Chapter 28
‘Keep him distracted!’ I yell at the others, not giving myself a moment to consider what I’m about to do. ‘Pain, blind him, I don’t care. Just keep him distracted!’
‘Rose, whatever you’re planning, don’t do it!
’ Jonas shouts back, but I block him out as I run towards the jotunn and launch myself upwards.
My hands claw at his calves and the thick, bristly hair that covers them.
Gross, yes, but also incredibly helpful.
I pull myself up on it, using all the friction I can get from his rough, pitted skin.
It’s not easy – and a darn sight harder than climbing the wall with Benny – but it’s doable. I can do this. I have to do this.
The jotunn’s arms swipe haphazardly around, and I press myself flat against him as his gnarled fingers pass only inches from my side.
Relief floods through me. He wasn’t aiming for me.
If he had been, I’d be on the floor. I’m nothing to him.
An irritation at most, and one that’s causing way less pain than the others.
I climb higher and faster than I expected.
Before I’ve even had a chance to check how far I’ve come, I’m standing on his shorts-like attire.
It’s the closest thing I’ve had to a ledge to stand on, and I intend to use it for a moment’s respite.
But as I glance up, the coarse fabric of the garment slips beneath my feet, and the ball of my foot goes down with it.
‘Fuck!’ All I can feel is air beneath me as gravity takes over, my body twisting as I start plummeting. Somehow, I’m able to grab hold of the waistband with my fingertips, and the slightest quiver of relief trembles in my breath as I claw myself back up.
‘Of course, we had to pick the tallest fucking jotunn,’ I mutter, dragging my feet back onto the waistband. This time I make sure I’ve got more than one secure hold as I catch my breath and glance at the sand timer by the priestesses.
I’ve heard the expression ‘time flies when you’re having fun,’ but apparently, it also flies when you’re trying to stay alive. There can’t be more than ten minutes left. It should be comforting, except it would still only take the jotunn a matter of seconds to permanently end things for any of us.
All of the crew is bloodied now. Blood from a gash on Llinos’s forehead is streaming into her eyes, and I’d be amazed if she can even see. I need to do this. For them. For Kay. For me. I straighten, suck in a lungful of air, and prepare to go again.
I may have reached the halfway point, but the jotunn’s back reveals a new problem. Unlike his legs, there’s far less hair here and far less friction. There are a few patches of calloused skin that look hard and rough enough for me to use as handholds, but all of it is slick with sweat.
I pause, considering my options. Other than the blade from Dinah, which I’m not sure will even work, I’ve only got one dagger left.
Theoretically, I could use it with the minimal natural handholds I can find and scale him that way, but it would mean stabbing a dagger into his back.
Repeatedly. A dagger in the back of a creature this size might do next to no damage, but it would likely be enough to tip me from irritant to threat.
Still balanced on the fabric of his shorts, I search for my next handhold.
‘Oh Gods, that is truly disgusting.’ I gag at a wart-like mound that protrudes from his lower back, but I use it all the same.
I stretch my fingers wide, retching against the smell as I clasp the rough, cracked bulge. I’ve just pulled myself up and am using it as a foothold when it feels as if the entire earth shakes. It takes me only a moment to see what caused it.
Kyor has brought down his jotunn.
I don’t know how the other groups are doing, and I don’t care.
I need to keep going and focus on the task at hand.
With a loud grunt, I hoist myself up onto the next protruding mound, my stomach churning from a mixture of fear and the putrid smell, and barely wait for my feet to steady before searching out the next callus.
I find it in an old, puckered scar, just thick enough to get my fingers on.
It’s hardly secure, but it’s the best I’ve got.
My wrists burn from the weight of pulling myself up, and I push my shoes against his slick skin, hoping that will help me get the traction I need to reach my target: his shoulder.
Once there, I’ll have access to his neck. Then I can do some real damage.
With every bit of strength I have left, I grapple upwards and find the wide precipice of his shoulder blades, which will be perfect for hauling myself up.
‘Rose!’ I’m sure it’s Jonas’s voice I hear through the torrent of cries and swirling winds, but when I glance down, I can’t even see him.
Benny, on the other hand, is directly below me, grinning while simultaneously slicing at the giant’s ankles, and I’m pretty sure he’s grinning because of me.
But I have no plans on smiling just yet.
The good news is that this is the most stable position I’ve been in for the entire climb.
The bad news is that it’s also the easiest position for the jotunn to swat me off.
And I can’t let that happen. Not until I’ve done what I need to do.
I won’t be able to saw at his neck, so the stab wound is limited to being a one-time deal, and to make it significant enough to take him down, I need to do something stupid.
With my left hand braced against the tendons of his neck, I reach for my blade and sink it right into his jugular.
The skin here is thinner than I thought, immediately yielding under the pressure of the sharpened edge.
As blood pools around my hand, I push it in as deep as I can, then swing around and clasp the hilt with both hands.
Jumping, I put my whole weight on the hilt.
With everything I’ve got behind it, the knife pulls down the length of his throat.
His roar sends pain shooting through my skull, leaving my entire head ringing as my vision blurs. Yet despite the blood pouring from his wound, he’s still standing.
Right now, his hand is flailing, but if it moves towards his throat to clasp the wound and stop the blood flow, he’ll knock me off or, worse still, crush me. I have no choice; I have to fall. Overriding every rational part of my brain, I pull my dagger out and let myself plummet.
A scream tears from my lungs as the air whistles past me and my body accelerates towards the ground, faster and faster.
