The Chronicles of the Elders Malefisterium. Volume 1. The Ordeal of Freya

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“Be quiet!”

They crawled several meters forward and hid behind a big snag.

“What’s going on?..” Vlad tried to peep out, but Peter put his hand over Vlad’s mouth and put a finger to his lips again.

Vlad sensed rather than heard the earth tremble rhythmically, as if it was struck with an enormous hammer. The boys peeped out warily from behind their cover.

Next moment Vlad saw it.

A giant was moving through the trees, towards them. It was of the four-story building height.

“Don’t move and be quiet,” Peter said, sounding quivery and strained.

“How long?” Vlad asked beneath his breath.

“Until it goes away.”

“Are you sure it will go away?” Vlad asked worryingly.

“It is hunting, stalking its prey,” Peter assured him. “It has other things to worry about rather than us.”

He was right, the giant was not strolling leisurely through the forest. It was walking slowly, watching its step closely, and constantly sniffing and blowing heavily through its nostrils.

“What does it prey on?” Vlad asked.

“Everything that runs, crawls, and flies!” the reply wasn’t comforting.

“Does it mean we can also be its prey?” Vlad opened his eyes wide, disconcerted.

“Yes, it does, a big game!”

Suddenly a bird flew up, squawking, from the branch above their heads.

The boys froze.

The giant turned towards the sudden noise, and only then Vlad saw that it had two heads. One head was male, with a shiny bald pate and an underhung lower jaw. The other was female, with greasy long black hair and big hungry eyes. Both faces were disgusting.

The monster took a whiff and took a few uncertain steps towards the boys’ hiding place.

Peter and Vlad pressed themselves to the ground and held their breath. However, their position was untenable: The wind was blowing right into the giant’s faces, and it must have already smelled the prey. Both pairs of its nostrils flared like a blacksmith’s bellows, and its feet smashed bushes and fallen trees.

The giant came up so close that the boys could smell its stinky breath. All it had to do was look behind the snag, pull apart the old roots over the boys’ heads and get them. But the stupid monster didn’t have the wit to do it. What was wrong? The smell of the prey was inches away, tickling both noses and making both mouths water, but there was nothing to be seen!

The giant roared with disappointment, shook its heads and flapped its arms. It was beating its chest and tramping its feet. The earth was quaking. Eventually, it kicked the old snag that was hiding the boys, and went its own way.

A cloud of dust and clods of earth were kicked up. The saving snag landed far away in the forest, as if it was featherlight.

Having no cover, the boys were paralyzed with fear, being aware of their vulnerability, but then they realized that the giant was going away. Their joy didn’t last long though. One of the four eyes of the giant noticed the prey. Both gruesome faces broke into a broad hungry grin of delight, and the giant began to turn back.

“Run!” Peter cried out.

The boys ran as fast as they could.

The earth was trembling underfoot. The monster rushed after them, anticipating a hearty meal. The boys could hear its roar and its breath, heavy of running. It could run them down any time now.

“Let’s break up!” Vlad came up with the idea.

The boys went their own separate ways.

The giant was mechanically running straight for a while. One head was watching Peter, and the other was watching Vlad. But even though the giant had two heads, it had only two legs. Its heads being in disagreement were of little help: One head insisted on turning left and the other wanted to go right. The giant couldn’t be everywhere at once. Neither could it resolve the problem: Which head was right? And that was why the giant stopped in uncertainty, turning a huge pile of dirt upside down with its horned feet.

The male head was looking toward Vlad and smacking lips; the female head was looking toward Peter and drooling over. Not knowing who to choose, the giant was twitching from side to side.

“Let’s get the shorty! He has tender meat!” the male head uttered, gnashing its teeth.

“No! Let’s get the one who’s taller!” the female head objected.

“He’s nothing but skin and bones!” the male head protested. “No meat at all!”

The giant took a few steps in Vlad’s direction but then stopped again.

“We’ll do as I say!” the female head barked out. “I am the boss!”

“Since when are you the boss?” the male head was offended and surprised.

“Since I began to cook for you, glutton.”

“To cook what?”

“Dinner!”

“When was it?”

The female head thought about it for a moment. Shooting from the hip is one thing, and standing by your words is another.

“Do you… do you remember…” the female head rattled on. “That’s it! Do you remember I caught a sysun last week?”

