The Path of Ravens (Asgard vs. Aliens Book 1) (7 page)

"Stop," I command quietly. None need
be told twice, most not even once. A few Atlanteans begin to draw
their weapons, but at my silent urging they stop, if reluctantly. I
have explained to them already my intention not to make enemies
needlessly.

I suck in more than my share of the chill air
and call out, "Is anyone there?"

Silence. I repeat the greeting, again to no
answer.

"Shall we enter?" Kairos asks. His
deference surprises me; he owes me none.

"Perhaps you should try your famous luck,"
I answer. "Alone."

I am only half serious, but Kairos shrugs and
stalks forward fearlessly, sword sheathed and hand not even ready on
its grip. While the rest of us watch with held breath, he mounts the
rocks and starts the short climb up to the wide, dark opening that is
not penetrated by the sky's dull pink glow. He is nearly there when
it occurs to me that even though he is ostensibly the one walking
into danger, the rest of our company, focused intently on him, could
just as easily fall victim to misfortune. The thought causes me to
spin and scan the sparse trees behind us for unseen threats.

I see no movement, nothing apart from the raven
circling us far overhead, an ever-present black dot against the
ever-present clouds.

"Be alert," I advise.

We begin watching for danger from all
directions, but mostly we watch Kairos, who has reached the cave
mouth. He pauses only briefly before stepping into it, into shadows,
vanishing from our sight. Long seconds pass. A minute or more, and
finally he reappears, waving us nearer.

"Come!"

Cautiously, I start forward. The rest follow.
Soon we all stand alongside Kairos just inside the cave's threshold,
peering inside, squinting until our vision settles. Shapes emerge
from what before seemed total darkness. With no doubt, this place is
a home—a dank, squalid one to be sure—but a home. To
what?

Assorted objects—apart from some bleached
bones, I cannot yet make out what they are—lie in piles along
the edges of the single room. Halfway in, a shallow depression is
ringed with ash and filled with charred fragments of wood, a fire
pit. Near the threshold on which we stand stands a large wooden frame
made from stripped branches bound neatly together with cord. From its
bars hang dark, irregularly-shaped objects which, as my eyes adjust,
I recognize as animal pelts hung out to dry.

Kairos taps my shoulder and calls my attention
to something. I squint at the spot and see leaning against the wall
an ax. By its shape, I recognize it to be more tool than weapon, but
what alarms me is its size: the handle is at least as tall as I am,
the head's curved cutting edge as long as my arm.

I know now what sort of creature calls this cave
home and what sort of being is native to this world in which we find
ourselves.

It is a land of giants.

As quickly as dread surges within me, I quash
it, remembering what iridescent-haired Iris said of Pyrakmon, and my
own experience of the giant who gave his life for us. Size alone does
not make one fearsome or savage.

"Could this land belong to Pyrakmon's
people?" I ask any of the Chrysioi.

Iris answers. "The Cyclopes were of Ocean.
Poseidon's whole kingdom was first to fall before the swarm. Pyrakmon
was the last of his people."

I announce to all, "We mustn't be inside
this home when its owner returns."

I remove myself from the cave entrance and
motion for the rest to do likewise. They do—except for Kairos,
who ventures deeper in.

Suddenly it becomes apparent to me why his luck
can prove detrimental to those around him. When one man of a company
is fearless, he invariably will take risks which expose the rest to
danger.

"Come back!" I demand.

Ignoring me, he stands in the center of the
wretched dwelling, looking about. I race forward, grab his wrist and
tug him back. To my relief, he permits himself to be led, retreating
behind me to the cave mouth. Thinking the job done, I release my
grasp only to turn around moments later to find him inspecting the
hanging pelts.

"These would be useful against the chill of
night."

I stalk over and resume pulling him. "They
are not worth our lives."

"Before we leave, we may as well take what
we need."

"We are not leaving," I correct him.
"We shall wait here and greet the giant when he returns."

This being day's end, our wait is not long.

