Prologue Previous Chapter

Reya

Reya’s stomach fluttered uncomfortably as Reya imagined what it would be like to meet the strange villagers.

“This is so exciting, Reya.” Mika said, bouncing merrily next to her. “Are you nervous?”

“Yes.” Reya said, her stomach twitching again, even stronger than before. A trickle of sweat dripped between her shoulder blades, sending a chill down her spine. “And hot.”

Mika held up a half-empty waterskin. “Do you want some water?”

Reya chuckled, her belly jumping anxiously. “The stream’s right there.” She said, pointing at the run of clear water, trickling merrily past the deer path. Mika nodded, and helped her slide down the slippery clay walls of the stream bed. The water was wonderfully cold around her feet, instantly raising goosebumps all over her skin. Bending down slowly, she drank from stream, even as her belly continued to spasm.

“Why am I so nervous?” She thought, and then she looked up. “Are we in danger?” The valley was filled with trees.

“Do you see anything strange?” She asked Mika.

Mika looked up from refilling the waterskin and glanced around. “No. Why?”

“I don’t know, I…” She said, pausing. “Why did they let the fire go out?”

“What?” Mika asked, furrowing her brow. “Who?”

“The village. They never lit the fire this morning.” When they had awoken, Armis had stared in dismay at the clear horizon, while Barak stood in the background, a malicious smile on his lips. “Follow the stream.” Armis had said reluctantly, shaking his head.

“It could be anything.” Mika said. “Here, let me help you out.” Extending a hand, Mika helped her back up the soft banks, and they rejoined the others. Tohm was wrestling with Kito, both of them giggling and growling. Reya stared at them, her lip curling into a sneer.

“He’s nothing like his brother.” Reya said, staring at Tohm.

“Tohm? He’s just playing around.”

Reya shook her head. “Korak never played around like that.” Quiet Korak had never been one for jokes or horseplay, focusing his life on the mastery of the hunt.

Mika shrugged and kept walking, staring at the empty sky ahead. Maybe they…” She said, and then paused. “Well, I’m sure they have a good reason.”

“What?” Reya asked, confused. “What are you talking about?”

Mika pointed at the horizon. “The village. The fire. After all, why–”

Reya’s belly jumped, and she stared down at her stomach in surprise, gently resting her hand against the smooth curves.

What was that?

“–let it go out if you don’t want it to?” Mika continued.

She gasped in delight, grabbing Mika’s arm. “The baby… the baby is kicking!”

“Oh Reya, that’s wonderful.” Mika said, grabbing Reya’s arm in return.

The baby kicked again, sending vibrations through her entire body. “Wow, that was strong.” She said.

Barak pushed past her, shoving her off-balance. “Get out of the way.”

She was too excited to care about him. Come on baby, do it again!

**Whump**

“What was that sound?” Mika said, looking alarmed.

“What do you mean? ” Reya stared at her. “You can hear the baby kicking?”

Up ahead, Armis’s voice called out. “Hold up.”

Quickly, they all assembled in a semicircle in front of him, studying the trees.

“Do you hear that?” Oola asked, cocking her head.

And then Reya could hear it, a faint scream, definitely coming from the trees to the north.

“Spears ready.” Armis said, quietly, spinning around.

“There’s a clearing over there.” Tohm said, pointing. Armis nodded. “Follow me.” He whispered, and the others softly followed him to the edge. It was a pleasant, sunny meadow, filled with grasses and wildflowers, with the stream running along the eastern edge.

Silence. She watched the butterflies flit about above the grass.

“There, look!” Lam shouted, pointing across the glen, as two figures emerged from the far end, running hard along the streambank. A man and a woman, holding hands as they ran, glancing back behind them from time to time.

“Is a bear chasing them?” Barak muttered.

“Is she wearing a sling?” Mika asked, shading her eyes.

The strange man saw them, and started yelling frantically as they ran. Armis raised his hand in greeting, shouting a greeting across the distance.

