The Buried Giant

“Why do I dwell on it? Sir, these are the very villages I befriended in Arthur’s name. In one village they called me the Knight of Peace, and today I watched a mere dozen of our men ride through it with no hint of mercy, the only ones to oppose them boys not yet grown to our shoulders.

I shall greet the boatman contentedly, enter his rocking boat, the waters lapping all about, and I may sleep a while, the sound of his oar in my ears. And I will move from slumber to half-waking, and see the sun sunk low over the water, and the shore moved further still, and nod myself back into dreams till the boatman’s voice stirs me gently once

“A wolf cub, drinking its mother’s milk, can pick up the scent of a prey in the wild. I believe it a gift of nature. Once this fever leaves me, we’ll go further into these hills and I’ll wager you’ll find the sky itself whispering to you which path to take till we stand before the she-dragon’s very lair.

“What kind of god is it, sir, wishes wrongs to go forgotten and unpunished?

But they know in the end they will face their own slaughter. They know the infants they circle in their arms will before long be bloodied toys kicked about these cobbles. They know because they’ve seen it already, from whence they fled. They’ve seen the enemy burn and cut, take turns to rape young girls even as they lie dying of their wounds. They