Of Fates And Fetters Ch 3

And we reach the final chapter of what I was able to get ready for y'all!

If you know the setting this came from, slap your guess in the comments! But no cheating! No googling!

Let me know what you liked and didn't. Please and thank you!

Or don't. I remain, as ever, not the boss of you. Merely, hopefully, an entertainer. ^_^

This is all I got for today. I'mma try and get a head start on Kaiju Slaying.

=][=

The northeast tower was a lot like anywhere else in Hellena; Creepy as fuck and actively dangerous to inhabit.

It was strange what the mind focused on while rushing forward into a fight.

I’d fucked up somehow, broken stealth. My only hope now was to overwhelm the defenders and kill all who had heard the alarm quickly enough to regain stealth.

Turning a corner, I realized too late that it hadn’t been me who broke stealth.

On the other side of the chasm separating the tower (because why build for safety!?) I saw a man fighting three guards, in front of me, was one guard using the long cudgel they were all armed with, to push two muscular men in rags and regulation haircuts with their hands behind their backs toward the rickety handrail that was all that stood between them and a lethal drop.

And just like that, I smelled opportunity.

I rushed forward, drawing my sword as I went, and caught up to the guard as he gave the prisoners a final push. “Die Basil pi—!”

Was as far as he got before I shoved my sword through his ribcage and threw him aside.

Unfortunately, I was too late, the two he’d been pushing overbalanced on the handrail, they screamed as their legs went over the edge.

“Fuck!” I gasped, diving forward and barely managing to get a grip on their ankles, their combined weight dragged me forward until the handrail struck me in the shoulder.

“No!” A baritone roar sounded out over the death screams of the two men, who stopped screaming when they realized they weren’t falling.

“No, nobody actually help me! That would be too much!” I grumbled as I shifted, planted a foot against the handrail support, and pushed, my whole body trembling as I slowly pulled the two closer to the edge. Unfortunately, my disrespect for the talent of whoever made the handrail proved entirely too justified as the wooden support bent under the strain, leaving me to hope and pray it would hold. “Y’all motherfuckers need OSHA!”

I got their legs over the edge, and the two were thankfully smart enough to wrap them around the handrail supports, giving me the clearance to let go, reposition, and pull them up one at a time.

With my arms burning, I turned them over, drew my bayonet, and cut the rope tying their hands.

“Grab a rock or something!” I gasped, sheathing my bayonet, stepping on the asshole that had expired at some point, and pulled my sword out of the corpse I’d made.

“Thanks!” One of them gasped, already holding one of the guards’ cudgels.

I didn’t bother answering as I rushed across the rickety bridge connecting both sides of the tower. I finally got a good look at the guy who was fighting, he was of a height with me, and built like a brick shithouse. Like me, he was blonde, but had brown eyes to my blue. His face looked to have been carved from marble, all harsh planes and angles in his aristocratic, patrician features.

He was using a spear with expert precision, and holding off two guards, the third lying dead at his feet. His expression didn’t so much as twitch as I ran up behind them and stabbed one of them through the spine, lumbered him over and kicked the new paraplegic onto his friend, sending the two of them to the ground.

We stepped forward and stabbed them while they were still trying to figure out whose limbs belonged to whom.

I stood back and panted. “And that’s how it’s done!”

“Sir Lavitz!” The two dudes in distress said in stereo as they joined us.

“Sir Bart, Sir Leon, I’m glad to see you two are safe.” Lavitz said, and his voice when not shouting was gravelly and deep, more used to shouting orders than speaking softly.

“Sir!” The two said, standing at attention.

“And I see I have you to thank for that, stranger.” Lavitz said, turning to me.

I gave him a thumb up, my breathing quickly settling to something more even. “Happy coincidence. Think nothing of it.”

“If I might ask, what are you doing here?” He asked, his voice gaining an edge of suspicion.

I grinned. “Sandora attacked my hometown and kidnapped someone important to me, I’m here to break her out.” I gestured at his two friends. “I just happened to be around the corner when the guards shouted. Rushed in and you know the rest.”

He blinked owlishly. “Lucky woman, not many would willingly break into Hellena.”

“None of the propaganda affects me!” I said with an amused snort, and pointed at my temple. “My brain is too smooth! It all just slides off!”

He looked confused, opening and closing his mouth as he searched for a response to my dumbassitude.