The man yelled in return, his voice ragged as he ran. “Run. Hide!”

Beyond the far end of the clearing the treetops swayed violently in the still air. Birds launched themselves into the sky all around, fleeing the bizarre disturbance.

“What is that?” Lam murmured as the line of shivering branches marched towards the edge of the clearing.

Reya held her breath as the last line of trees were shoved sideways by massive hands. Bent low to clear the branches, a brown-haired man forced his way through the gap, one of the trunks suddenly snapping in two as it gave way beneath his weight, a single loud crack careening through the valley.

Reya’s eyes crossed for a moment, and she shook her head to clear the dizzying sensation that the man was almost as tall as the trees.

Pausing, the brown-haired man looked around, raising a hand to shade his eyes from the sunlight. Seeing the fleeing couple, he roared, a deep shuddering boom that raced across the glen, grinding against her bones like the rattle of thunder during a summer storm.

The fleeing woman glanced back, stumbling as she wailed in fear, and the man caught her, pulling her upright as they continued across the waist-high grass.

The brown haired man yelled out again and started running after them, each footfall sending a vicious tremor through the earth. Reya stared at him, bile filling her stomach as she tried to understand what she was seeing.

“So big.” Shara whispered, her golden skin shimmering in the sunlight. “How?”

The couple were drawing closer now. “Come on!” Armis shouted, waving frantically. “Hurry. This way.”

Far behind them, the huge man stopped short, his beady eyes glinting as he pulled something out of a massive pouch, bellowing a single word, the rage in his voice sending chills down her arms.

The woman cried out in fear, slowing. “No!” Her companion yelled, yanking her forward.

Roaring, the huge man swung his arm forwards. Reya caught a glimpse of gray rock spinning through the air for just a moment before the man’s head disappeared in a cloud of ichor, his lifeless body instantly tumbling to the ground.

“Tran!” The woman shouted, drenched in crimson as she pitched forwards. Her hands shaking, she reached out to the headless corpse, moaning in terror.

Intermixed with the woman’s cries, Reya could hear the thin wail of an infant, wrapped tightly in a blood-soaked sling across the woman’s chest.

“Get up. Run.” Tohm hissed. The woman looked up, face smeared with gore. Hesitating for but a moment, she launched herself back to her feet, racing towards them even as she struggled to pull the sling from her shoulders. “Save him. Please.”

Oh no. Without thinking, Reya ran forwards, compelled beyond reason to rescue the child.

“Reya!” Armis shouted. “No.”

In the distance, the huge man bellowed again, a sharp-edged rock glinting between his fingers.

Instantly, the woman shrieked, stumbling to a stop, falling to her knees, even as she extended her trembling arms. “Please. Help him.”

“Reya, come back.” Armis yelled. “What are you doing?”

But all Reya could see was the tiny boy, screaming in rage as his mother held him out to her. “Please.” She whispered.

Reya took another tentative step.

“Reya, you stupid idiot, we have to get out of here.” Barak growled. He sounded far away, unimportant. The only thing that mattered now was the child, bawling in terror. “If I can take him,” She thought as she started running, “If I can just touch him, everything will be all right.”

A wide shadow passed over the sun, and she flinched involuntarily, glancing upwards.

Large, gray, falling. Reya threw herself sideways at the last second as the earth galloped beneath her. Heaving herself to her feet, she found herself face to face with a great boulder sitting where a moment ago there had been only grass and her own footprints. Cracks were already spreading across the surface of the stone, chunks of rock falling from the surface as it shivered itself into pieces.

Behind her, another booming growl fell from above. In a daze, she turned around and watched another huge man with a mane of black hair and a sinuous red scar running across the left side of his face clamber down the side of the hill to the east.

He’s laughing at us, she realized dully.

“Reya, are you ok.” Armis asked.

She spun around, weaving unsteadily as she turned to face her friend, nodding weakly.

“We’re surrounded.” He said, his face grim.

