EA#08:
Read From the Beginning or the start of Trial Two
The Mountain in the Clouds, Part Eleven
“
The plan began to unfold. Everyone in town got busy with it. It was a wonderful thing to see. The hard work of hundreds of dedicated participants with one goal in mind.
Jax and Hayn were hoisting some posts together, while Bion directed the two in placing them just so.
Gill had a team of helpers moving supplies to their necessary placements.
Corporal Riley was coaching the town guard on their part in the execution of the master plan.
Even the Scimitar Man helped, training a few interested youths in a bit of swordplay.
Gods, that it doesn’t come down to swordplay, I thought. We are extremely outmatched by the giant taxmen.
Still I was thrilled to see everyone putting so much good effort in. The city was alive with hope, rather than the desperation that had been feeling so heavy before.
I truly hoped this was going to be work. If it backfired, we were all in for some truly giant trouble.
Everyone had listened to my idea intently. They’d almost immediately latched onto it, which had surprised me a bit. Especially considering my opening line had been:
“So we are going to put on a little fairy tale puppet show for the taxmen.” Eesh, what was I thinking. Many eyebrows were raised at that.
I had continued to clarify what I was intending:
“When I was a kid, I remember all the stories about giants and how ridiculous their courtship rituals seemed. The women giants always seemed to play hard to get. And the men giants would inevitably come in too fast with lips puckered. The women would pound them on the head with some frying pan or the like, and the men would nearly fall over, but would always continue the pursuit of the woman despite. It rarely ended well for the men, but was usually in the women’s favor. It always struck me as kind of funny when I was a kid, but I guess my older self thought, ‘well of course courtship and mating must be hard for giants or there would be a lot more of them in the world.’ I was naive. But now I think it makes sense and its gives me an idea.”
Still the others had looked at me blankly.
“Well, what if we confuse the giants when they come back? What if we make them think they’ve been beaten here by some women giants.”
“Say what?” Gill had had to interject.
“Yea, we create faces of giant women and place them on top of some of the buildings. We place the traps there and when the men get close we’ve got them right where we want them. You said it yourselves that you have traps ready, but were not sure where to put them. This way, we are in control of where the taxmen go, right into our snares.”
“You’re crazier than I thought,” Gill had muttered.
“No,” Corporal Riley had mused, “this actually sounds promising. Needs refinement, maybe. And it will require some determination from a lot of people in town. We need to make these giant faces quickly. And how will we get them to look like more than just heads on buildings? We need the appearance of clothes… lots of fabric we can hang down from the face. I don’t know, this is quite a project. Gill, can you help coordinate some artisans on giantess garments? Jax, Hayn, why don’t you get your friends in the lumber guild to construct some large frames for the heads. Bion, collaborate with your painter friends on designing faces. I can get my team placing the traps in good spots and we will build our giantesses there.”
“This is ridiculous,” Gill had protested. “Do we really think that giant men are going to fall for wooden faces with long fabric hanging from them?”
“Maybe not as ridiculous as it a sound,” the Scimitar Man had offered then. “Our a friend here is a not the only one to have a childhood stories about a giants. In a my country, they say a giants have a terrible eyesight. They cannot see a baby rattle from a deadly rattler.” He had said with a shrug.
So we decided to go forward with the project, with some improvements as we went. We were all hoping that giants indeed had these odd characteristic that had been passed on through childhood fairy tales. One, that men giants would invariably pursue women giants even while incurring their own injury. And two, that giants were half blind.
Gods help us, I prayed. A lot is resting on a couple maybes.
But I chose to believe that it was all going to work out just as it needed to.
And everyone was working so intently on it all.
The frames of the heads had come out well, and the faces were done very convincingly by the painters of town. They looked quite fearsome and, we hoped, attractive… We didn’t know exactly what male giants looked for, so we based it off what we knew from looking at the taxmen. Some of the women had curled lips, others moles or punchy cheeks. But ours all a touch of feminine charm for good measure.
The carpenters and lumberers lifted the frames into place on the building tops and propped them up. Then seamstresses, tailors and other craftworkers began dressing the heads with ropes for hair and large baubles of all kinds fashioned into giant jewelry. Jax, Hayn, and Bion looked on approvingly.
Long rolls of fabric were thrown from rooftops to the ground and townspeople from windows up and down the buildings tied belts, shirt cuffs and collars. Dresses billowed out below that, but were long so there was no need for legs. Then wooden hands were placed at the sides and mock boots at street level.
