The beast roared, deep and loud as a lion. It came from nowhere and pounced. Huge teeth sank into Kerry's backpack and he was swept off his feet in the blink of an eye, so fast he didn't even have time to cry out.
Jack saw the blur of motion in the corner of his vision and then Kerry disappeared. All he saw was a row of teeth that seemed a yard wide and a big, hoary head. Paws the size of dinner plates were planted on the path. The beast snarled, shook its head back and forth, jerking Kerry left and right. He looked like a rat in a terrier's mouth.
Jack's first instinct was to run. He bit back on instinct. Kerry yelled now as the dog, bigger than anything the Scree had unleashed on them, swung Kerry about. Jack jumped back, landed in the hedge. His fingers found a solid branch and he grabbed it, not pausing for a second as the thorns snagged at him. He forced himself forward.
The dog seemed to catch sight of him for the first time. It crouched low and dropped Kerry to the track, huge paws scraping ruts in the ground, head swinging from side to side. Its tongue lolled, as long as an arm. It bayed again, so deep it felt like a shudder, lunged at Kerry who was scrambling to get to his feet. The jaws opened to grab him again.
Jack took three fast paces forward, pivoted on one foot, and smacked the thing hard as he could, right on the end of its nose.
He hit just as those jaws were about to clamp on Kerry, putting all his strength into it.
The beast howled in pain, almost made a complete backwards somersault.
Jack snatched at Kerry. He caught the back-pack strap, heaved his friend to his feet before the howling dog could find its own. Then, just like they had done in the creepy forest, they were off and running for their lives.
The huge dog bayed again. Trees shivered. Leaves were shaken right off their branches.
The boys went down that trail like roe deer in full flight. The hedge blurred past them and Jack felt as if his feet hardly touched the ground. They were running faster than either of them had ever run before, faster than they believed possible.
Behind them, the dog was racing. They could hear its panting breath, loud as bellows, and its nails scrabble on the trail.
It snarled and Jack felt the hairs on the back of his neck all rise in unison, expecting those huge teeth to snap like a bear-trap and end everything right here and now. Kerry was yelling something incomprehensible. He pointed ahead and Jack saw a tall oak tree, wide branches stretching over the trail.
"Climb," Kerry panted. They were moving like the wind, keeping just a couple of steps ahead of the impossible hound. Jack risked a backwards glance and saw blood spattering from the dog's nose and he knew that if it had been ferocious before, it was surely mad as all hell now.
He gauged the distance.
The tree was tall enough to put them out of reach. But then he saw the first branch was high up on the trunk, too high to reach.
"Too high," he gasped.
"Have to try."
The dog bayed again, giving them an added burst of speed. They raced for the oak, each hoping there was some way up its rutted trunk. They made it under the shelter of its spreading boughs.
Kerry tripped on a rope strung across the trail. Jack saw him go down, bounce, roll and then the whole world tilted crazily.
One second he was running, reaching a hand to drag Kerry up, and then next he was flying through the air as if he had been kicked by a giant horse. All his breath was punched out of his lungs. Kerry yelled in surprise, slammed into Jack with such force Jack saw little stars orbit in his vision. His chin struck his knee and his elbow caught Kerry a hard one on the cheek, and still the world spun in a complete blur.
For a moment Jack's stomach seemed to fall like a stone and a sickening dizziness followed instantly. He felt himself gag, then both of them were jerked downwards. This time Kerry yelped even louder. Something rough held Jack in a tight embrace, like a giant spider's web, and then they were falling, even faster than they had risen. Jack's stomach seemed to stay up there in the heights while he plummeted and without warning last night's meal was trying to escape.
They fell like dead weights. Whatever held them tightened like fingers and they jerked to a sudden stop. Jack was upside down, with Kerry's backside pressed against his face. Kerry was in a contorted tangle of legs and arms.
Below them, the huge dog growled. Jack twisted away, praying that the fright hadn't caused Kerry to lose it altogether, considering their relative positions. He managed to look down, and then wished he hadn't.
Below them, twenty feet below them, the big hound leapt up towards them. Its jaws opened and all Jack saw was that gaping maw growing larger as it soared up towards them. Blood and slaver sprayed out. Teeth like knives gnashed together with an almighty snap, inches away from Jack's face. He would have pulled back if Kerry's backside had not been pressed tight against his cheek and if he wasn't caught so tightly that he could hardly move a muscle.
The dog barked again, leapt up once more. This time it had timed the jump better as Jack and Kerry dangled high above.
Aghast, Jack saw a repeat of the previous leap, but this time he knew they were in real trouble. He couldn't even reach Kerry's sword. They were both completely helpless.
The jaws opened again, wider and wider until they filled the whole world.
Then the pair of them were dragged skywards with such violence that Jack as if his whole head was being torn from his shoulders.
Kerry squealed as they were crushed even tighter. The dog howled madly below them, deep, ferocious howls of anger and frustration.
They were swung up, past the spreading leaves, out into the cloudy day.
And a huge face loomed right in at them.
