Even when the bell stopped ringing, the yard was alive with noise. Though most of the baron’s men—including the Godfreys—were out scouting, the present skeleton crew was still managing to make quite the ruckus as they rushed to get their gear and mount their horses.

Lawrence swore under his breath. “Where’s Howard?”

“They sent him out scouting,” Matthew replied. “I’ll ride with you instead.”

“Who’s riding with your brother then?”

“Jacob is coming with me,” Ben said.

“Alright, let’s get moving then.”

While Matthew and Lawrence rushed off to get mounted, I asked, “I’m doing what now?”

“You’re riding with me,” Ben repeated. “If we’re getting revenge for what the giants did, we’re getting it with you.”

Yeah, I wasn’t feeling so sure about that idea, but then I thought about what the giants had done to the people here. The animosity I felt realizing that they had stuffed old Jack’s siblings into their food bags began to boil up.

“Right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Ben and I jogged over to the wagons to get some weapons and the supply manager handed us two pikes, a thick rope, and a couple of torches with long shafts. I still had my axe strung to my belt, just in case, but it wasn’t supposed to be a weapon fit for fighting giants.

With some flint and a striker pocketed for the torches, Ben and I mounted his and Matthew’s horse, Runner, then rode over to Lawrence and Matthew. I noticed that they’d taken the rope and torches, but left the pikes behind in favor of Matthew’s bow.

Together, the four of us lined up with the other riding pairs. The party leads weren’t there to guide us, but the men they’d left behind were more than disciplined enough to organize themselves in this situation.

“Was I any good in a fight?” I asked Ben.

“Good enough,” He said. “Never had one like this though.”

“You still remember how to hold that spear, boy?” Lawrence asked, eyeing the pike leaned upon my shoulder.

“I think I do.” I should have been more worried than I was, but instincts inherited with my body were giving me some confidence.

“You think you do?” Lawrence asked, as the leading pair of riders set off. Before he could question my readiness further, Ben got our horse moving after the next two pairs set after the leads.

“Come on,” Ben said, looking back, “Let’s go.”

Lawrence grunted, but said nothing else as he got the horse Matthew and him were riding to catch up with Runner.

“Jacob?” I heard Agatha call my name as our horses touched the clearing’s edge. No doubt she wouldn’t have wanted me to go, but she had stepped out a minute too late to catch me. No doubt too that she’d be less than happy when I got back, but hey, that was for later and dealing with the giants was for now.

We rode out to the giants’ path following the baron’s men. Paths like this one, apparently, were left open by our ancestors so that they could control the movements of giants. Just wide enough for the giants to feel comfortable in them, they placed sharp turns into short corridors at multiple points along the path, so that the giants would have to slow down for an ambush they’d have waiting for them.

“Their skin is thick, so we’ve got to use the pikes to make them bleed,” Ben said. He was teaching me how we were supposed to fight giants along the way. “Once we’ve got them bleeding, then we can set their blood on fire.”

Burning the dead, burning the undead, burning giants—there really was a lot of burning they were doing around here. “What should we do if we catch some witches?” I asked. Burn them.

“Burn them,” Ben said in tandem with my thought. “Why are you bringing them up right now?”

“Just wondering.”

“Okay,” he blew it off, “Anyways, once the giants’ blood is on fire it’ll be hard for them to put it out. We’ll still need to be careful, though. The giant could still kill you when they’re thrashing about, after all.”

“Right.”

“We either win from having them bleed to death or we win from having them burn to death. You got it?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Also, if they’re chasing someone our way and they don’t see us, we can try to trip them up with the rope,” he gave our rope a quick pat.

“And that’s supposed to actually work?” I asked.

“Kind of. They say you almost always get knocked down, but it should still trip up the giant and if they’re running they could fall over.”

“And how hard do we get knocked down when they’re running?”

Ben thought for a moment. “It’ll probably take us longer to get up than the giant… But the rope trick is supposed to give someone else a chance at attacking the giant, anyway. Besides, you’re usually supposed to have the rope tied to a tree for an ambush.”

It was too bad we weren’t riding out to set one of those up. “Is that all?” I asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

I looked to Lawrence. “I can see why you called the frontline a death sentence.”

“Hmph,” he just grunted.

How long were we supposed to wait for the giant to burn to death or bleed out? Judging by Agatha’s story and the yard full of dead men the giants had left behind, I’d say far too long.

“So when you said magic and trickery earlier...”

“We’re all out of magic,” Lawrence said as a miracle bell rang out. “Except for the useless kind,” he added.

The leading pair rang out a return call using a two-chime pattern, and we all picked up pace down the giants’ path. Though the two bells shared the same volume, I could tell the difference in distance between them. Likewise, when the distance bell rang out this time, it felt much closer than it had been from the clearing.

I took a deep breath. Giving my body a rematch with the giants wasn’t part of my plan for the day—or anytime soon for that matter—but it appeared some author intervention may have been acting against me.

Whatever the case, I had to make sure that the twins at least came back in one piece. From the feeling I was getting, I could tell that old Jack trusted Matthew not to get himself killed, so really that just meant I had to look out for Ben.

While thinking that, I heard something I wasn’t expecting. “You hear that?” I asked Ben.

“The howling?” he asked back. Looked like I wasn’t just hearing that.

As we moved closer to where the bell had been rung from, the howls grew louder and were joined by barking.

“I thought you lot said you didn’t have wolves here,” one of the baron’s men said.

“We don’t,” Ben said.

“Maybe the giants ran them in,” another man proposed. “They used magic on the livestock, nothing to stop them from using it on the wolves.”

The ground shook before anyone could respond. Just like when I first woke up in the forest, I could hear the echo of giants’ feet slamming against the ground. The only difference this time was that the pace was faster.

