David Farland - Wizardborn

The Frowth could not communicate well in any human tongue, had never been able tell what fearful creatures hounded them across the ice. Yet with a few gestures and words, some giants had learned to work beside men—lugging huge boulders in quarries or trees for foresters, or fighting as mercenaries.

But the Frowth rarely frequented Rofehavan. They lived in the wilds along the mountain ranges.

These giants had come in company with Raj Ahten’s army, and had eaten people in Iome’s kingdom. They were the first that Iome had ever seen. She was simultaneously terrified of the creatures and fascinated.

“Can anyone talk to them?” Gaborn asked among his retinue. “What do they want?”

“Wahoot!” the giant cried again and began nodding his head up and down rapidly. He pointed at Gaborn. “Wahoot!”

“He speak Indhopalese,” one knight said, a handsome Invincible out of Indhopal with dark skin and a Dharmadish accent. He rode up to Gaborn’s side. “He say you mahout, an elephant rider. Very grand. Very powerful.”

“Wahoot!” the giant shouted again, pointing at the dead horses.

“I think he likes you!” one lord jested to Gaborn.

“No,” the translator said. “He cross hands. He give self. He serve.”

The giant opened his mouth and rapidly made hissing and clicking noises with the back of his tongue. He raised his snout in the air and sniffed. He was no longer trying to speak in his pidgin dialect of Indhopalese. Instead, he was speaking in pure Frowth now.

“What’s he saying?” Gaborn asked.

But no man had ever deciphered the tongue of Frowth giants well. Not even the translator from Indhopal ventured a guess.

“Will you fight for me?” Gaborn asked the creature. The giants had fought well in Carris yesterday.

The giant grunted, making a deep sound from his belly. He raised up his huge iron-bound staff, which was still stained dark from reavers’ gore.

“Maybe,” the translator said. “He is offering to work.”

Gaborn looked quizzically at his men. “Does anyone have a good use for a giant?”

“I do,” one knight shouted jovially. “His hide would make a fair rug!”

The other knights laughed uproariously, but Gaborn studied the creature. He raised his staff to the sky, and roared, “Wahoot?” then spread his arms wide, as if to embrace the whole world.

“He say, you great mahout,” the Indhopalese Invincible offered. “Great rider of the world.”

But Iome wondered. “No,” she realized. “He’s asking a question. He wants to know...if Gaborn is the Earth King!”

Before anyone else could move, Iome pointed at Gaborn, and shouted, “Yes. He’s the great rider. Rajah mahout.”

The giant gazed at her, as if contemplating. His silver eyes were wide and knowing.

The other giants began to grumble rapidly. Each of the Frowth peered at Gaborn and blinked their eyes nearly closed. They began stooping and letting their jaws go slack as they did, so that they displayed their teeth in a nonthreatening way. They held the pose for several long seconds, then a dozen of them began to lope off to the west, toward the Hest Mountains.

“Hey, where are they going?” Gaborn asked.

Iome could think of only one answer. It was said that wild Frowth roamed the Hest. Perhaps these Frowth were going home. The other ten merely stood and watched Gaborn attentively, the way that a dog watches its master as he leaves the room. It was clear that they intended to follow him.

Gaborn asked his men, “All of Carris is waiting. Do we dare let these giants come with us?”

Binnesman said, “Well, since we have no dancing bears in our retinue, I suppose they’ll have to do.”

The men all laughed at his jest, and the troops rode on, skirting the pile of dead horses. The ten giants that were left fell in line at the end of the retinue, behind the wagonload of forcibles.

Gaborn rode on in silence for a few minutes, Iome saw the worry lines in his brow.

“You did me no favor to lie,” Gaborn whispered, “even if it was only to a Frowth giant.”

“Lie?” Iome asked in surprise.

“Whatever I am, I am no Earth King anymore. I’ll not betray their hopes, their trust.”

She saw how his failures haunted him. She realized how hard he was trying now to hold up under the rigors of this day. She loved Gaborn for his virtue, for his sense of decency and honor.

“You are the Earth King still,” she said. “The Earth asked you to perform one task. Your powers may be diminished...but that task remains: save your people.”

Iome considered telling him about the son that she carried inside her. She wanted him to be strong, and wondered if this news would help. But at the moment, guilt and useless self-recrimination tore at him. She didn’t dare burden him with the knowledge that she carried his child.

“You’re right,” Gaborn said softly. “My people need a king. Even if the Earth will not sanctify my calling, the people still need a king.”

Gaborn closed his eyes. His face went slack as he relaxed every muscle.

He raised his chin high, and when he glanced at her, there was determination and strength in his eyes. His nostrils flared, and his look was one that held her, saw through her, accepted her, and dominated her all at once. It was a look that intimated endless power.

“Milord!” Iome said, trying to catch her breath. She knew that he had studied mimicry in the Room of Faces. Yet the transformation that had come over Gaborn in that instant was astonishing to behold.

For in that moment, despite every doubt that Gaborn had expressed, and despite the fact that he felt bereft of his powers, she recognized for the first time that she looked upon the face of the Earth King.

Averan clung tightly to the pommel of the saddle as the cool wind whipped her face. The force horses galloped south across hills as green as emerald, beneath a blue sky marbled by high cirrus clouds.

Binnesman had her riding in front of him, her back snug against his warm riding cloak, his big left hand wrapped around her protectively. He did not trust her on such a fast horse alone.

She thought it laughable, for at the age of five she’d once ridden a graak through a wild storm where the wind blasted her while lightning sizzled under the clouds below. The graak fought the air currents so hard that its wings would sometimes buckle. It was an experience that only another skyrider could sympathize with, and it was one that would have loosened the bowels of many a brave knight.

Still, she was glad to have the wizard ride with her. Averan had never traveled with so many people before, and with the dangers of the road the journey felt much safer for the company. There were advance guards ahead of her, stern Runelords armed with lances at her back, and fierce giants as the rearguard.

Averan was especially glad to have Spring in the retinue, for Averan had been the first to find the green woman. A small part of her still felt responsible toward her, even if she knew now that Spring was a wylde. And Averan was also happy to have Iome as part of the company. With Averan being a skyrider, she seldom got much contact with other women.

The force horse raced, its hooves pounding a rhythm against the road, its barding and the king’s armor jangling like music.

Averan suspected that riding a kingly force horse was as close as she’d ever again come to riding a graak.