Walking With Giants (Completed)

Chapter 8

It had seemed easy enough for Ursa.

It was fast and presice. He struck when they hadn't noticed and let them feuding among the arrogant one. He was able to slip out of the story without a trace taking the... artifact with him. It made him feel victorious - victorious enough to do what he had always wanted to do.

He needed to save her.

He was on top of the tallest mountain on the range. He was with the only one that let him feel like he was at home.

Maybe Ursa didn't know home as well as he thought.

At least Horus never tortured Ursa. It was easy for Ursa to get by with almost anything: Food, which was usually frozen squirrel (quite nutritious when cooked); Water, which ran in streams at the source of the mountain, and shelter, which was a warm and cozy lodge they built out of pine logs (Horus was very resourceful). It didn't seem to get easier.

He was on his way home now. He could already see Horus, seated at his favorite spot where Ursa didn't go anywhere near. His spot was a cliff that streched hundreds of feet down towards a pine forest. Ursa was always afraid he'd fall asleep there and plummet to his demise.

That was not a good image.

He was almost to Horus when he heard: "They're on their way here."

Ursa was stunned. "What!? I didn't leave a trace of a trail or evidence that it was me. How could they?"

"We underestimated the new guy," Horus said, standing up. "He's quite powerful, and he has a bad disposition. Somehow they broke him and made him on their... side."

Ursa knew that Horus was going to say team, but it never mattered in the first place.

"Anyways," Horus said with a fatigued groan after his sleepless night, "It will take them a long time to get here anyways."

"Not as long as we thought," Ursa said, disappointed. "How will we be able to get to her?"

"I have a plan. You have to get to Elipse and retrieve Scarlet. I'll hold them off and make it seem like I have it. If you can get back in time, try to help me fight them off. I can only hold them for a few minutes."

"But," Ursa said, "If they're tracking the staff, and I have it, they'll come to Elipse, not the mountain."

Horus seemed surprised. "I... hadn't thought of that. What do you think we should do?"

"We wait. Eventually they'll get to us. Our best chance is to convince them that we're all on the same side. I'm sure you can do that effectively, can't you, Horus?"

"I'll do the best I can," Horus said, glowing with pride.

"And," Ursa said, "If that doesn't work, we fight for the staff. It's the only chance of getting Scarlet."

∏

They trekked through the desert like robots. One was chanting four words over and over, another utterly exhausted, and the last one looking like a bloodhound with a scent. Sweat beaded down their foreheads, stinging their eyes, and they could see far on the horizon, a mountain range with snow peaks.

∏

Ursa started by making preliminary defenses.

He was able to find a few wood axes left over inside the tool shed, left alone only because they were duds. He chopped wood until his hands bled and his arms swung endlessly, and then he brought the trees, one by one, to the cabin to be chopped into new lumber. He made the wood into spears, and used the picks that Horus made out of stone to chop endlessly at the cave walls below their home. Horus was a master blacksmith; he created the finest swords in his day, apparently. Ursa got what stone and minerals he could and turned them into Horus. Horus began the process of making swords and Ursa began to make the contraptions.

His favorite thing to do by far was to invent and build. Sometimes he would make Rube Goldbergs for fun, or create a machine that moved using manual labor. He was quite fond of his work and used it as an incessant hobby. But now it was for war. He created trebuchets. He made encanced sling shots that made twice the kinetic effect. He topped it all off with his finished crossbow.

As he finished the crossbow, Horus showed up with two finely tuned swords with points that looked as if they could cut anything. He handed one to Ursa, and Ursa twirled it a few times in his hands. It was forged as a broadsword; Ursa had no problem with the weight because of his powers. Horus had made a longsword for himself, which was sharp and threatening all the way until its sinister point on the front. Ursa was satisfied.

"Great swords," he finally said, after his long observation of the broadsword.

"Yeah, they took a while. I see you have some toys to fight them with?" It was one of Horus' ongoing jokes that irritated Ursa, to a friendly extent.

Ursa took the crossbow and loaded it with one of the arrows that he made with a Cherokee-style arrowhead (one of Ursa's prized posessions). He fired it a tree about 30 yards off and hit it with a deadly point blank on the trunk. "One of my favorite toys."

Horus only smiled. "I never said I didn't like them. Only that I like to make weapons of mass destruction."

Ursa pointed to the tree with the crossbow arrow lodged into it. "I can say the same for myself," Ursa chuckled. "Now I'm gonna go get that again."

"Alright," Horus said, picking up the crossbow and pointing it like a mini-sniper rifle at the nearby trees. "I like the toys. I might need one myself."

Ursa turned to face Horus, who held the crossbow pointed at him. "At the rate they're coming at, I should start on another as soon as possible."

∏

They had left the forest. They moved in the tundra, slowly feeling relieved to cold. She could see them slowly settle down in a bare patch of snow and saw them huddle to themselves. She saw the one called Herin say a chant and bust down an entire tree with one punch and bring it back tucked under one arm. He chopped it into pieces and gave the others benches. They used pine needles to make a fire to get warm. She saw the target settle down and start saying a scary story.

"Yes, yes," she said, very excited. "It seems that they let my plan unfold itself. I thought that it might happen, and it hapenned sooner than planned. Elipse is back in the game!"

∏

The preperations were almost complete. Ursa had set up the mijority of the barricades arould the house (though he knew they would not hold Herin, of all people) and rigged rope traps under the snow all around the camp.

One bird stoned.

He created a decoy staff with an emerald ball top that would probably keep Cobalt busy. He hid it somewhere else in the camp to make it so Cobalt had to go on two treks. He used Horus' Infiniti Forge to give it a spell to distract the new guy. The Infiniti Forge was powered by energy, so Ursa ate a banana, two sandwiches and downed a tall glass of lemonade.

Two birds stoned.

The third bird was Horus' to fight. He wouldn't kill Eon, but he would show him who was boss. Even after joining Horus, Ursa carried a bit of resentment for Eon.

The fourth bird was the target, the fourth bird was the only reason that all of this was happening. He wasn't gonna let Scarlet down.

Not this time.