Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum (11 page)

Nissa spun in the air and was up the moment she hit the ground, but Sorin had not been so quick—he landed and lay motionless, slumped against the canyon wall.

The goblins drew their few remaining stone swords and looked at the head goblin, who looked back at them and frowned. He raised his sword for a charge and then lowered it again.

The trench giant rose up to its full height. Not quite as large as a proper giant, it reached the span of five human men and the width of a sizable cave. Its skin was the exact hue of the rock and the same roughness. The skin around its eyes and on its eyelids looked exactly like gravel. As she watched, the giant seized a goblin in its boulder-sized fist and snapped its head off with a deft nip. The blood spurted for a moment, and the giant waved the spurt in a merry pantomime. Then it chewed calmly on the head. Nissa could hear the goblin’s cranium crunching in the giant’s mouth.

It was surely the ugliest trench giant Nissa had ever seen. Stunted trees grew out of the crags that ran along its back. There were petroglyphs carved in its thigh. And even from where she stood, its breath was a foul miasma. But giants left scat, and that meant they had yeast in their stomachs and other small life. Nissa knew what she could do.

She planted her staff in the sand and whispered into the knot of carved wood on the top of it. And with the words of power, the staff started to hum in her hand as tendrils of mana wove up its shaft.

The giant tossed the body of the goblin aside and settled its gaze on Nissa. The ground shook when it took its first step toward her, and then the next; and then it was running full speed.

Nissa yanked up the tip of her staff and drew it level with the charging giant. The giant stooped down as it ran and brought its hand sweeping in from the right in a wide arc. Nissa stepped forward, bent her knees, and hopped straight up, and the giant’s hand rushed under her feet. Unbalanced with the lunge, it tripped and tumbled forward with a tremendous crash that brought down a small landslide at the edge of the canyon wall.

The speed with which the giant regained its feet surprised her. It hopped up, turned, and charged again. Nissa ran at the giant and leapt. She planted the tip of her staff on the giant’s forehead and vaulted over the top of it. The tremendous creature stopped and stood. From where Nissa landed some feet away, she could see from the cast of its eyes that something was wrong with the giant. The spot where she had planted her staff glowed slightly. Once she saw the glow, Nissa concentrated the mana in her fingertips and reached toward the giant’s stomach. She felt the
millions of tiny creatures living there move at her suggestion. In her mind she sang them into excitement, and in a moment the giant’s eyes went wide. Nissa tickled the flora in its stomach further, and the giant’s eyes screwed down in pain as its hands went to its belly.

As she concentrated, a drop of sweat ran down Nissa’s nose. She incited the small creatures in the giant’s stomach and intestines into higher and higher states of animation, and the giant fell to its knees. When she felt the giant had had enough, she severed her connection to the wildlife in the creature’s gut.

The giant slowly fell over with a tremendous thump.

Nissa turned, and was hit so hard that the world went suddenly black.

Then the colors filtered back into her eyes, the tips of her fingers and toes were tingling. She could not move her limbs. When the tingling receded and she felt in control of her body again, she sat up slowly. There was a bump on the back of her head the size of her fist.

Across the canyon Anowon was standing opposite a second giant, His hands still bound. As she watched, Sorin stumbled up from where he had been thrown. Nissa turned, looking for her staff. The first giant was still on the sand behind her holding its stomach.

Her staff was nowhere to be found.

Then she saw it pinched between the second giant’s thumb and forefinger. She stood and took a step and didn’t fall, so she took another. Soon she was ambling toward the giant. But Sorin was there first. He paused and took a deep breath and began to hum. The he started to chant the strange words she’d heard before, in the language with inflections like a wet fish flapping on a stream bank.

Nissa could see the effort tense Sorin’s body, but the effect was almost instantaneous. The giant’s body shuddered once, but did not fall. Sorin kept chanting, but the expression on his face told her that he was surprised by the giant’s resilience.

With its attention thus diverted, Anowon snatched another tooth from the folds of his clothes. The vampire took a running start, jumped, and executed a series of flips that landed him in front of the giant. The giant lifted a foot and tried to stomp it down on Anowon, but the vampire rolled away.

