A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings #1) - Kevin Hearne Page 0,242

paid to me, and realize that I have enough for one last glorious, ridiculous meal at the Steam Spire Loose Leaf Emporium. They have a table for me on the second level, where I indulge in their rarest Fornish tea and a selection of fresh raw fish from the pelenaut’s reef, cooked in citrus acids. A month’s pay and more blown on breakfast. But it is an excellent place to record some final thoughts in the log.

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to carry out my orders—for they are orders, even if not explicitly spoken—but then I don’t think the Second Könstad knows either. There’s no precedent for any of this. But what I do understand is that I’m probably going to die in the attempt regardless of how successful I am.

Few people get a single chance to choose the time of their passing, let alone a second chance. I think today will suit me just fine. For as marvelous as Bryn’s blessing is, as beautiful the white-ribboned blue sky, as exquisite the tea, and as filling the breakfast, I’m still empty and alone. Life is for those graced with love and ambition. My life no longer features such graces, so I’m ready for oblivion rather than a hollow existence. For me, the deep awaits.

I put the log safely inside the satchel, slung it across my shoulder, and left my entire purse on the table. I fell backward off the docks, waving Pelemyn goodbye, and sleeved myself most of the way to Göfyrd on my back, looking up at the sky and marveling at how something so empty could contain so much.

It was past midday when the bay began to narrow, and I flipped over to see my target better. I had yet to see those creatures who had destroyed so many lives. There were some, perhaps, on the walls, but I couldn’t see them well. I didn’t want to get too close, either, not knowing what their capabilities were, so I avoided both the docks and the Lung’s Locks, choosing to walk out of the sea on a beach well outside the city walls. I had been there only a few moments, beginning to wonder how I was supposed to eliminate a whole army by myself and also wondering why there was a strange earthen tower near the road leading north, when I saw a woman approaching me impossibly fast. Impossible, that is, until I realized she must be a Raelech courier. She had a Jereh band on her right arm, and couriers were the only Earth Shapers who could move like that.

She slowed down to normal human speeds and waved in a friendly manner before I could worry that she had come to attack. I noted that she stopped a good distance away, however, and shouted a greeting to me in accented Brynt.

“Hello! May I approach and speak with you?”

I nodded at her, and she darted forward, flashing a grin at me when she halted a length away.

“I am Tuala, courier of the Triune Council,” she said.

“Gerstad Culland du Raffert, tidal mariner,” I replied.

Her eyes widened. “You’re a tidal mariner?” Her gaze took in my decidedly unmilitary body, and doubt clouded her expression.

“Yes. I’m here to do something about…” My hand writhed at the city like a beached eel. “That. Them. This.”

“Ah! We thought Brynlön would be doing something soon, but we thought we’d see an army instead of just one person.”

“Who’s we? You mean Rael?”

“No, I mean me and the stonecutter who raised that tower.”

I looked past her at the tower, then at the city, thinking the view from that tower might be far superior to the one I currently had. “Is the stonecutter still up there? I mean, can I have a look at the city from there?” I asked, pointing.

“Sure. Let’s go. She doesn’t speak Brynt, but I’ll translate if you need me to.”

She pulled me along with her by using her kenning, moving as fast over land as I could move through the water. When we reached the base, I saw the strangest crop one will ever see in farmland: pale thin wrists and bony fingers clutching swords, sprouting from the ground, bunched together near the base but trailing away toward the city like the tapered tail of a river lizard.

“Are those…?”

“Bone Giants? Yes. Meara just got finished burying them. I was worried about her for a while, but she’s a stone killer.”

“Can’t wait to meet her.”

At the top of the steps spiraling around