“Anyways, gotta go!” I said, turning to head deeper into the tower.

“Wait! There is safety in numbers!” Lavitz shoutspered.

There we go. I made my face into a worried scowl before turning back and answering. “I’d appreciate the help, but don’t you have to prioritize your duty to the king?”

Lavitz smacked his fist onto his chest, the two men, knights, I guess, did the same a moment later. “I could not call myself a Knight of King Albert if I abandoned one who risked his life to save my men!”

I nodded. “Thanks, I’ll gladly accept then.”

Lavitz trotted up beside me, the two men in rags taking up the rear.

We ran into one more duo of guards who had been too drunk to hear the four that got killed earlier. Their bodies joined the plethora of other skeletons at the bottom of the chasm.

Turning to the door they’d been guarding, there was a skull on a pike, and most of a skeleton strung up on either side of the door. Both remains were blackened and burnt.

Metal as fuck. I didn’t want to say anything nice about these assholes, but dammit, couldn’t fault their sense of decor.

“Wellp, we’re here.” I said, studying the door.

Lavitz stepped up to me. “How do you know this is the right cell?”

I scoffed. Clearly, this being an anime setting, this was dramatic as hell, so it was absolutely where Shana was.

That or it was a trap.

“I overheard guards gossiping about a beautiful prisoner they weren’t allowed to talk to.” I gestured at the skeletons. “I’m not one to gamble, but I’d be willing to bet these two assholes are the reason why that rule’s in place.”

Lavitz’s face paled. “Do you think…”

“She’s fine.” I said with complete conviction.

“How…do you know?”

I met his eyes, he recoiled for some reason. “She. Is. Fine.”

Lavitz stepped back. “R-Right.”

“Now, door!” I said, turning to the wooden door and digging into the small pouch at my waist. “When open, a pathway, when closed, an impediment. Where is the damn—got it!”

I pulled the crowbar I’d made in my time as a blacksmith out of my pouch.

“A door can’t be locked if it’s splinters!” I said with a laugh, slamming the crowbar against the door at the top, middle, and bottom, then sticking the sharp stabby slightly bent bit into the gap between door and wall where it bent the farthest, and threw all the strength and body weight I could into the crowbar. The wood of the door groaned and bent. “Tough! Bitch! Of! A! Door!”

Each word was punctuated by a sharp shove or pull of the crowbar. The wood around the lock bending, warping, splintering, then with a loud snap, finally breaking. The door flying open and letting me stumble inside.

“Hah! If brute force isn’t solving your problems, you’re not using enough of it!” I laughed.

“Dart?”

I blinked and looked at the lovely young woman, standing up from her rather poor hiding spot behind the cot in the cell, the only other furniture being a lone table with a lit candle. She was svelte, a bit below average height for a woman, the top of her head would not quite reach my shoulder, she had shoulder length brown hair, big innocent brown eyes, a button nose, aristocratic cheekbones and a small mouth.

Her clothes were dirty, dusty, and disheveled, but that did not manage to obscure the youthful glow of her beauty.

She didn’t quite look like a fully grown adult, but it was a far cry from the pouty kid I remembered.

She looked to be in good health, her fair skin a bit too pale, but a knot loosened in my stomach and I felt a mountain slide off my shoulders at the sight of her.

“Hey boogers.” I said with a grin, stowing my crowbar into the sack at my waist. “Sorry it took me so long to get here, the traffic was hellish. Eh? Eeeeeeh?”

She blinked a few times, then coughed and fell to giggles. “You had five whole years!” She got out between gasps. “And you’re still awful at puns!”

“Them’s fightin’ words!” I said past the big smile on my face then beckoned her to follow as I turned to the door. “But we’ll catch up later, we’ve gotta get outta here!”

“R-Right!” I heard from behind me as I stepped outside.

“Okay! Objective located, time for the next step in the master plan!” I said to Lavitz, who was keeping watch.

“What’s the plan?” He asked helpfully.

“Eh, thought I’d try stabbing my way out.” I said with a shrug.

“That’s not a plan, that’s a goal.” He said in a deadpan. He blinked and stood at attention as Shana stepped out of her cell. “You must be the woman he’s here to save.”

“Ah! Yes! My name’s Shana. Shana Seles. It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Shana said, even doing a little curtsey, bending her knees and lifting an imaginary skirt.

