Read Jack, the giant-killer for Free Online

not one of you,” she said.
    “Doesn’t make no differ—not to them.”
    “Then the bikers… they’ll be after me?”
    Finn shrugged. “I don’t know. These’ll help,” he added, holding up a sneaker. “I’m stitching swiftness into them. You’ll run so fast now that even a Big Man’ll have trouble catching you. But the Wild Hunt?
    I don’t know. Not yet. But soon, perhaps.”
    “They’re part of the Unseelie Court, too?”
    “No. But Gyre the Elder has the Horn that
    commands them, so when he bids them fetch, they fetch. When he bids them kill, they kill. They must obey the Horn.”
    He was quiet then, concentrating on his work. Jacky peeked at the biker through the leaves, but she wouldn’t look at the bulk of the giant keeping silent watch on something across the river.
    “There’s seven of those giants in this Unseelie Court,” Finn said suddenly, “and each one’s nastier than the one before. Just the two Gyres and Thundell are here now, but the rest are coming. They want the Gruagagh’s Tower first, for there’s power in it. And then they’ll want the Heart of Kinrowan. And then—
    why then, they’ll have it all, Jacky Rowan. You and me and every seelie one of us there be, damn their stone hearts!”
    “But can’t… can’t you stop them?”
    “Me? What am I to do? Or any of the Laird’s folk?
    We’re weak, Jacky Rowan—I told you that. We’re not strong enough to stop them anymore. Now we must just hide and watch and hope we can stay out of their way. Pray that they don’t find the Laird and spike his heart. But we don’t have much hope. The time of heroes is long gone now.
    “But what about the Gruagagh?” she asked,
    stumbling over the word.
    “Well, now.” Finn finished the second of her sneakers and passed them over to her. “He’s a queer one, he is. A Kinrowan as well, on his mother’s side, but there’s not a one of us that trusts him now, and there’s nothing he can do anyway.”
    “Why? What did he do?”
    “No one knows for sure, but it’s said he turned the Laird’s daughter over to Gyre the Elder.”
    “Did he?”
    “I don’t know, Jacky Rowan. He was escorting her home to the Hill, just the two of them, you know, and the next thing we know, she’s gone and we find him on the road, hurt some, but not dead. Now you tell me: would they let him live if he wasn’t one of their own?”
    “I…1 don’t know.”
    “No one does.”
    “What happened to the Laird’s daughter?” Jacky asked.
    “No one knows that either. Some say Gyre the Elder ate her. Others say he’s got her locked away somewhere, but no one knows where. The Wild Hunt could find her, but Gyre the Elder’s got the Horn, so only he can command them.”
    “You should get the Horn then,” Jacky said.
    “Couldn’t the Gruagagh get it for you?”
    “The Gruagagh can’t leave his Tower,” Finn said.
    “That’s the only place he’s safe. And he must be protected for the way to the Laird is through him, you see.”
    Jacky didn’t and said so.
    “In peaceful times,” Finn replied, “the Gruagagh sees to the welfare of Kinrowan itself. He sits in his Tower, weaving and braiding the threads of luck that flow through the earth by the will of the Moon—ley lines. Do you know what I mean?”
    “Vaguely. I mean, I’ve heard of leys before.”
    “Yes. Well, his Tower… Think of it as a great loom that he uses to gather the luck we need, the luck that he weaves into the fabric of the realm. When there’s a snag or tear in the luck threads, it’s the Gruagagh who solves the problem, sometimes by a simple spell to untangle a knot in the thread, other times by directing the hobs and brownies of the Court to remove the obstruction. The luck gave us life and sustains us, you see, while the tides of your belief strengthens or weakens what we already are—at least that’s what I heard the Laird say once. He said that without the lines of luck, we would be wholly dependent upon your