It was on her in a second and, still screaming loudly, she fell to the ground. The wyvern sunk its claws into her back, and Sylvie scrambled this way and that, desperately trying to shake it off. Thankfully it had only gotten hold of her coat and she managed to break free, while the beast began tearing up what it thought was its prey. Getting back to her feet, she pointed her dagger at the wyvern and waited for it to attack again.
“You come and get me!” she screamed, her voice barely distinguishable beneath her crying. “You may have killed my brother, but I’ll make you pay! I’ll kill you, you nasty piece of shit!”
To any of the villagers who were brave enough to sneak a glimpse outside their homes, the sight must have been an extraordinary one. A 160-foot girl, screaming with rage and despair, waving a dagger the size of a small tree, throwing herself at an equally large and equally enraged monster.
Sylvie swung out with all her strength, but her foe had managed to evade her, and it lashed back with its immense tail. This it wrapped around her neck, and she sank to her knees, choking and crying out in pain. The razor-sharp barbs which lined the tail tore into her skin, and she struggled to breathe. It might have ended then and there, but Sylvie thought again of how bravely Valdan had fought, and she found her strength return for a brief moment. She grabbed hold of the tail and pulled as hard as she could. The wyvern struggled, but it was not as strong as the young giantess, and she managed to grab it by its neck.
“For…Valdan…” she said, and thrust her dagger into its chest, completely piercing its scaly hide. It roared in agony, and its tail came loose from her neck. Sylvie collapsed and gasped for breath, but had scarcely recovered when the wyvern struck again. She ducked down as fast as possible and, instead of her throat, the monster’s jaws latched onto the top of her head. She cried out as its teeth bit into her scalp, and tried to shake it off. Eventually she managed it, but only because the wyvern itself had let go.
That attack had been the last, desperate strike of a dying beast. The dagger had reached its heart, and its black blood was flowing out of the hole in its chest. Sylvie watched in horror as it writhed around on the ground, its wings and tail and neck flailing around erratically and knocking over at least two houses. At last it gave its dying breath, and it lay down across the snow it had stained black with its blood.
Exhausted and worn-out, and shattered at the thought of Valdan’s death, Sylvie lay down on her back and struggled to stop her tears. She massaged her aching neck, and saw that her fingers were covered in blood. The pain was tremendous, but she didn’t care. There was only one thing she could think about, only one image which lingered in her mind – and, if it hadn’t been for her, if she hadn’t called out his name and distracted him, he might still be here. With her coat torn to shreds, the cold was beginning to affect her. She almost welcomed it. Maybe, she thought, it would make the pain and the sorrow go away. Maybe, as it got colder and colder, she would feel less and less, until it finally got so cold that she could feel nothing at all…
“That would be good…then I could see Valdan again…if he ever wants to see me again…oh gods, I’ve been so horrible to him…and now I’ll never get the chance to say I’m sorry…what kind of a monster am I…I’m no better than that thing over there…all I had to do was to be nice to him…now Mother will never want to speak to me again, or Father…or Belena…but…but maybe…maybe there is one last thing…one last thing I could do…yes…I won’t let Valdan rot in there…I’ll take him out, and bring him back…and then I’ll go away…forever…”
Slowly, agonizingly, she crawled over to the wyvern’s body and pulled the dagger out of its chest. There were voices coming from all around her, but they were small and faint, and she didn’t want to listen. Sniffing loudly, she stuck her blade into the thing’s stomach, but immediately regretted it, for the resultant smell was sickening. But she kept on carving the beast open, then rolled back her sleeves and, fighting the urge to be sick, she stuck her hand into its belly.
The contents of that awful place she didn’t dare imagine, but she knew how big Valdan’s body would be and, feeling around, she found him at last. By now the revulsion she felt was too great to resist, and she threw up, though only a little bit. Several of the men of the village had dared to approach, and they watched in dumbfounded silence: none of them could recall having ever seen anything like what had happened today. Once she felt a little bit less nauseous, Sylvie returned to the matter of her brother.
It was Valdan she was holding, there could be no doubt of that. His clothes had disintegrated into slimy rags, and the wyvern’s stomach juices had made his hair fall out, but the rest of him still looked…almost alive. For a moment Sylvie dared to hope that there was still some life left in him, but she couldn’t feel his heart beating. She began to sob loudly again and held him right beneath her eyes, as if she could wish him back to life. It was then that she saw the faint, almost imperceptible wisps of frosty breath emerging from his mouth.
“Oh, Valdan!” she cried out, praying that she really did see what she thought she saw. “Oh, Valdan, please don’t be dead! You can’t be dead, you can’t! I don’t want you to be dead, I don’t, please! Oh, Valdan, I’m so, so sorry! I’m so very sorry, Valdan…for everything!”
