Eli could move. I know he literally had wings but they were stubby little useless things. He proved me wrong. In all fairness to me, he was carrying apples and a First-Aid kit while I was hauling upwards of a hundred pounds of glowing crystal that painted a brightly shining target on my back. Literally. Paul landed next to me, Elvis thrown across his shoulders.

  “Run faster, boss!”

  I was not strong enough to do a Hulk-leap like Paul. I was intelligent enough to use my powers though. The stone beneath me pushed, a bouncing wave moving in time with my stride to add extra speed. But the booms behind us grew louder faster.

  “LOAD BALLISTA!”

  The rough call for siege weaponry almost made me stumble. The hill in front of us loomed into view. Hidden vaulted doors that were horizontally oriented opened up and all I could think about was, ‘when the fuck did they build those’?

  “CRANK SLING-PULTS!”

  Normal vaulted doors opened up revealing some dwarven bastardization of a trebuchet mixed with an oversized slingshot. Even from here, I could see teams of dwarves straining to arm and aim the siege weaponry. Basketball sized boulders fixed with wicked hooked blades filled the sling-pults and barbed bolts resembling telephone poles from hell sat in the ballistae.

  I ran faster.

  The deep thuds behind me began to pick up speed but then mysteriously stopped. I did NOT turn around to look. I hauled ass until I arrived at the overhang. My strength plus momentum allowed me to easily leap over the phalanx of dwarves. Elvis stood behind them, his arms spread to catch me so I didn’t crash into the unarmored dwarves behind him still getting ready.

  Ignoring Thomas’ jokes because I could see how afraid he was, I wriggled free of Elvis, shoving my unwieldy container of sunstones at him so I could finally see what was going on. Even from here, several streets away, the giants’ gory feast was clear as day. Those were kid giants we’d killed. And they were getting eaten by their parents. Or aunts and uncles, it was hard to tell. Much bigger giants were ripping off legs and arms and devouring them.

  “You okay? You look green.”

  Thomas blanched as Elvis whacked him on the back. My brother almost flipped and hit the floor but Elvis caught him.

  “They don’t have to be so enthusiastic.”

  I smacked Thomas on the back too just as Elvis righted him. “Buck up man. We’re next if we screw this up.”

  Brittle crunching sounds snapped so loud that it didn’t sound like giants chewing the femurs of their dead children. It sounded like frozen steel beams snapping in the mother of all blizzards.

  More dwarves joined the phalanx, creating a wide formation of tower shields and spears. I watched them proudly as I knew that I was instrumental in fixing, upgrading or manufacturing their new gear with my Alchemy. The spears were easy to make, about two hours worth of work total once the dwarves and Elvis had brought me enough raw materials. The shields had taken some more work as by that time we’d been running low on metal. That was our latest frustrating roadblock.

  Clay and wood were plentiful. But metal? With the damn mutant goats running around eating what they could find plus the vegetation growing up and over everything as if it were powered by radioactive steroids, we had to come up with a better solution.

  “AIM!”

  I cursed for allowing myself to get distracted.

  “FIRE!”

  The whumps of the sling-pults went off just before the off-beat snaps of the ballistae. I couldn’t even count how many things fired off. Inhuman roars shook the air. Pivoting to watch the alien-induced carnage, I saw two of the giants reeling. The largest one tilted to the side, its left arm hanging by a thread of sinew and half of its lower jaw completely caved in. The smallest one, standing at just over four stories tall, raged as all of the missiles had completely missed it. The barest piece of leg hung from its fingers.

  They shot its dinner.

  Part of me wanted to sigh in relief at seeing the middle giant toppling over. Two bolts from the ballista skewered its brains and two catapult boulders were sunken into its chest. I held back my celebration. Both of the survivors lumbered towards us.

  “TAKE COVER!”

  Elvis’ roar went unheeded by the dwarves. A boulder larger than a diesel truck hurtled through the air and I leapt to the side, Eli barely in tow. The boulder exploded in mid-air, Paul flying through it with a shout. His dark form caught the light for a moment, his smile far too close to rage.

  This wasn’t my moment to jump in. Paul was hungry for a bit of payback and Eli needed me. I pushed him down, pulling up heavily reinforced walls of rock for him to hide behind. I can’t have my only healer dying from a stray boulder. Elvis tried to muscle me behind the rock walls as well but I shook him off.

  “Help Paul!” I snapped, shrugging his hand off my shoulder. “I got Eli.”

  Elvis nodded as more thick but short walls going back towards the rear end of the cavern sprang up in a zig-zag pattern to give us cover. I half-darted, half-carried the teen in front of me, making sure that two feet of stone AND my body stood between him and the giants. Powdered stone filled the air as boulders and humongous dirt clods exploded in the cavern. I didn’t see Elvis join the fight but I heard him.