"Shouldn't have hit my puppy," the monster said. Ferocious eyes glared at them, a yard apart at least. Bush brows, thick as porcupine quills were drawn down in an angry frown. A gale of breath that smelt of fish blew their hair backwards.
"He only wanted to play."
A hand as big as a man, and an arm as long and hard as the oak tree trunk, swung them round in a looping circle, held them up close and the vast face peered in at them. Broad nostrils quivered. Deep blue eyes examined them like mice in a cage.
"Poachers, are ye? Here to steal my lunch and dinner? Well, this time I've caught you."
Jack tried to say something, but he was mashed against Kerry in some sort of net that made it impossible to move and his throat didn't seem to want to open in any case.
"So," the giant said. "Boiled or fried? Sliced or diced? Smoked or choked? Something tasty for me and the puppy."
With a slow and powerful movement, he swung them again, both of them yelling in sheer fright, over his shoulder where they thudded against a massive back. It felt as if they had hit a rock cliff.
"Come on Tinker," the giant rumbled, clicking his fingers with a sound of wood snapping. "Home for dinner."
Jack twisted to look down and saw the dog paw the cut on its nose, then frisk around the giant's keels, exactly the way a puppy would do, if the puppy was almost the size of a pony and could swallow a boy whole.
They were squashed together, bouncing along like potatoes in a sack, while the countryside whizzed past them at a tremendous rate as the giant strode over hill and dale and the dog scampered about.
Kerry wriggled until he was at least right-ways up and the two of them were cheek to cheek. With every huge stride they were thrown this way and that until they managed to grab the thick netting that confined them.
"For a minute I thought we were in trouble," Kerry managed. "Then Shrek came along and it got even worse."
"He's five time's Shrek's size. And he stinks of fish."
"I don't think he's the BFG," Kerry said. "You shouldn't have hit his dog. I had him right where I wanted him."
"If I hadn't you'd be in him by now. And I'd have been next."
The giant marched on and on, past grey crags shrouded in mist and then down the far side. To the north, a range of hills were swathed in thick cloud and covered in snow except for one high mountain, right on the edge of the sea, that belched dense clouds of what could have been smoke or steam.
"We have to get out of here," Jack said. As the net swung, he caught a glimpse of a squat stone house built against a cliff beside the shore. A trail of smoke spiralled up from a chimney. "Before he gets where he's going."
Kerry wriggled until he could reach the hilt of his sword and with some effort he managed to draw it free. With all the jostling, he almost dropped it through the netting.
"You want me to stab him?"
"No. Just cut us out. We can run as soon as he puts us down."
Kerry started working the blade across the braid. Despite the edge he had honed on the sword, it was tough going, but finally he sawed through one thick strand, then another, widening the gap with each cut. In a few moments he had opened a space wide enough to get a head through. Some frantic sawing parted two more braids, while Jack watched in an agony of urgency.
"Try it now," Kerry said. Jack squirmed past him and managed to get head and shoulders through the gap, gripping the netting tight as the ground swung past way below him. Kerry started to clamber through. All the time Jack was thinking about what their captor had said. Sliced or diced. He didn't want to imagine either.
Kerry was half-way free when then the giant pulled up beside his house. Jack saw great slabs of meat drying on racks. And piles of bones picked clean and white.
"Hurry," he urged.
The giant swung the bag off his shoulder, so fast Jack felt a sudden squeeze of nausea. Kerry was caught completely by surprise. The sudden motion sent the sword flying from his grip. It went spinning up over their heads, whirring like a helicopter, then came plummeting back down. The twisting blade missed Jack's head by an inch as he clung to the swinging net.
It flashed past him in a whicker of sound and plunged right into the giant's left foot.
The roar of pain was like a landslide. For a second, both of them went completely deaf.
The giant let the net drop and they ended up in a tangled heap, desperately trying to scramble free. The dog bounded around howling and the giant roared again, hopping around on one leg while the other was pinned to the ground by the sword.
It had gone right through the skin between his toes. Blood as thick as engine oil welled up with a smell of hot copper.
The giant let out an enormous bellow for the third time, this even louder than before, so loud that it flattened out the waves driving inshore. A moment later the thunderous roar came back in an echo that sent the waves crashing back, almost up to the wide front door of the stone house.
The giant sat down so heavily that the ground shook and they were sent sprawling. He tried to lift the foot again and Jack saw the blade had gone right through and impaled itself on a log. The motion sent the sword swinging and more blood blurted up.
From across the grey sea, another echo, even louder than before, rolled across the waves like thunder. The giant jerked his head round, as if taken by surprise.
Kerry managed to disentangle himself and pulled Jack free. The dog was too busy to notice them.
"Come on," Jack said.
"What about my sword?"
"Go and get it if you want."
Kerry looked at the giant, who was holding his wounded foot, face screwed up in pain.
"That must have hurt," he whispered. "You think we should help him?"
What Jack thought was that they should run and not stop until they had put plenty of miles between themselves and the giant who now had two very good reasons to slice or dice them if he chose.
