Hunting Rogues: Ch 4

***Attack!***

Fraki was shoved back into the cave wall as Dunn and Wanesic ran out, the blond twin moving faster than anyone else. Rote’s huge head retreated in surprise, and the other three warriors quickly rushed past shouting war cries. Wanesic swept up his sword, thin but long, with a leap towards the thundress’s face, and she shifted to one side, just avoiding a blow that could’ve cut through her eye. Just behind him, Dunn swung his enormous blade up in an arc, all the way around to the tips of Rote’s fingers, and caught one before she could fully retreat.

Rote’s arm shot back as she gave a pained snarl, fingers curling in, and the ground shook with another great footstep. The other twin, Menal, dropped to a knee at the cliff edge, drawing a crank bow and working the ratchet, while the mercenaries wildly swung their weapons out over the edge, warding off the giantess.

“Boost!” Wanesic cried to Libek, and the mage bowed her head and clapped her hands together. As she did, the twin ran down the path and jumped off – out over a deadly fall. He did not drop, but was carried into the air as though by a great gust of wind, sword cocked back. They were all moving so fast, with such deadly intent, that Rote barely had a chance to process the scene, and the thundress was again startled by the sight of a man flying towards her face. But not startled enough.

Two metres out from a piercing strike, Wanesic jolted to a stop in the air, his limbs flopping forward and the sword flinging out of his grasp. Giant fingers wrapped around his waist, Rote’s hand having risen incredibly fast for her great size, and the giantess squeezed. Wanesic choked and shoved her hand, eyes bulging, as she carried him off to one side and glared down at the others.

“Let go of my brother you giant bitch!” Menal screamed, his bow now braced against a shoulder, pointed at Rote’s eyes. Her head tilted to one side.

“I’m supposed to be afraid of that pin?” she said. Massive as she was, with that terrible booming voice, she did sound concerned, and paused with the other twin squirming in her hand. Fraki ventured out of the cave mouth to watch, heart racing but glowing with hope that these fearless people knew what they were doing. Dunn stood alongside Menal, great sword raised, a weapon surely capable of cutting deep into even this huge monster. Coalard and Libek were a little further down the path, he with his axe and she with her hands raised. They might’ve been much smaller than Rote, but they were formidable.

“Oh wow,” the thundress said. “You actually came here for a fight?”

She spoke too casually, with a merry lilt that undermined all their bravado. Her eyes were keen, hesitation gone. She knew they were monster hunters, ready to kill her, and she wasn’t scared – she was amused. Rote slowly lifted the hand that Dunn had cut to her side, inspecting her fingers. One had a gash across it, blood flowing out over the fingertip but not a terrible wound. The brief confidence Fraki had found shattered. This woman was giant – a mighty blow from their strongest warrior hadn’t even cut off her finger.

“Show me what you’ve got, then,” Rote said and flicked her wrist.

Menal yelled and fired as the giantess’s blood splattered over their position, and Fraki ducked to avoid being sprayed. It hit the young man, throwing off his shot, and the arrow went wide into Rote’s shoulder-length hair. A big splodge of blood hit Dunn in the chest, coating him like paint and making him take a step back.

Coalard and Libek darted in the other direction to avoid being hit, and their leader shouted, “Into the trees! Get over the rocks!”

Rote’s giant hand reached for Dunn, so Fraki barrelled from the cave and gave the barbarian a hard shove. They stumbled out of the way of the giant grab together, fingers brushing across Fraki’s back, then Dunn straightened up and returned the favour by pulling Fraki along with him. Their feet pounded up the path as the giant arm followed behind them, and Dunn pulled to the side, into the massive trees that rose above them. The beginning of Haval Forest was almost as steep as the cliff itself, and they had to scramble hand over hand to pull themselves up. Fraki flinched at the sound of the thundress side-stepping, her shadow falling over them again. She sensed a hand reaching towards her, but heard another yell of attack. Menal’s crank bow fired with a loud twang and Rote retreated again with an irritated tut. In the moment’s distraction, Dunn tugged Fraki after him by the hand, up between huge tree trunks.

Menal shouted again, this time sounding startled and Fraki looked back in fear that he had been snatched. But she saw him flying up past them, propelled into the sky. Rote snatched up at him but he was moving faster than her hand, higher than she could reach, and her fingers closed on air. Fraki watched with wonder as he glided up into immense branches, to land amongst the tall trees.

