18 A Close Encounter with the Gorts

For several hours now we had been trudging along the rocky mountain road. All around were nothing but stones and mountains, with trees and thorny shrubs growing in some places. The suns were mercilessly burning into the back of my head, and it was unbearably hot.

The road was relatively cleared, but here and there huge boulders lay right in the middle of the path, and we had to go around them, while some even required Kays to use magic to remove them from our route.

"Such huge rocks…" I wondered aloud, "I wouldn’t want to be in their way when they fall."

"They don’t just fall on their own," Yafi noted, who had been riding beside me the entire way. "Usually the road is cleared, but now a sort of mating season for the gorts has begun, and they wander around here, damaging the path and littering the road with stones."

"Mating season?" I asked, surprised, looking at the blond.

"Well, that’s what we call it," the guard laughed. "Calling it “mating” in our understanding is difficult, because these creatures are sexless. But they can produce their own kind, just in a more unusual way. It’s all about the magical places of power, of which there are many in the mountains," Yafi explained. "In the mountain ranges there are caves with very strong energetic currents of the earth itself and free magic. Sometimes there is so much of it that the natural reservoirs overflow, and an excess discharge occurs, like lava in a volcano. So, these excess forces spill into the mountains themselves, and because of them, the gorts appeared. Essentially, these creatures are a pile of stones held together by the magic of the mountains. Sometimes there is so much of this magic after another surge that they need to release it somewhere, so they wander around, creating others like themselves. Rumor has it that our king visited one of such caves, and that’s where he got so much magical power."

"Really? And how big are these gorts?" the hairs on the back of my neck rose from all this information, and I started looking around more often.

“They come in all kinds,” the blond man says with a shrug. “Some are the height of two horses, some reach fifteen meters. And there are certain individuals that are far bigger. One of those monsters is exactly what my brother, Yaro, came across once. The scar he carries is a souvenir from that meeting.”

We walked for about another hour. The heat and the burning suns pressed on our minds so heavily that everyone rode in silence, lost in their own thoughts—until Kays suddenly stopped and, with a sharp gesture of his hand, ordered us to freeze. Then he signaled for complete silence. With a tilt of his head, he pointed toward the mountain cliff where the road was leading us next.

At first I didn’t understand what he meant. But after taking a closer look, my jaw simply dropped.

Among the massive boulders and jagged stone, you could make out the shape of a gigantic stone head.

Two horses? Forget two horses—this head alone was the size of two grown people!

“We must move very carefully if we don’t want to wake these stone giants,” Yafi whispered, his expression deadly serious.

“Giants?” My eyebrows shot up.

“Yes. They rarely wander alone,” the blond man said, glancing around. “Most likely, the others are sleeping somewhere nearby.”

That’s when the fear became absolutely surreal. What had I ever done in my life to deserve this? Which higher powers did I accidentally offend to end up in adventures like these?!

Beneath the outline of the gort’s head, I could now see the massive, enormous body of the giant. He was colossal—easily the size of a five-story building.

Terrified for our lives, we moved almost soundlessly. Even the horses seemed to sense the danger, stepping as quietly as possible.

Passing by the sleeping giant, I noticed another stone head nearby, roughly the same size—and a cold shiver ran down my spine. Just how many of them were here?

Carefully making our way around one and then the other, we all exhaled at once and exchanged relieved looks, grateful we had passed unseen.

But then, in the once clear sky, heavy storm clouds began gathering with alarming speed. And when I say “speed,” I mean it—within mere minutes, the blazing hot suns that had been scorching us were completely hidden.

The pendant on my neck flared with a bright, bloody glow.

And I did not like that feeling at all.