Then he looked at the giant's face and saw a huge tear squeeze out between tightly closed eyelids and what he saw was not so much a giant as just another person who might need some help.
"Don't wiggle it," he finally said. The giant's eyes opened and the tear carved a trail in the dust down one slab-like cheek. "You'll just make it worse."
The giant grunted as the sword rocked. Jack risked a couple of steps forward. The dog opened its mouth and looked as if about to pounce when the giant reached out and pulled it close.
"It was an accident. We didn't mean it." Beside him, Kerry nodded vigorous agreement. "But we can fix it for you if you let us."
The giant pondered this for a moment, then scratched his head. Finally he nodded.
"I can't get it out," he boomed.
"Promise not to slice and dice us?"
"Wasn't going to anyway," he said.
"Okay. Take it easy. Just put your foot down nice and slow."
He opened his pack and drew out the bag of stuff that Rune the Cluricaun had used on Kerry's cuts and bruises. He got Kerry to wedge the log between two stones so that it wouldn't move and then sat astride the giant's foot. The skin felt as thick as a rhino's.
"This will hurt a bit," he said, then, without further ado, he grasped the hilt, bent his legs then heaved with all his weight.
The sword drew up and out with an odd sucking sound, and thick blood welled from the cut.
The giant groaned, but managed to keep still.
"Now the line," Jack said. Kerry handed him the bobbin of nylon fishing line, the strong stuff he'd used for hauling cod and halibut up from the estuary, on which a big cod hook was attached.
Jack knew he'd have to do this quickly. He crouched over the foot and had to use all his strength to jab the hook into skin as tough and thick as a tractor tyre. The giant winced, emitted what would have been a squeak from a human, but sounded like a buzz-saw. Jack drew the line through, repeated the action again and again until with a final effort, he drew the sides of the wound together, then padded Rune's medication around it. In a couple of minutes, the potion seemed to take effect and the giant's features began to relax. He let out a huge sigh that almost blew Jack off his feet.
"How's that?"
"Oh, that's much better," he said. He tore a strip from what seemed like thick sailcloth and wrapped it around his foot.
"We're really sorry," Jack said, still wary. "The sword just fell out. And I only hit your dog because he attacked Kerry."
He stuck a hand out. "I'm Jack Flint, and this is my best friend, Kerry Malone."
The giant looked at the small hand in front of him, then slowly engulfed it in his own. His skin felt like solid rock.
"Finn McCuill. This headland is my piece of the shore."
"Pleased to meet you, I think."
"Tinker wasn't going to eat you," he rumbled. "Just scare you. Then you hit him. I've got a bit of a temper, see? When somebody hurts my dog. Runs away with me so it does."
"You set a trap for us," Kerry piped up, indignant.
Finn shook his head. "The net was for reivers. Don't see many of you little folk one year on another, but since the seasons went out of step and the clouds hid the stars, they've been coming here to steal my dinners. They'd starve me out if I didn't watch out."
"Your dinners?"
"Aye, the cattle and sheep. I prefer fish myself, but the fishing's gone off with all this funny business. I seen islands of ice go sailing past the front door. Anyway, thanks for fixing up my toes, I'd have never thought of stitching it myself. It's a fine trick for a little 'un."
He gingerly hauled to his feet, towering over them both. He was about to say something else, when a deep roar came rolling over the sea, like distant pounding surf.
Finn McCuill turned to face the water, brows drawn down.
"Sounds like a big storm over there," Kerry said.
Finn shook his head. "That's no storm. That's yon Fergus MacRoth. He holds Kintyre, on the far side of the reach, and wants the world to know about it. He must have heard me bawling when you spiked me. Now he'll think I want to fight."
"Why would he think that?"
"Och, he's a fiery one is Fergus. Never happy unless he's at odds with everybody. And he loves a scrap, so he does."
The words were barely out of his mouth when a whistling sound, like a sudden wind, came shrieking over the reach.
"What on earth is that?" Kerry asked. Jack looked up to the sky, just in time to see something big and black come bulleting under the low clouds. It cut through the air with the scream of a jet fighter.
"Watch out," Finn McCuill yelled. He spun on his good foot and crouched to put himself between the boys and the seashore. A big arm snaked out and drew the dog in too, just in the nick of time.
The jet-fighter sound grew even louder until it was deafening. Kerry stuck two fingers in his ears. The dog howled right in Jack's ear and dribbled a mouthful of sticky saliva down his neck.
Not a hundred yards beyond the foreshore a huge rock hit the water with an almighty crash and sent up a bow wave as tall as a house, which swept over the tidal pools, up the shingle shore and slammed into the giant who took the brunt of it with barely a flinch, protecting them all from the power of the wave.
He waited until it subsided, dragging seaweed and driftwood back into the sea.
"Oh, that Fergus is a real pain in the bahooky, so he is."
From across the reach, the sonorous boom came rolling again. This time, Jack thought he could hear words in their thunder.
"Now he'll be coming across for sure," Finn said.