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

Zulaport,” Nissa said.
    The giant smiled, showing teeth like gray, chipped flint.
    Nissa sighed. “How far is this path?”
    “Very close.”
    “How does it pass through the land?
    “My path moves through the Piston Mountains.”
    “That way has perils,” Nissa said. And it did. She’d passed that way traveling to Ondu from Bala Ged. Four in her party had died, crushed between the mountains.
    “You will not live if you do not change paths.”
    “So you say,” Sorin said.
    “Keep hushed your forked tongue,” the giant said.
    Sorin, wide eyed, looked from the giant to Nissa.
    The Piston Mountains
, Nissa thought. Even on their current path they could be expected to travel another week before they ascended out of the trench. Then they would skirt the Piston Mountains to Zulaport. The giant’s way could cut their travel in half. Still, the Piston Mountains.
    “I would avoid that path,” Anowon yelled from where he squatted next to the moaning giant, copying the petrogyphs on its legs onto a scrap of paper.
    “Lead the way,” Nissa said to the giant.
    “What?” Sorin said.
    The giant turned and heaved its marble legs.
    “I lead this expedition,” Nissa said, walking after the giant.
    “Strange.” Sorin started to walk. “I thought I did.”
    “Then open your eyes,” Nissa yelled over her shoulder.
    The giant labored its heavy legs four steps then stopped and pointed at the canyon wall. “There,” it said.
    Nissa followed the giant’s finger but saw nothing except sheer wall. She moved her head to the side in case there was an illusion in the rock. There wasn’t. The canyon wall appeared as just that.
    The giant hummed to itself, and the glyph lines on its legs burned to life. Suddenly the path in the canyon rock glowed with the same pink as the glyphs.
    “Zendikar!” Sorin said. “It is either in your hand, or it is at your throat.”
    “Now,” the giant said. “Release my legs.”
    “Do not do that,” Sorin said. “Need I remind you that this is a giant? We already have the path. Let’s be on our way.”
    Nissa regarded the giant. She reached out to the other giant’s gut and soothed the creatures in it. The effect was almost instantaneous. The other giant sat up and turned.
    Nissa did not like the menace she saw in its eyes.
    The other giant pointed to its legs and gave a ghastly smile. Anowon found a tooth and threw it, and in a moment the giant’s legs were back to normal.
    “Well,” Sorin said. “Now that we are all happy again, can we go?” He turned to Smara and her goblins. Unaccountably, the kor was standing on her head, and one of her goblins had its finger in the nose of the goblin next to it. Sorin shook his head and started walking.
    The giants watched them as they carefully threaded their way between the boulders and walked to where the path glowed in the canyon wall. Even with the way glowing slightly, it took Nissa some careful examination to find its beginning. The rock stepswere so deftly fit into the canyon wall that they left little shadow to contrast. The path’s invisibility was due to exceptional design.
    Who could have built this?
Nissa wondered. She was looking up at the symmetrical switchbacks, which looked so much like sutures holding the canyon together.
    Anowon was standing next to her. “The old stories say the giants were once great builders.”
    “Of what? Booby traps?” Sorin said. He squinted at the path. Fine droplets of sweat clung to his upper lip. He lifted one trembling hand to brush his hair back.
He’s afraid of heights
, Nissa thought, filing that realization away for later use.
    “Are we all ready?” Nissa said.
    Sorin said nothing.
    But Anowon stepped up and held out his bound wrists for Nissa to see. “I have done all you asked. I am a vampire, but not all vampires are like the ones you perhaps met in the jungles of your home.”
    Nissa studied the vampire before responding. “Just so,” she said, and cut the rope from his wrists