The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe

Author:Gene Wolfe [Wolfe, Gene]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Omnibus, Fantasy, Adult, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9781250791610
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 2005-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

UTGARD!

The wall and towers of Utgard could be seen for a full day’s ride before they reached them, and neither was as Toug had expected. The base of the wall was a range of mountains, or at least seemed so, low mountains but steep. From it rose a second wall of fitted stones, in which the stones were larger than cottages. Atop that rose a palisade of trunks so great as to make the stones look small. The towers beyond the wall were blue with distance – and immense, so wide they seemed squat, and often topped by spidery scaffolding, half walled. The men on them looked as small as ants; but when Laemphalt had trotted another league, Toug realized they were not human beings but giants.

‘No wonder our king wants to make friends with them,’ he told Laemphalt. ‘We could never beat them, not in a thousand years, or even stop them from doing anything.’

Svon turned in his saddle. ‘If you can’t talk like a man, be quiet.’

Toug nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Sir Svon. It slipped out.’

‘I killed one of those creatures a few days ago, and I’d like to make it a score.’

At the head of their column, Master Crol sounded a trumpet and shouted, ‘We come in peace!’ Privately, Toug hoped they would be received the same way.

The plain on which they had heard so many mysterious sounds and seen ghostly figures at dawn was given over to farms here, for the most part; and poor farms they seemed to Toug, although his father’s fields had been scarcely fertile enough to feed his family. There were giants in these fields; but the reapers were human slaves, and mostly women.

‘Look at that fellow.’ Svon pointed. ‘He doesn’t know what he’s about.’

Toug touched his heels to Laemphalt until he and Svon rode side by side. ‘He’s blind, Sir Svon.’

‘He is? How can you tell from here?’

‘He’s a man. See his beard?’

‘Of course. What does that have to do with it?’

‘The giants blind their men slaves,’ Toug explained. ‘Berthold told me. Didn’t you see him?’

‘Yes, and he was blind. But he’s old. I thought …’

‘They burned his eyes out. They do it to all the men.’

Something frightening came into Svon’s face.

Toug gulped. ‘They’ve got my sister. I told you.’

‘Yes. But your sister won’t have been blinded, will she? The women at the farm were all right.’

‘They weren’t all right, they just weren’t blind. We’re supposed to free Sir Able’s servant, and find his horses and baggage, and send them to him. My sister was with Sir Able’s servant, and he will have been blinded by now.’

‘It may be impossible. I hope it isn’t, but it may be.’

‘Sir Able … He knew about these things, Sir Svon.’

Reluctantly, Svon nodded.

‘He knew you could do it. I told Lady Idnn after the battle, and maybe I—’

Svon had raised a hand for silence. ‘You told Lady Idnn? Did she ask about me?’

Toug nodded. ‘She wanted to know a lot about you. She likes you, Sir Svon.

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