May the Mountains Remember this Giant and I

The dry heaves of the dark and necrotic giant – I had used a terrible force to strike him down, leaving him draining reds over soft snow. I’d been lucky; and luck the fool’s folly, with I the grandest dullard.

Coated on his face was the crimson yolk that flowed from where the skull had hit his ground, hiding the look of rage I knew pointed at me. I stared back at this towering titan fallen now and did nothing but stare. Yes, I was sure that this one had become mad and little more than beast but still there were consequences for slaying a god. My panting dampened as I turned back to my flock of sheep. They were all so oblivious to how close they’d been to certain death even as it remained screaming bloody murder at us in its profane tongue.

The sun had been absent for far too long. I know this because already, I hunger now when I used to be able to make from meadow to meadow across the highlands without rest. All my life, I’d been a stable-hand and friend of the herd, I was raised in a farm where I learnt to get cozy and familiar with animal handling for as long as I can remember – it’s why I’m sure that these fat beasts were already hungry and bound to waste before I ever did. I call out for them as I walked through their ranks, greasy wool now solid and sharp, and positioned myself at their head. I am given a mission – the same one my birth father had been given as well. I was a shepherd, and one who would protect the herd no matter what. And missions carry weight – the weight of all the world.

We climbed further into deepening colds, the snow cloak of the mountain eclipsing the burning visage of the titan behind me. He was soon to disappear from sight. And I left him knowing that my job was not done, and that it was a job done poorly, one the gods have taken notice of and punished me dearly for my mistakes. And laying in the snow behind me was one of them, the god of missions, bleeding dry and hollow. One who I remain faithful to, despite his fall from grace. And one who looked more hungry than ever I’d seen him before.

We were ascending and the snow was descending, it was maybe one of the few graces granted to me through this gift of vertigo. I felt as if we were making ground faster than we actually were. It’s been at least a day since I’d beaten back the gnarled ghoul, at least two. The patron deity our folk worships demands sacrifices in meat, ones that they would find manners of consumption which I was never privy to. The sheep that happened to be bred naked of their woolen hides or endowed with a plumper disposition were the ones we brought to the giants. When they were taken, I would never see what they would ever do with them. I just knew that they were happier and screamed less when they got their dues.

When we started, we had with us young Malcolm – a small lamb, laid on the mountain from one of the older ewes in our midst, Helen. Helen was a stubborn old lady, always a step ahead of the slaughter. She was born with a persistent limp and always grazed last, which ended up saving her. I like to think that she took that in her stride and carried it with some kind of pride beyond sheep. Because for the longest time, she would refuse to mate with any of the males in our midst. Lithe, elusive and exotic – it wasn’t any wonder why the other sheep wanted her.

I never saw it happen. I just know that at some point, somewhere, a sheep that had wooed this hobbling princess enough to finally bed her. Helen was born with her genetic disposition, Malcolm wasn’t. He was born as fair as snow and more innocent than most.

Malcolm died, left behind in our trek. The amniotic fluid that ejected alongside him froze his calves solid to the snow beneath him. He died the moment he was born. He’d actually died the moment we took the wrong turn on this mountain, the stress of these wretched conditions fast-treking old Helen into labour. I suppose that it might have been a good thing that he didn’t make it off this mountain. Better he died pure, by happenstance than become corrupted and sullied by any of the number of profane machinations the gods had in store for a rare spawn like him. Better he died than slow the herd and slow our march for the pastures. He was lucky like this. Old Helen, dizzied and weak from labour, must have known it too, following her herd, her eyes glazed over.

The air thinned, and the oxygen became harder to drink. We would not make this journey if we continued the way we were bound. I guided the flock right, around the steep incline, toward a path that seemed straighter, easier. The sheep were relieved for the reprieve from intensity. I was given the relief from the sordid stalker that made footsteps heavier than my own behind me. I turned away from that path that narrowed in front of us, and back to the thing the snow hid but my ears saw. I was lucky before, and would not be again.

The way forwards snaked through a narrow path of steep slope that gave barely enough purchase for us there, pressed up against the cold and exposed cliff face. The giant would not be able to follow us there.

I would be the second one on. I counted the sheep that we would be starting with – around forty-two of them. The first, I decided, was the oldest amongst the sheep that bore a brown sequoia coat that stained with his age. He did little work back at the farm and took the most to take care of. Should he die, the least damage would be done here. I dragged him by the collar to my front, guiding him in front of me to make an example for the rest of the sheep to follow.

All but two had made it, the last two struck down by the fallen giant that materialised from the blizzard. I barked at my flock, the dry air tearing into my throat. One fell, a victim of his own panic, but the rest were scared into focusing on me instead of the slaughter behind them. We continued like this until the giant, tearing into the corpses of the sheep bled out of sight into the snow once more.

As we traversed the slope, I felt it firmly in the snow whenever members of my flock lost their footing and slid off into the mono-ashen belows. They were often followed by one or two more of them that lost their balance around them as they fell. I gritted my teeth, trying my best not to count the bleeding of the herd’s numbers. I just prayed that they would be enough by the time we’d make it across.

We neared the end of the winding stretch, a lull in the blizzard revealing a downward descent we had to make for.

Not much further now, I thought, minimise the damage and stop the bleeding. Deal with the shock when you’ve reached safety.

I dared not look back at this point. The last time I did, being too scared to actually count the numbers we had left. We just moved forwards in the general direction of that clearing we’d seen before. And then it was there, just one last strip of white away.