I’m going to die. There’s no way I can survive this.
‘I’ve got you!’ Llinos shouts, but it doesn’t feel like she does.
I’m falling, and I’m going to hit the sand and break every fucking bone in my body.
They’re going to crunch like Estel’s, and then Kay …
what will happen to Kay? I’m tumbling helplessly through the air and I brace myself for impact, hoping that if death is going to take me, then it does so fast.
But instead, I feel it. The wind. The wind that comes not from the sea, but from the ground, and with just enough force to slow me. Just enough to help me land safely.
She has me. Llinos has got me.
My feet hit the sand with an almighty thud, sending me to my hands and knees as pain sears through every part of me.
‘We’ve got it!’ Benny crows in triumph.
The jotunn is clearly getting woozy, the blood loss weakening him, and Benny is already following my example and climbing the jotunn’s leg.
He climbs as far as the stomach, where he plunges his sword into the giant’s flesh.
Again and again and again he strikes, and blood flows forth like a giant, coppery river, washing the sands with the stench of it.
The jotunn hunches forward, clutching his abdomen, and for a split second, I think my friend is about to be crushed, yet Benny is entirely calm, not a hint of fear on his face, and he jumps sideways just in time. I should’ve known. With his sight, he was always going to be fine.
But have we done it? Blood is pouring from the jotunn. Surely there’s no way it can survive this. Any second now it’s going to be face down on the ground.
The thought hits me a moment too late.
‘Shit!’
The jotunn is indeed falling … straight towards me.
‘Rose!’ I’ve barely had time to register the sound of my name when Jonas slams into my side, propelling me forward and out of the path of the falling giant as it crashes down onto the sand, sending up a spray wide enough to blot out the sun and engulf us entirely.
‘Fucking hell, Rose!’ Jonas pants as his arms hold me tight. His voice is muffled against me. ‘What the fuck were you thinking? You could have died!’
‘I could have,’ I agree, panting, ‘but I didn’t.’
We lie there, a tangled mass of limbs, trying to catch our breath. Fear and anger, not to mention pain, burn visibly in Jonas’s gaze as he glares at me. Fuck, his leg. I didn’t even think about that. Running for me like that must have been agony with his injured thigh.
‘Guys!’ Llinos’s voice cuts through the haze, breaking my thoughts. ‘We don’t have time to relax!’
As I twist towards her, I see what she’s talking about. I push to my feet.
The smaller jotunn – the one Jonas wanted us to go for – is bearing down on us. Whoever he was fighting definitely gave it their best, and blood is pouring from the creature, but he’s still on his feet and heading towards us, looking angry.
‘Where’s Benny?’ I call out, looking around. If Benny can find a weak spot, then maybe we can bring this one down without any more of us getting hurt.
But he’s nowhere in sight. My lungs seize. Where the hell is he? He was there before I fell. I saw him.
‘Benny! Benny!’ I shriek as I turn on the spot, only to stop when a hand grabs my elbow.
‘We don’t have time to freak out now.’ Jonas’s face is inches from mine. ‘I’ll blind the jotunn. You and the other two do whatever you can.’
Two, is that all that’s left? Llinos, Loch, and me? Yet as my eyes find Loch, I’m not so sure we can count on him. He’s standing upright but rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. How the hell one of the other jotnar hasn’t killed him already, I don’t know.
‘Rose, are you listening to me?’
I blink myself back into the present and nod at Jonas’s question, mostly because I’ve lost the power to speak.
‘Good. Then move!’
This time, Jonas’s powers have more effect on the creature. The jotunn covers its eyes, turning in circles, and cries out, disoriented.
‘Draw him to the water!’ Llinos shouts. ‘The waves are high. Even if he can walk through them, it’ll slow him down!’
I sprint towards the jotunn, grabbing Estel’s fallen sword on the way and raising it above my head as I leap forward and drive it into its thigh.
The giant wails as it swivels around in my direction, though I don’t wait to see what it’ll do.
Instead, I race towards the water. Llinos wasn’t joking when she said the waves were high.
If I get caught in one of them, I’ll be dragged out to sea, and even a strong swimmer would struggle in a current like that.
‘Move out of the way!’ Llinos cries. ‘I’ll see if I can push him deeper.’
The jotunn is walking straight towards the waves, hands clawing at its eyes as it’s propelled forward by the force of Llinos’s powers.
One glance tells me Llinos is nearly done, that she’s scraping the barrel of her magic’s reservoir.
Her muscles are trembling and her eyes are bloodshot.
Just a fraction longer, that’s all she needs to keep going for.
But she hasn’t got it in her. Her knees aren’t just trembling, I realise; they’re about to buckle.
And Jonas is the same, though he’s already kneeling on the ground, his body slumping forward.
They’ve both run their wells dry. If they take it any further, they could end up unable to restore their powers. They’d be as good as stripped. Like me.
I can’t let that happen.
I scan around me, searching for anything or anyone to help, but everyone who’s left standing is in the same position. Fear takes hold. Surely this isn’t what Etta wants? For most of her Rettlings to end up dead or stripped in the first fucking trial?
‘Etta!’ I cry at the top of my lungs, pain searing through my chest, only for my eyes to land on the sand timer … and the last grain that falls through it.
Relief swamps me, and a blast of magic rips through the air.
The jotunn freezes with his feet at the edge of the waves. I hold my breath as I survey the scene. The other remaining giants are all in the same state, motionless and silent.
I take a shuddering breath. It’s over. The first trial is officially over, and I’m still alive.
But where the fuck is Benny?