A lazy sun rose over distant planes of Eastern Joyce and languidly dropped daylight across the seven kingdoms beyond.
Despite the occasional war–often kicked off just to keep the soldiers on their toes–these merry kingdoms had coexisted in the pleasant harmony of free trade and open border crossings; seven rulers all united under the banner of ‘together we are strong’.
Their lands sung with life, verdant grasslands of synonym laden beauty, thriving forests that shaded the many rivulets and dappled glades with the tactile quality of a well-placed metaphor; the steppes of Eastern Joyce were dotted with such an understated beauty that they appeared to have been created by the gods in a neo-minimalism phase. Like a sheaf of wheat these days seemed to be so tightly bundled in joy that a lesser poet would describe them as halcyon, the river of life seemed to be ever flowing, a lazy meandering tide that rolls through shaded brook-
-but a rumble was soon heard from the East.
Footprints three chains to a length had recently been seen along the coastline and several diminutive fishing shacks had since been levelled by a force yet unknown. Theories of wild magic and gravitationally challenged wizards had been tossed about carelessly by the oligarchy, but in terms of a thing that you could physically hit with a big sword and then call a heathen, there was nothing to be known. Giants were suspected of course, those down-stalked marauders of bloodlust and little mercy*. They were once known, in story, to have trampled over these lands in their mighty stride, flattening the earth and stealing its riches before returning to the kingdom of clouds.
‘If they return we’re as good as grinded bread!’ the council of Durrak unhelpfully decreed, ‘We must construct a wall,’ the regent of Gerund Lea ordered without the necessary material or labour force. A secret panic had begun to snake across the Eastern Steppes, a fissure of disharmony that threatened to undo this time of peace.
***
‘Giants? You mean those big blokes from the picture books?’ yawned Aya as she sat in the back of the wagon and attempted to obscure the small fire she had set to boil her kettle.
It had been a long journey, two lifetimes of fretful nights spent under stars and now she was seriously beginning to question when she would get to have a good cup of tea again.
‘Well, I doubt that picture-based scholars have fully researched giants in their totality,’ Carrick replied dourly, ‘but yes I think that would be a good guess.’
Looking around at the footprints that strode over the horizon, Carrick was stuck as to where a creature would get enough leather to make a shoe so large. Shaking the distracted thought away he squinted into the distance.
‘Rust bucket awake yet?’ he asked, turning his borrowed horse around with great difficulty and looking back to the post wagon. Many days ago, Carrick, the magically disinclined, had been forced to deliver a letter of significant importance to the only knight that could save the realm.
Unfortunately for the realm this storied Guard Captain was a past-his-prime drunkard who had very recently slept in a creek bed while wearing full plate armour.
‘Nah, still snoring like a babe; how do you think this bundle of armour will go fighting a giant anyway?’ laughed Aya as she kicked her heels back and patted the driver of the cart, a twice kidnapped postman by the name of Sunny, on the shoulder.
Stopping her laugh in a splutter, Aya coughed up a plume of smoke that made her eyes water and then watched a patch of ash trail off into the careless pull of the wind, she must have been getting sick**.
‘If I ever cast a spell again, he’ll have just killed a giant,’ replied Carrick, still decrypting the controls of a horse, and testing out when he should make tck tck noises or yell the hi yah sounding ones.
Days of aimless lethargy are often preceded by the curse of alcohol and through some ever-expanding trail of bibliosity, this merry group had united themselves together under the pretences of a grog induced tipple. A drunk; an silver lining addled postwoman; a wizard without a spell-book; and a short tempered Lundrian, these were the heroes sent to meet the advancing giants, these were the stained-glass window-in-waiting types that were operating under a decree of go and have a look for us would you?
‘What if they’re just wanting to say hello?’ said Sunny dreamily.
Now more or less recovered from her concussion the postwoman still appeared to be suffering from the effects of a wandering mind, leading her friends to silently agree that she had misplaced a few of her more attentive marbles and was always like this, ‘say they’re out of sugar or something and they’ve popped over the ocean to borrow some?’
‘Giants live in the sky, Sunny, and from the looks of this crater their way of saying hello is by stepping on the roof,’ trotting up beside the wagon, Carrick withdrew a box of mints from his pocket and offered them to the cart, ‘the Captain’s plan was to halt their march by a blockade but in seeing this I feel like they’re just going to step over us and our tremendous frontline of four people.’
‘We also have two and a half horses,’ said Aya unhelpfully, pointing to the horse that Carrick rode with a flourish of her hand and taking the opportunity to throw the still burning coals out of the wagon, ‘Ouch…I mean, the poor fella looks a bit tree-touched after the captain’s triumphant first charge.’
The captain of the royal guard of Gorey soared loudly from his alcoholic stupor in reply. Hugging at a bag of undelivered mail he pulled a blanket over his head and sighed happily.
Just hours ago, Aya had watched this hero of the realm bellow ‘tally-ho’ at some spectre–or small bird–in the distance and ide his horse at full gallop into a tree. Questionable actions such as there were leading her to doubt some of the numerable medals that were riveted onto his breastplate. Turning around and sitting next to Sunny, Aya took a sip of tea and began to roll a mudwort cigar.
‘I heard those make your teeth fall out,’ muttered Sunny, slightly shivering against the edges of winter that were beginning to rake their frost covered claw across the day.
‘So does annoying someone with a good enough right hook,’ Aya muttered, lighting her cigar with a click and reaching into her potion bag to withdraw a battered old scarf, ‘when this is all said and done you and I are going to have a long drink and then have an even longer pail of laughs, trust me,’ dropping the scarf over Sunny’s head, Aya put her feet up and began to sneeze. ‘God it’s hot today…’
*Often considered to be the only little thing attributed to any giant.
**Lundrians are a curious race of humans with a very minor kinship to the everburning flame. Able to impart a small control of fire, they are known to emit smoke when ill. This, as opposed to catching a cold, is termed by the people as catching a warm.
J.McCray
2021
Sunday Short Stories 