“Fair,” I respond. “How can you tell there are seven?”

  “I can tell because of their different cries,” he says, just as there’s a roar behind us.

  “Shit,” he swears. “Make that eight Giants on our tails.”

  “Ideas, folks?” I shout out, avoiding a tree and going around it.

  “Traps?” Leeha suggests, also not appearing winded.

  Tia, on the other hand, is breathing heavily. “I’m not eating them, so don’t look at me,” she growls, and I notice that she goes a little pale at the mention of that.

  Feeling Blacky next to me, I look down and absently scratch him behind the ear.

  “What’s up, Blacky?”

  He barks at me, but I get the impression of numerous Giants behind us, more than Bryan estimated.

  “Shit,” I cry out. “I’m getting from Blacky that there are more than just the eight that Bryan is hearing. I’m getting the impression that there are a dozen of them.”

  “A dozen?” Tia looks at me hard. “Are you serious?”

  I point to Blacky. “From his impression, that’s what I’m getting.” “Too bad you can’t show me them,” I say with a sigh as I look down at him again.

  Suddenly, my vision is blurred, or more like something is superimposed over what I should be seeing as I’m running. The view is closer to the ground, and suddenly I’m looking at a shit ton of Giants running towards me. No, not towards me. It’s from Blacky’s viewpoint! Holy shit! Quickly, I count the Giants I see, and by the time I’m done, I start to swear like a freaking sailor on shore leave in a bar.

  “What?” Leeha asks me, concerned, as she knows if I’m swearing that much, something is up.

  “Seems that Bryan and Blacky are both wrong. Somehow Blacky was able to show me an image of what he saw back there. It’s not a dozen Giants. I counted a total of 21 in just that quick vision.”

  “Why do you get all the cool stuff,” Tia mumbles quietly, but since my hearing is damn good, I hear her.

  Binna pipes up quickly. “We are close to the line. If we can get past that, we will be safe!”

  I turn to her quickly.

  “Line?”

  “Yes. We have a line in the forest, at the edge, between the forest and the shore, that they will not pass. It’s a Magical barrier that was created eons ago to keep them in the forest.”

  “And we are close? How close?” Bridget asks her.

  Binna turns to her. “Maybe another two or three miles ahead of us?”

  I start to say that might work, but then I hear a loud crash behind me. I turn to look, and I see that a lone Giant, taller than any I have seen yet. It’s a male, and it must be over 70 feet tall, and this one has something I haven’t seen before on any of the Giants we’ve fought. He has flaming hair. I don’t mean that his hair is red. I mean he has flames for hair.

  Suddenly, over his head, I get a notification.

  Flaming Giant.

  “Hmm. Tia. What do you know about Flaming Giants?”

  Her head snaps to me so fast that I’m sure I heard the sound barrier break.

  “Shit! Flaming Giants are the upgraded version of the Fire Giants. As they get stronger, they change.” She turns to look behind us and sees the Flaming Giant with his flames for hair, and she swears vehemently. “Shit. They are really strong.”

  “How is it that you know so much about Giants but you didn’t know how they tasted?” Bridget asks her pointedly.

  “Because my parents taught us all about them. But evidently, they left out how awful they taste,” she says with a sour expression.

  “So, you’re saying that all these monsters have an upgraded version of themselves?”

  At my question, Tia turns to me and nods quickly. “Correct. Just as we can increase in power and skills, so can they. Though, as you can see,” she says, pointing back towards the Flaming Giant crashing through the forest towards us, “they can also change how they look.”

  With a scowl, I tell her, “Great. Just great. I wonder how many of the upgraded versions of Giants are behind us.”

  Just then, we hear a roar or four behind us, and somehow we suddenly get a burst of speed. I would kill for a fast mount about now to outdistance this thing. I turn to Tia and think of asking her to turn into a Dragon to fly off with us, but that would mean stopping and getting her to change, and by the time we got on her back, we would be surrounded by Giants. Fuck. I need an idea of how to stop them.

