In the Giant's Cave
A Hunters' Moon Story
Trenuir, Maelos and Voth, with the aid of the strange bat-girl, Sempheth, have reached the mouth of their quarry’s cave. Will the icy hands of fear grip this troop as they venture into the darkness? What truly lurks down within the depths of the earth?
The read last chapter to get caught up!
Maelos and Voth scurried backwards as the howl raked at their ears and tampered the steadiness of their heartbeats.
“It’s coming out to hunt!” blurted Voth. He and Maelos stood together, shoulder-to-shoulder, torches bared as blazing spears before them.
Sempheth fluttered aimlessly about, her claws scrabbling in the ground. She squeaked and chittered with wild abandon.
“Stop it, all of you,” Trenuir ordered; he kept his voice low, but it struck firm in his companions’ ears. They all removed their eyes from the cave, setting them upon the warlord. “We cannot show fear or alert our quarry,” he said. “If it has lived among the weald for so long, then it has the same capabilities of any wild beast to hear and to hunt well. Losing heart in the presence of this giant will make us the prey.” He nodded towards the cave, setting his eyes on the twins.
Maelos and Voth shuffled forward. Sempheth hopped behind them. She plucked at the shaggy locks dangling over her eyes and squinted at the space ahead, cast in a bright sheen of torchlight. The paintings in the throat of the cave leered and arched over the youths; the shivering flames of the torches allowed shadows to play over the rust red and pitch black lines and curves forming hideous, primal visages. The cave-faces were as a host of demons swirling along the void-like path to the underworld. The giant’s howl did not return, but its sting yet lingered in the youths’ minds as they pressed onward past the sightless eyes and voiceless mouths clave to the walls. The stink of an unwashed animal, laced with notes of rot, clung to every inch of the damp air in the tunnel, partially warmed by the day’s fading heat. Maelos and Voth took shallow breaths, wary of showing further unease before Trenuir. Sempheth stifled short coughs and sniffles as she flutter-hopped behind the twins. The soft rasp of deerskin sandals against stone and clack of Sempheth’s clawed feet were the only other sounds within the cave.
The tunnel curved sharply downward several dozen yards in. The ceiling dipped, threatening to brain any unwary enough charging into the yawning black gullet beyond. Maelos and Voth ducked and thrust their torches through the opening. The flames lit up a sandy slope riddled with sharp outcroppings. Several bones laid on the descent; cracked limbs jutted outward like tree stumps sundered by lightning; ribcages sat lonely against the rocks; and a human skull missing its jaw stared back at the twins. Above, the torchlight did not reach wherever the ceiling rose to after a few feet. The air beyond was a little cooler, however, the stench lingered and even seemed to grow more potent.
The twins crept through the opening and shuffled down the slope. Their torches whipped and jerked about, flashing the light wildly around, as Maelos and Voth struggled for balance on the loose ground. Sempheth followed, but she had an even more trying time finding purchase with her clawed feet. She soon ceased trying to walk and beat her wings instead, hovering several feet in the air. Her flapping stirred up clouds of dust and filled the air with heavy thumps. The twins squinted and sputtered; their torches’ flames danced in the gusts.
“Stop that!” hissed Trenuir. He stepped onto the slope and leaned towards Sempheth. He clasped the bat-girl on her shoulder and held her fast. She resisted out of surprize at first, but settled under the warlord’s grasp. Bowing her head, Sempheth folded her wings over herself as a cloak and waddled to the twins.
“Maelos,” Trenuir bade, “help her.”
Maelos relinquished his torch to Trenuir and replaced his hand on Sempheth. Her gait steadied with his aid as they descended.
Voth chuckled as he passed them, teasing his brother with a large grin. Maelos ignored him by setting his eyes on the narrowing walls below. Voth’s eyes, however, still followed his twin and failed to capture a stray ribcage sticking out of the sand; his feet caught in the bones. Before he could recover, Voth flipped onto his side, then tumbled down the slope. His torch landed behind the remains. To Maelos, Sempheth, and Trenuir, it looked as though the darkness swallowed the lad. Only the dull, hissing thumps of his body rolling on the sand—and a string of oaths—signaled his presence beyond the light. The noises terminated in a sharp rasp.
Maelos dug his heels into the sand, whispering, “Voth? Voth!”
