Giants lc-1 Read online

  Giants

  ( Lost Civilization - 1 )

  Vaughn Heppner

  One third of the angels rebelled and a bitter war followed. Some of the defeated rebels fled to Earth, becoming the bene elohim. There they raised mortal kingdoms. Avenging shining ones followed, and for a thousand years war raged. In the end, the shining ones dragged the bene elohim off Earth and chained them within Stygian prisons.

  But the Nephilim remained. They were the offspring of the bene elohim and mortal women. By studying ancient scripts, the Nephilim discovered a way to regain dominion over the Earth.

  The ancient war was reborn.

  GIANTS is the start of the saga of the war between Nephilim and men in the days before the oceans overran the Pre-Cataclysmic World. GIANTS is a novel by Vaughn Heppner, Writers of the Future winner.

  Vaughn Heppner

  GIANTS

  An Introduction

  The Legend of a Lost World

  The histories of our world’s most ancient civilizations all tell of a time that came before. A glittering world of high culture and power. Sumeria, Akkad of the Land Between the Rivers, Minoan Crete, and Egypt all have accounts of a terrible cataclysm, which only a few brave souls survived.

  The Greeks speak about Lost Atlantis. Others tell of Lemuria, Mu, and Thule, all destroyed. The Old Testament calls this terrible disaster Noah’s Flood, while the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh speaks of a frightening deluge that destroyed the world.

  The accounts agree on several other interesting elements. The Lost World contained wonders, paradises, or Eden: a lush garden planet that strangely held fearsome creatures, huge monsters, and giants. In that world, the gods, or godly beings, freely walked among men and women. And the gods often took the most beautiful as their wives, or as prizes of divine lust.

  Heroes arose from those unions. And the seeds of the coming cataclysm were born from it. The greatest storytellers of the ancient world, the Greeks, speak about a war between the Gods and Titans. The Hebrew prophets write that Nephilim walked the Earth, the offspring of the bene elohim (fallen angels) and mortal women.

  In this Antediluvian Age lived the prehistoric beasts. Hercules, in his Twelve Labors, slew some of the worst. The ancient Book of Job describes two monsters called Behemoth and Leviathan, which no man dared approach. The Cretans had their Minotaur, while the Sumerians tell of an odd satyr-creature called Engidu, who possessed ‘the strength of a boar, the mane of a lion, and the speed of a bird.’

  Fallen angels, gods, giants, and heroes lived among the prehistoric sabertooths, mammoths, and great sloths. It was a time of vast adventure and harrowing deeds. Forgotten legends of that distant era, many millennia removed from ours, speak about a particular daring attempt of the giants. They sought hidden weapons they believed would grant them supremacy on Earth.

  But not all beings in this Lost World were so mighty or so strange. Men and women struggled then as they do now. They had warriors, prophets, healers, and mothers. And they knew—or the wisest did—that challenging immortal powers and delving too deeply into forbidden arts could unleash cataclysmic forces. These men and women pitted themselves against legendry heroes, giants, and godlike beings in order to save their world from disaster.

  This is their story.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Joash

  Your destruction of animals will terrify you.

  — Habakkuk 2:17

  Joash blinked in horror as he peered over the edge of the cliff. “They’re all attacking, Master! Help him! Help him!”

  Joash crouched on a high mountain ledge amid jagged rocks, with a cold wind whipping against his face. He clutched a grass rope. Weeks ago his palms had savagely blistered, but now they had toughened into calloused flesh. Unfortunately, his fellow slave was too far down for Joash to drag him up fast enough.

  The screeches of the swirling pterodactyls below drowned out his friend’s cries for help.

  Joash had a panoramic view of the deadly and uneven contest. His fellow slave had rappelled down a sheer rock-face to the nests perched on ledges less than five feet across. The valley floor plunged a thousand feet below the nests. The slave had filled his straw-lined pack with leathery pterodactyl eggs. Now the flying reptiles swooped at him in large numbers. The biggest had forty-foot wingspans and sinister red crests that no doubt helped balance their terrible beaks. Joash bore a half-healed scar on his back that attested to the wickedness of those spear-like beaks.

