stream, and on the shore the giant's mate and
child shriek. The slayer tugs both blades free, and the massive,
fur-clad body slips into the muddy water to be borne away by the slow
current.

I watch with jaw agape, exhilaration stealing my
every other breath. For she is magnificent.

The dead giant's kin, surely to their eventual
sorrow, do not seem content with merely howling in protest. Even as I
urge them silently to change their minds and flee, both charge into
the water weaponless. I pity them, for they stand no chance against
this beautiful, graceful bane of giantkind. I hold out hope, briefly,
that she will show mercy.

She does not. In a few effortless moves, the
slayer makes corpses of mother and child. They drift along behind
their mate and father, trailing sinuous red ribbons of blood.
Emerging from my hiding place, I meet the slayer as she climbs up the
muddy bank. She is sopping wet and moves sluggishly, looking tired.
She is flesh and blood, after all, and not a vengeful apparition. On
dry ground, she sinks to her knees, lets her sword fall and plants
the butt of her ax handle in the needles. With a left arm that moves
stiffly—for that shoulder was where the tree struck her—she
draws her small knife and starts cutting a notch in the wood.

One only; the female and the child do not count
in her tally.

Reclaiming her sword, she drags herself upright
and treats me to the usual opaque look. She scans the ground then
looks at me again, expectantly.

Understanding dawns: I have lapsed in my duty.
Racing back to where I have left our packs, I retrieve them, and meet
her as she is moving away from the scene of her kill, to resume my
place behind her.

Later in the day, the slayer stops at a rocky
place that is not quite a cave but rather just a secluded spot
sheltered on three sides by rock walls and open to the sky by only a
crevice. There is still some daylight left by which we might travel,
but this is an ideal spot to hide and rest, a spot I rather suspect
she has used before, given how easily she finds it.

Shedding her ax and sword-belt, the slayer sits
down heavily. I follow her lead in unburdening myself. As I do, she
raises one leg and aims its booted foot at me. I but stare. The leg
stays aloft, her gaze on me, and after a few seconds I grasp her
meaning. I cannot help but scoff, good-naturedly, of course, as I go
to her, kneel, and comply with the silent request, tugging her boot
until it slides off. She offers the other, and I repeat the process.
The boots are wet, so I lay them out on a rock in the sliver of light
that spills into our shelter from above, for what good it will do.

She next begins unstrapping her various armor
plates. Not knowing what she wears underneath or how much she intends
to remove, I turn my back. Her ax leans against a rock in my line of
sight.

Such trust she affords me, a stranger. I could
kill her right now with her own weapon. More likely, I could attempt
it and be slaughtered.

Perhaps it is not so much trust as assurance of
her own superiority.

Since I have no interest in killing her anyway,
I instead look more closely at the ax handle and its tally of dead
giants. Starting at the bottom, the carved notches climb their way up
in clusters of nine. Today's three were added to the tenth cluster,
yielding a total of eighty-seven. Up higher, near the head and
separated from the rest by a long gap, there are four more cut marks.
If I thought there was any chance she might answer, I might ask her
why those few are set apart.

Risking a backward glance, I find that the
slayer has finished shedding her armor plates and is reaching over
her shoulder with one hand as if to scratch her back. I wonder,
half-seriously, since I seem to have become her manservant, if I
should offer to help. Then I realize that she is not reaching to
scratch at all, but to grab a handful of tunic in order to tug the
wet garment off over her head. Quickly, I turn away.

A sopping wet ball of linen hits me in the neck
and falls to the rock with a slap. Her tunic. After wringing it, I
lay it out beside her boots, such that with luck it will become
slightly dryer by morning. It would be better hung outside on a tree,
but that would give away our presence here, which I must assume is
something we do not wish.

