Giants Above Nashkel

By the second morning, Kora no longer asked Maeril whether the weather would turn.

She asked when.

The others took longer. Maeril sent her hawk above open ground and matched its sight against the mud beneath her boots, the birds in the hedges, and the wind along her cheek. She called rain before it reached the wagons. She pointed out ruts whose gravel hid black mud.

At one narrow cut, she ordered the animals led across and the wagons brought through one at a time. Kora silenced the first objection before Maeril had finished pointing.

By the third evening, Darran consulted Maeril before choosing a halt. The children’s grandmother asked about weather before distance. Kora began giving the necessary orders while Maeril’s hand was still raised.

Then the Cloud Peaks filled the southern sky.

Nashkel received them with too many wagons standing still.

Caravans crowded the square, the inn yard, and the warehouse road. Some had been backed against walls and stripped of their teams. Oxen stood unharnessed beneath wet canvas. Guards gathered in knots without resting or working. Drovers argued over small things because the large thing waited above town.

Even the two children fell silent.

Darran drew up before the lead wagon had fully entered the yard. His eyes passed over the halted teams, the idle guards, and the upper road. His face tightened as if he had felt a wheel begin to wobble beneath him.

Maeril came to Rishi’s side.

“This is not delay,” she said. “This is fear with nowhere to go.”

A local guard met Darran near the inn. Weariness dragged at his face, the kind earned by repeating bad news to people determined to blame the speaker.

“No one takes the upper road. Not today. Not tomorrow, unless someone changes the mountain’s mind.”

Darran looked beyond the roofs to where cloud lay across the pass. “Start with what you saw.”

“Rocks. Screeching from the high gullies. Two giants seen clearly enough to end the argument about shadows.”

A drover nearby spat into the mud.

“One carried a tree,” the guard added.

Maeril lifted her brows. “A tree?”

“Stripped trunk. Used it like a club.”

“Subtle.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Rishi looked toward the road climbing out of town. “Two giants.”

The nearest merchants shifted at the words.

“Two we know of,” the guard said. “Kobolds hold the lower gullies. They screech at night and scatter when patrols approach. Enough noise and movement to keep every eye below the ridge.”

He rubbed a hand across his mouth.

“The wagons are hit from above. One team was crushed. The driver lived long enough to wish he had not seen it.”

The people listening found their voices.

Iron Throne trouble. A mountain curse. Bandits paying monsters. Black Network insurance. Mine spirits. Angry gods. One man swore a ghost with a hammer had joined them.

Darran endured less than a minute.

He raised one hand. “Rumors do not crush caravans. Giants do.”

The local guard’s shoulders lowered.

Darran turned to Kora. “We stay.”

“I’ll set watches and put our guards to work.”

Then Darran looked at Maeril.

“What can you tell me that they cannot?”

Maeril studied the road above town. “I can tell you after I look.”

The local guard frowned. “You want to go up there?”

“No. I have an uncommon fondness for my skull.”

She touched one of the feathers tied beneath the crown of her staff.

Pale wings unfolded from empty air. Her ash-grey hawk settled on the wood, talons closing beneath its breast. The local guard stepped back, and the drover behind him ducked beneath a wing.

Maeril lifted the staff clear of their heads.

“Follow the road up. Circle the ridge, high, then come back.”

The hawk turned its head toward the pass and launched. Its wings swept above the listening merchants, cleared the inn roof, and carried it out over the halted wagons.

For a few moments, everyone watched it go.

Maeril drew a breath and looked through its eyes.

Roofs slid beneath her. The yard spread into a tangle of canvas and wagon beds, with barely room between them for the teams. At her feet, mud held the end of her staff. A harness chain rattled close by while wind rushed past the hawk’s head.

She followed the upper road as it climbed between dark slopes and bent beneath a ridge cut by narrow gullies.

A flash of crude metal caught her eye among the lower rocks. A kobold crouched there, facing the road. Beyond it, more shapes moved through the gullies.

“The kobolds have watchers over the approach. Others moving between the gullies.”

The local guard lowered his gaze from the sky to her face.

“You can see them now?”

“And the stones above them. Stacked behind braces, right over the bend.”

Her fingers tightened around the staff. From the road, a driver would be watching the gullies. From above, she could see how carefully the weight had been placed over his head.

