Tilda Marsh's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The quiet days did not last. Two mornings after the giants went into the ravine, Ned came running up the slope with his map crushed in one fist. He unrolled it on a flour barrel behind the bakery. His finger stabbed the far edge, past the ravine. "There are two more," he said. "Dead ones. I found them yesterday while mapping the cut." Tilda knew what that meant. Two corpses meant two fresh trails of stink, and stink pulled giants the way honey pulls flies. A new one could smell them and come looking. It would cross the fields before her recruits were ready to swing a sling. "We can't move two more bodies," Tilda said. "Petra hauled one all night. She can't drag corpses forever." She looked at her recruits sweeping the steps and mending fences. None could throw yet. None could stand against a giant in the open. A boy set down his broom. Finn Varrow swept those steps every morning, quiet as dust, but he never bent his neck for anyone. He wore a ring he never spoke about. He stepped up to the barrel and studied Ned's map like it belonged to him. "You don't move the bodies," Finn said. "You burn them." He tapped the ravine. "Ash has no scent a giant can follow. Fire kills the smell for good." Tilda stared at the boy. He spoke plainly, but he spoke like a plan was already finished in his head. "Fire in a dry cut," she said. "With two live giants still down there." "Then we draw them out first," Finn said. He did not blink. So they went. Petra came with her ropes and her cub. Ned carried the whistle. Finn carried a torch and a jar of oil from the bakery. At the ravine's lip, Ned blew the whistle three times. The two live giants lifted their heads and lumbered toward the sound, away from the far end where the fresh corpses lay. Finn slid down the loose rock alone. He poured oil over both bodies and struck the torch. The fire caught fast. Black smoke rolled up the cut. The two live giants roared and crashed off toward the empty hills, driven by heat and noise. Finn climbed back up, boots gray with ash, and watched the corpses burn to nothing. When the smoke thinned, no scent remained to call a fresh giant down. The trail was dead. Tilda's recruits could train now without a monster in the fields. Tilda looked at the boy wiping soot from his ring. "You've done this kind of thing before," she said. Finn only picked up a fallen broom and handed it back to a recruit. "Sweep the ash into the water," he said. "Leave nothing behind." Tilda counted her guardians again. This morning she had one more.