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“I have no idea what that is,” Bastone muttered back. His hand was tight around the hilt of his sword like he was ready to draw it, even though there was no fight happening.
Something more like a dragon’s growl than a voice screeched over the valley: “Who will fight me?!” The rumbling question soared into Ryn’s heart.
All through the Per-Siana divisions, men looked down at their feet, glanced off at the desert, or just closed their eyes altogether. Some backed deeper into the lines, giving the B’rei Mira monster more space to stomp around and laugh.
“Someone get Yusuf a bucket before he barfs,” Faro said in a timid voice. Then he hiccupped and placed a fist against his crooked teeth.
In their brief moment of happiness swimming in the valley, Ryn forgot something was waiting for them up the slope. She never dreamed this hid over the ridge, that this was the reason the divisions were trapped. This was no battle to fight. This was a mighty tower ready to fall upon her division and crush them alive if they got too close.
“Let me ask what’s going on.” Bastone slipped ahead, approaching a man in a blue and gold commander’s uniform. They exchanged some words before Bastone returned with a grim look and a deep frown. He cleared his throat and stole a sideways glance at the giant. “The Per-Siana and B’rei Mira commanders made a deal two weeks ago. They were both meant to send forth their best warrior to fight in a one-on-one duel. The loser’s divisions must submit to the winners as war prisoners. But…” He dragged his gaze off the giant, and Ryn guessed what he would say next. “That’s the champion B’rei Mira chose.”
“Divinities,” Faro cursed as he tugged his red ribbon.
Ryn turned away from the others. “El,” she whispered. She slid her sword an inch out of her sheath. It wasn’t glowing. Her mouth twisted to the side as she slid it back in. At least she wasn’t expected to do anything about this creature.
“He’s loud and he’s big. But he’s full of air—not power.”
Ryn’s relief slithered away. Her gaze raked over the plain toward the giant, then dragged up its enormous, awful body. “Please don’t tell me anything else. I’m worried you talking to me right now means you’re going to ask me to do something about this thing.”
“Show those watching that an illusion of strength isn’t real strength. Like a great dragon who rules the sky, only held together by the hands of shadows.”
Ryn pinched the bridge of her nose. “I really don’t want to,” she murmured through her teeth.
“The army fears the giant because they only see what’s placed before them. They don’t see the truth.”
Ryn sighed and shook her head slowly. “I’m going to throw up.”
Beside her, Heva folded her arms as she scanned the hundreds of Per-Siana men locked in this stalemate. “Not a single soldier here wants to fight him?” she asked. “Typical men. Why do you get to wear the cool soldier suits, and we’re stuck in this prison trash—” she waved a hand down her clothes “—when you won’t even step up and fight when you’re supposed to?”
Bastone shot her a sharp look. “Well do you want to do it?”
Heva raised both hands in apology, her braid sliding off her shoulder. “I say we sneak back the way we came and get out of—Ryn!”
Ryn was already pushing through the Per-Siana army, making a break for the frontlines. Her stomach roiled as she pulled out her sword and slapped the empty sheath against the soldier beside her without looking to see who it was. The soldier looked at her strangely as he took it, watching as she slid her mask into place. As she took the first step past the Per-Siana lines and into the open space where the giant waited.
“It’s just an illusion. He’s only making noise,” she muttered as she put one foot in front of the other until she was standing before the creature. She couldn’t will herself to look up at it. Her breaths shortened. Somewhere in the lines behind her, she could hear Heva freaking out. Burn Division Twelve was calling her name. Some from her division were cheering for her; others were accusing her of being crazy. All the Per-Siana commanders began talking at once, trying to figure out what she was doing and why she was out there without their permission.
Ryn ignored them, finally lifting her gaze to the giant’s large, shiny black eyes trained back on her. When he smiled—a twisted wide thing that sent a barrel of heat rolling through her stomach—all the shadows around him swivelled to stare too. The shadows grew into a wild mane over his head, reaching out in swirling tendrils, carrying threads of his black hair with them.
“Finally,” the creature said, all the shadows chanting with it. The sound sent a rush of cool air and needles down Ryn’s arms and made the loose hairs by her neck flutter.
Divinities, she could hardly breathe. When she’d told El to ‘use her’, this wasn’t what she’d had in mind. But she thought about the great white dragon falling out of the Per-Siana sky. How it had crashed into the street without its shadows.
Though, that dragon had no life in it. This giant certainly did.
Ryn raised her sword, pointing it first at the giant, then at those in red and bronze waving enemy flags across the steaming cliff. “Praise be to El Tsebaoth!” The cry echoed, reverberating across the stone like her spirit was shouting it, not her quivering tongue or shaking lips. “Woe to all you who trust in chariots, spears, and shields. I come in the name of the God Original, God of the Adriels, whom you have defied by bowing to false gods.”
The armies on both sides went quiet, no one responding to the strange declaration by the young woman foolish enough to try and fight the champion. She expected laughter, at least from the B’rei Mira side. But instead, she got a thick limb of darkness swinging at her from the giant’s head.
Ryn ducked and lost her balance, her heels stabbing sand as she caught herself.
This time, the B’rei Mira warriors did laugh. To them, it must have looked like she was dancing for nothing. The blind mocking what they couldn’t see.
“El…” she murmured as she reset her feet.
“I’m here.”
A warm hand came over Ryn’s hand, and an embrace circled around her back.
