I didn’t get the chance to see where the baron’s man landed and I doubt Ben got the chance to see either. We were too busy watching the raging monster stomping down the path ahead of us.

After making a man fly, the giant grabbed onto some nearby tree branches to slow himself down. Dirt shot up into the air as he dug his heel into the ground and two branches screamed as he almost snapped one clean off its trunk and left another half detached. That was the kind of force he was moving with.

Once he stopped, he paid Ben and I no mind, turning back to a freshly dismounted horseman, the partner of the man he had just kicked. They’d struggled for too long on the remount. Their horse had reared and threw them both to the ground when the giant got too close.

The remaining member of the pair was still in a daze after being knocked to the ground, but he regained his wits as the giant started in his direction. He screamed and got up, scrambling towards the trees. But for him, it was too late to run.

The giant bent down, reached around a tree the man had run past, and picked him up by the leg. Without delay, that grey monster swung and broke him upon the branches and a tree’s trunk.

After flicking the dead man’s body hard enough that he flew above the trees, the grey giant looked down the road. Just like two days ago, he was looking straight my way. Only this time, he really did see me.

I felt dizzy.

Before the giant could stand, two riders rushed out from the woods and threw something at him. I heard the sound of shattering glass and flames engulfed the monster’s back.

As the giant cried out, someone rang a miracle bell deeper in the woods. Northwest from where Ben and I were on the road, I saw the rest of the baron’s men riding through a good distance into the woods. Barking and howling at their horses’ tails were more of those black wolves.

“Good,” Ben muttered, his eyes fixed on the now flaming giant. In silence, I agreed. We’d gotten the setting him on fire part down, now all we needed to do was—

With a roar, the giant stood up, before throwing himself back first onto the ground.

Our horse wailed with fear as the ground shook like it had been struck by a meteor. A shower of displaced soil and kicked up stone rained around the giant and when he got up, he left a crater in the shape of his silhouette. With that alone, the grey giant had completely smothered the flames on his back. And from the way he just got up after that, I doubted hitting the ground that hard had done anything to him either.

Burn him to death? I thought. You've got to be kidding. I would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so dire.

“Ben! Jacob!” Matthew called us, snapping me out of my daze. Lawrence and him had already ridden too deep into the woods for the giant to catch them now and we needed to do the same.

I smacked Ben on his shoulder. “Ben, get us off the road.”

“Huh?” he was still in his daze for a second before he understood. “Right.”

With barely a tug at the reins, Runner went sprinting into the forest. It was a testament to the fear stricken horse’s discipline that she had waited for our command before doing so.

While Ben looked forward, I kept my eyes looking back. From around the corner on the road the giant had come charging from, over a dozen wolves came running to replace the seven we had ended. As they came to join him, the giant stomped over to one of the branches he had nearly torn off a tree and tore it away completely. Without hesitation, he threw it in the direction of one of the riders who’d set him on fire with a shout.

I watched with eyes wide open as the barely aimed branch landed square in front of the rider’s steed, staggering it and causing them to run head first into a tree. Both rider and horse found themselves laid out on the ground. There was nothing that could be done for them as a few of the red-eyed wolves on the path broke off from their pack to finish them off.

Before the first branch had even landed, the giant tore off the second branch he’d mangled and readied a throw for the second rider. As soon as the deadwood left his hands, however, the second rider had his horse swerving. Obviously, he must have caught what happened to his fellow.

A thundering explosion went off from the direction of the freshly dismounted rider. When I looked in his direction, his horse, himself, and the wolves had all been swallowed by flame.

“Agh,” Ben grunted, steering Runner northwest from the straight north we were riding, “How many of those things do they have?”

I looked to the east and counted five more wolves coming to flank us from that direction. While the ones chasing the baron’s men were barking and howling, this group was silent. Even the padding of their feet couldn’t be heard over the rumbling the giant was causing.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

Speaking of the giant, the rapid thumping of feet on ground could be felt again as he started running. I looked over my shoulder towards the road and saw something I couldn’t believe. That grey giant, the one who was responsible for the deaths of so many, was running down the road carrying half a dozen wolves in his arms like they were puppies he had just stolen from a kennel. There were even a couple more wolves trailing behind him like parents trying to rescue their litter.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“What is he...” I said, right before he stopped almost in line with us. At that point, he dropped the wolves and started hurling them.

I thought I saw a bit of a glow around the first wolf as it flew from his hand straight into a branch above us. The giant must have put some magic on it because it hit that tree far harder than my axe hit the one I destroyed.

With all the grace of a drunken sailor the tainted beast stumbled its way down to the ground getting hit by most every branch along the way. Grace really didn’t matter when death was the only thing that made these things flinch.

Thankfully, the giant’s aim wasn’t as on point as when he threw the branches and he didn’t throw the living grease ball right on top of us. By the time it finished its tumble down, the wolf was firmly behind our speeding steed. Unfortunately, the giant accounted for the wolves’ stupidity for the rest and threw them in front of us.

“Ben,” I said, readying my pike, “I’m going to need Runner to give us some more speed.”

