Fenris awoke surprised to find his body in one piece that next morning. He did not open his eyes at first. He moved each part of his body to make sure he was still in one piece. For a few moments he wondered if it all had been a dream, but as soon as he opened one eye and felt a sudden ache around his eyes and at the back of his head he knew that it was not. Then, he looked across the giant’s cave to see him sitting outside by the fire, gazing blankly into the flames.

Next he noticed that he was bound by a series of ropes. He struggled for a moment but realised he could hardly move, save for his feet and head. Fenris tried to see if there was any way to free himself, then he rolled over and looked for anything that could help.

His pack, spark pistol and hatchet were all at the giant’s feet. There was nothing else in the cave aside from a singular dirty blanket. His first thoughts were of how he could stop himself from becoming giant food. Atop the fire before the giant was a large, earthen pot with water boiling inside of it. The sight gave Fenris a thousand images of what might happen to him.

So he decided that he would have to get to his feet. He shifted his weight and tried to get to his knees, but the ropes were so tight that almost all movement was restricted. All he could do was to roll.

He thought of his mother then, how she always told him to make the most of what he had in any given situation. This was the key to survival in the Northern Haunts. So Fenris tried to roll, but he only made it a few turns before the giant spoke.

“No point,” it said, in very clear Hauntasish tongue. “If you move you go back.”

Its voice had a very thick accent, but it spoke clear enough for him to understand.

Fenris stopped dead, turned over and pretended to be unconscious. There was a long moment of silence before the giant spoke once more.

“Have heard,” it said. “Have heard that marked short-ones get slayed at birth.” Each of its words were as slow and lumbering as its footsteps had been. “Have heard that they leave babes in the woods for the wolves to eat.”

Fenris squeezed his eyes tight and tried not to make any movements.

“So I wonder,” said the giant. “How have you come to be here? How have you come to me, as so many others have?” After Fenris did not reply the giant stood up and began to stir the pot. “Speak. Not speak. No difference to me. I have a long time to think it all over.”

With this Fenris rolled over to look at it.

“You’re going to eat me,” he said, his words trembling. “Aren’t you?”

“Hm?”

“You’re going to cook me in that pot and eat me, aren’t you? That’s what giants do. So I won’t tell you anything. No matter what you do, even if you torture me. I’d never tell you anything that would endanger my people.”

“Eat?” said the giant, its mouth opened into a toothy grin. “No, not eat. It is crime to kill a marked one. This is for mountain goat.”

He picked up the corpse of a large mountain goat from the far side of the fire and began to stuff it into the boiling water.

“Make bones, skin tender, yes? Have to boil. Is only way.”

For a few moments Fenris did not know what to say.

“What did you mean by marked?”

“Skin,” said the giant, pointing at him. “You have markings. From the Sculptor. It is a crime to kill short-one like you.”

“My etchings?” Fenris frowned. “These aren’t from the Sculptor, they’re just how I was born.”

“All things are from Sculptor,” said the giant, sitting back down once the goat was mostly submerged. Fenris could see one of its horns poking up from the bubbling water. “Is this not what short-ones believe?”

“Yes,” said Fenris. “All things are from the Sculptor.”

“So then, these markings are from him. A blessing.”

“A blessing?” said Fenris. “No, they’re a curse.”

“Blessing,” said the giant. “Great power.”

“So that’s the only reason you haven’t killed me, then?”

The giant looked up to the sky and then back down to him.

“Usually short-ones come. They try to kill me and steal bones. So I do the same back. It is only fair. But you are marked. It is a crime to kill a marked short-one, so I cannot kill you.”

“So then let me go! I’ll just go back to the village and I won’t tell anyone about what happened-”

“Doubt this,” said the giant. “I know all about short-ones. I know you must kill me or be cast out. You would come back.” When Fenris didn’t reply the giant held both his hands out flat. “So can’t kill you, can’t let you go. Not sure what to do…”

Fenris rolled over once again to look for some way out. A sudden story spun in his mind then, a surge of emotion that told him how this would be the moment that he could one day tell his future children. He could find some way to get free. Against all odds, he would slay the giant and bring its toe back to the Wolf Mother.

