The town was silent as we sneaked out of the wizard’s house. You could hear owls from the direction of the woods. We slipped out of town by way of the faint flames in the lampposts. We followed a cobblestone road leading out from town.

Nervously, we kept our hands on our weapons in case of any beast that might appear from the shadows. Our grip didn’t loosen until the sun broke free from the hanging, overcast clouds.

After a while of walking, the landscape changed from the greens of the fields where farmers worked to the beige, rockiness of the wilderness. The trees and birds and clouds were all gone; the sun beat down on us unrelentingly. Ringed snakes and yellow, horned lizards would skitter in front of us before a bird would swoop down and snatch it’s prey quick as the snap of a whip.

We trudged on against solar resistance. Our feet seemed to drag behind us as we tried to spot anything that wasn’t a rock, a reptile, or a bird. On the horizon we saw a black shadow of a figure coming our way. There was a deep bellow as it came near. We had our eyes stuck on the figure so we didn’t see as the land dipped into a deep trench.

Only by quick luck was I able to unsheathe my sword and jam it into the earth and at the same time reach down and grab Leo’s arm. There was no conceivable way back up the crevice, so we let ourselves slowly slide down the wall. As we did, the lumbering timbers of a giant’s legs (the giant was the shadowy figure) shook the ground as it made it’s way through the trench.

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We reached the bottom of the trench and the earth quaked as the giant lumbered closer. We reached the other side of the expanse when Leo grabbed me and threw me to the ground. I looked up to question him when I saw the reason for his behavior.

The giant reached his arm up and to grab us again. We rolled on our backs out of the way. In a flash, Leo nocked an arrow onto the bowstring and let it fly. The arrow whizzed in the air and struck directly on the giant’s bulbous nose. The creature roared and began to stomp at us. Each footstep crashed into the ground, making the trench a little deeper.

While Leo kept him distracted, I was trying to find a way up the trench wall. Every attempt ended in failure. I feared for a moment that our journey would end there. No one would think to look for two boys at the bottom of where the Giant’s pass through. Quickly, my worry turned into thought and hatched a new idea. While dodging attacks I told idea my plan. We had no other option so we executed it.

I took my turn distracting the Giant as Leo snuck behind him and unleashed two arrows to the back of his knee. The Giant kicked at Leo, but he was able to get out of the way. Now that the Giant’s focus was on Leo – he rushed in front of the creature- I was able to slip behind the Giant’s leg. I grabbed on a piece of the animal skin that the creature had wrapped around it’s waist. As the Giant moved trying to go after my brother, I was able to swing and slash in between where the arrows were embedded in its skin. The Giant roared and fell to its knees.

As the Giant rested there, we swiftly climbed its clothes and from the creature’s back we were able to leap to the other side of the trench. We hit the ground and ran as fast as we could before the Giant would have any time to recover.