Against the Giants Read Online Free PDF

would try to steal
their bread. I appreciate honesty in a boy.”
    He thanked her as graciously as he knew how, suddenly
grateful for Bregya’s lessons. Odd, though, he thought as he walked away with
his mouth full of soft bread and spicy cheese. It would never have occurred to
him to steal food.
    The tough little loaf would have been almost enough by
itself. With the addition of the cheese, his stomach was properly full, and he
felt alert for the first time in days.
    He drank from a fountain where water poured from the mouths
of oddly shaped stone fish. There were more guards here and the long row of
houses gave way to a series of pens and stables. Two horsemen, helmets eased
back off their faces, rode past him at a slow amble, heading in the direction he
was going. Some paces on, they dismounted, handed their reins to a barefoot boy
who led the horses into a fenced enclosure close by and began unsaddling them.
The men vanished, and moments later, Lhors could see the broad opening that
breached the innermost wall and beyond that, the high wall.
    He hesitated at the intricately wrought metal gates that gave
entry to the lord’s courtyard. There were two armored and armed men flanking the
opening. They looked at him sternly. To his surprise, once he’d stammered out
his name and village, they’d conferred by hand signal, then simply passed him
through.
    Once inside, he slowed to look around, but there wasn’t much
to see. The grounds were raked dirt and gravel or sand—clean, plain, and
utilitarian. A few plain benches of hardwood or stone were scattered here and
there, but there was no other ornamentation.
    The keep was smaller and much plainer than he’d have
expected, but then this was not a king’s palace. Still, it rose high above his
head—four sets of windows, one above the other with a guard-walk above that. The
walls went straight up, the stone dressed so smooth there were no visible
handholds anywhere. Two mail-clad men paced back and forth on the roof above the
parapet. The lower windows appeared to be set at random, but their sills were
deep and the openings so narrow that he couldn’t have squeezed through the
entry. Structures such as this were for siege fighting, his father had told him.
Archers could shoot from reasonable safety, and a small force could hold off an
entire army.
    But there had been no such siege warfare in Cryllor in long
years and with the gods’ blessing, there would not be again. Lhors smiled as his
eye caught the large blue banner snapping in a suddenly brisk breeze. Lharis had
worn that same patch of blue on the breast of his jerkin. He had been very proud
of that bit of blue.
    “I won’t shame it or you, Father,” Lhors whispered. “I swear
it.”
    He could see a walkway along the wall he’d just come through,
with enclosed towers on the corners where guards could shelter from harsh
weather.
    The grounds were busy. Someone was hauling a cart away from
the near stable. A boy steadied a nervous ass tethered to a wagon that was piled
high with dull green hay while two men in grubby leathers forked the feed into
tubs for other boys to carry inside.
    Half a dozen men paced between the gate and keep. Three were
in full armor, but the rest appeared to be servants, clad alike in dark blue
trousers and shirts.
    Four men lounged on a bench, and just beyond them, two
servants were working on a saddle. At their backs, a boy in roughspun clothes
sat cross-legged near a pile of stirrups. He was busily polishing one to a
gleaming bronze and audibly groaned when a middle-aged fellow wearing only
loose, greasy leather pants dropped another load of stirrups atop the pile. The
older man laughed raucously, then pulled a polishing cloth from his pocket and
settled down to help.
    Other soldiers hovered at the buttery, drinking from leather
cups. Lhors eyed them sidelong. Many of them were older, hard looking, and not
all wore the blue patch. I wonder if any of