Barak came up from behind. “Armis, we can’t let them capture us. We need to split up.” Behind him, Reya could see the others, staring at the approaching enemies, even as they converged behind Barak.

“No.” Armis frowned. “We need to stick togeth-”

With a mighty crack, a smaller stone struck the boulder, sending flint-like shards slicing across the air, etching trails of red across her skin.

“Shut. Up.”

When Reya was younger, her father would sometimes use a deep growling voice in his stories, a kind of deep belching roar that always sent her into fits of laughter.

But not anymore.

“Come.” The dark-haired monstrosity said in a thick accent, his words dark with unpleasant consequences.

No one moved.

“Come.” “Now.”

“Okay.” Armis. “Let’s do what they say– Barak!”

Reya blinked as Barak leapt away, rushing past the shattered boulder towards the meager shelter of the woods. Another rock whistled through the air after him, smashing into his shoulderblade sending him hurtling to the ground.

Is he dead?

Isn’t that what you wanted?

Not like this.

The infant bawled again, his mother standing over the body of her dead mate, staring at his ruined form, unmoving, unblinking as blood dripped from her hair. Reya walked over to the girl, not much older than her, really, and touched her arm. “Your baby needs you.”

The woman jerked slightly, and turned to stare at Reya, the light already gone from her eyes. Her mouth twitched, as though she would speak, but instead she simply nodded slightly, her face expressionless as she turned away from her loss and faced their captor.

Black-hair barked out a command at someone behind them, and she spun around to find Brown-hair plucking Barak from the ground and tossing him casually over one shoulder. Barak grunted in pain, coughing up bile, leaving a dark yellow stain across Brown-hair’s bearskin shirt.

“He’ll kill us all.” The woman said flatly. Reya turned and looked at her, her stomach churning with fear “Who?”
At the edge of the woods, the trees were beginning to shake and shudder again. She pointed at the churning branches. “Jiant.”

A cold chill crept down Reya’s spine as she watched another huge man shove his way through the trees, a brutal, misshapen face surrounded by an unkempt halo of coarse red hair. Half again as tall as the other, where they were well-muscled, Jiant was grotesque, his arms and legs bulging with gnarled muscles and knotted veins, fat hands ending in swollen fingers. Each hand carried a long, greasy bone, dotted with shreds of pink flesh. He gnawed at the bones with crowded yellow teeth, stripping away the remaining meat and casting them aside to lie glistening in the sun.

“Are those…” Lam said, swallowing hard. “Are those… hu-”

Black-hair shoved the boy in the back with a toe and ground him into the dirt. “Shut.” He growled.

Jiant said something to Black-hair, his voice a dark pit of malice, deeper than any she had ever heard before. Black Hair responded, motioning towards Reya and the other woman.

Jiant smiled, exposing his yellow teeth again, and issued a series of sharp, guttural snorts. And then he noticed Reya, and stopped mid snort, eyes gleaming. He leaned forward, and his shadow fell across her, turning her blood to ice. Closing her eyes, she shook helplessly, every bone shrieking for her to run and hide, only the tiniest shred of reason remaining to replay the death of the poor man lying next to them.

Rough,horny fingers clutched at her, and she shrieked involuntarily as she was gently lifted into the air, brought close to Jiant’s face. He stared at her, an d said something meaningless, looking into her eyes. She watched him, nonplussed, waiting for him to kill her. Instead, reaching out a hand, he touched her belly, rubbing it softly as he cradled her in his calloused palm. With morbid fascination, she stared at gnarled brown finger, almost as thick as her wrist, blood and pus drying in the creases in his fingernail as he carefully rubbed the tip up and down across her stomach. His breath smelled of rotting meat and festering wounds, and she closed her eyes, gritting her teeth to hold back the vomit.

**Whump**

No, baby. Not now.

Jiant pulled his finger back in surprise and smiled again, staring at her belly, a mounstrous grin on his face.

“Baby.” He said, licking his lips.
Darkness took her.

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Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 4:10 am.
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