I’m hosting an excerpt today from YA fantasy novel “The Giant Slayer”. This series sounds hilarious and intriguing, and I hope you all enjoy it as well.
Book Excerpt
Darkness. Then: the orange sun rising over a tree-covered horizon, igniting the sky. The trees were a species of pine, standing tall and green and shaped like arrows. A breeze let their branches shrug off fresh snow. A bird chirped from one of the trees.
It was all pretty uneventful. Right up until the first giant stood up.
I gasped, watching him rise up between the tall trees. He was shirtless, which I suppose shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. He had thick muscles and pale skin that was stained by years of dirt and grime. His face was hideous, flanked by two misshapen ears. On top of his head was a patchy collection of black hairs, each one longer than the branches of the trees.
“This is impossible,” I said. My voice came out in a whisper. I looked down. I was floating, transparent. A good old-fashioned hero’s dream, that’s what this was.
But when? That was the question. There was no way a giant was walking around in the twenty-first century.
Check that: giants. Plural. They stood up in their own section of forest, brushing aside the branches of pine trees in the process. The snap of the branches echoed like crackling thunder as each giant emerged; their beady dark eyes narrowed, searching by their feet. There were seven giants total, all of them standing still, blinking, examining the expansive forest, their hot breaths coming out in cloud-sized steam. I could smell them. They smelled like a year’s worth of sweaty gym socks splashed with expired milk.
“He’ll kill you all.”
I willed my body to turn around. The voice had sounded so close. I was at the edge of the forest where it met with a snow-covered clearing. No tracks disturbed the gentle surface.
“Run away now!” came the voice. I turned back to the forest. It was coming from somewhere in there, nearby. But where?
Suddenly, one of the giants roared, pointing to a tight patch of trees in front of him. The other giants turned, grunting. Something flew up from between the trees … an arrow! It soared through the air and hit the nearest giant. He used his pudgy fingers to pluck the arrow from his shoulder, then cried out as two more hit him.
Burning blackness infected the wounds.
“A hero!” I whispered. I willed my body to rise above the trees, feeling my pajamas catch in the cool wind. Above the tree line, I could see all the giants more clearly now. They wore menacing expressions, groaning like some kind of prehistoric dinosaur as they pushed aside trees, lumbering in slow-motion toward their target. The trees fell over with deafening cracks, kicking up plumes of snow that mushroomed up above the canopy. Two of the giants reached down, each grabbing a tree and pulling it from its roots. They lifted the trees over their heads and threw them in the direction of where the arrow had come from.
The wounded giant fell to his knees, letting out a thunderous roar that was choked silent as the burning blackness turned him to ashes.
“You’ll be killed for sure, my friend!”
I turned back to the others. Who was speaking? It obviously wasn’t one of the big guys. Their groans and moans seemed to be about as close to “talking” as they could get.
I inched my way closer.
Five of the giants had reached the place where the arrow came from. They used their hands to swat at the pine trees, snapping them in half. One giant had a thick, dark beard, with long hairs curling over his upper lip. Another had wild, uneven eyes that bulged from their sockets. Another one yet had reddish scars across his chest.
“Oh, they’re doing a wonderful job finding him,” came the voice. “Do they really think he’s not ready? In just one year, he’s found you and killed your brother! He’s a murderer, if you ask me.”
The sixth giant standing behind his brothers swatted at his big, floppy ear. He was wearing a cowhide to cover his unmentionables—like, literally, an entire cow’s hide, held in place by a thick rope. As I floated closer, I was dismayed to learn he hadn’t bothered to give his butt the same treatment.
“Gross,” I muttered, moving higher to take an angle that didn’t make his bare rear quite so visible.
There came a commotion near the other giants. The one with the bulging eyes was stumbling backward now, tearing away trees and holding his left hand in the air. It was missing a finger, and the burning blackness quickly began traveling up his arm. He fell back against one of the bigger pines—nearly as tall as him—and its top half snapped off with a sharp crack. The giant fell beneath the canopy, landing on the forest floor.
White powder and black ash kicked up in the form of a tiny mushroom cloud.
“That’s two down now! Will you listen to me or will take an arrow to the eye to convince you to run?”
I moved closer to the hesitant giant who was slinking back, using the taller pines as cover. He looked … well he looked ugly. He had a hard, angular face, as if he’d been carved out of Mount Rushmore. But he also looked a little concerned. Stupid he was not.
“Look!” came the voice. “Did I not tell you this pest is bloody dangerous?! He’s a hero. That’s what they call him. He has the power to destroy us! No one knows where he came from. Our kind are fleeing in terror, and I suggest we do the same!”
I turned back to the four remaining giants. There was an arrow sailing through the air, arcing in the blue backdrop of the sky before falling, falling, slipping between two of the giants who had both luckily made the same selfless decision to push each other out of the way.
Another arrow emerged from the trees, about a hundred feet from the nearest giant.
Then another.
Then another.
They came with blinding speed, as if there were multiple heroes hiding among the pines. The giants too were impressed—no, not impressed … terrified. Their mouths gaped open at the sight of a flock of pointy sticks seeking them out. Two of the arrows hit the scarred giant’s long red chest scars like targets and he roared, falling over. His weight shattered two pines, splitting branches on his way down so it sounded as if the forest had burst into applause.
About The Giant Slayer
Title: The Giant Slayer
Author: Ken Brosky and Isabella Fontaine
Genre: YA adventure/fantasy
Europe: birthplace of Grimms’ Fairy Tales. An unfamiliar land, brimming with its own breed of Corrupted who hide in the shadows, growing more evil with each passing day. For modern-day hero Alice Goodenough, this is more than enough to worry about. But she also has a fencing tournament to think about.
And a promise to keep with Sam Grayle, a Corrupted dwarf who schemes for more and more wealth. When their train breaks down in a small town in eastern Hungary, Alice finds the legacy of the hero is alive and well. Corrupted have visited this town before, and they aren’t quite vanquished just yet. There’s one left, hiding away, biding his time to enact a terrible price on his enemies. A little creature with big, big plans …
Werewolves. Vampires. Giants. Europe is a different place with new dangers, new monsters and new surprises.
Author Bio
Ken Brosky received his MFA in writing from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. In addition to working on The Grimm Chronicles, he also writes literary fiction. His most recent publication was in Midwestern Gothic.
Isabella Fontaine spends her time studying interior design. This is her first writing project.
Visit the Grimm Chronicles Website and the page about The Giant Slayer.
Purchase The Giant Slayer from Amazon
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