The tallest part of the outpost at Elah was a small stone tower, built into the worn wooden and stone and brick walls.
Next to a giant, the tower was not tall at all, and when they stood on the wall next to it, they were taller than it. All felt like the weak walls underneath them would fall under their own feet.
But it was symbol of Elah. A beautiful tower in the middle of nowhere; the last part of civilization before the mountains, and the mountain people and worlds beyond.
Lahmi stood on the wall, looking out on the cold morning.
They would be there soon.
The two berserker giants, the ones they could barely handle, were out front, waiting.
Lahmi looked through his boned head mask at Ishbi next to him.
Taller than Lahmi, but around the same age. Nothing much to Ishbi, except his massive bow and arrow.
When he pulled it, it made a chord of music from the force and strength of it all.
His eye sight and muscles mixed with the bow and arrow made him a horror story.
"I want them to feel it," Lahmi said to him.
"I can't promise that. Look at these arrows. When they go through a human, they split in half," Ishbi corrected.
Lahmi did not care.
He looked down to see a line of the humans they would send out first.
Lahmi turned and looked at the back of the outpost. The weakest part. But there was no way they could enter that way.
There was no way they would not see them across the plains. No one would knew the trails behind the outpost.
Abishai pointed on the map of the trails behind the outpost.
"We will come from there. They are with me," Abishai pointed at group of warriors in the corner of the camp.
Beniah nodded.
Elhanan did as well. He then folded up the map and handed it to Beniah.
"What?"
"You can have it. You might need it one day," Elhanan said.
"We might not survive!"
"Then it doesn't matter either way," Elhanan said.
He mounted his horse and pulled the massive sword.
All took a step back from the sight and sound of it.
Beniah gently took the map and hurried off to follow Elhanan.
He turned to say something to Abishai, but he and his men were already gone. Their trail sending dirt into the cold air.
Lahmi took a deep breath. He squinted to see the smoke from The Unknown. It looked like it was finally out.
Then, across the way, he saw it.
Dust from horses riding as hard as they could.
Lahmi's blood boiled. Not out of fear. I do not fear these ants.
No. The nerve. The audacity.
Lahmi cleared his throat and erupted a horrible call out to them.
His face turned red and veins popped and eyes lost vision, briefly. His lungs felt as if he was drowning, with no more breath to give.
They heard it.
Elhanan lifted the sword.
He felt the evil of the giants going through his hands and body, but it wouldn't work.
The horses rode harder and harder.
Beniah and the boys around them could barely keep up.
The tower was ahead, right after the shallow river.
The voice of the brother of the Goliath finally stopped screaming at them.
"For the kingdom!" Elhanan screamed, lifting his sword in the sun, so the giants could see it.
The men all repeated it.
Beniah pulled his sword and said a prayer.
Lahmi knelt from his scream, but looked up, horrified.
The sword was like a light. A beacon. Breaking through the cold. A blasphemy towards giants.
"That is my sword," Lahmi croaked. "That is the sword of my brother! Ishbi! Fire! Fire now!"
"We're a little out of range."
"Now! Damn you! Now!"
Ishbi nodded and pulled a huge arrow on the rope and pulled it high into the air.
The horses were at full gallop.
The arrow had an echo with it, high in the air.
It slammed into a few horses and men next to Beniah, all impaled in brutal impact.
The horses collapsed as men and horse were pinned together with the sadistic and jagged arrow, as those behind had to leap or turn.
"Ishbi the archer!" Beniah screamed. "He must fall."
"One more on the list," Elhanan laughed.
The mad crazed giants in the front ran towards the river.
The homely at the outpost ran towards it as well.
A group of archers on horseback let their arrows fly.
The beserkers were struck around their body's and eyes, but it only aroused them. They screamed and raised their clubs and swords.
The arrows struck a few of the human enemies, falling dead into the river.
Elhanan lifted his sword and his horse dived into the shallow water first, his eye on the tower ahead.
He jumped off his horse as the nearest giant screamed and slammed his hands into the water, excitedly.
Elhanan brought the sword down across the face of the giant, separating it in half.
The rest of the horse riders were in the river now.
Elhanan collapsed and rolled into the red water.
The militia men screamed as giants and man ran to meet them.
All fought and stabbed and swung and impaled, as men drowned and died messily around.
The swords and the spears and the stomping and the horses and mayhem was messy, as water splashed and drenched and weighed down all, and washed the blood away.
Lahmi watched the battle.
"That's all they brought? How dare they."