  My hands suddenly lightened as Eli slipped through my fingers.

  “What the-”

  “They need help!”

  I almost yelled for Sandra to stop him but she wasn’t there. Her ghost haunted me, hamstringing my very thoughts. I almost cursed as the gutsy kid made a beeline towards the downed dwarves, their mostly intact phalanx shifting to cover their wounded. My stomach fell through the floor. I took off after him but the collateral damage from the giants trying to survive getting attacked from all directions almost took my head off. Their massive feet tore up the earth and they used it. They were well acquainted with fighting small-folk. Ugly toenails flicked wheelbarrow sized loads of dirt taking people out of the fight long enough for them to fully concentrate on smacking Elvis and Paul out of the sky.

  I felt like I was watching in slow motion, the dwarves moving forward, stabbing feet and ankles with overly long spears, trying to foul their footing long enough to distract them for the siege weaponry to deal a final blow. Paul fought on almost even footing, his cleaver leaving ugly wounds in grasping hands and even severing a few fingers.

  Elvis hadn’t learned to shut his mouth. He would’ve killed the giants by now but each leap of his was heralded by a roar. It worked to get a giant’s attention but then he’d get smacked back down to the ground. Paul fought smarter, stealing spears from dead dwarves and shoving them deep into vulnerable areas. I saw at least three swinging back and forth out of an Achilles’ tendon and two more close to where the femoral artery should be.

  I’d like to say that I had bigger concerns, like tripping the giants with Terrastria but if I did that, the slingpults wouldn’t be able to actually hit them this close. So I did what I could. The earth beneath the wounded dwarves and Eli shifted, pulling them back so I could put up a thick wall to protect them from the collateral damage. I kept going, not hearing the pained words of gratitude until the impromptu shelter was five feet thick with a curved roof and the main section sunk into the ground another three feet.

  A metallic hand shaking my arm finally got my attention.

  “It’s deep enough, boyo.” Maelyin, Yeldin’s wife, nodded her thanks. “I’ll keep the boy safe. Help your friends and we Dwarves will be even deeper in your debt.”

  I shuddered, taking a deep breath as my focus shifted from manipulating the dense structure of stone back to more human concerns. I could feel my magic flowing down my body, leaving me with thoughts more mutable than rock.

  “Don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to that.” I muttered, climbing out of the quick and dirty bunker. Forcing myself to the edge of the cavern past the reformed phalanx, I looked up to see Elvis in the process of being eaten. His arms were straining, his hands and feet holding a giant’s mouth open. The giant’s jaw was straining as it struggled to bite down, drool making the endeavour slippery.

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  “ABORT FIRE!” I screamed, hacking through the dust. “CEASE FIRE! SHIFT FIRE!” Each command felt useless but all I could picture was a ballista shaft doing Elvis in.

  Luckily, Yeldin heard me.

  “SHIFT FIRE!”

  I heard the grinding of the siege engines turning. Paul dropped from where he was attempting to cut through his giant’s ankle and launched himself at the one still trying to eat Elvis. As the second one looked amazed that no one was attacking it, its head snapped back. Like an ancient redwood, it stood tall. Only wavering slightly as it reached up slowly to remove the poles of wood sticking out of its face. Its left foot staggered to the side as blood spurted from its gutted cheek.

  Enraged but blind, the giant lurched forward. Its hands slammed against the cavern walls, ripping at the hardened stone in search of the coves holding the siege weapons. Gnarled fingernails tore down and out and I saw broken splinters of wood and steel go flying. I saw fewer bodies than I expected accompanying the debris.

  “Oh no you don’t!”

  A different kind of BOOM rang out as the air shimmered with hidden energy. My brother’s words were drowned out as the top of the giant’s skull exploded upwards. In all the chaos, I hadn’t even noticed Thomas making his way up the outer cavern walls. I had no idea how to help. Everything was just happening and I was powerless. I sprinted forward, fear driving me on.

  I skidded to a stop, dangerously close to the giant’s foot. Looking up, I could see My brother, his fist covered in blood still in the finished upper cut pose. He growled wordlessly, launching himself forward. The rest of his saved energy infused his other fist, his aim true. Another stuck bolt in the giant’s face was his target. He was punching the bolts like a hammer bearing down on stubborn nails.

  “Shit!” I sprinted back the way I came. Thomas was doing just fine without me.

  On the other hand, Elvis was not. His screams could be heard over the falling giant. Teeth the size of car tires ground down on Elvis, his body in an awkward position. He was half in, half out of the giant’s mouth, one leg caught in the gap between teeth and his hands desperately struggling for a grip to keep the giant from finishing his bite down. Meanwhile, Paul was clasped between the giant’s hands being stretched out like a stubborn rubber band.