To the benefit of Lavitz’s continued health, his eyes did not stray to all that creamy thigh Shana was displaying with her shorts. Lavitz stood straight and slapped his right arm in a straight line across his chest in the Basil Salute. “Lavitz Slambert, Captain of the First Knighthood of Basil. With me are Knights Bart and Leon.” The two nodded even as they too saluted.

I didn’t hear the rest of the exchange, my mind had ground to a halt at the name Lavitz Slambert.

Lavitz.

Slambert.

What does a guy need to do to get that name!? It sounds like an Ultimate Move, but cooler!

“Dart?”

I shook my head. Get Shana out, nerd out later.

“Right, sorry. I was in a hurry.” I said, holding my hand out to Lavitz. “Name’s Dart Feld.”

Somewhat taken aback by my terse introduction, Lavitz took my hand in a firm grip and shook. “A pleasure.”

“Okay introductions done, let’s get out of here before—”

“Oh shit!”

My body turned at the shout, drawing the first thing out of my sack and flinging it. The crowbar soared through the air and slammed into the face of a guard, a tray with a fairly okay looking lunch clattered to the floor as he fell back, clutching at his face, blood streaming from the cut right between his eyes.

He took a deep breath, and gurgled it out as my sword slipped between his ribs so deep that the handguard slammed into his chest, the blade sticking a couple feet out of his back.

He looked at me, eyes wide and red with the blood that clouded his vision.

I slammed my forehead into his nose, crushed his larynx with my off hand, then picked him up and flung him over the edge of the fissure that bifurcated the hallway, gravity tearing him away from my sword with a wet sucking sound.

He fell quietly to his death.

I picked up my crowbar and stuck it back in the sack, then finished my thought from earlier. “—someone else comes along and finds us.”

Shana was looking at me with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. Thinking on it, not counting probably Seles, that was likely the first time she saw someone killed. Definitely the first time she’d ever seen me kill a man.

Well, her adopted older brother killed people, that was something she was going to have to get used to. “Let’s go!” I said and started moving.

Lavitz jogged up to me. “It’s a shame we can’t open more cell doors.”

I nodded. “I couldn’t find any keys on my way in. Starting a riot would make for amazing cover to escape, but we don’t have the time for me to crowbar enough doors open.”

“It would also be good to free these people. Give them a chance at freedom.” Lavitz enunciated slowly.

“Right, that too.” I said and trotted on.

Near the base of the tower, after a few more corpses mostly quietly joined those at the bottom, we found a storage room with weapons and armor piled up haphazardly.

I kept a watch at the door while the three knights raided the room, switching out their burlap sack clothes for tunics and chainmail shirts.

It appeared that the guards at Hellena were pretty damn lazy, as I recognized the standard equipment used by the Basil Auxiliaries.

Seriously, who would store captured enemy equipment in the same building the enemy is being held?

Lavitz came out wearing a green vest, green pants, grieves and sabatons, gauntlets and vambraces, and a mail shirt. The other two much the same but their clothes were blue and they’d found a pair of spears.

Shana surprised me by coming out with a bow and a quiver full of arrows. There was something challenging about the look she gave me.

I nodded at her. “Make sure to stay behind me.”

She scowled. “I’m not a child anymore, Dart.”

I scrunched up my brow in confusion. “Whuh?”

“I’m eighteen!” She continued with a stomp.

“Shana.”

“I didn’t spend the last five years idle!”

“Shana.”

“I’m going to fight too and you can’t stop me!”

“Shana.”

“So even if yo—owie!”

I lifted the Knife Hand Of Justice from the top of her head. “Now that I have your attention.”

She looked up at me with a teary-eyed pout.

“I have a sword; you have a bow. I have a chest-plate; you’re wearing a jacket. I’m a front liner; you are a second line combatant. Stay behind me and shoot shit with that bow.”

She blinked at my sternly worded approval. “Oh…erm…Y-Yeah.”

“In fact.” I went into the storage room, grabbed several more quivers bristling with arrows, and stuck them into the small sack at my waist. Lavitz looking at me with calculation the whole while. “When you’re running low, tell me. For now, this way to the gate.”

We were most of the way to the stables when every bell, whistle, and horn sounded in Hellena.

“Fuck!” I snarled.

“They know we’re free!?” Lavitz shouted to be heard over the din.