“So what?”

“I was so generous to divide it between the two of us!”

The example clearly displeased the male head.

“You call it generous?” it fastened its tiny eyes on the cocky neighbor.

“I do!” the female head wasn’t in the slightest bit embarrassed.

“I got the skin, rack and hoofs, and you got all the rest!” the male head listed out.

“And you… and you…” the female head changed the subject. “You had a meal yesterday, here you go! And I haven’t had a morsel of food, except for a dead sparrow, for three days!”

“But then, last week you secretly got so stuffed while I was asleep that we couldn’t rise to our feet for two days.”

“But you were asleep!”

“Couldn’t you wake me up?”

“Wake you up? No way!” the female head giggled.

She shouldn’t have said that. It was enough to try the patience of a saint.

“Watch your language, girlie! I don’t care that you are a female!”

The female head realized she had been overdoing and back-pedaled:

“I tell you what! What difference does it make which of us will eat whom? We have only one stomach anyway!”

“Yeah, right!” the male head didn’t mean to give up. “What difference! And no work for my teeth!”

“Do you think I don’t want to taste something nice?”

“In this case, come on, give it all to me. We have only one stomach anyway!”

There was no end to the argument, and meanwhile the prey was getting farther and farther away. The boys were no longer going their separate ways. They had changed their route and were running forward, their shirts flitting among the trees.

“Either we’re getting the tall one or you will feed me for the rest of your life!” the female head set an ultimatum.

Finally, she had her way.

The male head snorted spitefully, yielding ground, and the giant hurried after Peter.

The advantage the boys took during the heads’ argument was quickly dwindling. One giant’s step was equal to ten steps of Peter. To make it worse, the boy had to overcome obstacles, crawl, jump and even make a detour. By contrast, the giant was taking a shortcut. Neither thickets of thorny bushes nor heaps of rotten trees made it change his course.

Vlad saw that the giant got off his back to chase after Peter, but he was not happy at that. Clear as daylight, after it was done with one of them, it would catch the other.

The distance between the giant and Peter shortened to only ten giant’s steps. Half a minute later Peter’s fate would be sealed. He would be lucky if he was swallowed fast.

Something had to be done. But what?

Fitful thoughts, fitful movements.

Vlad noticed a stone under his feet and even though he knew such a weapon was of little help, he picked it up in despair and threw at one of the giant’s heads.

And, just fancy!

The stone flew like a cannonball. Whooshing! Vlad heard the sound of cracking bones of the enormous skull. The giant raised a howl of pain, stumbled against its own foot and crashed to the ground.

“Hey! Hurry up!” Peter was calling Vlad with energetic gestures.

The boys got to the hill. There it was, the entrance to the cave of refuge!

They got inside and were finally able to get their breath back. The cave walls were shaking behind their backs, bouncing off the giant’s roaring. The giant was no longer a threat to them. Wild with rage, it couldn’t control itself and was crawling forward, beating the ground with its fists. Huge and strong as it was, it was unlikely to handle the rock. Moreover, the entrance to the cave was so small that it wouldn’t be able to stick even one of its heads into it, either damaged or intact, let alone two of them together.

The giant stubbornly poked its head into the narrow opening.

It felt like a small earthquake. Rocks were falling from the top of the hill. They rained down on the giant and its heads, and it fell unconscious, blocking the entrance.

Now there was only one way for Vlad and Peter, to go through the rock and come out on the other side.

In the dim light of the cave, the boys tried to regain their breath. Each of them was absorbed in his own thought. Vlad was trying to understand how he had managed to throw the stone with the force enough to knock over a giant. He was clenching and unclenching the fingers of the hand he threw the heaven-sent missile with: Nothing special, the fingers were the same as yesterday, they were neither thicker nor stronger.

Vlad remembered that the stone had burst into silver flame mid-flight and picked up speed. Perhaps, it was this energy that redoubled the power of the blow? Or maybe the stones in the forest were special?

As for Peter, he was quiet and looked gloomy. Not only had he lost the fight that he had provoked, but he also owed his life to a snotty-nosed boy who was not even an Academy student! It hurt Peter’s pride severely. He had to bite the bullet, though. He could not disobey the order. If he did not bring the boy, safe and sound, to Malefisterium, he would have to give up everything that was dear to him.