But he saw nothing, no way out. He supposed the only thing to do was to speak.

“You speak my tongue,” Fenris said. “How can this be?”

“Hm?”

“You speak how we speak,” said Fenris. “How the short-ones speak. How did you learn this?”

“Mother knew the language, so she make me learn it.”

“But why?”

“Because short-ones are dangerous. Speech can sometimes stop this danger.”

“We’re not dangerous! You’re dangerous—you’re a giant!”

“Dangerous, me, yes,” said the giant. “More dangerous, no. You come to my home. You come to take my bones.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Fenris looked out at the mountain pass for the first time that day, and saw a slither of sky that was clear and bright. What a strange day it was for him to die. After a snowstorm the world always seemed so open and pretty.

“So I will have to think long about what to do. Can’t kill you, can’t let you go.”

“But you can let me go,” said Fenris. “You don’t understand. If I come back without killing you, my life will be ruined. You only get one chance at the trial.”

“Trial?” the giant wrinkled up its nose. “What does it mean? Trial.”

“Oh,” said Fenris. “It’s what you have to do to become a man. You go out and slay a great beast and then you bring it back to the Wolf Mother. And then you become a warrior and a man. And you’re given a wife!”

As the giant mulled this over, Fenris considered his options. There was no way he’d be able to get away bound as he was, so he thought to go for the next best thing. He’d have to find some way for the giant to untie him. If he could get free, then maybe he could find a way out.

“How am I beast?” said the giant. It began to stroke its large, braided beard. “I am like wolf, or bear?”

“Worse than that,” Fenris said. “A giant is the worst beast.”

This made the giant chuckle a little, deep laughs that shook the very ground.

“Short-ones are strange, yes. A giant is not like a wolf.”

“What is a giant like, then?”

“A giant is like short-one,” he said. “But taller.”

This cracked the giant up for the best part of three minutes.

“What do I have to do for you to let me go?” said Fenris, something like desperation creeping into his voice.

“Hm,” said the giant. “Can’t say. Dangerous to let you go, pointless to let you stay.”

“Can you let me out of these ropes?” said Fenris. “They hurt.”

“Dangerous,” said the giant once again.

“Okay, what if I promise not to try to hurt you? It’s not like I’ll be able to do anything. You’re three times the size of me.”

The giant looked down to his pack of things, and the spark pistol that half-buried in the snow.

“You nearly got Laeknir,” said the giant. “With this thing. It is an evil thing. Tell me what it is.”

“It’s a pistol,” said Fenris, trying to think of a way to describe it. “Do you know what a bow is?”

“Yes.”

“It is like a bow, but it fires a small arrow. And you do not have to draw it.”

“I see,” said the giant, looking rather gloomy about the prospect. “And you short-ones use these now? You use these to kill giants?”

“No,” said Fenris. “Well, yes, many do. But only in the south. It is… forbidden to use them for a warrior of the Northern Haunts.”

“Oh, so you break rules?”

“Yes, badly.”

“Hm,” said the giant. “I must be great beast for you to break such a rule, then.”

“Yes,” said Fenris. “If a boy pulls a frost giant, then they are considered dead before they leave.”

“Hm. Suppose this is true.”

“So I brought it, because I thought I would be dead.”

“Short-ones are cruel,” said the giant, then took Fenris’ pack and placed everything he had into the boiling pot.

“No!” cried Fenris.

The giant looked at him and frowned.

“You want me to untie you, I take away weapons. Fair trade?”

“Yes,” Fenris gasped. “But…”

“But what? You not want me to untie you?”

“I do,” said Fenris. “That was my Mother’s hatchet…”

“Oh,” said the giant, looking back into the pot. “May be fine when the water is cool. Just don’t want you getting at it. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Fenris.