The old sheep and I made it across first as I watched the rest turn the corner to cross that last bridge over. The final count was fourteen, inclusive of the new mother at the back, who had made it here in her tried tenacity. She would hold, I told myself. But the bridge wouldn’t. Cracks in soft white appeared, sending a small cloud of white powder up beneath her feet, her image sinking as fast as gravity. I decided that it would not yet claim her though.

Snagged by her collar, she dangled precarious on the edge, like a bottom-heavy weight of sodden wool. She bleated cries of fear I never thought I’d see her cry out. And I was slipping, my footing unclarified and untrue. Only here did I become so aware of the density of the clouds I blew out of my mouth into the frigid air. It loosened some frozen grease in Helen’s wool, slickening her, as she fell out of my hands. Her face was the first thing to disappear. And then went the rest of her into that pale abyss.

I collapsed backwards, uttering soft curses that no god would entertain now. I was being mocked, made a subject of abuse even. I’d even known it for a while now, and it was why I lost the patronage of my god. It is why it is imperative that I finish up the last directive he’d given me before his descent into a hate-filled mania, and lead the thirteen sheep in my flock that remain down the mountain. To get into his good graces once again, for I’d already defiled his image enough by forsaking his wrath before.

Less than half of the sheep were left at this point, than what I’d started with. It was still enough to complete the mission. This was what I told myself, my heart wrought with tempered dread. It was still a flock.

The parting crunches beneath my feet smarted the idiot gluttons that had made it out of their daze. Some of them were resting at a time like this, perhaps tired some by the beckoning cold. I yanked them by their necks, pulling them forwards. It came like piercing screams of adrenaline in my head. I would drag them down the mountain if I had to. No rest could be afforded in that instant, not when we were so close already.

Enough days had passed that the storm had finally subsided. I could feel the bones around my chest press up against the stretched and sicky hide of myself then. That fierce weather before had kicked up a sizable portion of the mountain’s snow up into the air. Even so, it had begun to settle already, the dusty cloak that showered lightly on our bodies far more forgiving now than it had been before. The decline was a lie, the lure of a small stretch of downwards slope that plateaued onwards for an endless plain. The sun still hadn’t shown itself, perhaps shy. It had absented itself from the gods’ tantrum for so long now, the sky dark twilight still, though it shone with the faint illuminations of distant stars, kin to the sun. Perhaps, we would see that yellow sun yet again should we make it to dawn.

Six of us – five sheep for the slaughter, left not a look nor track behind, the snow erasing every trace of our personages we fancied laying into the settled snow. We thought we were making headway for some kind of grace or salvation. We headed for judgement. For five or six sheep a flock does not make – not quite anyways. I had failed my job, my eyes matted with a dullen grim that had grown over the past days.

The figure was dark miasma that proliferated from the shadowy gaps in the falling snow’s density. It took shape and it was gargantuan. Back on the ascent, I hadn’t seen the form of our god in all of its architecture but I could see it clearly now. He wore skin that was dark purple and wrinkled, chipped and cracked in places from rot and decay. He had on him a blunt instrument, as long as myself, and it was the implement that he had used time and time again to discipline this servant of his in the past. Phantom pains shot up my back in learned and remembered streaks of pain when I was made this giant’s most pious zealot.

The last time, I had struck first to preserve the tenets he laid for me which I broke, incurring a wrath beyond all else. This time, he was the one to come down on me. The weapon stuck into my chest and found a sudden give against my ribs’ resistance. The second blow struck true, and the third did too. Ochre spittle white frothed forth from my mouth, smeared crimson blooming around my chest the same way a numbing warmth did. This was it – the reckoning I deserved. And I might have closed my eyes and given in to my penance all but paid if it hadn’t been for the sight of this giant moving towards the last of the sheep.

I lunged at it through an impossible pain – that pain of the heart I found when I grappled his legs, bringing him crashing into the soft snow. He tasted like rotten fruit and the bog wood, us wrestling like animals on the floor, painting it in the same red that poured like a warm releases of pressure from our bodies. Never did I think I would ever learn the audacity to fight against the god that had sanctified the lands I lived in with its monuments, and the god that had blessed and washed me since I was no more than an infant. He was dying – god was dying and it had been all because of me.

I sunk my fangs into him, his tormented caterwauls filling the night with his terrifying anguish. He bled like me too. Then his leg struck. Then I was flying backwards into the cold snow. Black spots grew in blurring visions that kept its last focus on the five that miraculously knew to flee, and flee downwards for a distant slope – for safety in the meadows. The giant wasn’t getting up, too hurt and broken to. I saw this as a gentle warmth blossomed in my heart. I’d finally done him well. How could there be any a more pious act, than for a zealot to heed the first and last words of his god to him, even in his dying moments during his final tribulations.

I dragged my mangled corpse into his warmth, feeling his breath shudder and wane in his chest. He places a hand over my head, letting it rest there and completing me wholly. The giant was my master – and my human, the one I feared and loved more than thought itself. I closed my eyes, feeling his hands caress my fur; I believe that I’d made my owner proud, even as I felt a numbness spread from where I’d been kicked.

One last time, I smelt the mutton that he pulled from his pouch, so warm and familiar. He pulled it to my snout but it too had been consumed by the growing nullity. He places the meat down. And we laid there together for a short while, and then much longer after.