Author's Note: For those of you who read the previous chapter before it was fixed, I said Troll but I meant Giant, and it will be updated there to reflect that. Anyway, here's the next chapter. Reviews are always welcome.

Giant Tipping

Quickly I spoke the car driver and Jared, eyeing the brewery not too far from us now. "I'm going to try to draw it away. As soon as you can, run into the building, don't wait, don't stop, and don't look for me. Got it?"

"Everlee – " Jared began as I shoved one of my better knifes into Jared's hand. I saw the driver jump down and unfasten his horse so that she could run to safer ground.

"Don't argue, keep that, and don't dare think of using it unless absolutely necessary," I said as I slung my bow over my shoulder and unsheathed my two long swords and jumped from the cart.

"I can't let you –" Jared said as he jumped down, nearly falling in the process.

"Do it, don't argue," I said, as the cart driver (who I decided I'd have to re-evaluate) came from the front to pull Jared toward the fence.

"Come on kid, she'll be fine," the car driver said in his gravely voice.

I didn't stop to see if Jared followed willingly as I'd wasted enough time. Feeling way too exposed I found myself actually running toward a giant. Every instinct told me this was stupid, that you don't run toward something three times as tall as you and forty times as strong, but I had to drag its attention away from the cart, away from Jared. It worked, which I suddenly realized as the giant swung his club at me, wasn't such a good thing.

I ducked but the wind coming from the swing was enough to throw me off balance and I struggled to stay on my feet as he readied himself for another go. For a second I thought about heading toward the stream not too far from the road. There had been a few tall boulders there but as he swung down and hit the ground in the place I'd been standing not two seconds before I decided that he'd probably be able to shatter them and I'd be lucky if I survived jagged pieces of rock flying at me.

The human-sized club stuck to the ground and I used the brief time it took him to wrench up to get in a few hits, unfortunately none were critical. The best placed one was also the last. It was on his ankle, and quite deep. He roared and wrenched the club up, raising it above his head. Quickly I moved backwards as fast as I could without looking away from him. He went to take a step forward, moving his injured ankle forth, and growled again when he put the weight down, teetering a bit from the pain.

Quickly though he recovered and came at me but I dodged out of the way just in time. It was then I heard a woman shout, "Found him! He got off this way! Knew he probably didn't get far."

The giant's attention turned toward the voice and in the next instant an arrow was lodged into one of his eyes, but didn't appear to be deep enough to get into his brain, just make him angrier.

He swung wildly and I had just enough time to wonder how exactly I could thank the archer for the giant's new found rage before leaping high, the only safe move as he was thrashing both arms now in attempts to kill everything in his path. This had the unfortunate consequence of putting me atop his club which he swung up, throwing me into the air. I had a brief second where I tucked myself into a ball before I crashed down onto the ground a few feet away, hitting the Earth hard before I rolled a little and then came to a stop on my back, winded and unable to hold my limbs to my chest anymore as I gasped for air and tried to keep myself conscious.

But the giant wasn't done and wasn't distracted by the new voices I heard, two or three males by the sound of it. He had one of his targets down, and he had decided that I wasn't getting up (not that I could if I wanted to at that particular moment).

Before I could even think about moving my battered body out of the way of his giant foot (yes, after dragons and draugr and crazy thieves I was going to be killed like a bug by a well placed stomp of all things) one of the men who it was impossible to mistake as anything but a Nord stood in front of me and thrust his two-handed sword hard at the knee, causing the giant to quickly yank his foot back, but even then he hadn't avoided the blade entirely.

I felt arms behind me drag me back as the person, also a man, said, "We're here to help."

I thought that was obvious, but the deep voice sounded so sincere that even if I had enough air to make a retort I wouldn't have. Once we were a little further away from the giant who was now battling both the dark haired Nord who had stood in the way to save me from being squashed and a smaller, blonde Nord the man lifted me to my feet and put one arm around his shoulders.

I turned to look at him, he was just as big as the other Nord (and I noted they had the same dark hair as well) and so had to hunch to keep my feet on the ground and support my weight.

"Can you stand?" he asked.

"Yes," I said and then, a little less certainly, "I think."

"Good," he replied simply, letting me remove my arm from his shoulders.

He then stood up straight and I realized I had misjudged the Nord, he was even bigger than the first one. I was suddenly glad I was in the company of a giant the first time we met because there was no time for me to feel any trepidation towards him under the circumstances. I reached for my bow (my swords having been dropped the instant I took my flying trip and most of my other equipment with the cart) and was surprised to find it unharmed, as were my arrows.

"You're still going to fight?"

"Yes," I said, and aimed an arrow at the clear shot of the giant's other eye.

"Good," he said and ran toward the giant without elaborating.

I took out the giant's other eye and the creature began to panic, stumbling this way and that, holding the bit of arrow sticking out but reluctant to pull because even he must realize that to tear the thing out would mean ripping his eye out as well. There really was nothing left for him to do but swing wildly and stumble every which way blindly. I moved closer, spotting one of my swords closer to the giant but in this general direction, I picked it up, sheathing my bow and was ready to help finish off the giant.

The blonde Nord then quickly ducked under the giant's flailing arms, much more confident now that his opponent wasn't nearly as likely to clobber him and cut deep into his knee. Unfortunately for the first Nord who was standing directly behind the giant, this caused the giant to fall backwards toward him very quickly. However, I had already seen the flaw and acted without a second, dropping my sword and sprinting forward, I threw my badly battered body at the man and really hoped that my last breath would not be taken beneath the bottom side of a giant.

A.N. Sorry for yet another cliff hanger. Really, this one was unintentional but I found the chapter running very long without any hope of a good cut-off place. I will post the next chapter even sooner.