10. Jelly Beans

The minute Prince Kalman merged back into the body of the stag, the petrified beast took off, covering the slopes of the mountainside in great, flying leaps. It didn’t need any urging, for the two giants that had been striding along the bottom of the glen had already turned towards the slopes and were even now lumbering menacingly upwards.

Bounding wildly across the hillside, Kalman thought at one stage that they might yet escape. The giants obviously thought so, too, for they started throwing boulders at them. Their aim, however, was way out and although the huge rocks bounced and crashed around them, they did little damage apart from freaking out the stag, which, by this time, was totally beyond Kalman’s control. In a blind panic, it raced across the heather taking dangerously great leaps as it cleared tumbling streams and scattered outcrops of rock. As the giants came ever closer, however, it turned frantically into a broad gully that seemed to offer a way of escape. It turned out to be a trap, however, as on turning a corner, Kalman realized with a sinking heart, that the gully was a dead end.

The giants roared in triumph as they saw that the stag was at their mercy while Kalman, deprived of most of his magic, knew real fear. There was nothing he could do but wait and as the stag reared desperately against the walls of the sheer cliff that barred their way, he watched in an agony of frustration and bitterness as the giants gathered boulders from the slopes. Was this how he was going to end his life?

Had the giants thrown the boulders at them, there and then, they might well have destroyed the prince. Afterwards, he could never quite work out why they hadn’t finished him off at once. It might have been that they just didn’t know that their new-found strength was limited but they certainly wasted valuable time and energy by gathering together a handy pile of rocks. It proved their undoing for, with sudden grunts of horror, they found themselves literally falling apart. Kalman, looking on in amazement, breathed a sigh of relief as he watched them collapse in front of him. Hope stirred within him and his heart lightened. He hadn’t realized that the giants were quite so vulnerable. Maybe things weren’t as bad as he’d thought, he mused. It might well be that Cri’achan Mòr had quite a long way to go before he became Lord of Morven.

Although the giants were now no more than a pile of rubble, Prince Kalman waited until the quivering stag had quietened down before he urged it over their broken remains and turned its head towards the north-east and Morven.

Morven! Thoughts of the mountain filled his mind. He just had to get there. All thoughts of enmity had fled. The quarrel with his father and the Sultan was nothing compared with this new danger, which posed the most serious threat that the Lords of the North had ever had to face. Could this Malfior be destroyed? he wondered. It was certainly a powerful force, for the amount of magic that he had been left with was pitifully small … nothing like the strength of power he was used to. Despite his weakness, he knew that the Lords of the North had to be warned at once and he only hoped that Firestar would be able to deal with the strange, fearsome entity that lurked in its depths.

The going, after that, was painfully slow. Kalman fulminated at their lack of progress for the stag had to be given time to rest, graze and drink. It was, however, a powerful animal and between times, kept a steady pace. Nevertheless, it was well after midnight when they reached the shores of Loch Lomond.

The waters of the loch gleamed silver in the moonlight and it was while Kalman was looking for a place for the stag to rest that the giants picked up on him again. Cri’achan Mòr must be tracking him through a crystal, he thought, as a huge giant rose suddenly, in tearing jerks from the slopes of the hills and bore down upon him in a thunder of noise.

Petrified by its abrupt appearance, the stag slipped and slid its way frantically downhill to where a road wound its way round the shores of the loch. Although busy with traffic during the day, there wasn’t a car in sight at this time of night and the frightened animal, who would not normally have gone anywhere near a road, feeling the smooth tarmac under its hooves, streaked along with the giant crashing heavily behind. Keep going, Prince Kalman urged the stag, willing it to run faster. Keep going and perhaps it’ll run out of energy like the others did.

The giant, however, was gaining and again Kalman thought he was done for when, lights blazing, a huge trailer carrying a load of tree trunks came thundering round a sharp bend in the road. The stag gave a sudden, spectacular leap that cleared the road but the giant was not so fortunate; nor so agile. As the astonished driver slammed on his brakes, the momentum of the trailer sent it straight into the giant’s legs. It was what you might call a no-win situation. The giant didn’t stand a chance. It broke into hundreds of pieces as its legs were demolished under it and roaring with fury, fell over the trailer in a jumble of rocks, stones and earth.

A van, headlights blazing, drew up with a screech of brakes behind the trailer. Kenny and Larry, sitting in the front seat, had been trying to overtake the monstrous vehicle for miles and its sudden halt took them by surprise and nearly sent them straight into the back of it.

Kalman, surrounded by ferns at the side of the road, looked at the van curiously, through the eyes of the stag. He had never in his life seen anything to equal it, for in the light of its blazing headlights he could see that it had been painted in the weirdest mixture of fluorescent colours that he’d ever had the misfortune to clap eyes on. The two lads that jumped down from the front seats looked around seventeen or eighteen and, colourwise, weren’t actually that much better than their van. Their vivid trousers, horrendous jackets and fantastically belled hats, however, served to give Kalman a clue as to their identities. Light dawned! Jesters, he thought, that’s what they must be — the modern equivalent of jesters! There could be no other reason for the multi-coloured clothes that they sported. He eyed their vehicle speculatively as they rushed to help the driver of the trailer and gradually deciphered the mosaic of lettering that shone vividly from its side. “The Jelly Beans,” he read, frowning in puzzled wonder. Jelly Beans?

It was actually quite some time before Kenny and Larry returned. The huge trailer had suffered little or no damage from the collision with the giant and apart from being shaken, the driver had recovered quickly enough. Nevertheless, he had a tight schedule to follow and, anxious to get on his way, he’d enlisted their help to clear the stones from the road so that he could continue his journey.

Kalman, by this time, had decided that the jesters and their van was just what he needed. As the two colourful figures strode back along the road, the stag limped forward and collapsed on its knees, seemingly totally exhausted. It lifted its head limply and eyed Larry beseechingly as he made to open the door.

“Hey, Kenny,” Larry called to his mate, “there’s a muckle great stag here, by the side of the road!”