Taming the Giant_A Kindred tales novel Read online

  “Hold on, there,” he growled, surging forward to throw the animal off balance. It really was huge—it outmassed him considerably, Bram thought. This was going to be more dangerous than he’d first imagined.

  On seeing him the gnasher stopped short in surprise, then tossed its head angrily, brandishing long, curving tusks which looked murderously sharp. Bram knew he didn’t want to give it a chance to use those deadly weapons on him or anyone else.

  Rushing forward, he got a tusk in each hand and pulled, twisting the animal’s head around in a circular motion, trying to break its neck.

  The move would have worked on a number of smaller creatures but the gnasher was too big—the heavy muscles of its neck and hump too thick to allow a clean break. Still he did manage to keep it from charging at the fleeing females and he heard Alanah shouting orders from the top of the applen tree where he’d placed her, making certain all the women got to safety.

  Can’t keep this up for long, Bram thought, straining grimly to keep the gnasher from breaking free. If it got away from his grip all Seven Hells were going to break loose. It might even charge the tree where Alanah was—he saw its tiny red eyes rolling upwards towards her when her clear voice rang out, urging her people to safety.

  Can’t have that! A fresh surge of determination rushed through him and he wrestled harder with the giant beast. The gnasher didn’t strike him as being overly intelligent. If he could just get it turned around it might rush off in the wrong direction—maybe into the forest the way it had come.

  Then he heard a scream and a crash. His head jerked to the right and he saw Jenla, Alanah’s friend, lying at the base of the tall applen tree. She’d obviously been trying to climb up the branches to reach safety but one of them must have broken or else she had lost her hold. As he watched, she tried to drag herself up but slipped, tripping on her long skirts. At the same time, Alanah called her name and started climbing down from the high perch where he had placed her, to help her friend.

  Bram saw all this in a flash but his momentary distraction was the opportunity the gnasher had been looking for. With a snort, it threw its massive head to the left, ripping its tusks from his grip, and charged at the helpless females in the applen tree.

  Alanah saw it coming and her eyes widened. But instead of climbing higher into the tree to find shelter, she jumped the last few feet to the ground and grabbed her friend under the arms, trying to pull her to safety.

  “Up, Jenla—you have to get up,” Bram heard her gasping in a panicked voice.

  “I’m trying—I can’t reach the branch. I—” But the last of Jenla’s words were drowned out by the gnasher’s angry snort. It lowered its massive head and aimed its razor sharp tusks at the two women, preparing to charge.

  “No!” Bram bellowed. Fear and rage filled him like bloody water, blotting out everything else except the need to save the female he cared for. Gone was his worry about looking like a wielder of dark magic. There was time to do only one thing and he did it.

  In one swift move, he drew his blaster and fired—three, four, five times in rapid succession. Each time the beam hit the target, the energy pouring into the gnasher increased. And the buildup had to go somewhere.

  Later Ren, who had been watching on the viewscreen, pointed out to Bram that his actions were a classic case of overkill. The gnasher didn’t just die—it exploded, coating the forest in all directions in bits of bone and flesh and spraying blood like a bomb full of the stuff had been detonated.

  Bram looked at the crimson, dripping mess he’d created and knew there would be hell to pay. But right now, all he could think about was Alanah. Was she all right?

  “Alanah?” he called hoarsely, wading through the river of carnage towards the tree where he’d last seen her. “Alanah, where are you? Are you all right, little one? Please, answer me!”

  “I’m all right, Bram.” Her voice, thin and uncertain, came from behind the tree. Going around it, he saw that she and Jenla were standing there with their arms around each other, shivering. Apparently Alanah had managed to drag her friend around to the other side just before he’d exploded the gnasher. The thick trunk had blocked most of the gore but both of them still had blood spattered on their garments and beaded in their long hair.

  “Are you all right?” he repeated stupidly because he didn’t know what else to say and because her eyes were so wide with fright, he was afraid she might have some injury he couldn’t see.

  “I…I think I may have twisted my ankle when I jumped from the tree but other than that, I’m fine. How…” She looked at him, her serious gray eyes filled with doubt and misgivings. “Bram, how did you do that? How did you destroy the gnasher so…so completely?”

  “Was it magic?” Jenla’s voice quivered and she clung to her friend for protection as much as for support. “Did you…are you a male witch? I didn’t know males could be witches—I thought only the Elder Witch could wield the magic arts but I’ve never seen Thiera do anything like that.”

  Gods, he’d done it now. Bram could have kicked himself for his stupidity. One well placed shot through the gnasher’s eye or heart would have left a small, burned hole which might have been hidden or explained away somehow. But by shooting it multiple times and killing it in such a spectacular fashion he had left himself open for all kinds of questions and speculation. And things had been going so well…

  “Alanah, listen to me—I’m not a magic user. That was not magic,” he said earnestly. If he could just make her believe him the others might as well. “It was what my society calls technology—using a machine to do something more efficiently than you could do it by hand.”

  “A machine?” Alanah frowned.

  He grasped for an explanation.

  “Like…like a mill stone,” he said at last. “The water turns the wheel and the cogs in the mill, which in turn moves the stone, which grinds the grain. That’s a machine—it has working parts and you can use it for a purpose but it has no mind of its own and there’s nothing magical about it.”

  Jenla still looked at him doubtfully but Alanah looked like she understood—or at least was on the verge of understanding.

  “Are you saying you have something in your pocket that has the force of an entire millstone in it?” she asked. “Because…I could see a gnasher ending up like…like that one did if it was ground up by a millstone. Ugh…” She shivered.

  “It’s something like that.” Bram drew out the blaster which he’d shoved in his inner pocket, noticing as he did so that his hands were sticky with drying blood. He would need to take a sonic shower on his shuttle and later have a long soak in the bathing pool in his quarters on the main ship to get the stuff completely off.

  “This little thing was able to kill the gnasher?” Alanah was staring in wonder at the blaster which had a thick silver barrel and a blue metallic grip with a yellow trigger. She reached out to touch it but Bram drew it away a little.

  “Look but don’t touch,” he told her. “Later I’ll teach you to shoot one if you want but it’s not safe if you don’t know how to handle it.”

  “Did you hear that? He told the Princess he’ll teach her how to use the magic he used to kill the gnasher!” said a voice behind him.

  “Was it the giant did that?” asked another.

  “Oh yes—I saw him do it! He pointed his finger at it and it just blew all apart! I never saw anything like it!”

  “It’s a sight better than the magic the Elder Witch works,” someone else said. “All she does is touch your hand and mutter over you a little. The giant actually blows things up!”

  Bram groaned and repocketed the blaster. This was exactly the scenario he had feared and now he didn’t know what to do about it.

  “I should go back to my ship,” he said to Alanah. “Get cleaned up.”

  “No, don’t—stay.” She put a hand on his arm, not even wincing when the gnasher blood got on her skin. “If you go, they’ll start to fear you,” she said urgently. “Thiera will hear