“But if you try to run,” said the giant, as it began to stomp over to him. “I will pick you up. I will put you back in ropes.”

“Okay,” said Fenris. “I won’t try to run.”

“You must be cold,” said the giant, as turned him over and began to untie the ropes. “You can sit beside fire. Don’t want you to freeze. Freeze is killing. Killing is crime.” Then it mumbled something in its own language that Fenris could not understand. He’d never heard a giant speak before, it was a strange, deep and guttural tongue.

Once he was untied he followed the giant to the fire, and sat beside it, holding his hands out to warm them. He considered running right then and there, but his legs were aching and his body was so weak it seemed like an impossible task. He’d have to keep the conversation going for a time if he wanted to survive. The giant had to sleep at some point, he could wait if he had to.

“The hatchet,” said the giant, standing over the pot and staring into it. “This is your mother’s?”

“Yes,” said Fenris.

“She was… precious to you?”

Precious? This was a word he didn’t expect the giant to know.

“Yes,” said Fenris. “She was. But she is dead.”

The giant let out a great sigh and slumped back down beside the fire as it had been before. Then it took a branch and began to stoke the flames.

“I once had one like this.”

“Someone who was precious?”

“A mother.”

“Oh,” said Fenris. He’d never imagined a giant having a mother, but he’d heard it speak more than once. “And where is she?”

“With the Sculptor,” said the giant. “Dead. Like yours.”

“Yes,” said Fenris, the words like poison on his lips. They were words he seldom said. “But not with the Sculptor, I don’t think.”

“Hm. Short-one and giant,” he said. Then paused for a long while. “Not so different.”

“We’re very different,” said Fenris, his brow deepening. “You kill and eat humans, I don’t do that-”

“Only when humans come walking,” said the giant, setting his branch down and glaring at him.

“Only when humans come for bones, and children. Then I will kill and eat. Yes, then.”

“I’m sorry,” Fenris sat, feeling the sudden change in its demeanour. Its anger was like a snowstorm, making him shiver from head to toe like a sudden gust of wind. “Short-ones… have killed your children?”

“Yes,” said the giant. “All of them.”

“So where are the rest of your family? I thought giants lived alone.”

“Now, yes,” said the giant.

“You’re alone?”

“Yes. The last.”

“The last in these mountains.”

“No,” growled the giant. “The Last.”

Fenris paused for a moment, considering this. Then he looked up at the giant and saw something strange on its face. It was an emotion he’d never thought a giant could have. All the stories he’d ever heard painted them as mindless, fearsome beasts, who hungered only for human meat. And yet here was one with sadness on his face. True sadness, pain even; somehow more intense than any human Fenris had ever met.

“Short-ones kill Laeknir mate. Short-ones kill Laeknir children. Short-ones kill Mother and Father. Short ones take everything.”

“But that’s only because you kill us!” Fenris cried, not quite believing it.

“No,” said the giant. “No. They came for bones. They took them.”

“So then…” said Fenris. “If you never wanted that, why would you live so close to the village? In these mountains? Couldn’t you have gone north, to the wastes?”

“Dangerous up there,” said Fenris. “Terrible. Cold. And this is Laeknir home.”

“But if you’re hunted, then I don’t understand-”

The giant put one of its huge, weathered hands onto the snow beside them.

“Place hand.”

Fenris did as he was told.

“Can you not feel it?”

“Feel what?”

The giant sighed. “Short-ones do not understand. Even marked one. This is the home. Below are the ancestors. We cannot move. This is home.”

“So then…” Fenris felt a sudden surge of sadness himself for this giant. How had all of the stories been so wrong? “So then… you can’t move?”

“No. No moving. Laeknir is supposed to go to village, to fight the short-ones. To die and to be with the Sculptor in the after time.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“Because…” the giant looked to the sky once again. “Because Laeknir is coward.”

“Oh,” said Fenris, then the two of them said nothing for quite some time.