“No! They know she is!” I shouted back. “To the gate! Come on!”

As a group we abandoned stealth, running through the halls, Lavitz and I leading the charge.

We ran into a few isolated guards who were running like chickens with their heads cut off, Lavitz or I tangled up their cudgel, and the other would stab them. We didn’t bother hiding the bodies anymore.

“Wait! Stables!” Lavitz said, pointing at them as I ran past.

“Right! We need to kill all the horses or we won’t be able to escape!” I agreed, changing direction.

“What!? No! We can make use of the horses!” Lavitz said, his eyes bulging.

“Are you crazy!? They’re probably trained to hate Basil knights specifically!”

“Dart it’s been ten years!” Shana shouted past her gasps for breath. “How are you still afraid of horses!?”

“These things hold evil in their heart, Shana! Pure distilled evil!”

One of the infernal beasts whinnied from inside the stable.

“Imma kill it!” I said reasonably.

Sir Leon threw himself forward and tackled Shana, sending her skidding to the floor. I was about to get on his case about it, but a literal boulder wider than I was tall, landed on him and turned him into a red slurry on the floor.

I turned in the direction it came from, and beheld the biggest, ugliest, fattest man I’d ever seen. He was twelve feet tall at least, and almost as wide around, and dressed in a super sized version of what the guards wore, except he added a crimson cape to it.

“Why do we even have the square-cube law!?” I snarled as I ran at the new threat.

The tub-of-lard corpse-to-be smirked and whistled, waving at people behind him. Five stripper guards rushed forward, cudgels leading.

One caught an arrow in the throat, falling back as he choked on his own blood. I felt Lavitz behind me, and I left my left flank to him as I slammed the edge of my blade through the haft of the cudgel of the first guard to come into my range, the blade tearing through the wood and getting stuck halfway through his neck.

I turned my shoulder into the descending blow from the man behind the dying guard, the head of the cudgel slammed into my pauldron, giving it a new dent and me a new bruise in all likelihood.

But the wonders about wearing actual armor showed themselves as, having been thoroughly used to beating on people who couldn’t fight back, he was completely surprised when, having absorbed the blow, I turned into him and sunk my bayonet into his guts a few times, his hot blood and other fluids in his stomach soaking my hands.

I yanked the bayonet back, stabbed him through the neck, then grabbed my sword still sticking out of the other corpse and retrieved it with a squelch.

Lavitz had already dispatched both of his enemies and was menacing the giant, I wiped my bayonet on my sleeve and sheathed it before joining him.

“You ready to meet Soa, lardass!?” I snarled. “I’ll string you up by your entrails for what you tried to do to Shana!”

His grin fell away into a sheepish expression. When he spoke, his voice was a gravelly bass. “Actually, I was aiming for the Captain here.”

“Dart! Remain calm!” Lavitz warned.

“I am calm!” I shouted. “I’ll calmly string this lardass up by his entrails!”

The huge fucker stepped back, the ground shaking with every one of his footsteps. I pursued him as more men rushed out from behind him.

But the beauty about being one of the only two involved in the battle wearing armor, was that I could shrug off most of their attacks, and they couldn’t do the same.

The blood of the guards covered my boots from sole to ankle, dispatching another unarmored man with every other step. The fat fuck was probably waiting for me to tire as I killed his men, perhaps faint from heatstroke as I fought in Hellena’s sweltering heat.

If so, he was in for a surprise, this was nothing compared to what I did to myself and called ‘training.’

“Dart if you pursue him any farther, they’ll have a straight shot to Shana!”

Lavitz’s words brought me up short. My thirst for the giant fat man’s blood still sang in my veins, but I couldn’t forget the whole reason why I was here.

Get Shana out.

As I began to reach for my handy sack, the giant sighed. “Too bad, the ambush was going so well. OUT!”

Three men stepped out of the shadows, wearing loose pantaloons, leather boots, and a leather shirt with scales that left their belly open to show off their six-pack abs. They were each holding a double-bladed longsword.

“The fuck you think you are!? Darth Maul!?” I demanded.

Two of the men, all of them shaved bald, looked at each other, most of their expression covered behind a snarling wooden mask over their mouths. They both shrugged at each other, then resumed their stalking steps forward.

This time the giant stomped forward behind them.

I grit my teeth and reached for my emergency pouch. Grabbed the ice-cold crystal sphere within it and threw it at the leading man.

