Giants of Pangaea by John C. Wright

Author:John C. Wright [Wright, John C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Theogony Books
Published: 2020-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 21 A Curse Before Death

Preston was dying. His lungs ached, and all his muscles began trembling uncontrollably.

“This is unsatisfactory! Hear me, First Man. I will let you talk, but you must spit defiance like a man and die a great death. Nod if you agree. I will let you breathe for so long as you continue to curse me.”

Preston nodded. The grip on his throat relaxed. He drew a ragged breath. “Let me get this straight. If I keep cursing you for an hour, you’ll let me live an hour?”

The giant stood, lifted Preston overhead, and slammed his body once more into the ground. This time Preston was face up.

Again Xic knelt on the smaller man and again took him by the throat. Xic said, “Your question smacks of too much desire for life, which we Fifth Men abhor. Our accursed Makers, the Phantoms, created us to know that there was a higher reality beyond matter, beyond life, and so we treat life with hatred and contempt. Are you so concerned with how long you will live?”

Preston uttered a swearword or two.

Xic slammed his head against the ground. “My nursemaid was better at cursing than that! Do not let this opportunity slip! I am doing you a grace! If you die bravely, you will go among the dead and kill those who come to judge and torment you.”

Preston spat out some choice phrases he’s learned when he was hunting in Siberia. Russian was absolutely the best language for cussing.

“Those are not real curses! Once enough brave men die, the spirit world will be entirely conquered, and our ancestors will tear open the gates between life and death, and pour forth, shouting in rage! Only then will our vengeance on the Phantoms be complete! Come now, let us hear a true curse!”

Preston said, “Thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee! I curse you with my dying breath! From hell’s heart I stab at thee!”

Xic smiled grimly. “Good! You say well! But that is not, technically, a curse.”

“May you have the life of your enemy in your hand, but then may you yack and yack like a windbaggy idiot long enough for a man to sneak up behind you and put poisonous snakes up your crack.”

Xic then saw that Preston’s eyes were looking at something over his shoulder, above and behind him. He turned and raised his arm to block, but it was too late.

Forty or so of the thralls, led by All-Stone the Methuselean, had dismounted the thorn covered bars from the broken frame of their cage, snakes and all, and had walked up behind the giant most silently while he was otherwise occupied.

Two score thorny wooden bars fell across the head, shoulders and back of the kneeling gargantuan. Roaring, he reared up, sweeping the entire first rank of them off their feet with one wide blow of his mighty arm.

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