Holding our breaths, we rounded the corner into a short ambush corridor and then rounded out onto a longer strip of road. No giants.

As we rode forward, the echo of footsteps grew louder along with the howls of the wolves.

Lawrence swore under his breath again and I couldn’t fault him for doing so. The giants weren’t running down this corridor, but judging by the sound, we’d meet them at the next ambush or the next strip for sure.

We were about halfway down the long corridor when Matthew told me, “On your right.”

I peeked left, saw him notching an arrow, and then turned right. My eyes shot wide open as I spotted a tar black wolf with blood red eyes shadowing us beyond the trees, inching ever closer. With all the noise, I couldn't even hear the patter of its feet on the ground.

Swhip!

Not two seconds passed between me turning my head and Matthew firing his shot. Marksman that he was, he hit the wolf between the trees, square in its side.

“That can’t...” he muttered as the wolf whimpered, but barely flinched. It hadn’t even been slowed down a second before it was at pace with our horses.

Blood red eyes locked in on us, the beast closed the distance before Matthew could notch another arrow. That was fine though. My axe was ready now.

Once it was two strides short of us, I threw my axe down at the wolf’s head. I heard it thunk against the ground as the wolf burst into a black mist around us. Shocked, but quick to react, I covered my eyes and held my breath. The horse held steady through the taint and a second later when I looked back, the mist was already fading behind us.

“Good job!” Ben said as we charged down the road.

“You didn’t breathe any in, right?” I asked. For a second, the air had stunk like gasoline.

He shook his head. “No.”

A few seconds passed and a miracle bell rang out from up ahead again. This time, there was a three-chime pattern.

“A recall?” I asked.

“A retreat,” Lawrence said, letting out a sigh of relief.

“Keep speed!” one of the baron’s men shouted. Further down the path, more of those black wolves were entering the road and heading our way.

The leading rear held his pike ready as a lance and the rear of the pair behind him raised his pike to cover his weak side. With little sense of self-preservation, two of the wolves ran straight at us. They skewered themselves on the pikes, bursting into mists like their kin had done before them.

The leading rear coughed violently. What their claws hadn’t reached, their toxin did.

Getting spooked by the cloud, his horse flinched and knocked him off to the side. The second riding pair barely kept their horse from trampling him and the rest of us were swerving and slowing to avoid crushing him as well.

So much for keeping speed. I thought, but it didn’t matter. The next two wolves were just as dumb as the first two and this time everyone knew to hold their breath.

A third pair of wolves came charging down the way. Again the leading riders braced for the wolves’ impact, but the wolves avoided the leads and headed straight for us.

“Woah!” Ben said, jerking our horse to the side. I thrusted my pike and Matthew shot an arrow, but like the baron’s men, the wolves just passed us by.

I looked back. It only took me a second to realize they were heading straight for the fallen rider.

“Turn the horse around!” I shouted.

“Got it,” Ben said, circling our horse around a couple of the roadside trees.

“Lawrence, you too,” I heard Matthew say.

Thankfully, the fall hadn’t been nearly as bad as it had looked for the downed rider. He was already back on his feet running. He wouldn’t be nearly fast enough to outrun the wolves, however.

The four of us picked up speed tailing the shadow beasts. Matthew’s arrow whistled as it sped by me on its way to the hind wolf’s back. But like the first wolf he had shot, this one too had no reaction to the arrow now sticking out of it.

“A little higher,” I barely heard him say. Another whistle.

I couldn’t tell if he had hit the wolf’s neck or if he had nailed it on its head. The foul mist had filled the air as soon as Matthew's arrow had touched it.

“Woo!” Ben cheered his brother.

But, “Speed up!” I shouted as the remaining wolf closed in on the running man.

Our horse was already at a gallop, but it picked up pace into a sprint as the monster bit into our comrade’s arm. Like the fallen horseman had held his own polearm, I held my pike as a lance.

Just before impact, Ben had our horse lean to the side, so I wouldn’t skewer the baron’s man. We caught the wolf on our pike, but left the fallen rider untouched.

Runner practically flew through the wolf spawned mist as it erupted. As Ben got him slowed down, I looked back and saw Lawrence and Matthew ride up to the injured man as the taint cloud faded. His riding partner was not too far behind.

“Hey, we just rode past your axe,” Ben said, after he’d brought the horse to a slow trot. “Want to go get it?”

I looked around. There was still howling, but I couldn’t see any wolves approaching and the ground’s shaking had stopped.

“Sure,” I said.

Ben turned the horse back around and brought it to a stop once we had reached my axe. “I’ll watch for wolves,” he said, as I dismounted.

“Thanks.”

I was glad that I got a chance to pick it back up. There were other axes back at the property, but I had a certain fondness for the one I woke up with. Besides, a Jack shouldn’t be losing his beanstalk chopping axe so early in the story, you know?

“Giant!” someone called out.

As soon as I touched my axe, the ground began shaking violently, even faster than earlier.

Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!

I looked up and there he was; the grey giant had come around the corner up ahead and was running straight in our direction.

Just in time, the baron’s men further up the road had already left it for the woods. Meanwhile, Lawrence and Matthew were struggling to help the injured rider and his partner get remounted.

“Jack, get up! Get up!” Ben said, reaching down to me. I strung my axe on my belt and took his arm to steady myself as I tried to get up. The ground was shaking so hard that I still almost tripped over.

Ben half-pulled me up and I got an awkward mount on the horse.

“Move!” I heard the injured rider shout. His horse let loose a fright-filled whinny and I looked back just in time to see the giant kick him.

Huh, I thought as the man flew over my head, So that’s what I looked like.