Ancient tales have been passed down by word of mouth over the long millennia of the Titans of old, the brothers of God, who were exiled from heaven. Some sought refuge as pilgrims in homes of lesser folk. Others sailed across the endless deep to find a home where they could find quiet. Many, who were malicious and wicked, came as usurpers to the kingdoms and empires of mankind. They carved from the very bones of the earth immortal dynasties of marvelous and hideous strength.

Cairo, in the time of the Arabian sultan, Saladin, had only just recovered from strong crusader assault. Many families had been affected by this conflict and nearly every woman had lost either a son, husband, or brother. Had it not been for Abdul's blindness in one eye, his wife would have also been one of these women. The Sultan had never been interested in having any soldiers with "difficulties" as the recruiters called Abdul's right eye, so Abdul only continued to fish in the river during the long drawn out siege of the city.
The fish in the Nile were particularly large this past year, since the great deep-sea marlins were forced into the rivers by a cold winter in the North Atlantic. The marlins came and fed on the lesser river fish under the docks of Cairo.
Fish were the main staple of the city in those times since the French and Normans had burnt all the farms and storehouses beyond, and the Templar in Jerusalem captured all the caravans en route to Egypt from the East. So the fisherman of the countryside were able to make a good living, while the farmers replanted, and the Sultan made plans to liberate the trade routes. But, the autumn arrived and went and winter came into Egypt. The winter brought dry air in from the desert, and the crops of the farmers were again destroyed.
"It is a good thing these great fish came up the river for us to eat in this famine." Abdul told his family one night.
"And what will happen when they return to sea?" asked his wife, "They have eaten all of the river fish."
"Do not worry over such things, my love," said Abdul, "Allah will provide." Abdul thought over that question every day when passed families coming home from the docks carrying large silvery fish. When January began the Sultan left to retake Jerusalem, but he promised no food for Egypt.
He said, "The food is needed in the East where your sons fight."
"Our sons." Abdul worried about his sons, Ali and Mosul. They were only boys, he knew this, of course, but soon Saladin would need fresher troops and young boys can still hold a sword.
One evening during the time when sun has just gone down, and sky reflects a sickly twilight over that part of the earth, Abdul was returning home by way of the road that passes along the old wall. He passed the children in the street, and saw a group of nomads at the end of the row, coming into town from the desert. Abdul looked around him on the ground and found a thick stick. One cannot trust these sand-folk for they often rob people walking alone. But, by the time Abdul had reached the corner they had passed ahead. He looked at them riding their camels and herding their goats, and then he noticed something he hadn't seen before. They were hurt. Some wore bloody bandages across their foreheads and all had slashes in their arms and legs. Abdul dropped his stick and ran ahead to where they were. They stopped and turned when he approached; Abdul saw that they were carrying a young man whose face had been smashed in on one side.
"What happened?" inquired Abdul after a moment of hesitation. "You need help."
All of them looked at him blankly; but then one, who had a cut forehead, began to shake and only murmured, "Help." Abdul looked them over, and then took the reigns of the front camel and started to walk down the road.
"I will take you to my friend" he said to them as he walked. "He is a doctor. He'll know what do about you. Follow me, he will know what to do", and kept repeating that over and over again as he stammered blindly forward through the darkening streets of Cairo holding the reigns of an injured camel behind him. He turned now and again to see if the others were following, and by and by he found the house of his friend, Solan the physician. He treated patients right out of his own home, which was on the western side of the city and in a tall building. Abdul took the nomads around to the back of the home, and knocked loudly on Solan's door. Solan's daughter came to the door.
"Go and fetch your father," said Abdul and he turned, and nodded to his companions. They made small unblinking responses. In no time Solan came to the door and laughed when he saw it was Abdul.
"How are you my friend?" said the tall, fat man with a long black beard.
"I found these people here near the old wall," he said, "They are badly hurt and won't talk."
"Hmm." thought Solan. "Better bring them in, no use standing outside in this inconvenient cold."
They moved into the old brick house, and Solan's wife came in carrying a tray of fine oriental tea. Solan's son had taken the nomads' camels, and the nomads now were sitting on the floor. Solan gave the one with broken face a cloth, and then began boiling water. Abdul sat down first on a chair, then after a moment of silence he got down onto the floor himself. There were seven nomads in all. Each had a swarthy complexion and all were hurt.
"Do you." he began to say, "Do you mind telling us what happened to you?" They looked at each, but didn't say anything. "Do you understand what I'm asking?" said Abdul, "Do you speak Arabic?"
"We do." said the tallest of them, who had a short black beard and had a cut running across his chest. "We are Berbers from Libya."
Another began to talk; this one was a woman with a scarf over her head that had been bloodstained. "We were going to Aswan when our caravan was attacked by.by." she stammered, and then started crying into the man's shoulder
"We were attacked by jinn," said another shorter man.