  “Save him, Master!” Joash shouted.

  “Quit your yapping,” Balak snarled. To enforce his edict, the brute backhanded Joash with his hairy knuckles.

  The heavy blow sent Joash sprawling against a rock. Worse, he lost hold of the rope. To Joash’s horror, the grass rope rapidly uncoiled as it slid across the rocky ledge. Despite his ringing head—Joash had rapped it against a rock—he dove at the rope, trying to clutch it. The grass line slid too fast, and friction burned his fingers. Joash yelled as he gripped tighter, knowing his friend’s life depended on him. As his hands finally held the line, Joash wedged his bare feet against rock. The rope’s sudden pull almost yanked him over the ledge, but he hung on. Painfully, he began to hand-over-hand drag his friend back up.

  Beside Joash, Balak grunted. He had massive bones, immensely powerful muscles, and a broad flat face. When they had lived, the other slaves had whispered to Joash that Balak had Nephilim blood, which is what gave him his size. Balak certainly had a Nephilim’s temperament. Coarse hair sprouted from his body, and he wore bear furs, claiming that once he’d been a beastmaster of Shamgar.

  Huge Balak notched a long black arrow to his bowstring. His mighty weapon creaked as he drew to his ear, aimed over the edge, and released with a sharp twang. He grunted a moment later as a pterodactyl hissed in agony. He notched another arrow, drew the bowstring to his tattooed cheek—

  Joash fell back as the weight vanished from the rope. He sat, blinking. Then Joash cried out and slid to the edge. He looked over in time to see his last friend repeatedly striking the side of the mountain. His friend plunged a thousand feet to his death.

  The circling pterodactyls screeched in triumph, although a few had already flapped to their nests.

  Balak eased tension from his bowstring. He turned his head and squinted at Joash.

  The baleful look wilted Joash’s courage. He’d thought to catch Balak by surprise and push him over the edge. The brute dwarfed him, and one of the beastmaster’s dire wolves raised its ugly head, watching. The pack rested farther back on the boulders, well away from the edge. They were always eager to come to Balak’s aid.

  It seemed Balak was still in a fierce mood from this morning. With his fists, the beastmaster had beaten the third slave to death before breakfast. Balak’s bloodshot eyes told of his drunken revelry last night in his mountain hut.

  The slaves—there had been three of them last night—had slept in a trench, chained like dogs to posts. They had been given a single fur to shiver under. Unfortunately, the howling wind hadn’t been loud enough to drown out Balak’s drunken singing.

  Once there had been six slaves. Balak had purchased the lot of them at Shamgar over three months ago. They had each been thin and long-limbed. Ideal, Balak had claimed, for scaling the cliffs where pterodactyls built their nests.

  “It was your screams that killed him,” Balak snarled. “It interrupted my aiming, made me hit you to stop your blubbering. I ought to pitch you over so you can join him.”

  Joash’s belly tensed with terror.

  Balak rubbed his coarse face, and then a nasty leer twisted his lips. “It’s your turn now.”

  “Master?” whispered Joash.

  “I need at least twenty more eggs.”

  “The rope—” Joash began to say.
r />   “There is no rope, but I have another pack, which is lucky for you. Otherwise, I’d just pitch you over. Hurry, strap it on.”

  Joash had learned these past months to scramble to obey when Balak ordered. He shrugged on the pack. And with his throbbing hands, Joash tightened the straps. One palm oozed blood from the rope burn. But there was no sense complaining. The beastmaster never made idle threats.

  “I don’t have all day,” Balak complained.

  Joash took several deep breaths, trying to slow his tripping heart. Other than slipping off the ledge, the worst danger was brittle rock that often crumbled under a man’s weight. The rope had always been security against that. But Balak wasn’t giving him a rope.

  “Do I have to pitch you over?” Balak asked ominously.

  Joash’s head snapped up, and they stared at one another.

  “That’s right,” Balak whispered, his ugly face twisting into evil delight. “Come at me, if you dare.”

  Hating his fear and daunted by Balak’s size, and that the beastmaster had the better position, Joash slid his feet over the edge. He began to tremble.

