Giants Read Free Page A

mail, stabbing into Herrek’s side. The force of the blow snapped Herrek off his feet. He crashed backward, thudding onto sand.
    Joash moaned, and he launched himself from where he’d panted. Balak whirled. The beastmaster had fantastic reserves of strength and stamina. A grin spread across his coarse face. Joash hurled his fistfuls of sand. It was a basic tactic, but it worked, maybe because even beastmaster’s cannot run and fight forever. Balak bellowed angrily, wiped at his stung eyes, and swung his knife in an arc. He cut Joash in the hip. Then Joash crashed against huge Balak, staggering the massive man.
    Bleeding and exhausted, Joash sank onto the sand.
    Balak blinked wildly and rubbed his eyes. He snarled when he could see again. The warrior stood before him, waiting.
    “You should have attacked while I—”
    Balak didn’t have time to finish his admonishment. The warrior lunged, sinking his sword into Balak’s throat. A few moments later, the beastmaster crashed dead onto the sand.
    Herrek of Teman Clan looked gravely upon Joash. Blood leaked from the warrior’s chainmail where he held his hand. “Your lunge at him was unfair,” the warrior said. “I don’t approve, as we fought in single combat. But I’m alive and so are you. And it appears I now owe you my life.”
    “I owe you mine,” Joash said.
    The warrior nodded curtly and turned away. When he regarded Joash again, the warrior asked, “Do you follow Elohim?”
    “Now I do,” Joash said.
    The warrior rubbed his chin. “You’re bleeding. Let’s patch that…then you’d better join me. Gog claims this land, and the sooner we’re gone, the better for both of us. Yes?”
    Joash nodded, too tired to say anything more.

Chapter Two
    Sabertooths

    “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
    -- Numbers 13:32-33

    Two Years Later

    The Elonite expedition into Giant Land was daring. Seldom did human ships disgorge warriors onto these wind-swept shores. When they did, it was usually so the warriors could gain the vainglorious trophies of mammoth, sabertooths, or great sloth. Then they hastily retreated to their ships and sailed for safety. That Lord Uriah, a patriarch of two peoples, and well over five hundred years old, had come to Giant Land to capture steppe ponies verged on madness.
    However, for ten lucky days the Elonite charioteers had roamed the steppes unharmed. For ten fortuitous days, because no giants were seen, the charioteers cut selected stallions from the herds, and took them to the camp at Hori Cove where they stayed.
    On the eleventh day, several unusual incidents occurred. Those with the giftcould have read the signs and foretold the future, because like a cold gust on a muggy summer day the incidents gave warning of the hurricane to come. Unfortunately, fortune-tellers, like weathermen, did their best work from hindsight. Therefore, the Elonites did as others and stumbled from one moment to the next, unaware that the signposts to the future had given their final warning.
    ***
    Long-limbed Joash skidded to a stop. He wore leathers, crisscrossing leather straps—one held a sloshing water-skin and the other his dagger—and he clutched a javelin. It was fashioned from black Tem wood, varnished smooth, and with a glinting bronze head, with the tiniest smear of blood on the tip.
    Beside Joash, panted a huge, lion-colored dog, with a blunt, wedge-shaped head and strangely bright brown eyes. He was a fighting beast, built to attack bears, cave lions and sabertooths.
    “Oh no,” Joash wheezed. “Look at the horses.”
    “...What about them?” his friend asked.
    In the distance, charioteers chased wild steppe ponies. Beyond the two-man chariots and the shaggy ponies waved brown summertime grass. Hidden hunters crouched there