“I yet live,” Voth answered, a tad louder than he ought to have. Shuffles rose out of the dark, likely from him rising. “It smells like father’s kennel in the dead of summer.”
“Maelos.” Trenuir moved down beside his apprentice. “He needs to be silent.”
Maelos nodded. “Voth, wait there, quietly. Trenuir is coming.”
The warlord brought his torch sideways to his mouth and clamped his teeth around the stick. He swept up Voth’s torch and descended the slope in quick bounds, leaning backwards.
Standing at the bottom, Voth shielded his eyes from the nearing torchlight. The glow revealed a tall tunnel mouth covered with more leering, warped faces. A long, thick arm covered in shaggy, red hair suddenly reached out of the shadows and seized the neck of Voth’s tunic in its rough fingers pointed with black nails. The lad screamed as his assailant pulled him into the tunnel, once more out of the grace of the light. Heavy, receding footfalls thundered over Voth’s cries.
“Voth!” Maelos moved to lunge forward, but stayed himself as Sempheth tottered. She squeaked and unfurled her wings.
Trenuir swore and leapt to the bottom, breaking into a sprint the moment his feet hit solid stone. He bellowed through the torch in his teeth and waved the other one. He shook his spear, its bronze tip flashing as a meteor hurtling through the night.
“I will fly from here,” Sempheth said, shrugging away from Maelos’ grasp. Without question, he emulated Trenuir’s descent while his remaining companion took to the air in a burst of dust and glided into the tunnel. Maelos gripped his spear in both hands as he reached the bottom and ran. The tunnel roared with a mixture of Voth’s shouts, Trenuir’s droning, and Sempheth’s shrill yawps. He ground his teeth against the hammering cacophony. Ahead, the torchlight rounded a corner, followed by the silhouette of Sempheth’s wings. Left alone in the growing dark, Maelos girded his worry; he resolved not to weep as he did when that wolf ambushed him and Voth. His feet kicked something on the ground and almost threatened to send him onto the stone, face first. Maelos paused and reached for the obstacle. His heart twisted in fear as his fingers wrapped around the shaft of a spear—Voth’s spear. With it, he might have stood a chance against the giant or even felled it himself. Without it, he may as well have been a naked babe in a cradle.
Maelos bit down harder, one of his remaining teeth from childhood cracking in the gum; blood oozed onto his tongue. I will not weep! he resolved and sprinted after his allies.
After running through the rest of the tunnel, Maelos entered a battleground. The tunnel opened to a wide, cylindrical chamber roughly hewn by time and the Earth’s motions. Bones and dust littered the smooth floor. Trenuir stood in the middle, poised to attack the giant looming at the far side. The ogre stood before a tall threshold set in the wall socketed with alcoves holding skulls. It rose almost twice the warlord’s height and looked mostly like a man, save for the thick, curly copper hair coating its body and bullet-shaped head. It snarled with a mouth full of twisted yellow teeth. The dark pig eyes in its brindled sockets locked with Trenuir’s. Voth dangled in one of its meaty hands; he kicked and cursed as he fought to free himself.
Overhead, Sempheth flew around the chamber. Several times she swooped at the giant’s head, and each time it swung its free fist at her. She flew to safety before it could land a blow, however.
Maelos bounded into the chamber and charged the giant with a cry. The beast moved to smite the lad’s head. Before its fist landed, Maelos drove the spear up into the hairy forearm, the tip bursting out the other side. The giant threw its head back and howled. It tore away from Maelos, and made way for blood to spill from the wound out onto the floor.
Sempheth dove once more, leading with her clawed feet. The talons sank into the giant’s eyes and it cried again. It flailed and groped above its head as the Erinuwe retreated with a fanged grin showing through her long hair. Deep, bloody tracks ran across the giant’s gory sockets. It swung its arms before it, Voth still held fast in its grip. Threads of spittle, mingling with its bloody tears, flew from its lips; the force of its wails alone seemed enough to force Maelos back several paces.
Trenuir, however, bounded forth and ducked under the giant’s swings. He crouched beneath its arms, then thrust his spear into its broad chest right through the heart. The giant’s body seized and it gasped, stumbling into the wall within the threshold and slid to the ground. Its hold around Voth faltered enough to set him free. He rent himself away, coughing and rubbing his throat.
He looked down at the giant and frowned. “Shame I dropped my spear; I could have ended him sooner.”
