Giants (27 page)

The End, Book #1

The epic adventure continues with

Leviathan

(Book #2 of the Lost Civilization Series)

Read on for an exciting excerpt from the next book in the Lost Civilization Series.

First are Appendix A and B.

APPENDIX A

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LORD URIAH'S LIFE

Lord Uriah was born in the last days of the Empire. The Shining Ones had departed with their prisoners and had laid this charge: “Find other enclaves and teach their people the ways of peace.” Uriah was born in Caphtor, also known as the City of Seth. He was born to a princely father who followed the old ways.

Because of his father, Uriah received rude treatment from his contemporaries. The Empire was strained, and arrogant Ir girded for war against Caphtor. Although he was still quite young, Uriah joined the expedition to Giant Land. The men of the Empire, guided by Seraphs, hunted for giants. Uriah fought bravely and well, but more giants had hidden in the north than expected. Many of the greatest Seraphs perished under Nephilim blades. With a handful of others, Uriah barely escaped.

Lord Uriah journeyed home to report the grim news. A year later began the War of Tears. The Empire was split, as some allied with Ir, and others with Caphtor. Uriah fought in the war, was captured early, and worked in Ir's gold mines for six years. At the end of the war, prisoners were exchanged. After hearing about his hardships in the mines, people were surprised at his survival. And from this time began the belief that he was a slippery warrior, hard to kill.

He soon departed war-ravaged Caphtor with a band of followers and headed north to Further Tarsh. The land between Further and Nearer Tarsh was a wind-swept plain, filled with the primitive Huri. Nearer Tarsh had been built on the edge of the Great Sea, while Further Tarsh stood on the shore of the mighty inland Suttung Sea. Between the cities ran a key caravan route.

The Huri of those days were hardier and in greater number than in Joash’s time. They often raided the caravans, ignoring peace talks. The Seraphs feared that if the primitives severed this caravan link, the Suttung Sea region might fall into crude barbarism. Therefore, Lord Uriah and his band of Caphtorites settled in the plains and built Havilah Holding. From the stout fort they captured wild aurochs and raised them as cattle. In their chariots, and with their Asvarn stallions, the hardy warriors proved superior to the nearby Huri. (The day of huge Huri confederations was far in the future. Only the local clans fought these strangers.)

The land was rugged, and Lord Uriah missed the cultured Caphtor ways. So although he'd taken a concubine, Dinah, he sent a trusted servant to Caphtor to find him a wife. A year later, Tamar entered Havilah Holding. She instantly hated Dinah, although she married Lord Uriah. Alas for Tamar, she bore no children, while Dinah gave Lord Uriah two fine sons. With Tamar had come other Caphtorites, and another herd of Asvarn horses. Lord Uriah now struck hard at the Huri, and more caravans journeyed between Further and Nearer Tarsh. A fierce Huri chieftain welded several clans together, and he stormed and almost captured Havilah Holding. Dinah's two sons died as they fought beside their father.

After the grim struggle, Tamar finally bore a son. At the feast of weaning, Tamar overheard Dinah mocking her son. Tamar was enraged and she made life miserable for Lord Uriah. Finally, to return peace to his life, Lord Uriah committed his gravest act. He sent Dinah, and her newly born son, away. He gave her coin and herds, but Dinah was a proud woman, and all she really took was her hate. She returned to the hill country and raised her son, Shur, there.

At Havilah Holding Tamar raised her son, Elon. He became a fine warrior and captain. Lord Uriah's wealth and lands increased, and Elon soon had sons. Then, the Huri gathered into a vast confederation. And in the Battle of Seven Clans, Lord Uriah and Elon routed the enemy through swift chariot tactics. So began the Huri Trail of Tears, as they left the open plains and headed into the nearby forests. Finally, there was peace in Elon, as Lord Uriah had named the plains.

In the nearby Paran Hills, however, a fierce warrior welded the hill people into one nation. He had ten sons, and they too were hardy warriors. Perhaps they didn't ride chariots and wield lances as taught by Lord Uriah, but they howled savagely and never gave quarter—nor did they ask any. Their leader was Shur. In time, the hill country became know as the Land of Shur, and the people as the Ten Tribes of Shur.

