Chapter Text
The first boom jolts Wilson out of a sound sleep. He scrabbles upright on his mat, blinking furiously. “What the--?!”
Boom. Boom. Across the campfire, Maxwell’s already on his feet, pulling a thin log out of his pack. Wilson does not like the look on his face at all. “It’s the giant.”
Wilson gulps. “Again?! Didn’t we already—”
“There’s another one. There’s always another one.” Maxwell goes back for a double handful of nightmare fuel. It writhes in his hands and leaps for the end of the living log, slurping its way up into the shape of a smoke-dark blade. Boom. Boom. Boom. “Get up. It’s coming this way.”
Wilson’s already reaching for his pack, unslinging the spear tied to one side. This year’s Deerclops came down on the survivors a week ago, smashing half the camp and ruining almost a full season’s worth of supplies. They took it down eventually, but at too steep a cost: Wigfrid still limps badly, Wolfgang's right eye is still blind, and they're all struggling through the winter on short rations and shoddy equipment. Wilson doesn't even have winter clothes for this trip, just a ragged scarf and a thermal stone. If the giant is back already (does it resurrect like we do, or is it a whole species? How does biology even work here? he wonders, for the thousandth time), then it has just caught him and Maxwell unawares, separated from camp, and under-equipped.
…Well, if it kills them here, at least it won’t wreck the camp again.
Boom. Boom. The spear’s well-worn birchwood haft is cold in Wilson’s hands. He draws himself upright and sucks in a steadying breath. “Do you have any extra fuel? Your puppet and I can distract it while you go for the Achilles tendons.”
“No. And there’s no time.” Boom. Boom. Boom. The impacts have started shaking the snow right out of the trees. Maxwell’s jaw is set, hard and grim, but there’s real fear in his eyes. “Just… try not to die.”
Before Wilson can reply, the next massive footfall nearly knocks them both off their feet, and the giant barrels into their clearing. Massive antlers, shaggy shoulders, wicked talons, one enormous crazed eye that glows in the moonlight: the Deerclops rears above them, glaring down. Its antlers slash crazed lines across the eerie blue-white of the full moon. Its bellow rattles Wilson’s bones.
Then it charges, and there is no more time for thinking.
- - -
“This isn’t working!”
Maxwell barely manages to duck another massive spear of ice. He unfortunately has to agree. They’ve been taking turns, one distracting the Deerclops while the other gets a slash in at its ankles, but its hide is too thick and their weapons too small to do it any serious harm. They’re tiring, too: already Wilson’s vest is ragged where a huge claw nearly ripped his side open, and Maxwell feels like he’s run a marathon. At this rate, it’ll overwhelm them long before they can take it down.
What else can they do, though? It’s faster than the last one — they can’t outrun it. Despite the dozens of trees it’s ripped up in its rage, no Treeguards have awoken to oppose it. “Got a better idea?” he pants.
Wilson grins, manic and terrifyingly toothy. “Yep! Distract it for me!”
“What?!”
Too late. Wilson’s already vanished into the trees. The Deerclops roars, its foul breath blowing Maxwell’s hair back, and lowers its head; he flings himself aside just in time to keep from being gored on an antler tine thicker than his arm. The giant bellows again when he jumps to slash at its antlers with his sword. All right. Come at me. He roars back at it, hacking at the base of one massive antler —
— and Wilson, racing up from behind, jabs the butt of his spear into the snow and pole-vaults right onto the Deerclops’ shoulders.
Its answering bellow knocks Maxwell off his feet. Lying stunned in the snow, he can only watch as the giant rears up to its full height, shaking like a wet dog to dislodge the man on its back. For a frozen moment Wilson is flung aside, silhouetted against the moon, his whole body nearly horizontal, and Maxwell braces to watch him dashed against a tree — but he’s still clinging for dear life to a handful of cervine ruff, and it’s just enough to let him swing himself back around. He grabs at its antlers, gets a solid grip, and that frees his right hand for just a moment.
It’s long enough to whip the spear back around and drive it straight through the Deerclops’ neck.
Black blood spatters the snow. The giant staggers, reaching desperately to claw at its own shoulders. It’s weakening fast, but there’s just enough left in it to grab Wilson by the leg and hurl him away. His yelp is lost in the wind --
— but he’s done it. The Deerclops hits the ground with a thunderous crash. For another moment it thrashes, gurgling out its death throes; then, with one last whimper, it finally falls still.
In the sudden silence, Maxwell struggles back to his feet. “Wilson?” he calls. The carcass can wait. Where’s his partner?
