THREE

THREE

 

Soon he begins to come across bodies, fleeing townsfolk who had met up with scouts or more of the she-mage’s rock giants.  It is easy to see who met whom.  None were spared, the stone man seeing the old and infirm as well as the young and healthy.  Women, men, boys, girls: all had fallen under a blade or the crushing weight of a rock.  Terror was frozen in all of their eyes, horror etched into all their faces.  The stone man realizes that but for blind luck, his body would be among theirs.  Anger tinged with pain floods him, so that he clenches his stone fists and growls deep in his unyielding throat.  In answer to his growl there is a child’s scream.  The stone man stops, listening.   The scream comes again, off to his left, and through the haze of smoke he can see a rock giant lumbering after a small figure.  An outlet for his rage.  The stone man tears off in pursuit of the rock giant and its quarry, gnashing his teeth as his feet pound the ground and he closes the distance between them.  The child sees him coming and halts in its tracks, thinking him another of its pursuers.  If the stone man had been any slower, this would have meant death for the child, but luck is still on his side; he manages to place his glittering stone body between the rock giant and its prey just before it catches up. 

The two granitic bodies meet with a deafening crash.  The stone man’s inertia carries them both back a half step and slams them into the ground with enough force to create a shallow crater.  The rock giant, confused and unsure of itself, lies on its back observing the stone man and the child at turns.  Before it can regain its senses the stone man punches through the crystal chest plate and into the molten gold center.  The rock giant shudders and is still.  When the stone man yanks his fist from the rock giant’s chest cavity he notices this time the liquid gold that stains his knuckles and drips between his fingers.  The stone man is not disgusted, only proud. 

Behind him the stone man hears the child crying.  He turns, searching the muggy air and scraggly grass for the small, pale frame.  The stone man finds the child a few feet away, where it had tried to run after the two giants had collided.  The child had not gotten far before its legs had apparently failed it.  As the stone man draws closer to the shuddering lump he sees it is a girl child, her long black hair matted and caked with mud and grass.  As he draws close the little girl’s head whips up, soot-smudged eyes wide with fear. 

“No!” the child shrieks, throwing her thin pale arms in front of her and edging away on her bottom. 

The stone man halts, not wanting to frighten her more.  He realizes he must still have the she-mage’s blood on him, and that to the child such subtle differences as those that exist between him and the rock giants would be unnoticeable, especially in such a state of terror.  The stone man kneels in the grass and, not able to think of anything else to do, smears mud over the blood to obscure it.  He tries to force his immobile features into a look of innocence and to force words past his lips.  But still, all that will come out is the garbled rock-hawk noise.  The girl-child shrinks from the noise but does not run.  She seems frozen, unsure what to do.  The stone man tries his hand at a smile, though he is unsure how he knows what a smile is.  His stoneflesh is unwilling at first, but just as he has forced his legs to carry him and his arms to flex powerfully and to land devastating blows, so too does he force his lips to pull up and his eyes to crinkle. 

This gives the girl child pause.  She has seen the rock giants hurl rock and smash her friends and family and neighbors, she has seen them scowl and roar in fury, but she has not seen one smile.  In this pause she realizes that he has saved her from the other giant, and she notices those subtle differences she missed before: the deep shade of gray of his stoneskin, and the glitter and sparkle of crystal.  She sees that the golden heart is not there, that his chest is filthy with mud and blood but is smooth.  She looks into his smiling face and notices the greater detail of his features�"his creator put great effort and care into his manufacture.  His movements are more graceful, closer to those of a human. 

The stone man tries to speak again and manages to say something that sounds generally like “friend”. 

The little girl swallows and wipes her filthy hand across her quivering mouth.  “Friend?  Did you say friend?”

The stone man nods.  “Safe,” he manages, and holds out his clean hand. 

The girl stares up at him, unsure.  The stone man allows his smile to relax but tries to keep his face soft and friendly.  It is abruptly vital to him that he get this small human girl to trust him.  He has the vague idea to take her with him to the next nearest human settlement.  She is the last left alive from the village, so far as he can tell.  He feels a sudden fierce desire to protect her, to preserve her. 

“Frrriend,” he rumbles, “saaafe.”

At last the girl seems to decide to trust him.  She stands shakily and places her tiny palm in his massive one.  As gently as he can (his inability to feel making the process difficult) he lifts her up and places her on his shoulders.  She gasps and clings white-knuckled to his chill hands.  When he places her on his shoulders her legs instantly wrap around his neck, gripping him in a clasp that would have choked a human man.  Her fingers find purchase on his face.  Her small length presses into the back of his head, her frightened breath rushing in his ears.  She begins to whimper once more.

“Safe,” he assures her as he slowly rises to his feet.  The little girl squeals and clings still tighter.  The stone man begins to fear she will hurt herself.  “Easy,” he spits out around uncooperative vocal faculties.  He finds it exceedingly difficult to talk with his stone teeth and stone tongue and stone vocal chords, but he will force them to cooperate like he has his other parts. 

Once the stone man has assured himself that the girl is securely around his neck he begins to walk.  He wishes for the girl’s sake he could go slower but with the army no longer preoccupied with a fight they will begin to send out scouts to pick off stragglers, and the stone man wants to be well clear of the dead town by then.  He walks quickly, though he cannot quite bring himself to run. 

They travel in silence, his mind occupied with concerns for their journey as well as questions he has been too busy to ponder before now.  From the moment he awoke there have been things surrounding him that warrant questions be asked, like the state of the tower room he woke up in, and the bodies�"both of the dead and near-dead man�"and those still left alive who had traveled back to the small army to report.