The soft trill of birds echoed around me as I moved through the gloom of the Forest of Giant Trees.
The name was fitting.
Even non-magical species of animals here were two or three times larger than their counterparts in the ordinary world.
At times, you might even get the feeling that someone had simply taken everything in this spatial pocket and scaled it up.
This pocket had formed several millennia ago at the intersection of several ley lines.
In truth, no one really knew exactly how natural spatial pockets, or “pockets” as they were commonly called, came into being.
The last known natural spatial pocket formed, according to calculations by the Numerologists who studied it, several hundred years before the birth of Christ.
If anyone from that time had tried to record the details, their writings were either lost to history or hidden by some clan, sect, or order better than gold in a Gringotts vault.
Determining the “naturalness” of a pocket was only possible because such pockets were too different from artificial ones.
One of the differences was the “indestructibility” of the pocket.
Apart from the energy flowing from the ley lines, which no one had ever managed to plug like a bottle with a cork, it needed nothing else.
Unlike artificial pockets, which required entire complexes of enchantments or rune clusters to sustain them.
The Cataclysm had shattered that “myth” in the fourth year, when all these pockets simply collapsed, disgorging their contents into the ordinary world.
The survivors hiding in them were “thrilled” by this development.
Most died from the “joy” of their own and the hordes of undead that fell upon them.
The Forest of Giant Trees was distinguished not only by its two-to-three-times scaled-up “contents.” It was also unique because you could enter it from any point along the entire length of the Ore Mountains.
All you needed was a sufficient level of magic and not suppressing it.
Then you’d be transported here instantly.
I had to consciously direct my magic into the surrounding space.
The reflex of passively holding my magic inside my body had been practically hammered into my personality.
I froze, letting a herd of deer with glowing yellow antlers run past me, unnoticed thanks to my charms.
The smallest representative of the herd of Sun Deer, called Tilfs, came up to my chest.
I waited until the last of the Tilfs disappeared from view, then followed the tracks of the Jotun tribe in the opposite direction.
Magical creatures always fled from ice giants.
After all, the frost giants loved to feast on Sun Deer.
How had I found the right Jotun tribe?
Torchwick’s people had helped.
Half a month had passed since I healed Neopolitan.
The world was now in March of 1986.
Roman, following my orders, had sent some of his men to search for the Jotuns and others to find people willing to work as Potioneers, or Potioneers themselves who had financial problems.
I needed them to create a manufactory and a network of potion shops.
I had the recipes, thanks to dozens of “gutted” libraries.
Creating artifacts and selling them personally wasn’t a business.
It was a “freelance” job.
And with a “freelance” job, the money you made was proportional to the time and effort spent.
That wasn’t good enough for me.
To get the sums of Galleons I needed, I’d have to churn out too many artifacts.
I wouldn’t have enough time for my planned tasks.
When I could make money without spending my own time, that could be called a business.
One that fit my plans.
For now, though, these things were Torchwick’s headache.
What else were capable subordinates for?
I glanced at the last disappearing giant footprint and continued on, now guided by scent.
It was quite ironic that giants, despite their size, were among the most elusive creatures in the world.
Like the origin of many other magical creatures, their origin was known to wizards only from ancient legends and tales.
According to these legends, all giants descended from the first true giantess, Ymir, who was born of the earth itself.
She gave rise to three types of giants: ice giants, Jotuns; mountain giants, Hrimthurs; and forest giants, Thurs.
In a normal, familiar environment, finding a giant was impossible.
They could hide so well that you wouldn’t see them even if you were looking right at them.
Their ability to hide was more similar to the effects of the Fidelius Charm, which deceives the entire world around it.
Though giants and half-breeds could find other giants.
It was their ability to hide, combined with their high resistance to magic and physical damage, that allowed giants in the early days to view humans as mere cattle, and later to successfully wage war or hide from wizards.
So searching for Jotuns in snowy mountains or other icy, snowy terrain would be a completely pointless task.
A task during which you’d most likely be found first.
And though a truce existed between the ICW and the alliance of giant tribes, the disappearance of a lone traveler would remain their personal problem.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, these creatures also had to eat.
A lot.
Icy wastelands and snowy mountains weren’t good places for large populations of wildlife, even in bygone eras.
These days, even less so.
Therefore, Jotun tribes were forced to migrate frequently in search of food.
Among the forests, they were much easier to find.
A cloud of vapor escaped my mouth.
Some tree trunks were covered in a thin crust of frost.
I made a few sweeps with my wand, strengthening my concealment charms, and moved on.
The cold radiating from the ice giants became more noticeable with each step.
Like a silent shadow, I moved among the trees until I spotted the first Jotun, dozing on the ground.
I lingered on him, then searched for the others.
I needed to confirm that the giant I was looking for was here.
One, two, five, seven, four, five cubs, three females, four…
I looked at the ten-meter-tall giant leaning against a frozen tree trunk.
Less ragged than in my memories.
He didn’t yet have the deep scars crossing his bare chest and ugly face.
But…
I looked down at the pendant hanging around his neck with a large amber-colored stone.
One look at it conveyed an impression of solidity and unyielding strength.