- - -
As he stabs his spear deep into the Deerclops’ stinking fur, Wilson has just enough time for a jolt of triumph — got both jugulars, ha! — before a razored grip slashes into his calf and wrenches him off. A dizzying spin, a moment of wind and freefall —
A tree swats him out of the air with a crunch so awful that he barely feels himself hit the snow. His chest collapses, his leg sears, he can’t breathe — he chokes, gags, there’s no air, what happened, oh God, isn’t this what a punctured lung feels like?
“Wilson?”
Maxwell! He can’t speak, barely manages to mouth the name. It’s still, somehow, enough: in the next moment he’s face-up again, staring into eye-wateringly cold wind and blinding moonlight. The moon gives Maxwell a weirdly serene, refracted halo as he grabs Wilson under the armpits and hauls him a few feet to shelter under the tree that just hit him.
The movement, or maybe the relief of seeing his partner intact, finally unlocks his lungs. Wilson gulps for air. Breathing works well enough to prove nothing’s been punctured, but it still hurts — a lot, what on — ow — He loses the first gasp on a breathless groan.
“Easy, pal.” Gloved hands tilt his head back, opening his airways. He mouths gratitude and hopes it’ll translate. “What hurts worst?”
What doesn’t? He manages a scraped-out whisper: “Chest. Leg.” Breathe. “Max, you — you okay?”
“I’m fine, kid.” One hand rests for a moment on his forehead. “I’m not the one who decided to climb a Deerclops. What the hell were you thinking?”
Wilson cracks a shaky, crooked grin. “Worked, didn’t it?”
“Are you insane?”
“Ha. Probably.” He draws half a carefully measured breath. “The megafauna here. Makes it. Hard to foc— focus.”
The hand runs gently down his cheek. “...Christ, you’re such an idiot.”
He opens his mouth to answer that with exactly as much decorum as it deserves, but then Maxwell’s ripping his shirt and vest open. He doesn’t even have time to squawk before the fabric’s gone, but when he looks down… well, fair enough, there’d have been no salvaging the clothing anyway. He must’ve scraped along the tree somehow — hit it at an angle? — because the fabric’s completely shredded and half his left side is raw hamburger. The moonlight’s unusually bright; even under the tree, he can make out dark flecks in the wounds. Bits of bark, he realizes, ground in under his skin. He lets his head fall back and focuses on breathing.
Maxwell mutters something indistinct and runs firm hands down Wilson’s flanks, checking for broken bones — and finding them. The left fifth and sixth ribs give under his fingers and white starbursts blow out Wilson’s vision; he jackknifes halfway up off the duff, biting down hard on a scream.
“Broken. Definitely — broken,” he wheezes as his sight fades back in. Shallow breaths. Steady. Don’t let anything else move. “Please don’t — do that again.”
He can’t really make sense of Maxwell’s expression yet, but his voice sure sounds grim. “Can’t promise anything, kid. We’re gonna have to wrap that up. Your leg, too.”
Wilson huffs, regrets it, and digs his fingers into the pine-needle carpet under him. “Stitches?”
“Probably.” Judging by the muttered curse as Maxwell pushes back his trouser leg, that might be an understatement. “Have to stop the bleeding first, though. Brace yourself.”
Bugger, Wilson thinks, and sets his teeth, only to gasp and groan through them as Maxwell shoves something cloth-ish into the wound. Wounds, plural. He can tell: the gashes where the Deerclops grabbed and threw him are burning quite independently of each other. His inner analyst wonders fleetingly about point discrimination, and he seizes on the distraction. Shouldn’t pain this severe overwhelm that sensory apparatus? How on earth can he identify separate sensations within an inch or two, when everything — agh — hurts this damned badly?
It must work reasonably well, because when Maxwell pulls back and starts smearing stinging disinfectant into the wounds, it jolts Wilson back into the present with an almost tangible thump. “Gh!”
“Hang in there.” Clearly Maxwell’s had some practice with this since the Throne, because he gets each gash covered in one quick, clean swipe. The burn of the salve fades quickly, thank the stars, and the biting cold of the winter night is starting to numb the skin of his chest at least. Wilson shuts his eyes again as Maxwell wraps the bandaging up and ties it off.
...Wait. Ties it off? “Didn’t need sewing?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Now he’s wiping salve all down Wilson’s abraded chest; Wilson stiffens, forces himself to focus on the words. “No time, though. We have to move.”
“What? Why?” More to the point, how? He can’t walk like this — he knows it from bitter experience.
Maxwell blinks up from unrolling another length of bandaging. “You didn’t hear that?”
As if in reply, a ragged howl echoes over the snow. The realization must show on Wilson’s face, because Maxwell nods. “Yeah. Like I said. We have to move.”
- - -