"By what?" asked Abdul.
"The jinn," he answered, "They were giants; giants that swung ten-foot swords. They attacked us in the middle of the night, like a great storm upon a seawall. They broke down our tents and ate our companions. There were some of us that were able to reach our spears, but they broke them like a child can snap a twig. They consumed our camels and drank our water. Only seven of us on three camels escaped. We rode all night, and then all day until we reached Cairo."
Abdul looked at each of their faces in horror. None of them showed any sign of trickery. Now nearly all were weeping, Solan returned with hot water and the man with the smashed face. Abdul and Solan made eye contact, and Abdul knew that Solan had also been told.
"Now hold still." Said Solan as he wiped the blood and tears from a woman's face. He turned around signaled for Abdul to help and together they cleaned the wounds of the seven people. * * *
"You don't think that they're crazy do you?" Abdul's wife asked him. "The heat of the desert can do things to people."
"It can't give them bashes and bruises and cuts like that." Said Abdul. He rubbed his forehead and paced across the room. "What's a person to do about things like this?"
"Tell the authorities." Said his wife, "If they could deal with all of those French and Nornams then they can deal with a few desert brutes."
"I think they were called Normans, dear." Abdul looked out the window. "Well, the authorities wouldn't go looking for anybody out there in a hurry. Not with there being so few soldiers left in the city. Everyone's off in Jerusalem and Acre, no one cares for Egypt anymore."
"Well that's not true," said his wife, "the Lord Saladin is in defense of Egypt, right now. He simply is securing our borders."
"They don't seem to be secure from the west." Said Abdul. "I just can't think of what those Berbers meant when they said 'giants'."
"It is of no matter now," said his wife, "The night is old and you need sleep."

In the morning, Abdul and his family were awakened by the sound of a trumpet. He leaped out of bed and raced to the window. The sky was blue and no cloud was in it. There were people walking about the streets trying to find the cause of the trumpeting.
"What is it father?" asked Ali, "Has the Sultan come back from war?"
"I don't think so, son." Said Abdul "It's the tower on the west wall, they must have." He stopped himself short "There is something on the desert."
"Are you going to the docks, father? Can I come with you?"
"No, Ali, I'm going to Mr. Solan's house. I want you to stay with your mother and brother." Abdul left his house and ran down the streets. People were walking every which way and some seemed like they were in a panic.
"It's the French!" some shouted, "They have come back, and we have no one to defend us."
"No," said others, "It is Saladin. He has returned from Jerusalem!" Abdul did not want to talk to anyone. He just ran through the traffic and came to Solan's home. He rapped at the door until Solan answered.
"I know," Said Solan, "I haven't said anything to the bin Haros yet."
"The who?"
"The Berbers, that is their name." Said Solan, "We have to see what is happening. We can't jump to conclusions."
"Leave them here. We will travel ourselves." said Abdul. They ran together to the tower on the west wall. There was a stair there that anyone was allowed to climb to survey the countryside. They ran up the stairs, but the wall was crowded. It seemed the whole of Cairo was on that wall gazing into the distance. Abdul and Solan found an empty place and gazed far beyond. They saw the Great Pyramids in the south, and the mountains of the great Sahara. But then, they saw what everyone else was gawking at: a black shape moving in the distance.
"You don't suppose?" Abdul hesitated.
"I'm trying not to." Said Solan.
Just then, soldiers appeared out of the crowd.
"Off the wall!" They shouted. The crowds moved slowly down the stairs. People were jostling into each other; some were trying get back to the wall's edge.
"We're all going to die!" one woman cried out loud. Others yelled at her, and some of the men began to break into fistfights. Abdul and Solan did not move from their place on the wall. They watched the soldiers herding the people off the rampart. One of the soldiers saw them.
"What do you think you two are doing? Get off of here! Move!" And the soldier gave them a shove that sent them into the crowd as it made its way back through Cairo.
"Do you think those are giants?" asked Abdul
"By what the bin Haros said, it didn't sound as if there were that many."
"How many do you think were out there?"
"Thousands. Maybe ten thousand."
"How can you be so sure?" asked Abdul.
"You forget that I helped defend Cairo during the siege" said Solan. "There were much more than ten thousand Crusaders then."
"What should we do?" asked Abdul.
"It is breakfast time," said Solan "And it is healthy to eat in the morning."
They walked with the masses through the dirty streets of the town. Some families had packed their belongings into baskets and were leaving the city. Abdul and Solan reached Abdul's house where they found both of their families, and the bin Haros eating breakfast.
"Our landowner left this morning for the coast," said Solan's wife, "He said that we should go too."
"We found them and the Berbers down near the docks and brought them home." said Abdul's wife.