Darran came closer. “Where are the giants?”

The hawk climbed past the lip of the ridge. Giant tracks broke the wet ground beyond it, leading to a camp hidden from the road. Two enormous figures moved between a low fire and the prepared stones. Beside one lay the stripped trunk witnesses had mistaken for a tree because it still was one.

“Behind the ridge. Two of them. One has your tree.”

The guard looked toward the pass again. Maeril kept her attention on the camp as the hawk circled high above it. Kobolds below, giants above, stones waiting over the only road wide enough for wagons.

“They are working together, not merely hunting the same ground. Someone organized them.”

Darran looked back at his wagons.

The hawk banked toward Nashkel. Maeril followed its view of the ridge until the camp passed out of sight, then let the borrowed vision go. The guard stood with his mouth set, waiting beside her in the mud.

“Did anything see the hawk?” Rishi asked.

“Perhaps. Nothing raised an alarm.” She rubbed one thumb against the grain of her staff. “A hawk is visible. What it is may not be. I did not stay long enough to test how clever they were.”

Rishi’s jaw tightened.

“Which is evidence of wisdom and growth,” Maeril said. “Very irritating.”

Darran turned to the local guard. “Bring your maps. We need a table.”

He led them through the knot of listeners and into the inn. Maeril followed with Rishi beside her, ducking her staff beneath the lintel. In the crowded common room, Kora found space at the end of a long table and drew the bench back so they could gather around it.

Darran weighted one bad map with a mug while Kora and the guard spread out two worse sketches. Maeril leaned over them and traced the bend she had seen from above.

Darran tapped the road below her finger.

“Can the wagons pass?”

“No,” Maeril and Rishi said together.

Darran looked between them.

Rishi touched the narrow bend on the sketch. “Not while the stones remain above it.”

Kora leaned over the table. “Stones first.”

“Stones first,” Rishi said. “Then giants.”

“Preferably before the giants notice how attached everyone is to breathing,” Maeril added.

The local guard rubbed both hands over his face. “You are talking about going up there.”

“We are talking about not sending wagons beneath murder-rocks and hoping optimism has structural value.”

Kora marked the table with two fingers. “Wagons stay. Guards go light. Spears, swords, shortbows. No one comes who cannot climb, keep quiet, and stay useful while afraid.”

The local guard straightened, ready to object.

Darran stopped him. “Kora chooses.”

She nodded once.

Maeril looked at Rishi. “Where does he go?”

Kora measured his robes, sandals, staff, calm hands, and lack of armor.

“Somewhere he does not get squashed before he pokes something useful with that stick.”

Rishi inclined his head.

Maeril pressed her lips together.

Kora narrowed her eyes. “Problem?”

“None. Please continue.”

Kora returned to the maps.

Darran kept one hand on the edge of the parchment. “I stay here with the wagons. The family and the cargo remain in Nashkel.”

“I’ll take a small group,” Kora said. She marked a place below the giant camp with one finger. “We hold here. But someone still has to reach those stones.”

“I will,” Rishi said.

Kora looked up from the map. “How do you get past them?”

“Without being seen,” Maeril said. “I can hide him. I’ll watch the ridge through the hawk.”

“Do you need anyone with you?”

“No. I go in alone.” Rishi traced the road beneath the prepared stones. “This must be empty before I bring them down.”

Darran looked at Maeril. “Can you see that stretch from above?”

“Yes. I’ll check it before he goes.”

Kora studied the bend, then moved her finger back to the place she had marked.

“We hold until the stones have fallen. Then we face the giants.”

Maeril looked at Rishi’s hand resting beside the trap.

“I liked this better when it was someone else’s bad news.”

Kora lifted her eyes from the map. “We leave tomorrow. Before dawn.”

Maeril closed her eyes. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Dawn and I have never reached a lasting agreement.”

“Dawn does not negotiate.”

Maeril opened one eye. “That explains much.”

Kora took up her spear. “Sleep if you can. Complain if you must. Move when I say.”

Maeril looked at Rishi. “See? This is why I like her.”

Wind pressed cold against the inn walls.

Above Nashkel, the road waited beneath cloud, stone, and two giants who did not yet know it had begun to answer.