Ishbi pulled another arrow.
Beniah sliced across a woman warrior of the homely as an arrow came in and hit the water.
One of his men screamed as his leg was completely separated from the arrow, as then the giant whose face was split in half swung his club in anger and broke the man into pieces.
Elhanan brought the sword up from the water.
The giants screamed in horror and joy at the sight of the blessed sword...the one with half a face reached for it as he stomped on the horses trying to ride away.
Elhanan swung the sword and took half the arm of the giant with a clean cut. As the giant fell into the river, Elhanan brought the sword down against the massive head for a final blow.
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Lahmi screamed in anger.
He turned to the rest of the giants waiting to attack.
"Now! To the river! Now!"
The gate opened as the rest of the giants of small number were readying to run forward.
Ishbi turned and pulled his arrow into the fort and fired.
"What are you doing?!" Lahmi exclaimed.
Ishbi pointed.
Lahmi turned as a figure jumped from the back wall with a spear.
The arrow missed, breaking against the wall, as the spear wielding warrior spun his spear on his way down towards a giant.
He then stabbed and cut into the unknowing giant, bringing the creature to its knees before it knew it, then had the spear shoved into the back of its neck.
"The giant killer," Ishbi said, pulling and aiming his arrow. "Abishai."
Lahmi jumped from his own wall, pulling his sword, as more of the human rats came over the wall.
The rats lit the top of the wall on fire with torches, as others opened fire with arrows, and the rest followed Abishai into the center of the outpost.
Lahmi ran forward, aiming for Abishai.
Abishai inserted his spear into the ankle of one of the largest giants near him, who then fell, as Lahmi came forward, swinging his own massive sword.
The sword sliced his own giant almost in half, while trying to get to Abishai, bouncing around.
The other giants came upon the brave warriors would followed Abishai in and quickly stomped and smashed them into the ground, but the flames quickly started eating the entire ancient outpost.
The two giants were dead in the river, as their human followers were injured, dead, or running towards the mountains.
Elhanan looked around at their hurt and dead and those who could keep fighting.
Beniah nodded, covered in water and blood, but alive. Around ten could fight.
Elhanan waved them towards the outpost as the fire grew.
Abishai ran through the outpost, as giants fired and swung.
He jumped and slid from balcony to rooftop to hay to anything he could, as Lahmi ran after him.
Abishai tried not to notice the crazed giant right on his heels.
He kept his attention on the archer above.
Ishbi fired another arrow into the outpost, then turned to fire towards the attack on the outside.
This is it.
Abishai tripped, but as he fell, threw his spear with all of the strength he could muster.
He slid on the ground and blood and water and hit the wall, nearly knocking himself out.
The spear flew through the air.
Ishibi pulled his arrow at the one carrying Jalut's sword.
The spear hit his elbow, entering it.
The bow collapsed and the string broke.
Ishbi fell to his knees, and looked in horror as the ants ran towards their base.
Elhanan ran through the main gate, swinging the sword.
A wall collapsed across the way, as the flames began to eat and spread across the worthless outpost.
Lahmi stared in horror.
Gath, the oldest, watched from the corner.
He shook his head and started to make his way towards the flames. He lifted his massive weapon that was used as cane to break through the flames and escape.
I will live in the remote places. I have had enough.
Suddenly, an arrow struck his shoulder.
A prick really, but it angered him.
Gath turned and pulled the arrow, then looked for who fired it.
Beniah was across the way. He wasn't even an archer, but the head he needed was getting away.
He had grabbed one of the dead's bow and arrow quickly and fired.
Gath stared angrily.
"You. You don't know who I am!" Gath roared. "The wars I fought. The company I kept! I was leader of the - "
Beniah fired another arrow.
It struck Gath in the eye.
He took a step back, angrily, blinded and in pain, as blood flowed.
"Come! Fight me you - "
Gath fell over his own feet, near the wall of fire. He screamed at the heat.
Gath stopped screaming not long after the heat touched his body.
Beniah ran across and brought his sword down upon the neck, and pulled the old head away.
He quickly looked for something to wrap it in, as another wall collapsed on the body of the oldest of the giants, and the burning began.
The giants were falling all around them.
Their human slaves had fled or died, or were being corralled into safety away from the flames by the pirate looking warriors.
Lahmi looked at the tower.
Still standing.
A lone warrior stood next to it, on top of the one wall that was not on fire.
Elhanan looked down at him, holding the sword.
Lahmi leapt from where he was in the square and landed on top of the wall with a brutal shake.