The fake giant women were all equipped with a voice, played by one of the actors from the town theater groups. These brave folk were given a personal guard and placed in hiding behind the giantess heads. Everything was almost set.
Gill was giving a stern congratulations to her teams who were rallying back to her after completing their tasks.
The Scimitar Man and his class of amateur swordsmen ended with handshakes and smiles before splitting up.
Corporal Riley commanded some last orders to her teams to finish their placement of the traps.
Then all of the townspeople were ordered to return home and stay inside. Every last citizen was to remain in hiding after the giants arrival so they wouldn’t spoil the trap.
It was going to be quite a show.
“Two days of preparing this insane plan, and I’m anxious to see how it will really turn out,” Riley admitted to me quietly.
“I know, it does feel pretty crazy. But I thought you were behind my plan?” I asked the corporal.
“I was. I am. But seeing it work will be another thing…” she trailed off, then went back to shouting at her crew who was slipping while carrying one of the trap parts.
“I know,” I said to myself. “Tell me about it.”
I tried to remain strong. I believed that the plan would work. I made myself really believe in it. Put my trust fully into the gods’ hands to carry us through this. The gods had never let me down before, had they? Well, that’s debatable… Forget that, that was a different time. The gods have led me well so far since then. I have faith in their messages to me. I am trusting and believing.
Then the pounding of the enormous footfalls made me almost completely lose that focus. The giants were approaching. They were coming for their taxes. They were coming to complete their threat.
The powerful reverberations of booted giant feet resounded across the valley, just like last time. Even though they had long gaits, it felt an eternity waiting for their approach. As calm as I had been a moment ago, the longer the anticipation was, the longer I felt my blood pressure rise to a crescendo of terror. And the noise got louder and clearer as it neared.
“What is this?” growled a giant man’s voice.
“What do you mean, what is this!?” shrieked an actor in her best giantess voice. “We seized the city by force, what does it look like? You lazy clods are too late. When we women want something we just take it. Now what do you want?”
The tone changed quickly in the giant man’s response, “Ahem, excuse me, ladies, I didn’t mean to judge you too quickly. My name is Gumpelthwomp. I am the head taxman here, and we are here to collect our dues. I wasn’t expecting any competition. Is there any way we can talk about this? Maybe over a roast pig or two?”
I was so pleased to see the giant, Gumpelthwomp, respond as if the huge puppet were real. He was not quite puckered up for a kiss, but it sounded like he was trying to ask her out. And his body language was leaning ever closer to the female mock giant. His eyes glimmered and seemed to quite literally have stars in them.
The effect was unanimous around town as all the giant tax collectors came to be smitten by a well-acted fake wooden giantess in curtains.
The longer I watched the giant men chase the fabricated giantesses, the more I couldn’t believe my eyes. Were these behemoths of men really that thick-headed? Could they not see what was happening? They were each beginning to enact my childhood tales, readying their lips to lean in for a kiss from their favored giant woman.
It was all lined up.
The traps were sprung.
There was a large hammer that was released on the top of one giant’s skull, sending him reeling and spinning. As he did so he stumbled into some ropes tied across the street and toppled over into a pile of rubble placed in his way.
Another taxman was slammed in the sides of his face by two huge logs that were let loose simultaneously, swung from ropes. And down he went, lights out.
And another was blinded by black, powdery smoke in his face, coughing and sputtering as he backed up into a large toothed trap that grabbed his ankle.
I stood with the Riley and the others in one of the tallest guard watchtowers and witnessed the whole plan falling into place. All of the giants were being caught by the traps and were either knocked out, bound or fallen. The actors were perfecting their roles, luring the last clueless giants to their dooms.
Except for one. Gumpelthwomp.
Even though the head taxman had been the first to fall prey to the ruse, he had also hesitated long enough to witness his comrades being ensnared. And he did not set off the trap made for him. He looked around angrily, trying to spot someone to blame. And somehow he made eye contact with me.
“You!” he thundered, and hastened towards me. And hastening in giant steps is very fast indeed. He was there before I knew it, reaching out a strong, grubby hand to get me. Riley and the others threw up their weapons but the giant’s hand plunged straight through the stonework of the tower. I felt my body being lifted in a tight grip while my friends were tossed aside like bugs in the rubble of the falling structure.
Ok, this is not going according to plan. This was not right at all, I thought.
“
Thanks so much for reading.
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Blessings to you,
Matthew