We hear the cave-dweller before we see him.
Plodding, heavy footfalls snap twigs. There is a wheezing 
breath, a cough—and then, through the forest, we glimpse a
large, dark shape moving. We wait and watch and do not breathe. Using
the trees for a sense of scale, I deem the giant to be at least as
tall as Pyrakmon, though not as broad or as thick; rather he is lanky
and long of limb. Although his face is scarcely visible as yet, the
shadowed pits under the brim of his leather cap suggest not a single
eye but two.

Oblivious to our presence, the giant comes
closer. Dressed in hide leggings and a vest of skin and fur, he grips
in one hand a tall spear that extends several feet above his head.
Often he is forced to level the weapon and stoop in order to pass
under branches which to one of his stature count as low-hanging. His
other arm is bent back, bearing the weight of some burden slung over
his shoulder.

I know it rests upon me to initiate contact, to
decide what to say and when. My words and actions here might
determine the shape of our future in this world.

Before addressing the giant, I whisper to our
party, "Should he attack us, retreat. Do not fight him except to
stay alive." Then, with a deep breath I stand and wave an arm
high above my head in greeting and cry out, "Ho there, friend!"
Since he may not know the speech of the Chrysioi—in fact
probably does not—I make sure to smile. I have told the others
to do so as well, and a few actually manage it—Kairos, the
would-be thief, most of all.

The thudding footsteps halt, and with a grunt,
the giant looks up. He is yet too far away for me to discern whether
there is anger in his eyes, but certainly there is surprise.

I do not wish to leave him too long with his own
thoughts, lest he presume us hostile.

"We are lost and mean no harm!" I say.

The giant tosses down the burden on his back,
and near me Iris gasps. "Perseus...!" she breathes in a
horrified whisper.

Tearing my eyes briefly from the giant, who
grips his long spear in both hands and tilts it in our direction, I
see that the burden freshly dropped is the bloodied corpse of the
Chrysioi captive who escaped us. I had not until now known his name.

Many Atlantean hands, against my instructions,
fall to sword hilts. The Chrysioi would surely do the same, were they
armed. I spread my empty arms wide, putting myself between the giant
and our tense party of thirty-six. The giant looses a sharp grunt,
then a few more. Only belatedly do I realize they must be words,
gruffly delivered in some tongue unknown to me.

"I fail to understand you, friend!" I
call back. "We—"

He cuts me off with another string of terse
grunts which leave little doubt but that he views us as unwelcome
intruders.

He roars and takes a great, lunging stride
toward us, thrusting with his spear. It is not a true attack but 
a feint meant to intimidate. It works, and in response, at least a
dozen Atlantean swords leave their scabbards in a chorus of metallic
scraping. A sound which may well herald the death of our chances for
peaceful coexistence in this world.

The giant yells again. They are words, I think,
and hostile ones.

"Put away your swords!" I tell my
brethren. Then, to the giant: "We will leave!"

Suddenly there is a flutter of black, feathered
wings in the space between us and the giant. The great raven settles
onto a tree bough there and crows twice, loudly. The giant looks at
the bird, then warily back at us. He sneers, spits in the bird's
direction, then roars—and he charges.

"Retreat!" I cry, pointing in the
direction I have already designated for such a need. In retrospect, I
might have positioned us better. Steep rocks lie directly behind,
preventing us from fleeing in a direct line away from the attack. I
might also have anticipated that being long of leg, giants could be
quite fast, as this one is. I am hardly certain we can outrun him.

While most of us flee in the direction I have
indicated, a few choose different paths—perhaps wisely, for the
giant cannot go in all ways. Yet again in retrospect, I recognize
that my particular command ought to have been to scatter. Should I
live to command again, I will learn from my errors.

A voice reaches my ears: "Lead him over
here!" It is Kairos. I turn my head and see that the lucky one
has not followed us. Instead he is clambering up the steep, rough
rocks which flank the giant's cave, and I see what he intends. With a
last look at the onrushing giant, I know I have bare seconds in which
to make my choice.

We will not be able to outrun our pursuer, not
all of us. His cries might well attract more of his kind, and we will
become hunted across a land unknown to us, to share a fate, perhaps,
with Perseus and the one-time owners of the gnawed bones littering
the floor of the giant's cave.