…it was him.
I closed my eyes, focusing on my perception, recreating the environment in my mind with the locations of all the frost giants.
The smells of ice, poorly processed animal hides, leftover raw meat, and blood reached my nose.
Including cubs and females, there were thirty-two frost giants here.
Excluding the cubs, twenty-six creatures.
Their hides could easily withstand a burst of automatic fire and allowed them to ignore all spells from the first to third categories, while weakening spells of the fourth category by half.
And one creature that could ignore or significantly weaken a fifth-category spell.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
The world around me seemed to slow down.
I opened my bag and, no longer holding back, exhaled a cloud of vapor.
The eye of the nearest giant twitched and opened.
I waved my wand.
The whistle of metal cutting through the air echoed through the forest.
Five blades (essentially sharp strips of steel without any handle) flew out of my bag and hovered in the air.
I’d forged them in Prague from low-quality Goblin steel obtained from Torchwick’s smugglers.
They’d been tempered for several months in my blood and magic.
With a new sweep of my wand, the blades shot forward.
The pained roar of two giants echoed through the forest.
It was cut short as the blades, having struck their eye sockets, activated their embedded enchantment (similar to the one used for hammering nails) and fully entered their heads, reaching their brains.
From all sides, the crackling of waking giants and rough shouts in their guttural language began.
With another sweep of my wand, the blades flew out with a wet sound from the corpses of the Jotuns who hadn’t even woken up.
A new whistle of deadly metal streaked through the air.
Five cubs fell to the ground, their heads pierced.
Their not-yet-matured hides didn’t even slow my weapons.
Like a conductor, I made a new sweep of my wand to the mournful howls of the female frost giants.
A massive boulder, thrown by one of the Jotuns who had finally spotted me, flew toward me with a tangible gust of wind.
I pivoted on my axis, swirling magic around my body and picturing my exit point.
With a pop, I vanished from my spot, a fraction of a second before the boulder landed.
I reappeared on a wide branch of one of the trees.
A sweep of my wand returned control of the blades, which I’d lost during the Apparition.
A soft whistle and the now frightened cries of the frost giants echoed below.
One of them tried to cover his face with his palm, but a blade, curving around his head, plunged into his ear canal.
A white flash flared.
With a clearly audible pop, the blade shot out of the other ear of the now-dead Jotun.
I looked for the next target, feeling the strain on my consciousness from controlling five independently flying objects.
A commanding howl cut through the air, followed by several harsh, grating shouts.
The panicking giants began to retreat in one direction.
You won’t escape.
I pulled a Tonic from my bag and downed it.
I put the empty vial away, noticing the reflection of a smile on my face in the glass.
Below, another pop and the sound of a seven-meter-tall body falling echoed.
I calmly waited for my final target in a clearing I’d found among these giant tree-titans.
With half-closed eyes, I controlled the five blades, sensing the space around them with full concentration, and directed them toward the fleeing “king.”
I didn’t know exactly why, on that particular day, those creatures had attacked the military town.
Perhaps driven by bloodlust, spurred on by the madness that had seized all of Ymir’s children as the surrounding nature literally died.
Perhaps driven by hunger, they found nothing more edible than the two-legged humanoids trying to survive in a world they had recently considered themselves masters of.
Or perhaps the memory of those times had awakened, when pathetic little humans hid in their homes, afraid that during the next blizzard, a huge blue monster would take them to satisfy its hunger and hatred of all warm-blooded creatures.
It didn’t matter.
What mattered now was acquiring something no hand of a sentient being without giant’s blood in their veins had ever touched.
Kaz’gorah.
The Heart of the Mountain.
I opened my eyes and released my control over the blades as the crack of a tree sounded from the opposite side of the clearing.
I stood up from a rock, relatively small compared to the surrounding forest, and looked into the white eyes of the ten-meter-tall frost giant who had appeared at the edge of the clearing.
Legg, chieftain of the now-dead Cold Shard tribe, let out a low growl, staring at me with hatred.
The cork of a vial I’d pulled from my bag flew out.
The potion inside burned my throat a moment later.
I held my breath, suppressing the cry of pain.
A pulse wracked my body, making my heartbeat clearly audible.
Then I felt a burning sensation under my skin from overheated muscles.
“Strength of the Giant,” made with the blood of a forest giant, a Thurs, began to take effect.
The wary giant, ready to pounce at any moment, flinched as I threw off my cloak, which was perfect for Disillusionment Charms.
It revealed my leather armor, which allowed free movement, and a sword in a sheath at my belt.
Harsh words, not meant for human throats, in the language of Ymir’s children, slipped from my lips.
They felt heavy, like multi-ton boulders.
“Rgror imrri mraapr groh ravvaa npggrpuku lorrr.”
(Mother Ymir, accept the battle of two, where one will gain everything and the other nothing.)
With a swift motion, I tossed my enchanted bag aside, leaving only my wand in its bracer on my forearm.
I felt the touch of ancient, crude magic, the magic of the first races.
The minor comfort, concealment, and temperature-regulation enchantments on my clothes immediately shattered.
My personal magic could no longer leave my body.
