Jack, the giant-killer by Charles De Lint

“You and the hob and the riders and
    everything?”
    The Gruagagh shrugged. “Sometimes your people stray into our realm. Grief will bring you—or strong drink. A sudden shock.”
    Jacky blushed thinking of strong drink. The Gruagagh turned and extinguished the candle by simply looking at it. Jacky shivered in the darkness, the reality of it all coming home again. There was a rider outside, watching, waiting. And a Big Man…
    The Gruagagh opened the door and stepped to one side. “Luck be with you, Jacky Rowan.”
    Jacky peered out into the shadows of the back yard and hesitated. Then she frowned at herself. She stole a glance at the Gruagagh and impulsively stood on her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss, then was out the door. The Gruagagh watched her go, startled. He lifted a finger to his lips and the shadows in his eyes deepened. If duty didn’t bind him, he thought, then sighed. But duty did. And so Lorana was captured or worse, and this Jacky Rowan was going out to tilt with giants, and he was trapped, bound to his duty. By his oath. By the need of the realm.
    “Luck,” he said again softly and closed the door.
    “Finn?” Jacky whispered at the foot of the garden. She started to look up into his tree, but then she saw that the rider on the far side of the park was no longer alone. She froze against the cedar hedge, her voice caught in her throat. There were two of them now. She bit at her lip. Would they go away if she took off her redcap? Or would they still be there, invisible? She glanced back at the Gruagagh’s Tower, wishing she hadn’t left its safety.
    “Finn?” she whispered again and shot a look up his tree.
    She saw the hob sitting there, clutching the trunk. He turned to look down at her, a finger to his lips. Jacky followed his gaze and saw that he wasn’t looking at the riders, but at the Big Man.
    Gyre the Younger. An eighteen foot high giant. Here in the middle of Windsor Park. He shouldn’t exist, but he did. And he was turning to look in their direction.
    Frightened in earnest now, all Jacky could do was crouch by the hedge. She felt the ground tremble slightly as the giant lifted one foot, put it down, lifted the other, turned. Then he started across the park towards her.

    CHAPTER FIVE
    « ^ »
    He was big, this giant. Bigger than any creature Jacky had ever seen. His head alone was more than two feet high, almost a foot and a half wide. Legs, three yards long, supported the enormous bulk of his torso and carried him across the park. He was going to be right on top of her in moments and she didn’t know what to do. She was too petrified with fear to do more than shake where she was crouched. Her fingers plucked nervously at the hem of her jacket and she chewed furiously on her lower lip.
    Run, she told herself. Get up and run, you fool. Find some place too small for him to follow. Be a fieldmouse to his cat and find some hiding place to burrow into.
    But she couldn’t move. Then Finn dropped from his tree with a rustle of leaves and was crouching beside her.
    “I’ll lead him off,” he whispered urgently. “He doesn’t quite know what’s here, I’m thinking, so if he sees me run off, he’ll give chase to me. The stitcheries in your coat will keep you hidden so long as you don’t move !”
    “B-but… what about you… ?
    “He won’t catch me. Only the Hunt could catch me, but they won’t follow. There’s only two of them. They need their full ranks for a proper hunt.”
    “But—
    “Stay!” His gaze fell on the Gruagagh’s brooch and he frowned, then quickly shrugged. “I’ll find you,” he added.
    “As quick as I’ve lost him, I’ll find you. Stay till he gives chase, then go as quick as you can to a safe place.”
    The only safe place Jacky could think of was the Gruagagh’s Tower behind them. But before she could say anything, the giant was looming over them.
    “Hey-aha!” Finn cried at the top of his lungs.
    “Laird, but you’re an ugly creature, Gyre