  I don’t have a rope. I’ll fall to my death.

  Joash almost begged for mercy, but he bit his lips instead. There was no mercy in Balak. Carefully, Joash felt with his toes, seeking purchase on the sheer cliff-face. Then he began to ease over, pretending he was a human fly.

  * * *

  While clinging to the cliff, Joash heard Balak’s shouts drifting down. With infinite slowness, Joash twisted his neck. Winds howled around him. Rock poked his belly, and his fingers and toes grasped the slightest protrusions of stone. He spied an angry pterodactyl. It had leathery skin, fearsomely long wings, and a foul hyena-like odor from its scavenging habits. Joash stared into a beady eye that had evil intent. The pterodactyl knew he was vulnerable, and maybe it was emboldened by his friend’s recent death.

  Hissing like a steam-kettle, the creature swooped at Joash, making the long gash of a scar on his back throb in memory.

  Joash might have moaned, but long weeks under Balak’s tender care had beaten the softer emotions out of him. Joash had survived a pirate raid, although he’d seen his brother butchered on the merchant vessel and kicked overboard to sharks. Along with others, he’d stepped onto a Shamgar auction block a week afterward and had been sold to Balak.

  Balak roared, “To your left, you fool!”

  Joash licked his lips, and pressed himself against the cliff as the pterodactyl swept past. It was over a thousand feet down to the ground. The creature’s cold claws touched his head, enough to press his cheek harder against stone, but thankfully not enough to dislodge him.

  “Left! Left!” came Balak’s drifting bellow.

  That meant there was a nest to the left that Joash should rob.

  Joash filled his lungs even as he tightened his hold. The minute thrust of his filling lungs pushing against the cliff terrified him. “I’m going to trick them, Master! I’m headed to the lower nests first.”

  Joash waited, as a howling gust tried to pluck him off. When the other slaves had lived, they had hurled rocks and stones at the circling pterodactyls to help the robber. Now Joash had to rely solely on Balak’s bow.

  Another pterodactyl screeched and swooped. There was a hiss, however, one quite different from a pterodactyl’s attacking cry. The swooping creature screamed in pain, with a long black arrow sprouting from its wing. The creature tumbled end over end before righting itself. Then it hit the cliff head-first, bounced, crumpled, and began the thousand-foot drop to its death.

  The other circling pterodactyls screeched with rage, but they flapped away from Joash and out of range of Balak’s bow.

  After a tremor washed through him, Joash slowly continued working lower, desperately feeling with his toes, and clinging with his fingertips. He had no intention of climbing back up with stolen eggs. To return to Balak meant eventual death. To rob nests meant these enraged creatures would kill him as they had his last friend. The trick was to climb down far enough so he was out of Balak’s deadly range. Then he had to beat Balak down to the valley floor.

  A scream almost tore out of Joash’s throat as brittle rock crumbled under his toes. To the sound of granite flakes striking rock, Joash slipped. His bleeding hand fell away, and he dangled by one hand by his fingertips. With preternatural calm, Joash sought a new purchase with his toes. Once found, he carefully wiped the bleeding palm against his breeches.

  “Hurry,” drifted Balak’s voice. “It’s past lunchtime and I’m hungry.”

  “Eat stone,” Joash whispered. Then he blinked furiously as sweat stung his eyes. He didn’t dare wipe them. Slowly, he resumed his treacherous descent.

  * * *

  A hissing arrow told Joash that Balak had divined his plan. Three more arrows flashed by in quick succession. The nearest chipped rock just above his head, and sent a flake bouncing off of his sweaty hair. Soon thereafter, rocks dropped past Joash. One clipped his shoulder, gashing skin and nearly tearing him off the cliff-face. Grimly, Joash hung on.

  Now that Balak knew of his intent to escape, Joash craned his head, looking up. Panting, he moved sideways on the mountainside. He wanted to move faster but didn’t dare. He tried for an outcropping to shield him from Balak’s vengeance.

  Balak must have understood, for more rocks rained. Two struck Joash, and one did the task.