  Giant number two’s death throes caused even more chaos. Its leg kicked out bowling over all the dwarves on the ground and its other leg took out the biggest giant. Elvis slipped too as his enemy suddenly spun and fell over. I saw him fall in the other direction, blood spewing from his severed leg. Paul punched at the giant’s teeth over and over as it fell. The earth betrayed me for once, the giant’s fall so heavy that I stumbled on my way to Eli.

  I tore him away from a dwarf who was injured but clearly not dead.

  “Hey! He’s got a-”

  Eli’s protests fell on deaf ears as all i could think about was getting to Elvis but common sense took a moment to catch up to me. The battle wasn’t over. And Eli definitely shouldn’t be closer.

  “Shit.” Cursing, I spun and slid Eli back the other way, shaking my head. My boots tore at the dirt, my bounding leaps carrying me through the dust thrown into the air. I left it there even though I could pull it down with Earth Magic. It did serve to keep me mostly hidden. Elvis’ cries led me straight to him.

  He was leaning forward, canted to the side, his hands gripping his thigh in an attempt to stop the blood flowing right out of him. Ripping my belt off my waist, I yanked it high up on his thigh as close as I could get to his groin and cranked it shut, tying it off as tightly as humanly possible. If I didn’t get him help right now, this shitty tourniquet wouldn’t keep him alive.

  “Keep the pressure on.” I said, my voice a pressured growl. “Squeeze your leg as tight as you can.” With a grunt, I hefted him up in a modified fireman’s carry and took off.

  I roared as hard as I could, my arms wrapped around Elvis’ leg. “ELI! WE NEED YOU!”

  “Give’em here.”

  Strong arms took Elvis from me, a whirlwind of dwarves converged on him with Eli at the front. Maelyin slapped a sizzling blob of green jello onto the wound before Eli stepped began channeling a stream of golden motes into Elvis.

  “Better get thatta’ leg heya quick.” She said, looking up at me. Soft brown eyes filled with concern belied the steel in her voice. “We can do almost-miracles.” She turned those eyes on Elvis grimacing through the pain trying his best not to scream. “Only the gods work full miracles.”

  I heard a sharp BOOM and then an ominous creak followed by a wet squelch, like someone stabbed a container full of compressed jellyfish. I felt that in the back of my throat. Standing up and turning, I pulled more power up through the dirt before stepping forward.

  Paul strode forward, a triumphant grin on his face, his cleaver shattered into wicked spikes covered in blackish blood. He held his hand up, Elvis’ mangled leg dangling from his grip.

  His accent was thicker than usual. “Hope this is enough for a half-miracle then.”

  Thomas walked up beside him holding his own clearly broken hand. “Damn kill stealer. At least give’em the leg! Quick!”

  I watched as Eli worked with Maelyin and the dwarven clerics, their magics weaving in a concentrated web of light around Elvis’ stump and the masticated appendage. I could see that the femur was completely flat, shards and powdered bone splintered into the muscle that barely wept any fluid. Eli poured more and more power into the leg, drawing from his First-Aid kit and plucking several feathers from his wings.

  Two hours went by before I moved from my spot, the healers sagging to the ground in exhaustion. Elvis had long passed out into the sweet mercy of unconsciousness but I could see the strain on everyone’s faces. And worse, I could see they all knew something we didn’t.

  Maelyin got to her feet and I reached out to steady her. She looked me in the eyes with a grimace before letting out a slow breath.

  “I heard bout’ yur’ dark friend yonder. He survived getting chewed’pon by the giant.” My eyes narrowed at her soft words. “This boy ain’t that strong.”

  ********

  Elvis’ grip crushed my hand. He leaned on the cavern wall with me as he forced himself to walk. His exposed right leg had been reattached but it would never be the same. The magic healed the connection between allowing him the barest sense of normalcy but it had taken a toll. What once was a tree trunk of a muscular leg now was a withered stilt of a limb. It could not support his full weight. It took a good amount of my own strength to hold his bulk.

  “You don’t have to do this.” I said awkwardly but with a very gentle tone, guiding Elvis towards the mouth of the cave. My left shoulder was underneath his right armpit with his arm draped over my shoulder. I functioned as a singular crutch.

  “I need to see it. I need to.”

  Each shift of his weight on that emaciated leg caused him to hiss with pain even though I did my best to take all the weight but he drove himself on. His own healing factor seemed ill-equipped to deal with something of this magnitude. I’d seen Elvis reset his own broken bones, press torn flesh back together and it healed within a minute. But this, his leg crushed and chewed almost as flat as a pancake, even magic could only do so much.

  “I want a piece of that bastard. I want to see him dead.” His angry growl had lost all true meaning.

  Without a working leg, Elvis was useless. Hamstrung. Lame. Weak.

  And he knew it.

