Fantasy novels traditionally depict their giants as gross, dimwitted, and often malevolent creatures.  My Dragonwolder giants behave quite differently. They have a mission. Here to explain is the rock giant, Enderfon, featured in Where Dragons Follow: Return of the Malevir.

ENDERFON:

I am grateful for this opportunity to redeem the reputation of several giants I have known, including myself. You may tell your readers they have little to fear from me for I am benevolent. I come from Beyond the Edge of the Warmside. My greatest power is not my size nor my strength but resides in my weapon, a magical mace. I will use the mace to restore equilibrium to the Veiled Valley and the land to its inhabitants.

NARRATOR:

Any problems as you pursued your mission?

ENDERFON:

Number One: My need to protect those for whom I assume responsibility sometimes pushes me into unnecessary fights. Number Two: I’m a plodder and just keep on keeping on, much to my companions’ frustration.

NARRATOR:

Why are giants living in Dragonwolder? Did they inspire fear and loathing?

ENDERFON:

Not at all. Long before people settled in the Veiled Valley, and even before the Orferans, a powerful dragon clan, made their home there in a Sunriseside Mountain cave, I and two other giants were told to end our wanderings through the Beyond of Dragonwolder and head for the warm seasons and verdant plains of the Veiled Valley. When people finally arrived there, the only giant they met was Rocánonom, the sole survivor of our trio. They liked him immediately. He helped them build their settlements and kept them safe–for a while.

We three had come from different places: graying, stooped Haldoran came from the north and entered Dragonwolder through the Coldside Desert; I trudged up from the shore beyond the Warmside; and brainy, brawny Rocánonom, the wizardly human giant, came by sea. Many Turnings of the World ago, we agreed to find each other and prepare the land for those people we knew would settle there.  We would act as their guardians, Protectors of the Trace, the Forest, and the Mountains.

NARRATOR:

Did you succeed?

ENDERFON:

As I said,  Rocánonom made it but Haldoran? No. I heard he was attacked by evil forces allied with the Malevir—

NARRATOR:

Excuse me, who or what is the Malevir?

ENDERFON:

The Malevir is a magical being so filled with malice and anger that he wants nothing less than the destruction of Dragonwolder. The third chronicle of the Malevir series will reveal his identity in your year 2020.

Anyway, I nearly met Haldoran’s fate but in my case due to the Warmside’s intense heat. Stifling winds had dried up lakes and rivers crossing the Warmside. Grasses and flowers had withered and trees were skeletal. Amid dust devils dancing across the barren expanses I collapsed under a mountain overhang on an escarpment separating the Warmside plain from the Beyond. After one Moon-Rising, I moved no more. The Malevir had turned my heart to stone, or so it seemed.

NARRATOR:

But you’re here to tell the tale, so somehow you were saved.

ENDERFON:

Yes, someone saved me. To find out who that was, you’ll have to consult the Where Dragons Follow Chronicle: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Dragons-Follow-Malevir-Dragonwolder/dp/1732143404/