Nissa stopped short. She surely did not want to run through Sorin’s singing, but one look at his quivering legs, and Nissa knew he could not hold the song for much longer.

Anowon threw his tooth, and the giant’s leg turned to white marble up to the knee. The giant tried to turn, but the marble leg was slow to move.

Then the giant did something that Nissa never would have expected. It pointed Nissa’s own staff at her.
It will not function
, Nissa thought.
How can it?

But the staff did work. The giant became calm, and a tendril of magical energy shot out from the tip of the staff. Nissa had to leap forward and roll to avoid what enchantment the giant had managed to weave.

Sorin stopped singing and fell onto the sand. Anowon went through his pockets again.

Nissa rolled out of her tumble and into a standing position, just in time for the giant to kick at her with its good leg. Nissa jumped back to avoid the stony toenail as big as a battle shield. The giant pressed its advantage and stomped down at her, dragging its heavy marble leg. Nissa rolled away, but the giant raised its foot for another go.

Then Anowon threw another tooth, and the giant’s other leg whitened to marble.

The giant pulled and was able to drag one of its legs, and then another, but the effort of it was clearly too much to keep up.

“Give me my staff,” Nissa yelled up at the giant. “Or he will turn the rest of you to white stone.”

The giant brought Nissa’s staff up. It turned its head to the side and looked closely at it. Then it spoke. “If you turn me to white stone, you will turn your staff as well,” it said. The giant’s rumbling voice sounded like boulders moving under water in a river.

“It is only a piece of wood,” Nissa said. “I can make another.”

“Then you will not mind if I use it as a toothpick?”

Nissa tried to keep her face impassive. “Why would I mind? Except if you put it in your mouth the same thing will happen as happened there.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder at the other giant, still curled on the ground. As they watched, the giant moaned and rolled over onto its other side.

“Free him,” the giant said. “I will give you back your toothpick.”

“Give me my staff first,” Nissa replied. She knew better than to trust a giant. Any giant. They were known to be fickle and untrustworthy. Her eyes stopped on Anowon, still digging through his pockets.
Fickle
, she thought.
Not unlike vampires
.

Nissa heard Smara chanting from the other side of the canyon. The goblins clustered around the kor and watched the giant with faces like mushrooms.

“We are not here to bandy words with the likes of you,” Sorin said, suddenly next to her. He snapped, and Nissa’s staff jumped from between the giant’s fingers and into Sorin’s hand. He took it in both
hands and closed his eyes. For a moment he held the staff, and then his smuggest smile bloomed on his face. He handed Nissa the staff before turning to the giant.

“I may let my elf use her toy staff on you, too,” Sorin said. The giant on the ground moaned again.

“Soon the blood will come out from both ends,” Nissa said, looking at the giant on the ground.

“To where do you travel?” the giant said.

Nissa caught herself before she said too much. Giants were also shameless sellers of information if food was in the bargain.

“West,” Nissa said.

“In the Teeth,” Smara screamed suddenly. “In the Teeth.” The goblins standing around her were so shocked—by what Nissa was not entirely sure, they must surely be used to Smara’s screams—that some dropped their stone swords. The head goblin barked an order in the goblin tongue, and they picked up their swords again.

The giant made a face like it had bitten down on something bitter. It looked from the goblins to Nissa.

“Then you are walking to your death,” the giant said.

“What? Is your cooking kitchen ahead?” Sorin said.

The giant looked at Sorin curiously. Nissa had to stifle a laugh.
Do giants even cook?
she wondered.

“There is only the tentacled scourge in the trench ahead,” the giant said. “They have killed many of my kind.”

“Oh, not the tentacled scourge again?” Sorin said. “They’re everywhere … like elves.”

Nissa cocked her head for a look at Sorin. Perhaps he should be thrown against the canyon wall more often. It seemed to affect his mood for the better.

The giant bent its knees and lowered its voice. “I know a better way to travel to Zulaport,” it said.

“Why does that not surprise me,” Sorin said.

“Nobody said Zulaport,” Nissa said.

The giant smiled, showing teeth like gray, chipped flint.

Nissa sighed. “How far is this path?”

“Very close.”

“How does it pass through the land?

