“Well, well, well, what have we got here?” Sylvie said, as Valdan walked through the crowd towards her. “Thought you’d seen the last of me, hmm? Well, I’m sorry, but it’s over for you, baby brother. I’m taking you straight home, and then I’ll think of something to make you pay for disobeying me!”
“I’m not your ‘baby brother!’” Valdan replied. He was standing just outside her grabbing distance, and he was seriously considering just making a run for it, and damn the consequences. “And I’m not going back – not unless I want to! You think that because you’re bigger than me you get to boss me around?”
“Duh! Of course I get to ‘boss you around’ – you’re nothing but a little bug compared to me, and it’s time you accepted that. You’ll always be my baby brother, and I’ll always get to do what I want to you. Now, unless you think your new friends here can help you, I suggest you give yourself up to me now.”
Valdan looked around him in despondency. The crowd of villagers had their eyes fixed on him. Many – most of them, in fact – had looks of sympathy for him, but he could tell that they were all scared of Sylvie, and therefore hesitant to step in and help him. His spirits sinking even further, he turned back and faced his sister, when, suddenly, he felt a small hand grab his own. He looked down and saw Knut tugging on his arm.
“Don’t go!” the boy said. “Don’t go with her, Valdan! She can’t make you go! Come with Rett and me, and we’ll protect you!” Then, turning to Sylvie, he yelled: “He’s not going with you, you big beast! You’re gonna have to deal with me first!”
Valdan looked up and saw Sylvie gazing at him in amusement. Knut kept yanking his arm, while his brother stood uneasily by his side.
“That’s very cute, baby brother, but it’s time to go now. Come on…” Sylvie reached down to grab him, but Valdan and Knut made a dash for it, and disappeared off into the crowd. At the same time Rett grabbed a spear from a nearby hunter and, with all his strength, threw it up at Sylvie’s face. It hit her in the face and actually stuck fast, and she yelped.
“Quickly! This way!” Knut yelled, with Valdan running right behind him. “In here! We can hide in the basement!” They went into a decent-sized nearby house, and Knut closed the door behind him. Then he made for a wooden trapdoor in the floor, Valdan following, and they both went to hide in a little underground room, hoping Sylvie’s giant hands wouldn’t fit in here.
Sylvie, meanwhile, pulled the spear out of her cheek and threw it away. She looked down, and was annoyed to see that several other villagers had also raised their spears, ready to throw them if she came closer. Others had drawn their bows, and a few were brandishing tiny swords and axes.
“Please! Do you really think you can hurt me, you tiny little ants? That was just a lucky hit, and it didn’t hurt one bit. Now stand aside, or I’ll crush you!”
“No!” Rett called out loudly, not budging an inch. Several of the older warriors, the chief included, were inspired by the boy’s courage, and they stood their ground as well. Even after Sylvie rose to her full height and held her foot above them, threatening to bring it down on them, they didn’t flee.
“Fine!” Sylvie shouted, thoroughly exasperated and also a bit humiliated. She felt almost tempted to carry out her threats, but she just couldn’t do it. Killing people was wrong, she knew that, and the thought of actually stepping on someone, even someone she didn’t like one bit, made her feel horrible inside.
“I’ll just have to step over them,” she thought, and, stretching her legs as far as they could go, she passed over the crowd with one giant pace. Heading straight for the house into which Valdan disappeared, she began calling for her brother, using the same threats she’d told the villagers earlier.
“This isn’t funny anymore, Valdan!” she pleaded. “Please come out now! You’re being an idiot!” She tried squeezing her hand into the doorway, and only succeeded in breaking the door off its hinges. Her wrist was too thick to fit properly and, when she tried to pull her hand back out, found that her arm was stuck. She yanked her hand back, and a large section of the wall disintegrated into rubble. Now angry beyond words, she stood up and placed her boot on top of the house’s roof.
“Valdan, if you don’t come out right now, I’ll kick the house down, and then you’ll be sorry!”