  “Can you create a wall to stop them?” Bo asks me, appearing next to me unexpectedly.

  “Are you Teleporting while running?” I ask him, instead of answering.

  He grins and nods. “It’s been helping me increase my rate of Teleportation. Though,” he scowls, “I’m finding that I have to be careful, so I don’t run out of steam to run.”

  “Just don’t do it so much that you are out,” I remind him. “I can’t rescue you. Hell, right now, I need rescuing from these Giants. Because if they catch us, I doubt we will survive a battle with over 20 of them. And as to your original question. No, I can’t make a wall that fast or that high. They would just end up crashing through it.”

  Leeha gets a thoughtful look on her face. She finally nods and turns to me. “What if you do something up ahead?”

  Curious about what she’s thinking, I ask her, “What do you mean?”

  “Well, what if we all lead the Giants away from you, and with Bridget in our group, since she can see you wherever you are, she can then direct us back to you? In the meantime, you go ahead and create some sort of trap. We can keep ahead of these things. Barely. Even the Flaming Giant behind us is barely catching up.”

  “I’m surprised for things that big, they are so slow.”

  “That’s because we’re faster,” Leeha tells me. “If it wasn’t for the fact that we have been training with you, I’m sure we would have been caught. Though, I can see that Binna is running out of breath. You might need to take her with you.”

  “I’m fine. I’ll keep up!” Binna says, and I see that Leeha is right, she is out of breath, and her words are interspersed with heaving breathing.

  “All right,” I tell Leeha. “Let’s do that. I’ll take Binna with me. You folks cut left, and I’ll keep going straight. Make sure to make enough noise that it will get them to go after you and not keep following me.”

  “Want me to go with you, Master? In case you need covering?” Bo asks me.

  I look at him at the use of the honorific. He only does that when he wants something or wants me to understand that he is serious.

  I shake my head. “No. You stay with Bryan. But I will take Blacky with me, since I can use his eyes and ears to watch for other things. The last thing I need is to run into a Giant up ahead of us.”

  Blacky looks up at me and barks, and I get the impression from him of him leading me to safety and watching over me.

  “Everyone ready?” I ask around.

  They all give me an affirmative reply. I look back, and while the Flaming Giant behind us is being loud, crashing and breaking trees as he is chasing us, he isn’t getting any closer. All right, that’s not exactly true. He’s still catching up, but he’s doing it in increments. The gap is closing, but unless we trip and fall, we‘ll be good.

  Suddenly, a thought comes up. “Do upgraded versions of these Giants have weapons or skills they can throw at us?” I ask Tia quickly.

  She shakes her head. “No. Most of them are close combat types. I have never read about them having the ability to throw spells or such. Though, I’m sure if they can get a hold of a large stone, they can throw it at us.”

  “Fucking hell,” Leeha tells her. “Don’t tell me shit like that! Now I need to worry about getting a rock thrown at me.”

  “They aren’t that smart,” Tia tells her with a grin.

  But suddenly, she loses her grin as a large stone, the size of a small car, goes careening into the tree ahead of us, causing it to explode into bits of flying tree shrapnel. Thank God it was ahead of us, otherwise some of us would be removing splinters from our backsides.

  “Fucking hell! See! Now they are throwing rocks!” Leeha shouts, glaring at Tia.

  “Sorry!” she cries out. “I guess I will have to revise the books back at my home cave.”

  “No shit,” Leeha growls. “But we can work with this. We need to split up now so that Alex can see what he can do to stop these fuckers.”

  “All right, on three, I want you all to split off. I will keep heading straight. Binna will come with me, and so will Blacky. Ready. On one. Two. Three!”

  Swiftly, as planned, everyone else goes hard left, making as much noise as possible. Bryan slams his sword against his shield, causing a ruckus. The girls and even Bo all begin to shout and scream as they run.

  I grab Binna, who screams in shock, and place her in front of my chest, holding her in a princess carry.

  “What are you doing, Alex!” she cries, looking up at me in surprise.