“That’s going to be a little hard,” he said. And rightly so. These trees weren’t exactly planted in straight lines and some of their branches didn’t exactly start above our heads either.

“Lawrence! Matthew!” I called out, “Back off!” They were at a healthy distance from us, but I didn’t want to risk them getting caught in the splash zone. “I hope you taught this horse how to drift,” I told Ben.

“Huh?” he said, confused. Drift wasn’t a word here.

“I said, I really hope this isn’t how we’re going to die.”

That got him fired up. “You better believe that’s not what’s about to happen,” he said.

Left, right, left, with the occasional duck, we weaved within the woodland and dashed through the black mist as I skewered a charging wolf. Though we managed to dodge two more of the wolves the giant threw in front of us, the beasts behind us were gaining.

Still, we weren’t so far off from the baron’s men anymore and I felt we had a pretty good flow going on. Well, at least until one of those filth bombs came leaping down from right above us. Far more intelligent than its predecessors, I barely heard its growl in time as it descended.

Struggling, “Hup!” I raised my pike as fast as I could and almost fell back trying. Caught the blasted thing right before it collided with us. If it hadn’t growled I might not have reacted in time, but that was a sobering thought best saved for later.

Once that living fossil fuel speared itself upon my pike, it erupted into a black mist like its fallen kin before it. That burst of mist, along with the near in your ears growl it bestowed us, spooked Runner. Not too much, just enough to knock an unbalanced rider off her back. Something I just so happened to be at the moment.

I fell off our horse and onto my back. Thank my luck, I didn’t break it.

“Jack!” Ben shouted, trying to get Runner turned back around. Should have been Jacob, but I guess fake names are swift to leave the mind when you’re about to watch your best friend get mauled to death.

The first thing I did In the mere seconds I had left to live was cough. Runner had thrown me off straight into the filth cloud spawned from the wolf’s demise and I hadn’t exactly held my breath after getting slammed into the ground.

Sucking it up and taking the pain, I looked forward. Nothing was coming to maul me that way, but the wolves behind me were now barking in anticipation.

I turned over onto my stomach and tried spitting out some of the foul taste stuck in my mouth. Kept my eyes forward and locked on to the closest wolf coming straight at me. Couldn’t do much from this position with my axe, but lucky me, I fell with my pike.

At the last second, I lifted it and let the wolf run itself through. Had to thank the nerves of steel old Jack left me for giving me the composure for that one.

I stood up, coughing into the latest filth cloud and dropped my pike. It’d do me good against one suicidal tar monster, but about next to nothing against five. If I was going to live, I needed to climb.

As I charged towards the closest tree, I heard an explosion go off. Only a second later, the grey giant let out a shout loud enough that I felt it in my chest and bones. I grabbed the closest branch in reach and the earth shook like it was struck by a meteor again. Unlike the first time, however, the impact was immediately followed up by a whole lot of screaming and a whole lot more shaking.

I heard a thud and a whimper as one of the wolves staggered and ran itself into a tree. All this shaking definitely wasn’t making pulling myself up easy, so it was nice to see that I wasn’t the only one having trouble.

Once I was standing atop that first branch with a nice grip on another above me, I took a moment to see what was happening.

The grey giant was rolling about along the giant’s path, covered in flames from head-to-toe and crying out. Whatever the one guy left throwing fire bombs had done, he had somehow found a way to make the flames stick. Good for me since it meant the giant couldn’t throw any more wolves.

“Woof!” I pulled myself up and lifted my legs as a wolf came lunging way higher than I thought they could. Meanwhile, the giant who was still very much on fire got up and tore out another branch to hurl at the fire bomber. Honestly, I couldn’t tell if what the baron’s man had done was killing him or making him even more dangerous.

“Jacob!” Ben said, riding in with Lawrence, Matthew, and the baron’s men.

“Back them up!” Godfrey Sr. ordered, as one of his men ran through the wolf that attacked me with a pike. “And throw some of that bottled fire at the wolves.”

His son was first to take the initiative on that second order. Godfrey Jr. landed a bottle right in front of one of those red-eyed beasts and the bottle’s explosion caused it to set off a larger explosion of its own. Which, in turn, led to another chain reaction as two more of the wolves were caught in that explosion and started their own.

“Here,” Ben offered me his hand.

I said, “Thanks,” and took his help remounting.

At the back of the group more explosions went off as the baron’s men bombed the monsters that’d been tailing them.

“Save some for the giant!” Godfrey Jr. commanded.

But his father said, “Let them use what they need.”

“Then what should we do about the giant?”

Godfrey Sr. looked to the giant and so did I. It was still very much on fire, thrashing about trying to put out the flames along the road. No doubt, anyone who came in range of him with a pike or a touch would be in for a world of hurt. “If it dies, it dies,” Godfrey Sr. said, “If we run, we live.”

Thank goodness, I thought. That was the kind of sensibility that I could very much get behind.

Godfrey Sr. ordered us to ride out and his son echoed the command. As the ground shook violently beneath our horses hooves, we left that disaster and two short of a dozen good men behind.