Elhanan readied to fight him on the wall, his back next to the tower.
Ishbi was dead, leaning against the wall, with a huge stab wound revealed on his back.
Abishai's spear was still hanging from his elbow.
"Give me that sword, boy, and I will spare you."
"I will do no such thing. I am not a boy. I am older than all here."
"You are a child. You are a fool," Lahmi protested. "You know nothing of that sword or who it belongs to! You do not know of the power it yields. You are not worthy to touch it!"
"I know it was Jalut's," Elhanan started. "I know you want it, brother of the Goliath. I know the power it yields. I was there when the owner's own blood was shed upon it."
Lahmi yelled and stomped his feet down again, shaking the wall.
He then ran at Elhanan.
The fire spread to a corner of the wall, near the tower.
Lahmi swung his sword down on Elhanan.
Elhanan lifted the mighty giant’s sword.
The two swords connected, as Lahmi’s sword shattered at impact into pieces, and pushed the giant back. The old warrior holding the sword was also thrown back by the impact, and fell near the tower.
The giant punched into the wall beneath him with his massive hands, breaking pieces of it, and then threw the debris at Elhanan.
The pieces broke against the tower, as some hit Elhanan, wounding and breaking his skin.
Elhanan reached for the sword as the flames encircled the wall around him.
"Fire, boy?!" Lahmi screamed. "Fire?!"
Lahmi yelled and guided his hands towards a stone cap on top of the wall. He grunted and swore and screamed as he used all of his strength to rip the stone from the top of the burning wall.
He turned to throw it, but the wall collapsed underneath him and Elhanan.
The final wall fell, burning, collapsing towards the river, in a massive collapse of wood, steel, brick, mud, and flame.
The stone tower stood, unbroken.
Lahmi broke forth from the collapsed wall, burned and stabbed and cut and wounded, but alive.
He looked around in the flames for the blade, but could not find it.
Lahmi took a step back, seeing the outpost completely destroyed, and all of his giants either dead or captured.
"Fine," Lahmi said.
He repeated the singular word over and over, as the burns on his body began to fester and boil.
The head broken and burnt and with sharp bone shards stabbing into his head.
The giant kept walking backwards in defeat, towards the river.
"It is nothing. I am Lahmi. I am - "
Lahmi came to the river and turned to run.
A growl filled the air.
He looked through his bloody and burnt eyelids at one of his brother's own pets running across the field at him.
Worm.
Full of anger and hunger and revenge.
And on him rode a human!
"This...this cannot..."
Joab pushed the battle jaguar forward.
Worm thought of every horror put upon him, and took off even more.
Joab fell off the beast he somehow tamed, and spun in the dirt.
Worm jumped and landed on Lahmi in the river.
The beast flipped the giant on his back and began to devour the burnt flesh, clawing and thrashing, as the giant tried to fight back.
Joab stood.
Hurt. Dying. Dehydrated. Lost. Angry. Hopeful.
The outpost was completely on fire.
A few warriors were running for him. Was that Abishai?
He fell to his knees, fading away, but he saw that the strong tower stood.
A little ways from the burning ashes of the outpost stood the dam the giants built.
The river used to flow all the way next to the tower, Beniah thought to himself.
Though hurt, wounded and bleeding, Beniah grabbed the few survivors who could walk.
"Let the river flow free again," Beniah said.
He and the men took the weapons of the giants and started to beat down upon the crude dam, with the pond behind waiting to explode.
Each swing of the massive weapons broke down the wooden dam down a little smaller.
Soon, Beniah could see the water spilling forth in cracks.
He yelled and took a final swing, then jumped out of the way.
The water broke forth, sending the dam down towards the main inlet of the river.
Where was dry became fluid, and the river now became its true self.
The water soon flowed over the ashes and bodies and giants and the wall, and whipped past the tower.
Beniah and the survivors watched as the river made everything clean.
Where is Elhanan?
It had been hours and nobody had seen him, nor the sword.
Possibly crushed under the wall and burnt.
Or maybe he disappeared like he always did.
He'll be found if he wants to be.
After some time, the river currents were flowing through the wilderness towards the mountains.
Through places no feet had seen. No man or building was near.
Down the river, far from Elah, Jalut’s sword stuck out of the ground.
It was completely alone and foreign in the deep nature, under the shadow of the mountains.
The blood had been washed from it, and the blade was clean.
The sword looked, waiting for someone to grab it. To hear its song of war and devastation.
Suddenly, a hand from the bank reached for it.