Dinah taught Shur about her hatred of Lord Uriah and the Land of Elon. Shortly afterward, the Huri departed the plains, as the sons of Shur began their caravan raids. Both peoples fought with incredible bravery. Both came to hate the other, for Elon led raids into the hill country.

Lord Uriah saw the tragedy, and desperately tried to repair it. Relations between Tamar and he grew cold, and because of that Elon listened less to his father. Finally, the odium of the tragedy became so strong that Lord Uriah could no longer lead the fights against Shur. Although he told no one, Lord Uriah was proud of his son Shur.

Only once more, when Shur and his sons burned Kenan, Zepho, and Teman Holdings, did Lord Uriah mount his chariot and lead the sweeping attacks that scattered the Shurites and brought forty years of peace.

So, in the days when Tarag raided Draugr's Crypt, Lord Uriah found himself worrying more about problems aboard than the unsolvable ones at home. And perhaps that terrible problem caused him to dip his drinking horn once too often into the ale vats.

APPENDIX B

ON GIANTS

Of the three major races of Nephilim, fiend, Gibborim, and giant, giants were considered the noblest and the best understood by men.

The annals were strangely silent on Anak, the father of Jotnar, who was the father of giants. The
bene elohim
Anak was strong, large, and valiant, and tales of wicked evil were less about him than others of his kind. The annals related that Anak was full of pride and filled with valor. Such was said about his son, Jotnar. Jotnar lived in the frozen north for reasons only known to him. He was grim, vain, proud, and fearless. He brooded and plotted. Why he didn’t march south, no one knew. Or, if they knew, they haven't told the singers of tales.

More was known about Jotnar’s offspring, the giants. Their names, and their deeds, rang among the annals of the Antediluvian Age. There was Surtur and his forging of the sword of doom, and the story of Thor and how he slew a leviathan while upon the watery depths. Mimir the Wise and the bold guile that won him the wells of knowledge were a familiar tale. All these stories and more the singers told. Such were the mighty giants’ deeds that after the terrible Cataclysm their feats lingered in stories. These stories were the root for the new myths, and the new legends in a new time.

The giants boldly strode across the landscape of the Antediluvian Age. Their valor, great deeds, mighty feats, and courage won them the title Heroes of Old.

The End of the Appendixes

Leviathan

(Book #2 of the Lost Civilianization Series)

Chapter One

The Giant’s Spear

[Goliath’s] spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels.

-- 1 Samuel 17:7

He who had been Lord Skarpaler, the war chief of the Bloodspillers, trudged through a vast plain of grass. He did not feel the wind on his stone face or the sun on his granite skin, although pressure on the bottom of his feet told him the solid earth was beneath him.

His obsidian chip eyes allowed him to see bounding antelopes as they fled his approach. Each leapt higher than his neighbor did—creatures with the agility of grasshoppers. Later, shaggy bison with murderous horns lowed complaint at him. A huge bull pawed the earth, but wisely turned, and trotted elsewhere. Purple flowers bloomed in the sunlight as bees buzzed around them.

With stone ears the former Lord Skarpaler heard an eagle cry as it soared above, hunting for carrion. Sparrows clung to waving stalks and chirped to their young. Mostly, however, the trolock animated with the spirit of he who had been Lord Skarpaler heard the thud of his many-ton step. He was over eight feet tall, a monstrosity of articulated stones and boulders shaped to resemble a man. When he walked over embedded stone he heard a clack, like millstones smashing. When he paused at a small pool of water, he saw a thing with a catapult-stone head.

Once, a sabertooth with ugly neck wounds roared with fright, standing over a slain carcass. He who had been Lord Skarpaler ignored the savage beast. It could no more harm him than the eagles could, or the sparrows that flew in their mindless flocks, or the panicky rabbits that bounded out of his path. Despite its obvious reluctance, the sabertooth wisely limped to safer grounds.