"Good," said Abdul, "we will all be safe here." Solan sat down and rubbed his forehead.
"Abdul," said Abdul's wife, "The rivers are empty. The marlins swam to sea in the night." Abdul looked at Solan and then at the bin Haros.
"Bin Haro," asked Abdul, "These 'giants'."
"Yes?"
"Could you describe them too me? How many were there, and what did they look like?"
"Well," said the tall man, "They came on boats out of the sky. These boats flew like birds, but were shaped more like shields. The threw lightning bolts at us then they came out of the boats."
"Out?"
"Yes, like a person comes out of a building. Only these giants leaped from doors in the sides of their boats. They had huge swords the size of a.of a.well they were bigger than the camels."
"How many were there?"
Bin Haro leaned foreword so that his elbows dug into his legs, and then he lay back rested his head on the wall.
"I don't know how many there were because their boats caused the sand to blow about wildly. But there were more than fifty to every man in our caravan."
"How many were in your caravan?" asked Solan.
Bin Haro moved his eyes suddenly to Solan, revealing the deep clear whites of his eyes.
"There were six hundred and twenty three that set out from Tunis," he said at long last.
Abdul sat down on the floor with the others. He took some fish from the dish on the mat, and put it in his bowl. He crawled back to the wall and leaned against it. He looked at the fish in his bowl, and then he looked up and out the window.
"Bin Haro," he said without moving his eyes from the window. "On your way here the other night, did you see any of the giants following you?"
"Yes there were some that followed us at a distance. and we saw flocks of their boats in the sky." Said bin Haro, "Why do you ask?"
"Look out the window."
Everyone stood and went to the window. In the sky, the sun's light was reflected on hundreds of thousands of silvery shield-shaped things in the sky. Abdul followed by Solan, and the bin Haros went out into the street and gazed in awe at the clouds of shimmering metal. A thunder ripped through the sky and the people flinched. They looked about them, and saw that everyone had stopped what they were doing and were looking at the sky.
Shouts could be heard from down the street west of there and they turned. A crowd had gathered near the old wall. They absent-mindedly started to walk in that direction. Subconsciously putting one foot in front of the other. They reached the end of the row, and forced their way through the crowds. The land beyond the wall was covered with a great army of beasts ten-times bigger than any man. Many silver ships had landed in the dunes to the north, and legions of these monsters emerged roaring and gnashing their tusk like teeth. Some of the brutes were made of flesh and blood, but others were clearly made of iron.
"What evil is this," Abdul heard Solan mutter to himself, "that Hell in all its vice unleashes on mankind?"
Abdul looked again over the fields beyond the city. The earth could not be seen for miles away because there were so many of them. The crowd was silent. Everyone only looked on in horror as the troops arranged themselves in attack formations. Abdul knew that without fish in the river and with few soldiers remaining, Cairo could not last a siege longer than a month. All was indeed lost.

The women wept and the men prayed, and children both wept and prayed. The brutes outside broke past the outer wall with no difficulty, and the families retreated to the inner city. The flying boats threw lightning at the buildings, and sent monuments crashing to the streets. Some left the inner city to die defending the town, but most remained near the docks where they hid in the river inlets and under the wharfs. But Abdul, Solan, and bin Haro took their families to the south into Giza. That way was safe, and they were able to hide in the ancient ruins of the old Coptics.
Days passed and the armies destroyed everything they found. The entire western bank had been smashed, and everyone had given up hope until it was discovered that Saladin had returned and indeed this was true. Saladin was able to keep the giants from crossing the river for a two whole days, but then more of the boats landed within the city on the east side.
Abdul, Solan, and bin Haro's sons all decided to help Saladin, and crossed the river to the east bank. They had found swords in the ruins in Giza held them close as they made there way through the wreckage of the ruined buildings.
"Do they not need buildings after they capture Cairo?" asked bin Haro's oldest son, whose name was Hur.
"They don't seem to. Do they?" said Solan as he climbed over a pile of rubble. Abdul followed him and then stopped at the bottom of the rubble heap. "What is wrong?" asked Solan.
"Where do you think Saladin is?" asked Abdul, "We've been walking these ghastly streets since midday and we haven't seen a sign of them."
"We haven't seen any giants either." Said Solan.
"It is still strange, though isn't it?" Abdul started walking again, but he grew tired and used his scimitar as a cane. They were all weak, of course, for they had had no food for five or six days and the sun beat strangely hot for March. But, things have always been hot in Egypt ever since time began. Egypt was among one of the first places where mankind learned to work together and do things for the common good of all. It was one of the first places where farming appeared, and also it was the first place to feel the manacles of slavery and oppression. It was first to see conquerors and first to see the subjugated and justly so, it was the first to see the end of the world.