“Shit!” He snarled, diving to the side, but not far enough. The luminescent sphere shattered on the ground near him and a shining blue field of energy pounced at him like a lunging viper.

The field enveloped him, and I grit my teeth and clenched with my brain.

During my Rogue School Martial Arts Journey, I learned that the world I was in had magic. Not in the form of spells, but in one-use items with elemental effects and enchanted equipment. They cost an arm and a leg and were only available in any significant quantities in big cities.

Icicles the size of spears materialized around the bastard and drove themselves down at him in a murderous kamikaze charge. He dodged the first two, parried the third, but the rest of the blizzard of deadly icicles turned him into an icy porcupine.

Items were undeniably effective. I just wished I had found more about their manufacture than a thousand conflicting rumors. I was dying of curiosity to know how and why a psychic effect and mental effort led to a more powerful result.

The other two had not stood idle, they’d charged forward, point of their double blade leading. Even though I’d kept my guard up, Lavitz had charged forward and intercepted them to buy me the time to properly concentrate on utilizing the Frost Spear.

He kept the two at bay, one moment menacing them with the point of his spear, before suddenly switching to using the weapon as if it were a quarterstaff, if one with a spicy end, then back to using orthodox spear techniques. The unorthodox tactic keeping his opponents on the back foot, not letting them make full use of their own unorthodox weapons.

“Hey!” Said the fat dead man. “I’ve got one too!”

He then threw a brown sphere at Lavitz.

“Shit!” I cursed and launched myself at the item, swinging desperately for it and managing to just barely strike it with the tip of my sword. The sphere detonated, the energy trapped within struck me like a viper, and four rocks as large as my head materialized around me.

I tucked my chin down to my chest and put my arms in front of my face. The four rocks circled me and began a barrage of small rock pellets that largely plinked off my armor, each striking with the force of a small rock thrown by a young boy. Enough to sting, but they would only cause damage if they hit something sensitive.

No, the unimaginatively named Pellet wasn’t dangerous until the very last moment, but if it had hit Lavitz while he was dealing with the two men with weird swords, the distraction would likely have been enough for him to get stabbed.

I weathered the bombardment, and the instant the floating rocks stopped firing I dropped myself to the floor. The sound of boulders crashing against each other above my head and the shower of dirt and pebbles informing me I’d timed it right.

I was wearing some pretty good armor, but if that had hit me directly, chances where I’d have been lucky to only have broken bones.

I jumped back to my feet and, trusting Lavitz to take care of the two guards, I charged the large fat man. He hefted what looked like a tree-trunk, shaved down into a crude cudgel and swung in a large, telegraphed attack.

It was simplicity itself to halt my charge and allow the big slow swing to whiff past me, the air it displaced blowing back the blonde spikes I called hair, I ducked the return swing and was inside the giant’s guard. I combined the footwork of the Crush Dance sword form, as well as the Five Rings Shattering kata, slipping past the deceptively quick grab by the giant with a pirouette that also served to add centrifugal force to my sword swing as I slashed it at his unprotected abdomen with the intent of spilling his entrails on the ground.

The edge of my blade slammed into his stomach, creating ripples in the vast expanse of flesh and sinking no more than two inches into his belly. My reward for an attack that would get my blade stuck in the spinal cord of anyone with common decency, was a bit of blood and a peek at yellow blubber.

I should have paid closer attention to my mom the many times she beat into me that I should be surprised on my own time, not during a fight.

“Fucker! That hurt!” The fat man took advantage of my dismayed surprise to slap me with his open palm, his hand was almost as large as my upper chest, the sheer weight behind the slap made my feet leave the ground and sent me flying back what felt like three miles but was likely seven or eight feet.

I landed with an instinctive roll and came back up to my feet, the point of my bastard sword aimed at the monster.

Lavitz stepped up to me, looking a bit singed. “What’d I miss?”

I coughed, wheezed, and forced my diaphragm to stop spasming so I could speak. “His skin is as tough as boiled leather, that strike felt like I was hitting a stone wall covered in blubber.”

“It doesn’t look like they’re done saddling the horses yet.” Lavitz muttered. “And I don’t feel comfortable leaving him at our backs.”