The Avenger, the stone trolock, the man who had been Lord Skarpaler, moved across the wind-swept plain, the endless expanse of waving grass with its occasional gnarled tree. Sleep was a foreign idea. No longer did he need it in order to refuel his limbs. Meat or bread grinded by his teeth and swallowed down his throat seemed like a bizarre concept. Only one thing gave him sustenance, and it was because of this one vital nutrient that he headed south.

He felt the fiery glow of death, spirits violently torn from their shells and sped to their new destinations. He hungered for the far-off glow. It quickened him a little as the thought of feasting renewed him with energy. Then, even from his distant vantage, he felt the intense heat of a Nephilim’s death. Of course, men also died, he knew the feel of their blaze to a nicety. But the death of a Nephilim intrigued him.

He needed to learn who the new powers of this age were. He marched south to discover who dared to war against Nephilim.

His was not a quick stride. He was still too cold. The warm wash of death, of released spirits, showed him how starved he truly was. Only in the days of glory had he known quickness. In those days, he had fought beside the Master as they roved the battlefields and fed on death. To crush the life from a man—that was sweetness, warmth, and rapture of feasting. He craved it, and knew that without it he would soon nod into eternal slumber and become little more than a strange rock formation.

Too often, however, as he journeyed south, he stopped, laboriously knelt on one stony knee, and studied ants as they carted dead bugs to their nest. Or, he watched a bee buzz around a flower, land on the yellow petal, and crawl into it. The grass as it swayed in the breeze, what a marvel that was. These were not trolock thoughts, but long ago memories of Lord Skarpaler. He was too cold, he knew. If he could warm himself, these feelings of pitiful weakness would depart. With greater strength, he could plot to feast more. Then, he could find a way to bask continuously in the warmth of violently given death. He could become the life-bane that he’d been fashioned to be.

An hour later he trudged up a grassy knoll. When he came to the top, he stopped. Below was a new sight. He’d never seen it before, even as Lord Skarpaler. A vast green body of water spread before him. Could the warmth of battle have occurred here?

As a trolock, he rumbled a sound in his chest. Seagulls screamed in fright, exploded into flight, and flapped away for a safer place. He shuffled down the hill, examining the shore. Corpses lay strewn, washed by the pounding surf. Their spirits had fled to wherever they went after death. Sadly, he could not feast. He stopped before stepping onto the sand and studied the tracks.

They were of men, sabertooths, and giants.

He opened his mouth. Here is where the Nephilim had perished. He rumbled again, laughing as best he could. But he was so cold. Where on this empty steppe could he find warmth, the nourishment he craved?

He saw something intriguing, something possibly helpful. It was long, and had an outrageously large spearhead. He stomped across the soft sand, sinking well past his ankles, and forced himself to bend at the waist. The surf had washed up a giant’s spear. It was a mighty weapon, too large for a man to use well. There was a notch on that two-foot, iron head. It was black iron, Bolverk-forged, something that might stab a trolock without shattering.

He hefted the spear, the oaken shaft that to a man would seem more like a pole. Once, as Lord Skarpaler, he’d wielded such weapons, although smaller. He’d been quite skilled with the spear, able to hurl it through hoops the size of dinner plates from fifty yards away. His granite smile grew. Perhaps he could use the spear to slay Nephilim. A Nephilim soul, as it departed to otherworldly realms, roared with a hot breath. It always quickened him more than mere humans did. Animals, unfortunately, gave him nothing.

Then his holy quest overwhelmed him, and he knew rage. “Desecrater,” he rumbled, thinking of the First Born who had dared enter the crypt of Draugr Trolock-Maker. The arrogant First Born would warm him better than any Nephilim would, better even than a tribe of men. He would bask in such a death and gain greater quickness from it. Perhaps once, long ago in the past, he’d fought beside such beings, but the old days of glory had passed.

He who had been Lord Skarpaler turned east. The First Born had marched in that direction, so he would follow. The littered, broken corpses on the beach showed him that men still warred against Nephilim. As valuable as the spear was, this knowledge was more so.

Before he met the arrogant First Born, he must wax strong on a diet of death. He must quicken himself into an all-conquering warrior. Only thus would he honor his Master’s memory and keep his own terrible promises. Only thus would he right the horrible wrong done in Draugr’s Crypt.