‘Rose!’ Jonas calls out to me. ‘Do you remember what I said? What you need to do?’ He nods across to the sand timer and I see the half hour is already more than halfway gone. He’s telling me to save myself.
But Llinos is giving it everything she has. Benny, too.
Estel is a crumpled heap on the sand, and like fuck am I going to leave them to a fate like that.
I have to do something. Know yourself. That’s what Zelle told me to do. Well, I do know myself. I know I can throw knives, and I know I can climb.
The thought has barely formed when it hits me. There’s only one thing here that I can scale and doing it might actually help us.
Chapter 28
‘Keep him distracted!’ I yell at the others, not giving myself a moment to consider what I’m about to do. ‘Pain, blind him, I don’t care. Just keep him distracted!’
‘Rose, whatever you’re planning, don’t do it!’ Jonas shouts back, but I block him out as I run towards the jötunn and launch myself upwards. My hands claw at his calves and the thick, bristly hair that covers them. Gross, yes, but also incredibly helpful. I pull myself up on it, using all the friction I can get from his rough, pitted skin. It’s not easy – and a darn sight harder than climbing the wall with Benny – but it’s doable. I can do this. I have to do this.
The jötunn’s arms swipe haphazardly around, and I press myself flat against him as his gnarled fingers pass only inches from my side. Relief floods through me. He wasn’t aiming for me. If he had been, I’d be on the floor. I’m nothing to him. An irritation at most, and one that’s causing way less pain than the others.
I climb higher and faster than I expected. Before I’ve even had a chance to check how far I’ve come, I’m standing on his shorts-like attire. It’s the closest thing I’ve had to a ledge to stand on, and I intend to use it for a moment’s respite. But as I glance up, the coarse fabric of the garment slips beneath my feet, and the ball of my foot goes down with it.
‘Fuck!’ All I can feel is air beneath me as gravity takes over, my body twisting as I start plummeting. Somehow, I’m able to grab hold of thewaistband with my fingertips, and the slightest quiver of relief trembles in my breath as I claw myself back up.
‘Of course, we had to pick the tallest fucking jötunn,’ I mutter, dragging my feet back onto the waistband. This time I make sure I’ve got more than one secure hold as I catch my breath and glance at the sand timer by the priestesses.
I’ve heard the expression ‘time flies when you’re having fun,’ but apparently, it also flies when you’re trying to stay alive. There can’t be more than ten minutes left. It should be comforting, except it would still only take the jötunn a matter of seconds to permanently end things for any of us.
All of the crew is bloodied now. Blood from a gash on Llinos’s forehead is streaming into her eyes, and I’d be amazed if she can even see. I need to do this. For them. For Kay. For me. I straighten, suck in a lungful of air, and prepare to go again.
I may have reached the halfway point, but the jötunn’s back reveals a new problem. Unlike his legs, there’s far less hair here and far less friction. There are a few patches of calloused skin that look hard and rough enough for me to use as handholds, but all of it is slick with sweat.
I pause, considering my options. Other than the blade from Dinah, which I’m not sure will even work, I’ve only got one dagger left. Theoretically, I could use it with the minimal natural handholds I can find and scale him that way, but it would mean stabbing a dagger into his back. Repeatedly. A dagger in the back of a creature this size might do next to no damage, but it would likely be enough to tip me fromirritanttothreat.
Still balanced on the fabric of his shorts, I search for my next handhold.
‘Oh Gods, that is truly disgusting.’ I gag at a wart-like mound that protrudes from his lower back, but I use it all the same.
I stretch my fingers wide, retching against the smell as I clasp the rough, cracked bulge. I’ve just pulled myself up and am using it as a foothold when it feels as if the entire earth shakes. It takes me only a moment to see what caused it.
Kyor has brought down his jötunn.
I don’t know how the other groups are doing, and I don’t care. I need to keep going and focus on the task at hand. With a loud grunt, I hoist myself up onto the next protruding mound, my stomach churning from a mixture of fear and the putrid smell, and barely wait for my feet to steady before searching out the next callus.
I find it in an old, puckered scar, just thick enough to get my fingers on. It’s hardly secure, but it’s the best I’ve got. My wrists burn from the weight of pulling myself up, and I push my shoes against his slick skin, hoping that will help me get the traction I need to reach my target: his shoulder. Once there, I’ll have access to his neck. Then I can do some real damage.
With every bit of strength I have left, I grapple upwards and find the wide precipice of his shoulder blades, which will be perfect for hauling myself up.
‘Rose!’ I’m sure it’s Jonas’s voice I hear through the torrent of cries and swirling winds, but when I glance down, I can’t even see him. Benny, on the other hand, is directly below me, grinning while simultaneously slicing at the giant’s ankles, and I’m pretty sure he’s grinning because of me. But I have no plans on smiling just yet.
The good news is that this is the most stable position I’ve been in for the entire climb. The bad news is that it’s also the easiest position for the jötunn to swat me off. And I can’t let that happen. Not until I’ve done what I need to do. I won’t be able to saw at his neck, so the stab wound is limited to being a one-time deal, and to make it significant enough to take him down, I need to do something stupid.
With my left hand braced against the tendons of his neck, I reach for my blade and sink it right into his jugular. The skin here is thinner than I thought, immediately yielding under the pressure of the sharpened edge. As blood pools around my hand, I push it in as deep as I can, then swing around and clasp the hilt with both hands. Jumping, I put my whole weight on the hilt. With everything I’ve got behind it, the knife pulls down the length of his throat.
His roar sends pain shooting through my skull, leaving my entire head ringing as my vision blurs. Yet despite the blood pouring from his wound, he’s still standing.
Right now, his hand is flailing, but if it moves towards his throat to clasp the wound and stop the blood flow, he’ll knock me off or, worse still, crush me. I have no choice; I have to fall. Overriding every rational part of my brain, I pull my dagger out and let myself plummet.
A scream tears from my lungs as the air whistles past me and my body accelerates towards the ground, faster and faster.
I’m going to die.There’s no way I can survive this.
