EA#07:
Read From the Beginning or the start of Trial Two
The Mountain in the Clouds, Part Ten
“
Everyone was staring at me.Ok, I hope this goes well.
“So you’ve got a plan?” asked Gill.
“Yea, um. Well, I think,” I stammered. “It sort of depends.”
“Oh, great,” said Gill, throwing her hands up.
“Let him speak,” Riley pressed on. “What does it depend upon?”
“Well, we know the giants are impossibly large. Physically we have no strength to match them. We could bear our arms and go to battle, but the chances of much success for us there is, well, I don’t know how I want to put it…”
“We get the point,” Riley said.
“Well, don’t get me wrong,” I added. “I don’t know what kind of skill you all have with your weapons. Or what plans you had… Anyway, if we can’t outmatch them, maybe we can outsmart them.”
“I like where you’re going with this. Got some ideas?” asked the corporal.
“Here’s the tricky part that it all may depend on,” I began. “The only way I feel we can win this is to scare the giants.” I paused. “So, anyone know what they’re afraid of?”
“Hah,” Gill bellowed. “Give me a break. This is your idea? Scare the five story tall monsters with enormous clubs and axes?” She stood there shaking her head.
“Well, now, let’s not completely discount it, Gill,” Riley cautioned. “Think of how fast the wheat buffalo turn and run when they see a small grass mouse. Maybe there’s something the giant’s respond to in fear.”
“Yea, but wheat buffalo would only come up to a giant’s ankle,” Gill continued to naysay. “How are we going to scare something so big? Many somethings so big?”
“Perhaps there is a way,” said a highly accented voice. It was the scimitar man. Everyone turned their full attention towards him.
“Go on,” said Riley.
“Well, in my home country, we have many big animals that can cause a many problems,” the scimitar man explained. “They are large sand worms, very big, maybe as big as giants. They come around every month and eat our livestock, scare our families. So we figure out a way to get a rid of them. We scare them from a coming in town.”
“How exactly did you do that?” Gill asked.
“We set a traps. Many, many traps. We lay them all around the town. We place their favorite snacks, we think, so they come. We put bison meat in a traps. The sand worms came and eat it, a, then the trap is sprung. The sand worm gets dropped down slide and thrown off cliff.”
“And this crazy plan actually worked?” Gill seemed dubious.
“Yes, after second time,” the foreigner answered. “The sand worms learn that there is too much danger when they come to that place. They always get a thrown and hurt. They never come back a now.”
“Wow, that sounds unbelievable,” said Riley in awe.
“It is a true,” the scimitar man said defensively. “I helped set up a the traps. I see it work.”
“Oh, no doubt,” Riley covered herself. “When I said it was unbelievable I was just, well, it’s just a saying. Just to describe my amazement.”
“Oh,” the man said, unsure.
“There you go,” I joined in. “This man’s story is proof. His town has stopped the sand worm attacks. I’m sure those sand worms didn’t seem easy to defeat at first, but they outsmarted them and won!”
“Eh, those sand worms, I can hunt alone,” the scimitar man boasted.
“Well, except for this guy,” I said pointing at the foreigner, “sand worms sound huge and threatening and deadly. Like our giants! So, what are these giants scared of? How can we frighten them from ever wanting to come back to Titanton, ever wanting to ask for tax again?”
I was hopeful that the energy of the group would respond and start coming up with ideas. Then we would fire back and forth and inspire each other, try out plans in our minds, then settle on one that sounded like a sure bet.
None of this happened…
Crickets chirped…
“No ideas?” I asked. Then I looked directly at some of them for answers, or at least attempts at answers. “Hayn? Jax? Bion?”
They all looked sheepishly at me.
“Sorry, boss, I don’t know much about giant scaring,” said Bion, shrugging his shoulders. The other two shrugged in kind, trying to appear helpless.
“Gill, Riley, stranger?” I continued. “No one’s ever heard some old nursery rhyme about giants and what they’re scared of, have they?”
Riley looked lost for ideas while Gill was silently fuming at this line of thought.
The scimitar man only spoke up to tell us his name. “I am not stranger, my friends, I am Ashz of Atarzir. Kind to me and to you,” he said with a bow.
“Ok, so no one, huh?” I was beginning to sweat along my brow and temples.
Hold on, I told myself. Regroup, self, recenter. That’s worked for me in the past. To focus my mind on being at ease. That way the answers come with ease as well. There’s got to be something we can pull together between the bunch of us that can solve our problem here. Well, their problem. I mean, I guess it’s mine now, too…
So, giants. Wow, that’s not a topic I’d ever thought I’d be discussing in reality. They were always fairy tales. What did they do in the fairy tales? Well, they were always stealing treasures and hoarding treasures. Nothing new there, modern day trolls apparently steal tax money.
What else? Giants were fearsome to meet as an enemy, but it was also told that they had a romantic side when it came to courting other giants. They were said to bring flowers and trinkets to potential dates just like anybody, but were also quite inept and silly about courtship ritual. Men were supposedly quick to smooch their lips for a kiss, while women often flattened men’s heads with a frying pan in order to flee. The stories claimed that they loved this cat and mouse chase.
How could that help in this situation? I don’t know. Let me keep pondering…
“So, good try, there, Troy my boy,” Gill jested. “Looks like we are going back to utter fight for survival like we first planned.”
“But that sounds like suicide to me! Why would you throw your lives away like that?” I returned with great frustration. Gill jumped.
“Alright,” Riley intervened. “You have just joined us today, and you cannot know the pain and trouble these giants have caused for us. For some time now. We are not acting with desperate intentions, but we are in dire need of a solution and our options are few at best.”
“Options?” I asked. “What options? What was your great plan to win this fight? Were you really going to go to blows, sword for sword? You against those behemoths?”
“Well, yes, and no,” Riley replied. “We were never intending to face off one-on-one like it almost went tonight. They took us by surprise. We had a plan, yes. Shoddy as it was, it was all we could hope for. We were going to wait for the taxmen to collect their money, then strike as they left with their guards down. We planned teams all over the city to help fight back. We had traps in mind to trip and tie them up. We were a matter of days from completing our plans before we were going to enact them. But now the stakes have changed and we need a response in two days… Anyways, it was a long shot. We had no idea where to set the traps because we couldn’t know where the giants would end up walking…”
“That’s it!” I shouted. Everyone raised their eyes. “I think I’ve put it together. Listen, when I was reflecting on my childhood impression of giants, I remembered how silly their courtship practices seemed to be. Goofy male giant chases down resolute female giant until invariably the man gets pounded on the head by the woman.”
“Ok, I thought I’d heard enough before,” Gill seethed, “but this is too much. What are you going on about, Troy?”
“Yes, I am having trouble following, too,” said Corporal Riley. “Please explain what this has to do with anything.”
“Well,” I said, “you said it yourself. You were preparing traps to catch them. But you didn’t know where to place them, or how to ensure that the giants would find them in order to set them off. Well, I think I have a way to plan every step they take. And then we can lead them right into our traps.”
“You’ve got my ear,” Riley said with a grin.
Even Gill seemed to pique her interest.
All six of the company looked to me in anticipation. Gods, be with me.
“
Thanks for reading.
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Blessings to you all,
Matthew