As Rote snarled in disappointment, Libek flew over the rocks and landed with a flutter of her robes next to Fraki. She steadied herself against a tree root, barely able to keep her balance on the steep incline, and spotted Dunn.

“Take her hand,” she instructed, then reached her own to Fraki. “You take mine.”

Fraki stared in confusion for a second, but saw a giant movement behind Libek, the thundress’s head turning from Menal’s departure to them, not far below her head height.

“Little trickster,” Rote muttered, lifting her hand again, fingers spreading.

“Now!” Libek cried, and grabbed Fraki herself as Dunn caught her by the other arm. They hauled Fraki up between them, then she kept rising, off the ground. She shrieked as some unseen force carried all three of them fast up the side of a tree, the ground frighteningly far beneath them in an instant. Fraki clung on tight to Libek’s wrist and the mage growled as they rushed up between thick branches, past massive leaves. Rote craned her head up, watching them from below, and they were soon so high she almost looked like a regular-sized person far below. Pretty, even, despite her barbaric furs and dirty skin.

Fraki landed with a bump and almost stumbled right over the edge of a metre-thick branch, but Dunn caught her and held her steady. She swayed from the dizzying height, and looked up to meet Libek’s eye as the mage settled on the branch next to her.

“What about Wanesic?” Menal shouted from afar. In the next tree over, a big empty distance away, the young man was also standing on a wide branch, with Coalard beside him, a desperate expression on his face.

They all looked down to Rote and found the thundress glaring meanly up. Libek had lifted them into a tree perhaps twice her height, a distance she might be able to climb but didn’t seem prepared to. It was a terrifying drop made all the more frightening by the giantess waiting at the bottom, but Fraki was thankful for the distance they’d gained. The escape wasn’t perfect though: at this distance, there was zero chance of them helping Wanesic.

Rote stepped back from the cliff, her foot crunching through the ground below, and held up her captive for them to see. He was toy-like in her grip, twisting his torso and twitching his legs but squeezed by log-sized fingers. The thundress considered him, then the trees again.

“Barely any meat on this one,” she commented. “Why don’t you little warriors come back down? Fight fair.”

Fair. Fraki scoffed. The woman was ten times their size.

“You know I’ll find you. Humans are so easy to smell. Climb as high as you like – I will catch you.”

“Libek!” Menal called from the other tree. “Get my brother away from her!”

“I can’t do anything at this range!” Libek snapped. It was hopeless. Unless . . .

Fraki raised her own hands, stretching her fingers to frame the giantess below, and the mage quickly slapped her wrists down.

“If you could do anything,” Libek hissed, “you’d likely get him killed.”

“Maybe I’ll have this appetiser while I wait,” Rote went on, tilting the man in her hand. She scrunched up her face in exaggerated consideration. “I do appreciate you coming to me. No one ever visits out here.” She opened her mouth wide and lifted him towards it. Wanesic yelled and put his hands up as his brother shouted at Libek again, bracing himself as if to jump down. Coalard caught his shoulder. Rote paused with her lips stretched over the young man’s head as he cringed helplessly away, then she pulled him back and laughed. “No. Why rush. I’ll save you for later, when we can all savour the moment together.”

She lowered Wanesic as he resumed struggling, shouting, “Get off me, damn you!”

The giantess pulled a cord of thick rope from her waistline, where she had a store of it folded into her thick fur skirt. As the young man ineffectively pushed at her fingers, she wrapped the rope around him and pulled it tight to bind his arms to his body. With him trussed like an animal, Rote then bit off the length of rope and looped the tip through her waist before letting go so he hung down against her thigh. He wriggled, swinging slightly, but was trapped there, to dangle from the woman’s hip as a living trinket.

Rote gave his head a pat with her fingers and grinned up at the trees again. “Now, how about the rest of you come join us?”

“We have to save him,” Menal insisted.

“No. We have to leave,” Coalard said. The giantess thumped from one side to another, considering a way up. “Libek, can you carry us?”

“Absolutely,” the mage murmured, and squinted through the trees. “We’re going deeper?”

“No way back,” Coalard replied. “What else can we do but meet her at her lair?”