  When we got to the biggest giant, I pulled a stone chair out of the dirt and set Elvis down on it. Thomas walked over, his face blank as he took in Elvis’ state.

  “That’s it?” He asked, scratching at his head. “All this magic around us and he can’t even walk?”

  I shook my head and sighed. “For now. I have a few ideas that might bear fruit later but right now, at least the leg is attached and alive. That gives us more to work with than not being there at all.”

  “Sandra would know what to do.”

  I almost swung on my brother right then and there. He wasn’t wrong but damn did that cut at an open wound. Instead, I just gave a curt nod.

  “True. Very true.”

  The giant’s body shifted to the left just a bit and I reached for my magic.

  “It’s just me!” Paul called out, seeing my hand on my ax. “We need to move this away. Don’t want to be near this much rotting unusable meat.”

  Sighing with relief, I looked over the humongous dead bodies. They stank before they died and now, I didn’t want to imagine how bad they would get.

  “Can they be used in any way?” I asked loudly, making sure to catch Dinder’s eye. He held two bags full of tools and equipment that I was unfamiliar with. I gestured towards the giants and also nodded in Thomas’ directions. “Can we harvest bones for my brother? He has some kind of bone magic that might benefit from some of this? I think . . .”

  Thomas shrugged. “I actually hadn’t thought of that . . . See, you’re not dumb, you just need to ADHD your way around the problem. Let that ‘Tism shine, bro!”

  Paul snickered, dropping the extremely thick edge of the giant’s leather shirt. It startled Dinder, who was already a high-strung individual, into spilling his bags of tools. Thomas stepped forward to help him but paused.

  “That’s a lot of knives.” He said, picking one of them up slowly. “They look like carving knives.” My brother picked up a few more. “These all look like carving knives. Don’t tell me you’re going to butcher this thing?” He looked at Dinder and then at the dwarves. “Are y’all going to eat it? Have we been eating giants this whole time? Wait, no, we just killed these giants and the mole-things were in the stew.”

  Yeldin stomped over. “Dinder! What’s the holdup? By my Father’s beard, if you don’t get this-”

  “I ain’t eating that.” I said calmly, nodding at the giant.

  “Of course ya ain’t, you smooth faced human.” Elvis unconsciously scratched at his irritatingly full beard. “Just because meat is meat, doesn’t mean all meat is meat. You understand?”

  “No.” “No.” “No.”

  Yeldin looked confused as all of us humans shook our heads.

  “It looks like y’all are about to eat that bitch.” Thomas said, sorting through the knives he was picking up. “Meat cleaver, boning knife, sharpening road, another meat cleaver, no fillet knife but those are for fish . . .”

  I watched Dinder’s eyes light up with understanding. “They don’t know, Tunnel Sergeant.” He turned to me. “We have a type of fungus that can grow deep in the earth. It can turn useless, poisonous meat into mushroom caps that for all intents and purposes are meat.”

  Elvis’ eyes narrowed. “Vegan protein?”

  “But we have to work quickly so please excuse me.” Dinder snatched his knives back and scurried off.

  “I forget how little you know of the wider Verse.” Yeldin’s deep voice cut through our instinctive disgust. “Scourgeflesh Shrooms are a dwarven staple. Magic is not always the best answer, sometimes nature meets our needs in ways magic cannot.” His eyes got a faraway look in them. “This particular type of mushroom is excellent feed for fish in underground rivers, can replace protein in the body for a long time, does not require sunlight, and is best in thick stews.”

  Part of me still recoiled in disgust but I didn’t want to piss off the only friendly neighbors we had. Thomas had already discarded his distaste and was in the process of chasing Dinder down.

  “Wait for me! I need a femur and a chunk of the skull!”

  Shaking my head at the strange turn my life had taken, I mused in silence. Sandra would know what to do. She’d already be making plans, rebuilding our home, hell. She would’ve taken out one of the giants on her own and been yelling at us to hurry the fuck up already. Elvis looked drained, leaning against the lip of the cavern wall. I could see him desperately not looking at his leg, fighting the despair that threatened to overwhelm him. Yeldin had already left, joining the many dwarves in line for knives while a few more gathered wheelbarrows to cart off the dead flesh.

  “We’re gonna figure this out.”

  He gulped, his eyes thick with unshed tears. “I can’t walk, boss. I used to play football, hike up mountains and shit . . . even fight fucking giants!” He raised his large hand up, making a fist before slowly unclenching. “What good am I now? Strength means nothing without legs.”

  “Hold on-”

  “Can’t throw. Can’t push. Can’t fight. Just a fucking cripple now. What’s the point of all this magic, all this healing nonsense if it can’t fix this!?” His voice climbed to a fever pitch.

  I stayed silent. My brain, usually just spilling over with ideas, was silent for once. Well, again.

  Here I stand. Useless to those who actually matter to me.

  Fuck.