She lowered her foot and the roof began to creak and groan. But Valdan still stayed in hiding, and Sylvie, not knowing whether or not there were other people in the house, stopped trying to knock it down. Feeling quite miserable and even more humiliated than earlier, she tried one last time to coax Valdan out. She got down on her knees and put her hand into the hole she’d made, trying to find any opening in which he might be hiding.
“Please, Valdan!” she cried. “I’m really sorry, now please come! You know I can’t go back without you! Mum and Dad will be so angry! They’ll punish me, Valdan, if I don’t bring you back home safely – and they’ll punish you too. Mummy will come all the way her, and drag you out, and then she’ll make you pay for being such a baby!”
But there was still no response from her brother, and she felt small tears of despair forming in the corners of her eyes. How could he have outwitted her, she thought bitterly – how could he just go and do whatever he wanted to, without caring about how it would make her feel?
“He’s not coming out,” the chief said, bravely advancing towards her. “Go home, girl – we don’t want you here! You clearly don’t have the stomach for fighting, but we do, and we’ll fight you if we have to.”
“Yes, go!” another warrior said, and soon all the men were shouting it at her, waving their weapons in defiance. They’ve realized how completely empty her threats were, and that she didn’t have it in her to actually crush them or their houses. But the giantess, enraged as she was, was still a daunting, if not terrifying, adversary.
“Fine!” Sylvie screamed, her eyes pouring tears. “But I’ll come back! And then I’ll…I’ll…aargh!”
With a cry of rage she kicked her boot against the house Valdan was hiding in. It collapsed into a thousand pieces of debris, some of which flew off across the trees of the forest. Then, without another word, she ran off into the forest, and they could hear her crying even after she’d vanished from sight. Once it was clear she wasn’t coming back, the men began to search among the rubble of the house. Thankfully no-one had been inside when Sylvie smashed it, and they merely had to clear a few stone blocks away to open the trapdoor leading to the cellar. A very grateful Valdan emerged, and he immediately promised to help repair the house, and do everything else he could to repay Grun and his folk for their kindness, and for refusing to give in to his sister’s demands.
Meanwhile Sylvie was storming through the forest, knocking over trees indiscriminately, not even bothering to look at the ground to make sure she didn’t step on anyone. Over and over she kept telling herself how nasty and mean those people were, and how much she hated them, and especially how much of a selfish, snivelling little bastard her brother was. She reached the river she’d crossed earlier, and saw a row of fishing boats moored alongside its shore. With cries of anger, she smashed the lot of them under her boots, except for the biggest one. This boat she snatched and threw across the river. It hit the top of the cliff on the opposite side and broke apart.
“I hate you!” she screamed back in the direction of the village. “Do you hear me, Valdan? You and all the rest can just go and die!” Then she sat down in the snow and began to cry anew.
By the time she finally stopped crying, it was late afternoon, and she was starting to feel unbearably hungry. There was nothing to eat here, so she jumped across the river and began to look for her pack. It took her an hour to find, and she tucked into a loaf of bread voraciously. Afterwards she felt a bit better, but not much. She imagined Valdan eating a hearty dinner in some warm dining room, and the thought made her sick. It almost drove her to go back and apologize, and beg the villagers for some more food, and perhaps a warm place to sleep. But she felt much too ashamed to do that and, the more she thought about what happened today, the more she regretted her actions.
“I shouldn’t have been so rude,” she thought, getting a fire started from a few large logs. “Belena would never have done what I did – I guess that’s why Valdan likes her more than me. But it’s still his fault – and I’ll get him back, no matter how long it takes. If I just go back now, without him, Mummy really will kill me. Ohh, I’m so tired…and thirsty…”
She got up and filled her water flask at the river, then lay down and prepared for the long, cold night. She wondered where Valdan was sleeping tonight, then decided that she didn’t really care. If she had been just a bit stronger-willed, she would get up now and solve this mess she’d made. But she was just spoiled, obnoxious, fainthearted little girl, she thought ashamedly, and she didn’t have the first idea of what she should do. She even began to doubt if she and Valdan would ever speak to each other again.
“Maybe he’ll come to me,” she wondered, her eyes heavy from encroaching sleep. “Maybe, tomorrow morning, he’ll be right here, and we can talk, and work things out…and go home…”