Karma (m/m)

Chapter 10

The day after he sent the letter, he got the reply.

Wolfgan locked Geoffrey in his room, three guards assigned not to leave the door. Geoffrey was still screaming at him from the behind the locked doors and the soldiers were stiff, eyes widening at every curse aimed at Wolfgan and his family tree.

It had to be done. He knew Geoffrey would try something stupid otherwise. He left his wolves inside with him, as they would probably calm the druid down, and left orders for the guards to give Geoffrey wherever he wanted, but not to let him leave the castle, and to keep him in his room for as long as they could.

With a heavy heart, knowing Geoffrey might not forgive him, he walked down the stairs of his castle. A meeting was schedule with the giant's chieftain, Alkmog, where Wolfgan and Haomath would know what the next step was. If there was a traitor among the Giant's, their leader would have to hunt the kidnapper down. If they did not find Henry, or the traitor, then Wolfgan and Haomath would have no option but to ban the giants from the mountains of Hull, and he doubted they would leave quietly.

He remembered how it all begun. Two devils, Gulf and Kolin, the two giants he and his father fought to death two years ago.

They were hunting, he, his father and his mamka. It was his birthday, and they were journeying close to the mountains to hunt, and celebrate it. The huge giants came out of nowhere, right when they were about to cross a bridge. Wild and with strange intent in their eyes, they were intercepted close to a frail bridge that crossed a deep canyon.

Henry stood still on the bridge, and as they fought, one frost giant succumbed on the snow, blood painting the ground. The other fled towards him.

"Do not come any closer, my son!" Henry said. "The bridge will not hold us all."

He did it anyway. He ran to his mamka, and it was Haomath who held him down. The giant Gulf, still bloodied and almost dead, walked the bridge towards his Henry. The weight wouldn't hold. Henry tried to cross to the other direction, but when the giant fell to his knees halfway through, the bridge broke.

It broke.

Henry fell, and disappeared in the mist underneath the canyon.

He should have suspected when they didn't find the body, how could he? Now, Henry was alive somewhere, either captured by someone or trapped in the mountains deep labyrinths.

He could already see the city's gates ahead. To get into the mountain was tricky, but both warlords had experience in this part of the land. It was on the borders of Hull, and it was the part the giants claimed. Patrolling around here was mandatory, over the years.

It was colder here than in any other place, but snow did not fall and the air was heavy. Wolfgan glanced at Haomath, whose face was like stone, with only one goal in mind. They would get Henry back, one way or the other. The giants opened the huge metal gates for his party, enough soldiers to offer protection should they have to fight their way out. Giants, males and females, all dressed in pieces of leather and fur, guarded the gates and watched them enter the fortress.

-.-.

It was their chief that invited Wolfgan inside, and a guard of some kind accompanied them. Wolfgan and Haomath walked among the city towards the hut of the chieftain. Wolfgan's shoulders were tense. The females were about his size, and the males taller, but their back curved in strange ways., They were far from what he considered human. Yet, he came from one of them.

He could not feel any connection to these people.

He looked at some females passing through with dead wild pigs on their shoulders, primitive weapons on their hands, and he tried to imagine calling any of them mamka. But it was the image of Henry that fluttered in his mind, and squeezed at his heart. If he didn't know better, he'd say he came from Henry's womb, somehow. His first memories of childhood being in his mamka's lap, grabbing at the jug of hot milk, mamka's laughter and kisses and warmth... He shook his head, and again glanced at his father, who seemed also deep in thought.