Halting the flight I have barely begun, I whirl
and draw my sword and slash broadly with it, hoping to attract the
giant's attention, all the while moving toward Kairos as he climbs
the rocks.

"Here, giant!" I cry for good measure.
"You want to fight? Fight me!"

The creature's arm is longer than my sword's
reach. Even without his great spear, he could pick me up  and
dash me on the rocks without ever giving me a chance to scratch him.
His angry gaze settles on me and he alters his course, choosing me as
his target.

That is exactly what I want him to do. If I am
wrong, it is a choice I will not live to regret.

I tun until I am right below Kairos, who is just
pulling himself up onto the flat, soil-covered top of the rock face
at my back, while in front of me is an armed, angry giant. I have no
escape. My life depends entirely upon the Chrysioi. I raise my puny
sword and set myself to receive the imminent attack. Since I cannot
risk taking my eyes off the giant, for all I know, having reached the
top, Kairos has decided to run off through the wood. I know him no
better than I know myself. Perhaps it is acts of cowardice and
deception that have kept him alive where others have fallen.

Not this day. As I feint left and right to avoid
the thrust of the huge spear and jab outward with my sword to inflict
what little injury I can, Kairos hurtles down into my field of
vision. Sword drawn, he lands on the giant's shoulder and plunges his
blade deep into its bare neck. The giant's spear-point strikes the
rocks near my feet, and I waste no time. Charging up the spear's
shaft, thick as a small tree,  I sink my blade into the giant's
belly. Hot blood rains down on me from above, where Kairos clings to
the giant's collar, stabbing him, and more flows over my own arms
from the wound I have created.

The giant falls toward me, the momentum of his
run carrying him forward. I slip out from under just in  time,
yanking my blade behind me, and he crashes down onto the rocks.
Kairos rides the body down, still stabbing, and then dismounts,
landing next to me.

We watch it warily, but the giant does not move
again. The swift battle is over. We are victorious. With considerable
help, I have slain my first giant. The triumph brings me no joy, no
exhilaration. I feel defeat and anger. We have come to this new land
seeking sanctuary and our first act is to kill one of its
inhabitants. It may not matter that he first killed one of ours, or
that we tried first to make peace. Have we but traded one enemy for
another?

Wearing a broad white grin under his mask of
fresh, red giant blood, Kairos evidently does not share my
misgivings: he and hoots and slaps my back in celebration.

I call out to the others who have run. They halt
in their flight and return.

"Others of his kind may be on the way,"
I say glumly to Kairos. "We must move."

Wiping his blade on the giant's clothes, the
Chrysioi moves toward the cave entrance. I know what he intends and
do not try to stop him. Now that we have killed, stealing from the
dead will not make our transgression significantly worse.

By now, most of our party has come drifting back
through the trees. Some laugh and shout congratulations. The
Chrysioi, however, apart from Kairos, are in no light mood. Iris
races to the side of her slain comrade, taking him into her arms in a
display of grief. Daphne and Aristaeus soon join her, more stoic in
their mourning.

"Carry the body for now," I tell
several Atlanteans. "When we are some distance from this place,
we will construct a bier."

The raven lights above the cave mouth.

"There's your feast, bird!" I shout to
it of the dead giant lying face down in a spreading pool of dark red
blood. "Now leave us alone!"

Not long after slaying the giant, we come to a
babbling stream. Racing up to it, we plant bellies on the muddy bank
and drink in great gulps from cupped hands. Those with wounds take
the chance to wash them properly. But I have no wish to linger, lest
the slain giant have friends inclined to avenge him. And so, even
though the light is failing, we press on, following the stream until
it spills from a great, craggy height into the mirrored surface of a
lake far below.

Spread before us, surrounding the lake, is a
thickly forested valley, the sight of which puts smiles on a great
many weary faces. It surely will be rich with game, and water is
plenty. We can survive there... if the natives do not prove too
numerous or hostile. We cannot reach the valley floor before full
dark, so I order camp made, though not within sight of the stream or
lake, on the reasoning that the giants might frequent them as sources
of fresh water or fish.