‘I’ve got you!’ Llinos shouts, but it doesn’t feel like she does. I’m falling, and I’m going to hit the sand and break every fucking bone in my body. They’re going to crunch like Estel’s, and then Kay … what will happen to Kay? I’m tumbling helplessly through the air and I brace myself for impact, hoping that if death is going to take me, then it does so fast.
But instead, I feel it. The wind. The wind that comes not from the sea, but from the ground, and with just enough force to slow me. Just enough to help me land safely.
She has me. Llinos has got me.
My feet hit the sand with an almighty thud, sending me to my hands and knees as pain sears through every part of me.
‘We’ve got it!’ Benny crows in triumph.
The jötunn is clearly getting woozy, the blood loss weakening him, and Benny is already following my example and climbing the jötunn’s leg. He climbs as far as the stomach, where he plunges his sword into the giant’s flesh. Again and again and again he strikes, and blood flows forth like a giant, coppery river, washing the sands with the stench of it.
The jötunn hunches forward, clutching his abdomen, and for a split second, I think my friend is about to be crushed, yet Benny is entirely calm, not a hint of fear on his face, and he jumps sideways just in time. I should’ve known. With his sight, he was always going to be fine.
But have we done it? Blood is pouring from the jötunn. Surely there’s no way it can survive this. Any second now it’s going to be face down on the ground.
The thought hits me a moment too late.
‘Shit!’
The jötunn is indeed falling … straight towards me.
‘Rose!’ I’ve barely had time to register the sound of my name when Jonas slams into my side, propelling me forward and out of the path of the falling giant as it crashes down onto the sand, sending up a spray wide enough to blot out the sun and engulf us entirely.
‘Fucking hell, Rose!’ Jonas pants as his arms hold me tight. His voice is muffled against me. ‘What the fuck were you thinking? You could have died!’
‘I could have,’ I agree, panting, ‘but I didn’t.’
We lie there, a tangled mass of limbs, trying to catch our breath. Fear and anger, not to mention pain, burn visibly in Jonas’s gaze as he glares at me. Fuck, his leg. I didn’t even think about that. Running for me like that must have been agony with his injured thigh.
‘Guys!’ Llinos’s voice cuts through the haze, breaking my thoughts. ‘We don’t have time to relax!’
As I twist towards her, I see what she’s talking about. I push to my feet.
The smaller jötunn – the one Jonas wanted us to go for – is bearing down on us. Whoever he was fighting definitely gave it their best, and blood is pouring from the creature, but he’s still on his feet and heading towards us, looking angry.
‘Where’s Benny?’ I call out, looking around. If Benny can find a weak spot, then maybe we can bring this one down without any more of us getting hurt.
But he’s nowhere in sight. My lungs seize. Where the hell is he? He was there before I fell. I saw him.
‘Benny! Benny!’ I shriek as I turn on the spot, only to stop when a hand grabs my elbow.
‘We don’t have time to freak out now.’ Jonas’s face is inches from mine. ‘I’ll blind the jötunn. You and the other two do whatever you can.’
Two, is that all that’s left? Llinos, Loch, and me? Yet as my eyes find Loch, I’m not so sure we can count on him. He’s standing upright but rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. How the hell one of the other jötnar hasn’t killed him already, I don’t know.
‘Rose, are you listening to me?’
I blink myself back into the present and nod at Jonas’s question, mostly because I’ve lost the power to speak.
‘Good. Then move!’
This time, Jonas’s powers have more effect on the creature. The jötunn covers its eyes, turning in circles, and cries out, disoriented.
‘Draw him to the water!’ Llinos shouts. ‘The waves are high. Even if he can walk through them, it’ll slow him down!’
I sprint towards the jötunn, grabbing Estel’s fallen sword on the way and raising it above my head as I leap forward and drive it into its thigh.
The giant wails as it swivels around in my direction, though I don’t wait to see what it’ll do. Instead, I race towards the water. Llinos wasn’t joking when she said the waves were high. If I get caught in one of them, I’ll be dragged out to sea, and even a strong swimmer would struggle in a current like that.