“My path moves through the Piston Mountains.”

“That way has perils,” Nissa said. And it did. She’d passed that way traveling to Ondu from Bala Ged. Four in her party had died, crushed between the mountains.

“You will not live if you do not change paths.”

“So you say,” Sorin said.

“Keep hushed your forked tongue,” the giant said.

Sorin, wide eyed, looked from the giant to Nissa.

The Piston Mountains
, Nissa thought. Even on their current path they could be expected to travel another week before they ascended out of the trench. Then they would skirt the Piston Mountains to Zulaport. The giant’s way could cut their travel in half. Still, the Piston Mountains.

“I would avoid that path,” Anowon yelled from where he squatted next to the moaning giant, copying the petrogyphs on its legs onto a scrap of paper.

“Lead the way,” Nissa said to the giant.

“What?” Sorin said.

The giant turned and heaved its marble legs.

“I lead this expedition,” Nissa said, walking after the giant.

“Strange.” Sorin started to walk. “I thought I did.”

“Then open your eyes,” Nissa yelled over her shoulder.

The giant labored its heavy legs four steps then stopped and pointed at the canyon wall. “There,” it said.

Nissa followed the giant’s finger but saw nothing except sheer wall. She moved her head to the side in case there was an illusion in the rock. There wasn’t. The canyon wall appeared as just that.

The giant hummed to itself, and the glyph lines on its legs burned to life. Suddenly the path in the canyon rock glowed with the same pink as the glyphs.

“Zendikar!” Sorin said. “It is either in your hand, or it is at your throat.”

“Now,” the giant said. “Release my legs.”

“Do not do that,” Sorin said. “Need I remind you that this is a giant? We already have the path. Let’s be on our way.”

Nissa regarded the giant. She reached out to the other giant’s gut and soothed the creatures in it. The effect was almost instantaneous. The other giant sat up and turned.

Nissa did not like the menace she saw in its eyes.

The other giant pointed to its legs and gave a ghastly smile. Anowon found a tooth and threw it, and in a moment the giant’s legs were back to normal.

“Well,” Sorin said. “Now that we are all happy again, can we go?” He turned to Smara and her goblins. Unaccountably, the kor was standing on her head, and one of her goblins had its finger in the nose of the goblin next to it. Sorin shook his head and started walking.

The giants watched them as they carefully threaded their way between the boulders and walked to where the path glowed in the canyon wall. Even with the way glowing slightly, it took Nissa some careful examination to find its beginning. The rock steps
were so deftly fit into the canyon wall that they left little shadow to contrast. The path’s invisibility was due to exceptional design.

Who could have built this?
Nissa wondered. She was looking up at the symmetrical switchbacks, which looked so much like sutures holding the canyon together.

Anowon was standing next to her. “The old stories say the giants were once great builders.”

“Of what? Booby traps?” Sorin said. He squinted at the path. Fine droplets of sweat clung to his upper lip. He lifted one trembling hand to brush his hair back.
He’s afraid of heights
, Nissa thought, filing that realization away for later use.

“Are we all ready?” Nissa said.

Sorin said nothing.

But Anowon stepped up and held out his bound wrists for Nissa to see. “I have done all you asked. I am a vampire, but not all vampires are like the ones you perhaps met in the jungles of your home.”

Nissa studied the vampire before responding. “Just so,” she said, and cut the rope from his wrists with a small eating knife she kept strapped to her inner forearm.

“I thank you,” Anowon said, rubbing his wrists.

Nissa nodded.

They began to ascend the trail. It started steeply from the canyon floor and became progressively steeper, but Anowon talked as they walked. “Something had to build those monuments dotted over the landscape. It couldn’t have been the vampires. We were personal slaves that were used for manual labor of certain sorts. But we lacked the raw strength to move the large blocks.”

“And you think the creatures that built the huge statues and palaces were giants?” Nissa said.

“It is possible.”

They were all quiet as they climbed. Far behind and below, Smara and her retinue of goblins followed the switchbacks in silence. Nissa wasn’t sure she had ever heard the mad kor speechless, but it was a good thing she was. The trail had become so steep that the travelers were compelled to use their hands as they ascended.