“Let’s have a look,” said Anya. Sploshing along, she tried to recall everything she’d read about giants. It wasn’t much. They were generally very boastful and most were so shortsighted they were nearly blind. But they made up for this with a very keen sense of smell. They weren’t very good with numbers; they could usually only count to four, and they had to do it aloud, saying, “Fee, fi, fo, fum,” and then “many.”
That was from their entry in Bestest Beasts and How to Best Them, but Anya couldn’t remember much else. There were numerous categories of giants, and the book had special notes about each type. The least dangerous ones were “Somewhat Terrifying” and there were several gradations to “Truly Terrifying.” The worst of all, if she remembered correctly, were “Stomach-Curling Gigantaurs.” Though these latter were not strictly just giants, but very large giants that also had the heads of bulls. The stomach-curling reference was about how people felt when they first saw them.
The sign was a bit puzzling. The part about the giant had clearly been painted on, not very expertly, across the lower half of the sign. And it definitely said, “Beware the Giant,” rather than “Beware of the Giant.”
“Hmmm,” said Anya. “We’ll have to be careful.”
She looked up and a raindrop hit her in the eye. It stung, but for the first time that day she was actually pleased it was still raining.
“The rain will help. Giants are usually very shortsighted and rely on their sense of smell.”
“Do you have a plan for when we meet the giant?” asked Ardent excitedly.
“I plan to not meet the giant,” said Anya. “We’ll go slowly, keep our eyes and noses open, and if we do catch sight or sniff of the giant, we’ll either go around or, if we have to, retreat back here to head along the road to Rolanstown, I suppose. We have to get food somehow.”
“Plenty of bugs about,” said Smoothie. “Not as good as fish or oysters, but not too bad.”
Anya shuddered, sneezed, and then coughed. Weakly, she waved everybody on and shifted her staff to try to ease the ache in her shoulder. Behind her, in his dangling cage, Denholm let out a loud croak. It sounded a bit like he was laughing at her.
The road to the Good Wizard’s demesne was not an ancient royal highway. It wasn’t paved, it had no gutters, and for the most part it was really just a ten-foot-wide ribbon of mud cutting through the grassy plain. It was actually easier to walk next to the road, because the grass held the mud together, so Anya didn’t sink into unsuspected holes where the mud came up to her waist and she needed Ardent and Smoothie to pull her out. Shrub was no use. He could essentially swim through the mud, but Anya didn’t want to touch his poisonous hide, or have him hold on to her with his mouth.
Unfortunately, it took two sudden immersions in mud holes before Anya worked out it was better to walk next to the road, so she was not only sodden and cold, but encased in mud from roughly her armpits to her toes. The rain washed a good part of it off, but some of the extra-sticky mud remained.
The animals were also covered in mud, except for Smoothie. She got muddy all right, but in her case, it just couldn’t stick to her fur. She would deliberately go for a slide along the road, making cheerful chirruping noises, stand up slathered in mud, and in only a minute or two the rain would rinse her off and she’d be as sleek as ever and ready to go mud-sliding again.
Ardent also liked the mud, though he jumped and splashed in it rather than going for a slide. Shrub was happy too. He lumbered through the mud using a curious half-swimming, half-crawling motion, and kept his mouth open, picking up lots of washed-out worms and other insects.
All three of them forgot to keep a lookout for a giant.
Mud-splattered, wearier than ever, and hungrier than she had ever been in her life, Anya forgot as well. With her head hanging down, the rain slid around her ears to join in a cascade under her chin, which then unerringly found a gap in her two kirtles to chill her rapidly weakening chest. It was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other, and her staff had slid forward so far that the bundle and Denholm’s cage were essentially sitting on her shoulder rather than suspended in the air.
“FEE, FI, FO, FUM!”
The roar of the giant’s voice and the accompanying blast of fetid breath instantly drew Anya’s attention away from the all-consuming slog through mud, and banished all feelings of exhaustion, hunger, and cold.
The giant was right in front of them, straddling the road. He was a horrifying figure, easily twenty feet tall, with shoulders wider than a bull’s. It was only a small mercy that he didn’t have a bull’s head, and so was not a Gigantaur. This giant’s oversize human head was still no prize, with his too-wide mouth featuring uneven rows of snaggled, blackened, and rotting teeth. His nose had been broken so many times it zigzagged down his face, and his straggly blond hair was badly plaited into four ropes, knotted with human bones. Two of the plaits were tied under his chin in a kind of bow.
The giant wore massive ox-hide boots, each the size of Anya herself, and a loose smock made of bloodstained sailcloth, living up to the reputation giants had for not caring about their clothes. He held a rusted, crudely wrought cleaver the size of a small pony in his right hand, and in his left gripped a capacious leather bag that had probably started life as a knight’s pavilion.
“Five!” shouted Anya, her mind continuing to rocket out of the rain-, mud-, and weariness-induced stupor she’d been in a moment before.
“WHAT?” asked the giant. He still held the cleaver high, ready to strike.
“Fee-fi-fo-fum-five!” shouted Anya. “There’s five of us, counting the prince.”
“PRINCE? I CAN’T SEE NO PRINCE,” said the giant warily. He was slightly concerned. Princes as a group could potentially include the rare and very unwelcome subspecies known as giant killers.
“He’s right behind me,” said Anya. She waved her right hand in the air to distract the giant, urging the others to go around the giant and keep going with her left.
The giant peered myopically down at the road, then bent and sniffed the air above Anya’s head. Giants’ noses were so sensitive they could smell lies.