Soon the shape of a collapsed humanlike thing of huge size came into view. He was half-lying on the ground and half-propped against a tree. The giant did seem to be human in general proportions, but more heavily limbed than any humanfolk, and much taller. Sprawled as he was, it was hard to tell, but he was probably eight or nine feet. With a sudden jerk of his neck, the giant looked around at them. Light from above shone against his eyes and they reflected a blue and startling glow. There were other odd features. Two ram-like horns stood on his brow, curling gracefully back in a sweep of ivory and grey. His hair glistened, as if it were full of frost.
As they approached, the blue-lit gaze held steady, took them in, unblinking, eerie.
Caewen drew her sword and light shone along its edge, flickering with its own eerie and summer-green hues. “Name yourself,” she said, voice low and near a whisper, hard as steel.
The creature took in a breath of ragged air, made to say something but was wracked by coughing. Blue-grey blood dribbled over his lower lip. “I am not long for this world,” he rumbled when words did come. His voice was deep and ancient sounding.
“That is not a name,” said Dapplegrim. “Unless your parents disliked you very much.”
At this distance, the dying creature’s features were clearer to see. His face was made up of hard planes, with a grittiness to his skin and deep rutted whorls where tattoos had been carved long ago. The hair of his head and his thin beard were both as white as moonlight on fresh cut chalk. And his eyes maintained that glimmering of glacial blueness.
After a long indrawn breath he murmured, “Eold. My name in the tongue of my people is Eold, though it does not matter. The dead do not remember their names. But who are you?” He shook his head. “No. That does not matter either. There is no flame about you, and that is good. Whoever you are, chance-met travellers, wanderers in the woods, you must listen to me, listen, listen… please…”
Caewen frowned. “Let us ask questions first. Who are your people? I’ve travelled some leagues over this world, and I’m fairly sure that I’d remember having ever heard of anything like you?”
Dapplegrim snorted. “And I’ve wandered even farther than her. I’m quite certain that I’d remember anything of your ilk. I’ve never smelled a scent like yours, nor set my eyes on such a face.” He stepped forward and moved to one side, circling slightly, his gaze suspicious. “What are you? Some creature out of folktale? A god-born giant? A servant of the Queen of the Night. An eater of flesh, gobbet-by-gobbet, singing silly rhymes, and such and so forth?”
“What?” said the wounded giant.
“What?” echoed Caewen. “No. Stop. Ignore Dapplegrim. He’s just being… well he’s just being Dapplegrim. But the question stands. What is your blood and kin? To whom do you owe fealty?”
He breathed a heavy and whispering sigh. “Eotayn, we are called. Though there are other names, like roots dangling wetly from a tree. Eten. Yetun. Jutel. Jette. And other names aside.” His breath made a grating, wheezing noise. “We are an old people, and old things gather many names. We are no Night-Queen fawners, my folk. But we are no Day-Queen fawners neither. The Eotayn are our own people. We were here when the Queen of the Night and Chaos was a young wandering slip in the mist and darkness, and we will be here when the twin goddesses are memories of memories, all gone to dust.”
Caewen considered this. She lowered her sword’s tip a little. “So what are you doing then, sneaking about? The Hobs-Houlard have seen your kind wandering abroad–as if you were hunting about for something. Or spying. And at least one of your kind has put unkind spells on Hobbes in owl shape.”
“Right that is,” added Fleat. “Don’t trust this great clump of a cretin. Put a sword through his throat–or do not–but let’s not chatter with him. Such weird folks can have the power to charm in their voices. It’s dangerous to talk to eldritch things.”
Says he whom turns into an owl, thought the boy. He almost said it aloud, but caught himself. The mood was too tense. Jokes were not what wanted at this moment. Even Dapplegrim’s idle ramblings had eased themselves away.
The boy looked into the giant’s eyes. He saw a light of pain and fear. This huge creature, whose flesh and skin looked as if it were carved from stone and ice was afraid. It was a humbling thought. Nothing wants to die, thought the boy. Not even monsters.
Caewen slid her sword away then and lifted a waterskin out of the bag she had slung over a shoulder. The Eotayn watched the blade disappear into its sheath, emotionless but attentive.
“The sword interests you?” she asked.
“It is very old. You do not know what you carry, if you carry it so lightly.” His voice grated and caught like rocks rubbing together.
“And what do I carry?”
He shook his head and the movement made him wince. Muscles tensed all over his face. “An old thing. A magic thing. That is all.”
She offered the water. “Thirsty?”
“Yes. But I am dying. There’s no point in watering a scorched tree. Save it for yourself.” He coughed and pale blood foamed at the corners of his mouth. “Do not drink from the stream that runs here in the woods. It is bewitched. I made that error, and afterward I was walking about in a daze. When the servants of the flame found me, I was not in my fit mind. I could not fight them off. They ambushed me easily.” He twitched, as if he suddenly remembered he had something important to say. “They are loosed! That is what you must know–” his eyelids drew wide until the eyeballs trembled subtly in their sockets. “The hounds are loosed from their leashes. The hound-master sends them out. They will wake the sundered tribe. They will change the very nature of night and day. Summer and winter. All will be thrown down, like a tower brought to shattered ruin.” He looked at them all in the eyes, one after the other. “You must carry the warning. Tell them all. There is a plan to wake the sundered tribe. Their master moves quietly. No one even sees it.”
“Do you mean the Queen of the Night?” asked Dapplegrim, confused. “Or do you mean her son, the Winter-King?”
The giant gave a sputtering laugh and more blood bubbled over his lower lip. It was almost white in colour, though streaked with darker clots. “No. No! Not the Queen of the Night, fool horse. She has been deceived too. And her followers. Just as everyone has been tricked.”
“The Goddess of the Sun then,” said Caewen flatly. “She has sent these… servants of flame?”
“No,” He calmed a little. “I am beset by idiots. No,” he whispered. “Fools. Fools. Fools. The other goddess. Not day. Not night. The other goddess. If you go with haste you might catch her whispering lies into the oracle of the pool. The lies she whispers will be whispered to the witch-prince, and he will take them to his Lords and Ladies, and then the war will deepen. Night will rise. Day will retaliate. And in the end, the sundered tribe will awaken. They have been so long locked and bound. You do not know fury, young creatures. You do not know strife. You do not know what wars were like in the time before the gods that made the gods walked this clay-made world.” He settled a little into himself. His shoulders slumped. “But I do. I remember.” At that point his left hand, which had been clutched against his side spasmed, and gave way: gore, blood and viscera poured out of a gaping wound. “I am dying,” he managed to say. “Aught can be done for me, but if you can reach the pool in time, if you can stop her whispering her lies… tell my people… the sundered will awake… tell them…” He muttered more words, and they were nothing more than a babbling in some weird and ancient language that sounded like rocks speaking. Not long after, the light went out of his eyes.
“Whatever could kill such a great creature is a power to reckon with,” said Dapplegrim. “I’m not sure I could kill this one in a fair fight, or an unfair one for that matter. Look at his axe.” The dead giant did have a huge axe made of silver and sea ivory beside him. The blade’s edge was singed and notched as if he had used it to hew at burning stones.
“Agreed. We should hurry back to the stream and make our way along it.” Caewen stood tensely, turning her gaze back to the shallow gully where the brook ran cool and silent and slow. “I don’t know what is afoot, but I’m starting to worry that Athairdrost’s Old Great Spell is only the tip of things.”