Without thinking twice, she got up and began to run, as fast as she could, back up into the mountains. Not long after she reached that marvellous pool she’d bathed in less than two hours ago, though it felt like a lifetime. She knelt down by the pool’s edge and ever so carefully lowered her hands into the heated water, until Valdan was completely immersed, except for his head. Then she began to wash all blood and slime and filth off of him, as tenderly as she could. No part of his clothes remained in good condition, so she tore off a part of her sleeve and wrapped his naked body in it.
By now the sun was setting, and Sylvie, in no mood to build a fire or prepare a supper, sat with her back to the cliffs surrounding the hot spring. She was holding Valdan gently against her breast – he was alive, she knew that, but he hadn’t moved or spoke since she’d pulled him out of the wyvern’s stomach. She knew she had to look after him, but she didn’t know how, and he could very well die of starvation or cold if she didn’t take care of him properly. She began to despair, but suddenly she remembered the village, and decided it might be best to let them look after her brother for now.
Though they were supposed to be helping with cleaning up the corpse of the wyvern, Rett and Knut couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Valdan during the battle. Of course they had been inside when Sylvie showed up, so they didn’t know what really took place, but they imagined that, after killing the monster, the giant princess had taken her brother to safety somehow. Some of the other men were claiming that they saw the prince being eaten by the beast, but surely that couldn’t be true? He must have managed to escape, and perhaps he’ll be back at any moment. And where was the giantess now?
“Look!” Knut called out suddenly, as they were searching by the edge of the surrounding forest. “There’s something coming!”
“It’s…it’s her!” Rett exclaimed. “Valdan’s sister! Quick, we gotta go back, before she sees us!”
But Sylvie had already heard them, and, emerging from the trees, she called down to them to wait. In the shadowy twilight her gigantic form seemed even bigger than usual, but the two boys stood their ground, and wondered what she wanted. She sat down, beckoned them closer, then lowered her hands and unfolded them, revealing a still unconscious Valdan.
“He’s still alive,” she said, before they could ask. “That dragon-thing swallowed him, but I managed to…to save him. But he won’t make it through the night, it’s too cold! Could you…could you please look after him for me? Please? I just want him to get better, but I can’t do it by myself…”
Her voice had carried over into the village itself, and more and more people were congregating below her. They carried burning torches and drawn swords, but, once they realized why she had come, made no move to attack her. Sylvie, feeling as if she was going to cry again any moment, managed to explain everything to the chief, and she repeated her wishes to him and his wife.
The men and women were all astonished by what the giantess was telling them. They couldn’t believe that the selfish child who had coerced them to feed her, and threatened to stomp on them if they didn’t obey, had actually risked her life to protect her brother, and them all, from the wyvern’s attack. It must have been the sight of her brother being taken by the monster’s jaws that had changed her, but what she had done was still remarkable. She had accomplished what countless warriors throughout the centuries had failed to accomplish. An now, now that all was over, she was once more a child in nature – only this time, it was she who was pleading to them to help her.
“I’m sorry for everything I did,” she was saying, as Valdan was carried off by some men back to the village. “I’ve been really rude and unpleasant to all of you, but I won’t ever be again. I’ll leave you alone, I promise, and I won’t come back until Valdan is ready to go home.”
“That…that could be a while!” the chief’s wife, Dara, said. “We don’t have any healers in our village, and we’ll only be able to feed him and keep him warm. It could be months ‘till he’s fit again – or it could never happen at all!”
“That’s true,” the chief added. “Are you sure you want to stay, Princess? We’ll give you what food we can, but, honestly, we don’t have much for a girl as big as you. Maybe it’s best that you return home…”
“I’m staying!” Sylvie insisted. “I can find my own food, and there’s a warm place up in the mountains where I can sleep, but I’m not leaving Valdan alone! I don’t…I don’t want him to keep on hating me! I just want things between us to be all right again!” Right then she did begin to cry, and Dara, her motherly instincts taking hold of her, took one of her enormous fingers and wrapped her arms around it.
“There, there, it’s all right,” she said. “Don’t cry, Princess Sylvie. We’ll look after your brother, and we’ll see what we can do for you as well. You’ve both been so brave, and I doubt any of us will ever forget what great things you’ve done for us today. Now come along, and we’ll see what we can get you to eat – unless you think you’ll be able to catch anything on a dark night like this.”
Sylvie didn’t think she would catch anything, so she carefully picked the woman up, and agreed to take her back to the village. Her husband and sons followed behind, and they all went off to find something for her to eat. In the end they found they could only spare a few of cattle, but Sylvie wasn’t that hungry anyway, and three roasted cows satisfied her appetite. By the time she’d finished eating it was very late indeed, and very cold as well, so she decided to head back to the pool. After being reassured that Valdan was well looked after, and promising to return tomorrow morning to help clean up and rebuild, she headed off into the night, hoping with every step she took that everything will turn out all right in the end.