  “I need to run faster, and you’re about to pass out from breathing so hard. Blacky, run up ahead and see if there is anything that will block me.”

  Blacky barks in joy, and I get the love and thrill of the hunt from him. I can’t help but grin. Gods, he’s loving this. I don’t worry about his speed, since I know that he can outrun all of us, even me, with my new powers.

  As I think that, I reach down inside of me and put on a burst of speed.

  Binna screams, grabbing me harder, as our speed almost doubles within a second.

  “Hang on,” I tell her, reaching deeper into my reserves. “We are about to go even faster.”

  She looks up at me with disbelief on her face. “Faster?” she squeaks.

  I don’t answer her, but suddenly I feel a rush of energy as my speed increases so much that I have to focus on what’s in front of me, so that I don’t crash into a tree or something else. The trees go by me in a blur.

  Fucking hell, I think to myself. Just how fast am I going? I’m pretty sure it’s over sixty miles an hour. It feels the same as it did when I’d be driving on the highway back on Earth.

  Up ahead, I hear Blacky bark happily, but I also get from him that he won’t be beat in speed. I catch a glimpse of him up ahead, running, but then I notice something odd. He seems to be phasing in and out from spot to spot.

  With a massive grin on my face, I shout to him. “Cheater!”

  He turns back to me and barks, and I get from him something I never got before. A single word with a feeling of joy.

  “Pack!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  I might not have access to a cell phone here, but I still have a way to communicate long distances with one specific person. Well, I guess with my newly created communication stones, I have more than one way, but they can’t help me here.

  “All good?” I ask Bridget.

  “Yes. We have them all on our asses,” she says, and I can hear her grin coming through. “Though, Leeha says that if you get yourself killed, she will not be happy.”

  “Tell her I won’t be happy either,” I say with a chuckle. “If I need help, I’ll reach out. Can you send Ezza my way? I might need her.”

  Sighing, she says, “Fine. She’s on her way.”

  “Sorry, babe. I need you to watch over everyone else.”

  “I know,” she sighs. But then she comes back quickly. “But if you need me, you’d better call me!”

  “I promise. All right, going to focus on running now because I’ve never run this fast, and I’m worried about crashing into a tree.”

  “You wanted me, Master?” I hear Ezza say from next to me, as she floats and keeps up with my speed.

  “I did. I have an idea for something, but I will need your help,” I tell the little floating Earth Elemental.

  She squeals in joy. “I can do that! I’m a good helper!”

  “Right,” I tell her with a smile. “So here is what I was thinking.”

  For the next couple of minutes I explain to her what I want to do, and her jaw drops in surprise. Even Binna had squeaked in surprise at what I had suggested.

  “Can you do it?” I ask her.

  Hesitantly, she replies, “I would need help for that, Master.”

  I sigh, because I know that Bridget isn’t here, which means the Elementals would be under Ezza’s command, and I’m not happy with that. Suddenly, Bridget chimes in.

  “I got you covered. And that idea is just so crazy it might work!” Ezza’s sad face changes to one of annoyance, but she reluctantly nods.

  “What Bridget said,” she growls out.

  Suddenly, a pained look crosses her face, and she puts her hand over her bark-like stomach.

  “Ok!” she screams out. “I got it!”

  I lift an eyebrow but don’t comment. Technically while they are my Elementals, Bridget is the boss of them all. She has said as much. I guess she needs to keep them in line, and Ezza’s personality has been coming out in spades. Similar to how Elza has been behaving, actually.

  “If you need help, you can pull me in. Right now, we are barely avoiding these Giants. Oh, and you were wrong on the numbers by the way,” she tells me.

  “Oh, how many are there?”

  “Bo counted 35 in total,” she huffs.

  “35!?!” I exclaim in shock. “What types?”

  “Right now,” she says, distracted, “the annoying type. They are starting to throw stuff. So, I gave everyone an Elemental that will tell them to dodge when a stone or tree is thrown their way. That way they can focus on running.”

  “Any injuries?” I ask quickly.