Trenuir let the torch fall from his mouth before he retorted, “Shame you alerted him. Your eyes were not on the game.”
Voth opened his mouth, but halted any response. He nodded and sealed his lips.
Maelos approached the giant, shaking in the wake of the combat’s end. He directed his eyes, however, to the wall beneath the threshold; his gaze followed a black spiral painted into the stone. “What could this be?” he wondered aloud.
Trenuir shrugged. “Would that Red Ears were here. He has a little more idea about mysteries from the old world than I.”
Sempheth descended from on high and lighted upon the ground. She dipped her shaggy head, then glanced up at her three companions. “Now we don’t have to fear the Old Red Man anymore. Mother and the rest of the cloud can help me make this into a proper home. I am glad we met this day.”
Trenuir nodded. “May you find some peace here.” He looked down at Voth and jostled him with the butt of his spear.
The lad glowered up at the warlord, but quickly turned his gaze on Sempheth. He grunted then said, “Thank you for helping me.”
Sempheth smiled. “I hope you will not forget me, little thumper.”
Trenuir smiled. “Now, there is some grim business remaining.” He looked over his shoulder at the giant’s corpse. “Lads, you brought your knives?”
***
The Gilded Kestrels celebrated the return from the hunt with a full night of drinking, feasting, and retelling of the expedition around roaring cooking fires. Voth and Maelos took turns reenacting the battle with the giant for their comrades, and used the shadows of their hands in the firelight to mimic Sempheth’s daring flight against the beast. Meanwhile, the giant’s severed head bobbed and rolled between the Kestrels’ hands as they passed it around the camp. It was still red and sticky from the damage dealt by the bat-girl. Its journey ceased with the shaman Red Ears who set it by the ragged stump on a stone and scrutinized it whilst the rest of the band made merry.
Deep into the night, Trenuir approached his advisor of the weird, his cheeks rosy from drink. “Come, Red Ears,” he bade, “dawn is still some ways off; there is nothing else to glean from that skull.”
“Ah, but there may be yet,” countered Red Ears. “I thought I heard it mumble earlier. I reckon its ghost would be mad with you.”
“It would,” supposed Trenuir. “We stormed into its home and ended its gruesome killings. Such would be the spirit of a craven murderer.”
The lips on the severed head twitched. They peeled open, revealing the crooked, yellow teeth, and a gargling sigh escaped its mouth. “Murderer!” a loud, yet hollow voice boomed over the camp. Trenuir and Red Ears shuffled backwards at the utterance. The laughter and palaver faded as the giant’s head continued to speak:
“Doom upon you,” it intoned. “For the sentinel is dead. The way is not warded and now a dark fate may spiral out of the depths. How many happy days remain? You will not keep them until it is too late. Lo! the things from the dim pockets will crawl, the wheel of the sun will turn towards night, and the kings of the world will be but slaves. The priests and sorcerers will ask what is coming to pass and the raven will answer; it will speak the secrets carried in the wind from between the stars and in the ponderous rumblings within the earth. Truth will make the brave bend and the meek wither, for the sentinel is dead. Doom upon you.”
The voice from the head faded above the roar of the fires. The Kestrels stared at the grisly trophy, mouths still and dumb. Trenuir cast down his drinking horn and seized the head by its greasy locks. He pushed his way through the crowd up to the edge of a firepit. Without a moment’s pause, he dashed it against the fort of burning logs and brush, sending up a swarm of sparks.
Maelos and Voth rushed over to the fire and stared as the trophy of their hunt diminished in a column of flame and smoke.
Thanks for reading this week’s chapter! This release marks the end of this year’s Hunters’ Moon run! The Gilded Kestrels will return January 2026! May 1st to the end of August will be filled with some new Eachann MacLeod and Connor Ua Sreng adventures! Be sure to share this story with friends and family who like these types of tales!
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“In the Giant’s Cave” © Ethan Sabatella 2025 – Current Year, All Rights Reserved. Reprinting or replication of this work in its entirety in any form (written, audiovisual, etc.) without express permission of the author is prohibited. Excerpts may be used for review or promotional purposes with credit and acknowledgement of the author. This piece cannot be used for training of Artificial Intelligence programs.
Hello, Added to the next Castle Festival. Have a great Easter Sunday!