As the huge fat bastard inspected the bleeding cut in his belly, I weighed our options. My pouch full of sand would likely not avail me enough of an advantage, I didn’t have another item I could throw at the monster, my trusty crowbar, ten-foot pole, or hook and a few hundred feet of rope would not do much either.

We needed some way to deliver damage past all of his mass.

The fat asshole stopped checking his stomach and spoke past clenched teeth. “I’ll grant you, I underestimated you, blondie. I didn’t think you could get past my skin, you’re the sixth man to ever mange the feat.” His posture changed, no longer slouching, his step no longer a saunter. He went from being a tub of lard, to something both massive, and dangerous. “I was going to do you a favor, I was going to be gentle, take you down all soft-like, wine and dine you a bit before I took what is mine. I like blondes, you see.”

A shudder of revulsion swept past me from the tips of my toes to the top of my head.

“But no more.” He growled, either not having seen my reaction, or more likely not caring. “Now you die.”

“Lavitz. I might have something. But I need you to trust me.” I said as the huge man approached.

“What do you need?” He asked.

“I need you to distract him, hold him back for…fuck, maybe a minute. Two tops.”

Lavitz nodded and rushed forward at the giant.

I wiped and sheathed my sword and, placing my trust on him, took the basic Rogue School Martial Arts stance. Left leg forward and bent, holding most of my weight, right leg back. Left hand clenched by my waist, right fist chambered back, my back straight.

I closed my eyes and breathed.

This was an anime setting, and my mother was a master of a secret martial art, she could punch holes through trees.

And I was her successor. One who did his absolute level best to be a worthy one.

I had Ki. Taichi bullshit Ki.

Only problem being, it took forever to harness, concentrate, and unleash it. Mom could do it faster, she could actually make use of it in a fight. Something about ‘the intent of your fist’ and ‘making of your mind a void filled with naught but light.’ And other mystic sounding bullshit.

But, as much as it pained me to admit it, it worked.

I concentrated, imagining a flame in the center of my mind. Into that flame I fed everything, my every thought, my every emotion. My rage at what had been done to my home, my hatred at having arrived too late to be of any help. The staggering weight of my wrath at the impudence of these people, daring to take Shana away.

Into the fire went my fear that I’d prove inadequate. My anxiety at the possibility of getting this wrong.

The fire in my mind raged, consuming all as fuel, until naught but a vacuum, an emptiness remained. Out of the corner of the third eye, the eye of the mind, I caught the flickering of a light, it pulsed with everything I had fed into the flame, eager to rush in and refill the emptiness with its liveliness and substance, but I did not allow it.

I harnessed that light, felt it pull at energy that thrummed up from the ground to my feet, my ankles and shins, through my spine and belly and chest. I felt it suffuse my entire being. I could feel each individual drop of my life blood as it rushed through arteries from the aorta to capillaries so small a single blood cell fit through them at a time.

The body’s eyes opened. It could see Lavitz, battered and bleeding, sent skidding back after he blocked an attack, his arms falling to his sides, unable to raise the spear any longer. The thought that he would be black and blue in a few hours skittered past the edge of the emptiness, failing to take hold upon the core of light-filled nothingness.

The body stepped forward, even though I did not order it. Its breathing even, between calm and fast, exactly what was needed to fuel the movement that it knew was required. Motes of light drifted out of its form.

The target noticed the body’s approach, its movements lacked the waste of before, but they were still ponderous. The body knew what was needed, moving its head minutely, each swing of the enormous cudgel only brushing against its skin or the plates of its armor.

The giant’s attacks were ferocious but uncoordinated, easy for the body to predict and evade.

The body reached the optimal range, stomped its right foot forward, and began a motion that drew power from the ground, a waive of movement that began at the soles of its feet, up its legs, turning its hips and back, the clenching of every single fiber of its Musculo-skeletal system being bent in sequence for the sole purpose of imparting more kinetic energy into the motion that followed.

The right fist crashed forward, twisting at the last instant to add centrifugal force to the impact, and struck the too-hard skin with the sound of a boulder slamming into the sea, a torrent of flickering light exploding forward and adding its own power to the strike.

The fat stomach of the giant rippled as if a Titan had stepped forward and flicked it none-too-gently on its belly, the blubber rippling back as if a hurricane wind were pushing against it.

All motion ceased for an infinite instant. Then, with the sound of thunder, the giant was slapped off its feet as if by the hand of a God.