  Joash cried out, and he dropped sickeningly. Before he could think, before the screams began, he thudded with a jolting crash onto a pterodactyl’s nest. Sticks and eggs cracked. Joash lay gasping on his back on a miniscule ledge, his feet overhanging one end and his head the other like a tiny bed. A crazed pterodactyl swooped, screeching at him, and it might have killed Joash. But one of Balak’s rocks caught the creature smack on the head, sending it tumbling down to its death.

  Those precious seconds saved Joash’s life. Despite throbbing pains—it hurt his ribs every time he breathed—Joash flipped onto his belly, slipped over the tiny ledge, and renewed his descent. Now he had a ledge shielding him. All he had to do was climb down another nine hundred harrowing feet and he would live.

  The fact that no more rocks rained down told him that Balak must have come to the same conclusion. The beastmaster had likely started down, vowing that no slave would escape him. During these past weeks Balak had boasted about it endlessly. Worse, the beastmaster would use his dire wolves to help him track. But Joash couldn’t worry about that, at least not now. Just getting down was the problem.

  * * *

  After a grim descent, Joash finally reached the ground. Now he stumbled between lichen-covered boulders as he breathed heavily. The muscles in his thighs trembled, almost forcing him to his knees. A stitch in his side had turned into knotted agony. His curled, nearly crippled fingers were impossible to move.

  In the distance, a dire wolf howled.

  With bleeding fingers and toes, Joash had made it off the cliff-face and collapsed onto the flinty soil. Knowing that time had become a bitter enemy, Joash had tried to will himself up. Instead he’d quivered, worse than exhausted from the torturous descent. For brutal seconds he’d simply lain, breathed, poured sweat, and trembled. Maybe a hidden sense had tricked him to roll over and open his eyes. The mangled corpse of his dead friend had stared him in the eye. In sick horror, Joash had scrambled to his feet and lurched away.

  Now, he stumbled between these boulders, his bloody feet leaving red prints. After several tries, he clutched a hand-sized rock, determined to fight at the end. If he could scratch Balak, chip a tooth, anything in payment for the man’s murderous wretchedness, Joash would feel vindicated.

  Joash no longer knew how long he’d been running. His brother… no, no, his brother was dead, slain by Shamgar pirates. The summer before his parents—

  A sharp howl caused Joash to twist back. A dire wolf raced low to the stony ground after him. The squat beast had shaggy hair, with a spot of white hair in the middle of its broad head. Behind it came others, with
bared fangs and red lolling tongues. To Joash’s shocked dismay, Balak pounded after him in a rhinoceros-like charge not far behind the last wolf. The brute grinned fiercely.

  Joash ran, tripped, crashed to his knees, skinning the left, and scrambled back up. All he heard now was the sound of his breathing, and the occasional grunt as he thumped against a boulder. He wished he could turn and slay his enemies. He’d heard stories about heroes, about courageous warriors who fought against insane odds. He wanted to be a hero. He hated being a lanky slave, hunted, dead-tired and frightened of—

  Joash staggered past the last boulder, and saw through his sweaty, blurry haze that he’d reached another cliff. Below, a river flowed. It was a long drop. Joash released his rock, heard it clack, forced his legs into a wild sprint, and launched himself airborne as he managed a forlorn shout.

  As he flailed, he rocketed toward the water, seconds later plunging into the cool liquid. Then he was bobbing to the surface, gasping. Weakly, he struggled for shore. A loud splash told him that Balak had followed. The massive beastmaster swam strongly after him, laughing, promising grim punishments.

  Joash refused to let the strong current pull him under. He would fight until the last ounce of strength drained from his body. Maybe if he could drag himself ashore ahead of Balak, he could find a rock and dash it at the beastmaster as he waded for land.

  Soon, Joash plowed through scratching reeds as mud sucked at his feet. He reeled from final exhaustion. Then, he burst through the last reeds and came upon a startled warrior.

  The crouched warrior had a princely face, with green eyes, and long red hair. He wore chainmail, a belted short sword and had thick wrists wrapped with leather straps. He had been scrubbing a dish with sand and still held the metal dish.

  “Who are you?” the warrior asked.

  Joash tried to speak as he staggered closer. Then, he crashed to his knees onto the sand.