Wet leggings hit me next. I wring those and lay
them out for her. Then I stand, facing away from the slayer, and
wait. For what, I shortly become uncertain. Since she does not speak,
we cannot communicate except visually, and that cannot be
accomplished with my back turned. Instead of waiting for her to throw
a rock, I turn around again to find her wrapped in a brown cloak she
has taken from her pack. Underneath her, presumably separating her
bare backside from soil and cold stone, I see the edges of my own
cloak. It had been in my pack, which now sits open, its contents
spilled.

Her blue eyes are on me, giving nothing away. I
meet the gaze steadily. After several beats, one arm emerges from her
cloak and drags her pack closer to her. Rummaging inside, she
extracts a small pouch. She slides her cloak down on her left side,
exposing bare shoulder and upper arm. Three fingers of her right hand
slip into the pouch and emerge covered in a gray paste which she
proceeds to rub on the back of the exposed shoulder opposite.

She cannot reach the entire injured area. As we
both realize that, she extends the pouch toward me, and I move closer
to accept. I dip my fingers in, as she did, and kneel behind her. She
tilts her head so her damp braid falls to one side, and I behold her
injury: a large expanse of purple and brown that starts near her
collarbone and extends down beneath the cloak. I begin spreading the
cool, grainy  paste gently over her skin, which is warm and
smooth by contrast. She lets the cloak fall further, exposing more
purple and the gentle bumps of her ribs. I take more paste and
continue. Once the whole injury is covered, I hand her back the pouch
and take a seat in front of her. She wastes no time with gratitude.
Restoring her cloak, she digs into her pack again and produces a
small, wrapped parcel which she opens. Inside are strips of dried
meat. She throws me one, which I just fail to catch and must
subsequently retrieve from the dust.

"Thank you," I say. Even not knowing a
word of the Chrysioi language, she will understand that. Not that I
expect so much as a nod in return.

She fulfills expectation, chewing and regarding
me as if I were a bird that has fluttered down and perched on the
rocks of her camp. Or even less: I am the rock itself, which just
happens to have a slightly unusual shape.

I am no rock. Rocks have endless patience. I do
not. I have desires, and the greatest of them at present is to find
Ayessa.

I realize suddenly that I have been remiss in
not having mentioned Ayessa's name to her. The sound of a name, if
the hearer has heard it before, should know no language barrier

"I seek a woman named Ayessa," I say
without prelude. If the slayer has no use for conversation of any 
kind, what use has she for preludes?

For emphasis, I repeat the name. Its sound
causes a knot in my chest. I try to read the slayer's answering
stare, knowing that the slightest tick in her features might be all I
get, but there is nothing there to read. Her look is no different
than the one she always gives. I am a source of intermittent sound
and motion to her, no more.

"I thought as much." Not wanting her
to sense my frustration, I add, "Thank you for allowing me to
accompany you. Perhaps you can lead me to someone who can help."

She continues to look at me with pointed
disinterest until I am the one who must turn away. I stare at some
rocks. It has been days since I have spoken as much as I just have.
There is a sort of release in it, and I find I want to continue. It
is not hard to find words with which to exercise my voice, even if
the exercise is futile.

"I know you have a tongue," I say. "So
why is it that you cannot speak? Or do you only choose not to?"
   I shrug and smile. "I'd say you just don't like me,
but you must, a little, to give me the privilege of carrying your
pack."

She shows no reaction. I want to speak more, but
feel foolish. To keep my mouth busy for a while, I shove the
remainder the dried meat into it, while my hands find brief
occupation in removing my sword belt. Unlike the slayer, I have no
armor, since it is not our practice in Neolympus to wear it when
leaving the city; we favor speed, stealth, and avoidance, not
confrontation, in dealing with the giants. I wear only a
short-sleeved tunic of a length to cover my legs to mid-thigh, and
now that I have stopped exerting myself, I begin to feel the air's
chill. The remedy for that, my cloak, presently lies underneath the
slayer, a place from which I am not inclined to make an effort to
retrieve it.

I take her water-skin for a pillow, and while I
am still twisting and turning in search of a few feet of rocky ground
that does not dig into some part of me or another, the slayer lies
down, shuts her eyes, and does not reopen them.