Zendikar: In the Teeth of Akoum by Robert B. Wintermute Page A

had to leap forward and roll to avoid what enchantment the giant had managed to weave.
    Sorin stopped singing and fell onto the sand. Anowon went through his pockets again.
    Nissa rolled out of her tumble and into a standing position, just in time for the giant to kick at her with its good leg. Nissa jumped back to avoid the stony toenail as big as a battle shield. The giant pressed its advantage and stomped down at her, dragging its heavy marble leg. Nissa rolled away, but the giant raised its foot for another go.
    Then Anowon threw another tooth, and the giant’s other leg whitened to marble.
    The giant pulled and was able to drag one of its legs, and then another, but the effort of it was clearly too much to keep up.
    “Give me my staff,” Nissa yelled up at the giant. “Or he will turn the rest of you to white stone.”
    The giant brought Nissa’s staff up. It turned its head to the side and looked closely at it. Then it spoke. “If you turn me to white stone, you will turn your staff as well,” it said. The giant’s rumbling voice sounded like boulders moving under water in a river.
    “It is only a piece of wood,” Nissa said. “I can make another.”
    “Then you will not mind if I use it as a toothpick?”
    Nissa tried to keep her face impassive. “Why would I mind? Except if you put it in your mouth the same thing will happen as happened there.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder at the other giant, still curled on the ground. As they watched, the giant moaned and rolled over onto its other side.
    “Free him,” the giant said. “I will give you back your toothpick.”
    “Give me my staff first,” Nissa replied. She knew better than to trust a giant. Any giant. They were known to be fickle and untrustworthy. Her eyes stopped on Anowon, still digging through his pockets.
Fickle
, she thought.
Not unlike vampires
.
    Nissa heard Smara chanting from the other side of the canyon. The goblins clustered around the kor and watched the giant with faces like mushrooms.
    “We are not here to bandy words with the likes of you,” Sorin said, suddenly next to her. He snapped, and Nissa’s staff jumped from between the giant’s fingers and into Sorin’s hand. He took it in bothhands and closed his eyes. For a moment he held the staff, and then his smuggest smile bloomed on his face. He handed Nissa the staff before turning to the giant.
    “I may let my elf use her toy staff on you, too,” Sorin said. The giant on the ground moaned again.
    “Soon the blood will come out from both ends,” Nissa said, looking at the giant on the ground.
    “To where do you travel?” the giant said.
    Nissa caught herself before she said too much. Giants were also shameless sellers of information if food was in the bargain.
    “West,” Nissa said.
    “In the Teeth,” Smara screamed suddenly. “In the Teeth.” The goblins standing around her were so shocked—by what Nissa was not entirely sure, they must surely be used to Smara’s screams—that some dropped their stone swords. The head goblin barked an order in the goblin tongue, and they picked up their swords again.
    The giant made a face like it had bitten down on something bitter. It looked from the goblins to Nissa.
    “Then you are walking to your death,” the giant said.
    “What? Is your cooking kitchen ahead?” Sorin said.
    The giant looked at Sorin curiously. Nissa had to stifle a laugh.
Do giants even cook?
she wondered.
    “There is only the tentacled scourge in the trench ahead,” the giant said. “They have killed many of my kind.”
    “Oh, not the tentacled scourge again?” Sorin said. “They’re everywhere … like elves.”
    Nissa cocked her head for a look at Sorin. Perhaps he should be thrown against the canyon wall more often. It seemed to affect his mood for the better.
    The giant bent its knees and lowered its voice. “I know a better way to travel to Zulaport,” it said.
    “Why does that not surprise me,” Sorin said.
    “Nobody said