  “Nothing yet. But hurry up with that crazy idea of yours.”

  “Will do.”

  I look at Ezza and say, “Let’s get this done. I see a perfect spot up ahead.”

  “As Bridget said,” Izza mumbles. “This is a crazy idea, but I think Master will do it. I trust Master.”

  “Thanks,” I tell her with a grin, and she jerks in surprise.

  In an even quieter mumble she laments, “Damn, he can hear me.”

  “Can still hear you,” I tell her with a chuckle.

  She stares at me in astonishment. Knowing what she is thinking, I say, “And no, I can’t read your mind.”

  Her mouth drops open as she looks at me in shock.

  Binna slaps me and laughs. “Don’t play with her.”

  She turns her head to look at the fast-floating Earth Elemental. “Ignore him. I’m sure he just guessed what you would be thinking. I doubt he can read minds.”

  Hesitantly, she tells Binna, “I’m not so sure about that.”

  Once we get to the area I had pointed out, I stop and place Binna gently on the ground, making sure she has her footing.

  “Now, this place should be good,” I say, looking the area over.

  I point to the ground and tell Ezza, “What I want, we will do right here. Ready?”

  “Ready as I will be, Master.”

  “Can I do anything?” Binna asks me.

  I look at her and smile. “Nope. Just sit on that rock over there and regain your stamina. Because if this doesn’t work, you will need all the energy you have to run. Run fast.”

  I smile down at my handiwork. Well, my handiwork and the handiwork of half a dozen different types of Elementals, of course.

  Binna, who is standing behind me, asks cautiously, “Are you sure that will work? I don’t even understand what you’re attempting.”

  “I have no clue,” I say, turning to her. “And I don’t really have a name for it. But I’m going to have to remember this, because if this works, it’s pretty damn powerful.”

  “What exactly is that?” she says, pointing to the ground in front of us.

  Nothing about the ground was giving away the secret that I had created. It was so well hidden that even I would not notice it. But that was the exact point. It was meant to be a trap. A different kind of trap. I had thought of making a hole in the ground with lava as I did with those brigands, but something tells me that these Giants, the bigger ones, would survive. So that idea wouldn’t work. I needed something other than lava. But, what? Then I had it. I just hope it works. I had to use Bridget’s knowledge base for this, as I could not remember the recipe.

  I can’t help but grin at the thought of what was under there, ready to be sprung. I don’t feel bad for the Giants, though, as they're chasing my friends with one intent. To kill them, and I’m sure, eat them.

  “On our way,” Bridget tells me through our connection.

  I guess she can see what’s up. With my circle of influence, she can see hundreds of feet around me.

  “Bring them in. Let everyone know that once they get here, they will need to skirt the area in front of me. No running on top, or that will trigger the trap.”

  “I have a trick for that,” she says with a massive laugh.

  “Oh?”

  “Nope,” replies, and I can hear her grinning. “I want a surprise too.”

  “Fine,” I tell her with a laugh. “You’re allowed. Everyone will be safe, though?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Then, come on in.”

  For the next ten minutes, we all wait around. Well, Binna and I do. I had Ezza stay here with me, in case I need her, but the other Elementals had disappeared after their work was done. I have to admit, I’m kind of nervous.

  Here I am, standing in front of my trap. But what if it doesn’t work? What if they all just get hurt a tiny bit and take it out on me? Because that’s a lot of Giants to have angry and upset at you, all at once.

  I turn to Binna.

  “You might want to go hide over there,” I tell her, pointing to a large rock formation.

  She shakes her head adamantly. “No. I trust your powers. I will stay.”

  “And me too, Master,” Ezza pipes up.

  I look at both of them and smile softly. “Thanks for the trust.”

  My thoughts are interrupted as I hear lots of roaring. Turning towards the sound, I see Tia first, jumping out ahead of the rest and heading towards me and waving, with a big, worried grin on her face.

  Bridget’s voice yells from the forest, “Slow down! We need to do it all at once!”

  Tia looks back and nods. “Sorry!” she shouts.