A Giant's Heart: Chapter 4

I brought a lightstone with me but kept it in my pocket as the bright moonlight provided me more than illumination to make my way through this very familiar wood.  Moving swiftly though silently I retrace the steps of my shameful retreat as I stoke my anger and my pride with each step.  My wife’s return had been a good reminder to what I was protecting behind me.  This…thing would show no mercy to good people of this land.  I would end this menace quickly and be done with it.  These were human lands now.  Monster and giants were not welcome here any longer.  One firm thrust through the heart then the scavengers and carrion eaters could have all three of their enormous rotting corpses. With hateful heat in my belly I barely feel the cool night air on my face.

As I near the area where I had first heard their voices I slow my pace, my senses at full alert.  Hearing nothing I pad my way forward.

In the gully I see the bodies of the two elder giants laying where I left them.  However, the younger one was nowhere in sight.  My eyes dart left and right to ensure I wasn’t in danger before I pan the ground for clues.  It didn’t take long to find the trail of blood, inky black in the moonlight, leading off into the forest.  The giant had lived long enough to drag herself from the gully.  Drawing my sword I set out to follow where the trail leads.

I don’t have to go far.  I hear the giant before I actually see it.  Loud, ragged breathing punctuated by bouts of intense shivering.  I grip my sword harder and creep forward.  I see feet sticking out from beneath where a great boulder jutted out over a small rise in the earth.  There is no disruption, no sudden movements.  It had no idea I was there.  From just the feet and the sound of the breath I can already picture the entirety of the body laid out in the hollow.  I knew just where I would strike.  I wouldn’t even have to look at it and those accursed human like eyes.

Carefully I let a long quiet breath out of my lungs, the air cold enough now that I could see, and tense for one swift strike.

And then I hear…singing.

In a small, dry, raspy voice that I could barely make out the giant was singing a sad tune.  It stops me dead in my tracks.  As I listen to the simple song I realize it was a lullaby.  Not meant to be sorrowful but absolutely heart wrenching as sung by this creature as it waited for death to claim it.  A song from childhood, taught to her by the now slaughtered parents who so savagely beat her earlier that day.

It was so sad yet so beautiful.

I do not lunge around but slowly walk, mesmerized by her heartbroken melody.  She lays out before me, her thick broken body clad in patchwork rags and furs eerily still and her head resting against the rise beneath the boulder.  As she sees me the song ends and she lay shivering in the cold quiet night.  A ray of radiant white moonlight illuminates her face.  Blood matted her thick hair and streaked down her face.  Her dirty cheeks are streaked with dried tears.  Her rich amber eyes glow like warm hearth coals in the darkness as they look at me.

There was no fear in her, no frantic pleading, only acceptance.  Acceptance and relief.

Closing her eyes she takes in a shuddering breath and I swear I see her smile, though it is gone a moment later, and she starts to sing once more.  The same words, the same tune, the same tiny rasping voice, but this time the joy of the song shines through.  This was a woman who had known good times, at least in her youth.  In my minds eye I could see her swaddled as a babe in her parent’s arms as they sang her this song with love and with hope.  What had gone so wrong for them?   She opens her eyes again and stares into the heavens as tears begin stream from her eyes anew.

My sword hand, normally as steady as steel, begins to tremble.

Internally I am screaming at my body to do the deed. This was the enemy.  This was a threat.  This was an agent of evil and I a soldier of good in the eternal struggle for this world.  This thing didn’t feel what I did, didn’t have the values that I did.  Giants had no love or hope or good times.  Their only joy was their next raid, their next victim.  They did not love their children like we did.  This thing at my feet was simply a wounded beast that had to be put down.  But nothing I did could bring my arm to raise in violence.

“Stop singing.”  I command her in a hard authoritative voice.  “I am here to kill you monster.”

I don’t know if she understood me but she does stop her song.  Her gaze lowers to meet mine and her head tilts slightly.  All goes still, the only motion the white clouds of our breath illuminated by the moon.  I knew what to do but my body would not obey.  With a shaking hand she points at me, to my face, then brings her fingers to her own cheeks to daub the tears.  With my free hand I reach up and swipe at my own cheek to feel my own tears dampening my skin.  Furiously I wipe them away.

“Stop it!”  I bark angrily as I raise my magical sword.  “How are you doing this!?  I hate you! I hate you monster!”

She nods in approval at my rage and reaches out for my blade, motioning for me to end her life.  The blade sings through the air as I swipe it in her direction though well short of hitting her.

“I hate you!”  I scream.  “I hate you with every fiber of my soul!  You kill, you pillage, you destroy every good thing you touch.  You savage!”

“K…kill…”  She croaks weakly, begging me to end her suffering.

I step forward to put her within reach of my blade.  “I will kill you!  I will kill you monster!  You filthy disgusting monster!”  My arm shakes, my body trembles, tremors come through in my pained voice.  “I…I…I hate you!  I’ll…kill you.  I hate…you!”  My tears are flowing freely down my cheeks.  They would not be contained.  Decades of bottled up trauma burst from me in a single shouted word.  “WHY!?”

My bellow echoes through the trees and the giant takes in a sharp breath as she tilts up her head and closes her eyes to prepare for the killing blow that was surely coming.

But it does not come.

I couldn’t do it.  What made her life so different from the legions before her?  I could not say.  But I simply could not do it.  There was no force I could muster to bring myself to harm this poor beaten woman.  My arm slumps to my side as I look at her in defeat.  “Why?”  I whisper as if she somehow had the answer.

Sheathing my sword I then fall to my knees beside her.  Even in her state she could kill me with one squeeze of her great hand but I do not care.  I had already been bested by her and death was a natural consequence of defeat.  Besides, what good is a warrior who would not kill?  What is the point of a hero that could not even defend his own land?  I had only been good at one thing.  One thing.  And this giant woman took that from me as surely as I took her parents from her.  It would be some sort of justice for us to die together.

On my knees, shoulders slumped, head bowed, arms limp at my sides I cry, really and truly cry, for first time since childhood.

Chapter 5