I looked at the amber stone on the pendant of the wide-eyed Jotun.
It was dimming.
Laughter, like rolling thunder, echoed through the forest.
Then the ice giant spoke in broken Latin.
“Stupid bug.
Legg will crush you.”
The Jotun lunged at me, swinging an anchor he’d somehow acquired and was using as a club.
My accelerated, magic-boosted mind caught the smallest details of the environment, calculating my next moves.
My body lunged forward and sideways, dodging the unusual weapon. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
The straight sword, forged from an alloy of magical silver and the small amount of high-quality Goblin steel I had, gleamed in the sunlight as I drew it from its sheath.
A swing.
A cry of pain filled the air.
The giant’s severed thumb fell to the ground.
Freezing blood splattered across my body.
The creature, recoiling and dropping its weapon, roared in fury and took a wide step forward, trying to crush me.
I sidestepped and jumped to avoid the shockwave of the Jotun’s stomping foot.
On landing, I took a stable stance and gripped the sword hilt with both hands.
A swing.
With effort, the steel cut through the thick hide of the ice giant, severing his Achilles tendon.
I rolled away from the center of the clearing after completing the strike.
The giant, shrieking in pain and stumbling, awkwardly crouched and slammed his palm down where I’d been a second before.
I jumped to my feet and ran toward a boulder at the edge of the clearing, diving behind it as I heard the whistling of air being torn behind me.
The enraged creature’s thrown anchor sparked against the boulder, chipping off stone fragments, and landed nearby.
“Flea.
Fight.”
I peeked out from behind the boulder and watched the limping creature approach me.
It tried to stop the gushing blood from its right hand with its left, where its thumb had been severed.
I ran to the next boulder, which I had previously levitated here.
Right now, I needed to wait until the creature was significantly weakened by blood loss and its wounds.
The Jotun, having reached his anchor, picked it up with his intact hand, swung it, and threw it at me.
An unpleasant sound of metal striking stone echoed, followed by a sharp jolt as a boulder shifted from the impact, slamming into my back.
I looked at the anchor lying nearby and then at the giant limping toward me, slower now.
I ran toward the next boulder, but at the last moment, I noticed the creature was clutching something in his intact hand instead of trying to stop the bleeding from his wounded one.
Every muscle in my body tensed as I abruptly leaped backward.
A handful of stones thrown by the Jotun tore up the ground where I should have been, but I couldn’t fully escape the attack.
One of the flying stones grazed my side, knocking the wind out of me and sending my body crashing into a boulder.
The giant roared in triumph and, judging by the thud of his footsteps, began to move more actively in my direction.
I got to my feet, gripping the sword I hadn’t dropped.
A dull pain throbbed in my ribs, at least signaling cracks in them.
I looked at the panicking giant who saw me getting up.
I took a slow step to the side.
A look of desperate determination flared in the creature’s eyes.
A second step.
With a roar, the creature pushed off the ground with all its might, launching its body at me.
My Occlumency-accelerated mind meticulously calculated every movement, both mine and my opponent’s.
My body climbed onto the boulder in two fluid motions, then leaped toward the Jotun.
The creature’s eyes widened in surprise.
His outstretched arms, reaching for me, flew past.
My body collided with his crown.
I grabbed his coarse, unyielding hair and pushed off his head with my feet a fraction of a second before the giant crashed into the ground.
I rolled onto the giant’s back upon landing, got to my feet, and pointed my sword downward, toward his spine.
“GRAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
I smoothly pulled the sword from between two vertebrae and jumped off his back in the opposite direction from which the ice giant was twisting himself with his hands.
I sidestepped the Jotun, whose lower body was paralyzed, as he scraped the ground with his hands.
A minute later, he fell still.
In a few quick moves, I climbed onto his body and walked toward his head, his eyes closed.
Suddenly, the seemingly still left arm shot toward me.
The ugly face with its open eyes twisted into a malicious grin.
“Idiot.
You forgot the ritual only ends when one of us dies.
Pretending to be dead is pointless.”
Steel glinted in the sunlight.
The giant’s hand lost all five of its fingers.
I stared into the white eyes filled with rage and despair, feeling the hatred rekindle in my chest.
“I think I can see Mom.”
I reversed my grip on the sword and threw it like a spear into the Jotun’s eye.
The creature’s head snapped back and went still.
A few seconds later, I felt the ancient magic that had sealed my power within my body release.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
The “Strength of the Giant” potion blocked most of the pain signals, but I was well aware that a significant portion of my muscles had been torn during that “acrobatics.” I also knew about the frostbite from the Jotun’s blood that had touched my skin, and the pain in my ribs from being hit by a stone and then the boulder.
But all of that could wait.
For a brief moment, I could look at the clear spring sky and catch my breath.
I’d finally taken a significant step toward achieving my goal.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
A new weight settled around my neck.
I touched the object that had appeared there, noticing the pendant missing from the ice giant’s neck.
I brought the significantly shrunken amber stone to my eyes.
It began to glow faintly in my hand.
Kaz’gorah, the Heart of the Mountain.
An artifact that wouldn’t recognize any master without giant’s blood.
Now it was rightfully mine.